by C. A. Larmer
“And be sure to use the exit out by the pool,” he adds. “Nobody is to step through the living room door and back into the house. We have officially secured the scene.”
I’m not going anywhere, I hear Tessa think. I’m not leaving poor Maisie alone with you lot.
And suddenly I don’t care if she’s sleeping with my boyfriend or not. I want to reach down and hug her tight.
Una, meanwhile, is in a corner madly tapping away on her mobile phone. I try to zoom in. I try to see what’s on the screen, but like the computer in Dad’s office, it’s just a bunch of hieroglyphics. Is she messaging my folks? Is that it? I can’t even read her thoughts to find out. I try, very hard, but her mind is like a closed book.
Come on, Death! Throw me a bone!
Why can’t I see what Una’s doing? What’s that about? I’m also intrigued by this mind-reading business. If I can read minds, and clearly I can—Leslie’s wondering if Hottie Hodder is still single, Arabella is wondering where she misplaced an earring and Mattie has “Despacito” on a loop in his head—why can’t I read Una’s mind or, more importantly—and let’s just hope they’re mutually exclusive—the mind of my killer? Why can’t I hear someone chuckle to themselves while thinking Mwahahaha. I got away with murder!
It’s a fair question, don’t you think?
And I have so many more where that came from, like how come I can suddenly see straight into all the bathrooms as well as the guest bedroom, which contains nothing more incriminating than a ruffled bed cover? I don’t know exactly why that particular room was previously blacked out, but I have a feeling it has something to do with a scantily clad Arabella and her missing earring.
Who was she in there with, I wonder, and why were they hiding that from me?
“Pssst!”
That’s the drooling woman near the light again. Louder, more insistent. She’s just not giving up. I stare at her. I sigh. She looks like she’s been back there a while. I guess she may have some answers for me. Shall we indulge her? Just for a bit?
I glance back at the house. My friends are slowly being ticked off by the police (in every sense of the word, for Roco at least) and shuffled on their way, the detectives still inspecting my corpse, other officers now ransacking the house. Big Ears is in Mum’s sewing room and staring at the makeshift bed in the corner like it’s out of place. And I guess it is. Mum must have set it up for Peter, hoping he’d stay over. For once.
There’s not much to report, so I give up on the living. I swallow my nerves and I head towards the light.
We’ve all heard about the infamous pearly gates and the long, dark tunnel that leads to the “afterlife,” but from this angle all I can see is a dingy archway, three seriously deformed dead people and not a pearl in sight.
The oldest, the woman who’d been waving like the Queen Mum, drifts forward as I approach and offers me a sympathetic smile.
“Hello, Maisie,” she says, her voice low and slow, oozing concern. “How are you feeling, darling? Are you okay?”
I snort at her. “You’re about an hour and forty minutes too late.”
She nods, her smile sadder. “A little longer than that, I’d say.”
Humph! Like she can talk. “The question is, are you okay?” I snap back.
I can see the haunted look in her eyes. I can see the dribble running down her face. She knows it’s there, right?
The woman wipes one cheek self-consciously. “I’m just here to help you across.”
“Were you the victim of a vicious murder too?” I ask.
Now her smile deflates. Pain crosses the threshold of her face. “I guess you could say that,” she says, then sniffing, adds, “Two murders in fact.”
Before I can digest that bizarre comment, the young man behind her calls out in a singsong voice.
“Helloooo? What am I? Chopped liver?”
His face is black-and-blue, his body broken, one arm dangling oddly from its socket, his right hand a mash of bone and pulpy flesh. He does look a little like chopped liver, but I’m too polite to say so.
I hear a tiny snigger and spot a teenage girl hovering behind him. She’s probably sixteen but looks about twelve, as thin as a twig, deep hollows under her eyes, a beanie on her head.
Blimey, it’s like a floating horror show back here.
“No offence, guys, but you’re not the most comforting welcoming committee.”
The man looks mortified by this comment. He attempts to straighten his dangling arm, but the older woman places a hand on his shoulder and says, “Ignore her. She’s just angry.”
“I think she’s still at denial, actually.” He gives me the once-over. “Just because you’re dazed and confused, honey, doesn’t mean you gotta take it out on the rest of us.”
“Hey, it’s not my job to communicate with the living.”
He stares at me, bemused. “What are you on about?”
“Haven’t you got some creepy message you want me to pass on to your bestie, or something?”
“Huh?”
“We’re just here to help you across,” the middle-aged woman explains, and now I’m really cranky.
“Well, I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time, but I didn’t ask you to come and drag me to the light. I’m quite happy where I am, thanks very much.”
“Sure you are,” says the man, rolling his bloodshot eyes. “That bullet wound looks like a barrel of laughs.”
“Ouch!” I say, reaching for my head and patting some of my hair down across the gaping hole. I realise the tiara is still there, clinging on, and I reposition that while I’m at it, while they all watch me with varying degrees of pity.
“Let’s start over, shall we?” says the woman, her tone upbeat. “I’m Deseree. This is Neal, and behind him young Emie. It’s Neal’s first official chaperone job.”
