NaNoWriMo
It's been requested that I x-post my NaNoWriMo entry from the blog to here. Since I'm lazy, I think I'll just do a weekly compilation on Sunday or so. If you're wanting to read more of it faster than I'm posting it here, I'm trying to do about two thousand words a day, and it's up for reading at my special NaNoWriMo blog.
I've decided to make these public, since there's nothing particularly scandalous in this. Unless, of course, you find ghosts, vengence demons, dragons, bloodthirsty unicorns, and other such oddities scandalous. However, it does still come with a warning. I'm trying to write 50,000 words in one month. That means I'm not doing a lot of editing, proofreading, nothing. It just sort of comes out, then gets posted. So, the following is full of typos, grammatical errors, continuity and character problems...you name it. Hopefully, it's also still a good read.
Anyway, chandra_marie, this is for you.
It looked so harmless, sitting there in the middle of her livingroom. Especially with Ash's can of soda leaving a puddle of condensation on it. Something about the cheery red of Coca Cola made apprehension difficult.
"I think it's a pretty sweet deal," Ash said, pulling a fresh cigarette out of her pack and using her favorite party trick to light it. It had been months since Gracie had been impressed when the other woman set a cigarette to her lips and sucked at it until the tip started to glow red. As soon as it was lit, she blew her lungful of smoke out the window. "I say stick it back in the shop and see if you can keep selling it. You sell it once or twice a week, and you'll barely have to do any other business."
"I'm doing plenty of business," Gracie said. "Besides, they might show up at the shop tomorrow to demand their money back." She pulled the note out of the envelope again, then slid it back. She'd memorized the few words hours before, and she just couldn't get it out of her head. This is full of a darkness. "What's this supposed to mean, anyway? How many people drop several hundred dollars on a trunk and just abandon it a few days earlier. Maybe I should have listened to Gran."
Ash balanced her ashtray on her knee and pushed her hair out of her eyes. The broken buildings of the graveyard were framed in the window behind her. "What do you mean, you should've listened to her?"
"She had something in her will about burying this thing with her. The city wouldn't have any of it, though, and I figured she didn't want me to have it around, so I stuck it in the shop." Gracie shrugged and pulled the note out of the envelope again. "Full of a darkness. What the fuck does that mean?" She crumbled it up and threw it into her trashcan. Or next to it.
"Maybe they opened it in the dark and it freaked them out." Gracie didn't even answer, looking up at the woman sitting in her window. Ash flashed her a grin. How she kept her teeth that bloody white while she smoked like a chimminy was more of a mystery than the woman's heritage. "Fine, that was lame." She leaned out, for a moment teetering on falling before she reached her drink and pulled it off of the trunk. She managed to keep the cigarette outside the entire time, and didn't drop the ashtray, either.
"Any other brilliant theories?"
Ash leaned back against the window. "I dunno. Why'd your Gran want it buried with her?"
Gracie picked at the lock. It had fresh scratches around it. Maybe the people who had bought it had managed to get it open somehow. "You met her. There's no telling. She was already really weird about this thing."
“What wasn’t she weird about?” Ash asked. “She was...a unique lady.”
Gracie snorted and shook her head, getting up to find the furniture polish. “She was always extra weird about this. I mean...that time she flipped out and ruined Opa’s silver. I never saw any of them that pissed.”
“Back up, sweetheart, you’re leaving out vital parts of the story here,” Ash said. “No withholding vital information.”
“This from the very queen of withholding information herself,” Gracie said, grinning at Ash and leaning back against the wall.
“Hey, screw you,” Ash said, deliberately blowing smoke in her direction. “Who my parents were and where the hell they came from is my business.” She grinned again, white teeth standing out against coffee-and-cream skin. She wouldn’t have looked so strange if it weren’t for the hair and eyes as grey as her namesake. “And you’re trying to change the subject. That never works.”
“Sure it does, someti-”
“Not this time. Come on, out with the whole thing, or I swear I’ll never give you a moment’s peace.” Ash set her can on the windowsill by her foot and took a fresh drag.
“Fine, fine,” Gracie mumbled, leaving the furniture polish on top of the trunk and settling back against the wall again. “I used to go visit Gran all the time. Except she babysat for free, so I’m not really sure how much it was ‘visiting,’ you know?”
Ash nodded. “Better than sitting at home alone when you’re three.”
“True.” Gracie continued to fiddle with the envelope and the note inside. “I wasn’t three, though. I was seven or something. I was over at her place after school and went sneaking into her bedroom.”
Ash grinned at her. “Always been attracted to other people’s bedrooms, eh?”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, nothing!” Ash exclaimed, holding up her hands in surrender. She remembered to flick the ash off the end of her cigarette before it fell on the carpet. “Go on, I’m sorry. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Promise.” When Gracie continued to look offended, Ash waved at her. “Continue. Please. Mouth shut.”
Gracie heaved a sigh and looked down at her feet. She walked around barefoot too much, and her socks were wearing out already. One of her toes was poking through. “Anyway, I snuck into Gran’s bedroom. It was forbidden territory, so that would have made it tempting enough, but it was like a museum in there. She had so much of the weirdest stuff.”
“So that’s where you got it from.” Ash quickly held her hands up again. “Sorry, staying quiet.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “There was a key sitting on the ground. You know, a little skeleton key? So I went through the room and tried to shove it in every keyhole. I don’t know how I got away with staying in there so long. Locks on cabinets, jewelry boxes, all kinds of stuff. So I made it most of the way through the room without getting anything open, and I got to this trunk. She had it underneath another table, actually. Which was pretty weird, since it was something else she could have piled more junk on, right?”
“Don’t know what that’s like,” Ash said, glancing around the room and smirking.
“Do you want to hear the story, or do I need to push you out the window?”
“Ooo...” Ash said, shivering dramatically. “The fire escape. How terrifying.”
Gracie sighed. “I see how it is. Fine.”
“Hey, before you go on, I just want to say that you’re stalling.”
“I’m not stalling,” Gracie protested. “You’re the one who just had to-”
“Stalling.”Gracie pursed her lips, and Ash smiled sweetly. “I’m just saying.”
“Fine.” Gracie folded up the envelope, then unfolded it, pulling out the note and reading the cryptic words on it again. “I was just getting to the trunk, and Gran came bursting into the room. She did that magic ‘I know what you’re doing’ thing lots of moms do.”
Ash grinned. “Yeah, those extra eyes every mom sprouts as soon as she has a kid start rolling around and give her a headache until she finds the kid doing something stupid.”
Gracie nodded. “Gotcha. I always wondered why my mom had so many migraines.”
“Stalling.”
“You started it this time.” Gracie watched Ash flick her cigarette and put it out, then pull out another. “Anyway, Gran came flying into the room and belted me right on the head. I cracked my forehead on the wall and started balling, and she cussed me out in German.”
“Wait, your Gran spoke German? She never told me.”
“Even better, she was from Germany. Came over here in 1950 something or other. She ripped the key out of my hand and dragged me out back to Opa’s shed and dropped the key in his molten silver. I never saw them both so ticked off at the same time before.” Gracie shook her head, rubbing thoughtfully at her forehead.
Ash was silent for a long moment before she asked, “Any explanation about the molten silver?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Gracie said. “He made jewelry. I think it was a hobby. Sort of something to have on hand in case he pissed off Gran or something. I still have a bunch of his work around.”
“Really?” Ash actually snuffed her cigarette and left the sill to follow Gracie into her bedroom.
It wasn’t until about two minutes after Ash was gone before she realized that she’d never finished her story.
~~~~~
Jenny Penny leaned against the wall, ignoring it when brick dust, dirt, and flakes of bird lime came floating down over her. Dizzy was sitting on top of it, letting her heels thump against the bricks while they both watched Den pacing up and down the street.
Two girls and an eleven year old boy couldn’t even pretend they would be safe in the graveyard, but sometimes there was no swaying Den when he got an idea into his head. Somehow, Jen just couldn’t talk herself into telling him no. “So he’s eleven now. Why d’you have to keep watching him?” Dizzy asked.
“His mom’s keeping me around. Who’m I to bitch about it?” Jen asked, pushing her rainbow hair out of her eyes to peer up at Dizzy. The other girl’s hair had faded from its original turquoise blue to a dull sort of green. “Besides, last week when he got on one of these tears, he found something pretty special.” Of course, that had been safely in the park. The pretty little dragon statue had been quite a find, though, and the amethyst scales it shed were proving pretty valuable.
“It still kills me. Sussaven’s cheapest whore babysitting to instill morals in innocent young boys,” Dizzy snorted, not looking repentant when Jen slapped her leg. Since that didn’t work, she gave her the finger before Den could turn back in their direction.
“I found it!” Den suddenly crowed, bouncing up and down and waving his arms. “Come on, come on!”
“We’re coming. Hang on,” Jen called back, pushing away from the wall and slapping dust off of her clothes. Dizzy dropped off of the wall, landing with a thump that surrounded them both with dust for a moment.
Den continued to bounce impatiently while the two strode up to him. “Hurry.”
“We’re coming, it’s all right,” Jen assured him.
“So, you found it. Does this mean we get to go home soon?”
Den rolled his eyes and grabbed Jen’s hand, dragging her down the alley. “I need your help. Open this door.”
Jen looked the door up and down. She didn’t buy into most of the stories about the graveyard. There were bums weilding secret magics. More serial killers were hunting in those nine blocks than all the rest of the world. The buildings had been sinking so long that if you got in one and started going down stairs, you’d get to hell itself.
She did know you only went to the graveyard when desperate wasn’t a strong enough word anymore. And once you were there to stay, it was only a matter of time before you got a plain pine box and a real grave.
“Come on, Den. This might be someone’s squat. Or there might be snakes or something.”
Den pushed hard on the door. It was only about five inches underground, so it must have been left from the last time there was an addition. Just after the last earthquake that swallowed several stories all at once, and just before the city officially gave up on its oldest district.
“Might be locked,” Jen said, pushing the boy gently out of the way to test it, then push against it.
“I have the key,” Den said, holding up his latest find. He’d come up with one similar just before his tear into the park, and he’d used it to pry open the tree holding the statue.
Jen shook her head. “I don’t think it’ll fit, hon.”
“It has to,” Den said with a desperate whine in his voice. He tried shoving the key into the lock, but it wouldn’t go. He jammed at it several more times before Jen pulled him back.
“For God’s sake,” Dizzy said, rolling her eyes and pushing them both out of the way.
“It’ll fit somewhere inside,” Den said. “We’ve gotta get in.”
Jen looked over at Dizzy, who was picking the lock. “Don’t worry. We’re hanging out with a real low life. She’ll get us in.”
“See if I help you anymore,” Dizzy said, braced her shoulder against the door and forcing it open.
Den shot through the door before Jen could catch him, and she cursed heartily. "Get back here, you little b--snot!" she yelled after him, pushing into the building as well.
“Oh, yeah, good times,” Dizzy muttered, shoving the door open even further before following them in.
The room stank. It had clearly been a long time since anyone else had been inside, and the previous resident had left behind plenty of evidence. It had been some sort of office building originally, and it still had a stack of boxes and a few scattered binders on the floor. The paperwork was scattered around, and stained with urine and dotted with rat and mouse droppings.
The worst stink, however, was coming from the old coffee can with the lid half-off. It was next to a ratty mattress and pile of clothes. Dizzy went to toe at the clothes and staggered back with a disgusted curse. When Jen glanced up at her, she said, “What a fu-freakin’ loser.” She glanced over at Den, who was trotting determinedly around the room. “If he could get up and use a coffee can, he could have made it to whatever toilet’s around here and used that instead.”
“Some people just don’t have your unique genius, Diz,” Jen answered, walking over to grab Den’s arm. “Come on, this isn’t safe.” She’d stepped on a couple of spots where the ground felt mushy, and she wanted out of there before the whole bloody thing caved in. The graveyard probably wasn’t sinking clear down to hell, but if they got buried alive, the different really wouldn’t matter.
Den jerked his arm out of her grasp. “But it’s around here somewhere. I know it is.”
“I appreciate that, kid, really I do,” Jen said, jumping back when the floor groaned under her weight. “Seriously, you’re going to have to drop it before something-oh, shit.” The groan pitched up to a high whine, and she threw herself forward, trying to tackle Den out of the way. She missed him because he saw it coming and dodged out of the way, and when she hit the floor, it split open.
Dizzy was screaming, and Jen landed with an agonizing jar. That was it. She’d broken her legs, her arms, her back, her ribs...everything. Den had better feel like a real bastard for it, too. Ambulances and emergency workers didn’t go in the graveyard. Even police tended to ignore bodies that turned up unless they obviously didn’t belong to prostitutes or vagrants. The best anyone did was park firetrucks around the edges on Halloween in case anyone started a fire, so none of it could get into the more respectable parts of the city.
“Shut up!” Den suddenly yelled from somewhere ahead of Jen. Dizzy didn’t seem to hear, and kept screaming like that would help. Jen was meanwhile gathering herself up and deciding she hadn’t broken anything. She could hear the kid wandering around the edge of the room they’d landed in. At least he didn’t sound hurt. Carla would kill her if she brought him home with an extra scratch.
“Next time, listen to me,” Jen snarled, crawling out of the pile of debris. How she hadn’t been impaled on something was a mystery all its own, but she was willing to let it slide. She peered up at the hole. “Now how are we going to get out? If we’re stuck down here, I’m going to kill and roast you for dinner, kid.”
