by Amy Lane
Tucker groaned. “Does she even know Angel’s a—”
“Ghost? No. She has no idea. My folks didn’t tell her. I guess they heard me talk about him enough that they’re sort of resigned to Angel being real. The whole town can’t have the same imaginary friend, right?”
Tucker took another healthy swallow of smoothie and looked at Angel, who looked guilelessly back. “Angel, you little slut. How many psyches have you been sleeping with?”
“My appearance to everybody else is all your doing, Tucker,” Angel said solemnly. “I promise you, I’ve only ever voluntarily appeared to you and your aunt.”
Tucker laughed a little. “Well, you’re apparently not a secret. Are you going to be okay here while I go back to Sacramento tomorrow?” He yawned. Oh hells—he was done.
“Yes, Tucker. Squishbeans and I will be fine.”
Tucker looked at the kitten, who appeared to roll her eyes at him too. He picked the little fuzzgoober up and plopped her on his chest.
“You could always freak him the hell out and pick up the cat,” Tucker mused.
“I am not a parlor trick,” Angel said with dignity.
“Can he do that?” Andy asked, eyes alight with interest.
“He can,” Tucker said, “but he’s not excited about it. Thinks it’s beneath his dignity.”
“One more question.” Andy took the empty smoothie glass away from Tucker, and Tucker belched, politely covering his mouth with his hand.
“Thanks.” Tucker yawned. “Shoot.”
“When Dad and I pulled you in here, you were babbling about Angel as a girl. Why?”
Tucker moaned. “Because at the time she was one.”
Andy grunted and started collecting empties. “Ruth never said anything about Angel doing that. Think he did it special for you?”
Tucker thought of the big bald leather-wearing biker Angel had tried to be that morning. “I’m sure of it, but Angel doesn’t talk about it. One minute, he’s a perfectly ordinary-looking guy—”
“Good-looking, right?”
Tucker looked away from Angel’s amused smirk.
“Yes. What makes you say that?”
“Because the guy’s got to have something if you and Ruth are willing to dedicate your life to him.” With that, Andy stalked away, cups in hand, muttering to himself, and Tucker put the kitten down so he could get up and go to the bathroom.
“You should ask him for help,” Angel said reluctantly.
“I thought you didn’t want me dependent on family,” Tucker chided as he pushed himself heavily to his feet using the bedrail. “God—stiff, sore, everywhere. I feel like my bones are brittle.” His muscles were taut, like aging rubber bands.
“I have suddenly changed my mind,” Angel said with dignity. “Family sounds like a wonderful idea.”
Tucker stared at him for a moment and then turned away. He hobbled to the bathroom and did his business carefully, then came back, still feeling the grit of exhaustion behind his eyes.
He slid under the covers, conscious of the house’s ever-present cold, and turned toward Angel, cuddling the kitten.
“What?” Angel asked, as Tucker fought to keep his eyes open.
“I’ve got nothing,” Tucker mumbled. “I mean, no reply to that. Just… don’t go anywhere when I sleep, okay? With the Greenaways in the house, stay here. It would suck if Andy decided to perform an exorcism or something because he wanted to get in my pants.”
“You two could perpetrate coitus right here, and I wouldn’t be able to stop you,” Angel said, his stiff voice indicating he didn’t think this was a wonderful idea.
“You totally just did,” Tucker said, laughing at the picture in his head. “It’ll never happen. Night, Angel.”
“Day, Tucker.”
Tucker’s lips twitched, but he was too tired for the comeback.
RAE WAS there with soup that evening, and a cribbage board. Her younger children—aged ten, fourteen, and seventeen—played three-fouls-out softball as the sun went down, and Tucker lay on his side and watched them moving in and among the spirits as they embarked upon their stately waltz on his lawn.
“What do you see?” Rae asked, pushing her perpetually fuzzy hair out of her eyes.
“Tilda should go into pro softball,” Tucker responded. The teenaged girl was sturdy, muscular, and determined. She could pop a fly ball gently up so her younger sister, Coral, could catch it, or level a haymaker at Murphy, her brother, to get him back for being a snot.
