“Questions later, please, Bridget.” Dr Watson patted the air as though to pat down my objections. Why did they all do that? “Now—”
“It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.” I met Dr Watson’s stare. It wasn’t unhappy or annoyed, just neutral and emotionless. And wasn’t that supremely unsettling? I forced myself to maintain eye contact as my feet itched to run far, far away. This set up was the stuff of horror films. If it had been night-time I would have just left them to murder each other, found a way out of the building and tunnelled home for a long bath.
Dr Watson spoke with a tone as neutral as her expression. “You’re being assessed.”
“I’m not deaf. I heard you say that.” I turned my palms up in a please-don’t-slaughter-me gesture. “What I don’t know is why. Or on what.”
Gracie jumped in before Dr Watson could reply. “On how well you’ve acclimatised.”
Warren snorted. “Well, that’s a load of bull—”
I held up my palm towards Warren before he could finish his curse. I’d not heard anyone swear here yet, despite my earlier outburst, and I wasn’t sure this was the setting to test why people didn’t. “What Warren is trying to say is that we died two weeks ago. I see people here that have died within the last twenty-four hours. I was alive for twenty-seven years. It’ll take more than two weeks for me to ‘acclimatise’ to being dead. It takes longer than that to adjust to a new job. Which I also have.” Yeah, I was getting that dig in.
Dr Watson’s attention flicked briefly to Gracie. From what I could see Dr Watson’s expression didn’t change, but Gracie jerked back as if Watson had slapped her. Gracie dropped her eyes to the floor and her sidestepping became more nervous than excited. Yep. We were all going to die here. One of these crazy, crazy people was going to murder us for blinking too loudly.
Dr Watson turned her attention back to me. “It’s not as simple as that, Bridget. All you need to know is that this is an important part of your acclimatisation process.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. You can’t test us on something but not tell us what it is you’re testing us on. Or why you’re specifically testing us and not everyone else in our GA group. Or their GA groups. Or people who haven’t even been dead a day,” I said, gesturing to the room.
“There’s always one,” Matthew-the-sloth mumbled as he shot me a filthy look. I didn’t appreciate the comment but could understand the tone. I had kicked him super hard in the shin.
I held my hands up as if I were surrendering. “Look, I’m not trying to be difficult—”
Warren snorted. “That’ll make the first time.”
I whirled around in my seat to face him, one row over and one row back. “So you’re happy to be tested with no idea what they’re testing?”
He pointed to me but spoke to Dr Watson. “I don’t want you guys to think we’re on the same side, or that we’re in any way affiliated, but she does have a point.”
“I’d like to know too,” a female voice, quiet and timid, spoke up from the middle somewhere.
Murmurs from around the group joined in until Dr Watson held up her hands and patted down the questions. “As Gracie said, you’re being tested on your acclimatisation.” Gracie’s head jerked back up and a triumphant smile spread across her face as Watson continued. “You’re all at different points, it’s true, but this assessment is for us to gauge how well you’re doing, if you’re struggling with anything or if we think you’re going to struggle with anything so we can work out how to help.”
“That sounds a heck of a lot like performance management to me.” I’d said the same thing to members of my events team when they weren’t doing their jobs properly. It was the first step in firing them.
Dr Watson nodded. “It is, Bridget. To a certain extent. But we just want to help you.”
Yeah, I’d said that too when I was trying to figure out the best was to get rid of Diana, a totally inept assistant.
Dr Watson clasped her hands together and treated everyone to that smile twitch. “Now, let’s talk about the next few days. There are ten assessments in all. Two written, two verbal reasoning, two practical and two unscheduled in situ. There will also be a final written exam and combined verbal reasoning and practical exam. That might seem like a lot but it will give us the best idea on how we can help you. You’ll be split into three teams.”
Gracie, Matthew and Jenny walked to the side of the group of chairs and stood in between two rows. Jenny took the first and second row, which made her mine and Warren’s team leader. I wasn’t exactly happy about that but better the ex-GB plant you know than the erratic gerbil girl or sloth boy you didn’t. Matthew took the next two and Gracie took the last two.
