Secrets and Specters

by Raven Snow

  “I’ve got work in the morning,” said Conners, coming back into the den.

  “I was kidding,” Lady said quickly, which wasn’t entirely true. She had only been half-joking. The mildly concerned expression on Conners’ face said he could tell too.

  “You can take the bed, if you want.”

  “Yeah, I’ll lay down at the shadow monster’s favorite hangout. That’ll help me sleep.”

  “I’ll be there too.” Conners seemed to realize that sounded bad, because he was quick to add, “In the room, I mean. If that makes you feel any safer. There’s a chair that’s comfortable. I can sleep on that.”

  Lady considered the offer. Not being alone in a room would make her feel a little safer, honestly. “Yeah… Yeah, okay. I’ll take the comfortable chair, though.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m not going anywhere near your haunted bed.”

  Chapter Five

  True to Conners’ word, the chair was pretty comfortable. It had a footrest that was almost as big as the chair itself. It wasn’t hard to scooch herself down and lay on it like she had the sofa. Not that it was perfect. She was still super sore when she woke up, though she considered the fact that she’d managed to fall asleep at all, after the night she’d had, a win.

  What was decidedly not “a win” was Conners’ eye. Her suspicions were correct. She had given him quite the black eye. He waved it off. Lady wasn’t sure if he was being polite or just so annoyed he didn’t want to talk about it. Probably the latter. He was tired, and Lady was right there with him.

  They stopped by a drive through on the way to drop Lady off at the inn. He got coffee; she got three hash browns.

  “I’m not sure hash browns are a balanced breakfast.”

  “I’m my own adult. Don’t judge me,” Lady shot back around mouthfuls of potato. “Besides, you’re one to talk.”

  “Fair.” Conners sipped his coffee, his eyes on the road.

  It wouldn’t be long before Lady was back at home. Ms. Poole would have questions. If there were any more answers she wanted, she needed to get them then and there. “So, did you have that nightmare again?”

  Conners didn’t answer at first. Lady saw him give her a brief glance first. “No. I didn’t have any more dreams last night. Well, none that I can remember anyway.”

  “I guess I didn’t either. Guess we were both pretty tired.” Lady stifled a yawn. “Well, still pretty tired.” She was already thinking about how she might take a nap once she got home, assuming Ms. Poole would allow it. It would be nice to crash face first into her own bed right about now. “So, how often exactly do you have that nightmare?”

  “Exactly?” Conners’ raised an eyebrow at her.

  “What? I’m supposed to figure out what’s going on, right? That’s why I was sent to stay with you last night. If I had to bet money, I’d say that this shadow man of yours had something to do with your nightmare.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know! I’ll have to talk about it with Ms. Poole. It’s just that— There’s a correlation, right?”

  Conners shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve always had that nightmare. At least, I have since… Since you know… it happened.” He fell silent for a few seconds. “There hasn’t always been… whatever that is. It’s not there every time I have the nightmare. If anything, the nightmare might be caused by stress. I have it a lot when I’m stressed.”

  “Maybe,” Lady conceded, though she wasn’t entirely convinced. “I’ll see what Ms. Poole thinks.”

  “You do that.” Conners pulled up to the curb next to the inn. “I’d go in and say hi, but I’m late for work and Ms. Poole wouldn’t care.”

  Lady gathered up her remaining hash brown and the trash from the other two. “Hey, don’t worry. We’ll fix this.”

  “Goodbye, Lady.” Conners didn’t want kind words of encouragement. He wanted her out of his car so that he could get to work.

  “Fine. Bye. Talk soon.”

  “Bye.” Conners started driving a split-second before Lady had the door closed. With a sigh and Lion at her heels, she headed for the front door of the inn.

  It was still a little early. Lady didn’t feel right announcing her arrival too loudly. She didn’t want to get Doyle’s attention or anything. He was probably still kind of mad at her.

  Lady could smell breakfast. The hash browns had been unnecessary, but she had known that at the time. Home cooking was great and all, but the greasy siren song of fast food was hard to pass up as an occasional treat. All the same, Lady stashed her fast food bag in her bedroom before continuing on to the kitchen. “I’m home,” she called, using a decidedly indoor voice.

