by Kris Tualla
“I am so sorry, Hollis.”
Hollis walked away from the door, neither inviting Matt in nor telling him to leave. She sat down at the dining table, staring blankly at the detritus of Sveyn’s latest tasting binge.
Sveyn seemed to sniff the air. “Garlic knots. Our favorite.”
Matt followed. He looked surprised when he saw the table. “Was Stevie hungry?”
“Let’s go with that.” Hollis started piling the paper plates. “What do you want?”
“To apologize. Again.”
Hollis lifted the stack of plates and stood. “What else are you keeping from me, Matt?”
“Nothing.”
“And why don’t I believe you, do you think?” Hollis stomped into the kitchen and threw away Sveyn’s dinner, for lack of a better word for it.
Matt followed her again, silently opening cabinets in some undefined search. “Ah. Here.”
He pulled out a plastic pitcher and filled it with water. “Scissors?”
Hollis was too dumbfounded to say anything. She pointed at her junk drawer.
Matt grabbed the scissors, cut the bottoms off the rose stems, and stuck the yellow flowers in the pitcher of water. “There.”
Hollis grunted and walked around the raised breakfast bar counter and back to the table, where Sveyn’s head was inside the bag of garlic knots. “Really?”
The Viking lifted his head. “Sorry.”
“Really, what?” Matt asked coming around to her side, wine and glasses in hand.
“Nothing.” Hollis circled a finger next to her head. “Too many thoughts right now.”
Matt set the glasses down. “You have every right to be angry at me. But in my defense, until these last few days there was no reason for me to mention it.”
Hollis regarded him with narrowed eyes. “What’s changed?”
“Everything!” Matt took hold of her arms. “We are back, Hollis. You and me. Like the old days, but better. Like you said last night.”
Hollis opened the bag of garlic knots. She claimed one and chewed it slowly, considering her next move.
Sveyn caught her eye. “Hold steady, Hollis.”
She nodded as the realization of what she needed to do sank in. She shifted her gaze to Matt. “How much do you know about my guardian angel?”
Sveyn stepped between them. “Are you certain you want to do this?”
Hollis tipped her head in a get-out-of-the-way motion.
Sveyn complied. He wasn’t happy.
Matt was understandably thrown for a loop. “You mean the smudge on the videos?”
“Yeah.” Hollis sank into a chair and pointed across the table with the remaining half of her garlic knot. “You better sit down.”
Matt sat. He watched her with a comically puzzled expression. “Do you have a guardian angel?”
“No. That’s just what everybody else called him.” Hollis ate the other half of the knot and licked her fingers. “He’s actually a Viking who’s been caught between life and death since ten-seventy.”
Sveyn waited.
Matt didn’t move. “Wh—what?”
Hollis shrugged. “He just showed up back in September, and has been with me ever since.”
“What do you mean with you?” Matt’s head swiveled as he glanced around the condo’s kitchen, dining room, and living room. “Is he here now?”
“Yep.”
Matt’s hands gripped the edge of the table. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“No, Matt.” Hollis shook her head. “That’s actually one thing that I never thought about you.”
“So what’s this game?”
Hollis leaned forward. “It’s not a game. And on Wednesday night on Ghost Myths, Inc. you are going to see him for yourself.”
Matt scoffed, “Those shows are all faked!”
Hollis drew a calming breath. “Well, mine wasn’t.”
“Come on, Hollis.”
“And neither was the fact that this—apparition—set off the motion detectors that saved my life.” Hollis shrugged. “That’s how he got the nickname, by the way.”
“He does not believe you, Hollis,” Sveyn observed. “If you truly wish him to, then you must tell him that Stevie has seen me.”
Hollis stopped herself from responding to Sveyn. One step at a time on this road veering towards crazy town.
“If you don’t believe me—or the cameras—then ask Stevie. She’s seen him.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Wednesday
January 6
Matt hadn’t been around much the last few days, but he promised to come to the museum to watch the special public showing of Hollis’s episode on Ghost Myths, Inc. at nine o’clock that night.
He did, however, call her on Monday night with the news that Suzan had been visited by one of Milwaukee’s finest asking questions about the Dead Cat Threats.
Suzan went ballistic, just as Hollis predicted.
And she took her fury out on Matt, who tried very hard not to torpedo his burgeoning reconnection with Hollis while asking her to please call off the dogs.
Hollis had no sympathy for the beautiful, rich, skinny man-stealer. “If she’s innocent—”
“She is!” he barked.
“Then it’s over, Matt. Let it go. I don’t care how mad she is at me or how much she hates me.” Hollis said the next words slowly and deliberately. “We were never going to be friends. In case that was your hope.”
“I know,” Matt groused.
Dead cat number five was at Hollis’s front door on Tuesday morning. She now had a beat officer assigned to protect her, thanks to both Detective Campbell’s diligence in the case, and her hysterical barrage of tears that morning.
“This person knows where I w—work! And wh—where I live! And where my b—boyfriend lives!” she wailed. Her breath was coming in those uncontrollable gasps that happen when somebody cries too hard. “He’s g—going to k—kill meeee!”