Den stopped by a door that was marked ‘stairs’. “You love me too much to do that.”
“Want to bet? Hey, Dizzy!” Dizzy’s screamed had stopped. Jen didn’t think she’d heard her run out of the building, but there was no telling. There was only silence. “Dizzy?”
“Yeah?”
Jen rolled her eyes. “Can you get to the door to the stairs up there?”
“I’m not walking on this floor! No fuckin’ way!”
Jen was silent for a long moment, waiting for Dizzy to say anything. When she said nothing, Jen finally pointed out, “You’re standing on it, right?”
“I could go look for help, or-”
“Diz, we’re in the fucking graveyard! There’s no getting help. Now go find the freaking door, would you? Just...walk really far away from the hole or something.”
“Potty mouths,” Den accused.
“Shut up, kid,” Jen said, brushing herself off. “We’re getting upstairs, and then we’re going home. No more stops.” Den opened his mouth to protest, then thought the better of it and nodded sullenly. The ceiling was creaking again while Dizzy tip-toed around the hole, and Jen pulled Den back under the opening. Nothing more could fall on their heads if there was nothing over them.
“I can’t get it open,” Dizzy called down.
Jen sighed. “So pick the fu-pick the damned lock already.”
“It’s not locked,” Dizzy yelled, sounding offended. “It’s jammed or something.”
“Fine, fine,” Jen said. “Maybe we can get it open from the other side. Come on, Den.”
Den held up his key. “But I have to-”
“Too bad, come on,” Jen said, walking back to the door to the stairwell carefully. The floor seemed solid enough, but she didn’t really want another fall in her near future. She rattled at the door, but it refused to open. “Shit.”
“Potty mou-” Den fell silent at a glance from Jen. “Let me try?”
Shrugging helplessly, Jen stepped back. “Sure, why not?”
Den’s key slid right into the lock, and turned easily. He smiled triumphantly at her and pushed the door open.
“Lucky break,” Jen told him, taking his hand to lead him up the stairs. As soon as they stepped through the doorway, Jen felt like she had run through a spiderweb. She jumped and shook her head and reached up to wipe off her face, but didn’t find any sticky strands. She looked around, then down at Den, who seemed uneffected, and continued up.
The stairwell was full of furniture, like someone had made the attempt to haul some of it out of the building at some point, but had abandoned it for some reason. She picked up Den and set him safely on the other side of large pieces before trying to climb herself, and found an executive chair wedged against the door.
“Diz, you still out there?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, give me a minute to get this sh-stuff out of the way,” Jen said. Den, without having to be told, had gotten out of the way, and stayed quiet while Jen pulled and pushed and finally pried the chair out of the way. “Door open now?”
The door swung inward, and Dizzy looked relieved. “You’re alive.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Jen said, pushing Den out first. “You lead the way out, same way you got over here.”
That time, Dizzy didn’t argue. She tip-toed back out, and Jen kept her hands on Den’s shoulders, marching him ahead of her in the hopes that she’d be able to throw him out of the way if the floor started sounding suspicious again.
Dizzy crowed triumphantly as soon as they were outside and on solid ground again. “Never again. I am not ever coming back here again.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jen agreed, rubbing at her elbow and shaking her head. “Let’s go clean up and get something to eat before Angel gets home.”
~~~~~
Jada thrust her hands deep into her pockets, keeping her shoulders straight and her head high. Living in the creepy ‘haunted’ house afforded her a surprising amount of safety, even in the bad neighborhood in which she lived, but there was no guarantee anyone knew who she was until she made it home. And there had been an unusual number of people out on the street all night.
What she really needed to do was stop working so late at the museum. Her deadlines weren’t that close, and it wasn’t like anything was going to get up and walk away. And walking home at two in the morning, just after everyone had been kicked out of the bars, was not the safest time to go walking. As comforting as the gun at her hip could be, she wasn’t yet certain she trusted herself to pull the trigger if the need arose.
There was a clot of people across the street from her. She could hear them, but didn’t understand a word flying between them. The strong gestures spoke loudly enough. Not wanting to be involved, even in a peripheral sense, she ducked into the episcopal church she was passing.
It was a real antique, with Sussaven’s sky scrapers towering all around it. Jada passed it at least twice a day on her walks to and from the museum, but she’d never taken a moment to step inside. It always looked attractive, with its huge yellow stone walls and stained glass, but she’d never felt like she belonged there.
Still, it was safe, so Jada stepped through the left arch of the three openings into the courtyard. There was a hallway with windows set between the arches, and doors on either end covered in friezes of Biblical scenes. The ground was covered in the same sort of stones as the wall, and those continued out into paths through the courtyard.
Jada lingered for a moment over the friezes before following the path out into the courtyard. While it had been muted even in the hallway, the moment she was in the courtyard, the fountain standing against the center of the far wall drown out all sounds from the street. She smiled, feeling immeasurably more relaxed. There were lights in a few windows around the courtyard, and the stained glass cast strange colors over the neatly manicured gardens.
The sign, printed off of a computer and jarring anachronistically against the setting asked, “Until our grass regrows, please keep off.” There was a yellow smiley face on one side, and a cross on the other.
Luckily, there were stones set in the ground all of the way to the fountain, so Jada picked her way over and sat on the lip of the pool.
In the dim light, she could see coins sparkling under the water. Jada glanced over at the arches, but couldn’t see outside of the church. She sorted through her pockets and purse, and came up with a double-handful of coins that she dropped into the water with a loud splash.
The coins all swirled in different directions in the currents, a few sending glints up at her while they sank. The air suddenly felt heavy, and Jada glanced around. “I wish...” Her gaze returned to the arches, and what she could see of the street beyond. She shook her head. “Nevermind. Someone else can have mine.”
The odd, watchful feeling to the air didn’t lift, so Jada rose to her feet, picking her way back to the arches and peering out at the street.
It was mostly empty, so she glanced a last time at the fountain behind her before hurrying back out onto the street. She suddenly wanted very badly to be home.
Home was only about two more blocks down, and half a block over. Her house had a nice yard, about a third of an acre, and was set well back from the street. There were huge apartment buildings rising over either side, and across the street. She’d never learned why the house had been left alone rather than behind demolished to make another complex. But she was glad it was there, with its waist-high wrought iron fence and apple trees by the gate. It had been home from the moment she’d first seen it, even with the ghost stories hovering over it. Something about the white walls and cherry-red trim and green roof was all too inviting for her to pass up.
Jada unlocked her gate and hurried through. The lights from her windows rarely looked so inviting.
The door opened before she made it all the way up. Shen was waiting for her, holding a mug in one hand. She thrust it out at Jada as soon as she was in reach. “You’re late.”
Jada accepted it and threw off her jacket. “You sure know how to make a girl grateful she gave her best friend a key to her place. Did you make yourself at home?” She removed her inner pants holster as well, setting it on the table by the door.
Shen tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned back into Jada’s livingroom. It smelled pleasantly like cooking food. “You weren’t returning my calls.”
Jada was silent for a moment before she claimed her favorite chair. “Because I knew...how? I still haven’t found the answering machine. No messages, no caller ID...you think I’m psychic now?”
She received one of the most disgusted looks she though Shen had ever given her. “You moved in here...what, three months ago? You’ve been unpacked.”
“Ha!” Jada laughed. “I guess you didn’t make yourself completely at home. You should see the bedrooms and attic.”
Shen shook her head. “That does it. You should ask for an hourly wage at that museum instead of that salary.”
Jada grinned and said, “They’d fire me in a heartbeat. They couldn’t afford that.”
There was a loud, somehow formal knock on the door. Jada drew her eyebrows together, unaware of anyone who would show up that late who would knock instead of just walking in. She got up and opened the door, but found the step empty.
“Who is it?” Shen asked.
“No one,” Jada said, shaking her head. “That’s weird, they’d have to be pretty fast to get away that quick.” She reached out and pulled her little pistol from the holster on the table and thumbed the safety before she stepped out of the door to peer both ways.
Shen leaned over her shoulder, then stepped back out of her way as she turned back inside. “Are you doing all right?”
“Yeah.” Jada closed the door and threw the lock, then shook her head, putting the safety back on and setting the gun back on the table. “I guess I’m just still getting used to the new place. Those haunting stories must be getting to me or something. And then the trip home tonight was so weird.”
Shen glanced over at the kitchen, then said, “Tell you what. I’ll go get dinner ready, and you tell me about it while we eat.”
Jada smiled and sat down again. “That sounds like the best thing I’ve heard all day.”
~~~~~
Ash woke when the loud wailing echoing through her apartment finally penetrated her dreams. She rolled over and shouted for quiet. To her surprise, the cries immediately ceased.
“There’s still hope,” she muttered, reaching out for the flashlight by her bed. It came on for only a moment, and almost immediately faded out. Ash tried banging it on the side and shaking it, but only got a few flickers of light. “Wonderful,” she said, squinting and fumbling around over her table until she felt one of her candles. She picked it up and touched the wick, concentrating for a moment until a little flame burst to life with a quiet ‘pop.’
It wasn’t perfect, but it was easier on her eyes than the overhead light. Ash stumbled her way over the scattering of papers, books, clothes, and other trash covering her floor. Something crunched underfoot and she swore, bouncing out of the way, then holding still until her candleflame stopped threatening to go out.
Ash finally made it into her livingroom, where there was a little girl sitting on her table. Even in the dim light from the candle, she could see the wall through her. She must have been newly dead, since she was sitting perfectly on the table, but the papers, books, and dishes on top of it were all going straight through her. “Whatever it is, I don’t care. Now go away so I can go back to bed.”
The girl’s eyes widened and she looked highly offended. “But you can see me, so that means-”
“That I can see you,” Ash said. “Nothing else. Being able to see dead people does not automatically mean I have to have shit to do with you. Now scram. Find someone else to solve your problems for you.”
She stood up and stomped one foot, hovering a good foot off of the ground. “But you have to-”
“Sure I can. Being able to see you means I have to see you. Being able to hear you just means I have to hear you. Now scram.” Ash waved the candlestick at her, and she flinched, even though it couldn’t have actually touched her. The girl got a devious look on her face, and Ash said, “Try it, and I swear I’ll make you wonder if you really died the first time around.”
The girl pouted and crossed her arms, stomping across the room and through the door. Ash shook her head and sighed, going back to bed.
~~~~~
When Angel arrived at home, Den was planted in the livingroom with his homework and the TV off. That looked suspicious in and off itself. That Jen was in the shower in the middle of the evening was even stranger.
Her son gave her a deliberately innocent look when she walked through the door, and a very cheerful, “Hey, Mom!”
Angel dropped her purse down and set her hands on her hips. “What did you do?”
He looked up at her with huge, perfectly angelic blue eyes. “Nothing. We’ve been home ever since I got out of school.”
Shaking her head, Angel walked past him to the bathroom, where she rapped on the door. “What?”
“Jenica, what did you do with Den today?”
“Nothing. I’ll be done in a minute, can we talk then?”
“I think we can talk now,” Angel answered. Out of the various girls she’d taken in since she’d found herself pregnant and gotten a real apartment and life, Jenica was giving her the most trouble. She still wore her hooking name-Jenny Penny-like it was a badge of honor, and kept slipping out to earn a little extra money when she thought Angel wouldn’t notice. “Now, Jenica.” The water turned off, and Angel gave her a few moments. When she heard nothing, and the door didn’t open, she opened it herself.
Jenica jumped and scrambled for a towel, but not before Angel got an eyefull of the forming bruises all over her shoulders, back, and legs. “I told you just a minute!” she yelped.
“What were you doing today?” Angel demanded. “And what did you do with Den. If you brought one of those men in here, and if it was while Den was here, I swear to God, I’ll have you out-”
“It wasn’t like that,” Jenica snapped, pulling her towel around herself tightly. “Come on, give me a little credit. Can I get dressed or something, please?”
Angel pulled down her robe and held it out, turning her back while Jenica dropped the towel and put on the robe instead. “How you get beaten up?”
“I fell down the stairs a couple of hours ago, on the way out to get Den from school.”
It didn’t sound like the truth to Angel. Strangely enough, it didn’t sound entirely like a lie, either. “Fair enough. Why’s the TV off?”
Jenica pushing her dripping hair off of her forehead. While it was wet, the rainbow streaks through it were darkened and dulled. “I got Den home and he wouldn’t settle down and do his homework. I wanted to shower, since I got all banged up, and he wouldn’t sit still. So I gave up and unplugged it so he’d do his work.” It still didn’t sound like the truth, but Den had put his work down and come up to stand by Angel, where he was nodding solemnly. “Come on, Angel. Give me a little credit. I wouldn’t bring anyone here, and I wouldn’t ever while Den was home. You’re supposed to be doing your homework, kid.”
“You were getting in trouble. I wanted to watch,” Den said.
“Home,” Angel said, drawing Jenica out of the hallway and into Den’s room. “Not just here, home. Den, honey, go finish your homework. When you’re done, we’ll have dinner.” Den pouted a little, but he turned around and trudged back to the livingroom. Angel closed the door behind him, then turned back to Jenica. “Let me see.”
Jenica turned around and let the robe drop until the neckline was around her hips. She didn’t just have bruises coming out, but several good cuts as well. It didn’t look like beating wounds, even if the bit about the stairs still didn’t sound right, either. “I’ll go grab the first aid kit. You wait here.”
