by Alexie Aaron
Burt passed her his phone. She groaned but took the device and glanced at it and did a double take. “This for real?”
“Seems so.”
“I wonder what she’s reading?” Mia said before passing the phone back and picking up her fork. “I assume you have a new case.” She moved their dessert in front of her and dug in.
“It’s not too far from here. You interested?”
Mia tried to look noncommittal. “Maybe.”
Burt leaned over and dabbed at the chocolate sauce that was decorating her chin. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
Mia giggled. “Am I going to get paid in real dollars, or Burt love dollars?”
He smiled. “What do you think?”
“Well in today’s market the love dollars are a good investment,” Mia said with a spoon in her mouth. “I want double Burt love dollars and a PEEPs hoodie.”
“We don’t have PEEPs hoodies.”
“Make it so.”
“I’ll get Ted on the project.” Burt reached his hand across the table and grabbed hers, asking, “Well?”
“Sure, why not?”
Burt smiled at Mia and watched her eat all of their dessert while he typed a response to Beth. Set it up.
Tomorrow too soon? Beth answered.
Mia and I will be there tomorrow. Set a time.
Will do. Mia’s coming? Beth asked.
Yep
Cool. Info to follow. Beth ended the text with We’re PEEPs we’re here to help.
Chapter Six
“You were gone rather a long time in your last - what are you and Mia calling it?” Bev asked.
“Sabine looked up from her breakfast sandwich and answered, “OOB, out of body, and I was home on time.”
“Just on time.” Bev wrinkled her nose as she lifted the English muffin and examined the placement of the contents. She rearranged them so the egg and cheese sat squarely in the middle. “I think that you too have named it wrong.”
“Why?”
Bev gave a sly grin before replying, “You two are doing basic out of body sauntering. So, in fact, you two are BOOBS!” She laughed heartily at her own joke.
Sabine winced. She didn’t like to be made fun of. And Bev, once she started pushing buttons, she didn’t stop. She had been known to tease Sabine into a frenzy of insecurity. “You’re just jealous.”
“Of what?”
“Our youth, our emerging powers, and our hair,” Sabine fired back.
“How shallow of you, my dear. And no, not jealous, just concerned. You in particular should be doing more than sauntering around town half naked sitting in cold theaters listening to B actors rehearse. Why not join them in the flesh? Paint scenery, do something social.”
“These are professionals and not kids putting on a show in a barn.”
“Okay, I apologize to the professionals.” Bev took a bite of her sandwich, and even though she claimed foodie status, she loved what she was eating. “The point I am trying to make is that you need to get out of this apartment in your corporal form and meet other young people. Take a class. I could call Bernard at the Field Museum and…”
“Stop!” Sabine put her hands to her face.
“Are you pretending to be invisible? I can still see you.”
She moved them to her ears.
Bev smiled wickedly and directed thoughts into Sabine’s head, “Try again. Oh, and if you put your hands now on your mouth, we will have all of the three monkeys.”
Sabine’s eyes opened in surprise, and she started laughing. Bev joined her.
“Mia’s going on a ghost investigation,” Bev volunteered. “She is venturing outside of her comfort zone.”
“Burt’s with her, I assume.”
“Yes, but you know she’s scared to leave her island.”
“No, Bev, she’s not afraid, just inconvenienced. It’s a peninsula and not an island. And you know as well as I, how many of the dead are walking out there. The noise is extraordinary. She hasn’t learned to be rude and ignore them like you have.”
“Rude! Do you know how many lost souls approach me in an hour if I appear receptive?” Bev thought a moment. “I see what you are saying. She will learn in time.”
“None of us can drive,” Sabine pointed out.
“She drives that truck around.”
“But just in her neck of the woods. I can’t drive, not knowing who is solid and who is spirit. And I’ve never seen you drive.”
“Oh I can drive. I just have too many DUIs.”
Sabine was shocked. Her mouth kept opening and closing like a fish.
“Dear, I was only joking! Don’t look so shocked. Alcohol is nice, but I’d never drink and OOB!” Bev started laughing again.
Sabine calmed down, realizing she’d been had again. She colored slightly and said, “People who drink and drive are menaces.”
Bev nodded and the two moved on to other subjects.
~
George had been drinking again. He had exhausted Mark’s liquor cabinet supply and moved on to Susan’s cooking sherries. In the minute moments of sobriety, he realized his life was shattered. His marriage was done with, his house haunted, and his beloved car ruined. He wasn’t sure which bothered him more, probably the car. He loved that car. His little brother Mark had no sympathy for him. George knew he should have insisted on staying with his father. He may yet leave Marjorie and the boys here and head over to Dad’s place. That is, after he could find a set of keys. They all had disappeared off of the key rack and the insides of Susan’s and Marjorie’s purses. He even went into the hall closet looking through the pockets of the coats hanging in there. He did find a dozen or so movie ticket stubs, eight fuzzy mints, and thirty-five cents.
“Ahem,” Mark cleared his voice to get George’s attention. “About time you got cleaned up. The investigators are expected at your house in thirty minutes.”
“I’m not going.”
“What the hell do you mean you aren’t going?”