The detective actually called 9-1-1 because she was hyperventilating so bad and nearly passed out.
And though the paramedics good looks were calendar worthy, and her breathing was back under control, Hollis was still too shaken to drive. She called Stevie to come pick her up for work.
Sveyn offered what help he could. “I’ll stand guard over you, Hollis. I promise to alert you if anyone suspicious approaches.”
That actually made her feel better than the beat cop outside, because the perpetrator couldn’t tell he was being watched or hear Sveyn if he shouted a warning.
Stevie carried a cup of hot chocolate into Hollis’s office. “Are you ready for the show tonight?”
“As ready as I can be.” Hollis accepted the steaming cup. “Has Matt talked to you this week?”
“No. Why?” Stevie sipped her drink.
“I want you to be prepared tonight.”
The cup lowered. “For what?”
“I told him about Sveyn.”
“What?” Stevie set her cup on Hollis’s desk so quickly that some chocolate spilled over the rim. “Why would you do such a crazy thing?”
Hollis handed her tissues to wipe up the spill. “If—and it’s a big if right now—we end up back together, and Sveyn doesn’t manifest forward, then the three of us will have to find a way to coexist. At least for a while.”
Stevie looked horrified. “He’ll be there? Even if you get married?”
Hollis shuddered at the thought of having sex with Matt with Sveyn hearing her every orgasmic utterance. “It’s possible.”
Stevie finished cleaning the spill and tossed the tissues in the trash. “So what’d he say?”
“He didn’t believe me, of course. He thought I was trying to play him.” Hollis blew on her chocolate.
“As would any normal person.”
“Right.” Hollis flashed an awkward grin. “Which is why I told him you’ve seen Sveyn.”
The horrified look was back. “You threw me under the Viking bus?”
&nb
sp; “Um… yeah.”
“Sveyn, do you hear this?” Stevie called over her shoulder.
“I do,” he answered.
“And should I be mad?” she continued.
“Probably not.”
Stevie leapt out of her chair.
“Oh my god!” She started walking in a tight circle, shaking her hands like she touched something hot. “Oh my god, Hollis.”
“What?” Hollis stood. “What happened?”
Stevie stopped and faced Hollis. “I heard him. I heard him answer me.”
Hollis glanced at Sveyn who looked as shocked as Stevie. “What did he say?”
“He said I do and probably not.”
Sveyn stepped forward. “Can you hear me now?”
Stevie turned toward the apparition. “I can hear mumbling. Like you’re under water.”
Hollis dropped back into her chair. “What. The hell. Is going. On.”
*****
Mr. Benton insisted that Hollis sit at one end of the front row. “So everyone can see you.”
She made Matt sit at the actual end so she could have him on one side and Stevie on the other. “He’s too tall,” she said when Benton questioned her. “People can’t see around him.”
The director nodded. “Good thinking.”
There were fifty chairs set up facing a huge screen. A projector would cast the cable show in glorious six-foot by ten-foot splendor.
In addition to Benton and Miranda, Tony Samoa and his wife Carmen were there, plus Tom and the two other interns who helped clear out the hoard. George Oswald sat on Stevie’s far side, holding her hand.
“Don’t be scared,” he said. “I’m right here.”
Stevie flashed a nervous smile.
The rest of the chairs were filled with museum employees and volunteers—plus the three ladies whose séance was cancelled on Monday at Detective Campbell’s suggestion.
Hollis sat still staring straight forward. She had no idea what to expect from Jason and his crew and hoped she didn’t look like a crazy fool.
When the program started, the lights were lowered and all eyes were fixed on the screen or her. She thought she could actually feel the stares.
*****
When the show ended an hour later, no one moved. Or spoke. The stunned silence in that space was scarier than the image of the tall, bearded ghost answering Jason’s questions by raising his hands.
Benton cleared his throat and stood. “Would anyone like to ask Ms. McKenna a question?”
Oh no no no, please not that.
Benton held out a hand and motioned for Hollis to join him.
Crap.
Hollis rose and walked to the front of the stunned crowd. Tony Samoa stood up first.
“You said you couldn’t see him. Is that true?”
“What I have seen didn’t look like the image on that camera,” she hedged.
Tony pinned her with a skeptical gaze. “So what have you seen?”
Crap.
How should she answer that? And why didn’t she think this through earlier?
Here goes. “I think a better description is that I’m aware of his presence. I felt him in the storeroom with me when he set off the motion detectors.”
“Is he an angel?” one woman called out.
“No.”
“Is he a demon then?” another countered.
“If he was, why would he do good?” Hollis challenged. “We had an exorcism last week, and nothing—” She corrected herself, “No beings responded. So no. He’s not a demon.”
Tony sank back into his seat as others shouted out questions much less politely.
“How do you know he’s not an angel?”
Hollis looked in Sveyn’s direction.
“Tell them I am.”
Hollis dropped her gaze to the floor, then returned it to her audience. “I don’t know for sure,” she admitted. “I guess he could be an angel.”
“Is he here now?” one of the séance ladies asked.