Dr Watson gestured to the team leaders. “Any problems, they are your first point of contact. I know that’s a brief explanation but that’s really all you need to know. Any questions?”
“Is this like a first aid assessment?” someone called out from towards the back of the group.
Dr Watson shook her head as several pairs of panicked eyes darted around the room. “You won’t need any knowledge of first aid.”
“I swear dying makes you dumber,” I mumbled and adjusted my fringe. “I think he means if we get the answers wrong, do you give us hints until we get the answers right and then just advise us to restudy the material after you pass us?”
“No.” Dr Watson rolled the word around her mouth to make sure we all understood there would be no movement on it.
“So what happens if we fail?” the man asked.
Dr Watson gave everyone her face twitch excuse for a smile again. “We find a programme of learning or training that will best fit your needs to help you fully adjust and become a happy and productive member of society.”
That sounded a heck of a lot like jail time with a little brainwashing thrown in to me. I glanced at Warren. Since the expression of cockiness had slid from his face, I was guessing he’d interpreted it the same way.
Jenny moved back to the front and collected a stack of papers from the desk. Matthew followed and picked up a box of black biros. They walked around the group and laid a paper and biro on each desk.
“Please write your name, your guardian’s name and GA leader’s name on the front in the correct boxes.” Dr Watson pointed to each box on the spare exam paper she held up for everyone to see as she spoke. “You have three hours to complete this exam. If you finish early you may leave but please ensure you have answered all the questions before you do so. There will be no resits.” She looked to Jenny, who nodded, then Watson gave the room a sweeping glance to double check everyone had a test and a pen. “You may begin.”
I had to sit exams? In my old school? I didn’t care what anyone else called it, this was definitely Hell. All I needed now was for someone to murder Jenny or Matthew. Or Watson, since I was assuming it was my session with her that had landed me here, and I’d be back in my usual interrogation room with Detective Johnson. I tapped the top of my desk, touching wood that wouldn’t happen. Did Formica count as wood? Probably not. I scanned around for something wooden in arm’s reach. The idea was in my head now. If I didn’t find something wooden to touch all three of them would be cursed to die. The thought was irrational. I knew it was irrational. But still … better safe than dead. Or better safe than falsely accused of murder. Again.
“Eyes on your own paper, please, Bridget,” Watson said with her monotone authority.
I stared at her for a long moment and then returned my focus to my paper. “Okay,” I mumbled, “but it’s your funeral.”
Chapter Four
“How was your funeral?” Charon, the tall, blond, athletic driver of The Bus of Death asked when I appeared in the gangway. He laughed when he saw my face twist in disgust. “That good, eh?”
When everyone had finally finished the exam, Watson had lifted the blocking and allowed everyone to tunnel away. Everyone else got to go home. I got to go to my community service assignment.
For solving the ghost killing spree that had landed two doubly dead ghosts in my locker the ever-fair Bureau of Ghostly Affairs had thought it reasonable to make me Charon’s conductor for my penance. I feel now is the moment to mention that, in life, I died when a bus ran me over …
I didn’t know what Sabrina’s sentence was because we couldn’t talk about it. We weren’t forbidden from talking about it, not like that would’ve stopped us anyway, but our mouths were somehow mystically sealed shut on the topic so we literally weren’t able to talk about it.
Charon parked on the promenade and opened the doors so we could step out into the beautiful summer day. The midday sun was so hot I almost wanted to step back onto the bus but then the cool breeze from the ocean swirled around me. I gazed out over the beach, dotted with people, and at the water beyond. The air was filled with the ever-present squawking of the seagulls and the scent of the sea and suntan lotion.
“So?” Charon called my attention back to him.
