by Willow Mason
“It was hovering right above us. How could you not see it?”
“I’m not a ghost-seer,” she said, scrunching her nose. “And based on your reaction, I’m glad of it. What did it want?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Muffin sat on her haunches, licking her paw then rolling it over her perky ears. “Ghosts usually want something. They don’t stay around here for giggles. You should go back upstairs and ask.”
My eyes widened. “Are you crazy? I’m not going back upstairs to question a screaming ghost!”
I filled up the kettle, hoping a hot cup of cocoa would bring some sense of comfort.
“What did the ghost scream about?” Muffin asked, refusing to let me off the hook that easy. “Was it a him or a her?”
“It was in my face, shrieking like a banshee,” I muttered. “Sorry if I didn’t take the time to check their gender. It was my first experience with a ghost.”
In fact, I’d once made fun of a woman at work who claimed to see spirits. Now, I blushed at the memory, reminding myself to keep an open mind so long as my entire brain didn’t fall out.
As the kettle shrieked, I relaxed against the counter. “You saw all the lights flashing and heard the strange moans and howls?”
“Yeah. Those were corporeal things.” Muffin tilted her head as she stared at me. “You know, if you can see one ghost, you can see all of them. If you don’t find out what the one upstairs wants, you might never get a good night’s sleep again.”
“Oh, that’s for definite, either way,” I mumbled, spooning four rounded teaspoons of sugar into my cocoa then hesitating before I added another one for good luck. “I don’t think I’m ever going to close my eyes at night without seeing that horror show dangling in front of them.”
I blew on the cup to cool it, trying to ignore Muffin’s wise eyes staring at me. After a minute, my will broke.
“Fine. I’ll go upstairs and ask the creepy ghost what it wants,” I snapped, taking a quick mouthful of my hot drink and burning my tongue. I plonked it down, the cocoa swishing up to the lip but thankfully staying inside. “And don’t you touch my drink while I’m up there.”
“As if I would.”
My legs shook as I mounted the staircase, checking my footing on each step with overzealous care.
“It’s not on the staircase,” Muffin called out in a tone so similar to my mother I had to double check.
“I’m aware.”
With the small kitten shaming me, I dashed up the rest of the steps and pulled open the door to my bedroom before my willpower battery tipped into the red.
“Good evening,” I said in my best Vampira voice. The rest of my sentence faltered into silence as I stared straight into the face of hell.
The ghost’s features were twisted, a mockery of their natural arrangement. Her hands clasped close to an ample bosom. Her mouth was open—a dark cavern leading somewhere horrific.
With the lights no longer flicking and the room silent, I heard the tread of Muffin’s paws on the stairs. I cleared my throat and continued with my game plan. “How can I help?”
The ghost swirled towards me and her face pushed up so close to mine her features became a blur. Thank goodness. I gave another tiny cough, gathering up the courage to speak again when she burst into another ear-splitting scream.
I twisted through the doorway and pulled the door shut, hanging onto the handle so the ghost couldn’t open it behind me.
A silly mistake. The spirit simply flowed through the wall and hung nearby, shrieking and wailing at the top of her lungs.
“If you don’t tell me how to help you, I can’t,” I shouted, my adrenaline rush spiking into anger. “Who are you? Why are you here? Did someone murder you?”
“Give her a chance to answer, Elisa,” Muffin said, a voice of sanity amid the madness. “And I think you can let go of the doorknob now.”
“If you don’t leave here at once, you’ll end up six feet under. I’m the ghost of Esmerelda Spicer and I’ve been sent to warn you. Stay, and you’ll be murdered the same as me.”
The ghost winked out of sight, her ominous message delivered.
“Well?” Muffin said, trotting over to lay a paw on my bare toes. “What did she say?”
I relayed the brief message. “I think we need to look into Esmerelda’s death more closely,” I said afterward. “Tomorrow, as soon as the office is open, I’m going to get the internet connected and we’ll see what the official records have to say.”