Hollis told a truth. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”
*****
Matt remained in his seat until everyone but Hollis, Stevie, and George were the only ones in the museum and the front doors to the museum were locked. His expression looked like he was seriously doubting his own sanity.
And hers, to be honest.
“If you were telling the truth, and that thing on the screen is real” he murmured, “why didn’t you tell everyone the same story you told me?”
Stevie grabbed George’s hand. “She’s protecting him. The Viking apparition.”
Matt’s gaze sliced to hers. “Hollis said you’ve seen him.”
George looked at Stevie, clearly surprised by that bit of news. “You have?”
Hollis saw Stevie’s grip on George’s hand tighten. “I’ve gotten glimpses.”
George looked stricken. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Hollis thought her friend was going to cry. “I didn’t know how.”
Clearly it was time to set the story straight. Hollis swung a chair around to face Matt, and motioned for George and Stevie to do the same.
“I’ll tell you everything under strictest confidence,” she offered. “But you are all sworn to secrecy. And if any of you speaks of this to anyone, at all, at any time, I’ll swear you are a liar and just making things up for monetary gain. Is that clear?”
Three heads nodded, with each facial expression displaying a different position on the bullshit scale.
When Hollis finished her tale, however, Stevie was smiling triumphantly. George was scratching his head, looking as if he was replaying Hollis’s testimony and not finding any loopholes.
Matt’s expression was the hardest to read. Incredulous and sorrowful seemed the best descriptors.
“Matt?” Hollis took one of his hands. “Say something.”
“I didn’t believe you.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t trust you.” His expression twisted. “You, Hollis. The most honest person I’ve ever known. I didn’t trust what you were saying. I thought you were—I don’t even know what.”
“Seeking revenge?” Hollis posited. “Trying to make a fool of you, like you made a fool of me?”
Matt looked like he was going to cry. “You would never do something like that, though. Would you?”
Hollis wrinkled her nose. “I have to confess, I’ve had a lot of mean thoughts.”
Matt squeezed her hand. “But you didn’t act on them. That’s not who you are.”
“I have a question.” George turned to Stevie. “You admit you’ve seen this Sveyn guy?”
“Yes.” Stevie’s gaze cut to Hollis and back to George. “And… I heard him.”
“What?” Matt perked up. “When?”
“This afternoon.” Stevie looked to Hollis for help. “It started with strong emotions on Sveyn’s side…”
Hollis took the hint and explained their theory that emotion made Sveyn more present in the real world. “That’s how he tripped the detectors.”
She decided not to mention that he could also touch, smell, and taste with increasing intensity each day. That was a mystery neither she nor the Viking could explain.
“This is crazy.” Matt threw up his hands. “I know it is. But I have to find a way to believe it.”
Sveyn had been sitting sideways in a chair several feet away this whole time, leaning his elbow on the back of his chair. The initial fear on his face had turned to fascination as—for the first time since his transformation in ten-seventy—people he had not manifested to were accepting his presence.
“Hollis?” he said.
Hollis hesitated, then decided to answer him. Go Viking or go home.
She turned to face Sveyn. “What?”
Her three companions all straightened in their seats.
“I have been thinking about this, and I believe that once Stevie experienced my presence, that made it easier for her to do so again.”
; “Ooh…” Hollis nodded. “You might be right.”
Matt touched her arm. “What? Who’s right?”
Hollis repeated the Viking’s words.
Stevie got very excited. “I hope so, Sveyn!”
He chuckled. “As I do, Stevie.”
Stevie stood and turned in Sveyn’s direction. She waved at the seemingly empty chairs.
“Do you see him?” Hollis asked.
“Nope.” Stevie sat back down grinning like a lizard in the sun. “But I heard my name.”
Hollis’s phone rang.
“Are you expecting a call?” Matt’s brow lowered. “Is it the Captain?”
Hollis shook her head and answered, “Hello?”
“Ms. McKenna, this is Officer Howard. Are you still inside the building?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, Officer.” She jumped to her feet and motioned for the trio to stand up and follow her quickly. Stevie turned off lights as they hurried passed the switches. “We’re on our way out now. Coming out through the back door.”
“Great. I have good news when you get here.”
“You do?”
“Yes, ma’am. We apprehended a young man with a suspicious package near your car. I want to see if you recognize him before we take him to the station.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sadly, she didn’t.
The man was in his mid-thirties. His thin brown hair was in a ponytail that reached halfway down his back. Officer Howard lifted the box and folded back the tissue paper to expose what they all expected: a dead cat with a tag tied around its neck.
Number six.
“Were you paid to do this?” Howard asked.
The man gave him a tight-lipped glare.
Howard shined his flashlight on Hollis. “Do you know this woman?”
A glimmer of surprise flicked over the man’s expression. He shook his head.
“Then why did you kill a cat and deliver it to her?”
Any communication from the perpetrator, no matter how slight, had retreated once again behind the defiant glare.
“Put him in the car,” Officer Howard barked to his partner. He turned to Hollis. “At least we’ve caught one of them. Maybe he’ll shed some light on this bizarre case.”