I followed him into the midday sunshine as he scanned the sheet. “One more and then we’ll break for lunch.”
I shook my head. “One more what?” I’d passed Frustrationville six assignments ago and was heading at warp speed to Giving Up City.
“Responses like that are going to have me recommending an extra week of observation training for you.” Fenton jabbed his pen in my direction before making a note on the assignment sheet.
“That’s not such a bad idea. I’ve watched you all morning and I have no clue what you’re doing,” I grumbled, feeling a little sorry for myself. Generally I was a fast learner, so I wasn’t used to being bad at things.
“Hmm, maybe two weeks … unless you give me a reason to sign you off as competent.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me and I couldn’t tell if he was joking. I hoped he was joking.
“Thaaaaaat’s never going to happen.”
“I’ve told you. You need to evaluate the situation and respond accordingly.”
“Fine. But you have to give me some parameters to work within.”
Fenton opened his mouth, no doubt about to tell me that defining the parameters was part of the job, but something over my shoulder drew his attention. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that. See that shop? Pagan Lights?” He pointed to a store off to the left.
“Yeah?” I glanced at the shop then looked behind me to see what held his attention.
A man in his late thirties with thinning blond hair and wearing a red jumpsuit was talking to a tall, skinny man with dark hair wearing a grey jumpsuit. Despite them being out in broad daylight, in a very public place, something about their meeting struck me as furtive. Maybe it was the way their heads bowed together. The only explanation I could come up with for such a shady encounter was drugs.
Admittedly, I knew little about how the whole afterlife business worked but, for some reason, that struck me as unlikely. That said, I’d seen enough police shows to recognise a shady deal going down when I saw one.
“A man named Barry is getting his fortune told there.” Fenton grabbed me by the shoulders and spun me in the direction of the shop, giving me a little shove. “You need to walk over his grave.”
“What?” I turned back to face him, dusting his hands off my shoulders. “You want me to what?”
“Y’know, walk over his grave.” Fenton shivered in demonstration of the response he wanted me to elicit.
“How?”
“Improvise. I’ll be assessing you.” He pulled a battered brown leather notebook from his pocket and flicked through the pages.
I glanced over my shoulder at the shop and back to him. “From here?”
“Go.” He shooed me away and backed up into the centre of the lunchtime crowds.
Sparing a glance for the odd couple I headed towards the shop, dodging the living. Above the window, the shop’s name stood out in cursive lilac script on a black background with a delicate posy of flowers in each corner. An assortment of dried herbs, spell books, sets of tarot cards and astrology charts were artistically arranged in the window. I’d never really been one for all this supernatural stuff but now I was dead, and technically supernatural myself, it held even less interest for me.
A sandwich board stood on the pavement outside the shop, black with the same lilac script, announcing palm and tarot readings offered by a Madame Zorina.
Since it was another beautiful summer’s day, the shop door was propped open. The air inside felt cold on my face after being in the sun and reeked heavily of incense and doused candles. Four-foot high shelving units were arranged in aisles, labelled with the topics of the neatly stacked books they held. The far right of the shop looked more like a spice market with all the jars of herbs and spices and every possible ingredient a gullible person would need to cast a spell. Dreamcatchers, strings of bells, crystals and wind chimes hung from the ceiling in sporadic collections.
Since I couldn’t see a tarot reading taking place on the shop floor I headed towards the back of the store. A bead curtain covered a doorway to the left of the counter. I figured Madame Zorina would need privacy to deliver whatever rubbish she was peddling, so it seemed like a logical choice.
A blue-haired Amazon of a woman sitting at the counter glanced up sharply as I passed and vaguely followed my movement. She didn’t challenge me, which I figured meant she couldn’t see me, just sense me. And that creeped me out more than if she’d stopped and talked to me.
The beaded curtain was about a foot short of the floor. Wanting to get away from the Amazonian’s suspicious stare, I dropped to my hands and knees and stretched flat out on my stomach. I pulled myself, arm over arm like a soldier, underneath the curtain and across the threshold. Once safely on the other side I stood up and peeked back through the beads at her. The Amazonian clenched a small pink crystal in one of her hands and stared at the curtain.
She might’ve been frowning in my direction but she didn’t look like she was coming through anytime soon, so I considered myself safe. I dusted down my mauve jumpsuit, for the very first time genuinely glad I was wearing it. I simply would not have crawled over the floor in my Dior suit – I'd rather have taken my chances with the blue-haired Amazon.
A low voice with an Eastern European accent spoke behind me. “I see many things in the cards, Bartholomew.”
The woman, whom I assumed was Madame Zorina, was in her early forties and looked like a stereotypical gypsy, from her tousled black locks and heavily kohl-rimmed eyes to the mass of bangles adorning each wrist that tinkled as she laid out the tarot cards. I tiptoed around the table, momentarily forgetting they couldn’t hear or see me, and peered over her shoulder. She didn’t even flinch at my presence. Ironic that she was the one giving the readings and not the girl at the counter.
She’d laid the cards in a cross with four extra cards in a vertical line down the right side. Her right hand hovered over the card in the centre of the cross.
“I see great love but also great sorrow.”
