by Morgana Best
“How would we know?” Aunt Maude whispered. “Anyone could be working for The Other and we have absolutely no way to tell. We’ll just have to keep our ears to the ground and be on full alert, because I’m sure there’s more to this than we know.”
“Of course it was her!” Aunt Dorothy exclaimed. “She’s stingy, and the murderer was stingy! Who else but Euphemia Jones would buy a murder weapon on sale.”
I had to admit, she had a point. Just then, Euphemia Jones and Aunt Agnes returned. “Valkyrie will show you to your cottage now, the Game of Thrones cottage.” Aunt Agnes handed me the master keys.
“Didn’t you say the Jungle cottage before? Are you sure this is the right cottage?” I shot Aunt Agnes a pointed look.
“Yes, it’s all clean and ready to go,” Agnes said blithely.
I had no idea how Euphemia Jones would react to the Game of Thrones cottage, but I had no choice but to take her there. It was one of the cottages I had not had a chance to redecorate. Thankfully the cottage was nowhere near my own cottage, but it was next to the cottage where Euphemia’s husband had been murdered. There was no getting around it, literally or metaphorically—we had to go past that cottage.
I tried to hurry her past, but she stopped. “Is this where my husband’s body was found?”
The yellow police tape had given it away. I stopped with her. “Yes.”
“I want to go in there.”
I shook my head. “The police said we’re not allowed to go in there until they say so.”
“Well, I won’t tell if you won’t.” She jutted out her jaw in a belligerent manner.
“What if they find your DNA in there? Then they might suspect you of his murder.”
“I won’t touch anything.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared me down.
I sighed. “All right then. Just don’t touch anything.” I opened the door. I had forgotten how terrible the Retro cottage was. The walls were covered with the most hideously garish wallpaper in burnt orange and yellow geometric shapes, and there was a white shag pile carpet on the mustard and tan slate floor.
Euphemia Jones pushed past me. “Where did he die?” she barked at me.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. Aunt Agnes was the one who found him.”
“It’s a wonder he didn’t die from bad decorating,” she snapped. “I can’t believe you charged anyone for this cottage. It’s disgusting. Don’t you know all these horrible orange and yellow colours and these ghastly geometric shapes went out in the 1970s?”
“That’s the point,” I said, matching her tone. “It’s the Retro cottage. It’s supposed to look like this.”
“It’s supposed to look like this?” she said in disbelief.
She stopped speaking. “There.” She pointed to a bloodstain on the floor and then walked over and put her hand on the ground.
“I said not to touch anything, remember?”
“Whatever. The police have done all the testing they’re going to do for now,” she said.
I was surprised she put her hand to the ground. Who would do that? Was she a vampire?
She shut her eyes, and to me it looked as though she was focusing. Was she trying to perceive the identity of the murderer by some psychic means?
“Okay then, let’s leave.” She barged out of the cottage, leaving me wondering what the purpose of that had been. I know everybody handles grief differently, but she seemed completely unconcerned by the fact her husband had been murdered only that morning.
I ushered her into the Game of Thrones cottage.
“It smells musty in here,” she said in an accusing tone.
“We had no warning you were coming,” I said firmly. “Now that the rain has stopped, we can open the windows and the sea breeze will make it lovely and pleasant. I’ll go back and fetch your food. Normally, we would have had it in here for a guest, but as I just said, we didn’t know you were coming.”
She looked around the room. “This is repulsive! All these people with their heads chopped off! And worse still, one wall is red, one wall is navy blue, and one wall is mustard. What do you call this cottage?”
“It’s the Game of Thrones cottage,” I said.
“Surely the other cottages are vacant! I didn’t see any signs of life,” she said angrily.
I thought of several puns, but I thought that would be in poor taste. “People come here for privacy.” This time I was the one to stare her down.
She threw up her hands in resignation. “All right, I’ll put up with this terrible place, but I’m never coming back.”