Angel wasn’t sure when she’d decided to try saving the world, one lost girl at a time. But she’d been a little younger than Jenica, and turning tricks to keep herself afloat when she’d found herself pregnant. Looking back, she never would have expected herself to have the strength to make good. But she’d done it. Dropped the drugs, got herself on welfare, got an apartment, and had a healthy baby boy.
Then she’d found herself stuck. If she got a job, she had nowhere to put Den during the day. No family members, no friends she’d trust with her new baby...And she couldn’t just sit on welfare for the rest of her life.
The bright idea came when she was thinking about her former life. Maybe she did have a friend she’d trust with her son. The ‘girl’ she’d brought home was actually older than her. But she was glad for a place with electricity and running water. A home and food in exchange for watching a baby seemed fair. She and Liz studied together after Angel got home, and both got their high school equivalency. Liz went off to get a real job and a real life, Angel got a better job and dropped from welfare to just food stamps and found a new girl who needed a little help.
Angel’s system wasn’t perfect. There were some people you just couldn’t help. Girls who snuck drugs into the house, one who had dared hit Den, one who routinely brought tricks home so she’d get spending money. Some left Angel after a few weeks or months and went sliding right back to where she’d found them. Some stayed a few years and tried to make it with a real life and failed, and a few stayed, made their attempt at a real life, and left their wasted pasts behind.
Jenica was a little odd. She’d been clean when Angel proposed her usual deal, and she and Den had taken to each other on sight. She was a brilliant kid-she’d gotten her diploma in a matter of weeks, and was gifted with her hands. But she couldn’t hold a job, and kept slipping out to turn tricks...and used the money to buy toys for Den or presents for Angel or extra food for the house, which she had taken to keeping nearly spotless.
When Angel returned with the first aid kit, she asked, “Feel like sharing what really happened today?”
“What I told you,” Jenica said, dropping the robe all the way so Angel could rub antibiotic cream into the cuts and cover them with bandaids. “Nothing as exciting as you’re trying to make it out to be. Seriously, Den’s fine, I fell, and now everything’s peachy.”
Angel got a glass of water while Jenica put the robe back on, and she offered it out with a couple of asprin. “Take it easy tomorrow, all right?”
“If I can move,” Jenica said, downing the asprin and most of the water. She headed back into the livingroom, and messed Den’s hair as she sat down. Angel followed, glancing at the weird little statue Jenica and Den had appeared with a few weeks before. Both of them stood by the story that they’d found it in the park.
“Your thing is shedding again.”
“Cool!” Den dropped his work and ran over to gather up the flakes of stone that kept appearing around the dragon. It was a nice, deep purple, all curled around into a little ball with its chin resting on its tail. It was highlighted with silver, and had silver claws and spikes down its back and on its wings.
Her son came back and dumped the stones into Jenica’s lap. “Thanks, kid. Let’s see that homework.”
~~~~~
“Hey, Ari, snap out of it,” Ash said, snapping her fingers in front of her fellow waitress’ face. “Aricia, damnit, you have customers waiting.”
The girl in front of her jumped and blinked. She had been looking pale, and she’d developed dark circles under her eyes over the last few weeks. “I’m sorry, could you get it?” she asked, turning and fleeing into the bathroom.
Ash shook her head and sighed. She’d seen the hostess seat the man and woman out on patio ages before. Since they weren’t in her area, she’d ignored it until she realized they were still sitting there, still looking bored, and Aricia hadn’t moved in about five minutes.
“I’m so sorry about the wait, I’m Ash, I’ll be your server today,” she said, hurrying up to the table. The pair had several books spread out of their table, and she gave them a cursory, disinterested glance. One of them was closed, and proclaimed itself to be a definitive history on Sussaven. Another had a lineup of photographs of the graveyard, from its heyday to the present. “What can I get for you today?”
“I’ll just have a mocha latte and...a slice of cheesecake, please,” the woman said. She was wearing a badge with an atrocious picture of her on that claimed her name was Jada. It had the name of the local museum under her name.
“And for you, sir?” she asked.
Jada looked confused, and Ash blinked as the man gave her an apologetic grin. He was wearing old-style clothes, and had his hair too long, pulled back into a pony tail. He was also transparent. It had been years since Ash had mistaken a ghost for a living person.
“I’m sorry,” Ash said, shaking her head and doing her best to look apologetic. “It’s been a long day. I’ll get your coffee and cake in just a moment.”
“Wait a minute,” the ghost said, standing up and following her. His accent was old-timey, too.
“Whatever it is,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, “I don’t care.”
“I pray you, just a small favor,” he asked. “When you deliver the lady’s food, just...touch both of us at the same time.”
Well, he wasn’t asking her to bathe herself in chicken blood under the full moon or hunt down his killer or find his corpse in someone’s attic or anything stupid or creepy like that. “Maybe,” she hissed back, dropping the order for the barista and going behind the counter to grab the cheesecake herself.
She grabbed the coffee and carried them both back out to the patio with the ghost close at her heels. He reached out to catch her arm as she set the mug and plate down around the books, so she let her bare arm brush against the woman’s. There was an electric charge that raced through her body, and Jada jumped, looking up at her. Her eyes immediately widened, and the ghost smiled widely in relief.
“Thank you, m’lady,” the ghost said, giving Ash a bow before he reclaimed the chair he’d taken earlier.
“Umm...if you need anything else, just give me a yell,” Ash said, leaving Jada and her ghost to introduce themselves.
~~~~~
Gracie sighed with relief when the door closed with its cheerful clatter of bells. People who came into the shop and asked questions about every single item, then bought nothing, drove her completely insane.
But, it was already just after two. If the rest of the day went as quickly as the morning, it would be seven soon.
She’d been running the little shop for her grandmother for years before she’d passed away less than a month before, so that transition at least had been simple. It felt odd, however, everytime she realized the woman wouldn’t be sweeping in at some point in the day to make certain everything was running to her specifications.
The ‘junk’ half of the store was Gracie’s favorite. She liked the way everything was sort of haphazardly piled together in some rough semblance of order. The chaos made it feel like you could find all sorts of treasures if you bothered hanging around long enough. The antique half, with its much pricier items and rigid organization always made her feel like she was going to break something.
She lingered over on the junk half of the store, gathering the brass items back together on one shelf and putting the miniature tea set back together. It always seemed like she got the whole store in order before she left for the night, and things were moved by the next morning. She’d have liked to have blamed it on Sussaven’s constant, tiny earthquakes, but she didn’t think they’d manage to randomly distribute candlesticks over half of the store.
The bells on the door jingled, and she hurried out to greet her customer only to find Jenny Penny standing just inside. “Hey babe, how’re you doing?” she greeted.
Jen offered her a smile and held out a bag. “I’ve got more stones.” She looked a lot better with the smile. Jenny Penny was pretty in that tall, too-thin underwear model kind of way. Prettier in the body than in the face.
“Let’s see,” she said, moving over behind the counter in front. It was her jewelry display, mostly full of things she’d either had sold to her in the shop, or she’d picked up from garage sale, flea markets, and estate sales. A few pieces were old ones her grandfather had made, and some of the necklaces and bracelets were pieces she’d made. She set a piece of velvet on the glass, and Jen overturned the bag.
Out came a handful of the most beautifully colored amethyst she had ever seen. The weird part was that they were flakes, rather than crystals or tumbled stones. But they were deep purple, without any white or clear quartz or any cracks or flaws. Just like the batch she’d brought in a few weeks before, just before Gracie’s grandmother had passed away. The few pieces she’d made from the stones before had sold quickly, but she still had most of the handful, unused.
“Where are you getting these, Jen?” Gracie asked.
Jen grinned broadly. “Secret. All legal, I promise. You won’t get in any trouble for them.” She peered out at Gracie through the strands of multi-colored hair hanging over her eyes. “Can you use ‘em?”
Gracie trailed a finger through the stones and shook her head. “Honestly, Jen, I still have most of what you brought in last time. Things have been pretty hectic, and I haven’t really been on top of jewelry making.”
Jen drew her eyebrows together for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Oh-oh, Gracie, I’m sorry. I forgot-I was going to go to the estate sale.”
“For what, moral support?” Gracie asked, grinning.
Jen pouted at her. “What’s wrong with that.”
“Not a thing. I could have used it,” Gracie said. “I’m not sure I could use these, though.” She picked up one of the flakes and peered through it. “These are gorgious, though. If you make your own jewelry out of them, I’ll let you have a display and sell ‘em on consignment.”
“I’ll...think about it,” Jen said, chewing on her lip. “Where would I get the stuff for it? And what would I need?”
Gracie knew that look. She’d met Jenny Penny about a year and a half before, when she’d made the corner outside the store a regular hangout. “I’ve got all the stuff for it. If you come in when you’ve got the time, you can use my supplies, and I’ll take the cost off your price with my cut on the sale until you build up your own stock.”
“That might work,” Jen said, nodding slightly.
“Great,” Gracie said. “I could use a little company, anyway.”
Jen nodded again, scooping up the stones and pouring them back into her sack. “I’ll come back tomorrow. I’ve got to head over to the school to pick up Den soon.” She scooped up more of the stones, several of them falling over the top of the sack. A few hit the counter top, but one or two bounced onto the floor.
“How’s that working out?”
“Great,” Jen said, picking up the last few stones and sticking them in the sack before bending to gather the stray ones. “I love the hell out of the kid. Angel’s a little...paranoid sometimes, though. Guess it comes with the territory.” She straightened up and dropped the stray stones into the bag, then set a key on the counter. “Someone must have dropped this earlier. Good luck finding what it opens now.”
Gracie picked up the key and peered at it, thinking about her grandmother’s trunk again. “Hey, Jen, you know what it means when someone says something is full of a darkness?”
“Umm...that they’re afraid of it?” Jen tried. Obvious, but not stupid.
Gracie shrugged. “I dunno. I guess that’s close enough. You know what an alastor or a pretas is?”
Jen shook her bag, listening to the clicks inside. “You mean as in Crowley?”
“I really doubt it.”
“Sorry, then,” Jen said, shaking her head. “No clue. I could ask Den. The kid knows the weirdest shit.”
Gracie stuck the key in her pocket and nodded. “Come by or call or something if you have any thoughts, would you?”
Jen gave her a weird look, but nodded. “Sure.” She glanced at the clock on the wall behind her and nodded. “I’ve gotta run. If I’m not waiting when Den gets out, he freaks out.”
“Hurry up, then,” Gracie said, waving to her before she slipped out of the door. As soon as she was out, Gracie grabbed the phone and dialed the number for the café where Ash worked. As soon as she was on the line, she said, “You would not believe the weird day I’ve had.”
“Same here.”
“Meet me here when you get off your shift?”
Gracie could almost see Ash grinning. “I’ll bring dinner. You know, if we keep having exciting days, it’ll start looking like we have lives.”
Gracie shook her head. “Get back to work,” she said, waiting to hear the sound of Ash making a kissy noise into the phone before hanging up.
Despite the way the whole day had flown by, the rest of the afternoon slowed to a crawl. A few customers who just had to chat came in and couldn’t even make themselves interesting. Gracie re-arranged half of the shop, found a mug someone had broken and tried to hide behind a bunch of dust-encrusted plastic flowers, and still managed to successfully avoid all of the real work she had to do.
Ash appeared about ten minutes before it was time for her to close, and Gracie immediately jerked the key out of her pocket. “Look at this.”
Ash set the bag she was carrying on the counter and lifted an eyebrow at Gracie. “Yeah?”
“It just appeared earlier today. Jenny Penny was in and she found it.”
Ash crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. “You have lost your mind, Gracie. That stupid trunk got to you.”
Gracie shook her head and set the key on the counter. “No, I’m serious. I don’t have any stray anything that came with a key that doesn’t have it right now. That doesn’t go to anything in the shop.”
“Lost your mind,” Ash repeated, picking up the bag again. “So someone bought something and dropped their key.”
“Does this mean you aren’t a little curious?” she asked, picking up the key and sticking it back into her pocket.
“Did I say that?” Ash asked. “Get your shit together and let’s get to your place.”
Gracie grinned and gathered up her purse, making a sweep through the store to check on everything before she lead Ash to the door and turned off the lights.
~~~~~
Somehow, the whole thing seemed sillier as soon as Gracie was outside. As soon as she was out of the shop that still had the scent of her grandmother’s perfume hanging in the air. Ash draped an arm over her shoulders. “Was that all that was weird about your day?”
“No,” Gracie admitted. “I was thinking a lot about Gran. She used to tell me about how there was an alastor and a pretas locked inside of her trunk. She was keeping it closed so they couldn’t get out. And it was a big favor to me.”
Ash shook her head. “Come on, girl. You have a level head. Since when did you start buying into crap like that?”
“Says the woman famous for yelling at thin air,” Gracie said. “Doesn’t it make you wonder a little?”
“I can’t say I’m not curious. But I think it’s more likely she had the heads of her first husband and children in there,” Ash said. “And if there’s a boogey man in there, then the poor idiots who bought it probably let it out already.”
“Oh, yeah, now I feel better,” Gracie said, pulling out her key so they could get into her building. Ash strolled over to the elevator and hit the button, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. Gracie fingered the key in her pocket and sighed. “This is so stupid. I should just pick the lock or something, anyway. It’s not like I don’t know how.”
