First Among Equals

by Katherine Hayton

  “Yes, I daresay they’re missing the wee one.”

  “And it doesn’t matter to anyone that I might be missing my pet?”

  “No,” Emily said, then blushed as the medium glanced over at her. “Sorry. I need to catch myself better. I had the horrible thought today I might start participating in a conversation with the invisible woman while I was out in company.”

  “Take this.” Crystal rummaged in her bag for a minute, then thrust over a device on an ear hook. “It’s a Bluetooth thingy for my phone but I don’t know where I’ve lost it. The phone, that is,” she hastened to add as if Emily might be confused.

  “I’d clean that before you stick it anywhere near your ear,” Mrs Pettigrew warned as Emily thanked the woman and popped it on the side table.

  “Would you like a cup of tea or something?” Although the offer was genuine, Emily was very glad when the woman said no.

  “I just popped in to say I talked to Hilda at my felting club last night. She can be a bit brusque but was in a good mood yesterday. Anyway, she said she’d look for the report and must’ve found it because she rang a few hours ago and said we can look at it on Sunday.”

  “Why Sunday?” Mrs Pettigrew demanded, and Emily relayed the message.

  “The family attend church then, so she can count on them being gone half the morning. It should be enough time to read the findings and make a copy if we need to. Then she can replace it in Mr Pettigrew’s drawer and he’ll be none the wiser.”

  “Thank you for doing that,” Emily said while Mrs Pettigrew continued to scowl. There seemed to be no pleasing her. It was a pity such a beautiful face was always so twisted up in one ugly expression after another.

  She recounted the information she’d gleaned about the company and also mentioned Gregory’s expulsion for selling drugs. “I don’t know if they have any bearing on the situation at all.”

  “Or even if they’re genuine,” Mrs Pettigrew added, and Emily had to agree.

  “How did the auction go?”

  Emily gave a start, then giggled. “I completely forgot all about it. I guess we’ll find out when they deposit the money in a few weeks.”

  “It’ll just have started a few minutes ago,” Crystal said, checking her watch. “If you want to go down there, I’ll give you a lift.”

  “I don’t know.” Emily frowned even as her heart beat faster with anticipation. “The auctioneer who valued and labelled the items said they encourage sellers to stay away.”

  “Only so they don’t feel so bad about accepting lower offers,” the medium said with a big belly laugh. “If they can get away with something, you bet they will.”

  When Emily still didn’t look convinced, Crystal leaned over and patted her arm. “We can stand in the back and hide behind some tall people. The auction house won’t even know we’re there.”

  Emily screwed up her face as though she was still considering options, then gave in to her desire. She desperately wanted to know how much the items would fetch. Even if the bid price was disappointing, at least she’d know.

  Better to have a reality check now than next week.

  “Let’s go.”

  Her enthusiasm lasted until Crystal pulled her car into the parking lot. When she saw the crowd of people hanging around outside, some smoking, most chatting, Emily felt shyness closing her throat.

  “Perhaps we should just leave it.”

  “Don’t be a sook,” the ghost said, jumping out and heading straight for the door. “I want to see what sad sacks pick up all my precious belongings even if you’re going to sit in the car.”

  Being shown up by a ghost wasn’t how Emily wanted to end her week. She clambered out of the car, glad the pain pills were keeping the worst of her aches at bay.

  “I’m usually at the electronic goods auctions,” Crystal said as they walked towards the building. “The antiques and collectibles will be new for me.”

  Emily was about to ask why the medium needed electronics, then bit her lip to stop the question. Because she couldn’t talk to the dead was the most likely answer. She wondered if there’d been a recording device capturing her every word when she paid her visit the other night.

  Inside the building, the crowds thinned out. A lucky break because, otherwise, the room would have been stifling. Even with only a third of the seats occupied, plus a few stragglers along the walls, the air was muggy.

  “Do you want to sit or stand back?” Crystal asked, peering brightly around the room. She waved a few times, and a man passing by gave her a friendly slap on the back.