“That’s not what your face says,” Rae observed, shuffling the cards. “You look more concerned than that.”
Tucker closed his eyes as a gentleman ghost with a mustache and a leer walked through the oldest girl. Tilda shivered, looked around, and popped up another ball—but Tucker had seen it. She’d responded.
“This house is no place for children,” Tucker said bleakly.
“Bullshit,” Rae said, dealing. “Children are needed here to drive out the ghosts.”
Tucker shot a surprised look at her. “Andy thinks you don’t believe in the ghosts.”
“And that is absolutely stupid, since Andover got his witchiness from my side of the family,” Rae said calmly. “His father told him there was no such thing as ghosts and that Angel was a product of the old woman’s imagination. Ghosts scare Josh, you know.” Of course he knew.
“Ghosts scare me,” Tucker said, shuddering. On the lawn, Coral gave up on softball and went to play that game with the stick and the hoop. Except she was playing the game with little girls who had died over a century before. Tucker whimpered, and Rae looked over her shoulder.
“Coral’s the witchiest one of the four,” Rae told him sagely. “Andy is so damned jealous it’s not even funny. He kept trying to bring her over here when Ruth was alive so she could tell him what Angel looked like.”
Tucker grunted.
Rae gestured for him to make his play, one eyebrow cocked in amusement. “What?”
Tucker lay down his card and moved his peg and finally relented under her no-bullshit mom-gaze. “He probably thought Angel was hot and was trying to get supernaturally laid.”
Rae tilted back her head and laughed. “Well, I did try to pawn him off on you the first day we met.”
“He’s pretty persistent,” Tucker told her.
“He comes by it honestly.” Rae winked, and Tucker remembered her insistence that he leave so she and her husband could have their no-kids-in-the-house date. Well, the family wasn’t one for hiding, that was for sure. Rae sobered. “He really needs to get out of here,” she said softly. “He’s gotten accepted into Sac State, and I’m pretty sure he could get a job down there to feed himself, but it’s housing that’s killing us. I mean, if he was coming on to you when you could barely move, you know the boy needs to go have himself some adventures, right?”
Tucker nodded, thinking about his apartment.
And in spite of not having the gonna-get-laid “pull,” he felt a little pop in his chest.
“He could always take my apartment down in Sac,” Tucker said without thinking. “I was going to give up the lease, but it’s rent-controlled and sort of a steal. There’s no reason for me to give it up now.”
Rae frowned and then played her card. “Hon, you’re awfully tired. I’m not even sure we should let you up tomorrow—”
“You have to,” Tucker said weakly. “Tomorrow I get up and we go move me out and Andy in. The next day, I can start stripping the floors and the wallpaper, and the next day….”
Crap. He couldn’t tell her his plan about moving Sophie and Bridget on.
“What? And it’s your turn.”
Tucker played his card. “I just have some stuff to finish. I need to get that room upstairs all cleaned out and beautiful. Then I can start on the next one.”
“Hon, what are you doing?” Rae asked in exasperation.
“Beating you at cribbage and watching your youngest daughter play hoops with ghosts.”
“Well, be
sides that. What are you doing with that damned room? At the damned graveyard? What is the reason you came to this rotting piece of crap and decided to make our lives better?”
Tucker looked away from the window, where Tilda was standing in the middle of several admiring female ghosts who clapped their hands every time she popped the ball, and looked back at Rae.
“There’s something very wrong at Daisy Place,” he said at last. “Angel is here to clean it out. It’s the reason he’s been here from the very beginning. Ruth wasn’t moving fast enough, and the cemetery….” He needed to look at Angel’s notes. He had an idea about the cemetery, but he wasn’t going to share it with Rae. “I think that’s why the cemetery is so bad,” he said, even though it wasn’t the only reason the cemetery was bad.
Rae grunted and turned around to look out the window. Murphy was sitting in a shady spot, reading a book, and a wizened old woman was reading over his shoulder. Every so often, he would dart a glance up toward her, frown, and turn his face back down.
