Demon on a Distant Shore

by Linda Welch

  “You have to be real close to a person?”

  She briefly shook her head. “An aura radiates outward. I can be as far away as, oh, three or four feet.”

  “Should we do this tomorrow?” Royal asked.

  “Get in the car!” I called, and ran the last few yards, my shoes flipping gravel.

  Royal dived in the car and started the engine in a heartbeat. He leaned and popped open the passenger door as I got there. I fell in, slammed the door and the car peeled out of the car park.

  “Is that your idea of a workout?” Carrie said from the backseat.

  Drat. She could go where she wanted.

  How come? But did there have to be a reason? I once thought all shades followed the same rules, but Lindy Marchant leaving her place of death to find me destroyed that notion. I had discovered that as in life, shades were individuals in death, with their own quirks and abilities.

  She was electrocuted - did a powerful electrical charge do something to her spirit?

  Royal interrupted my musing. “So your new friend can travel beyond the place of her death.”

  Uh oh. I laid my hand on the back of his. “She kind of attaches herself to living people. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  No. So why did I feel responsible? And guilty. And apologetic. I peeked at his face in profile. “I’m glad you understand.”

  His voice came out flat. “I try.”

  Oof! He was annoyed. I imagined pulling in a deep breath, easing it out slowly so my voice did not come out tight. “Thank you.”

  He turned his hand to hold mine and gently pressed my fingers. It made my struggle with the alien concept of being reasonable worth the effort.

  Until I met Royal, I blamed my broken relationships on my interaction with shades, but they were an excuse. In truth, opening up to another person scared the daylights out of me. I would not risk my feelings if it meant they could shatter. What if I couldn’t pick up the pieces and put me back together again? So I told myself a relationship could never work while I had to lie about my ghostly friends and acquaintances, and either dumped the guy or contrived for him to dump me. But Royal already knew what I saw, what I did. I didn’t have to lie, or pretend to be other than what I am. I no longer had an excuse.

  Still, being with me and my unseen pals is a challenge for any sane person and I understand Royal’s point of view. My interaction with Jack and Mel bothers him most. We make a party of three from which he is excluded. I try to put myself in his position - how would I feel if he regularly talked to people I neither saw nor heard? I’m sure it would wear on me. He tolerates it for my sake, but I can’t blame him for not liking it. If he can do that, I should be able to respect his feelings and not get in a snit when he’s honest.

  Neat thatched cottages and tiny Norman churches line the road to Devizes. A white horse stands out on a steep grassy hill, not an actual horse, but where the turf of the hill has been cut away to make the shape of a giant horse from the chalk beneath.

  “The White Horse of Pewsey,” Carrie announced, pointing. Her reflection in the rearview mirror reminded me she couldn’t see herself. Odd.

  “The uneducated think the horses are ancient, but most were cut in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Of course the idea for them is ancient, and some are cut on top of horses far, far older. Which is rather a shame, isn’t it, that instead of preserving the originals, they were erased. Anyway, that horse was cut in 1937 over one cut in 1775. The horse at Bratton was cut in 1778 over what could have been the oldest in England, which is thought to have been cut to celebrate Alfred’s victory over the Danes in AD 878. But if that’s so, why wasn’t Alfred riding the thing? There again, it is near the site of a Celtic camp, and the Celts loved their horses, so perhaps it had nothing to do with Alfred.”

  “Interesting,” I murmured. “You’re very knowledgeable.”

  “Not really. I’ve read those little guide books in The Hart and Garter so often, I know every word. Oh yes, cutting turf on the chalk downs has always been popular, and not only horses. You should see the Cerne Giant in Dorset. We called him the Naughty Man of Cerne Abbas when we were kids.”

  “Why?” I asked reluctantly, resting chin on knuckles.

  She tittered. “Because he has an enormous thingy. You know what I mean. He’s associated with fertility rites. Barren women spent the night on his body in ages past, hoping the magic would make them able to bear children. They still do for all I know.”