  No one was in the kitchen. Everyone was already seated in the dining room. Every one.

  “Welcome home,” Doyle said, steaming mug in hand and a dark eyebrow raised. Somehow, it sounded more like a threat than a greeting.

  Lady’s throat suddenly felt very dry. She swallowed and forced a smile. “Hey, sorry to interrupt breakfast.”

  “You’re not interrupting.” Otsuya beamed at Lady and dragged the empty chair next to her out from beneath the table. “Come on. Come sit by me.”

  Lady wasn’t entirely sure if Otsuya was talking to her or the cat. She didn’t get a chance to find out. Doyle took one last sip from his mug and stood. He dabbed at his mouth with a cloth napkin and coolly placed it back down on the table. “We should get going, Otsuya.”

  “Huh?” Otsuya looked back to her boss. Her face fell. “But—”

  “We need to get going,” Doyle repeated, more firmly this time. He strode from the table and breezed past Lady without a word. For a split second, she thought he was about to ram his shoulder into hers, high school drama style, but that didn’t happen.

  Otsuya groaned loudly and dramatically. She grabbed a handful of bacon as she stood. “Well, never mind then.” She hurried past Lady as well. “See ya later.”

  “See ya.” Lady watched Doyle go, Otsuya following close behind. She waited until they had both left the room before heading to the table. “Sorry,” she mumbled to Ms. Poole as she sat down at her usual place. “Did I make breakfast weird?”

  “You did.” You could always count on Ms. Poole to be blunt. She was cutting a biscuit with a knife and fork. “But he was talking like he had work to do this morning anyway.” She looked in the direction of the front door, listening to it open and close. “You should find a way to apologize.”

  Lady didn’t have a plate in front of her, but she reached out and grabbed a link of sausage anyway. “I don’t think he’d listen to me if I did apologize.”

  “He wouldn’t. Which is why you need to find some other way to apologize.”

  “Some other way?” Lady repeated. “Like how?”

  “That’s for you to figure out. It’s not a proper apology unless you’re the one responsible for it.”

  “It’s not a proper apology unless I’m actually sorry.” Lady muttered her words, but she could tell from the glare she got that Ms. Poole had heard them anyway. “Sorry,” she added. She hoped she didn’t have to find some grander way of apologizing to Ms. Poole.

  “So, what did you find out?” She changed the subject, something Lady was thankful for.

  “About that…” Lady wasn’t even sure how to begin. She finished her sausage. First thing first and all. “I mean, I definitely think something is going on. I don’t think it’s just nightmares or night terrors or whatever he called it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, I saw the thing for starters.”

  Ms. Poole sat down her knife and fork and fixed Lady with an earnest look. “You saw it?”

  Lady nodded. “Yep. Got attacked by it too. You didn’t warn me that could happen.”

  Ms. Poole held up a hand, stopping her there. “To be clear, I didn’t think you would be attacked by anything. What happened?”

  Lady told her everything. Not that there was much to tell. She woke up,
she went to check out what happened, got attacked, then she gave Conners a black eye. “I didn’t see it again after that.”

  “Anything else?” Ms. Poole urged. “Did you get any emotions from it? What did it make you feel?”

  “It made me feel terrified. It tried to kill me!”

  Ms. Poole rolled her eyes. “Aside from that.”

  “I dunno… I wasn’t really thinking all that clearly. I don’t think you would have been either, thank you very much.”

  “I’m not saying you did anything wrong. I just… So it was entirely featureless? How big was it?”

  Lady didn’t really know that either. She knew it was big, but she hadn’t exactly looked at it against anything for scale. “I don’t know exactly. Tall? Like, really tall. When I say big, though, I don’t just mean tall. It was broad too.”

  “Intimidating.” Ms. Poole nodded like that made sense. “Maybe it’s tied to an emotion then, anger perhaps.”