Ash grinned at her. “Oh, the useful things an antique dealer learns.”
“Something like that,” Gracie said, nodding slightly and slapping the elevator doors. “Don’t tell me this damned thing’s broken again.”
Ash pushed her aside and pressed an ear to the door. “Nah, I can hear it coming.” She jumped back and rubbed at her ear when it made a high-pitched screech. “Why do we ride in that thing again?”
“Twelth floor,” Gracie reminded her.
Ash nodded slowly. “Ah, yes. It’s all coming back to me.”
The doors grated open, and Gracie stepped in. Ash hesitated for a moment before following her. “You ride in this thing almost every day. I’d think you’d be used to it by now.”
She pressed the button and the elevator lurched to a start. Ash gave the doors a dubious look. “Some things you never let yourself get used to. It’s a survival instinct. Like the one telling me to get the hell out of this thing before we ride the twelve floors down a little too fast.”
“Nonsense,” Gracie said, stepping back out of the way when the doors open again and a little girl trotted on and pushed the button for the top floor. Ash stopped complaining about the terrible dangers of the elevator for the rest of the ride, but still looked relieved when they got to Gracie’s floor. “It isn’t as bad as all that,” she said, leading the way over to her apartment and unlocking the door.
There were enough stories of buglary and vandalism constantly floating around the building that Gracie never knew what to expect when she opened the door. Everything looked normal, however, so she tossed her purse on the floor, and Ash set the bag of food on the trunk before immediately moving over to open the window.
“Didn’t you have one on the way to my shop?”
“Not nearly enough,” Ash said, perching herself on the sill and grabbing her ashtray.
Gracie opened the bag to see what Ash had managed to talk out of the cook at the café. “If you keep up like this, you’re going to end up brewing those nicotine patches into tea.”
“Now that is a good idea,” Ash said, finding her pack and pulling out one of the cigarettes. “Wonder if I have enough nicotine tolerance to pull it off?”
Gracie pursed her lips, then shook her head.. “I wouldn’t push it, personally. How’d you get cheesecake out of your boss?”
“It expires today,” Ash said, watching Gracie set the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. “Couldn’t sell it tomorrow. At least if it gets given away on an employee discount, it doesn’t get thrown away.”
“Good point,” Gracie said, glancing over at the trunk.
Ash caught the glance and grinned. “Come on, I know it’s killing you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gracie answered.
“Sure you do.” Ash took a long drag off of her cigarette and paused the blow the smoke out the window before continuing. “Come on, try out the key. If it works, we’ll ooh and aah over the skulls in there before we have dinner.”
“What if it is a bunch of skulls or bones or something?” Gracie asked. “What do I do with them then?”
Pursing her lips, Ash looked around Gracie’s livingroom. “We could mount the skulls over your mantle piece. How cool would that be? And we can make furniture out of any other bones. Like that guy...you know, the one they wrote Texas Chainsaw Massacre about.”
Gracie laughed despite herself. “That’s an attractive image. I could show it to the next guy I date. Use his reaction to figure out if he’s a psycho or not.”
Ash leaned forward to set her elbow on her knee. “That wouldn’t work. All the good ones would get freaked out and run away.”
“This is what I get for asking your opinion.” Gracie leaned back against her wall and considered the trunk again. If she had the key, and it was completely harmless, she could just try selling it again. If she couldn’t bury it with her Gran, then could could at least not keep it. The woman had been very adamant about getting it away from the family. “I’m being stupid,” Gracie said, pulling out the key, jamming it into the lock, and turning it.
“Oh, shit!” she yelled, jumping back from the trunk like it had stung her.
“What?” Ash demanded, vaulting out of the window so fast that her ashtray fell on the ground and scattered ashes all over the floor.
“It unlocked,” Gracie shouted, pointing at the trunk. “Did you see that? If fucking worked.”
“Calm down!” Ash exclaimed, catching Gracie’s shoulders. “Good Lord, woman, you gave me a heart-attack over nothing. So it unlocked? Maybe your Gran had the key hidden in the store or something.” She shook her head and let go of Gracie when she didn’t continue shouting. “I thought you had a better head than that.” Gracie blinked at her and she sighed. “What are you going to do if there’s something gruesome in there? Pass out?”
She tried taking a deep breath, then another one just for good measure. “I’m sorry.” Ash slapped her shoulder, and she walked over to the trunk, lifting the lid. A strong scent of urine immediately rose out of it, and she wrinkled her nose. “Yuck. It smells like piss. And...” There was another undercurrent to the smell. “And a butcher shop.”
“Piss and blood,” Ash said, leaning over to try peering in. “Your Grandmother was one strange woman.”
“Blankets,” Gracie said, looking down. “I was this freaked out over blankets?” She pulled the blanket off of the top and shook it out. There were rose petals tucked into it that hadn’t managed to defeat the smell. Ash took out another, but there was nothing else there. Only a few inches down, the trunk suddenly ended with a wooden bottom. “That’s not right,” Gracie said, trying to breathe through her mouth while she bent over to look at the wood. There were little pins on either side, up against the corners. She managed to get a fingernail under one and pry it up, so Ash leaned over to do the same with the other.
As soon as the pins were free, the front of the trunk fell flat on the ground, revealing rows of little drawers.
“One very strange woman,” Ash amended, setting her cigarette to her lips before she realized what she was doing. She grabbed her ashtray from the ground and set it on the windowsill before snuffing the cigarette.
“Maybe it isn’t so bad,” Gracie said, pulling open one of the drawers. It was stuffed with leaves of some sort. She closed it and tried another. All of the top row was full of different kinds of dried plants. So were the drawers right against the side. Then she started finding other things. Stones. Scraps of cloth, some of them with things embroidered on them, most of them with crusty brown stains. Silver candlesticks. A little copper bowl, turned completely green with verdigris. The drawer in the very center held a long, thin dagger with a highly ornamented silver hilt, and a braid.
Gracie picked up the braid and turned it over in her hand. One of the strands was red hair, one was blonde hair, and one was black hair. It was tied on both ends with ribbons thick with the same stains as the cloth. “This is the same color hair that Gran had,” Gracie said.
“Same color as yours,” Ash remarked
As they had looked through the drawers, the stench had faded away to be overwhelmed by a more floral scent. “Yeah. I guess I got everything from my Gran and nothing from my mom,” Gracie said. “Opa was blonde, but I can’t imagine him with long hair.”
“Any idea where the black hair could have come from?” Ash asked, crouching beside her.
She shook her head. “None at all.” Gracie tucked the hair back into the drawer. “Thank God that knife’s clean.”
“No more hysterics,” Ash agreed. “It’s bad for me.” She draped an arm over Gracie’s shoulders, hugging her for a moment. “Come on. Close this up and we’ll have dinner.”
~~~~~
“And you say he’s handsome?” Shen had her devious grin firmly in place.
Jada shook her head at her best friend. “That’s a new low. You’ve never tried to hook me up with a dead guy before.”
Shen leaned against Jada’s desk, and a wobbly stack of papers threatened to take the plunge. Jada reached out to push them back into a slightly more certain pile. “Come on, honey. You’re desperate. You can’t go quibbling about things like a pulse.”
“Actually...” Jada slapped the book by her computer shut. “Not dating and desperate do not automatically correlate. And he’s been dead for more than a hundred years. I’m not sure I want to deal with all the weird courting rituals from back then.”
The other woman lifted both eyebrows. “You can’t tell me all that formal stuff wouldn’t be an improvement over the nonsense people go through today.”
Jada swept the papers from the open folder back together and tucked all of it beside her computer. She really didn’t have much work left to do-once the new travelling exhibit was up, she had to kill time and hope for something interesting during her days. And pray to not get forced into any of the fundraising dinners. “I thought you got a kick out of that. It is your art, afterall.”
Shen tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and flashed Jada a winning smile. “Not everyone’s so lucky as to be a mistress of the fine art of dating.”
“Besides, those stupid TV dating shows you like so much wouldn’t be nearly as much fun,” Jada added, grabbing her backpack. She’d long ago learned that while she was travelling to and from the museum, a purse wasn’t nearly enough.
Crossing her arms, Shen shook her head. “I never said I really liked those. But you have to admit, there’s something really fascinating about watching pretty people struggling to form coherent sentences for the camera.” Shen hurried over to open the door to Jada’s office. On the days Shen volunteered at the museum, she always pushed hard to get Jada out at roughly the time the place actually closed. “You’re missing the point. You hate the dating scene. So maybe going for someone who’s never been a part of it would be your best bet.”
“And then we could fall in love, and get married, and I could be the crazy old lady in the haunted house with all the cats who talks to the invisible husband everywhere she goes,” Jada mused. “Oh, yes, Shen, that sounds like the life for me.”
“You’ve got it all but the old part and the invisible husband,” Shen pointed out.
Jada flipped the light off and closed her door, checking to be sure it was locked. “And the lots of cats part. I seem to be lacking more than one cat.”
She grabbed her hand and dragged her out, pausing only long enough to drop off their badges and wave to the security guards. Jada had developed a bad habit of walking off still wearing hers, which did not make her any friends with security. “More cats, like getting old, is only a matter of time the way you’re going.”
“I don’t know what you’re incredible problem with my not having a boyfriend is. It’s not like you’re dating anyone,” Jada pointed out.
“Haven’t you ever heard of ‘do as I say, not as I do’? I’m only looking out for you,” Shen answered. They both stopped to let a pair of squirrels run across the sidewalk in front of them.
“Can’t you just...show up at my house in the middle of the night and make dinner more often? Now that I can’t complain about,” Jada suggested.
Shen considered thoughtfully as the two of them strolled along. “I’ll consider it. But I don’t want you getting spoiled.”
Jada smirked at Shen, sliding her hands down into her pockets. The neighborhood got noticeably worse the closer to her home they got, and both of them lapsed into silence. Jada glanced over at the church as they passed, but shook her head, leading Shen up and over to her house.
“Home again,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “Why does it feel safer on the other side of my fence?”
“Because no one will fuck with the crazy lady who bought the murder house,” Shen suggested. “Especially not the crazy lady who carries a gun.”
“I guess that does help,” Jada admitted. “Wait a minute, they shouldn’t know that I carry.”
Shen shrugged. “What’s it matter? Makes you feel better, right?”
“I guess.” Jada closed the gate and sighed, looking up at the sky.
“So, when’s he coming?”
“After dark. He didn’t stick around long yesterday. He told me it was tough to stick around during the day.” Jada opened the front door and looked around the livingroom. “Does it look like stuff moved around in here? It never quite feels right in here.”
Shen looked around the room, then shook her head. “Looks like it did when I was here the other day.”
“All this haunted house stuff is getting to me.” Jada dropped her purse and threw herself into her chair. “How does pizza sound? I’m in a blowing my diet kinda mood.”
“What diet?” Shen asked, tossing her phone over to her.
“Oh, you know,” Jada said, grabbing the phone book. “The eating sensible stuff so I don’t have to diet one. I say screw that. What toppings do you want?”
“Black olives and pineapple on my half,” Shen said, propping her feet up. She listened while Jada ordered a half black olive and pineapple, half tomato and pesto pizza. “You’re trying to blow a diet and you ask for tomato and leaves.”
“So I’m bad at it,” Jada said. “It’s still covered in cheese.”
Shen actually giggled, shaking her head at Jada. “Pathetic. If you really wanted to blow your diet, you’d have at least thrown pepperoni on there. And bacon. And extra cheese.”
Jada brushed her hair back. “Then you should have councelled me before I made the call. It’s too late now. And there’ll be pizza soon, assuming the delivery guy doesn’t get intimidated by the gate.”
The evening actually turned out to be rather relaxing. Jada and Shen polished off an entire pizza between them, and Jada had happily forgotten about her alarming conversation at her favorite café until there was a knock on the door just after dark.
Shen’s eyes were shining. “I’ll just leave you two alone,” she said, pulling open the door. There was a man standing on her step, but Shen looked around like she saw nothing. She cast a last grin over her shoulder at Jada and walked straight through him and down the front walk.
He was standing tall and straight, with black hair pulled back into a loose tail. Jada licked her lips lightly, and he gazed imploringly at her with emerald eyes. “May I, my lady?” he asked.
“Um...as long as you don’t turn all vampire on me and try sucking my blood,” Jada decided.
He looked confused, but nodding slightly. “I’ll be certain your blood stays in place,” he offered.
“Good enough,” she said, stepping out of the way and gesturing into her house. “You said yesterday that you need my help. What do you need it for?”
The man walked into her livingroom, where he looked forlorn and lost. Everything about him, from his hair to his voice to his clothes to his expression was an anacronism. “I do not know,” he admitted. “I know only that I awoke for the first time two nights ago, when you opened the door for me.”
“Opened the door?” Jada shook her head and closed her front door, leaning back against the doorframe. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Something as simple as a wish,” he answered, looking at her and smiling slowly. “Generosity without demand of recompense. On hallowed ground, holy things can be made to happen.”
“A wish?” Jada stared blankly at him for a moment before she remembered the change she’d dumped into the fountain in the church’s courtyard. “You mean something really happens when you toss change in one of those? Next time I’m going to wish for a million dollars.”
“What would you do with a million dollars?” he asked.
Despite herself, Jada smiled. “A lot less than you’d probably think. So you need my help, but you don’t know for what? Do you have anywhere we can start?”
