by Rose Pressey
Chapter 16
Tammy and I were walking down the sidewalk toward the tavern now. I knew that it was time that I asked her to be a part of the séance. I could no longer put it off.
“So I was thinking,” I said.
“Oh, no. This is not going to be good, is it?” she said. “Every time you start a sentence like that, I know it’s bad. I’m not sure I want to hear it.”
“What makes you think I was going to ask something bad? Just because I said I was thinking?”
“Exactly. You always say that,” Tammy said.
“Oh, you’re just being dramatic.” I waved my hand.
What was I saying? She was right. I knew exactly what she meant. I was going to ask her something bad and yet I was trying to pretend like it wasn’t true. She would have her point proven when I asked her in a few seconds. I might as well admit that she was right. Usually she was.
“Well, go ahead and ask. I’m sure if it’s not bad then I will say yes. You want to ask me for a favor?” Tammy asked.
I released a deep breath. Maybe I should explain the situation first. “It’s about Roxanne, the woman who was at the library. The one April thought was creepy.”
“I’m listening,” Tammy said with a raised eyebrow.
“Anyway, she is looking into finding out about her friend Haley, like I told you.”
“Yes,” Tammy said skeptically.
“And Roxanne wants me to do a séance.” I rushed the words.
Tammy’s eyes widened just as I’d known they would. “And you said no, right?”
“I told her yes.” I scrunched my face, waiting for her loud reaction.
“What? Why would you say that?”
“Well, it’s just that when she looked at me with those sad eyes, I couldn’t tell her no. I mean, I would want to do the same thing if somebody had killed you.”
“Don’t even think about such thing,” Tammy said.
“I’m not. I’m just saying, I could understand how she felt. Anyway, I need someone to help with the séance and I was hoping it would be you.”
I was almost afraid to hear her answer. I tried to mimic the sad-eyed look that had worked on me. The silence started to worry me.
“Well? Say something,” I said.
Another few seconds passed with no words spoken.
“If I don’t do this, you’re just going to do it anyway, right?” Tammy asked.
“Yes, unfortunately, I am.”
“All right, well, I guess I’ll do it then. As long as you promise nothing bad is going to happen,” Tammy said.
“Of course nothing bad is going to happen,” I said, crossing my fingers where she couldn’t see.
“Did you just cross your fingers?” she asked.
I changed the subject. “We’ve gone through a séance before and everything was fine.”
“Define fine,” she said.
“We’re still alive.”
“When are we doing this?” she asked.
“Tonight right after the tour, okay?”
She sighed. “I’ll be ready. What exactly do you hope to discover?”
“We’re hoping that Haley will give us information about who did this to her,” I said.
“I hope that’s the case,” Tammy said.
We had arrived at the tavern now. Tammy opened the door and we stepped inside. A crowd had already gathered. A popular band was playing tonight so I’d known they would bring in quite a crowd. Tammy moved around the bar and grabbed my bag of flashlights.
“I hope tonight’s tour is better,” she said.
“Do you know if anyone bought tickets?”
“Let me check the book.” After pulling out the ledger, she shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Maybe some people will just show up at the last minute.”
“Most definitely,” Tammy said.
“Okay, I’m out of here. I’ll see you later.” I picked up the bag of flashlights and waved.
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Tammy said.
I headed out the tavern door and toward the graveyard. It had started to mist with rain. I kind of hoped that no one would show up tonight so that I could prepare for the séance. Plus, the rain was kind of a downer when it came to the tour. Sure, it set the spooky tone, but walking around in the rain wasn’t that much fun. I stood by the gate waiting for anyone to show up. The owl in the top of the tree hooted a greeting. He always watched out for me.
A gust of wind rushed across the graveyard. Branches swayed and leaves danced in the wind. Maybe a storm was headed this way. If so, then I’d definitely have to cancel the tour. The owl hooted again. I looked down the alleyway expecting to see people coming toward me. No one was there. Was he trying to warn me of a ghost?
“Well, well, well, look who it is.”
I turned around and spotted Mrs. Clatterbuck right behind me. She stood with her arms crossed in front of her. Her brown pocketbook dangled from her arm. She wore her usual attire of a brown skirt suit with a white blouse underneath. Her gray hair was styled like a football helmet tight to her head.
“Good evening, Mrs. Clatterbuck,” I said, sounding less than enthusiastic.
I was in no mood to debate with her tonight on who owned the cemetery and who should be here.
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t take that tone with me.”
“I’m not taking a tone with you,” I said.
“It certainly sounded as if you took a tone with me.” She smirked.
Okay, maybe I had taken a tone with her. Maybe if I apologized, she’d just let it drop.
“Sorry, Mrs. Clatterbuck,” I said.
“I don’t believe you’re sorry at all,” she said. “And I’m not surprised to see you here.”
She shouldn’t be surprised. I’d told her repeatedly I wasn’t going to stop coming around the cemetery. The sooner she got that through her head the better off we’d all be.