  “Sit, I guess.” Emily pointed to where a large man, over six feet tall and almost as broad-shouldered, lounged on a chair. He was so big, the chair looked like it had been stolen from a primary school.

  “Good choice.” Crystal made a beeline for the row behind him, squeezing his shoulder as she moved into place. “Hey, William. Are you picking up something for your girlfriend?”

  “Eh?” The man’s face turned into a question mark. “Why would I buy Ellen anything? She’s got money to do that herself.”

  “It’s her birthday next week,” Crystal said. “And if I’m not mistaken, it ends with a zero. If you want brownie points until the next one, take my advice and pick up something nice.”

  Will dug a phone out of his pocket and scrolled along the screen. He stopped on something, his face screwing up as he concentrated. “You’re right.” He rolled his eyes. “That’s a lucky save.”

  “It’s what psychics are for,” Crystal said with a wink. “A little bird told me she might like a set of three ducks for the wall.”

  The man went still and stared at her for a long moment. “You’re kidding, right? Because if you’re not, I might have to have a long conversation about taste when I get home.”

  Crystal wrinkled her nose. “I’m kidding. Go off. Scavenge. Jewellery never goes astray.”

  As Emily settled into her chair, slumping down now her cover had walked away, Crystal called out to another person, then another. The woman might not be psychic, but she certainly had the pulse of the community.

  “Ooh. It looks like they’re about to start.” Crystal waved over to Will and gestured for him to come back. When another woman tried to take the seat in front of them, she earned a nasty glare. “That’s taken.”

  “Sorted,” Will said in a whisper. “Remind me to shout you a beer the next time you’re down at the Brumsby.”

  “You’re on.”

  “I notice you didn’t save me a seat,” Mrs Pettigrew said as a complete stranger sat on top of her. She drifted up towards the ceiling, arms folded, a glare on her face.

  The auction started to an atmosphere of good cheer. Some early items earned a small bidding war, but wins were easily conceded. There were plenty more goodies in the sea.

  When her boxes were next on the lot, Emily pulled her phone out of her pocket. She could hear the auctioneer okay but come tomorrow, she’d be lucky to remember even half the selling prices of the goods. If she recorded the whole session, she’d be able to load the record into her computer and let it tally the whole thing.

  “Careful they don’t see you,” Crystal said in a low voice. She was good at camouflage, not turning or otherwise showing she was talking to Emily. “Unless you’re one of the authorised phone contacts, they frown on people having phones on in here.”

  “It’s just to record things, not to place false bids,” Emily whispered back. “But I’ll be careful.”

  The sale of goods started, and Emily gazed upwards to see Mrs Pettigrew had an anguished expression on her face. Feeling as embarrassed as if she’d been caught staring, she looked at the floor instead. With the ghost’s hard exterior, she sometimes forgot she was a person with real emotions and real regret.

  Although the boxes were stuffed full of antique treasures, the auctioneer made short work of them. For most items, there weren’t many bidders, and someone on a phone scooped up a dining set at a good price.

  “Stay
or go?” Crystal asked, leaning across when Emily’s items were finished.

  The earlier tiredness was back, drawing Emily’s eyelids closed for longer with each blink. “Go.”

  She invited Crystal back inside when they pulled up outside her house, but the medium shook her head. “No offence but you look exhausted, love. Get a good night’s sleep and treat yourself to something nice tomorrow. I’ll pick you up on Sunday morning.”

  She waved goodbye and Emily opened the door to find Peanut impatiently waiting for her. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember if she’d fed him or not until she peeked in the bin and saw the empty can.

  “You’re just trying it on, I see,” she said to him, picking him up as she walked through to the lounge. “Come Sunday, if you haven’t found your way back home, we’ll take you for a car ride back to Gregory.”

  Mrs Pettigrew was silent as Emily switched on the television. After checking the news, discovering the world hadn’t yet managed to blow itself up, she looked over, eyebrows raised. “I’m going to bed. Do you want me to leave this on?”