He shook his head. “I remember nothing,” he admitted.
Jada moved back to her favorite chair and sat slowly. “This is going to be a long night.”
~~~~~
I've decided to make these public, since there's nothing particularly scandalous in this. Unless, of course, you find ghosts, vengence demons, dragons, bloodthirsty unicorns, and other such oddities scandalous. However, it does still come with a warning. I'm trying to write 50,000 words in one month. That means I'm not doing a lot of editing, proofreading, nothing. It just sort of comes out, then gets posted. So, the following is full of typos, grammatical errors, continuity and character problems...you name it. Hopefully, it's also still a good read.
Anyway, chandra_marie, this is for you.
It looked so harmless, sitting there in the middle of her livingroom. Especially with Ash's can of soda leaving a puddle of condensation on it. Something about the cheery red of Coca Cola made apprehension difficult.
"I think it's a pretty sweet deal," Ash said, pulling a fresh cigarette out of her pack and using her favorite party trick to light it. It had been months since Gracie had been impressed when the other woman set a cigarette to her lips and sucked at it until the tip started to glow red. As soon as it was lit, she blew her lungful of smoke out the window. "I say stick it back in the shop and see if you can keep selling it. You sell it once or twice a week, and you'll barely have to do any other business."
"I'm doing plenty of business," Gracie said. "Besides, they might show up at the shop tomorrow to demand their money back." She pulled the note out of the envelope again, then slid it back. She'd memorized the few words hours before, and she just couldn't get it out of her head. This is full of a darkness. "What's this supposed to mean, anyway? How many people drop several hundred dollars on a trunk and just abandon it a few days earlier. Maybe I should have listened to Gran."
Ash balanced her ashtray on her knee and pushed her hair out of her eyes. The broken buildings of the graveyard were framed in the window behind her. "What do you mean, you should've listened to her?"
"She had something in her will about burying this thing with her. The city wouldn't have any of it, though, and I figured she didn't want me to have it around, so I stuck it in the shop." Gracie shrugged and pulled the note out of the envelope again. "Full of a darkness. What the fuck does that mean?" She crumbled it up and threw it into her trashcan. Or next to it.
"Maybe they opened it in the dark and it freaked them out." Gracie didn't even answer, looking up at the woman sitting in her window. Ash flashed her a grin. How she kept her teeth that bloody white while she smoked like a chimminy was more of a mystery than the woman's heritage. "Fine, that was lame." She leaned out, for a moment teetering on falling before she reached her drink and pulled it off of the trunk. She managed to keep the cigarette outside the entire time, and didn't drop the ashtray, either.
"Any other brilliant theories?"
Ash leaned back against the window. "I dunno. Why'd your Gran want it buried with her?"
Gracie picked at the lock. It had fresh scratches around it. Maybe the people who had bought it had managed to get it open somehow. "You met her. There's no telling. She was already really weird about this thing."
“What wasn’t she weird about?” Ash asked. “She was...a unique lady.”
Gracie snorted and shook her head, getting up to find the furniture polish. “She was always extra weird about this. I mean...that time she flipped out and ruined Opa’s silver. I never saw any of them that pissed.”
“Back up, sweetheart, you’re leaving out vital parts of the story here,” Ash said. “No withholding vital information.”
“This from the very queen of withholding information herself,” Gracie said, grinning at Ash and leaning back against the wall.
“Hey, screw you,” Ash said, deliberately blowing smoke in her direction. “Who my parents were and where the hell they came from is my business.” She grinned again, white teeth standing out against coffee-and-cream skin. She wouldn’t have looked so strange if it weren’t for the hair and eyes as grey as her namesake. “And you’re trying to change the subject. That never works.”
“Sure it does, someti-”
“Not this time. Come on, out with the whole thing, or I swear I’ll never give you a moment’s peace.” Ash set her can on the windowsill by her foot and took a fresh drag.
“Fine, fine,” Gracie mumbled, leaving the furniture polish on top of the trunk and settling back against the wall again. “I used to go visit Gran all the time. Except she babysat for free, so I’m not really sure how much it was ‘visiting,’ you know?”
Ash nodded. “Better than sitting at home alone when you’re three.”
“True.” Gracie continued to fiddle with the envelope and the note inside. “I wasn’t three, though. I was seven or something. I was over at her place after school and went sneaking into her bedroom.”
Ash grinned at her. “Always been attracted to other people’s bedrooms, eh?”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, nothing!” Ash exclaimed, holding up her hands in surrender. She remembered to flick the ash off the end of her cigarette before it fell on the carpet. “Go on, I’m sorry. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Promise.” When Gracie continued to look offended, Ash waved at her. “Continue. Please. Mouth shut.”
Gracie heaved a sigh and looked down at her feet. She walked around barefoot too much, and her socks were wearing out already. One of her toes was poking through. “Anyway, I snuck into Gran’s bedroom. It was forbidden territory, so that would have made it tempting enough, but it was like a museum in there. She had so much of the weirdest stuff.”
“So that’s where you got it from.” Ash quickly held her hands up again. “Sorry, staying quiet.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “There was a key sitting on the ground. You know, a little skeleton key? So I went through the room and tried to shove it in every keyhole. I don’t know how I got away with staying in there so long. Locks on cabinets, jewelry boxes, all kinds of stuff. So I made it most of the way through the room without getting anything open, and I got to this trunk. She had it underneath another table, actually. Which was pretty weird, since it was something else she could have piled more junk on, right?”
“Don’t know what that’s like,” Ash said, glancing around the room and smirking.
“Do you want to hear the story, or do I need to push you out the window?”
“Ooo...” Ash said, shivering dramatically. “The fire escape. How terrifying.”
Gracie sighed. “I see how it is. Fine.”
“Hey, before you go on, I just want to say that you’re stalling.”
“I’m not stalling,” Gracie protested. “You’re the one who just had to-”
“Stalling.”Gracie pursed her lips, and Ash smiled sweetly. “I’m just saying.”
“Fine.” Gracie folded up the envelope, then unfolded it, pulling out the note and reading the cryptic words on it again. “I was just getting to the trunk, and Gran came bursting into the room. She did that magic ‘I know what you’re doing’ thing lots of moms do.”
Ash grinned. “Yeah, those extra eyes every mom sprouts as soon as she has a kid start rolling around and give her a headache until she finds the kid doing something stupid.”
Gracie nodded. “Gotcha. I always wondered why my mom had so many migraines.”
“Stalling.”
“You started it this time.” Gracie watched Ash flick her cigarette and put it out, then pull out another. “Anyway, Gran came flying into the room and belted me right on the head. I cracked my forehead on the wall and started balling, and she cussed me out in German.”
“Wait, your Gran spoke German? She never told me.”
“Even better, she was from Germany. Came over here in 1950 something or other. She ripped the key out of my hand and dragged me out back to Opa’s shed and dropped the key in his molten silver. I never saw them both so ticked off at the same time before.” Gracie shook her head, rubbing thoughtfully at her forehead.
Ash was silent for a long moment before she asked, “Any explanation about the molten silver?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Gracie said. “He made jewelry. I think it was a hobby. Sort of something to have on hand in case he pissed off Gran or something. I still have a bunch of his work around.”
“Really?” Ash actually snuffed her cigarette and left the sill to follow Gracie into her bedroom.
It wasn’t until about two minutes after Ash was gone before she realized that she’d never finished her story.
~~~~~
Jenny Penny leaned against the wall, ignoring it when brick dust, dirt, and flakes of bird lime came floating down over her. Dizzy was sitting on top of it, letting her heels thump against the bricks while they both watched Den pacing up and down the street.
Two girls and an eleven year old boy couldn’t even pretend they would be safe in the graveyard, but sometimes there was no swaying Den when he got an idea into his head. Somehow, Jen just couldn’t talk herself into telling him no. “So he’s eleven now. Why d’you have to keep watching him?” Dizzy asked.
“His mom’s keeping me around. Who’m I to bitch about it?” Jen asked, pushing her rainbow hair out of her eyes to peer up at Dizzy. The other girl’s hair had faded from its original turquoise blue to a dull sort of green. “Besides, last week when he got on one of these tears, he found something pretty special.” Of course, that had been safely in the park. The pretty little dragon statue had been quite a find, though, and the amethyst scales it shed were proving pretty valuable.
“It still kills me. Sussaven’s cheapest whore babysitting to instill morals in innocent young boys,” Dizzy snorted, not looking repentant when Jen slapped her leg. Since that didn’t work, she gave her the finger before Den could turn back in their direction.
“I found it!” Den suddenly crowed, bouncing up and down and waving his arms. “Come on, come on!”
“We’re coming. Hang on,” Jen called back, pushing away from the wall and slapping dust off of her clothes. Dizzy dropped off of the wall, landing with a thump that surrounded them both with dust for a moment.
Den continued to bounce impatiently while the two strode up to him. “Hurry.”
“We’re coming, it’s all right,” Jen assured him.
“So, you found it. Does this mean we get to go home soon?”
Den rolled his eyes and grabbed Jen’s hand, dragging her down the alley. “I need your help. Open this door.”
Jen looked the door up and down. She didn’t buy into most of the stories about the graveyard. There were bums weilding secret magics. More serial killers were hunting in those nine blocks than all the rest of the world. The buildings had been sinking so long that if you got in one and started going down stairs, you’d get to hell itself.
She did know you only went to the graveyard when desperate wasn’t a strong enough word anymore. And once you were there to stay, it was only a matter of time before you got a plain pine box and a real grave.
“Come on, Den. This might be someone’s squat. Or there might be snakes or something.”
Den pushed hard on the door. It was only about five inches underground, so it must have been left from the last time there was an addition. Just after the last earthquake that swallowed several stories all at once, and just before the city officially gave up on its oldest district.
“Might be locked,” Jen said, pushing the boy gently out of the way to test it, then push against it.
“I have the key,” Den said, holding up his latest find. He’d come up with one similar just before his tear into the park, and he’d used it to pry open the tree holding the statue.
Jen shook her head. “I don’t think it’ll fit, hon.”
“It has to,” Den said with a desperate whine in his voice. He tried shoving the key into the lock, but it wouldn’t go. He jammed at it several more times before Jen pulled him back.
“For God’s sake,” Dizzy said, rolling her eyes and pushing them both out of the way.
“It’ll fit somewhere inside,” Den said. “We’ve gotta get in.”
Jen looked over at Dizzy, who was picking the lock. “Don’t worry. We’re hanging out with a real low life. She’ll get us in.”
“See if I help you anymore,” Dizzy said, braced her shoulder against the door and forcing it open.
Den shot through the door before Jen could catch him, and she cursed heartily. "Get back here, you little b--snot!" she yelled after him, pushing into the building as well.
“Oh, yeah, good times,” Dizzy muttered, shoving the door open even further before following them in.
The room stank. It had clearly been a long time since anyone else had been inside, and the previous resident had left behind plenty of evidence. It had been some sort of office building originally, and it still had a stack of boxes and a few scattered binders on the floor. The paperwork was scattered around, and stained with urine and dotted with rat and mouse droppings.
The worst stink, however, was coming from the old coffee can with the lid half-off. It was next to a ratty mattress and pile of clothes. Dizzy went to toe at the clothes and staggered back with a disgusted curse. When Jen glanced up at her, she said, “What a fu-freakin’ loser.” She glanced over at Den, who was trotting determinedly around the room. “If he could get up and use a coffee can, he could have made it to whatever toilet’s around here and used that instead.”
“Some people just don’t have your unique genius, Diz,” Jen answered, walking over to grab Den’s arm. “Come on, this isn’t safe.” She’d stepped on a couple of spots where the ground felt mushy, and she wanted out of there before the whole bloody thing caved in. The graveyard probably wasn’t sinking clear down to hell, but if they got buried alive, the different really wouldn’t matter.
Den jerked his arm out of her grasp. “But it’s around here somewhere. I know it is.”
“I appreciate that, kid, really I do,” Jen said, jumping back when the floor groaned under her weight. “Seriously, you’re going to have to drop it before something-oh, shit.” The groan pitched up to a high whine, and she threw herself forward, trying to tackle Den out of the way. She missed him because he saw it coming and dodged out of the way, and when she hit the floor, it split open.
Dizzy was screaming, and Jen landed with an agonizing jar. That was it. She’d broken her legs, her arms, her back, her ribs...everything. Den had better feel like a real bastard for it, too. Ambulances and emergency workers didn’t go in the graveyard. Even police tended to ignore bodies that turned up unless they obviously didn’t belong to prostitutes or vagrants. The best anyone did was park firetrucks around the edges on Halloween in case anyone started a fire, so none of it could get into the more respectable parts of the city.
“Shut up!” Den suddenly yelled from somewhere ahead of Jen. Dizzy didn’t seem to hear, and kept screaming like that would help. Jen was meanwhile gathering herself up and deciding she hadn’t broken anything. She could hear the kid wandering around the edge of the room they’d landed in. At least he didn’t sound hurt. Carla would kill her if she brought him home with an extra scratch.
“Next time, listen to me,” Jen snarled, crawling out of the pile of debris. How she hadn’t been impaled on something was a mystery all its own, but she was willing to let it slide. She peered up at the hole. “Now how are we going to get out? If we’re stuck down here, I’m going to kill and roast you for dinner, kid.”
Den stopped by a door that was marked ‘stairs’. “You love me too much to do that.”