A weedy looking man with a hook nose and glasses nodded solemnly. “I’ve known both.”
I snorted. “Who hasn’t?” So far, I was not impressed with Madame Zorina.
Madame Zorina’s left eye twitched slightly and she spread her palms face down on the table, either side of the card layout. “I sense there is a particular question marring your thoughts. Ask me and I shall answer.”
Barry pulled a small picture out of his wallet and slid it into the centre of the table. “Would my mother approve of her?”
I peered over his shoulder. A twenty-something blonde bombshell, there was no other way to describe her, stared sultrily out at me. I took a step back and gave Barry a proper once over for the first time. He was on the skinny side of slim, the wrong side of forty and balding with a mouth that turned downwards even in a smile. I noticed the edge of his wallet peeking out of his ill-fitting chinos and gently eased it out the rest of the way. After hiding it underneath the seat of his chair, I quietly flipped through it. Every credit card in there was either black or platinum, colours I’d only ever dreamed of owning in my life.
“No, Barry, your mother would not approve because she is a gold digging tramp.” I jabbed my finger at the photo Madame Zorina was examining. “You need to kick her grasping ass to the curb. And now.”
“Madame Zorina?” Barry pressed.
I slid his wallet back into his pocket and stood. “Break it to him gently, Madame. Explain that he needs to find someone who will appreciate him for the IT geek he so clearly is, not for the colour of his credit cards.”
Her left eye twitched again and she passed the photo back to him. “Barry, your mother only wants for your happiness.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself telling the poor man such lies,” I scolded her. This being invisible lark was actually quite freeing, as long as the blue-haired Amazon wasn’t about. “It’s a good job you’re a fake, or his poor mother would drag herself from her grave and beat you about the head with her handbag.”
He looked relieved. “She makes me happy.”
I shook my head and crouched next to him. “Ohhhhh, Barry, Barry, Barry. Don’t listen to her. The tramp makes you happy now but this won’t work out in the long run. Not for you. The floozy’s probably already cheating on you with her buff gym instructor, the postman and the milkman. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Probably.” I added and tried to squeeze his hand, momentarily forgetting I was dead, he couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t touch him. My hand went through his and he shivered violently in response.
“Oh, score!” I jumped to my feet and quick victory dance. “I guess this isn’t so hard after all, hey, Madame?” I asked. Her left eye twitched again. “Y’know, you should get that twitch seen to. Kinda ruins the whole serene, ethereal image you’re trying to project.”
“That’s all that matters.” Madame Zorina inclined her head and smiled warmly at Barry.
“Well, Madame, Barry, it’s been a blast.” I saluted them both and made for the beaded doorway and stopped. “Huh, don’t suppose one of you wants to move this curtain for me, do you? Don’t fancy Private Ryaning it again in case the fifty-foot woman stomps me like a bug.”
“Thank you, Madame Zorina. Thank you.” Barry collected the photo and headed right for me.
I leapt back out of the way just in time as he barrelled right through the doorway. I was about to follow in his wake, hoping the already swinging beads would mask my escape, when Madame Zorina blocked the whole doorway, her back to me.
“Sam? Do you fancy going to get us both some lunch?”
I didn’t hear Sam’s reply but the receding footsteps told me she’d gone. Madame Zorina turned back to face into the room. I was still trying to find a way around her when I noticed she was standing, arms folded, staring right at me. I checked behind me to see what she was looking at, but there was just a wall covered with scarves and pictures of constellations. Nothing that warranted her angry expression.
I leaned in to look into her eyes. “Okay, that’s a little creepy. Are you okay, Madame?” I clicked my fingers in front of her face a few times but there was no response. She continued to stare at me. “Why I am clicking? You can’t even see me.”
“Not only can I see you but, more unfortunately, I can hear you. And I find your inane stream of chatter quite distracting while I’m giving a reading.”
Uh-oh. Was this going to be classed as haunting? But that was the purpose of my job, right? So this would be okay. Wouldn’t it? I glanced behind me, waiting for the flash of light and masked GBs.
“Ohhhhh, now you’re speechless?” Her bangles jangled as she threw her arms up before she jabbed her finger in my direction. “For future reference, Missy, you don’t give messages to the clients; you give them to the mediums. Luckily for you, Barry thought your little parlour trick was his mama. Hello?” She snapped her fingers in front of my stunned face. “Un. Believable.” She shook her head at me and glided back to her table to clear up the cards. “And where’s Jim? He shouldn’t have left you alone, as this is quite clearly your first day.”
“What gave me away, the mauve jumpsuit?” I retorted, annoyed she was telling me off for doing my job. And because she could tell I was new. And because she was right.
“You’re wearing a white suit.” Madame Zorina paused and looked me over, eyebrows pulling together. “The same as every other messenger.”
“Yes.” I nodded, not understanding why she couldn’t see the awful overalls but happy about it. “Yes, I am.”
“Well?” she asked as she finished tidying up her cards and placed them in a neat stack in front of the crystal ball.
“Well, what?”
“Where’s Jim?” she asked on a sigh.