  The ghost was lost in her own thoughts and it took a second before the question registered. When she turned to Emily, her eyes were dark pools. “Leave it off. I need to think.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Heat from the sun caused a trickle of sweat to gather at Emily’s side and trickle down her back. She should move. There was shade under the trees to her right, but she couldn’t be bothered.

  Crystal pulled a bottle of water out of her bag. Condensation beaded on the outside and left a damp patch when she pressed it against Emily’s arm. “Here you go. You look like you’re getting far too hot.”

  Emily sat up, spinning off the cap and closing her eyes to better appreciate the trickle of cold water. After swallowing a few mouthfuls, she put the cap back on and held the bottle against the back of her neck. Bliss.

  Earlier that morning, Crystal had shown up out of the blue, claiming she had no work on that day so was taking Emily out to lunch. They’d eaten at the Honeysuckle Café, with Emily ordering a plate of penne carbonara just to fly in the face of Mrs Pettigrew’s hatred of carbs.

  Okay, so the real reason was the pasta looked delicious and was crammed full of bacon, chives, and mushrooms, but the expression on the ghost’s face made it all the sweeter.

  Afterwards, they’d come along to the park, situated halfway along Pinetar’s main road. The sun was bright overhead, and the grass had already given up its allocation of morning dew.

  In a few hours, as the late afternoon settled into night, the public space would fill with teenagers—not wanting to stay at home but unable to afford anywhere better. The only signs of them now were the odd cigarette butt, tobacco or otherwise, and a crumpled can of a ready-to-drink concoction, catching and refracting the sunlight.

  “Can you see her now?” Crystal asked, hitching herself up onto her elbows and crossing her ankles. The voluminous skirt she wore had pulled up, exposing half a calf’s worth of unshaven leg.

  “If I open my eyes. Do I have to?” Emily squinted, focusing on Mrs Pettigrew just in time to see her stare at the medium and draw a finger over her throat. “Yep. She’s there.”

  “And how did you channel her to start with? Was it a sensation you got or a feeling like someone was watching you?”

  A laugh burst out of Emily and she covered her mouth with her hand to stop another. “I didn’t have a feeling, she was right there. The first I knew of her was when she shoved herself right up into my face.”

  “I’ve never shoved myself anywhere,” the ghost demurred. “I just leaned over to check if you were breathing. When you’re asleep, you look half dead.”

  “It must be a real treat to have such easy access,” Crystal said. Her voice sounded wistful. “Often, I have to concentrate and use every trick in the book just to get a few tiny sensations or catch a word.”

  “That’s because you’re a fraud, dear,” Mrs Pettigrew said before yawning and rolling onto her belly. “I’ve met people who’ve gone into the wrong occupations for their skill set before, but you take the cake.”

  “I wish you could see and hear her rather than me.” Emily closed her eyes again and dug her fingers into the grass. It was overdue for a cut. “The woman is exhausting.”

  “Only because you’re so old,” the ghost snapped. “I need to find a younger contact. You can barely walk sometimes.”

  Emily glanced over at Crystal. “She calls me Scarface, you know. Are you envious of that, too?”

  An expression of such horror crossed the medium’s face that Emily felt a glow of warmth in her belly. It had been ages since she’d last spent time with friends, not doing much of anything. So long, her mind had downplayed how good it felt.

  “You speak of her as though she’s the only ghost you’ve ever seen?” Crystal was pulling the petals off a daisy, eyes fixed on the task at hand. “Is that true?”

  “Yeah.” Emily shifted her legs, rolling so she didn’t rest directly on her left hip, which gently throbbed. “Until she appeared, the only thought I’d given to the afterlife was gratitude I wasn’t in it.”

  Crystal laughed and flicked the remains of the daisy away before plucking another one from the long grass. “Why do you think you can see her now?”

  “Because I’m the first ghost worth the attention,” Mrs Pettigrew said with a sniff at the same moment Emily replied, “It’s something to do with her painting.”

  “Her painting?”

  The quick scan from head to toe felt intrusive but Emily refused to shy away. It had been too long since she’d enjoyed the company of a friend to let her shyness drive Crystal away.