“That’s a relief,” I muttered under my breath.
I was more than a little suspicious of Euphemia Jones. Her husband was dead, and unless she was in some sort of shock, she didn’t appear the least bit concerned. What’s more, she had rested her hand on the ground and shut her eyes as if trying to discern something spiritually. Could this death be connected with The Other, after all?
Chapter 9
I had a restless night’s sleep. I had been awake since five in the morning counting down the minutes to see my parents again. My aunts had insisted I stay in one of the bedrooms at the manor instead of my cottage for the night. I had protested at first but had finally given in. They didn’t particularly give a reason, only to say they thought it would be better that way. For once, I didn’t think they were actually up to something—I thought they too were nervous about my parents’ return and wanted me close by.
The bedroom I had stayed in previously in the manor, the one the aunts reserved for me, was pleasant enough, but it had a slightly musty smell, no doubt as it rarely received an airing. The bed was high and lumpy, and the wooden headboard loomed over me in some arcane way. At least that’s how I felt in the middle of the night when the shapes cast shadows on the walls. It reminded me of the nightmares I’d had as a child where goblins appeared on my walls, their long bony hands clutching for my throat. My mother had said they were only shadows.
Now, after I had discovered the supernatural, I wasn’t so sure— maybe they had been goblins after all. After a quick shower, I hurried downstairs to have coffee, taking care not to wake the aunts.
It was only six in the morning. One hour to go. I reached for the coffee pot and switched it on and then paced up and down.
There was no sign of Breena, so I tiptoed through the house and found her asleep, curled up on the sofa in the living room. I tiptoed back and reached for my coffee. Bummer! I hadn’t put the coffee in. I made it again, this time dropping in a coffee pod.
I pulled back the curtains and stared out the kitchen window. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. As I looked out the window, I saw Euphemia Jones marching past. I wondered whether she was heading for her car so early in the morning, or whether she was coming to complain about something else. I hurried to the front door, hoping she was simply going to her car.
My luck had run out. As I opened the front door, an angry Mrs Jones stood there, her fist lifted to knock. “You don’t have the right cereal for me,” she snapped.
“What cereal do you like?” I asked her, doing my best to remain patient.
“Anything apart from what you’ve got there,” she snapped.
“Well, if you’ll wait right here, I’ll go and fetch you some cereal.”
“That wouldn’t be hygienic!” she said in the same obnoxious tone. “I insist you get me an unopened packet.”
“An unopened packet of what, precisely?” I asked her. No wonder I wasn’t a people person.
“Anything apart from what I’ve already got,” she countered.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was the most impossible boarder I’d had to date, and that was saying something. “All right, if you wait here, I’ll go and fetch you some packets.” She made to push past me, but I held up a hand to forestall her. “I have a store of multiple-choice unopened packets of cereal still in their plastic wrapper. I have two different cartons of assortments, each
containing ten small packets of cereal. I’ll get both, and you can choose the one you want.”
“I’ve already told you, I don’t want the one in my cottage now.”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t know which one is in your cottage now, so I will go and get you both and you can choose.”
To my relief, she simply nodded, so I hightailed it out to the pantry. I grabbed a packet of each and hurried back to the front door.
Breena was in her cat form lying under the kitchen table. I thought it a good sign she had managed to turn back into a cat again. It seemed she was making progress with the shifting.
I had only walked a few steps from the kitchen, when I heard a bloodcurdling scream from the direction of the front door. I sprinted there to see Mrs Jones with her hand over her mouth. She clutched her chest.
“What’s happened?”
“A naked, naked woman,” she stammered. “A naked woman pushed past me and ran out the door.”
I looked past her and saw Breena disappear around the side of the building.
“That’s just the ghost of Mugwort Manor,” I said. “Not many people have seen her. You’re lucky that you did.”
She turned white. “Ghost, ghost?” she repeated.
