“A live ghost?”
“Just carry the lights,” Dempsey said, as Pettigrew steered his rumbling truck into the driveway.
Pettigrew had shaved for his acting debut, though his wardrobe of oily coveralls and flannel shirt would need a serious makeover. Still, the agent had insisted, and the supporting cast really didn’t matter. This was a Royce vehicle, and Dempsey could have band-aided the project with “High School Musical” castoffs and still come out with a winner.
Creativity is so much easier when the audience is guaranteed. Now I know why Hollywood loves remakes.
“Yo, Pettigrew,” Dempsey called. “Break a leg.”
Pettigrew, who was shuffling through pages of the script as he walked across the lawn, said, “What page is that on?”
“It’s an expression of good luck in the industry.”
“I get it. Sort of like ‘bust a gut.’”
“Or ‘cut a fart,’” Snake said with a moist, unpleasant snicker.
“Get in there,” Dempsey shouted at Snake, whipping him with a cable and driving him into the house.
Pettigrew glowered at the script as if it were written in Sanskrit. “When does this Royce guy come in? I don’t even see any lines for him.”
“That’s all improv. Veteran actors do it all the time.” Much to the annoyance of directors the world over.
Pettigrew flipped through a few pages. “And this part here, where it goes ‘Royce drifts in from the doorway.’ I got a chain in the truck if you need it. You know, to hook him from the ceiling.”
“Just leave the special effects to me,” Dempsey said. “Go on in and practice with Cindy. She’s in her bedroom.”
Pettigrew swallowed hard. “We’ll be alone?”
“Just you two lovebirds and an Ouija board.”
“We’re not lovebirds.”
“Come on, you know how these things go. Nothing gets tabloid coverage like an on-the-set romance.” Dempsey lowered his voice. “You don’t have to marry her or anything. These flings usually end when the next project comes along.”
“I’m going to marry Crystal Aldridge.”
Dempsey gave him a friendly slap on the back that was just a little too solid. “Sure, sure. Hometown sweetheart and all that. But Hollywood is three thousand miles from Parson’s Ford. In L.A., even the homeless are beautiful.”
“I ain’t sure I want to go through with this.”
A vehicle sped down the street, a sleek SUV with tinted windows. It was packed with teenagers. The driver honked and the kids shouted and waved. Dempsey grinned and waved back, and Pettigrew stuck up his hand as if giving an oath.
“Do it for the fans,” Dempsey said. “They need dreams. They need something larger-than-life to make their own lives meaningful.”
“Parson’s Ford was doing just fine before all this glitz and glam came in,” Pettigrew said. “We didn’t need no French accents or fancy coffee.”
“Do it for the money, then.”
“My truck’s already paid off and I got a down payment in on the International Harvester—”
“Do it for Royce.”
Pettigrew’s eyes glazed. “Royce.”
Dempsey smiled. “That’s what I thought. Come on.”
Dempsey took Pettigrew by the elbow and guided him into the house. They went past Snake setting up in the living room and ascended the stairs. Cindy’s room was the last on the left, which Dempsey had noted in the storyboards for the early scenes.
Party, lovebirds hold a séance, all hell breaks loose. Three acts and roll credits. Simple enough.
Cindy’s door was open. She was sitting on her bed, the pages of the script spread around her. The Ouija board was in front of her, and she was rolling the planchette around.
“You haven’t been summoning anything, have you?” Dempsey asked.
“I was just playing around,” she said, and then glanced at Pettigrew. “What’s with him? Is he on drugs?”
“He’s high on Royce.”
“Royce,” she said, her mouth going slack.
“Royce,” Pettigrew echoed.
“Royce,” Dempsey agreed. “You two run through the bedroom scenes and I’ll be back with the camera.”
“When do we kiss?” Cindy said.
“As soon as possible.”
“Royce,” Pettigrew said.
Chapter 25
Bone waited in the closet until Crystal and her mouthless mother were in the living room.
