by Debi Matlack
“Poppy?”
He shook his head and bowed it to lean against our linked hands. I felt him shake with suppressed emotion and I gave up, letting the tears flow freely. It was a long time before either of us opened our eyes.
When I finally got myself under control and wiped my face, I saw Mike’s gaze was focused above my eyes.
“What?” My voice was rough with crying. I reached up and my fingers found bandaging. With my head actively caving in, I wasn’t surprised.
“Your hair.”
Even though I love him, he’s damned irritating. “Spit it out, Michael. What about my hair?”
“It’s gone.”
Poppy was dead, I had tried to be, and all he do could do was fixate on my hair, or the lack thereof. I’d mourn the loss of my crowning glory later. “Bigger fish to fry here, dude.”
The curtain around the other bed billowed and the old man was back. He glanced at my brother and circled his index finger near his temple in the universal sign for ‘whacko’.
“You’re not kidding.”
“Huh?”
I didn’t give Mike time to get going. “How long have I been here?”
He sat back in the chair. “Tomorrow is a week.”
“What about Poppy’s funeral?”
“Delayed.” He looked back at the door, as if someone were listening. “Maeve, it’s all a big murder investigation. They even said you were fighting with Poppy right before it happened and you hired someone to do it.”
“WHAT?!” My shout of protest made my head split a little further down the middle, but outrage gave me a flood of energy. “And I also paid someone with the copious amounts of money I don’t have lying around to smash in my skull too?” Anger burned through the pain. “That’s bullshit. Where’s the guy with the badge? I saw him a little while ago.”
“Detective Jenkins?”
“Whoever. Get his ass in here right now.”
Mike vanished and soon returned with the man in question, Dr. Balakrishnan trailing in their wake. The detective stopped by my bed and extended his hand. He was tall and lean, with dark hair and blue eyes that seemed to look through me. I guess that was a desirable trait for a cop. Good thing I wasn’t guilty.
“Scott Jenkins. We don’t have to do this right now.”
I shook his hand with a curt pressure. Anger supplanted grief for the time being. “Yes we do.” He took a step back and nodded. “So what’s this bullshit about me being a suspect?”
He gave me a professional nod and a quick smile that was reassuring. “Everyone is a suspect in a case like this.” Then he got serious. “But I’m going to play devil’s advocate so you understand why.”
I sighed, my headache settling into a steady throb in synch with my pulse. “Whatever.”
“Okay. Tell me what you remember about that day.”
It took a moment for me to gather my thoughts. “I had a job interview and I was trying to get ready. You can call the Michael’s store in Butler Plaza to confirm that.”
“We already have.”
“Poppy called me to come by the store, even though I told him I had someplace to be.”
“What store is that?”
“The Lucky Cat Shop, the junk store.” He nodded for me to continue. “So I stopped by.”
“Witnesses said you were arguing. Is that true?”
“What witnesses? We were alone in the shop.”
“People passing by on the street saw the two of you arguing. Is it true?”
“Yes.”
“So you were angry with your grandfather?”
I sighed audibly. “I was annoyed. We argue all the time. That day was no different. Ask Mike.” I jerked a thumb toward my brother.
He nodded in confirmation. “A day where they didn’t argue was a rare occasion. Not even Christmas could go by without some yelling.”
Jenkins nodded and turned his attention back to me. “Okay. What else?”
“He told me he wanted to give me the store, I told him I didn’t want it, that I’d sell it. He didn’t like that. I told him to give it to Mike,” I shot my brother a glare and he managed to look guilty, “and he said Mike didn’t want it.” And that’s where it stopped. I had no clue what happened after that. “Then I woke up here.”
He nodded. “Okay. Now I’ll tell you what we have. Your grandfather bludgeoned to death, you almost dead, an unknown assailant or assailants, unknown weapon, no prints except yours and—”
A memory fired, making me wince. A dark silhouette, holding out an item he’d picked up off the table by the door. “It was an antique hammer.” As I said the words, I could feel the damage to my skull throb, the shape and size of which I had no doubt was the exact dimensions of the rounded end of the hammer’s head.
“What?” Jenkins leaned close.
“An antique ball-peen hammer. I remember someone coming in, asking how much it was right before… I guess he hit me first.”
“So, it was a man?”
“Yes.”
“Only one?”
“That I recall.” I was cold all of a sudden, but just by my left shoulder. I tugged the blanket a little higher, turning my head as I did so and saw Poppy standing by the side of my bed. I sucked in a startled breath and he shook his head, putting his finger to his lips.
“Miss Kavanaugh, are you okay?” Jenkins leaned in close. No, I was most decidedly not okay. I was a low budget Haley Joel Osment, I could see dead people, and it was freaking me the fuck out. Poppy shook his head again and faded, as did the cold. That was not real. There is no way in hell that was real. No. Fucking. Way.
“That’s enough for today.” Dr. Balikrishnan herded them briskly to the exit like a border collie, then returned to my side, taking a quick glance at the monitors by my bed. “Are you okay?”
My heart was still doing handsprings in my chest but I nodded. “I’m just really tired.”
