by Nathan Roden
“She sobbed and told Uncle Seth that she was not strong enough to endure that. Seth loved her so much, and Seth loved me, and he loved my father, too. But there was always a division—Seth never got over that.
“A couple of days later Seth came over and told my parents that he had made an arrangement with the township. They would allow him to become my full-time tutor and take care of the schools after hours. My parent argued with him, but Seth wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“No wonder you two were so close,” I said. “He was you uncle, your tutor, and your Security Detail.”
“We had quite a scare one night,” Holly said. “Seth was roasting a pig and drinking—outside on the castle grounds. Two of his ‘drinking friends;’ dropped by and joined him. Soon enough they were stone blootered and Seth said that he was going to the castle to fetch more ale. He could hardly get to his feet, let alone walk. His friends each threw an arm around his shoulder and helped walk him inside. This happened at the same time that the entire McIntyre family was crossing through the main room. None of them were touching the floor.”
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second.
“Oh, wow,” I said, “How did Seth explain that?”
“When his friends started screaming, my father and I ran into the room,” Holly said. “By then, Seth realized what was happening and pushed his friends away. He laughed at them and blamed their visions on the Demon Alcohol. I’m not sure that they bought into that explanation but this was almost a year ago, so I guess we were lucky.”
“So,” I said, “how long did it take your mother to come around?”
She looked toward the window, and then met my eyes and shook her head.
“But anyone that touches you can see—”
“Yeah. That’s how it works,” she said.
“Since that day at the cove she never—?”
I couldn’t finish the question.
And she could no longer look me in the eye.
Thirty-four
Wylie Westerhouse
Branson, Missouri
“Are you ready to bring Duncan to the castle?” Holly asked.
“Why don’t we do this a little at a time?” I said. “Let me meet the others first before we get Duncan in the mix. If I’m going to wet my pants I would rather do it where he can’t see me. ”
“Are you certain that you want to do this at all?” Holly asked.
“Do I really have a choice?” I asked. “I mean, I promised Quentin that I would stay on for at least three more weeks while we break someone else in. Those guys who own the home improvement stores seem to think that Nate Barlow hung the moon and stars, so luckily, I have somewhere to go. It’s not like I can leave town now.
“You let the Genie out of the bottle, Holly,” I said. “I can’t just lock myself in my house with my dog and my brother, now can I?”
She glared at me. I held out my arm. In front of my eyes, fuzzy outlines became clear. I knew that I was face to face with an entire family of spirits.
“Baron Dallas McIntyre, Lady Elizabeth, Nora, and Charlotte, may I introduce Mr. Wylie Westerhouse.”
I clenched my bladder. I had to.
“Pleased to make you acquaintance, Mr. Westerhouse,” Baron McIntyre said. He bowed.
“Hi,” I said in a faint whisper.
“It hardly seems fair, does it?” Elizabeth said. “We’ve been able to see you since the night you tumbled into our laps.”
Nora and Charlotte giggled. They were absolutely adorable. And Nora was…blushing? It’s hard to say.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, blushing myself.
“Think nothing of it, my good man,” Dallas said.
“A friend of Holly McFadden is a friend of the McIntyre family. You are the only one to which she has decided to pass on her, um, ability.”
I looked at Nora, who seemed undecided about where to have her hands. I felt the need to put her at ease.
“I apologize for reading your diary. I had no idea, of course—”
She shook her head. Her eyes were open wide.
“No, no. It’s perfectly all right. I didn’t mind at all. Really.”
Charlotte tugged on Nora’s dress.
“Easy, Nora. You’re going to explode a blood vessel.”
Nora scowled at her sister as everyone else laughed.
I knelt in front of Charlotte and looked into her playful eyes.
Her smile grew even larger but it faded when I leaned toward her.
I couldn’t help myself.
“Are you going to bite me?”
“Holly!” Charlotte squealed.
We had an excellent laugh.
“Elizabeth, have you seen—?” David said as he entered the room. He stopped abruptly.
“Oh, my,” he said. “Has someone failed to inform us of a considerable new development?”
“No one knew where you were, David,” Holly said. “Prince David McIntyre, this is my friend Wylie Westerhouse.”
“Ah,” David nodded in recognition, “The Singing Boy has acquired the vision—thanks to Miss McFadden, no doubt. It is a pleasure to meet you, Sir.”
“The pleasure is mine—do I call you ‘Your Highness’?” I looked at the others. Holly looked down as if to say ‘no’.
“Well, if you would like to—,” David said.
“Don’t do it,” Nora and Charlotte said at the same time.
“David is okay,” Nora said. “But if you call Arabella ‘Princess’, she’ll act as if you have agreed to be her man slave.”
“Pay no attention to that child,” Arabella said from the Juliette balcony. She floated to the floor.
“It would never enter my mind to treat one so gifted as though he were but a commoner,” Arabella purred.
I had been growing more comfortable in the presence of these ghosts, but suddenly I could neither move nor speak.
I grew up in a home where my Mother’s record album covers were displayed on the wall of our family room.
