by Mona Marple
“Do you need anything? Coffee perhaps? Water?”
“I usually have an item that belonged to the spirit. Clearly, you can’t do that, but can I have something that is dear to this place? The older, the better,” I said.
“I know just the thing,” Petunia said. She left the room and I watched Sage pace in front of the fireplace.
“Can you go and wait for me with Taylor? Explain the hold up?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Fine, whatever. I just thought you might want some protection from the dark force.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I reassured her, and she floated out of the room.
Petunia returned with something that resembled a bone.
I didn’t hold my hand out for it.
“What is it?”
“It’s a bone,” she confirmed. “We found it when we were digging the foundations for the place.”
“And you’ve kept it?”
“Shouldn’t I have? I didn’t know what to do. It seemed a little insensitive to just toss it out.”
“That’s a fair point. Okay, please leave me alone for this and close the door. Don’t come in until I’ve found you to say I’ve finished,” I said.
“Okay. You’ll be safe, won’t you? I couldn’t handle it on my conscience if you were killed right before your wedding!”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said with a thin smile.
Petunia left, and I clutched the bone in my hand and closed my eyes.
Usually, some degree of feeling would come to me as soon as I connected with the item. Often the feelings were whatever the owner of the item had felt most during their life, and occasionally the feeling was overwhelmingly dark and troubling.
The item mattered too. An everyday sock wouldn’t provide much emotional connection to the owner, but a prized possession or a favourite childhood toy would be much more powerful.
A bone? I had no idea what to expect from that.
I sat for several minutes, keeping my mind clear in the way I’d practiced for years. It was important not to seem too eager or I could scare the spirit away.
And yet. It was my wedding tomorrow. I might not be the typical bride who had spent months planning the day, but I was excited to stand up and take Taylor as my lawful, wedded husband.
I sighed, pushed the thoughts back out of my head, and focused on the bone.
Nothing at all happened.
“I am here to speak with you. I mean you no harm. Please reveal yourself,” I said.
Silence.
“I wish only to speak with you. People here are scared by your presence. If they could understand a little more, they may be more at ease.”
Footsteps overhead. The distant giggle of a child. My child.
My eyes popped open and I jumped up from the sofa. Carrying the bone in my hand, I walked from colourful room to colourful room.
The kitchen was a beautiful mix of Mediterranean colours, the dining room was large and purple, a library featured a wallpaper of fake bookcases, and an orangery was all glass and wicker chairs with green cushions.
But the ghost of Hawthorne Winery was hiding nowhere.
Upstairs, I stood outside each door and waited for something to happen, but nothing did.
Finally, I went back to the kitchen and out of the back door, and toured the grounds.
The vineyards featured row after row of grape-bearing vines, and a small building revealed itself to be a bar for tasting sessions.
The building was dark and empty, but unlocked.
With a deep breath, I pushed the door open and entered. The room was thick with the scent of wine, but there was a chill in the air that suggested it wasn’t used regularly.
I forced myself to reach the very middle of the room, then clutched the bone and closed my eyes.
“If you can hear me, show yourself. I mean you no harm,” I said.
A pinprick sensation took over me as soon as the spirit joined me, and I opened my eyes quickly.
“Show yourself,” I repeated.
There was nobody in front of me. I turned slowly, and right by the door, saw the owner of the bone.
He shook his tail and barked at me.
I let out a laugh and opened the door. The ghost dog took off and imitated having a wee, then ran off through the vines.
It was hard to believe that a spirit animal could be responsible for damaging clothes, but I’d heard of stranger things.
A person being so scared of him that she drove her car into a tree? That was harder to believe.
But I could say one thing with certainty - there was no other ghost residing at Hawthorne Winery.
4
Taylor cocked his head a little and tried to hide an infectious grin.
“What?” I asked.
“I just wondered if you’re Daphne or Velma,” my fiancé said with a smile.
“She’s Velma, of course. Her nose is always in a book,” Sage called. She was on the floor of our bedroom in the grand house, playing with the twins.
“And I guess you’re Daphne?”
“Well, she was the beautiful one,” Sage said.
“I’ll be Shaggy,” Taylor grinned.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“Well, you don’t have to be Sheriff to work out that we have a pretend ghost. I feel like I’m in a Scooby Doo episode,” Taylor explained.
I rolled my eyes. “It might not be a pretend ghost. The dog could have done it.”
“Made a traffic warden drive into a tree? I doubt it,” Taylor said.
I sighed. “I agree. But if it’s not the dog, there’s something more sinister going on. Someone scared that poor woman to death.”
“She could have just had an overactive imagination,” Sage said.
“What’s an overactive imabinator?” Scarlett asked.
“Oh, your mommy will explain when you’re older,” Sage said with a wink.
“I have an overactive alligator!” Axel exclaimed and dashed away to his little case on wheels to find it.
Sage glanced at me.
“It’s a cuddly one,” I explained.