I opened my mouth to explain I didn’t know a Jim and my trainer’s name was Fenton when I had a flashback to the body in my locker. Suddenly, I was positive “Jim” had been embroidered on his name badge. My expression must have given something away because Madame Zorina sank into her chair.
“I told him. I warned him. Why didn’t he listen?” She jabbed her finger at me as if it was my fault.
I casually adjusted my fringe as if I wasn’t that interested in what she was saying. “Warned him about what?”
She shook her head. “You people. You think because you’ve crossed over you can see everything. That you can see more than I can. Well, you can’t. And now Jim knows that. Stupid, stubborn man.”
“What can you see? What did you warn him about?”
“His shadow.”
“His shadow?” I wasn’t entirely sure where to go with that revelation, but I could see why he didn’t take her warning seriously. “We don’t actually have shadows.”
She smiled but it was all teeth. “Oh, excellent. Beautiful and dumb. Living the stereotype. Good for you.”
“I’m not exactly living anything, am I? And thank you for reminding me about my rather excruciating death.” Then the first part of her insult registered. “And thanks.”
She sighed again. “I’m sorry. I get frustrated when people don’t listen to me. I’m always right, you know?”
Fair enough. Since she was big enough to apologise, I could let it go. And I needed information. “What was wrong with his shadow?”
“It’s difficult to explain. It wasn’t his shadow, it was a shadow that hovered behind him.” She tilted her head to the side as she looked at me. “Same as the one that’s hovering behind you now.”
I twisted around so fast the momentum nearly carried me into a full spin. I don’t know what I was expecting to see – Ghosting Busters, Fenton, Oz – but all I saw was the beaded curtain and empty shop beyond.
“What exactly does that mean?” My voice hitched up an octave, despite trying to keep a calm façade.
“That you’ll share Jim’s fate? I don’t know.”
“Did he have any enemies? Was he in any trouble? Is there anything you can tell me that would help?”
She frowned.“Help what?”
“Help to help solve his murder.” Sabrina was going to be dizzy when I told her about this.
“What’s your name?” Something about the way she asked set alarm bells ringing in my head.
I hesitated, feeling a weight to the question, but it would be rude not to introduce myself, right? “Bridget.”
“Bridget, Jim was a messenger, like you. He delivered the messages and left. Sometimes we would chat a little, just small talk. The first personal thing I said to him was about the shadow.” She adjusted the crystal ball in its cradle. “That was also the last thing I said to him.”
“I’m sorry for, y’know, your loss.” It wasn’t the most original thing to say but I felt like she needed me to say it.
“Be careful, Bridget.” I was expecting scorn but she gave me a sad smile instead. “You’re annoying but – actually, you’re just annoying.”
I gave her my practiced smile. “Thanks. I had a great time too.” I turned and swiped the beads out of my way. I could still hear them swinging as I left the shop and stepped out into the glorious sunshine. I resisted the urge to look for a shadow and let the sun warm the uneasy cold from my bones.
Fenton was writing in a small brown notebook when I approached. “What took you so long?”
“Had to wait for the right moment.”
He stilled, looking from the notebook to me. “What do you mean ‘the right moment’?”
“Wanted to get the most bang for my buck.” I shrugged, suddenly feeling like I’d done something wrong. Though considering the total lack of guidance he’d given me so far, it wasn’t exactly as if I could tell wrong from right.
He slipped the notebook in his pocket. “How did you do it?”
“Touched his hand.”
“How did you work out that was what you needed to do?” He noted something on the assignment sheet.
No way was I telling him it was accidental. “I did like you said. Took in the whole scene and realised that was the appropriate response. You don’t lo
ok pleased.”
“Let’s break for lunch.”
∞
The canteen was heaving. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope. There were the mauve and grey jumpsuits of the facilitators but there was also hot pink, emerald green, orange, royal blue, sunshine yellow and a beautiful turquoise. The dark grey and muted mauve looked like the poorer cousins in the mix.
I joined Fenton in the queue and decided on bangers and mash with a chocolate éclair for afters. I figured since I was dead the calories wouldn’t count, though I did make a mental note to ask Eleanor later.
By the time I’d filled my tray, Fenton had disappeared. I looked around, trying to find an empty table and feeling every inch the new girl.
“Bridget.” Charlie beckoned me from a table towards the back of the room as he and his friend made space for me.
Relived, I carried my tray over and sat next to him. I liked Charlie. Admittedly I didn’t know him, but he put me at ease. Maybe it was because he reminded me of my dad. Well, not my dad, because he was a lazy waste of space who sponged off my mam until he found a better option. Maybe it was a friend’s dad.
Charlie nodded his head in the direction of his companion. “This is Pete.”
He and Pete were of a similar age, but where Charlie was cheerful and approachable Pete had shaved his grey receding hair into a short buzz cut and looked like a smile might actually damage his weathered face. Interesting pair. Both of them wore the grey jumpsuits of the experienced facilitators.
“What are all the different coloured jumpsuits for?” I asked after we’d all exchanged greetings.
“Different departments. The coordinators are pink, their trainees in green; the migration engineers are orange, their trainees in yellow; and the overseers are turquoise, their trainees in blue,” Charlie explained.
Beyond Dead Page 6