“Want to bet? Hey, Dizzy!” Dizzy’s screamed had stopped. Jen didn’t think she’d heard her run out of the building, but there was no telling. There was only silence. “Dizzy?”
“Yeah?”
Jen rolled her eyes. “Can you get to the door to the stairs up there?”
“I’m not walking on this floor! No fuckin’ way!”
Jen was silent for a long moment, waiting for Dizzy to say anything. When she said nothing, Jen finally pointed out, “You’re standing on it, right?”
“I could go look for help, or-”
“Diz, we’re in the fucking graveyard! There’s no getting help. Now go find the freaking door, would you? Just...walk really far away from the hole or something.”
“Potty mouths,” Den accused.
“Shut up, kid,” Jen said, brushing herself off. “We’re getting upstairs, and then we’re going home. No more stops.” Den opened his mouth to protest, then thought the better of it and nodded sullenly. The ceiling was creaking again while Dizzy tip-toed around the hole, and Jen pulled Den back under the opening. Nothing more could fall on their heads if there was nothing over them.
“I can’t get it open,” Dizzy called down.
Jen sighed. “So pick the fu-pick the damned lock already.”
“It’s not locked,” Dizzy yelled, sounding offended. “It’s jammed or something.”
“Fine, fine,” Jen said. “Maybe we can get it open from the other side. Come on, Den.”
Den held up his key. “But I have to-”
“Too bad, come on,” Jen said, walking back to the door to the stairwell carefully. The floor seemed solid enough, but she didn’t really want another fall in her near future. She rattled at the door, but it refused to open. “Shit.”
“Potty mou-” Den fell silent at a glance from Jen. “Let me try?”
Shrugging helplessly, Jen stepped back. “Sure, why not?”
Den’s key slid right into the lock, and turned easily. He smiled triumphantly at her and pushed the door open.
“Lucky break,” Jen told him, taking his hand to lead him up the stairs. As soon as they stepped through the doorway, Jen felt like she had run through a spiderweb. She jumped and shook her head and reached up to wipe off her face, but didn’t find any sticky strands. She looked around, then down at Den, who seemed uneffected, and continued up.
The stairwell was full of furniture, like someone had made the attempt to haul some of it out of the building at some point, but had abandoned it for some reason. She picked up Den and set him safely on the other side of large pieces before trying to climb herself, and found an executive chair wedged against the door.
“Diz, you still out there?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, give me a minute to get this sh-stuff out of the way,” Jen said. Den, without having to be told, had gotten out of the way, and stayed quiet while Jen pulled and pushed and finally pried the chair out of the way. “Door open now?”
The door swung inward, and Dizzy looked relieved. “You’re alive.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Jen said, pushing Den out first. “You lead the way out, same way you got over here.”
That time, Dizzy didn’t argue. She tip-toed back out, and Jen kept her hands on Den’s shoulders, marching him ahead of her in the hopes that she’d be able to throw him out of the way if the floor started sounding suspicious again.
Dizzy crowed triumphantly as soon as they were outside and on solid ground again. “Never again. I am not ever coming back here again.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jen agreed, rubbing at her elbow and shaking her head. “Let’s go clean up and get something to eat before Angel gets home.”
~~~~~
Jada thrust her hands deep into her pockets, keeping her shoulders straight and her head high. Living in the creepy ‘haunted’ house afforded her a surprising amount of safety, even in the bad neighborhood in which she lived, but there was no guarantee anyone knew who she was until she made it home. And there had been an unusual number of people out on the street all night.
What she really needed to do was stop working so late at the museum. Her deadlines weren’t that close, and it wasn’t like anything was going to get up and walk away. And walking home at two in the morning, just after everyone had been kicked out of the bars, was not the safest time to go walking. As comforting as the gun at her hip could be, she wasn’t yet certain she trusted herself to pull the trigger if the need arose.
There was a clot of people across the street from her. She could hear them, but didn’t understand a word flying between them. The strong gestures spoke loudly enough. Not wanting to be involved, even in a peripheral sense, she ducked into the episcopal church she was passing.
It was a real antique, with Sussaven’s sky scrapers towering all around it. Jada passed it at least twice a day on her walks to and from the museum, but she’d never taken a moment to step inside. It always looked attractive, with its huge yellow stone walls and stained glass, but she’d never felt like she belonged there.
Still, it was safe, so Jada stepped through the left arch of the three openings into the courtyard. There was a hallway with windows set between the arches, and doors on either end covered in friezes of Biblical scenes. The ground was covered in the same sort of stones as the wall, and those continued out into paths through the courtyard.
Jada lingered for a moment over the friezes before following the path out into the courtyard. While it had been muted even in the hallway, the moment she was in the courtyard, the fountain standing against the center of the far wall drown out all sounds from the street. She smiled, feeling immeasurably more relaxed. There were lights in a few windows around the courtyard, and the stained glass cast strange colors over the neatly manicured gardens.
The sign, printed off of a computer and jarring anachronistically against the setting asked, “Until our grass regrows, please keep off.” There was a yellow smiley face on one side, and a cross on the other.
Luckily, there were stones set in the ground all of the way to the fountain, so Jada picked her way over and sat on the lip of the pool.
In the dim light, she could see coins sparkling under the water. Jada glanced over at the arches, but couldn’t see outside of the church. She sorted through her pockets and purse, and came up with a double-handful of coins that she dropped into the water with a loud splash.
The coins all swirled in different directions in the currents, a few sending glints up at her while they sank. The air suddenly felt heavy, and Jada glanced around. “I wish...” Her gaze returned to the arches, and what she could see of the street beyond. She shook her head. “Nevermind. Someone else can have mine.”
The odd, watchful feeling to the air didn’t lift, so Jada rose to her feet, picking her way back to the arches and peering out at the street.
It was mostly empty, so she glanced a last time at the fountain behind her before hurrying back out onto the street. She suddenly wanted very badly to be home.
Home was only about two more blocks down, and half a block over. Her house had a nice yard, about a third of an acre, and was set well back from the street. There were huge apartment buildings rising over either side, and across the street. She’d never learned why the house had been left alone rather than behind demolished to make another complex. But she was glad it was there, with its waist-high wrought iron fence and apple trees by the gate. It had been home from the moment she’d first seen it, even with the ghost stories hovering over it. Something about the white walls and cherry-red trim and green roof was all too inviting for her to pass up.
Jada unlocked her gate and hurried through. The lights from her windows rarely looked so inviting.
The door opened before she made it all the way up. Shen was waiting for her, holding a mug in one hand. She thrust it out at Jada as soon as she was in reach. “You’re late.”
Jada accepted it and threw off her jacket. “You sure know how to make a girl grateful she gave her best friend a key to her place. Did you make yourself at home?” She removed her inner pants holster as well, setting it on the table by the door.
Shen tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned back into Jada’s livingroom. It smelled pleasantly like cooking food. “You weren’t returning my calls.”
Jada was silent for a moment before she claimed her favorite chair. “Because I knew...how? I still haven’t found the answering machine. No messages, no caller ID...you think I’m psychic now?”
She received one of the most disgusted looks she though Shen had ever given her. “You moved in here...what, three months ago? You’ve been unpacked.”
“Ha!” Jada laughed. “I guess you didn’t make yourself completely at home. You should see the bedrooms and attic.”
Shen shook her head. “That does it. You should ask for an hourly wage at that museum instead of that salary.”
Jada grinned and said, “They’d fire me in a heartbeat. They couldn’t afford that.”
There was a loud, somehow formal knock on the door. Jada drew her eyebrows together, unaware of anyone who would show up that late who would knock instead of just walking in. She got up and opened the door, but found the step empty.
“Who is it?” Shen asked.
“No one,” Jada said, shaking her head. “That’s weird, they’d have to be pretty fast to get away that quick.” She reached out and pulled her little pistol from the holster on the table and thumbed the safety before she stepped out of the door to peer both ways.
Shen leaned over her shoulder, then stepped back out of her way as she turned back inside. “Are you doing all right?”
“Yeah.” Jada closed the door and threw the lock, then shook her head, putting the safety back on and setting the gun back on the table. “I guess I’m just still getting used to the new place. Those haunting stories must be getting to me or something. And then the trip home tonight was so weird.”
Shen glanced over at the kitchen, then said, “Tell you what. I’ll go get dinner ready, and you tell me about it while we eat.”
Jada smiled and sat down again. “That sounds like the best thing I’ve heard all day.”
~~~~~
Ash woke when the loud wailing echoing through her apartment finally penetrated her dreams. She rolled over and shouted for quiet. To her surprise, the cries immediately ceased.
“There’s still hope,” she muttered, reaching out for the flashlight by her bed. It came on for only a moment, and almost immediately faded out. Ash tried banging it on the side and shaking it, but only got a few flickers of light. “Wonderful,” she said, squinting and fumbling around over her table until she felt one of her candles. She picked it up and touched the wick, concentrating for a moment until a little flame burst to life with a quiet ‘pop.’
It wasn’t perfect, but it was easier on her eyes than the overhead light. Ash stumbled her way over the scattering of papers, books, clothes, and other trash covering her floor. Something crunched underfoot and she swore, bouncing out of the way, then holding still until her candleflame stopped threatening to go out.
Ash finally made it into her livingroom, where there was a little girl sitting on her table. Even in the dim light from the candle, she could see the wall through her. She must have been newly dead, since she was sitting perfectly on the table, but the papers, books, and dishes on top of it were all going straight through her. “Whatever it is, I don’t care. Now go away so I can go back to bed.”
The girl’s eyes widened and she looked highly offended. “But you can see me, so that means-”
“That I can see you,” Ash said. “Nothing else. Being able to see dead people does not automatically mean I have to have shit to do with you. Now scram. Find someone else to solve your problems for you.”
She stood up and stomped one foot, hovering a good foot off of the ground. “But you have to-”
“Sure I can. Being able to see you means I have to see you. Being able to hear you just means I have to hear you. Now scram.” Ash waved the candlestick at her, and she flinched, even though it couldn’t have actually touched her. The girl got a devious look on her face, and Ash said, “Try it, and I swear I’ll make you wonder if you really died the first time around.”
The girl pouted and crossed her arms, stomping across the room and through the door. Ash shook her head and sighed, going back to bed.
~~~~~
When Angel arrived at home, Den was planted in the livingroom with his homework and the TV off. That looked suspicious in and off itself. That Jen was in the shower in the middle of the evening was even stranger.
Her son gave her a deliberately innocent look when she walked through the door, and a very cheerful, “Hey, Mom!”
Angel dropped her purse down and set her hands on her hips. “What did you do?”
He looked up at her with huge, perfectly angelic blue eyes. “Nothing. We’ve been home ever since I got out of school.”
Shaking her head, Angel walked past him to the bathroom, where she rapped on the door. “What?”
“Jenica, what did you do with Den today?”
“Nothing. I’ll be done in a minute, can we talk then?”
“I think we can talk now,” Angel answered. Out of the various girls she’d taken in since she’d found herself pregnant and gotten a real apartment and life, Jenica was giving her the most trouble. She still wore her hooking name-Jenny Penny-like it was a badge of honor, and kept slipping out to earn a little extra money when she thought Angel wouldn’t notice. “Now, Jenica.” The water turned off, and Angel gave her a few moments. When she heard nothing, and the door didn’t open, she opened it herself.
Jenica jumped and scrambled for a towel, but not before Angel got an eyefull of the forming bruises all over her shoulders, back, and legs. “I told you just a minute!” she yelped.
“What were you doing today?” Angel demanded. “And what did you do with Den. If you brought one of those men in here, and if it was while Den was here, I swear to God, I’ll have you out-”
“It wasn’t like that,” Jenica snapped, pulling her towel around herself tightly. “Come on, give me a little credit. Can I get dressed or something, please?”
Angel pulled down her robe and held it out, turning her back while Jenica dropped the towel and put on the robe instead. “How you get beaten up?”
“I fell down the stairs a couple of hours ago, on the way out to get Den from school.”
It didn’t sound like the truth to Angel. Strangely enough, it didn’t sound entirely like a lie, either. “Fair enough. Why’s the TV off?”
Jenica pushing her dripping hair off of her forehead. While it was wet, the rainbow streaks through it were darkened and dulled. “I got Den home and he wouldn’t settle down and do his homework. I wanted to shower, since I got all banged up, and he wouldn’t sit still. So I gave up and unplugged it so he’d do his work.” It still didn’t sound like the truth, but Den had put his work down and come up to stand by Angel, where he was nodding solemnly. “Come on, Angel. Give me a little credit. I wouldn’t bring anyone here, and I wouldn’t ever while Den was home. You’re supposed to be doing your homework, kid.”
“You were getting in trouble. I wanted to watch,” Den said.
“Home,” Angel said, drawing Jenica out of the hallway and into Den’s room. “Not just here, home. Den, honey, go finish your homework. When you’re done, we’ll have dinner.” Den pouted a little, but he turned around and trudged back to the livingroom. Angel closed the door behind him, then turned back to Jenica. “Let me see.”
Jenica turned around and let the robe drop until the neckline was around her hips. She didn’t just have bruises coming out, but several good cuts as well. It didn’t look like beating wounds, even if the bit about the stairs still didn’t sound right, either. “I’ll go grab the first aid kit. You wait here.”
