by Mona Marple
“And good evening ladies, here we got the nachos. Enjoy!” He places the plate down in front of us with a flourish, takes a small bow which puts his beard hair scarily close to our food, and returns to the kitchen.
Adele and I look at each other and burst into laughter.
Our dish holds a small portion of tortilla chips with some grated cheese sprinkled on.
“They haven’t even melted the cheese.” Adele exclaims in between laughter.
“Maybe we should call it a night, after all.” I say, and with that, I pull out a ten dollar bill from my purse, and we dash out of the restaurant and into the sticky night air.
9
Sage
“What time do you call this?” I ask as Connie comes stumbling through the door in a ball of laughter. She trips up the front step and almost lands on her behind in the hall.
“Sorry mum!” She cries, which sends her deeper into her laughter.
I shake my head because this is not the way our relationship goes. I’m the fun one who arrives home at all times and laughs it off. And I am definitely not her mum.
“I’m going to sleep.” I say and float upstairs. She can explain herself in the morning.
When I wake up, I can smell the bacon and hear the banging around in the cupboards.
How predictable. Connie needs grease to soak up a hangover.
I’m almost impressed with this sudden wild-child behaviour.
As I go into the kitchen, however, it’s clear that Connie isn’t the one cooking.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
Wilson Bruiser turns from the frying pan and grins at me, pearly whites twinkling.
“I thought I owed you breakfast after the wild time you showed me last night.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Do I look like I have a memory problem? In your dreams, Bruiser.”
“Those too.” He quips and cracks an egg into the pan.
“Seriously, you can’t be here. We have a rule. You need permission to come in a person’s house.”
“Oh, I was invited. Begged, practically, by your lovely sister.”
“I doubt that very much.” I say. Where is she, anyway? She never sleeps in.
“Mushrooms?” He offers.
“Bruiser, I’m a spirit, I can’t eat.”
“No wonder you have that lovely, trim figure. I love the smell, I do. Takes me back to my campfire days, cooking does. Nothing like a good meal when you’re sleeping under the stars.”
“You should have stayed outside to get the full experience.” I say. “I’m going to find Connie.”
“Don’t disturb her, she had a big night.” He says with a wink.
I roll my eyes and return upstairs. Life is becoming surreal.
Connie’s in her bed, still fully dressed, her pillow wet with drool.
“Wake up!” I say, a little louder than necessary. I’m normally the one being woken up after a fun night, the novelty of being in the other position has gone to my head, I guess. She jolts upright, eyes tiny, curly hair matted to the side of her face.
“What’s wrong?” She slurs.
“Are you still drunk?” I ask, arms folded, enjoying being the pious one who went to bed early for once.
“Drunk? I didn’t have a single drink.”
“Well, you can explain all of that later. There’s a strange man in your kitchen cooking breakfast.”
She groans. “Do you mean Patton?”
My ghostly face drains of colour. Patton. He’ll be over shortly. No way can he find Wilson Bruiser at my home knocking up breakfast. I cover my face with my hands, just as the doorbell rings.
“That’ll be Patton.” I say, and float out of Connie’s room. It stinks like a hangover in there, regardless of what she says.
“Then who?” She calls after me.
“Wilson Bruiser.” I shout to her. “You need to get ready and come down.”
By the time I get downstairs, Wilson has, to my horror, opened the door. He’s wearing Connie’s Kiss Me Quick apron over his own ghostly clothes, and has only opened the door a fraction.
I go to his side and see Patton, dejected, on the veranda.
“Ah, here she is.” Wilson is, and he slides an arm around my shoulder. “We had a big night, if you know what I mean. Need some protein!”
Patton blinks and looks down. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Good idea, old pal.” Wilson says, already moving to close the door.
“Oh, stop it. Come in, Patton. Wilson’s talking rubbish as normal.” I say with a glare in the old man’s direction. “On second thoughts, I’ll come out to you.”
I close the door after me and stand with Patton, who can’t meet my gaze.
“How did he get in?”
“I don’t know.” I say, and even as I say it I’m aware of what a weak lie it sounds like. “Look, I had nothing to do with it. The man’s a creep. I woke up, smelt the bacon cooking and thought it would be Connie down there.”
“Where is Connie?”
I roll my eyes. “She was out late last night and, trust me, she’s not a pretty sight this morning.”
Patton begins to smile. “You sound like her mom.”
“I do not!” I argue. “Why does everyone keep saying that?!”
The front door opens. Connie appears, a hand protecting her eyes from the sun.
“Geeze, you look like…”
“Not now.” She snaps, and steps in closer to me and Patton. She drops her voice. “Listen, we have to get rid of him. He’s a suspect.”
“I thought…”
“Think about it. It’s his journal. And the bits that have been leaked to the press talk about killing with a knife in the back.”
“But the knife was Lovey’s.”
“And Wilson clearly goes wherever he wants, without being asked. He’s trying to frame Lovey.”
I groan. This investigation is turning out to be a whole lot of trouble.