“What can I do for you tonight, Mrs. Clatterbuck?” I asked.
“Well, for one, you can get out of here, and for two, you can tell the ghost that you brought to get lost. This is my territory and I won’t stand for anyone else coming around traipsing around all the graves.”
“What other ghost?” I asked.
“The young one. She’s new to all of this and no doubt confused, but that’s no excuse for hanging around here.”
“The young one? What does she look like?” I asked.
“She had dark hair. I suppose she was about your age. Dressed in that casual attire like you. Blue jeans and a sweater.”
That sounded like the ghost from last night. Could she have come back here looking for me?
“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.
“She was here just a few minutes ago. I told her to leave,” Mrs. Clatterbuck said.
“Why did you do that?”
“Like you don’t know,” she quipped.
I sighed. “Maybe now she’ll never come back.”
“Well, I hope she doesn’t come back. Most people don’t listen to me though. I might have to get more forceful about this.”
“Forceful? You mean you can act worse than you do now?” I asked.
“Well, speak of the devil,” Mrs. Clatterbuck said, looking over my shoulder.
I spun around to find the ghost standing right there, just as she had been last time. Haley still wore the same clothing and had the same look on her face.
“Hello,” I said.
Maybe I could ask her questions now and not even have to have a séance. That would please me just fine. I didn’t like the idea of possibly calling forth demons or something. There was only one problem though—I thought Haley was still confused as to what was going on. Did she even know that she was dead?
“Tell her to leave,” Mrs. Clatterbuck said.
“I will do no such thing. I might ask you to leave though,” I said.
I was feeling a bit stressed and that was coming across as a tad bit sassy tonight.
<
br /> Mrs. Clatterbuck scowled. “You can’t talk to me that way.”
“I can and I just did,” I said.
“We’ll see about that.”
Uh-oh. Now I had made her mad. Or madder. What was she going to do to me? She turned around and marched away, disappearing into the night air when she got halfway across the cemetery. That wouldn’t be the last I saw of her.
Chapter 17
Turning my attention back to Haley, I said, “Do you remember me?”
Almost word for word she repeated the same thing as last time, as if she didn’t remember what she’d said the time before. How could she not remember talking to me? Was she stuck in some sort of time loop? If so, I had no idea how that worked.
Without saying anything different, she ran down the alley and I took off after her. I had no idea where she went when she turned the corner, but I would try to my best to find out and talk to her. I called out to her, but she didn’t turn around and acknowledge me. She just headed around the side of the building. When I reached the end of the sidewalk, I almost bumped right into someone.
“Whoa, I’m sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t see you there.”
The group stood in front of me, staring at me. It was the same people from the last tour. Was everyone in some sort of weird paranormal time loop?
“We came back for the raincheck,” he said.
“Oh, right,” I said, trying to look around him.
“Is it not a good time?” he asked.
“Oh, no, it’s fine. I was just looking for someone,” I said, trying again to peek over his shoulder to see if Haley was anywhere in sight.
She was nowhere around.
I had left the flashlights back at the cemetery or else I would have started the tour from right there on the sidewalk.
“We can walk back to the cemetery and start there,” I said.
At least it wasn’t raining at the moment, but it looked like it could start again at any second. Maybe we could get half of this tour done tonight. There was still no sign of Haley. I hoped she stayed away. I didn’t need the distraction right now.
I opened the graveyard’s gate and motioned for everyone to follow me inside. We only made it a few steps when I stopped in my tracks. The ghost of the woman I had just seen run away was now sitting on top of one of the tombstones. She was looking right at us.
“Is everything all right?” the guy asked.
Apparently, I was the only one who saw Haley. This was going to be awkward. Should I tell them or just pretend as if nothing was wrong? They expected to see a ghost, but probably not to have me tell them one was there.
“Oh, everything is fine,” I said, trying to sound calm.
“Good to know,” he said, sounding skeptical.
I motioned at one of the headstones that I believed was associated with one of the regular ghosts. “There’s reason to believe that Alfred is still roaming the graveyard.”
I was reciting the haunted stories, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off the ghost. She had moved away from the tombstone now and was headed over toward us. I knew I seemed distracted, but I couldn’t help it. Soon enough, I might have to tell everyone what was going on with the ghostly visitor. Haley stood right in front of me now. She waved her arms as if trying to get my attention. She already had my attention. What did she want? I had to stop talking. She was too distracting.
I moved to the left just a bit and continued. No one noticed her. Was I really the only one who could see her? I couldn’t believe this. I’d figured everyone would be able to see her. That was the way ghosts usually appeared—a ghostly mist that everyone saw or a shadow out of the corner of their eye. But this time she was fully formed like a regular living person and I was the only one seeing her.
“Excuse me, are you seriously going to continue talking to these people when I’m right here wanting to talk to you?” Haley placed her hands on her slender hips.
Oh, no. She was just like Mrs. Clatterbuck.