“I know they’re out there,” she said softly. “I can sense them. I know Angel has been sitting behind you on the bed and was there before you woke up. I know there are some sweet ones, just sort of trapped, and some evil sons of bitches I don’t really want near my children, no matter how much they’re ‘not real.’ But I don’t know what to do about them.” Then she turned back to Tucker and their game of cribbage. “Fifteen for two. Go, hon.”
Tucker went, advancing his peg. He was clearly winning, which surprised the hell out of him because he’d never been that great at card games.
When he was done with his play, he looked back up at Rae Greenaway.
“That’s my job.” He shrugged. “My family, this place—I’m sure I’ll do some research eventually. But each stage knocks me on my ass. Tomorrow, moving Andy in and me out? That’s practically a rest day for me. I may actually come back here and sleep like a normal person.”
Rae smiled slowly. “Can you really sleep in a haunted house?”
Tucker laughed. “Well, let’s put it this way. When I got here, I could hear the person who used to sleep on this bed muttering to herself—and she was stuck here with my aunt Ruth, so I didn’t see her best side. That was not fun. But in the last three days, shit has gotten so dire, her aura is completely gone. This whole room—”
“Wait. Let me.” Rae closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. “You smell like cedar.” Her smile was completely at peace. “Josh smells like Joshua pines, Andover smells like wool—everybody’s got a smell. You smell like cedar wood.” She laughed and opened her eyes. “You’re like mothballs for ghosts,” she said whimsically.
Behind him, Tucker heard Angel snort in approval.
“I am indeed.” Tucker patted the bed he was sitting on. “And right now, I am one of three auras in the room.”
Rae rolled her eyes. “I am barely a spit in the wind compared to you two. Okay, then, this room, it’s all yours. I’ve been in your kitchen—it’s got you and Angel all over it. But the rest of the house….” She shuddered. “Can you really do this on your own?”
Tucker added up his crib for six points, again vaguely surprised. “You know why I’m redecorating the room upstairs?” he asked.
“You’ll tell me. And you are kicking my ass.” She counted her crib for two.
“I never win at games—it’s like this room is blessed or something. But when I’m done with a job, I want a record of it. So I figure this place has, what? Angel said fifteen-plus rooms to clear out?”
Rae hmmd noncommittally as she dealt, and Tucker looked up from another superlative hand.
“What does that mean?”
She shrugged. “Look, I don’t know how many rooms your lawyer put on your paperwork—”
“Twenty-one,” Tucker said, because it had stuck in his head. Three sevens—a graveyard number.
“Yeah, well, Andy used to come over and put away groceries—”
“I know that. It’s why he thinks he knows everything.”
Rae snorted and rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s a twenty-two-year-old for you. I’m sure you knew everything at twenty-two as well.”
Fuck. Involuntarily Tucker recalled Damien stealing him out of class so they could go swimming. They’d rented an inner tube and laid down on it, stomach first, their sides touching as they stared into the water and paddled the lazy parts of the American River. Tucker had turned his head, and Damien laughed, so close to Tucker they could have kissed. His hair had been streaked by the sun, and gold flecks had glinted in his brown eyes. I know he could love me. I know he could. If I just lean forward, he’ll kiss me, and he knows about the curse. He’d understand. If I just lean forward and our lips meet….
Tucker had been sure of it. He’d known.
But he’d never tried.
“I did and I didn’t.” He coughed, trying to clear the sadness out of his throat. “Some shit you have to learn the hard way.”
“Yeah,” Rae said, looking at him like she could see what he wasn’t saying. Well, she’d just said she was “witchy.” Perhaps she could. “But Andy used to run down the halls and count the rooms. And the first day he came home all excited—he’d counted eighteen rooms altogether. We were impressed. But he told Ruth the next time he delivered groceries, and she was upset. Seems there were only supposed to be fifteen. So he counted again. Four times.”
Tucker closed his eyes and groaned. “Let me guess.”