She patted my arm and made sure my call button was clipped where I could reach it before she turned for the door. “Okay. If you need anything, ring and someone will be right in.” She turned and left, her eyes straying for a second toward the corner where Poppy had been.
“What the hell is going on?” Meant as a rhetorical question, it had been addressed to the universe at large. I honestly didn’t expect a reply.
My feet got cold and Poppy appeared at the foot of the bed. He wore the same dungarees and work shirt he had the day he died, and most other days besides, but mercifully was unscathed by his death wound. My legs coiled involuntarily under my body, preparing myself for flight. I wouldn’t get far, but at least I was ready.
Maeve, I know this is hard for you.
“You have no idea.” I glanced to the door as a shadow passed below, then my eyes snapped back to the image of my grandfather. At least I thought it was. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
I am.
Poppy’s voice was almost as it had been in life. There was no weird echo, no sepulchral quality, just him, maybe a little softer than before. The main thing I noticed, with the eerie sharpness that accompanies fear, was that the sound of it didn’t bounce around the tiled room like everyone else’s voice had. All those metal and tile surfaces were great for keeping clean but as far as discouraging echoes, they sucked.
“What is happening to me? I thought I was dead, but now I’m not, and you’re supposed to be dead but there you are, and I see some weird old man over there—” I looked over as the curtain moved and there he was again. He raised a hand in greeting and, numb, I found myself returning the gesture. “No offense.” The man in the gown smiled and inclined his head graciously as the curtain fell back into place. I turned my attention back to my side of the room and nearly screamed. Poppy wasn’t at the foot of the bed, he was leaning over me.
“Don’t do that!” I whispered in terrified rage. “What’s wrong with me?” The question wasn’t necessarily directed at Poppy, but at myself, the universe in general. But as impossible as it was, I began
to recognize that Poppy really was there. He was dead but not.
Poppy leaned back, his lips pursed. Near as I can tell, the blow you took happened to hit you just right to turn on this stuff.
“This stuff, as you call it, is making me seriously question my sanity.”
Little girl, I saw spirits every single day of my life, so just settle down.
Oddly, Poppy’s declaration went a long way toward calming my unsettled nerves. And the shock of his revelation jolted me out of my panic. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” My voice only shook a little this time.
Okay, I now accepted this was Poppy, that he was dead and that I could still see and hear him. But honestly, what were my choices? Maybe I was dreaming, which I doubted because my dreams were vivid but never this rational, not that seeing ghosts was reasonable, in any way, shape or form. Another possibility was the trauma of my experience had caused me to experience a mental break. I had been accused of being insane on multiple occasions by my brother but I never took his allegations seriously because he was the crazy one. Who gives up a promising career as a race mechanic to open an auto parts store? Michael Sullivan Kavanaugh, that’s who. My third choice? I really was having a conversation with my week-dead grandfather and some weird old guy in a hospital gown. What did Sherlock Holmes always say? Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever was left, no matter how improbable, was the truth.
Would you have believed me? Poppy fixed me with a long look, piercing and sad.
And I knew he was right. As rebellious as I had been, I would have dismissed his revelation as pure horseshit and never given it a second thought. But still it stung. “You could have tried. It sure would have explained a lot of things.”
His lips contracted in a guilty grimace. All the times I’d heard him talking when I knew no one else was there, all the long stares through the store, out the window, down the street, he was seeing something or someone that nobody else could. And now I was stuck with that. Hooray, let the rejoicing commence. Not.
I wish I had now. Would have been nice to share with someone. I’m sorry, little girl.
I sighed. “Me too, old man. Me too.”
Chapter 3
Over the next few days I became acquainted with the invisible-to-everyone-but-me residents of the hospital and gained greater understanding of what passed for rules governing spirits. Some of the people who had died at the hospital were confused, as they probably had been in life and didn’t know they were dead. One of these was a young woman looking for her baby, unaware that she had died in childbirth decades before. Some were nothing more than a memory recorded in that place, a psychic stamp so to speak, like the nurse who patrolled the halls and rooms, wearing a starched cap and white dress uniform that hadn’t been in use since the Forties. Some were like Poppy, attached to people, rather than places like my spectral roommate. Poppy was attached to me. It wasn’t all that much different than it had been when he was alive, except now when I talked to him I needed to remember no one else could hear him. I had to be careful or sound like a nutbucket to the casual observer.
Some of the spirits, once they knew I could see them, started coming to me, excited that one of the living could still see and speak to them. Some wanted me to pass along messages but Poppy shooed them away. Can’t spend your life trying to do for them something they could do themselves if they just tried. Damned annoying ghosts…
It didn’t occur to him that he was the ultimate annoying ghost as far as I was concerned. Don’t get me wrong, I love him, always have and always will. But he and I butt heads over almost everything, always have, always will. And that’s just how it is. Poppy was helpful, in his way, explaining some things and watching over me, but I felt guilty. Maybe I was holding him back somehow.
“Why don’t you go and do whatever it is dead people are supposed to do, go into the light, cross over, whatever it is?”
You ready to be shed of me? There was a smile in his voice.