Angel wasn’t sure when she’d decided to try saving the world, one lost girl at a time. But she’d been a little younger than Jenica, and turning tricks to keep herself afloat when she’d found herself pregnant. Looking back, she never would have expected herself to have the strength to make good. But she’d done it. Dropped the drugs, got herself on welfare, got an apartment, and had a healthy baby boy.
Then she’d found herself stuck. If she got a job, she had nowhere to put Den during the day. No family members, no friends she’d trust with her new baby...And she couldn’t just sit on welfare for the rest of her life.
The bright idea came when she was thinking about her former life. Maybe she did have a friend she’d trust with her son. The ‘girl’ she’d brought home was actually older than her. But she was glad for a place with electricity and running water. A home and food in exchange for watching a baby seemed fair. She and Liz studied together after Angel got home, and both got their high school equivalency. Liz went off to get a real job and a real life, Angel got a better job and dropped from welfare to just food stamps and found a new girl who needed a little help.
Angel’s system wasn’t perfect. There were some people you just couldn’t help. Girls who snuck drugs into the house, one who had dared hit Den, one who routinely brought tricks home so she’d get spending money. Some left Angel after a few weeks or months and went sliding right back to where she’d found them. Some stayed a few years and tried to make it with a real life and failed, and a few stayed, made their attempt at a real life, and left their wasted pasts behind.
Jenica was a little odd. She’d been clean when Angel proposed her usual deal, and she and Den had taken to each other on sight. She was a brilliant kid-she’d gotten her diploma in a matter of weeks, and was gifted with her hands. But she couldn’t hold a job, and kept slipping out to turn tricks...and used the money to buy toys for Den or presents for Angel or extra food for the house, which she had taken to keeping nearly spotless.
When Angel returned with the first aid kit, she asked, “Feel like sharing what really happened today?”
“What I told you,” Jenica said, dropping the robe all the way so Angel could rub antibiotic cream into the cuts and cover them with bandaids. “Nothing as exciting as you’re trying to make it out to be. Seriously, Den’s fine, I fell, and now everything’s peachy.”
Angel got a glass of water while Jenica put the robe back on, and she offered it out with a couple of asprin. “Take it easy tomorrow, all right?”
“If I can move,” Jenica said, downing the asprin and most of the water. She headed back into the livingroom, and messed Den’s hair as she sat down. Angel followed, glancing at the weird little statue Jenica and Den had appeared with a few weeks before. Both of them stood by the story that they’d found it in the park.
“Your thing is shedding again.”
“Cool!” Den dropped his work and ran over to gather up the flakes of stone that kept appearing around the dragon. It was a nice, deep purple, all curled around into a little ball with its chin resting on its tail. It was highlighted with silver, and had silver claws and spikes down its back and on its wings.
Her son came back and dumped the stones into Jenica’s lap. “Thanks, kid. Let’s see that homework.”
~~~~~
“Hey, Ari, snap out of it,” Ash said, snapping her fingers in front of her fellow waitress’ face. “Aricia, damnit, you have customers waiting.”
The girl in front of her jumped and blinked. She had been looking pale, and she’d developed dark circles under her eyes over the last few weeks. “I’m sorry, could you get it?” she asked, turning and fleeing into the bathroom.
Ash shook her head and sighed. She’d seen the hostess seat the man and woman out on patio ages before. Since they weren’t in her area, she’d ignored it until she realized they were still sitting there, still looking bored, and Aricia hadn’t moved in about five minutes.
“I’m so sorry about the wait, I’m Ash, I’ll be your server today,” she said, hurrying up to the table. The pair had several books spread out of their table, and she gave them a cursory, disinterested glance. One of them was closed, and proclaimed itself to be a definitive history on Sussaven. Another had a lineup of photographs of the graveyard, from its heyday to the present. “What can I get for you today?”
“I’ll just have a mocha latte and...a slice of cheesecake, please,” the woman said. She was wearing a badge with an atrocious picture of her on that claimed her name was Jada. It had the name of the local museum under her name.
“And for you, sir?” she asked.
Jada looked confused, and Ash blinked as the man gave her an apologetic grin. He was wearing old-style clothes, and had his hair too long, pulled back into a pony tail. He was also transparent. It had been years since Ash had mistaken a ghost for a living person.
“I’m sorry,” Ash said, shaking her head and doing her best to look apologetic. “It’s been a long day. I’ll get your coffee and cake in just a moment.”
“Wait a minute,” the ghost said, standing up and following her. His accent was old-timey, too.
“Whatever it is,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, “I don’t care.”
“I pray you, just a small favor,” he asked. “When you deliver the lady’s food, just...touch both of us at the same time.”
Well, he wasn’t asking her to bathe herself in chicken blood under the full moon or hunt down his killer or find his corpse in someone’s attic or anything stupid or creepy like that. “Maybe,” she hissed back, dropping the order for the barista and going behind the counter to grab the cheesecake herself.
She grabbed the coffee and carried them both back out to the patio with the ghost close at her heels. He reached out to catch her arm as she set the mug and plate down around the books, so she let her bare arm brush against the woman’s. There was an electric charge that raced through her body, and Jada jumped, looking up at her. Her eyes immediately widened, and the ghost smiled widely in relief.
“Thank you, m’lady,” the ghost said, giving Ash a bow before he reclaimed the chair he’d taken earlier.
“Umm...if you need anything else, just give me a yell,” Ash said, leaving Jada and her ghost to introduce themselves.
~~~~~
Gracie sighed with relief when the door closed with its cheerful clatter of bells. People who came into the shop and asked questions about every single item, then bought nothing, drove her completely insane.
But, it was already just after two. If the rest of the day went as quickly as the morning, it would be seven soon.
She’d been running the little shop for her grandmother for years before she’d passed away less than a month before, so that transition at least had been simple. It felt odd, however, everytime she realized the woman wouldn’t be sweeping in at some point in the day to make certain everything was running to her specifications.
The ‘junk’ half of the store was Gracie’s favorite. She liked the way everything was sort of haphazardly piled together in some rough semblance of order. The chaos made it feel like you could find all sorts of treasures if you bothered hanging around long enough. The antique half, with its much pricier items and rigid organization always made her feel like she was going to break something.
She lingered over on the junk half of the store, gathering the brass items back together on one shelf and putting the miniature tea set back together. It always seemed like she got the whole store in order before she left for the night, and things were moved by the next morning. She’d have liked to have blamed it on Sussaven’s constant, tiny earthquakes, but she didn’t think they’d manage to randomly distribute candlesticks over half of the store.
The bells on the door jingled, and she hurried out to greet her customer only to find Jenny Penny standing just inside. “Hey babe, how’re you doing?” she greeted.
Jen offered her a smile and held out a bag. “I’ve got more stones.” She looked a lot better with the smile. Jenny Penny was pretty in that tall, too-thin underwear model kind of way. Prettier in the body than in the face.
“Let’s see,” she said, moving over behind the counter in front. It was her jewelry display, mostly full of things she’d either had sold to her in the shop, or she’d picked up from garage sale, flea markets, and estate sales. A few pieces were old ones her grandfather had made, and some of the necklaces and bracelets were pieces she’d made. She set a piece of velvet on the glass, and Jen overturned the bag.
Out came a handful of the most beautifully colored amethyst she had ever seen. The weird part was that they were flakes, rather than crystals or tumbled stones. But they were deep purple, without any white or clear quartz or any cracks or flaws. Just like the batch she’d brought in a few weeks before, just before Gracie’s grandmother had passed away. The few pieces she’d made from the stones before had sold quickly, but she still had most of the handful, unused.
“Where are you getting these, Jen?” Gracie asked.
Jen grinned broadly. “Secret. All legal, I promise. You won’t get in any trouble for them.” She peered out at Gracie through the strands of multi-colored hair hanging over her eyes. “Can you use ‘em?”
Gracie trailed a finger through the stones and shook her head. “Honestly, Jen, I still have most of what you brought in last time. Things have been pretty hectic, and I haven’t really been on top of jewelry making.”
Jen drew her eyebrows together for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Oh-oh, Gracie, I’m sorry. I forgot-I was going to go to the estate sale.”
“For what, moral support?” Gracie asked, grinning.
Jen pouted at her. “What’s wrong with that.”
“Not a thing. I could have used it,” Gracie said. “I’m not sure I could use these, though.” She picked up one of the flakes and peered through it. “These are gorgious, though. If you make your own jewelry out of them, I’ll let you have a display and sell ‘em on consignment.”
“I’ll...think about it,” Jen said, chewing on her lip. “Where would I get the stuff for it? And what would I need?”
Gracie knew that look. She’d met Jenny Penny about a year and a half before, when she’d made the corner outside the store a regular hangout. “I’ve got all the stuff for it. If you come in when you’ve got the time, you can use my supplies, and I’ll take the cost off your price with my cut on the sale until you build up your own stock.”
“That might work,” Jen said, nodding slightly.
“Great,” Gracie said. “I could use a little company, anyway.”
Jen nodded again, scooping up the stones and pouring them back into her sack. “I’ll come back tomorrow. I’ve got to head over to the school to pick up Den soon.” She scooped up more of the stones, several of them falling over the top of the sack. A few hit the counter top, but one or two bounced onto the floor.
“How’s that working out?”
“Great,” Jen said, picking up the last few stones and sticking them in the sack before bending to gather the stray ones. “I love the hell out of the kid. Angel’s a little...paranoid sometimes, though. Guess it comes with the territory.” She straightened up and dropped the stray stones into the bag, then set a key on the counter. “Someone must have dropped this earlier. Good luck finding what it opens now.”
Gracie picked up the key and peered at it, thinking about her grandmother’s trunk again. “Hey, Jen, you know what it means when someone says something is full of a darkness?”
“Umm...that they’re afraid of it?” Jen tried. Obvious, but not stupid.
Gracie shrugged. “I dunno. I guess that’s close enough. You know what an alastor or a pretas is?”
Jen shook her bag, listening to the clicks inside. “You mean as in Crowley?”
“I really doubt it.”
“Sorry, then,” Jen said, shaking her head. “No clue. I could ask Den. The kid knows the weirdest shit.”
Gracie stuck the key in her pocket and nodded. “Come by or call or something if you have any thoughts, would you?”
Jen gave her a weird look, but nodded. “Sure.” She glanced at the clock on the wall behind her and nodded. “I’ve gotta run. If I’m not waiting when Den gets out, he freaks out.”
“Hurry up, then,” Gracie said, waving to her before she slipped out of the door. As soon as she was out, Gracie grabbed the phone and dialed the number for the café where Ash worked. As soon as she was on the line, she said, “You would not believe the weird day I’ve had.”
“Same here.”
“Meet me here when you get off your shift?”
Gracie could almost see Ash grinning. “I’ll bring dinner. You know, if we keep having exciting days, it’ll start looking like we have lives.”
Gracie shook her head. “Get back to work,” she said, waiting to hear the sound of Ash making a kissy noise into the phone before hanging up.
Despite the way the whole day had flown by, the rest of the afternoon slowed to a crawl. A few customers who just had to chat came in and couldn’t even make themselves interesting. Gracie re-arranged half of the shop, found a mug someone had broken and tried to hide behind a bunch of dust-encrusted plastic flowers, and still managed to successfully avoid all of the real work she had to do.
Ash appeared about ten minutes before it was time for her to close, and Gracie immediately jerked the key out of her pocket. “Look at this.”
Ash set the bag she was carrying on the counter and lifted an eyebrow at Gracie. “Yeah?”
“It just appeared earlier today. Jenny Penny was in and she found it.”
Ash crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. “You have lost your mind, Gracie. That stupid trunk got to you.”
Gracie shook her head and set the key on the counter. “No, I’m serious. I don’t have any stray anything that came with a key that doesn’t have it right now. That doesn’t go to anything in the shop.”
“Lost your mind,” Ash repeated, picking up the bag again. “So someone bought something and dropped their key.”
“Does this mean you aren’t a little curious?” she asked, picking up the key and sticking it back into her pocket.
“Did I say that?” Ash asked. “Get your shit together and let’s get to your place.”
Gracie grinned and gathered up her purse, making a sweep through the store to check on everything before she lead Ash to the door and turned off the lights.
~~~~~
Somehow, the whole thing seemed sillier as soon as Gracie was outside. As soon as she was out of the shop that still had the scent of her grandmother’s perfume hanging in the air. Ash draped an arm over her shoulders. “Was that all that was weird about your day?”
“No,” Gracie admitted. “I was thinking a lot about Gran. She used to tell me about how there was an alastor and a pretas locked inside of her trunk. She was keeping it closed so they couldn’t get out. And it was a big favor to me.”
Ash shook her head. “Come on, girl. You have a level head. Since when did you start buying into crap like that?”
“Says the woman famous for yelling at thin air,” Gracie said. “Doesn’t it make you wonder a little?”
“I can’t say I’m not curious. But I think it’s more likely she had the heads of her first husband and children in there,” Ash said. “And if there’s a boogey man in there, then the poor idiots who bought it probably let it out already.”
“Oh, yeah, now I feel better,” Gracie said, pulling out her key so they could get into her building. Ash strolled over to the elevator and hit the button, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. Gracie fingered the key in her pocket and sighed. “This is so stupid. I should just pick the lock or something, anyway. It’s not like I don’t know how.”
Ash grinned at her. “Oh, the useful things an antique dealer learns.”