  I bowed my head to hide a grin. Royal glanced at me. I smoothed my features and tried to look innocent. I’d tell him later.

  “I didn’t read about him in the guide books. I often saw him when I was a little girl. Aunty Gwenny lived in Dorset and we holidayed there every other year.” She gave a low chortle. “She was a right old biddy, but Mum said she was a looker in her day. Of course she didn’t tell me till I was a grown woman - that’s when you really get to know your parents, isn’t it, when they think you’re old enough to share their past. Gwenny had eleven children, all boys.” She tucked her chin in her neck. “Barry and me, we couldn’t have children and Barry refused to adopt. Still, it’s probably for the better, as it turned out.”

  She happily chattered on. I tried to concentrate on the scenery and tune her out. I couldn’t.

  “Handsome devil, your Royal.”

  I gazed through the windscreen.

  “Is he Italian? He has that look to him, except I’ve never seen an Italian who shines.”

  When I said nothing, she leaned nearer the back of my seat. “Never seen a person move so fast. Does he leap tall buildings in a single bound too? Well?”

  “Sorry, Carrie, the topic is not open for discussion.”

  “Why not?”

  Because I refused to discuss Royal. “Subject closed, Carrie.”

  “Humph! What’s the harm?”

  “Are we nearly there?” I asked Royal.

  “I was going to take a side road just ahead, see more of the countryside, but we can skip it.”

  “The scenery is lovely, but the company is beginning to get on my nerves.”

  “Typical of you Yanks. No manners,” came the grumpy retort from the back seat.

  Blessed silence. For half a second.

  “You know what they said when I was a girl? One Yank and they’re off. Get it? Though I think it came about long before my time. World War II, wasn’t it? You Yanks came over here with your chocolate and silk stockings. Poor old Tommy didn’t stand a chance. Came home tired and dirty to find his girlfriend in the arms of an American.”

  I had no idea what she meant.

  Devizes on a Sunday morning was quiet, which was not surprising with only pubs and hotels open and hardly any traffic.

  I’m not one for shopping or window-shopping, but although the quaint little stores didn’t attract me, the architecture did. And I immediately spotted the bakeries. I would not have minded popping in each one for a sample of their baked goods if they were open.

  When I picture a market place, I see a small square filled with colorful stalls, surrounded by buildings, but Devizes market place is huge. Rectangular, about the width of three broad avenues, there are two roads and a wide parking area down the middle. Royal parked there. I scooted from the car and slowly rotated. I felt dwarfed by the towering, official-looking old buildings, pubs, inns and grand hotels all around. Most of the structures were Georgian and Edwardian, big and stately, made of mellow, honey-colored stone or gray granite blocks. Others looked older with white walls dissected by black beams and tiny leaded glass windows.

  I felt like an intruder in the Sunday silence. A group of teens dawdled aimlessly on the opposite sidewalk, the guys noisily playing up to the girls, who tittered with inane laughter. Their voices echoed and I wanted to tell them shush.

  A peculiar structure sat dead center in the square, like a square room made of big stone blocks with intricate, connecting arches and spires on the roof. “What’s that?”


  “The market cross,” Carrie replied, although I’d asked Royal.

  “It doesn’t look like a cross. Why call it a cross if it’s not?”

  “I don’t know everything.”

  “And here I thought you did.”

  “Medieval market crosses,” Royal supplied, “were used to identify a market square in a market town. Some are stone, others wood and they come it all shapes and sizes. This one is plain compared to many.”

  We ambled along the sidewalk, making for an alley between red-bricked Lloyd’s Bank and the gray building next to it. “So they held their market at the cross?”

  “Still do,” Carrie said.

  “I think they still do,” from Royal. “The architecture is typical of this area. You should see Bath.”

  “Bath? I want to see Bath again. Can we go after you finish here? So much to see and do in Bath. We should visit the Roman Baths. Incredible. Oh wait, they won’t be open today. Or will they? I can’t remember. Never mind. I wonder if the restaurant will be. It’s very posh, with the waiters dressed in Regency costume. Why, there’s so much to see and do in Bath, one day’s not enough.”