“I’m not stepping a foot inside that house until that thing is gone!” George bellowed.
“Shush, you’ll wake the boys,” Marjorie’s voice preceded her into the kitchen where George had chosen to hide out. “And yes you are going. It’s your relative and you have to deal with her.”
“Let Mark handle it. I’ll give you a proxy.” George fumbled for a pen in his day old suit jacket.
“No, I think that you have to be there,” Mark said. “I think Grandma Hofmann has a problem with you and not me. It wasn’t my house she trashed. It wasn’t my bowling trophies she broke, and I didn’t disturb her rest.”
“You know that is hog wash!” George insisted. “Stories told to influence you and me not to horseplay in the house.”
“You can stand there in pee-soaked pants and tell me what happened in your home is hogwash?”
George felt sobriety coming on, and Mark made too much sense. He looked at Marjorie, and from her expression he wasn’t going to get any sympathy from that quarter. “Susan’s coming along. Who is going to watch the kids?”
A doorbell sounded right on cue. George heard Susan welcome her sister Amy into the house.
“Susan has that all covered. Now go upstairs get under a shower and put on some fresh clothes,” Marjorie ordered.
He didn’t move.
“Make him,” Marjorie instructed Mark. “He’s your brother.”
Mark walked over and grabbed his brother’s arm and led the sobering man reluctantly upstairs.
Marjorie turned away to fight the tears and fixed her gaze on the pyramid of paper, coin and mints on the counter. “The man has lost his mind.”
~
Burt parked the SUV in the street across from the Hofmann residence. “To my eyes it looks like a brand new house,” he said to Mia.
“Expensive too. I don’t see anyone hanging around.” Mia craned her head and opened the window to see clearer. “Over there on the corner are four old guys. They appear to be singing, wait,
they are crooning. I can’t quite make out the words.”
Burt marveled at Mia. Her gift as a sensitive was amazing. True, it had made her former years hell, but he would help her, if she’d let him, to be able to function and maybe appreciate the gift she had been born with.
“Where’s Mike?”
“Can’t get here in time. He’s still in Iowa.”
“I betcha I know what he is doing.”
“You would be right. I hope he starts thinking with the contents of his cranium soon.”
“Clever way of saying he’s thinking with his dick.”
“Mia Cooper! Where is my bar of soap?” Burt teased. That reminded him of their shower play yesterday and he blushed.
Mia blushed too. She didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what he was thinking. She leaned over and kissed Burt gently. “You are one of a kind, Mr. Hicks. Don’t worry, I will use my company manners.”
“I wasn’t worried baby.” He kissed her back. The noise of an approaching vehicle stopped him from really enjoying where Mia’s hand had wandered. He grabbed it in his and said as they watched two cars park in the driveway, “Show time.”
~
Mark pulled his Ford alongside Marjorie’s KIA and parked. His brother sat rigid in the passenger seat. His eyes were on the garage door. Mark opened the windows and grabbed the keys before getting out. He didn’t want to cause a scene pulling his brother out of the car. He would leave him there until the investigators needed something from him. Susan rode with Marjorie. He was amazed how his sister-in-law rallied. She appeared ready for a fight.
He closed his car door and walked over to open Susan’s. She got out a bit slower than normal but it was understandable. Marjorie popped out of the driver’s side.
“Remember your keys,” Mark said and nodded over at George in his car.
“One ahead of you.” She flashed her keys at Mark before stuffing them down her top. “He hasn’t been here in months,” she said snidely.
They heard two car doors open and close. The brave trio watched as the PEEPs investigators walked across the street.
A man and woman walked confidently towards them. The man was stocky and had a pleasant face. His partner was tiny, and her face was hidden behind large sunglasses and a ball cap tugged low on her brow.
The man reached out his hand. “Burk Hicks, cofounder of Paranormal Entity Exposure Partners. This is Mia Cooper who is consulting on this case.”
“Mark Hofmann, my wife Susan, my sister-in-law Marjorie, and my brother George is in the car. He’s had a bad time of it,” Mark explained.
Mia walked over to the passenger side door and stared at George through the window. “Whatcha doing?”
George ignored her.
Mia could see a death pale had started to outline his features but this could be reversed. He didn’t seem possessed which was good. Mia had had enough of possessed people trying to kill her. She looked over at the group and said, “Best to leave this one outside for a bit.” She smacked the top of the car hard, and George jumped. “Good to see you’re still kicking,” she said softly to George before leaving to join the others.
Marjorie handed her keys to Mark, and he opened the door. He turned back to the investigators and asked, “Do you want to go in first?”
Burt smiled. “Maybe if you feel comfortable enough, Mrs. Hofmann,” he said to Marjorie, “you could take me and Mia through the events of the other night.”
“Sure.”
“Would you feel better if Mark or Susan came with us?” Mia said taking off her sunglasses exposing the most beautiful, soft green eyes. They somehow comforted the woman and she shook her head. “How about I hold your hand?” Mia reached out and Marjorie took it before entering the house.
As the woman took them through her version of the event, Burt and Mia looked at the devastation and sensed an extreme anger building. Mia glanced at the rocker which presently was empty. Burt was happy he listened to Mia and wore his boots as broken shards and pebbles of glass were everywhere.