“Different answer each time.”
“Oh hell. Angel—how many rooms are in Daisy Place?”
Angel made a clearing-the-throat sound, and Tucker looked behind him. Angel’s sheepish grin and apologetic shrug were not reassuring. “Fifteen the last time I counted?” he qualified.
“Are you shitting me?”
“I didn’t know it was a requirement of relieving the ghosts,” Angel said with dignity.
“Can you go count?” For some reason, not knowing was almost more unsettling than the graveyard.
Angel sighed and sat back so hard he actually thumped against the wall. Rae gasped and dropped her cards and then glared at them both.
“Tell him to stop that!”
“He didn’t do it on purpose,” Tucker muttered. “Angel?”
“No,” Angel said regretfully. “I get… lost.”
“Lost,” Tucker echoed dumbly.
“Yes. I…. You know those movies where the hallway stretches out forever?”
“Oh God.”
“I’m in that hallway, and I can’t find my way to the end.”
“Oh God.”
“The last time I tried, Ruth said I was missing for a month.” Angel looked sorrowful, and Tucker reached out a helpless hand to comfort him.
“That’s awful,” he said, voice husky.
Angel smiled beatifically. “I was nowhere near as brave as you were.”
Tucker’s chest expanded and gave a giant throb, and then Rae interrupted, sounding concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m living in the house from The Shining.” Tucker swallowed and tried to keep it together. “I mean, I could do it when it was finite, you know? But the graveyard, and now this? It’s every horror movie ever made! It’s every haunted house, it’s every carnival ride, it’s—”
“It’s going to be fine,” Angel said, and Tucker, who could have sworn his heart was going to start beating through his ears, heaved a big sigh and leaned back in bed.
He was suddenly exhausted.
“There is no finite room count,” he said, gulping this truth down dry like every other pill at Daisy Place. Then he remembered his restoration job and brightened. “But I have money—my plan still stands. When I get rid of a ghost, I’ll fix the room. Maybe when the rooms are bright and shiny clean, they will stand still enough to count.”
He threw his cards down, knowing he could have won with that hand. “But I can’t do it today.”
Rae cleaned up the cards and smoothed his hair back from his head, acting lik
e a regular mom. “No, you can’t,” she said softly. “But look. My kids are comfy here, and you’re giving Andy a way to get out. You don’t have to do it alone.”
Tucker smiled gratefully but still pulled away from her comfort in favor of healing sleep.
THE NEXT day, Tucker hopped out of bed bright and early and then fought not to fall back down.
“Are you going to make it?” Angel asked from the bed, and Tucker actually jumped in surprise.
“Oh my God, we slept together!” He’d asked for that—he had. But he was still surprised it had happened.
“Well, not in the biblical, coital way,” Angel said, sounding almost sad about that. “But you were afraid, and I stayed.”
Tucker scrambled for balance, both walking to the bathroom and inside himself. All of the things he’d avoided thinking about the day before, when playing cribbage had been a stretch for his abilities, came flooding back now.
Angel—inside him. A pure, glowing soul, both masculine and feminine, filling him with power and pushing the pain, the guilt, out of his pores, and the poison with it.
“I’ve got to—”
“I know,” Angel said mildly. “You have to go relieve yourself and figure out what’s going on in your head. I’ll be here when you finish.”
Well, since Angel understood, Tucker was going to take his time.
He came back drying his hands and smelling his pits. “I am rank,” he muttered. “I’m so gross, I think I made the bedclothes gross too. I’m going to shower and then start the laundry.” He looked up at Angel, the calm, auburn-haired, green-eyed, broad-shouldered version of him that he’d settled on the day before, and started to sweat a little.
“Do me a favor and let me shower alone this time, okay?”
“Of course,” Angel said, those very specific green eyes guileless and accepting.
But Tucker was midway through the shower, pondering which one of Angel’s forms he was least attracted to—because they all seemed disconcertingly appealing—when a hand materialized through the shower cubicle and knocked on the wall adjacent.