  “When I unpacked her painting in the charity shop, that’s when I think I dislodged her spirit, or whatever. Even Pete preferred it when I turned the image to face the wall. Her eyes seemed to follow us everywhere.”

  “Like the Mona Lisa?”

  “But at a fraction of the price!”

  They giggled, and Mrs Pettigrew stared at Emily as though she were touched in the head. “You know it’s because of the accident, don’t you?”

  The sheen of sweat coating Emily’s midriff turned to ice.

  “It happened when the truck driver died, and your brain was being squeezed to a pulp.”

  Emily tried to force the memory away, but it swamped her, pulling her down, pushing into every inch of her senses until she was back in the car, part of the tangled wreckage, certain she was about to die.

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said for the umpteenth time. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Stop apologising,” Crystal said, her voice light but her face creased with worry. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. It’s a panic attack, probably triggered by some type of post-traumatic stress. I’m the only who’s sorry, prying into your history like that.”

  “You two can make a mountain out of a molehill,” Mrs Pettigrew said with disgust, walking indoors and waving hello to Peanut. “You screamed for about two seconds, that’s all. Once I went on a retreat to a mountaintop and yelled over the side of the cliff for five minutes every day.”

  “Would you like to come in for a cuppa?”

  Crystal shook her head and placed her hand on Emily’s forearm. “Tomorrow, maybe. After we go and visit Hilda. You get inside and rest, now. We’ve had enough excitement for the day.”

  No matter her denials, Emily couldn’t help but feel ashamed of her behaviour in front of Crystal. Well, not just her, the entire park. She’d sent a bolt of panic through a young couple, pushing their three-year-old daughter on the swings. The poor parents must have thought a mad woman was on the loose.

  For a moment, she was.

  “I don’t know why you’re so concerned with what the fake medium thinks,” Mrs Pettigrew said as Crystal drove away. “Surely, you understand today was all about finding out your secrets, so she can use them for her own gain.”

  “No, I don’t.” Emily put a hand up to her forehe
ad. She couldn’t work out if it was her fingers or her entire head that was shaking. The scar throbbed, begging to be touched, but she refused the siren call and dropped the arm to her side again.

  “It’s obvious. People like her, they’re always on the lookout for someone to take advantage of. Usually, it’s the sad sacks who come weeping to her door, wanting to know their dead Mum still loves them.” Mrs Pettigrew screwed up her nose, lips thrust out in a monstrous pout. “With you, though, she struck a goldmine. Finally, somebody who can actually do all the things she’s pretending.”

  “If you don’t have anything nice to stay, please be quiet.” The phrasing might have sounded like a plea but the solid bedrock in her tone belied it.

  The ghost shook her head but kept her lip buttoned, apart from cooing to her cat.

  “Make sure you make him feel special tonight,” Emily reminded her as she laid in her bed, despite the time being just past four o’clock. “We’re taking him back to his real home tomorrow.”

  And we’ll find out if all this snooping and prying has been worthwhile, she didn’t say.

  It was her own fault, Emily decided as she peered underneath the sofa. Her knees protested loudly on the way down, then again on the journey back up to standing. If only she hadn’t reminded the ghost about returning Peanut back home, the woman wouldn’t have hidden him.

  Each time she glanced at the smug face, Emily knew that was exactly what Mrs Pettigrew had done.

  “You’ll be late,” the ghost said as the clock made a beeline for a quarter to eight, the time Crystal had agreed to pick them up for the journey. “I mean, you’re not wearing that around to my house, are you? It’ll bring the whole tone of the area down.”

  Emily wiped her dusty hands on the front of her house dress and conceded defeat. She’d been calling to the cat since she first awoke two hours ago. Even the can opener didn’t draw him out from hiding, and usually, he bolted straight for his bowl when he heard that.

  “I hope you’re happy,” she said in a cross voice, her good night’s sleep not having improved her mood much from a day ago. “Poor Gregory’s lost his step mum and his cat only a few weeks apart. The poor lad’ll be devastated.”