Unfortunately, things weren’t quite that straightforward. First, with my phone running on fumes, I had to knock on Hazel’s door and forge through ten minutes of polite chit-chat with her parents before I could ask for the favour of looking up the number for the service provider.
Next, I was informed there was a three-week delay in making connections in my part of the country. When I asked in an increasingly pleading tone if there was any chance of a visit sooner, she went to the bother of checking the official diary and informed me that, in this case, there’d actually be a four-week wait.
“Don’t they just flick a switch and let the data beams through?” I grumbled to Hazel as I hung up the phone. “This delay is preposterous. The internet is a necessity and they’re infringing on my human rights.”
“You can always get a mobile with a data connection in the meantime,” my new friend answered with a smile.
With no alternative, I bit the bullet and put my tottering credit card balance towards the cheapest data packet I could get for the next month.
“You won’t find anything like that online, anyway,” Hazel answered when I explained the urgency. “But if you go down to the records office, they might let you look at the coroner’s report. You are family, after all.”
“Did it go through the coroner?” I asked with a frown. “Surely Esmerelda had a regular doctor.”
“Fit as a fiddle,” Muffin said, sniffing and sticking her tail high in the air. “She hadn’t seen a doctor for well over five years.”
Although I found it hard to believe of someone so advanced in age, it meant the coroner had to determine the cause of death. In my case, it was good news that Esmerelda either believed herself healthier than she was or hated doctors enough to pretend.
“Give me a minute and we can go down there together,” Hazel said with a smile. “Like everything around here, it’s not far to walk.”
“I think you’ve forgotten breakfast,” Muffin said, tapping me on the shoe. “It’s the most important meal of the day.”
“Don’t you think that about every meal,” I teased, and Hazel raised her eyebrows.
“You can hear her now?”
I puffed out an exasperated breath. “Does that mean you always could? I feel like everyone in this town has been through an advanced class in supernatural studies and I’m stuck in kindergarten.”
Hazel laughed and shook out her long hair. “You’ll pick everything up quicker than you think. And anytime you need a helping hand, call on me. I’m only a rank-and-file witch but often that’s enough.”
“There are levels to witches?” I shook my head and groaned. “What does it all mean?”
“Cull the philosophy,” Muffin insisted, this time her pat on my foot was far more insistent. “You can get an education in witchcraft on your walk into town. Food. Breakfast. Now.”
Obeying my new mistress, I fixed a quick breakfast of healthy porridge and cut fruit for me and an unhealthy muffin for the tabby queen. I pulled out a fresh set of clothes from the chest in the attic, almost identical to the day before, and quickly showered.
With a head as clear of the fuzz of not sleeping as it would ever be, I knocked on Hazel’s door and we headed into town. There were hours spare until the appointment with the twins, but I set an alarm on my phone just in case.
“You’ll need to fill out this form,” the worn receptionist at the births, deaths, and marriages office said with a tired sigh. She pushed a clipboard across the counter, with so
many questions fitted onto the single page I had to squint to read the tiny type.
“But it’ll probably be in the public record,” I began before a hand in my face stopped me.
“If you want the public recommendations, sure. If you want the full record…” She tapped on the form and waved me into a chair.
“Well this is a nice way to spend the next hour,” Hazel said with a laugh, wriggling on the wooden waiting-room chair. “Me and my big mouth.”
“You’re welcome to go do something interesting while I tackle this form,” I said, waving her out of the room. “I’ll catch up with you back home, later.” I was relieved to see her go. My struggle with the questions would be bad enough solo—it didn’t need an audience.
When I was fairly certain all the information required was present and correct, I handed the clipboard back to the receptionist.
“Good-o,” she said with no inflection. “The request will take a few weeks to process through the system, then you’ll receive an email with the answer.”
“Say-what?”
“Three weeks. The answer will probably be a no.”