“Let’s kick him out.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Connie whispers. “He loves to talk. Let’s try and trip him up into confessing.”
I glance at Patton, to check that he thinks that idea is as nuts as I do, but he’s grinning.
“Let’s do it.” He says.
Nobody even asks me what I think, which is worrying as I seem to be the only one thinking straight lately.
Getting Wilson to talk is as easy as anyone would guess.
“If you’re trying to fill in the blanks, my dear, last night was even better than you remember.” He says as he presents Connie with a huge mound of bacon and eggs. No mushrooms in sight.
“You’re a hoot.” Connie says, eyeing the food carefully.
“It’s not poisoned.” Wilson says. “I thought you women wanted a modern man like me, a man who’d ravish you and also cook you breakfast?”
“What are you doing here?” I ask. Typical man, he’s out of the kitchen without making an attempt to clean up the mess he’s made. The kitchen looks like it’s been used to prepare a seven-course meal for a hundred people, the number of pans Wilson has managed to use.
“I’m being sociable.” He says. “You’re awfully grumpy with me, to say I bought you flowers.”
“Ha, nice try. Patton bought me those flowers.” I say.
Patton shifts in his seat.
“Ah, taking the credit for another man’s romantic gestures, are you?” Wilson asks, and Patton holds his head in his hands.
“Patton?” I ask. “You told me -”
“You put me on the spot.” He says, not looking at me. “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
“Wow.” I say. “So, you’re my admirer, really?”
“You can thank me later. Upstairs.” Wilson says with a wink.
“Let’s stay focused. There’s more important things to talk about.” Connie snaps. “Wilson, you obviously appeared here to get your journal back? Have you done that now?”
“What?” He asks, waving his arm stum
p around as if he’s acting out a sword fight. “Why would I want a battered old journal?”
“Well you did only turn up when word got out about it.”
“That’s true, but just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean they’re related. Do you know the difference between causation and correlation?”
“What?” I scoff. No way is this man trying to lecture us.
“Causation and correlation. Causation is -”
“No, we know that.” I say. The scent of bacon is rich in the air and it’s making me feel a bit queasy. Connie hasn’t eaten anything.
“So, the two things aren’t connected.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“For the publicity.” He says, still fencing with the air. “People are talking about me, I’m the man of the hour it seems. It would be churlish to ignore my public, don’t ya think honey?”
“You’ve got no interest in your journal? It’ll be worth some money, if it’s real.”
“Of course it’s real, silly. I wrote it with my own hand.”
“Don’t have to ask which one, do we?” Patton says with a smirk.
“The same one I used to choose flowers with, mutton head!” Wilson exclaims as his body stills. “It’s spirits like you who give the rest of us a bad name. No wonder they want us gone!”
“What are you talking about now?” Connie asks.
“The petition. There’s a meeting in the town hall any time now.”
“A meeting about what?” I ask. The man, the myth, the legend is full of crap.
“About banishing spirits, of course! The town has decided you’re a menace!”
“Hold on. That’s why you’re here! You’re distracting us!”
“Distracting you from your civic duty… would I do such a thing? Anyway, is that the time? Must dash! Got a hot date with a spook I used to know…” He sing-songs and, with that, he disappears.
“Ugh!” I cry. “That spirit infuriates me! He should be banished!”
“He’s probably making it up. Why would the town want to get rid of spirits?”
I think back to the way some locals have looked at me since they were given the ability to see the dead. I can believe that some would rather have things go back to how they were.
“If the town think the spirits are dangerous, they’ll want you gone.” Connie says. She’s alert now, eyes wide, posture straight. “Come on, we need to check it out.”
The Mystic Springs Town Hall is in darkness, the doors not just closed but locked.
Connie bangs on the heavy door until, finally, a tiny old woman answers.
“Yes?”
“Doris, let us in.” Connie says, pushing her way in. We follow, and I stick my tongue out to the old bat who watches me aghast.
In the hall itself, a small group of people are gathered around in a circle, not one of them a day under seventy-five.
The leader of the group appears to be a small, mole-like woman who holds a clipboard.
“All in favour -” She is in the middle of saying when she notices our group storming towards her.
“What the hell is happening here?” Connie asks.
“It’s a meeting.”
“A meeting about what?”
Mole-woman pushes her glasses up her nose and reads from the clipboard. “Meeting to discuss banishing spirits from Mystic Springs. We were just about to take the vote.”
I look around the group. It’s a gathering of the town’s most miserable people, that much is clear. And all of them are anti-spirits.
“I didn’t get an invitation.” Connie says.
“Oh, really, dear?” Mole-woman says. “The postal service isn’t what it used to be.”
“This is rubbish. You’ve clearly only told the people who will vote the way you want it to go.”
“That’s a very strong accusation to make.” Mole-woman says, but she’s a paper warrior, a letter writer, a complainer with perfect grammar. She isn’t built for face-to-face confrontation.
“You know that this is wrong. Adjourn the meeting until tomorrow. Give everyone a chance to come and vote.” Connie urges.