“Well, yes and no. I want you to be where you’re supposed to be. Isn’t Granny waiting or something?”
He wavered and grew wistful at the mention of my grandmother. She knows I have things to do here. She loves you and wants you to be ready to handle this. A rare smile ghosted over his face and he faded, then grew strength again. She was so patient with me when I told her about what I could see and do. I wish she had been around for you more, you were just getting to be of an age where we could have told you about it and maybe help you understand.
“Granny knew?” I was thirteen when she died. I loved that woman with all my heart and soul and, in the grip of grief and without her gentle presence to balance to Poppy’s strict ideas, I went from a pretty good kid to a royal pain in the ass almost overnight. I’m pretty sure Poppy didn’t know half the stuff I’d done that Mike had covered for me. And there’s a ton of stuff even my brother wasn’t privy to, a fact for which I am still profoundly grateful. It’s a pure damn miracle I survived into adulthood.
Of course she knew. Could you keep something like this from someone you loved?
I snorted. “I think that this has just condemned me to a life of spinsterhood. I can’t imagine anybody wanting to be around me, always spooking at faces in the shadows, hearing people that aren’t there.” I was doomed.
You’ll learn to filter it, little girl. Have a little faith in your strength. You always do that, doubt everything I say and doubt yourself. He leaned close and seemed solid enough that I felt I could touch him, except for the bone-deep cold that radiated from him. I would never lie to you. I never have.
I fixed him with a long stare. “You never told me about this.”
He retreated an inch. I omitted the truth. I never lied about it.
“Same thing.”
No it’s not!
I glared at him, just as I had done at least once a day, most every day of my life. He sighed and shook his head, sunlight from the window passing through him to warm my skin he’d left cold.
You never showed any sign of being able to see spirits or anything else so we figured it passed you by. When your granny died I wondered if you’d see her, but you never did, so I kept my mouth shut.
“I did see her.”
His stare was disconcerting, especially coming from a ghost. When?
“Right after the funeral. I found you sitting on your bedroom floor, crying your eyes out. I started to back out and leave you alone, because you never wanted anyone to see you like that, you know, vulnerable. But then I saw Granny standing over you. She wanted to touch you, tell you it was okay. But you weren’t looking or listening. She motioned for me to come closer. That’s when I sat next to you and held your hand.” We’d sat on the floor in the corner beside the chest of drawers the rest of the afternoon, as the scent of Granny’s White Shoulders perfume still lingered. It was the last really tender moment we’d shared.
Poppy’s gaze was distant as he bit his lips. I’ll be damned…
I chuckled despite myself. “I hope not.”
He looked up, his eyes wide for a second, then shook his head with a smile and faded, leaving me to the quiet room.
The next day Dr. Balikrishnan declared me recovered enough to be discharged. I was not, however, allowed to be on my own, so I was bundled off to stay with Mike and Karen and their two kids. I wasn’t sure how much recovering I was going to get done with a nine and a six year old around, but they were surprisingly good kids.
Christopher was fascinated by the horseshoe-shaped scar on the back of my head, clearly visible through the stubble left there after whatever emergency surgery they’d done. For some reason they left most of the sides and top of my hair alone and I looked like a Barbie doll that some little kid had taken scissors to. So the first thing I did once I got settled in was find Mike’s clippers. Karen caught me in the bathroom, a pile of dark wavy hair accumulating in the sink. Paused in mid-shearing, I stared at her while the clippers still ran, feeling guilty about the mess. “I’ll clean it up when I’m
done.”
With a sigh, she shook her head and held out her hand. “Give them to me.”
I complied meekly and she surprised me by putting down the toilet lid and sitting me on it. “You’re making a mess of it.” The clippers skimmed over my head in long, even strokes and in a matter of minutes it was done.
“Now it can all grow in together.” She stood me up again and handed me a small mirror. By standing with my back to the vanity, I could use the hand mirror to see the back of my head in the door of the medicine cabinet. The scar was still red and angry-looking, but was calming down now that the hospital had removed the sutures. It still itched and I touched it gingerly.
“Leave it alone.” Karen rolled her eyes. “You’re as bad as the kids with a Band-Aid.”
I ignored her, familiarizing myself with the new contours. “I just hope when my hair grows back it doesn’t have some funny cowlick there or something.” A gentle touch followed mine across the scarring and stubble.
“I think it’ll be fine. They did a pretty good job of making it smooth.” The skull underneath felt odd, a mild undulation under my fingertips, and the skin over it was numb. I faced the big mirror now, Karen beside me. “Your black eyes are a lot better but you lost a lot of weight.” The bruising on my face had faded to a sickly yellow and the swelling was gone. My eyes appeared huge and dark, even though they tend more toward a muddy hazel grey-green. I looked closer and saw golden flecks in the iris I’d never noticed before. Not unusual, I wasn’t one to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror. For the most part, if I was clean and dressed, it was good enough for me. I looked like one of those pathetic Margaret Keane Big Eye paintings from the sixties, or some third world refugee child. Karen snickered with her own assessment. “You look like a terminally ill Sinead O’Connor.”