I rolled my eyes as I pushed away from the counter. “But I’m family.”
“Only just,” she said with a snort. “If we accept first cousins thrice removed as family”—the woman put air quotes around the word—“then anyone in Oakleaf Glade could request personal information about anyone else.”
“Got it,” Muffin whispered from inside my jacket. “Move away from the counter.”
Following the second instruction, I waited until we were outside before chasing up the first. “What exactly have you got?”
“The password and URL where the LAN intersects with the internet. They don’t store records locally, which means we can use her credentials to grab the information from any computer.” Muffin looked at me askance. “You have a computer, don’t you?”
“I have a mobile phone. It’s always been enough in a city with a population smaller than its average rainfall.”
“Then you need to grab what’s left in the money jar and let’s go shopping. You can’t hack your way into secure information using your phone.”
“We shouldn’t be doing it at all.”
“But… shouldn’t we?” Muffin twisted her head nearly one hundred and eighty degrees to look me in the eye. “It feels reckless not to use all the tools at our disposal. Waste not, want not, as Esmerelda always said.”
“Really? Because my motto is if you don’t break the law, you won’t go to jail.”
I presume Muffin took offence because after we got home, she stalked into the laundry room and fell asleep in the washing basket. After an hour left to my own devices, I pulled down the money jar and checked the total. Nearly two thousand. Oddly, it seemed the same as when I’d counted it on the first day. Since then, I’d taken cash out a few times without apparently affecting the total much.
Still, it would be noticeable if I took out half for a new computer. Even a second-hand one that was only new to me.
When the twins knocked on the door, I’d looked up a couple of potential options on the local auction site. If I put the cash straight onto my credit card, I might get this purchase sorted today.
“Come in.” I showed Rosie and Posey through to the lounge where they refused a seat, instead rocking onto the balls of their feet in excitement. “What’s happening today?” I asked with a hefty dose of suspicion. “I thought this was just more estate stuff?”
“Oh, it is,” Posey said, then giggled. “All part of your estate.”
Rosie wasn’t as bubbly as her sister but even her face beamed with joy. “We’ll just need one more signature, then we’ll show you a lockbox upstairs.”
“It’s in the house?” I squeaked, their eagerness transferring to me. “Where?”
I scrawled a signature, and the twins led me upstairs, showing a great deal more familiarity with the house than I had. “What’s gone on up here?” Rosie asked when she got to the bedroom door and saw a tangle of sheets half off the bed.
“Bad dream,” I said, not wanting to trouble them with ghost stories. After their reaction to my earlier note, I guessed it would completely deflate them if I told them about the ghost’s warnings.
“It’s in here,” Rosie said, walking into the master bedroom as though she owned it. “And sorry for not warning you we’d traipse through your entire house.” She turned and flashed her pearly whites. “It didn’t give you time to clean up.”
I shoved the sheets back on the bed and called it done. Meanwhile, Rosie unlocked a cupboard door I’d figured hid cleaning supplies. She opened it with great solemnity, gesturing to her sister to pull out one of the drawers inside.
“It’s an honour just to stand here,” Posey said with a clap of her hands before bending to the task. “This treasure is worth far more than a refilling cash jar or self-repairing house.”
“The house does its own repairs?”
“Sure.” Posey flapped her hand at me to be silent. “You’ll see when you damage something, but that’s a distraction. Here’s the real prize. Four generations of pixie dust.”
She pulled the drawer open, lifting out an ornately carved wood box. Rosie passed over a glinting gold key and Posey inserted it into the lock, turning it easily.
“Ta-da!” she said, opening the lid and stepping back.
I moved over to peer inside. Empty.
“Is this one of those things I have to become a fully developed pixie to see?” I asked, disappointed.
But when I turned to Rosie and Posey their faces were white with shock. “We need to call the police,” they said in unison, grabbing each other’s hands for support. “Someone’s stolen your priceless inheritance.”