Mia pulled out a set of leather gloves from her pocket and released Marjorie’s hand long enough to put them on. Burt donned a pair also and started to clear a path to the rocker. He looked at the e-reader on the seat and asked, “Is that yours?”
“Yes, I was reading it when George came home. You saw the photo Susan took.”
He nodded. “Would you mind picking it up?”
She did and turned it on. In a few minutes she was able to click the bookmark and return to her last page. “No, this isn’t correct.”
“I’m sorry, what’s not correct?”
“The bookmark’s changed. I was in chapter eleven when I left. It’s now on seventeen.”
Mia whistled at the idea that a spirit could manage to figure out, let alone maneuver an e-reader. “Must be some book.”
Marjorie turned red and answered, “A historical romance.”
Mia smiled at Marjorie trying to ease her angst. “Grandma approves your tastes.”
“Guess so. The battery is low. I better charge it.” She reached inside the basket by the rocker and pulled out a cord and attached the device to the outlet.
Burt was over at the trophy case and took in that there were still a few trophies untouched on the shelves. He picked up one and read Marjorie Kleinsmith First Place Track and Field. He held it up and looked across the room at Mrs. Hofmann and asked, “Yours?”
“Yes,” she said approaching him slowly, working her way across the detritus of Grandma’s tantrum. She gazed at the standing trophies and pointed out, “They’re all mine. Georgie’s are gone.”
“Nope,” Mia said as she stooped to pick up a tiny bowler from the carpet. “They are in pieces all over the floor and…” Mia moved quickly to the sofa and pulled out a few marble bases, “furniture.”
Burt looked at Mia, and she to him. “I’d say that you shouldn’t feel threatened, Grandma seems to like you still.”
“She yelled at me!”
Burt flipped to his notes. “Beth has down that she said, ‘Wake up?’”
Marjorie grabbed Mia’s hand again. “Yes, but she said it like this. Wake. Wake… WAKE UP!”
Mia put a hand to Marjorie’s face to calm her. She wished she had Sabine’s quiet manner. “I know it seems like she is mad at you, but she doesn’t want to harm you. Like a parent scolding their child.”
“She slapped my boys!”
Mia didn’t know exactly what to do to calm this woman down. “All I can tell you right now is that she or whatever it is - let’s call it Grandma Hofmann - anyway, she doesn’t want to harm you. I know she shoved you. Spiritual entities have little control over corporal or real live people. Interacting with us is sometimes so difficult that some of their actions seem menacing but are actually meant to be comforting by the entity.” Mia looked over at Burt, and he smiled faintly and nodded for her to continue. “I’m not sure what caused Grandma to leave her chair, but I’m confident that the PEEPs team can sort it out for you and your family. Let’s continue with the tour of the house. The more data we have, the better we can assess what or how PEEPs can help you. Are you okay with continuing?”
Marjorie sniffed and cleared her voice a few times before she spoke, “I will do whatever I have to do to make things safe for me and my boys.” She dropped Mia’s hand, turned and started for the staircase.
Mia and Burt’s eyes locked a moment, worry passing between them, before following the woman up the stairs.
Chapter Seven
Sabine moved heedlessly along the crowded streets. Her conversation with Bev bothered her, and she needed to walk it off. That she chose to OOB instead of actually placing her feet to pavement was a bit of rebellion, but she left her ETA via text, and before the phone was placed on the table, Sabine was gone.
Her shadow picked her up in front of the rehearsal hall and stayed with her as she found a comfy place to hover as the finale of the musical was being tweaked.
She didn’t notice the
man who sat down next to her at first. It wasn’t until he placed a hand upon her arm. An alarm sounded in her head. “How can he be touching me?”
“Hello dear,” he said, not looking at her but at the stage. “What a wonderful production this is.”
“How, how can you be touching me?” she asked, her voice barely able to register in her own mind.
“I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, my dear. I can travel faster and farther than you can ever imagine.”
Sabine turned to study the man or rather his OOB form. He was tall and seemed to radiate a dark purple aura, but she suspected it was a film over the black that was this man’s soul. It didn’t go unnoticed by her that she couldn’t move the arm that he had his hand placed on. “Excuse me, but I have to leave.” Sabine waited and the man released her. She moved quickly through the doors of the theater and out into the street.
The man appeared in front of her, and Sabine took off in another direction, being careful to not lose her way. With every turn the man stood either to the right or left of her. She in her distress didn’t realize that he was herding her towards the river until she was stopped by the quick current of the water. You can’t OOB across water. She found that out the hard way.
Well she would just have to exert herself and move through the man. Sabine drew in as much power as she could and moved forward. He grew in stature and dropped the purple film. As his darkness washed over her and her powers faded, she made eye contact with another traveler. She managed a “Help me” before all went black.
~
The destruction of the nursery made no sense to Mia. It scared her. Marjorie too was horrified and taken aback.
“I got the boys out and didn’t look back,” she said, tears rolling down her face.
Burt walked in and pulled out something from his pocket. A new little device Ted and he had had some luck with in the past. He turned it on and moved around the room with it, stopping periodically, taking down readings.