Scarlett began to cry seemingly for no reason, as was a new habit of hers, and I scooted over and picked her up.
“Let’s get out of the room and explore, hey baby?” I soothed.
All of us - including Axel’s alligator - left the room and descended the stairs. There were voices coming from the sitting room and I glanced in as we passed.
“Oh, Connie! Come on in! Meet my girls. And my Sidney!” Petunia called to us.
She was sitting with three young women who each looked across at us.
A tall man with an impressive moustache hovered in the corner of the room and raised a hand in greeting. Sidney, I presumed.
“Guests, mother?” The eldest one asked. She was clearly older than her sisters, and she managed to look professional even as she sat there in jeans and a blouse. Her blond bob was cropped in line with her neck.
“This lady here is getting married tomorrow! I simply must show my girls off to you, Connie. This one is Tammy, my first born. Then we have Bess. Say hi, Bess.”
Bess, sporting a long flowing plait, looked up from a book she’d been reading and flashed me a warm smile.
“And then there’s baby Heidi,” Petunia gestured to the third daughter.
“I’m not baby Heidi, mom,” the girl said with a scowl, then turned her attention back to her mobile phone.
“Ignore her, she’ll be checking in online or something,” Petunia said with a smile.
“I’m actually checking my stats,” Heidi said, without looking up.
“Heidi’s an influencer,” Bess explained.
I didn’t quite know what to say to that, and it seemed that nobody else did either.
“What do you ladies think to the ghost?” Taylor asked from behind me.
Heidi’s attention was firmly back on her device, but Bess popped her bookmark in place and laid her book down.
<
br /> “What happened to Libby was awful,” she said, wide eyed and sincere.
Tammy snorted.
“Tammy!” Bess scolded.
“Well. You knew Libby,” Tammy said, as if that settled the matter.
“We all knew Libby, and her death was a tragic waste of a young life,” Petunia said.
Tammy made no argument.
“Have any of you seen anything suspicious?” I asked.
“Like what? Mum said you’d found a ghost dog hanging around. Do you think that’s who’s been haunting the place?” Bess asked.
“I’d be surprised if that little dog could have spooked someone enough to drive into a tree,” I said.
“Maybe Libby was a cat person,” Tammy muttered. Her phone rang and she jumped up from her seat to take the call.
Petunia raised an eyebrow and fussed Scarlett’s hair. “Enjoy them while they’re young. The problems get bigger as the kids do.”
“Hey!” Bess exclaimed.
“Even you, Elizabeth, have had your moments. Now, Connie, are you on your way out?”
“We were just going to have a wander. The twins need to run off some energy,” I explained.
“Well we have plenty of space here. Make yourselves at home. You’ll join us for dinner tonight?”
“Oh, sure, that would be great. Do we need to book a time?” I asked. I wasn’t sure of the protocol we should follow as the winery’s only party of guests.
“Just let us know when you’re ready. I’m guessing it won’t be late for you, with the little ones,” Petunia said.
I thanked her and we set off.
Up ahead, I saw the shaky outline of a ghost and wondered for a moment whether we’d stumbled upon the ghost of Hawthorne Winery.
“Patton!” Sage called to the former Sheriff as we approached. He spun around and flashed us his winning smile.
“Wowee, Sheriff Morton, you sure know how to choose a wedding venue,” Patton said.
Taylor laughed. “I sure do. Here’s my hot tip - leave it to the bride-to-be.”
“Connie sure does have good taste in everything apart from men,” Patton teased.
Taylor pretended to elbow him and we all fell into a familiar pace, the twins running ahead and giving delighted squeals to be able to race around freely.
“How are the wedding jitters?” Patton asked me.
“Erm, should I have some?” I asked.
He shrugged. “No idea. I’ve never done the whole wedding thing.”
“There’s no need for nerves when you’re marrying the right person,” Taylor gazed at me as he spoke and my cheeks flushed.
“Those daughters are strange, don’t you think?” Sage asked as we continued walking.
“Strange? We’ve just met them!”
“But they’re so different from each other. It’s like they all come from different parents. It’s weird if you ask me,” Sage said.
“Really? Sisters who are different from each other? How bizarre,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“We’re not that different!”
Taylor and Patton eyed each other but wisely remained quiet.
“Well, I think it’s odd. And it’s obvious that Tammy disliked Libby.”
“Now there’s something we can agree on. There was no love lost between those two, huh,” I said.
“What’s going on?” Patton asked.
“Oh, you know Connie. She can’t even get ready for her own wedding without stumbling across an unsolved murder,” Sage said.
“Murder?” I asked.
“It is looking that way,” Taylor said.
I shook my head and took my fiancé’s hand in mine. “Well, if it is, it’s going to have to be solved before tomorrow evening. Because, for once in my life, I have better social plans than my sister, and I certainly won’t be cancelling them!”
5
Sage
Here’s the thing.
Weddings are dull. Impossibly dull.