Chapter Eight
When Lucas stepped out of the patrol car, Rosie and Posey groaned. “We asked Louise to send Syd,” they said in unison as I let the officer into the house. “Where is he?”
“He’s on another callout, so it’s me or nothing.” Lucas hooked his thumbs into his belt and rocked back on his feet. “I’m happy to leave if you’ve changed your mind about a crime occurring. Of course, if you do that, Syd isn’t coming either.”
“You’re fine,” I said, pushing past the twins. “And thanks for the quick response.”
“You seem to make a habit of being in trouble.”
“Believe me, I’m not trying to.” I led the group upstairs, displaying the empty box to Lucas. “From what I understand, this box contained a significant part of my inheritance, but it appears to have been stolen.”
“Oh, it’s definitely been stolen.” Posey bounced forward, tipping the box upside down and tapping the base. A twinkle of pixie dust floated through the air before I could grab the container off her.
“My lawyers can attest to what was in here,” I continued, not sure how to broach that subject with a human. Thinking back to a few days ago, I couldn’t see how a truthful explanation would go down well.
“It’s priceless,” Rosie said. “But we’d prefer to keep the details confidential if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind.” Lucas cast an annoyed glance at the twins. “It’s hard enough to track down stolen items when we know what they are. To do it with no idea of what we’re chasing…” He shrugged.
“Pixie dust,” Posey shouted, then clapped a hand over her mouth.
Lucas arched one eyebrow, his body standing still. “And that’s slang for…?”
Posey cast a helpless glance at her sister then plunged ahead. “Well, it’s actually the tiny skin flecks off a pixie—”
“Dandruff?” the officer interrupted with his cheeks turning an alarming shade of red. “You brought me down here on an urgent call to report the loss of a box of dandruff? What’s next? A lost scab collection? A missing drawer of toenail clippings?”
“It’s Esmerelda’s ashes,” I stated firmly, pulling Posey out of the firing line. “She’s just upset. It’s a very emotional theft we’re talking about.
My great aunt’s ashes were in this container and some weirdo has stolen them.”
Although Lucas had the good grace to put a stop to the sarcastic comments, his face didn’t show any evidence of pleasure at the correction. “A box of ashes.”
“We were going to have a ceremony to inter them,” I continued, expanding on my theme with enthusiasm. “But someone’s robbed them.”
“A robbery is when a criminal threatens your life. Did that happen or are you talking about a burglary?”
“Pedantry isn’t a good look on you, Lucas,” Rosie snapped.
“That’s PC Bronson to you, Miss Hunter. Now, how about you all stop mucking me around and tell me what this is really about?”
“It was a burglary, then.” I cupped my elbows, a shiver racing down my spine. “Someone came into the house and stole Esmerelda’s ashes.”
“Any signs of a break in?”
I shook my head, thinking of Brody Newhart and his spare key. “But does someone need to have busted the door down for it to count?”
Lucas fixed me with a hard stare. “No. I was thinking more along the lines of fingerprints or DNA evidence. What about the box? I suppose you’ve all handled it.” He gave a resigned chuckle. “Just like the note.”
“We could hardly have avoided it,” I said in a snippy tone to match my mood. “Unless you’re suggesting we have x-ray vision, it requires someone to open the lid of the box to work out its contents are missing.”
“What’ve you done to your hair?”
My mouth fell open as I struggled to follow the new line of questioning. I touched the front of my new hairstyle, groaning inwardly as I realised it had reached new heights. “What does that have to do with the case?”
To my surprise, Lucas blushed and turned away. “Sorry. That was completely off track. Now, who has access to your home?”
“In the past few days, me, Rosie and Posey, Hazel, Brody, and my cat.”
Rosie stepped forward. “My sister and I have held two copies of the keys for the past two years. Esmerelda put her estate in order at that time, and I believe she also gave a copy to Brody Newhart to help with Muffin.”