by Amy Boyles
A spot had surfaced in the middle of my chest. It wasn’t black, like I would have expected—because you know, this person probably gave me some sort of pestilence.
No, it wasn’t black at all.
It was gold.
It spread in thick lines and squiggly snaking vines all the way from my chest down to my stomach. It crawled up my arms and throat to my face.
When the fingers of gold jutted inside my mouth was always when I woke up.
Panting.
Doing my best to grab my breath.
Stupid, right? It wasn’t like it was real. No one could do that—turn someone into gold.
So anyway, that’s what had been going on with me. But I wasn’t about to share that with Mr. Nasty in the middle of a dark kitchen with the glow of the other side floating above his head.
“So what’s it gonna be?” I asked. “Are you going to continue hurting this family? Or will you go, willingly, to the light? Will you enter the place where you’re supposed to go? Please, don’t make me bring in the big guns. I have all kinds of ghost-busting traps I could use. I’m really not in the mood.”
The ghost’s eyes searched me. “Is my Wilma up there? Is she waiting for me?”
Oh no, who was Wilma? I mean, the chances of that were fifty-fifty. Wilma was either up there or down below. I didn’t want to lie to him.
“I hope so? Was she a good person?” I directed to him.
“Wonderful.”
A slow smile spread over my face. “Sure, she’s probably up there. Look and see.”
The spirit glanced timidly into the light. It only took a blink of a moment for his expression to change from sour to elated.
“Wilma,” he yelled. “Are you there?”
I crossed my fingers. Please let Wilma be up there, Big Guy. As soon as I thought it, the ghost smiled widely.
“It’s you, you’re there!”
Then, without even a goodbye, the spirit floated up into the halo of light, disappearing from view.
The portal to the other side closed, and the constellation of lights blinked out.
Alice flipped on the wall lights and huffed. “Why don’t they ever tell us to begin with what they’re afraid of? If he’d just said from the start that he was afraid no one would be waiting for him on the other side, we could have avoided all this.”
She pointed to the porcelain and pottery that lay crushed on the floor, the victims of our encounter with the ornery spirit.
I opened the cupboard beneath the sink, located a box of trash bags and whipped one out.
I gave my companions a weary smile. “Well, there’s no time like the present.”
Roan located a broom and dustpan. “Might I be of service, m’lady?”
I chuckled, feeling a blush rise on my cheeks at his obviously pointed attention. From the corner of my eye, I saw Alice’s eyebrows shoot to peaks.
Now the old ladies would really be talking about us. It would be all marriage proposals and babies from here on out.
But there was nothing I could do about it, so I waved away my insecurities and offered the trash bag for the first scoop of broken glass that Roan gathered.
“Thank you, good sir.”
Ruth plucked a broken plate from the floor. “Let’s get this place cleaned up. I’d hate for anyone to know there was a ghost here.”
I chuckled. “Yep, I’d hate that, too.”
Roan saw me home that night. We’d dropped Alice and Ruth off, and I was the last to be escorted to my house.
His old Mercedes G-Wagon slowed to a stop in front of my cottage. Roan sighed and pointed to the dust on his pants. “I’d come in, but I’m afraid of ruining your furniture. Plus”—he nodded toward the door—“I’m not sure if you have visitors. You know, the kind who like to pop in uninvited.”
I smiled at him. “Tell you what, I’ll ask anyone who shows up to leave ASAP. How’s that?”
A smile tugged on his lips. “You sure you don’t mind? I’m a mess.”
“I don’t mind, really.” The truth was, I thought if Roan was around to keep me company at night, my dreams wouldn’t plague me.
“What’s wrong?”
Boy, did he see through my ruse or what? “Nothing.” I smiled. “I’d just like the company.”
“For the record, I don’t have any freshly baked cinnamon rolls in the back seat.”
I chuckled. “I didn’t expect you to have any.”