I nodded. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t go to the cottages. It’s confined to the house. People say it only haunts unpleasant guests.” I couldn’t resist saying that. I held out the packets to her. “Which one would you like?”
Her jaw fell open. “You’re talking about cereal at such time as this? I saw a naked girl. Are you telling me it was a ghost?” Her tone held more than a note of disbelief.
“Oh yes.” I nodded slowly. “Several people have seen the ghost in the house and of course my aunts see her all the time here. As I said, she won’t bother you at the cottage, unless…” I let my voice trail away. “Now which packet of assorted cereal would you like?” I shot her a winning smile.
She regarded me with narrowed eyes and then pointed to the left. “I’ll have that one,” she snapped, followed in a nice tone by, “Please.”
I handed her the packet, then shut the door in her face. The aunts came downstairs. “Who screamed?” Aunt Agnes said.
“Mrs Jones was complaining about cereal, and when I was fetching more, she saw a naked Breena run past her. I convinced her that Breena was a ghost.”
The aunts all laughed. “I don’t suppose you were able to sleep, Valkyrie?” Aunt Agnes asked me.
I shook my head. “I feel a bit sick on the stomach. I’m having coffee now.”
Aunt Maude looked at her watch. “Well, let’s have a good breakfast with plenty of coffee and then we’ll be ready.”
I pulled my phone from my jeans and looked at the time again. Time seemed to be going so slowly. I was frustrated, but reminded myself to be patient. After all, I’d waited five years, so what was another thirty minutes?
“Lucas should be here soon,” I told the aunts. “I wonder what my parents are going to tell us?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Aunt Agnes said. “I still can’t believe the timing—the victim killed the day your parents arrived back in town.”
“They might not have arrived back in town yesterday, Agnes,” Dorothy pointed out. “Maybe there’ve been here for a week. It was only that they had contact with Valkyrie yesterday.”
Aunt Agnes set her coffee mug down on the table with a clatter. “Obviously Dorothy, that’s what I meant.”
“Well, I’m not the Delphic Oracle. I don’t know what you mean; I can only know what you say, and what you said didn’t make sense. I’m not a mind reader.”
“Stop bickering, you two,” Aunt Maude said. “Valkyrie is about to see her parents for the first time in five years and all you two can do is quarrel.”
“We weren’t bickering,” Agnes said. “I was merely admonishing Dorothy.”
Aunt Dorothy stomped her foot. “You had no right to admonish me. I should have been admonishing you.”
“More coffee anyone?” I said loudly, standing up. “Oh, there’s Lucas.” The knock on the door was light so I figured it wasn’t the dreadful Mrs Jones again.
Aunt Dorothy followed me to the door and as I let him in.
“Is everything all right?” he asked. “Pepper, I was worried. You didn’t text me back.”
I looked at my phone again. “Oh that’s strange. Texts aren’t showing on the screen they usually do.” I put my phone back in my pocket. “It’s been doing that a bit lately. Yes, we’re all okay. That Mrs Jones is being irritating.”
I had told Lucas all about Mrs Jones in our phone conversation the previous night, but we had been careful what we said to each other on the phone as a precaution.
Lucas crossed to the coffee machine, refilled it with water, and dropped in a pod. “Everything seems normal at the winery,” he said. “I haven’t gone to Uncle Henry’s house because I don’t want to draw attention to it, but the winery managers don’t seem to think anything out of the ordinary has happened. I told them there had been burglaries in town, but they said they haven’t seen anything suspicious.”
I clutched my stomach. “I’m nervous about seeing my parents again after all this time.”
Lucas clamped his hand onto my shoulder, making my heart flutter.
“What if that dreadful Euphemia Jones comes back to complain about something else while we’re all in the tunnel?” Aunt Dorothy said.
“We’ll put a note on the front door saying we’ll be back in five minutes,” Agnes said. “Dorothy, go and do that now.”
I thought Dorothy would complain, but she crossed to the old kitchen dresser and pulled out a notepad and pen and a roll of sticky tape.