Patsy Cline’s picture looked down at me for my entire childhood. The lady in front of me looked exactly like her.
“You’re…?” I blinked a few times. “You’re Arabella?”
“You speak as if you know of me, young man,” she said. “Perhaps you have read about me in an account of Scottish Royalty?”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” I said, “It’s just that you look so much like…someone else.”
“Oh, you must mean Patsy Cline,” Arabella said. She was trying to tame her hair with her hand. “That’s what many prominent people in the local society are saying.”
Nora, Charlotte, and Elizabeth looked at each other before Nora leaned in and whispered,
“Is she talking about Mr. Atkins and Mr. Atkins?”
“And Sweaty Delbert?” Charlotte whispered.
“Well, of course,” Elizabeth whispered. “One may achieve prominent person status without the need for shoes—or baths.”
Arabella stared down the giggling McIntyre girls.
“Do you know who Patsy Cline is?” I asked.
“Well, I have learned of her recently,” Arabella said.
“She was one of my mother’s favorite singers,” I said, “Right up there with—”
“Hank Williams,” she said.
My jaw hung slack for a few moments.
“How do you know that?” I asked. The state of the personalities I was dealing with came back to me.
“She listens to you when—” Nora began to say.
“I have a voice, Nora,” Arabella snapped. “And I am standing right here.”
“Sorry,” Nora said. “Tell on yourself, then.”
“What have I done to bring shame upon myself?” Arabella said in a huff. “This young man has a pleasant voice and I enjoy listening to him sing. Drag me off to the stocks if I have committed a grievous offense.”
“My sister has taken inspiration from your singing, Mr. Westerhouse,” David said. “And though I cannot ver
ify her physical resemblance to the Lady Patsy Cline—I can assure you that her voice is eerily similar—and beautiful.”
There was a moment of silence.
Elizabeth looked at her daughters. They shrugged.
“I got nothin’,” Elizabeth whispered.
“I have no idea how much Holly has told you, Mr. Westerhouse,” Dallas said. “You may already know that we are under siege from some troublesome spirits.”
“I don’t know much of anything, yet, Sir. And please call me Wylie. I’m not comfortable with ‘Mister’ yet. I’m only twenty-three.”
“As you wish, Wylie,” Dallas said.
“Wylie’s brother, Duncan, passed ten years ago,” Holly said.
“He’s at Wylie’s house right now. I…I thought that it was the right thing to do, to let Wylie see. But what do I know?”
“Oh, Holly,” Elizabeth said. “Who of us knows anything certain? You said that your uncle’s last wish was for you to find us. You must trust that there was a reason.”
“So what can we expect from these evil spirits?” I asked.
“They’re not exactly evil,” Dallas said.
“Ha!” Elizabeth said. “Evil is as evil does—that’s what my mother always said.”
“If we lose our home,” Nora said. “What difference does it make whether Bruiser Brady stole a loaf of bread—or put puppies on spikes in the town square?”
“Ouch,” Holly said, wrinkling her face.
“That was a good one, Nora,” Charlotte said, holding up her hand. She turned to Holly.
“What do you call the hand-slapping thing again, Holly?”
“A high-five.”
“High-five, Nora,” Charlotte said.
“Bruiser Brady?” I asked. “His name is really Bruiser Brady? What was he—a professional wrestler?”
“Close enough,” Holly said. “He was a truck driver who was killed in his truck. Whatever his unfinished business is, he’s carried a bad attitude across the divide. He carries a powerful grudge against the living.”
“And then there’s the business of the crack,” Charlotte said.
“The business of —what?” I said.
“These spirits say that there is something like crack energy coming from the castle,” Holly said.
“Oh, okay,” I said.
I thought about the energy I felt coming from the castle even before the construction was finished. I remembered the head rush that I felt the night I put my head through the window of the turret room.
“Hey, Wylie?”
The voice came from behind us.
“Duncan?” I said.
He was peeking around a doorway, only his head visible.
“Is it okay that I came here?” he asked. “It felt like…it was like something was pushing me—or pulling me. I don’t know.”
“Yeah, it’s cool, Duncan,” I said. “How did you find this place?”
He stepped into the doorway and shrugged. He walked slowly into the room with his head down. He stopped behind my shoulder.
“I don’t know. I found your house from a lot farther away than this.”
“These are the McIntyres, Duncan. Baron Dallas, his wife Elizabeth, their daughters Nora and Charlotte, Prince David and Princess Arabella.”
Duncan nodded politely to each of them until he saw Nora. I saw him jerk. He started to shake and then he ducked behind me.
“Uh, Duncan?” I whispered in his direction. “What’s wrong?”
“That girl,” he said.
“That’s Nora, Dunky. She’s pretty, right?’
“She’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s just that…it’s just…”
“What is it, Duncan? Talk to me, Bro.”
I couldn’t see him, but it sounded like he was a little choked up.
“I’ve seen her, Wylie. I’ve seen her a bunch of times. I think I…I might have talked to her.”