I counted the disasters off on my fingers. “My ex-fiancé brought his trollop, vomited on my corpse’s face and, I think, broke her nose. My corpse’s nose not his trollop’s. My family brawled around my coffin so I’m not even sure if I was actually buried today, and I’ve just had to sit a three hour exam on how well acclimatised to my afterlife I am. So, as funerals go, it wasn’t the best I’ve ever been to. I didn’t even get to hear people say nice things about me.”
“They didn’t say anything nice about you.” Charon motioned me to a bench in the shade of the bus. “This calls for ice cream,” he said and darted across the road.
I admired the view while he was gone. I’d grown up in Scarborough and when I was younger I couldn’t wait to leave. Taking in the view of the long, curved beach, the harbour, the donkeys giving rides to children, I could finally see what made it such a popular destination. The midday Sunday sun reflected off the ripping waves in a golden shimmer. It was a beautiful day. Not that I would see it locked inside The Bus of Death. It’s true what they say: “No good deed goes unpunished.” Especially in the afterlife.
“How do you know no one said nice things about me?” I asked as Charon shoved a small pot of whipped ice cream in front on my face. I took it carefully so as not to spill the chocolate sprinkles on top.
“I may have dropped in to pay my respects. Your corpse looked a little thin but you did a great job on her face … until the vomit.”
I blinked innocently. “I have no idea what you mean. And how come I didn’t see you?”
“Ferryman of the Dead at a funeral?” Charon shook his head. “It’d be chaos.”
“But how come I didn’t see you? Even in disguise I’d recognise you.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Would you? Your dad seems to know you quite well, considering he’s been absent for some time. You troublemaker, you.”
“How do you know he’s been absent? And how did you hear him say that?” There definitely hadn’t been anyone but my housemates, Oz, Sabrina and Edith around when my dad had been wiping the vomit from my corpse’s face. Or when he’d whispered the same thing to my corpse when he’d open my coffin.
“I read your file thoroughly before accepting you as my conductor. It’s an incredibly important job. Can’t have just anyone doing it. So what are you being assessed on?” Charon’s abrupt change of subject meant the previous one was closed. There was no point me trying to reopen it. He was like a vault when he wanted to be. I’d have to remember to check with Sabrina about ghost invisibility. Or Edith. If Sabrina had known about it, I was pretty sure we’d already be doing it.
“She didn’t exactly specify other than it was to do with my acclimatisation.” I scooped a small helping of ice cream into my mouth. So good. Rich, creamy and afterlife-calorie-free.
Charon frowned, his yellow plastic spoon half way to his mouth. “But you’ve been dead less than two weeks. And for the first one of those you were busy finding dead ghosts and stopping murderers. How acclimatised do they expect you to be?”
I slapped his bicep lightly with the back of my hand. “Thank you. That’s what I said.”
“What did she say? And which ‘she’ are we talking about?” He balanced a huge dollop of raspberry ripple precariously on his tiny yellow spoon and carefully lifted it to his mouth.
“Dr Watson.” I rolled my eyes. I just couldn’t take her seriously with that name. “And she didn’t say all that much about it.”
Charon nearly choked on his ice cream. “Watson? I’ll bet she didn’t appreciate the question either.”
“Not really. Although, her face barely cracked from that non-judgemental-but-moderately-interested psychiatrist expression the whole time, so who knows?” I lifted another delicious chocolatey spoonful into my mouth.
Charon snorted. “Yeah. That never comes off.”
“How do you know?” I asked around my mouthful and paused with my next spoonful already heaped. Charon avoided my gaze and focused on his ice cream. “Noooooo. You dated her?”
He jabbed his spoon into the ice cream and turned to me with his hand up in surrender. “Look. I was going through my ‘emotionally unavailable women’ phase. It rolls around every few hundred years.”
“Hey. No judgement here.” No vocalised judgement, at least. “What was she like as a girlfriend? Did it even get that far?”
“Kinda like how she is as a shrink.” He stabbed at his ice cream and did an uncanny impression of her voice. “‘You chose raspberry ripple. Why would you do that? Does it have some special meaning to you? How does that make you feel?’”