It wasn’t a secret that Roan was literally the best baker in town, which may have run in his family since he owned the only bed-and-breakfast in Haunted Hollow, Alabama, one of the most haunted towns in the United States.
I nudged his shoulder. “Come on. I don’t have any tricks up my sleeve. Promise.”
Roan smiled widely. “All right, you talked me into it.” He wagged a finger at me. “But at the first sign that Susan or anybody else shows up, I’m out.”
I nuzzled his neck. “You sure about that?”
“Okay,” he murmured. “Maybe not.”
In a snap Roan pulled away, shot out of his door and jogged around the nose of the vehicle and opened my door. “After you.”
I whirled around and grinned. “Spoken like a true gentleman.”
We stepped inside, and I took a moment to sniff the air. It didn’t smell like ghosts, which sometimes put off a weird ozone-like aroma. It was similar to the scent that lingers in the air after a rain.
“Anybody here?”
The house was crazy quiet. I took a look around and, satisfied that we were alone, turned to Roan.
“Looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves.”
Roan wrapped his arms around my waist. “Finally. I couldn’t wait to get you all to myself, even though I am a mess.”
I thumbed toward the shower. “So, get cleaned up.”
He smiled. “Is that okay with you?”
I twirled my fingers in the short curls around his ear. “I don’t mind at all.”
He winced. “Easy, killer. Go gentle on my hair. I’m not trying to go prematurely bald.”
I rolled my eyes as I threaded my fingers through his thick hair. “Listen, I’m just lucky that you’re bending down far enough that I can reach your hair.”
Roan smirked. “If I bent any farther, I’d be kissing the floor, short stuff.”
“Nice way to remind me that I have a height disadvantage.”
Roan kissed my neck. “What you lack in height, you make up for in attitude.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “Well said. Now get in there and shower.”
Roan disappeared inside the bathroom. I had just slipped off my shoes when he appeared a moment later with a towel wrapped around his waist.
“What’s wrong?”
He pointed toward the door and shook his head in annoyance. “In there.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just go see.”
Oh, no. This did not sound good. I walked into the bathroom and peeked inside the shower.
There stood my friendly neighborhood ghost named Susan Whitby. The water was running, steam filling the room. She stood fully dressed in eighties attire of a yellow button-down, tight pants, huge bobbing red earrings and bright pink lipstick.
“Oh, I am so glad y’all are here. Totally gnarly to see you, Blissful. I’ve had such a day. Thank Roan for turning on the shower for me, will ya?”
I exhaled a deep shot of air. “What’s the rule, Karen? No bothering Roan, especially when he’s undressing.”
Karen’s eyes went wide. “Was I bothering him?” She shrugged. “Don’t have a cow, Blissful. It’s not like I saw anything.”
“Karen,” I said through gritted teeth.
She scoffed. “Fine. I’m going.” She winked at me. “Be sure to tell me what I’m missing.”
I waved to Karen and she vanished. By the time I reached the living room, Roan had put his clothes back on.
“What do you say,” he said, “we go to my place?”
After the night I’d
had, I was done with ghosts. At least for a good twelve hours.
I grabbed my purse. “Let me just pack a bag.”
Gary
The bouncer in the bar pointed to Gary, who, being down on his luck, as Gary had been for some time, wore his only suit—the one with the worn-out elbows. “Get out of here, you loser!”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” Gary argued. He wondered why the bouncer didn’t see that. All he’d been doing was talking to the blonde woman. How was Gary supposed to know she had a boyfriend, one who was a bouncer at the bar?
“You’ve been bothering women all night,” the bouncer, his biceps bulging, barked. “Five have already complained.”
Gary thought he was just being friendly, buying drinks for them. He wondered what the harm in that was.
Gary raised his hands. “Please don’t hit me. I’ll be good! I promise.”
But the big lug yanked him by the scruff of his neck and shoved Gary out of the bar.