The Judge had been right. Two drops of squirrel-eye jelly in the special Halloween concoction had thrown the entire spell off kilter. Instead of granting Minerva Aldridge the power to shut down the portal at the most vulnerable time of year, the spell backfired and shut her up completely.
Best of all, Crystal thought Royce was the saboteur. The Judge had assured Bone the disappearance of Minerva’s mouth was only temporary, and that by November she’d be as loud and shrill as ever.
Of course, any spell Minerva uttered then would come far too late.
Bone moved over to the Orifice on the wall, which glistened with ill intent. “Psst,” she whispered, figuring the Judge was waiting for her to check in. “It’s Bone.”
The voice came faint and hollow. “Bone. It’s me.”
“Tim?“ She peered into the pulsing, dark morass but couldn’t see his face.
“Yeah.”
“Is the Judge there?”
“No, he gobbled some of those chocolate-covered coffee beans you smuggled through and went tearing off across the graveyard, howling at the moon.”
“You were supposed to save those for an emergency.”
“I call Armageddon an emergency.”
“Being a little melodramatic, aren’t we?”
“You should see the weird army of critters the Judge has assembled. Big, slimy tentacled things—”
“That would be the Lurken.”
“And these crawling dust bunnies with fangs.”
“The Underlings.”
“What about the one-horned stacks of cherry cheesecake?”
“Those would be the Spooge.”
“Spooge?”
“Leftover ectoplasm. Sort of like your soul was a big pimple and you squeezed it.”
“I’m too young for pimples.”
“Goodie for you. Where are all these creepy critters?”
“They’re milling around outside the cemetery gate. Waiting for marching orders.”
Bone listened to Crystal’s attempts to calm her mother. She didn’t have much time. “I need a little help here.”
“Want me to get the Judge?”
“No, I want you to cross over.”
There was a silence. She imagined Tim huddled near the crack in the mausoleum, peering at the miasma of the portal. Some girls had no problem taking advantage of a guy who had a crush on them. They figured they were doing the guy a favor, giving him a chance to feel useful and hopeful at the same time.
Plus, what girl didn’t love attention?
“I don’t know, Bone,” he whispered. “I’m scared.”
“Hey, coming back is a whole lot easier than getting over there in the first place. It’s sort of like being born, only without the icky fluids and diapers and a doctor’s thermometer up your butt.”
“How will I do it?”
Bone unrolled the little slip of paper she’d copied from Minerva Aldridge’s Big Book of Home Cooking. She flung a handful of crematory ash against the Orifice and recited the Fetching Spell:
“You’ve yet begun the journey’s end,
Become tomorrow’s oldest friend,
Too soon you left the skin you wore,
Come back and try it on once more.”
A moist slurping sound filled the room, and the desk lamp blinked. Tim’s face popped through the Orifice, covered with a gooey substance that resembled rubber cement. He was briefly pulled back, his open mouth trying to scream, but one more mighty lunge and plook—his head pierced the veil. He wriggled for a mom
ent but he was stuck. He gasped and laid still, his head protruding from Crystal’s bedroom wall like a trophy deer.
“Uh, now what?” he said.
Bone turned over the slip of paper that held the spell. The back of the paper was blank. Crystal had joked once that amateurs had no business messing around with folk magic. Bone figured Crystal was bragging. If Minerva could do it, anybody could do it.
Except Bone doubted Minerva would leave somebody hung up between the real world and Darkmeet. Talk about a Tweener….
“Hocus pocus, al-a-kazam,” she said, junk she’d heard in a movie somewhere.
Tim blinked but otherwise looked like a dead cancer victim. “So, what happens when all these Lurken, Spooge, and Underlings come stampeding up behind me?”
You’ll probably be shot across Parson’s Ford like a cork from a champagne bottle. And have a sore booty to boot.
Before Bone could decide her next move, Crystal entered the room. She took one look at Tim’s head, then at Bone holding the funeral urn that contained the sacred ashes of her ancestor and guardian angel, Arveleta Aldridge. “You didn’t.”
“She did,” Tim said.