“Go away,” I whispered.
“Excuse me?” the guy next to me said.
Oh, no, now he thought I’d just told him to go away.
“I said no way.” I smiled.
Of course, ‘no way’ didn’t make sense either. There was no way I could answer Haley right now with the tour staring at me.
Haley’s friend would be excited though. I just had to get through the rest of this tour tonight and then maybe I could talk to Haley. I hoped to find out what she wanted and who had hit her.
She waved her arms wildly. “I’m right here waiting to talk to you. And you’re guiding these people around waiting for a ghost to appear when I’m right here.”
This was not going to work. I didn’t want to cancel on this group again tonight. I had already done that once and I refused to do it a second time. She would just have to be quiet.
Okay, that probably wasn’t going to happen. I would have to block her from my mind. If only I could tell her I would talk to her later. Maybe then she would be quiet. Though I supposed I could talk to her right now. I mean, that was what everyone was expecting. However, they would probably think I was just doing it for dramatic effect. It seemed like either way, I couldn’t win.
“Is everything all right?” one of the women asked.
“Yes, everything is fine. We’ll just continue right on over here,” I said, gesturing toward the side of the cemetery. “That large headstone there is for another ghost who supposedly roams the graveyard.”
I continued my stories even though the ghost was following us still.
“Have you really seen any other ghosts in the cemetery? Or are you just telling these people that because they want to hear something?” Haley asked.
She was kind of rude. Maybe I didn’t want to talk to her after all. I tried to block out her talking. She had moved closer now and was walking right beside me. I continued with my stories.
“You should add something to the story to make it a little scarier. Would you like for me to try to do something and scare these people? That would be a whole lot of fun. Hey, we could team up. We would make a perfect team.”
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. On the other side of the cemetery stood Mrs. Clatterbuck. I could just see myself teaming up with this ghost now and dealing with Mrs. Clatterbuck. Mrs. Clatterbuck would absolutely lose her mind if I did something like that. The group didn’t seem to notice Mrs. Clatterbuck either.
The ghost moved over to one of the men taking my tour. “He’s kind of cute. You think that’s his girlfriend?”
She ran her hand through his hair. He looked around and then turned his attention to me, as if I’d explain the weird sensation he’d just felt.
“Did you sense something just now?” he asked. “Was there a gust of wind?”
Everybody looked around and then up at the trees. There was no wind at the moment.
“I didn’t sense anything,” I said.
I glanced over at the ghost. She was laughing.
“That was fun. I really enjoyed this. Well, not being dead so much. That part of it is a bit of an inconvenience. I had some things that I needed to wrap up before this happened. You know, like in the next forty to fifty years. But it is what it is, right?”
Well, I was glad to see that she was taking this so well. That was a good sign, I supposed. And she was being a bit funny. Maybe she wouldn’t be so bad after all. I had to give her a chance, but right now she needed to let me finish the tour with no more distractions. I glared at her.
She shrugged. “What? I’m just having fun.”
Mrs. Clatterbuck had moved closer now too. It looked as if it was time for me to get out of here. I’d continue the tour around town and with any luck have no more distractions. Maybe another ghost would appear and scare Haley into shutting up. Just until I finished the tour of course.
“All right, if you all will follow me, we’ll head on over to the other places in town.” I motioned for everyone to follow me out of the graveya
rd.
“Where else are we going?” Haley asked as she practically skipped out of the graveyard.
As if I was really going to tell her. Sadly, it looked as if she was going to follow anyway, even if she had no clue where we were going. I stepped out of the graveyard and closed the little gate after everyone had exited. Mrs. Clatterbuck was now standing by the gate.
“And don’t come back,” she said as if she had just kicked me out of the graveyard. “And take your ghost friend too.”
It was really turning out to be one of those nights. And I’d thought things would go smoothly. Was I ever wrong.
“Follow me, everyone,” I said with a smile, trying to put on a brave face.
The group had no clue what was going on around them. I wished I had no clue. The group followed me down the alleyway. Haley walked behind the group as if making sure we didn’t get away from her. At least she was behaving for the moment.
Chapter 18
I decided to make the first stop at the tavern. As soon as we stepped inside Haley started her chatter.
“Well, what’s the deal with this place? You saw me standing outside with that other ghost who haunts this place. He’s not real talkative though and he wouldn’t tell me why he was here. If you’d like I can try to find out more info from him.”
She was talking a mile a minute. All the chatter in my ear was giving me a headache. Although her offer was tempting. If she could tell me more about the ghosts who haunted this place, I could add that to my tour. That would be fantastic. Maybe she would be an asset after all. I’d have to tell her to tone down the yammering. But right now, I had to focus on the group.
The tavern was crowded right now so I tried to make this stop as brief as possible. After all, that band was playing tonight and everyone was waiting for them to start.
“Okay, well, we’ll move on to the next location,” I said.
“Oh, where are we headed now?” Haley asked excitedly.