  “Do you ever use your mouth for anything other than yakking?” I winced the second it came out my mouth. Stupid, Tiff!

  “What else can I do with it?”

  Something caught my eye and I blinked. Was that a chair up there, right on top of the roof of what could be a grand four-story house? A bench? Definitely a bench. How odd. Well, the Brits do have a reputation for eccentricity. I didn’t ask Carrie, although no doubt she knew why a bench sat atop a roof.

  Carrie’s voice whispered slightly behind me. “A market has been held here since it received its royal charter from Empress Matilda in 1141. People have been flogged, hanged and burned at the stake in the market place, though not lately.”

  We reached the alley paved in cobblestones. It was so narrow, I crossed it in four steps. The upper floors of tiny, sagging Tudor buildings jutted out so they almost met, making the alley shadowed and cool apart from a line of sunlight dribbling down the middle. We started off, looking for Number 13 The Hallows.

  “Coo-ey!”

  I put my hand on Royal’s arm. “Hang on a minute. I think we left our guest behind in the square.”

  “Can she not stay there?”

  “Good idea.”

  A whispering “Oi!” penetrated the silence loud enough to echo.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  I walked back to the square. Carrie stood in front of a small boutique. I risked raising my voice. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m stuck here, that’s what the matter is!”

  “Then you should have kept up. We won’t be long.”

  “You can’t leave me here!”

  “You’ll be fine. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll pick you up on the way back.”

  Her voice came faintly as I reentered The Hallows. “Don’t go anywhere? Ha bloody ha.”

  Cooper’s office was not far, in the biggest building in the alley between a small upscale boutique selling classy-looking clothes and a real-estate office. White plaster crumbled off the wall in places to reveal old brick beneath and dust adhered to the insides of the windows. Six small, dull brass plates beside the door bore the occupants’ names.

  Peter Cooper, Private Investigator.

  I kept watch while Royal used his lock picks on the door and it open with a creak. We eased inside a brick-floored hall and closed the door behind us. Royal relocked it, lest the local police checked doors on Sundays.

  Two offices occupied the ground floor and a sign to Peter Cooper, Private Investigator, pointed us up a narrow, uncarpeted staircase. Like the outside, the walls inside the building needed work. Marked with grubby smudges, dowdy blue wallpaper peeled away in thin strips. The paint on the staircase’s handrail had worn away to the wood beneath.

  We reached the first floor and were on a narrow landing. The board floors creaked and the place smelled musty. Cooper’s office was first on the right. The privacy window in the door didn’t let us see inside. Royal picked the lock.

  The paneled walls were painted white, perhaps to give the illusion of space to the small, cramped office. Two windows overlooking the street let in inadequate light. Disturbed by our entry, dust floated on air. The place had been ransacked.

  We couldn’t move in a straight line and not have to step over something. Drawers spilling papers and cardboard dividers jutted open in file cabinets. The drawers of the solitary desk had been pulled out and thrown down, the contents dumped on the floor. Telephone, desk blotter, pens and pencils, papers and folders lay all over the place, as if a hand swept them off the desk. Two upright chairs and an office chair were on their backs. Pictures and certificates had been torn from the walls. A small, worn rug crumpled in the middle of the office, and another in the corner of the room below a window. A dingy white microwave lay on the floor, the door torn off from the impact. A small fridge had been moved away from the wall. Packets of sugar, sweetener, instant coffee and creamer scattered the floor like confetti.

  Someone had done a thorough job of searching Peter Cooper’s office. They even moved the rugs.

  “Well,” Royal commented.

  “Well indeed.” I gnawed at my lower lip for a moment. “I wonder what Peter Cooper has that someone wants this badly.”

  “Trying to look through this would probably be a waste of time.”

  I nodded my agreement. Whatever they were after, either they found it or it was never here. We would likely never know.

  Sent to find recently discovered relative. Relative missing. Told to find Peter Cooper. Cooper’s office trashed. The mystery deepens, I thought melodramatically.