“Really? And here I was thinking he was an old hand.” I flick my eyes to his smashed limb and grin.
Neal looks fit to burst, but Deseree has him by the shoulder again. “Maybe just let me take this one for now.”
Neal sneers but drifts back, muttering something about practise and how he’ll never get his points up, like he’s discussing frequent-flier miles and I’m standing between him and a free trip to Bali. Then he attempts to fold his arms across his chest, nightclub bouncer-style, but the dislocated arm flops back down again. I try not to laugh.
Deseree draws me away from them just a little.
“So, Maisie, do you understand what’s happened to you?”
I shrug. “It’s pretty open and shut. I’ve clearly been shot in the head by person or persons unknown.”
I can hear both Neal and Emie sniggering now. They think I deserved it.
“You really don’t know who did this to you? You didn’t see?” Deseree asks.
“No! Honest. I’ve forgotten the whole event. Why, is that important?”
“It is if you want to cross, my darling, yes. You need to work it out.”
“Why don’t we just put her out of her misery and tell her whodunit?” calls Neal.
Deseree shoots him a stern look. “Because that’s against the rules and you know that very well, Neal. Thou shall see when—”
“Thoust is ready to see, yeah, yeah,” he says.
“Huh?”
A sheet of paper has materialised in Deseree’s hands, and she holds it out to me.
“The Rules of Death,” she says. “They’re quite inflexible. But they’ll make total sense at the end, I promise you that. It’s important you come to terms with what’s happened to you and why it happened, otherwise your spirit will be in limbo and you’ll never settle in.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to be unsettled now, would we?” I say sarcastically, snatching the sheet from her. “Nothing remotely unsettling about any of this.”
I stare at the sheet in my hand. It’s not actually a sheet, at least not one made of paper. It’s like a floating iPad screen, as thin as a strand of cotton and just as flexible. It’s lit
from within, words sketched across the front in an old English font. Black Chancery by the look of it. I wonder if Steve Jobs has had a hand in the design. He’s back there somewhere, right?
I glance down and begin to read.
The Rules of Death
© Forever
1. Thou shalt not hear what the living do not wish thee to hear.
2. Thou shalt not see what the living do not wish thee to see.
3. Thou shalt not invade the living’s thoughts unless invited in.
4. Thou shall see all when thou is open to seeing.
5. Thou shall make thy way towards the light at the earliest opportunity.
6. Once registered at Forever, thou shalt not return beyond the light without express permission.
7. Thou shall be granted one final wish upon entering the light.
I only get as far as the second rule before I’m frowning back at her.
“Well that’s a load of nonsense because I can tell you this much: I keep seeing things that I’m pretty sure the living don’t want me to see.”
“Such as?”
“Such as my best mate flirting with my boyfriend.”
“Maybe they do want you to see that,” says Emie, her voice barely a whisper, but it smashes across me like a roaring wave. I flinch.
Why would they do that to me?
“Probably enjoy hurting you,” says Neal, who has clearly just read my thoughts. He smiles when he hears me think that, and so I take the opportunity to think, You are a total dickhead.
Takes one to know one, he thinks back.
“Now, now, children,” says Deseree, who’s also a mind reader, “let’s keep it civil, and this will all be over before you know it.”
“I don’t want it to be over!” I wail, knowing I sound like a toddler and wondering whether to stamp one foot for good measure. “I need to spend more time with my friends! I never got to finish my party! I never even got any birthday cake!”
“But it’s not your birthday, and you don’t even like sponge cake,” hisses emaciated Emie, who looks like she could benefit from a very large slice.
She gasps at that thought, and I try to shake myself out of it. I try very hard to calm down.
“I’m sorry. I know I’m being a brat.” I look at her properly and realise that she’s also clearly a victim, but unless she’s been lingering since the Holocaust, the poor thing, my guess is she had cancer. Probably leukaemia. She’s the spitting image of a kid down the street who died of it a few years back.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “But give me a break, okay? I’m new at this. I’m still trying to come to terms with the idea of being dead, let alone murdered, and it really doesn’t help if I can read some people’s thoughts and not other’s.”
“Rules are rules,” sings Neal.
“Well they’re stupid rules then,” I snap back. I soften my tone. I turn to Deseree. She seems amenable. “Please give me a little longer. I do want to solve my murder, but it’s not that straightforward. For some reason I can’t remember all the important bits, and it feels like everyone is hiding something from me; no one’s being completely honest. If you could just let me hear what they’re all thinking, then I’d have this sewn up in a flash.”
Deseree is shaking her head. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“But why?”
She nods to the others, and they start to float back inside the tunnel.
“Read the rules again, Maisie, read them properly this time.”
I watch as the darkness swallows her whole, and then I openly scowl. Thanks for nothing, weirdos. Thanks for all your help.
I take a deep breath and float back to Mother Earth where I notice that Detective Sergeant Powell is making her way up the interior staircase towards my bedroom. I can see Kelly’s already up there, poking through my belongings, a pitiful expression on his face. What he’s looking for I cannot say, but I doubt he’ll find much. I may have redecorated and moved back a few months ago, but I never really moved back in. If you look closely, you can see half my stuff is still in my suitcase, several cardboard boxes of crap still sitting there unopened.