After two cups of coffee, I looked at my phone again. “Do we leave now?” I asked them. “How far away is the tunnel?”
“It’s right here. It’s quite close,” Aunt Agnes said. “We don’t want to leave too soon.”
“Why not?” I asked her.
“We’ll just give it a few more minutes.”
I spent five minutes staring into my coffee cup, twisting it and occasionally sipping from it.
The five minutes seemed to stretch on forever. Finally, Aunt Agnes stood up. “Let’s go now.”
I stood up and clutched my stomach once more as a wave of nausea hit me.
“Dorothy, did you leave that note?” Agnes asked her. Dorothy nodded. “Now, follow me.”
I had wondered why I had never seen the entrance to the tunnel, but I soon discovered why. Aunt Agnes opened the door to the secret room that overlooked the living room. Some time ago we had spied on the police from that very room.
“Wait outside for a bit,” Aunt Agnes said. I waited impatiently, shifting from one foot to another, when she beckoned to us. “Come in.”
There was a trapdoor in the floor. I hadn’t noticed it before, but then again I’d had no reason to inspect the floor previously.
“Mind your step,” Aunt Agnes said.
The lights were dim. I carefully made my way down the stairs. Thankfully, there were not too many of them. Soon I found myself in a large room. There were old metal chairs in the room as well as bookshelves that appeared to hold ancient, arcane books and grimoires. I wondered if the books were somehow magically protected from the damp.
“This is the tunnel entrance,” Agnes said as she walked to the far edge of the room. She pushed a pair of ancient oak doors and they slowly creaked open.
I hurried to the doors and looked through. No one was there.
Chapter 10
“Where are my parents?” I asked. I was on the verge of tears and was doing my best to hold them back.
“The door’s locked,” Aunt Agnes said.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. You just opened the door.” I wondered if she was speaking about something metaphysical.
“No, we’re in the right tunnel, but this takes us to a door further along in the tunnel,” Aunt Agnes explained. “We keep that one locked. Yo
ur parents wouldn’t be able to get through, so that’s where we’ll meet them.”
“Do you think they’re worried that they’re stuck there and unable to get through the locked door?” I asked in a panic.
It was Lucas who reassured me. “No, they know about the tunnel so they would also know about the locked door. They will be waiting there for us.”
I held my breath. What if they weren’t waiting for us? What if something had happened? It was too good to be true and I scarcely believed it.
We hurried into the tunnel. The tunnel was still, and eerie. I went a little too fast so put out my hand to steady myself on the damp wall. It felt like brick or maybe stone under my hand. “Are there any rats or something else scary down here?” I asked.
Aunt Agnes laughed. “Valkyrie, it’s not as if we are in the sewers. You have been watching much too much TV. This is just a tunnel.”
As soon as she said it, I bit back a scream. My hands touched a cobweb. “Spider!” I squealed. Lucas’s s arm curled around my waist. Perhaps rats wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all, if me seeing a spider elicited this type of reaction from Lucas.
I felt as if some ghastly creature could be living down here, or maybe even a ghost, but I felt safe due to the presence of Lucas. Still, it didn’t stop the hair standing up on the back of my neck or my heart beating out of my chest.
The floor of the tunnel was dirt. I hoped the tunnel roof wouldn’t collapse and I would be trapped in here. All sorts of horrible thoughts went through my head. I was a little claustrophobic. Being in a dark tunnel with no fresh air and the only way out being behind us made me quite tense.
And the air was stale. I figured no one had been down in this tunnel for years. “Is there enough oxygen here for us?” I asked Lucas.
“Plenty,” he said, “and even more now that the doors down the other end are open.”
I had a horrible thought. What if someone shut the doors behind us and locked them and then we would be trapped in this small space of tunnel with no way out? I shuddered.
“Not long now,” Lucas whispered, his breath warm on my ear.