  “I was thinking something like that. Not the anger part, but the emotion thing.” Lady hesitated, not sure she was supposed to share the things Conners told her. He had told her all that so that she could help him, and Ms. Poole was part of that. It wasn’t like he had told her not to tell anyone. Best to keep it vague. “Conners has this recurring nightmare. He was having it right before this happened.”

  Ms. Poole leaned in, steepling her fingers together on the table. “What is this nightmare about?”

  “It’s… Well, it’s kind of private. It’s something that happened to him on the job. He got hurt.”

  “When he lost his leg.” Ms. Poole nodded knowingly, and Lady felt stupid for being vague. Of course she would know. She and Al were friends after all. Something like this wouldn’t escape her notice.

  “Yeah,” Lady confirmed, sheepishly. “When he lost his leg. Sounds like it was bad, something worth having nightmares over I guess.”

  “It was. I remember when it happened.”

  “I bet Al was… a lot to deal with.”

  Ms. Poole widened her eyes briefly, like Lady didn’t know the half of it. “So you think this has something to do with the nightmares he’s having?”

  “It seems likely, right? I mean, it’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “You haven’t been thinking about this very long,” Ms. Poole pointed out. “But you may be on to something. What I don’t understand is why this creature of his is only manifesting now. You would think the nightmares would have been most prevalent shortly after the accident.”

  “Yeah, he mentioned something about that.” Lady put her elbow on the table and leaned her head into her hand. “Maybe something did happen right after the accident? Did Al ever say anything?”

  “Al?” Ms. Poole’s gaze went distant, like she was trying to recall. “I don’t… There was so much going on during that time period. I wasn’t the only person around her either. I can’t honestly say that I recall.”

  “Maybe you could ask her.” Ms. Poole and Al were friends after all.

  “No,” Ms. Poole said immediately, catching Lady off guard.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean no.” Ms. Poole picked up her mug of coffee and took a sip. “I don’t like talking about this with her. She’s still very… sensitive about the subject.” She put her mug back down on the table. “You go speak with her.”

  “What?”

  “Having trouble with basic English this morning, are we? Are you sure that creature didn’t knock more than your breath out of you?”

  “Hey.” Lady reached for a piece of bacon just to give herself something to do. “I just don’t see why I have to be the one to go ask her is all. You’re her friend, not me.”

  “You’ll need to be her friend if you two are going to start going to the movies together,” Ms. Poole pointed out coolly. “She’ll be wanting an update on her son anyway. If you get there before lunch, you can have tea with her. She likes that sort of thing. She also makes excellent tea.”

  “So why don’t you go have tea with—”

  “You’re going. This is a good learning experience for you.”

  “A learning experience or busy work?” Lady felt like she was still getting punished for the whole Doyle thing.

  “Would you rather look into a mystery or clean upstairs? I notice you never even swept the floor.”

  Lady stood. “I’ll go,” she said quickly. Going and having tea with Al actually did sound preferable to household chores. “Though, I still don’t see how this is a learning experience.”

  Ms. Poole raised her eyebrows at Lady. “Then you should go learn that as well.”

  “Do I have time for a nap?”

  “No, but you do have time for a shower… and perhaps a change of clothes. Those look like the ones you wore yesterday.”

  It was because they were. “Fine. I’ll go take a shower.”

  Chapter Six

  A shower made Lady feel a little more human and a little less like a pawn piece Ms. Poole was scooting around a board. “What’s her angle?” Lady asked Lion, her hands shoved into the front of her hoodie while she walked. Lion didn’t have an answer for her, but Lady liked to think he was also a little frustrated. “I don’t get what I’m supposed to be learning from all this.”

  Most likely, the learning stuff was just a front. Ms. Poole was just using her so she wouldn’t have to deal with Al. Maybe she just wasn’t in the mood to put up with the woman. Al struck Lady as the sort of person you had to take a break from sometimes.

  Lion meowed and Lady nearly tripped over him as he wound around her ankles. “Geez.” She stumbled forward, barely catching her balance before she could fall face first onto the sidewalk. “What the heck?” she turned on Lion and frowned down at him.