Gary covered his head for protection. He prayed to God, begging that the bouncer wouldn’t tear out his hair. It was already thinning on top, and he didn’t need to lose any more of it.
“Watch the hair,” Gary shouted.
Before he could get in another word or worry more about his hair, the bouncer threw him off the steps and into the street.
Gary thrust out his hands. They shielded his face, but the skin on his palms took the blunt of the fall, burning across the asphalt.
Gary barely noticed when he stopped skidding forward because his hands stung so bad. They burned like fire. Cursing, he sat up and inspected the damage. Pebbles dug into his flesh, and scratches ran all the way to his wrists.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” Gary threatened.
“Yeah, mine too,” the bouncer shouted. “Come back in and you’ll get worse.”
Before Gary could come up with a satisfying retort, the bouncer entered the bar and the door banged shut behind him.
“Jerk,” he mumbled.
Gary pulled out his wallet and opened the soft, cracking leather. A twenty-dollar bill sat in the pocket, and not a dime more. If that bouncer hadn’t interfered, Gary figured he would have had one of those women eating out of his charming hands by midnight. Then he could’ve gotten her to at least pay for his breakfast the next day, before he moved on to the next town and the next lady.
He lifted his suit collar. “It doesn’t pay to be a ghost seer right now, does it?” he said to no one in particular.
Gary had been run out of the last town he traveled to. He liked telling people about the deceased family members that he claimed to see hovering around them. So what if he stretched the truth, lied a little?
Was that really worth sending out a storm of men, threatening him with pitchforks if they didn’t get their hard-earned money back?
Gary supposed that to them it was, even if it stank that most of his money had been stolen in the process.
He kicked a pebble. On to the next town, he thought.
He smoothed his hair and glanced into the sky. Stars blinked peacefully above.
“If only to burn bright like you,” he mused.
That’s when he saw it—a streak of fire so low he couldn’t help but follow it with his eyes.
The night was quiet. He had gotten a ride to the bar. The place was miles from nowhere, the road more dust than asphalt.
The thing in the sky—whatever it was—landed not far away, in a clump of pines just west of him.
He scanned the road. There were no cars coming to give him a ride. Gary figured he might as well try his luck and see if an asteroid could pay his way into a few nights at a motel.
He jogged through the trees until he saw the thing. A mound of yellow fire burned in a divot of grass.
As Gary approached, he noticed the fire died away, leaving a smoldering chunk of asteroid much smaller than he had originally hoped.
He’d be lucky to buy an ice cream cone from the sale of it. He swore and knelt down, fanning the chunk of rock so it would cool faster. Some asteroid was better than no asteroid, he supposed.
The fire cooled, and the block eventually turned black except for two sides of it—they glowed yellow.
“What do we have here? A piece of rock that’s rare, I hope.”
He waited a few more minutes until he figured it was safe to touch. Gary plucked the rock from the ground and found it solid, hard and weighty.
It hummed as if breathing. He dropped it, not having expected that.
“What are you?” he murmured.
He took the rock from the grass one more time. It was a nondescript piece of rock, dark but smooth. He had thought most asteroids had pocks covering them, but this was the exact opposite.
It felt like glass beneath his fingers, slick, and those sides still glowed yellow.
“Maybe you’ll be my lucky rock,” he said, cupping it in his hand. “Maybe you’ll make me rich.”
Gary pulled a blade of grass and gnashed it between his teeth. “What I wouldn’t give for you to make me rich.”
He dropped the rock into his pocket and walked back toward the road, humming to himself. He noticed the grass in his mouth suddenly felt heavy.
It also tasted bitter. Gary pulled it from his mouth and was about to throw it away when it shone under the lone lamp beside the road.
“Wait just a minute here.” He raised the blade to the light. “What in the world?”
The blade that Gary had sworn was green and bending when it went into his mouth was now yellow and hard.
“Yellow?”