“How many times do I have to say it? ‘Dead stay dead.’”
“Three times, actually,” Bone said. “Spells should be repeated three times.”
Which is where I went wrong, but it doesn’t look like Crystal is going to let me fix it.
“You could say hello,” Tim said to Crystal. “You haven’t seen me in six years.”
“You haven’t aged a bit,” Crystal said. “Sorry about that cancer thing.”
“It happens,” Tim said.
“How do we get him out of there?” Bone asked.
“We’ll have to ask Momma.”
Crystal yelled down the hall. As the footsteps hammered in the hallway, Bone set the urn on the bedside table and went invisible. “Better this way,” she whispered.
A moment later, Minerva burst into the room, arms flailing. Her eyes flitted around the room, taking stock of the dead boy stuck in the Orifice. She touched the spot above her chin where her lips used to reside, as if wanting to speak and remembering she couldn’t.
“What do we do?” Crystal asked.
Momma tapped the back of one hand with two fingers and then pointed to the ceiling. Crystal and Tim looked up. Minerva shook her head and repeated the motions.
“Two words,” Tim exclaimed.
Minerva nodded vigorously, holding up one finger again.
“First word,” Crystal said, catching on to the game of charades.
Minerva thrust her hand out, palm open.
“Five,” Tim said, counting her fingers.
“Hand,” Crystal said.
Minerva shook her head, eyebrows knitted in frustration. She tugged her earlobe and then cupped her hand behind her ear.
“Sounds like!” Tim said.
Minerva nodded and acted like she was pushing a long stick around on the floor.
“Mop,” Crystal said, having done enough of that particular chore.
Minerva nodded and held up her palm again.
“Traffic cop,” Tim said. “Hey, I just noticed, I can’t feel my toes. Is this a bad thing?”
“Stop,” Bone whispered from the closet.
“What?” Crystal said.
“Stop!“
Minerva looked at the closet and her jaw twitched as if she wanted to speak but had forgotten she had no mouth.
Bone parted a couple of blouse-draped hangers and smiled at the middle-aged witch. She was solid.
The jig was up. The Crystal-and-Bone Variety Show was now out of the closet. “Hello, Miss Aldridge,” Bone said.
The witchwoman’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead like twin electrified caterpillars. Then she glared at Crystal.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Crystal said.
A lie on top of a lie. When you say you’ve been MEANING to tell, it really means you were never going to tell but had finally gotten caught.
“It was my idea,” Bone said. “To keep me secret. I know white witches aren’t supposed to consort with the dead.”
“We weren’t consorting, we were just hanging out,” Crystal said.
Minerva put her hands on her hips, giving Crystal a look that said, Just wait until I get my mouth back.
“Uh, guys?” Tim said. “Talk about hanging out. How long am I stuck in your wall?”
Minerva held up two fingers to indicate the second word, and then did the ear thing for “Sounds like.” Then she stroked her throat and made a fluttering motion as if releasing a bird into the wild blue yonder.
“Swallow,” Bone said.
“You should quit while you’re ahead,” Crystal said.
Minerva put her hands where her lips should be and flung them outward.
“Vomit?” Tim said, as if chemotherapy had permanently etched that function into his repertoire.
Minerva shook her head and cupped her hands to mimic a megaphone.
“Voice!” Crystal said. “Stop voice.”
Minerva tugged her earlobe again to indicate “Sounds like.”
“Choice,” Tim said.
“Rejoice,” Crystal said.
“Moist,” Bone said.
Minerva shrugged in defeat and went to the desk, where Crystal’s computer was in “sleep” mode. She touched the keyboard to activate the screen, and then her gnarled fingers pecked at the keyboard.
Tim strained to read the letters over her shoulder. “S-T-O-P….”
“We got that part, twerp,” Bone said, drifting over to the computer and reading the second word aloud. “Royce. ‘Stop Royce.’”
“Royce,” Crystal said.
Uh-oh. I forgot that Crystal had sipped the Dempsey Kool-Aid. If she gets Royce on the brain just when I need her most, it’s going to be a long Halloween.