  Undaunted by the glare he was receiving, Lion chirped and wound around her ankles again. Lady tried to continue on, but he remained underfoot.

  “What?” Lady sighed. “You want to be carried or something?” It would figure that Lion would get tired of walking. She shrugged the tote bag off her shoulder and knelt down. Lion hopped inside. “Must be nice,” she grumbled, standing back up.

  The rest of the walk was a total chore. She definitely needed to look into getting a car. Lion’s added weight wasn’t helping.

  Lady’s legs were aching by the time she got to Al’s house. Ms. Poole had called ahead while Lady was in the shower, told Al to expect her. Lady hoped Ms. Poole was right and that Al was happy for the company.

  Al’s house looked much as it normally did. Even with the approaching cold, her garden was a sight to behold. It was dense and sprawling. Lady had to duck under a few errant branches as she walked down the stone path to the door. She knocked.

  There wasn’t an answer immediately. Lady knocked again, not sure what she would do if no one was home. Ms. Poole hadn’t said anything about Al not answering the phone. “Al?” she called, raising her voice so that she could be heard inside. There wasn’t a doorbell. She was about to move to one side and peek through a window when a head popped out of the bushes to her right.

  “Lady! Dear girl! There you are!”

  Lady gave a little shriek, and Lion jumped within the tote bag. She turned to face Al, a hand resting over her pounding heart. “H-hey, Ms. Comfrey.”

  Ms. Comfrey stared at Lady wide-eyed. “Did I startle you? So sorry. I didn’t hear you until you started calling. My hearing isn’t what it used to be. My sense of time isn’t either, I suppose. I didn’t expect you so soon! Got all caught up in my gardening. That happens, you know.”

  Lady didn’t know how someone could be so passionate about plants, but she nodded like she did anyway. “I didn’t realize there was a specific time I was supposed to be here. If I need to go home and come back later, I can—”

  “Oh, no. Don’t be silly.” Al stepped out from her garden completely. She was wearing the clothes Lady almost always saw her gardening in; well-loved overalls, a dirt-stained undershirt, thick gloves covered in cartoon la
dybugs. “Come on in. I’ll wash up and put the tea on.” Al moved past Lady and through her front door. She left it open to let Lady in.

  Al’s house felt a lot like Conners’. It was cozy and lived in. “Why don’t you sit yourself down at the table there.” Al pointed to a table in the kitchen. It was a small, round table placed near a big bay window. The light coming down on it was a little too warm for comfort. Lady put her tote bag down and pulled off her hoodie. She was wearing one of her only blouses beneath it. It was light blue and flowy, with ties on its poufy sleeves. She’d made a point to dress nice, not that it mattered given the down and dirty clothes Al was wearing.

  Lion mewed and climbed from the bag. Lady had more or less forgotten he was even in there. “Oh, um!” She looked around. Al had vanished around a corner. “I brought Lion. I hope that’s all right.”

  “That’s fine!” Al called from the other room, again sounding like Lady was ridiculous to be concerned about such a thing. “He’s your familiar. He’s every bit as welcome inside as you are. I’ll fix him a special treat.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Hush. I want to.” Al came back into the kitchen. She had removed her work gloves and was now wearing house shoes. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, out of her plump face. She smiled a little wider when she got a look at Lady without her hoodie. “Don’t you look pretty today!”

  Lady managed a smile back at her. Sheepishly, she pushed a strand of her own hair behind one ear. “Thanks.”

  Al began to open cabinets and drawers, taking out a teapot and canisters of tea. “I hear you spent the night with my boy last night.” She said it a little suggestively, like Lady hadn’t been there to help him with his shadow monster problem.

  “I didn’t— I mean, I wasn’t—”

  Al laughed. “I know, Dear,” she said, cutting her off. “A mother can dream, though.”

  “A mother can dream about her son hooking up with some chick he barely knows?”

  Al laughed again. “I just want him to get a nice girlfriend… Or boyfriend. Goodness knows, I’m not picky. Whatever makes him happy.” She scooped out tea into an infuser. “I know we’ve had our differences, but you seem like a nice girl.”