  We left Cooper’s office and walked back to the town square, footsteps echoing in the silent alley. Not another person was about now, though music and laughter from a nearby pub drifted on the air. Furiously tapping one foot on the pavement, Carrie waited outside the tiny shop.

  She started in on me. “You have no manners! You bring me here and leave me! If I - ”

  “You are an uninvited guest,” I responded as we walked past her. “You should know better than to hang back from the person to whom you attach yourself.”

  “I know, but I saw this.”

  Looking over my left shoulder, I slowed to see her gesture at the boutique’s plate-glass window. She dropped her hands, then clasped them to her chest as her bosom heaved.

  I joined her. We stood shoulder to shoulder looking in. “Saw what?”

  She stabbed a finger at the glass. “The dress, you idiot! I don’t half like it. It’s me.”

  I cocked my head on one side, considering. The soft, flowing bronze A-line would flatter her curves rather than make you feel they would knock you flat if you got too close, like her negligee. What a pity shades are stuck with the clothes in which they die.

  “It is you,” I agreed.

  “And you? Which one do you fancy?”

  I eyed a short-sleeved gray midi with a subtle sheen. I could wear it in Clarion on a hot summer day. “I’m a jeans and T-shirt gal.”

  “The gray, I can see you in it. You have the figure and those long legs. But you’d knock them dead in the mini.” She indicated a pale-blue wisp of material draping a bald-headed mannequin.

  I chortled. “It’s a dress? I thought it was a scarf!”

  Standing on the sidewalk, looking at me, Royal waited farther on. “Tiff? Are you coming?”

  “I liked to dress up when I wasn’t so … when I was just a teensy bit sleeker. You should have seen me when Barry and I went to Stockholm, I knocked them dead, those Swedish men. Have you been to Sweden? That was an eye-opener. I thought we were broadminded here in the UK, but we’re not that blatant! Their Red Light district - ”

  “Come on. Now,” I told her, and scurried to catch up with Royal.

  The small industrial park outside Devizes seemed deserted, with everything locked up for the weekend. Pegasus Va
n Lines was a blocky warehouse painted green inside a yard enclosed by a ten-foot chain-link fence. It looked like a big operation which provided traditional haulage as well as self-move rentals. Huge dirty-white shipping containers almost filled the yard. The double gates were padlocked. As well as rolling doors atop three loading bays, a sign identified a small entrance as the place to make inquiries. We drove by slowly and took a right down a side street. Royal parked at the curb.

  He nodded at the main street. “Three cameras focus on the yard, two on the loading bays, but none on the office entrance.”

  I didn’t spot any, but I trust Royal’s sight better than mine.

  He opened the car door. “I’m going to take a quick look. Back in a second.”

  A car parked on a side road in an otherwise deserted industrial park was conspicuous, so I took the driver’s seat lest someone came along. I reckoned I could circle around Pegasus on the wrong side of the road without hitting anything. A wind came out of nowhere. Dark clouds scudded from the north. A large sheet of shiny red paper slapped the windshield, making me start, then blew away.

  Royal got in the passenger seat. “No surveillance inside. I got the door open.”

  “You broke into yet another building? You naughty man. What am I going to do with you?” I gasped in mock alarm.

  “I like a man of many talents,” Carrie remarked suggestively.

  He twitched his eyebrows. “I do not know. What are you going to do with me?”

  “Guess you’ll have to wait and see,” I crooned.

  He leaned until his breath wafted my hair. “The best thing about sedans, even British models, is they have a back seat.”

  I flapped a hand at him. “Oh, tush! What a shame we’re on the clock.”

  I sidled from the car as he pretended to lunge at me. He got out with an exaggerated sigh.

  “I think you should point out the passenger seat is already taken,” Carrie said. “And while you’re at it, remember I have to watch you two salivating over each other.”

  “We didn’t invite you.”

  “I’m well aware of that, but a little common courtesy wouldn’t go amiss.”