“I’ll pop these away then, shall I?” I remember Mum saying, and I remember screaming at her that I could do it myself and to leave me alone and to get the hell out.
I had to trudge downstairs to find her and apologise for that.
“I know it’s a difficult time,” she said stiffly, stopping short at the “but.”
I pulled her into a hug. “I’ll be better, Mum, I promise. I just need to sort my head out. I’ll be okay.”
The sad smile she gave me told me what she thought of that.
Was I really such a screwup?
And if so, where did it all go wrong? I had a thriving career once, I had a boyfriend, I had a sharehouse in the city and friends who didn’t cheat on me. So what the hell happened?
I hear a cup smash, but it’s another flashback.
I hear the smash long before I register what it is I have done. It’s my favourite work cup, the one that says My Way Or The Highway. The one I keep on my desk so the others won’t use it and leave it smudged. It’s in a dozen pieces on the floor of the kitchen at work, hot tea splattered everywhere, several sets of eyes watching me aghast. I did that. I smashed it.
When did I become so angry? So out of control? Such a brat? And, more importantly, why?
Detective Ruth is leaning against the banister, staring into my bedroom.
“Anything?” she says to Kelly.
He looks up and shrugs. “Just a diary with lots of bleak poems, but she’s no Dylan Thomas I can tell you that.”
Ruth snorts. “And what would you know about Dylan Thomas, mate?”
“I know my poetry. I’m more than a pretty face, you know.”
She snorts again. “Nothing about taking her own life?”
“Not a word.”
I told you so.
“So what’s with the meds then?”
She sounds like she’s answering me back, and I follow her gaze to my bedside table where, sure, there are some antidepressants, I’ll give her that. But don’t you go and get excited either. If you all look closely, I think you’ll find the box remains unopened. I just took the damn pills to humour Dr Marlin. He’s the family GP.
Mum dragged me to see him after the Jonas incident, the one that’s really not worth repeating. At least I don’t think it is.
“These might help,” Dr Marlin said, and my mother nodded vigorously, thinking that would sort me out, that and plenty of hugs and old-fashioned home cooking.
I guess I never got the chance to find out.
As I watch Ruth inspect the packet and then place them in an evidence bag, I wonder if I should have opened them. Maybe they would have been more useful than hugs and home cooking, not to mention that silly feathered contraption that flutters over Kelly’s head, mocking me and any dreams I dared to have.
Chapter 9
Downstairs most of the guests have now cleared out, as instructed, and there’s just a handful of my closest friends still loitering by the back gate, just on the other side of my house. (If you get lost, just ask Tall, Dark and Handsome, he seems to know his way about.)
I know what Tessa promised, but she may as well head off. My body has left the building; it took off in my absence. Mickey has vanished too, so I guess she escorted it out, although she could be back with her hot date for all I know, hooking into some leftover trifle. As I told you before, I can’t see beyond Ivey Street (that’s my street, in case you’re wondering).
I can see inside some neighbouring houses, however, although not all, and can only assume from those ridiculous rules that those people have invited me in. Yet why old Mrs Russo would want me to see her standing in her floral nightie, peeking through the kitchen curtains like a paparazzo, I don’t know.
“Go back to bed, Mrs Russo! Nothing to see here!”
Except that’s not quite true.
There are still pl
enty of uniformed officers about, some now trampling through Mum’s garden at the front of the house, others going door to door, interrogating the inhabitants who lean against doorways, clutching dressing gowns, eyes wide with voyeuristic delight. And who can blame them all? It is rather fascinating, in a ghoulish kind of way. This is my first murder too, and I’d be just as fascinated. In fact, the old me would be handing out pipes and trying to work out whodunit. If only I could channel the old me, the one who didn’t smash cups and wasn’t prescribed antidepressants.
I watch as a new team of characters start pulling up. Ah, it must be the soccer team, or whatever Buzz Cut called them, judging by the white vans and the matching turquoise pullovers and the looks of bland proficiency about them. They don’t seem anywhere near as enthusiastic as Ruth and Kelly, so I’m guessing they’ve been there, done that, bought the T-shirt… You get the gist.
I’m happy the experts are here, to be honest. It’s proof they’re taking my murder seriously, and who knows, maybe they can shine some light on this dark and woeful night. Speaking of dark, I was about to follow them inside, but something in the gloomily lit laneway has caught my eye.
Someone is standing on the very edge of the thin lane that leads to that back gate, looking furtive. He has his hands wedged into his trouser pockets and is peering down towards my friends as though trying to catch someone’s eye. Una’s, I think, judging by the angle. But Una is not looking his way; she is talking in hushed tones to Leslie, but I can hear them loud and clear. They are remembering the last time they went clubbing with me. A long time ago by the sounds of it, and isn’t that a pity and wasn’t I the world’s worst dancer. Ever.
“Like two ferrets trying to get out of a hessian bag,” says Una, and they almost fall over with laughter.