“Something like that,” Gracie said, nodding slightly and slapping the elevator doors. “Don’t tell me this damned thing’s broken again.”
Ash pushed her aside and pressed an ear to the door. “Nah, I can hear it coming.” She jumped back and rubbed at her ear when it made a high-pitched screech. “Why do we ride in that thing again?”
“Twelth floor,” Gracie reminded her.
Ash nodded slowly. “Ah, yes. It’s all coming back to me.”
The doors grated open, and Gracie stepped in. Ash hesitated for a moment before following her. “You ride in this thing almost every day. I’d think you’d be used to it by now.”
She pressed the button and the elevator lurched to a start. Ash gave the doors a dubious look. “Some things you never let yourself get used to. It’s a survival instinct. Like the one telling me to get the hell out of this thing before we ride the twelve floors down a little too fast.”
“Nonsense,” Gracie said, stepping back out of the way when the doors open again and a little girl trotted on and pushed the button for the top floor. Ash stopped complaining about the terrible dangers of the elevator for the rest of the ride, but still looked relieved when they got to Gracie’s floor. “It isn’t as bad as all that,” she said, leading the way over to her apartment and unlocking the door.
There were enough stories of buglary and vandalism constantly floating around the building that Gracie never knew what to expect when she opened the door. Everything looked normal, however, so she tossed her purse on the floor, and Ash set the bag of food on the trunk before immediately moving over to open the window.
“Didn’t you have one on the way to my shop?”
“Not nearly enough,” Ash said, perching herself on the sill and grabbing her ashtray.
Gracie opened the bag to see what Ash had managed to talk out of the cook at the café. “If you keep up like this, you’re going to end up brewing those nicotine patches into tea.”
“Now that is a good idea,” Ash said, finding her pack and pulling out one of the cigarettes. “Wonder if I have enough nicotine tolerance to pull it off?”
Gracie pursed her lips, then shook her head.. “I wouldn’t push it, personally. How’d you get cheesecake out of your boss?”
“It expires today,” Ash said, watching Gracie set the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. “Couldn’t sell it tomorrow. At least if it gets given away on an employee discount, it doesn’t get thrown away.”
“Good point,” Gracie said, glancing over at the trunk.
Ash caught the glance and grinned. “Come on, I know it’s killing you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gracie answered.
“Sure you do.” Ash took a long drag off of her cigarette and paused the blow the smoke out the window before continuing. “Come on, try out the key. If it works, we’ll ooh and aah over the skulls in there before we have dinner.”
“What if it is a bunch of skulls or bones or something?” Gracie asked. “What do I do with them then?”
Pursing her lips, Ash looked around Gracie’s livingroom. “We could mount the skulls over your mantle piece. How cool would that be? And we can make furniture out of any other bones. Like that guy...you know, the one they wrote Texas Chainsaw Massacre about.”
Gracie laughed despite herself. “That’s an attractive image. I could show it to the next guy I date. Use his reaction to figure out if he’s a psycho or not.”
Ash leaned forward to set her elbow on her knee. “That wouldn’t work. All the good ones would get freaked out and run away.”
“This is what I get for asking your opinion.” Gracie leaned back against her wall and considered the trunk again. If she had the key, and it was completely harmless, she could just try selling it again. If she couldn’t bury it with her Gran, then could could at least not keep it. The woman had been very adamant about getting it away from the family. “I’m being stupid,” Gracie said, pulling out the key, jamming it into the lock, and turning it.
“Oh, shit!” she yelled, jumping back from the trunk like it had stung her.
“What?” Ash demanded, vaulting out of the window so fast that her ashtray fell on the ground and scattered ashes all over the floor.
“It unlocked,” Gracie shouted, pointing at the trunk. “Did you see that? If fucking worked.”
“Calm down!” Ash exclaimed, catching Gracie’s shoulders. “Good Lord, woman, you gave me a heart-attack over nothing. So it unlocked? Maybe your Gran had the key hidden in the store or something.” She shook her head and let go of Gracie when she didn’t continue shouting. “I thought you had a better head than that.” Gracie blinked at her and she sighed. “What are you going to do if there’s something gruesome in there? Pass out?”
She tried taking a deep breath, then another one just for good measure. “I’m sorry.” Ash slapped her shoulder, and she walked over to the trunk, lifting the lid. A strong scent of urine immediately rose out of it, and she wrinkled her nose. “Yuck. It smells like piss. And...” There was another undercurrent to the smell. “And a butcher shop.”
“Piss and blood,” Ash said, leaning over to try peering in. “Your Grandmother was one strange woman.”
“Blankets,” Gracie said, looking down. “I was this freaked out over blankets?” She pulled the blanket off of the top and shook it out. There were rose petals tucked into it that hadn’t managed to defeat the smell. Ash took out another, but there was nothing else there. Only a few inches down, the trunk suddenly ended with a wooden bottom. “That’s not right,” Gracie said, trying to breathe through her mouth while she bent over to look at the wood. There were little pins on either side, up against the corners. She managed to get a fingernail under one and pry it up, so Ash leaned over to do the same with the other.
As soon as the pins were free, the front of the trunk fell flat on the ground, revealing rows of little drawers.
“One very strange woman,” Ash amended, setting her cigarette to her lips before she realized what she was doing. She grabbed her ashtray from the ground and set it on the windowsill before snuffing the cigarette.
“Maybe it isn’t so bad,” Gracie said, pulling open one of the drawers. It was stuffed with leaves of some sort. She closed it and tried another. All of the top row was full of different kinds of dried plants. So were the drawers right against the side. Then she started finding other things. Stones. Scraps of cloth, some of them with things embroidered on them, most of them with crusty brown stains. Silver candlesticks. A little copper bowl, turned completely green with verdigris. The drawer in the very center held a long, thin dagger with a highly ornamented silver hilt, and a braid.
Gracie picked up the braid and turned it over in her hand. One of the strands was red hair, one was blonde hair, and one was black hair. It was tied on both ends with ribbons thick with the same stains as the cloth. “This is the same color hair that Gran had,” Gracie said.
“Same color as yours,” Ash remarked
As they had looked through the drawers, the stench had faded away to be overwhelmed by a more floral scent. “Yeah. I guess I got everything from my Gran and nothing from my mom,” Gracie said. “Opa was blonde, but I can’t imagine him with long hair.”
“Any idea where the black hair could have come from?” Ash asked, crouching beside her.
She shook her head. “None at all.” Gracie tucked the hair back into the drawer. “Thank God that knife’s clean.”
“No more hysterics,” Ash agreed. “It’s bad for me.” She draped an arm over Gracie’s shoulders, hugging her for a moment. “Come on. Close this up and we’ll have dinner.”
~~~~~
“And you say he’s handsome?” Shen had her devious grin firmly in place.
Jada shook her head at her best friend. “That’s a new low. You’ve never tried to hook me up with a dead guy before.”
Shen leaned against Jada’s desk, and a wobbly stack of papers threatened to take the plunge. Jada reached out to push them back into a slightly more certain pile. “Come on, honey. You’re desperate. You can’t go quibbling about things like a pulse.”
“Actually...” Jada slapped the book by her computer shut. “Not dating and desperate do not automatically correlate. And he’s been dead for more than a hundred years. I’m not sure I want to deal with all the weird courting rituals from back then.”
The other woman lifted both eyebrows. “You can’t tell me all that formal stuff wouldn’t be an improvement over the nonsense people go through today.”
Jada swept the papers from the open folder back together and tucked all of it beside her computer. She really didn’t have much work left to do-once the new travelling exhibit was up, she had to kill time and hope for something interesting during her days. And pray to not get forced into any of the fundraising dinners. “I thought you got a kick out of that. It is your art, afterall.”
Shen tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and flashed Jada a winning smile. “Not everyone’s so lucky as to be a mistress of the fine art of dating.”
“Besides, those stupid TV dating shows you like so much wouldn’t be nearly as much fun,” Jada added, grabbing her backpack. She’d long ago learned that while she was travelling to and from the museum, a purse wasn’t nearly enough.
Crossing her arms, Shen shook her head. “I never said I really liked those. But you have to admit, there’s something really fascinating about watching pretty people struggling to form coherent sentences for the camera.” Shen hurried over to open the door to Jada’s office. On the days Shen volunteered at the museum, she always pushed hard to get Jada out at roughly the time the place actually closed. “You’re missing the point. You hate the dating scene. So maybe going for someone who’s never been a part of it would be your best bet.”
“And then we could fall in love, and get married, and I could be the crazy old lady in the haunted house with all the cats who talks to the invisible husband everywhere she goes,” Jada mused. “Oh, yes, Shen, that sounds like the life for me.”
“You’ve got it all but the old part and the invisible husband,” Shen pointed out.
Jada flipped the light off and closed her door, checking to be sure it was locked. “And the lots of cats part. I seem to be lacking more than one cat.”
She grabbed her hand and dragged her out, pausing only long enough to drop off their badges and wave to the security guards. Jada had developed a bad habit of walking off still wearing hers, which did not make her any friends with security. “More cats, like getting old, is only a matter of time the way you’re going.”
“I don’t know what you’re incredible problem with my not having a boyfriend is. It’s not like you’re dating anyone,” Jada pointed out.
“Haven’t you ever heard of ‘do as I say, not as I do’? I’m only looking out for you,” Shen answered. They both stopped to let a pair of squirrels run across the sidewalk in front of them.
“Can’t you just...show up at my house in the middle of the night and make dinner more often? Now that I can’t complain about,” Jada suggested.
Shen considered thoughtfully as the two of them strolled along. “I’ll consider it. But I don’t want you getting spoiled.”
Jada smirked at Shen, sliding her hands down into her pockets. The neighborhood got noticeably worse the closer to her home they got, and both of them lapsed into silence. Jada glanced over at the church as they passed, but shook her head, leading Shen up and over to her house.
“Home again,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “Why does it feel safer on the other side of my fence?”
“Because no one will fuck with the crazy lady who bought the murder house,” Shen suggested. “Especially not the crazy lady who carries a gun.”
“I guess that does help,” Jada admitted. “Wait a minute, they shouldn’t know that I carry.”
Shen shrugged. “What’s it matter? Makes you feel better, right?”
“I guess.” Jada closed the gate and sighed, looking up at the sky.
“So, when’s he coming?”
“After dark. He didn’t stick around long yesterday. He told me it was tough to stick around during the day.” Jada opened the front door and looked around the livingroom. “Does it look like stuff moved around in here? It never quite feels right in here.”
Shen looked around the room, then shook her head. “Looks like it did when I was here the other day.”
“All this haunted house stuff is getting to me.” Jada dropped her purse and threw herself into her chair. “How does pizza sound? I’m in a blowing my diet kinda mood.”
“What diet?” Shen asked, tossing her phone over to her.
“Oh, you know,” Jada said, grabbing the phone book. “The eating sensible stuff so I don’t have to diet one. I say screw that. What toppings do you want?”
“Black olives and pineapple on my half,” Shen said, propping her feet up. She listened while Jada ordered a half black olive and pineapple, half tomato and pesto pizza. “You’re trying to blow a diet and you ask for tomato and leaves.”
“So I’m bad at it,” Jada said. “It’s still covered in cheese.”
Shen actually giggled, shaking her head at Jada. “Pathetic. If you really wanted to blow your diet, you’d have at least thrown pepperoni on there. And bacon. And extra cheese.”
Jada brushed her hair back. “Then you should have councelled me before I made the call. It’s too late now. And there’ll be pizza soon, assuming the delivery guy doesn’t get intimidated by the gate.”
The evening actually turned out to be rather relaxing. Jada and Shen polished off an entire pizza between them, and Jada had happily forgotten about her alarming conversation at her favorite café until there was a knock on the door just after dark.
Shen’s eyes were shining. “I’ll just leave you two alone,” she said, pulling open the door. There was a man standing on her step, but Shen looked around like she saw nothing. She cast a last grin over her shoulder at Jada and walked straight through him and down the front walk.
He was standing tall and straight, with black hair pulled back into a loose tail. Jada licked her lips lightly, and he gazed imploringly at her with emerald eyes. “May I, my lady?” he asked.
“Um...as long as you don’t turn all vampire on me and try sucking my blood,” Jada decided.
He looked confused, but nodding slightly. “I’ll be certain your blood stays in place,” he offered.
“Good enough,” she said, stepping out of the way and gesturing into her house. “You said yesterday that you need my help. What do you need it for?”
The man walked into her livingroom, where he looked forlorn and lost. Everything about him, from his hair to his voice to his clothes to his expression was an anacronism. “I do not know,” he admitted. “I know only that I awoke for the first time two nights ago, when you opened the door for me.”
“Opened the door?” Jada shook her head and closed her front door, leaning back against the doorframe. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Something as simple as a wish,” he answered, looking at her and smiling slowly. “Generosity without demand of recompense. On hallowed ground, holy things can be made to happen.”
“A wish?” Jada stared blankly at him for a moment before she remembered the change she’d dumped into the fountain in the church’s courtyard. “You mean something really happens when you toss change in one of those? Next time I’m going to wish for a million dollars.”
“What would you do with a million dollars?” he asked.
Despite herself, Jada smiled. “A lot less than you’d probably think. So you need my help, but you don’t know for what? Do you have anywhere we can start?”
He shook his head. “I remember nothing,” he admitted.
Jada moved back to her favorite chair and sat slowly. “This is going to be a long night.”
~~~~~