“Calm down, Buddy,” I said. “This has to be stressful for you. Maybe we should go—”
Duncan stepped beside me, sniffling.
“I saw her when I was sick and in my bed, before—
“She talked to me.”
“Please, Duncan,” I said. “Let’s go home, and we’ll come back tomorrow—”
I heard a gasp and looked up to see Nora staring at Duncan. Her eyes stretched wide and her hands covered her mouth. Her mother caught her as she collapsed to the floor. Duncan moaned.
“She…she read to me from her diary.”
Thirty-five
Holly McFadden
Branson, Missouri
Holly ran to Nora’s side and helped to hold her up on the opposite side of Elizabeth. Dallas was right behind her.
“Nora,” Elizabeth said. “What’s wrong?”
She looked to Dallas, who was equally confused.
“It’s him,” Nora said, her voice strained, “Mother, it’s him!”
“It’s who?” Elizabeth asked. “I don’t understand.”
“The boy I dreamed about,” Nora said in a pained whisper. “I told you about him, but I knew that you didn’t believe me.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Nora,” Dallas said. “How long ago was this?”
“It was years ago,” Nora said, clutching her mother. “Holly was still a child.”
“Elizabeth,” Dallas whispered. “Do you remember the days when Nora was delirious and appeared to be sick with the fever? It made no sense, but we were worried, still.”
Recollection swept across Elizabeth’s face.
“I remember, Mother,” Charlotte whispered. “I had to sleep in your room because Nora wouldn’t wake up but she talked and laughed all night long with…with someone.”
“I do remember that,” Elizabeth said. “But it cannot be this boy. He is from the present time, and half-way around the world.”
Elizabeth tightened her grip on Nora’s shoulder and began stroking her hair.
“Nora, darling, it would make perfect sense for you to imagine a boy to be your friend. It also makes sense that your mind would try to attach those memories to someone…to someone real.”
Nora tried to push her mother away, but Elizabeth held on. Nora shook her head.
“No,” she said through clenched teeth. “No, Mother. It’s the same boy. He was much thinner, and he was confined to his bed. He was dying.”
Elizabeth looked to Dallas, pleading for the help that he could not provide.
An uncomfortable silence lasted one second. Two seconds. Three. Four.
“We laid Honey to rest this day.”
All eyes turned to Duncan—his lone voice echoed off of the stone. He stared at Nora as he spoke.
“If ever there was a more heart-wrenching day on the earth, I pray I never learn of it. Father has taken us into his embrace. He is caked with mud and smells of sweat, and he quakes with the emotion that we are incapable of bearing alone. My dearest sister—so fiery and full of life, yet so young and in this moment, helpless. Her grief can none of us reach other than by the wish to take it upon ourselves.
Would that I had three more strong hearts within my chest, that I might take them out and replace the broken ones inside of those who are my life, my love, and my world.”
Two living people and six ghosts stood silent, shocked, and bewildered. This number did not include Charlotte. Her muted sobs were faintly heard because her face was pressed between her mother and her sister. Her tiny fists gripped a handful of their dresses.
“Oh yeah! Can you FEEL it?”
The booming baritone of Bruiser Brady exploded the silence and caused everyone to jump. David and Arabella made an immediate exit.
“Well, lookie here, Dougie,” Bruiser said. “Best go change the population on the city limit sign. Looks like we have a new kid in town.”
“This is Mr. Duncan Westerhouse, Bruiser,” Dallas said. “This is his brother, Wylie, who you no doubt recognize.”
Bruiser flew across the floor, stopping two
inches from being nose to nose with Wylie. Wylie flinched and stepped backward.
“Huh,” Bruiser said. “He walks, and he breathes, and now apparently he sees.”
“Hey Bruiser,” Little Dougie Day said. “That was downright poetical.”
Bruiser flexed each of his chest muscles one at a time.
“Yeah, I got me some other mad skills besides bein’ the baddest trucker west of the Mississippi.”
“To what do we owe the pleasure today, Mr. Brady?” Dallas asked.
“We just dropped by to bathe in some more of your most excellent atmosphere, Dallas. No tour groups today?”
“No,” Holly said.
“So this is a weekend-only gig, huh?” Bruiser said.
“I believe that Mr. Scoggins has arranged more concerts in the park for this weekend—” Elizabeth said.
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Bruiser threw his head back laughing.
“Is that your plan, dear lady?” Bruiser said. “You best try again. The only reason he was able to have the bandstand last weekend was that it was rainin’ and they canceled the live concert. Ole Delbert can set up his gigs Monday through Friday. What else do we got to do?”
“Why are you so bent on disrupting the tours of the castle, Mr. Brady?” Wylie asked. “There are plenty of other places in town where you could do the same thing.”
Bruiser closed his eyes. His muscles tensed for a moment, and then he relaxed as he opened his eyes.
“I’ve seen the people that have come through here so far,” Bruiser sneered. “I’m sure they used their money and their high society influence to get to be FIRST— just like they get the first and the best of everything. We got no use for their kind. They never did nothin’ for any of us.