“Halloween,” Crystal barked, as if reading Bone’s mind.
“I know you don’t like to consort with the dead,” Bone said to Minerva, “but do you have a spell to erase bad movies?”
Bone wasn’t sure how much her secret contamination of Minerva’s medicine cabinet would become a problem. She’d been instructed to disrupt the witchwoman’s abilities, not enhance them. That whole “using your power for the forces of good” thing had barely crossed her mind.
Minerva returned to the keyboard, clacking out a series of words. Tim read aloud, relieved to have a useful purpose during his stint as a talking head.
“’Royce… not… dead.’ We know that. He was never born, so technically he’s not a ghost.”
Minerva nodded with enthusiasm, though her eyes scrunched as if she expected her audience to make the next leap of logic. Giving up, she turned her palms up and made juggling motions.
Bone snapped her fingers. “Out of balance.”
“Like they taught us in science,” Tim said. “Energy can’t be created or destroyed, it only changes form.”
“I don’t remember that,” Bone said.
“You probably skipped that day,” Crystal said, returning from her Royce reverie.
“No,” Tim said. “She was reading ‘Teen’ because it had a hunky spread of the Jonas Brothers. Totally zoned out.”
They all looked at Tim in astonishment. Bone wondered how closely he’d been watching her during the sixth grade, when he’d obviously had a mad crush on her.
Tim blushed and wriggled as if trying to squirt free of the Orifice. “I was jealous. I wanted to crack those hunky heads together like coconuts.”
“Okay,” Crystal said. “Let’s worry about the stalker crush later. For now, we need to figure out how to get the genie back in the bottle.”
“I think you need to get the cork out first,” Bone said, nodding at Tim.
“You’re cute when you’re funny,” Tim said, with as much sarcasm as he could muster for a ghost stuck in a trailer wall. Then his eyes went wide. “Hey, something brushed up against my foot!”
> Minerva tapped on the keys again, and this time Bone did the honors. “’Gathering… forces… must… hurrt’?”
Minerva backspaced and corrected to “hurry.”
“All right, people,” Crystal said, heading for the door. “You heard the woman.”
“Right behind you,” Tim said.
As Crystal and Minerva headed for the bathroom and the cabinets of polluted potions, Bone lingered a moment.
“The Jonas Brothers?” she said. “They were so yesterday.”
“Boy bands come and boy bands go, but ghosts last forever.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Date me and you’ll never be sorry.”
She sighed. “Tim…”
His cancer-ridden features were so solemn and sweet, she didn’t have the heart to shoot him down. She went to the spot on the wall, kissed the fingertips of her right hand, and pressed them to his clammy cheek. His eyes lit up with a distant, decadent fire.
“We’ll talk,” she said.
“I’ll be waiting.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
Before leaving the room, she couldn’t resist one final “Hang in there.”
Chapter 26
“Cut,” Dempsey yelled.
The shoot was going poorly, and kids were already showing up in the kitchen, getting noisy. Pettigrew was just a little too wooden, and he had a tendency to interject a “Royce” in random places while delivering his lines. Outfitting him as Frankenstein’s Monster hadn’t helped the situation.
Dempsey wondered if the brainwashing had been a bit too effective, and whether Pettigrew’s skull had been scrubbed so clean he couldn’t even hack it as a Hollywood actor, which required a mental capacity only slightly above that of the average sea slug or the average Tom Cruise.
Cindy was adequate, even if she was trying a little too hard to be the next Paris Hilton. The slut-Goth regalia she wore made for good eye candy. The studded leather collar was a nice complement to the plastic bolts glued to Pettigrew’s neck. Her mesh tights, knee-high, black-leather boots, and diaphanous dark blouse could make her the subject of a million Google image searches, which would help market the movie.
But first he had to finish the movie. The footage was a mess, but Dempsey believed he could save it in the edit. The important thing was to get enough filmed so he could have room to patch mistakes.
October Girls: Crystal & Bone Page 19