He brought it back to his mouth and slowly sank his teeth into it. When he pulled the blade away, Gary saw that his teeth had left an indentation.
“What the…?” He dropped the blade onto the dusty road. It clanged on the asphalt and bounced out of sight. “Where did it go? Where is it?”
He fanned his fingers out. His hands still stung from when the bouncer had thrown him out the door, but Gary ignored it as he pawed at the rocks and grit that covered the road. He searched madly for the blade until finally…
“Gotcha!”
He snatched the shard off the ground and raised it into the light. “Could it be? Is it possible?”
The blade that had been green in the forest and soft, was now golden and hard. He turned it this way and that, mesmerized by the change. Every small fibrous line, every crease was beautifully stamped onto the surface.
The blade was now metal. It was warm under his touch, and when he pressed his fingernail into it, the metal dipped.
He had ideas, theories, but Gary would need to know for sure if any of them were correct. As luck would have it, right then a car rumbled up. Gary shot his hand out. The car slowed, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it.
The window hummed down. The man behind the wheel, older, no threat to Gary, said, “Where you headed?”
He fingered the blade and felt a smile of satisfaction cross his face. There were a thousand things he needed—new clothes, a shower, food. He hadn’t showered in days, and his clothes were nearly in tatters. For Gary, seeing fake ghosts didn’t pay squat.
But all that was about to change.
He had a new idea, one that would make him rich.
“Sir,” he said kindly, “I’m headed to the nearest town with a pawn shop or jeweler.”
“Get in,” the man said. “I’m headed just that way.”
So Gary did. Without another word he slid into the car, and the two men headed off into the night.
Blissful
I slept well that night, no dreams of weird cloaked figures. Apparently if I wanted to keep the bad dreams at bay, I had to spend the night at the inn. Maybe I could schedule more sleepovers at Roan’s. Not only was his bed comfortable, but the breakfast selection didn’t hurt, either.
Roan woke me up to breakfast in bed. I admit, I’m normally up early, but the late night with the ghost had kept me wound up for a while.
I wiped sleep from my ey
es and yawned. “Is that heaven on a plate?”
“Not quite.” Roan smiled. He was freshly showered and looked good enough to eat himself. His dark eyes twinkled with mischief as he placed the tray over my legs. “That,” he said pointedly, “is my famous stuffed French toast, filled with cream cheese, cinnamon and topped with peaches.”
I moaned just thinking of the symphony of flavors that would be hitting my tongue. “Oh my gosh, have I told you lately that I love you?”
He smirked. “Are you now quoting Rod Steward lyrics?”
I frowned. “If I wasn’t pinned beneath your duvet, I would throw a pillow at your head.”
“Better a pillow than your sassy attitude,” he teased.
“I like to think sass beats a pillow any day.”
Roan leaned over and brushed his lips against my mouth. I tasted the remnants of coffee on his lips, and it made my stomach rumble. “Someone’s hungry,” he murmured.
“I’m starving, actually.”
“Then I arrived just in time to save you from malnourishment.” Roan stretched out on the bed and gazed at me. “Is it okay if I watch you eat?”
I cut into the meal and laughed. “Are you being weird?”
“No, I just like to watch women with purple hair eat their meals.” He sighed dramatically. “It fills a void in me.”
I arched a brow. “And how many women with purple hair have you spied on?”
He walked his fingers over my shin. “If I say only you, does that make me a loser?”
“Never. You are never a loser.”
“Then only you.”
Our gazes locked and I smiled. Roan tickled my shin before inhaling deeply and fisting himself off the bed. “As much as I would love to stay here and puppy-dog eye you all day, I have guests that need attending. They must have their breakfast.”
My heart constricted at the thought of him leaving the room, but I was a tough cookie—I could handle it. “It’s fine. I’ll eat and then get out of your way.”
“You, my dear, may stay as long as you like.” He palmed his heart. “You bring sunshine to my day just being your killer little self.”