I now feel incredibly sorry for Connie having to put up with me as I planned my own wedding. She must have been silently wishing for me to get hit by a truck just to stop the boredom.
True, I was an incredibly beautiful bride, so seeing me in dozens of dresses was probably quite a treat for her. But still. Even I can only make a dress show so interesting.
Please don’t think I’m being harsh. I’m sure you’ve been to weddings before, and I’m sure you were counting down the hours until you could start on the alcohol as a way of dulling the pain.
True, I’ve only had to put up with a couple of weeks of Connie in wedding mode, and her wedding mode is really quite low-key. But it’s enough.
I’ve had to escape for a bit of time alone with the hunky man in my life, and no it isn’t my husband. One lifetime with him was quite enough, thank you very much.
Thankfully he agreed (Lord knows how, because I am quite frankly impossible to get enough of!), and we’re spending our afterlives separately.
Which nicely makes room for Patton Davey, former Sheriff and hottest bachelor without a pulse in Mystic Springs.
Oh, yes, I could drink me a nice cold glass of him.
And since we spirits can’t eat, we take the chance to slip away while our living relatives are having dinner.
We sneak into the library, which Connie would not believe. Me and books? We’re not that closely acquainted.
But me and a certain man? Very closely acquainted, indeed.
Curled up in the corner of the room, I listen to Patton tell me again how great he thinks I am. You’d think it would get old, but it really doesn’t.
“We should get married too,” he says.
I splutter in response.
“I’m serious,” he insists.
“I know you are. Who wouldn’t want to marry me? But I’m already married, you know that.”
“A ceremony, then. Some kind of commitment ceremony. We could write our own vows.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t think we should be stealing my sister’s thunder. A wedding is a big deal and she’s only going to get one. It’s obvious her and Taylor are going to do the whole ‘until death’ thing properly.”
“So did you,” Patton reminds me.
“Only because I died so young. I like to think I’d have had a whole series of husbands if I’d lived to old age,” I admitted with a giggle.
“Really?”
“Well, yes, but that was before I knew you.”
“Just give it some thought. I’m not suggesting we do it tomorrow and take the attention from Connie, but maybe in the future.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, but I didn’t mean it. I had daughters to consider. Grown-up daughters who lived halfway across the world in England. I couldn’t make such a big decision without speaking to Sandy and Coral.
We heard footsteps stomping down the hallway then, followed by the clomp of high heels.
“Daddy, please!” I recognised the voice of the influencer, Heidi.
“I’m not discussing this any more. And for goodness sake, keep your voice down. If you disturb the guests, your mother won’t be happy,” came Sidney’s voice.
“It’s not even much!” Heidi exclaimed. Her voice had that whiny pitch that seemed all too common among the YouTube generation.
“It isn’t about the amount, although I’d say that $5,000 isn’t spare change,” Sidney said. To our horror, he pushed open the library door and he and Heidi came in.
Luckily, Patton and I were already hidden in the corner of the room, and generally when people think a room is empty they won’t see the ghost hiding within.
“But all of my friends are going. How can I grow my audience if I’m not at the right events?” Heidi asked as she flounced into a chair. I peered across at her and could see the extensions connecting her fake hair to her head.
“Sweetie, you have to start supporting yourself. Your sisters were independent at your age,” Sidney said.
“That’s not
true! Tammy was supported all the way through her PhD!”
Sidney sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Education isn’t the same as a… a… what is this thing even called?”
“It’s a spiritual retreat. Eighteen days of silence. The instructors are the best of the best,” Heidi slipped back to a sales pitch, but Sidney wasn’t buying.
“How good does an instructor need to be to teach silence? Just stop talking, that’s all there is to it. There you go, will you pay me now?”
“You’re so out of touch, daddy! Why can’t you just trust that this is important to me?”
“If it’s important enough, you’ll find a way to pay for it yourself,” Sidney said.
“You never used to be like this! What happened to you encouraging me to go out there and find my passion?”
Sidney took a deep breath and walked across to the window. He gazed out over the vineyards.
“You’re older now,” he said, eventually.
“This is unbelievable. You are ruining my career, daddy! Do you realise that? All of those eyeballs are going to be following other people. The people who actually go to these events! Does that make you happy?”
“Of course it doesn’t. But, Heidi, you’re a strong young woman and you will find a way.”
“Like you did?” Heidi asked. She flinched as she did the words, as if even she realised she had crossed a line.
“Excuse me?”
“You only have the winery because some oldie died and left you her money! How can you lecture me on being independent when you’ve never had to be?”
“Heidi,” he warned as he turned back to her.
She jumped up from the seat and glared at him. “I’m done with you, daddy. All of this is going to be mine eventually anyway. Why should I have to wait?”
6
The desserts had just arrived when Sage floated into the dining room with Patton at her heels.
That ghost Sheriff followed her around like a lovesick puppy dog, which was no surprise. Men had been behaving like that with Sage all her life. Why should her death change anything?
“I need to talk to you,” Sage whispered as she crouched down beside me.