I nodded. She’d asked me those types of question in our one session. I’d given her more information than she’d known what to do with. Or maybe she’d known exactly what to do with it, since she’d slotted me in for assessment. “She broke up with you then?”
Charon’s head whirled around to me and he poked his spoon in my direction, ice cream sliding off onto the bench between us. “I might only be a bus driver, Bridge, but I’m an excellent catch.”
“Whoa, hold up there, Mr Sensitive. At what point did I say you weren’t?”
“The point when you assumed she broke up with me.” He dug his spoon into my ice cream and scooped a third out before I could do anything. “This is for reparations.”
“I assumed she broke up with you because you called her ‘emotionally unavailable’,” I said, shuffling away into the corner of the bench before he could steal anymore of my ice cream. “And because you don’t seem like a quitter.”
He narrowed his eyes and poked his now empty spoon in my direction again.
“I’ll let you off with that. But only because I like you.”
“Thank you. So, exactly how worried should I be?” I asked, staring into my ice cream pot, it was getting empty awfully fast.
He shrugged. “She tried to have me assessed, and we were sleeping together.”
“Really?” I realised that sounded like something Michael-the-cheating-scumbag would’ve done if it had benefitted him somehow. I’d thought that type of ambition was attractive when I’d been alive. Funny how death clears your vision. “Great. So you have all the answers. Tell me how to pass this thing.”
His face split into a huge smile that reached his dark eyes. I’d never noticed his eyes on the bus because it was always so gloomy; I’d just assumed they were dark brown. They appeared almost black in the direct light. Add the smile to that and the effect was a little eerie.
“Bridge, I said she tried. I’m Charon. I’m the Ferryman of the Dead. Without me there is no afterlife.”
“Huh.” I pondered that for a moment. “I guess that makes you pretty much untouchable, then?”
“Pretty much,” he said with a nod, then narrowed his eyes at me. “What’s that expression for?”
I gave a casual one-shoulder shrug. “Nothing. Just filing that little nugget away for the future.”
His eyes wrinkled around the corners as he watched me. “Hmm.”
I dug
into my ice cream pot to find it empty. I hated it when that happened. Charon finished his off as we walked to the nearest bin.
“Okay, so you don’t have the exact answers but you must have a vague idea. What do I need to do to pass?” I asked as Charon tossed our empty ice cream cartons away in the litter bin and we turned and headed back to the black shadow that was The Bus of Death.
He pressed a button on the side of the bus and the doors opened. “I’ve no idea. Pretend you’re well-adjusted?”
I stood on the pavement, hands on my hips, the sun warming my back. “What do you mean pretend I’m well-adjusted? Why does everyone keep saying that to me?”
He settled himself behind the driver’s seat and motioned me onto the bus. “I mean, don’t do things like attend your own funeral. Don’t challenge your guardian’s authority. Don’t solve murders. Don’t help medium’s solve murders. Don’t make friends with the GBs. Don’t call attention to yourself in any way. Pretend you’re well-adjusted.”
“How do you know about Madame Zorina?”
“I saw you with that walking cliché of a medium woman when I went to collect a passenger.”
Where had I been with Madame Zorina when someone had died? The only person I could think of was Barry and he hadn’t died exactly – more like got beamed up to Heaven, according to Madame Zorina anyway.
“You collected Barry? Madame Zorina said it was a bright, white light.”
Barry was the victim of a sort of murder Sabrina and I had helped Madame Zorina solve. Barry also happened to be Edith’s son, which was how we’d met her. Now she and Madame Zorina ran a private investigation business with a supernatural twist.
Charon motioned me onto the bus again. “Of course I collected him. What part of ‘Ferryman of the Dead’ don’t you get?”
I relented and climbed onto the bottom step. “The part where you’re ferrying the doubly dead.”
“How do you think they get to where they’re going? Taxi? Horse and carriage? Stork?”
Deader Still: A Bridget Sway Novel (A Paranormal Ghost Cozy Mystery Series) Page 4