“Well, we’re already taking the vote…” The woman mumbles. Her group are silent. Any support she might have hoped for from them isn’t appearing.
“Sage, Patton, go and round up as many people as you can. Now!” Connie orders, and we’re on the move before she’s even finished.
“I suppose we should give them a few minutes.” One of the group says.
“I didn’t realise there’d been postal problems. I just thought nobody else cared.” Another says.
Mole-woman develops a nervous twitch.
Out in the street, we scream at whoever we see - spirits especially - that they need to get to the town hall urgently. I don’t know if you live in a small town, but here, people are desperate for a piece of gossip, so they immediately drop whatever they were in the middle of, and race across to the hall.
When we’ve sent around thirty spirits in that direction - all of whom we’re fairly confident won’t want to be banished - we decide it’s safe to head back to the hall ourselves. Mole-woman didn’t have that many in her circle.
“Why do you even want to banish the spirits?” Connie is asking when we float back into the Town Hall. We leave the doors wide open so more people can follow us in.
Mole-woman has dropped her clipboard and is in the corner of the room, whispering into a historic brick of a cell phone.
I rush to Connie’s side. The circle of mole-followers aren’t answering her. They seem stunned by the whole situation but I’m darn sure they’re drafting complaint letters in their heads to send after this is done.
“Think we got enough?” I ask her.
She does a quick head count, her own head bobbing with each person. She nods at me, and clears her throat.
“Can we get this meeting back in motion?” She calls across to mole-woman, who freezes, gives one final whisper into the cell phone and returns to her seat.
“This is a meeting to -” She begins, reading again from the clipboard.
“Why do you want to banish spirits?” Connie asks, her gaze focused on mole-woman. The right corner of mole-woman’s mouth is twitching so much I worry for a moment she might be having a stroke.
“It’s alright, dear, she always does that when she’s nervous.” An old man from the circle says to me with a wink after noticing the alarm on my face. I flutter my eyelashes at him, thinking a little attention from a hot spirit like me might help him vote in the right way.
“They’re a menace.” She says, her voice dancing with nerves. “A spirit killed poor Emelza Shabley.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mark my words, it’s a spirit!” She says, as if that’s that, case closed. The mole has spoken.
“Let’s just get to the vote, you can’t talk sense into some people.” I say, giving a conspiratorial wink to my new old man friend.
“All those in favour of banishing spirits from Mystic Springs, please raise your hand now.” Mole-woman warbles. She raises her own hand, surprise surprise.
In total, she has the support of four other people, all of them as ancient as her, and at least two of them appearing to be so deaf I’d hazard a guess they have no idea what they’re voting for. My man friend keeps his arm down. See, I’ve still got it.
“Ahem.” She says, carefully counting the votes and writing a large 5 on her paper. “And all those in favour of not banishing spirits from Mystic Springs, please raise your hand now.”
Forty-two hands go up, including the hand of one of the deaf men, who I’m now starting to think might imagine the arm-raising as some kind of geriatric aerobics class. He probably thinks he’s done the advanced version by raising his arm twice.
I keep a sharp eye on mole-woman as she counts the hands and scratches a shaky 42 into her paper.
“That’s that, then.” Connie says. “And make sure that in future, no meeting
s like this are called without everyone being informed. You know the rules.”
Mole-woman drains of colour at this direct a confrontation, and keeps her gaze straight ahead, pretending it isn’t happening.
“Meeting dismissed.” She says, and the group of old relics attempt to get up out of their seats.
“We did it!” I say with a grin, but Connie is serious.
“This is bad news, Sage.” Connie says. “We don’t want to lose public support.”
“Well, we obviously haven’t, we won.”
“This time we did.” She says, thoughtfully, as we leave the Town Hall.
“Excuse me!” A voice calls after us. We stop in our tracks, to see the old man I spoke to inside, walking after us. To my surprise, despite his age, he’s sprightly on his feet, and smartly dressed in a shirt, jacket and bow tie. He sports a neat, close-cropped white beard, and his face is so riddled with liver spots that he appears tanned.
“Thanks for your support in there.” I say with a smile.
“My pleasure. I was always going to vote that way.” He says with a charming smile. He holds out his hand, first to me, then to Connie, and bends slightly to kiss hers. “Finian Archbold. I wanted to say how spectacular you were in there.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Connie says, looking at me. I shrug.
“We couldn’t give up without a fight.” I say. I’m clearly going to have to handle the conversation.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. The spooks keep things interesting around here! I have a few at home, but then what would you expect, living in a castle!” He says with a laugh.
“Hold on.” I say. There’s only one castle nearby. “I know who you are now. You live at Mystic Castle?”
He nods.
“You had it built from your own design, didn’t you? I’m sure I read about it.”
He laughs. “I made some rudimentary drawings, the professionals took it from there.”
Mystic Castle sits on a bluff just outside the town, and the rumours I’ve heard say that the owner - Finian himself - lived in a motor home on site throughout the decade it took to build.
“It looks amazing.” Connie says. She’s always loved castles.