by Morgana Best
“You wouldn’t have tripped so hard if you hadn’t been wearing those silly heels. Misty, tie that Hillgrove murder to ghosts. Make it work! And try not to let your silly quest for the truth get in the way this time. We’re here to sell magazines.” She snorted and left the corridor, having made no attempt to help me up.
I hurried to my feet and exchanged glances with Cordelia. I was so glad that I had another wage now and wasn’t dependent on Skinny’s whims. Nevertheless, I was not happy that Bill and Ben were forcing me to continue to work for her as a cover. I consoled myself with the fact that it was now only part time.
We walked down to our favourite local café and sat in a corner inside. It was busy as usual for lunchtime, but most of the patrons were sitting outside under bright, blue umbrellas. Cordelia and I preferred to sit in a front corner where we had a good view over the street and of the passers by.
“My treat, Misty, since you’re part time now.” Cordelia’s tone was insistent.
I made to protest, but Cordelia waved one hand in my face and put her hands on her hips. All I could do was thank her, which I did.
“Now I’ll go over and pay, while you mind our seats. What would you like?”
I looked down the menu for something cheap, as I felt bad that Cordelia was paying. I was now earning considerably more than she was, thanks to my new job with the British government or whoever they were, but there was no way I could tell Cordelia that. I felt bad for lying by omission, but what choice did I have?
I quickly glanced at the menu. The chicken and mushroom crepe looked good and was about the cheapest thing there, apart from the Kids’ Menu. The menu said that the crepe was pieces of chicken in white wine sauce with sautéed mushrooms, topped with cheese and lightly grilled. Besides, it came with a Greek Salad, so I could pretend it was diet food. The only trouble was, I’m a vegetarian. Instead, I selected the Vegetarian Fritters, which were carrot, zucchini, beet, and fresh herbs, topped with parmesan cheese and served with yogurt and salad. It’s what I usually had, as it was the only vegetarian choice on the menu.
I stared out the window while Cordelia was over at the counter, ordering and paying. I saw a passer-by trying to pat an elderly lady’s little Maltese Terrier, and the dog snapped at them. I smiled as the dog reminded me of Merlin. I looked over at Cordelia, but she was still talking. I looked out the window again and then gasped.
The man walking down the other side of the road looked exactly like John. I hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed my purse and hurried out the door. I could see him heading downtown, but I had to wait for the traffic to thin before I could run across the road. Finally, when I made it to the other side, he was nowhere to be seen.
I sighed and shook my head. Douglas had said that John was in town, but if that were true, why hadn’t he contacted me? Yet this was the second time that I’d thought I had seen him.
I made my way back to the café. Cordelia was sitting there, looking up at me in surprise. “Where did you run off to? I saw you run out the door as if all the hounds of hell were chasing you.”
I bit my lip and sat down. What on earth could I say? “I thought I saw someone I knew.”
“Who?”
I fidgeted in my seat. “Someone from England.”
Cordelia narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s that John guy, isn’t it? I knew you were still hung up on him.”
I slumped in my seat, waiting for the lecture I knew was coming.
Cordelia shook her head. “Misty, if anything was going to happen with John, it would’ve happened by now. If he was interested in you, he would’ve asked you out before you left England, for goodness sake! Seriously, you have to get your head out of the clouds and stop pining after him.”
“I’m not pining after him,” I said, but my voice sounded to me pathetic rather than firm and convincing.
Cordelia frowned, but I was saved by the waitress appearing at our table with our food. Cordelia wasted no time in spooning some apple crusted pork dripping with caramelised onion into her mouth. “Now, Misty,” she said, waving her empty fork at me, “as we finish early today, I have to take my grandmother shopping this afternoon, after work. I can’t bear to do it without backup. It’s embarrassing going anywhere with her as she talks non stop and says rude things about passers-by and anyone she encounters at the top of her voice. Can you come with me, please?”
I sat there, trying to think of a good excuse to avoid such torture.
“Misty, come on, you’re going up to Armidale in a couple of days to do the Hillgrove story, so we won’t see much of each other for a while. Help with me Granny this afternoon?”
I shuddered. Cordelia’s grandmother was deaf and yelled at everyone. She was a mighty unpleasant woman.
“Sure,” I said.
Chapter 10
I followed Cordelia up the stairs to her grandmother’s house, which was built into the side of a hill. The steps were flanked by two concrete lions, and rockery ran along either side. The house looked normal from the outside, but the inside was another matter. Cordelia’s grandmother had been an antiques dealer for years and had kept all her favourites.
When I had last been to her house, I had not been the Keeper, so I had, of course, not sensed any ghosts. I now realised, even from the outside, that the house was busy with many ghosts and entities, barely any of them friendly. I assumed that the ghosts were attached to the antiques. I knew that Cordelia’s grandparents had built the house, so no one had been murdered there, unless of course something unpleasant had taken place on the land at some point.
Cordelia’s grandmother met us at the door and ushered us into the living room, past the imposing Louis XV Boulle in the heavily and darkly wallpapered entrance hall.
“Don’t forget, Granny likes the house dark, curtains drawn,” Cordelia whispered. “She doesn’t have just one set of curtains, but two or three overlapping sets on each window, with 1950s style Venetian blinds behind. Depressing.”
I nodded but then gasped when I walked into the living room. There, sitting on the wall and jutting into the room, was the most enormous, ornate Black Forest cuckoo clock complete with huge wooden antlers.
Cordelia stifled a giggle. “You’ve noticed the new cuckoo clock, I see. It’s terrifying and loud! It sits above Granny’s favourite chair. If it fell on her, she’d be dead. I have no idea how she manages to sleep at nights. It chimes loudly every hour, on the hour.” She quaked.
“What did you say, Cordelia?” Cordelia’s granny boomed.
“I was showing Misty the cuckoo clock.”
“Speak up, Cordelia.”
Cordelia spoke loudly. “I said, I was showing Misty the new clock.”
Granny frowned. “There’s no need to yell, Cordelia. Yes, I have a new frock.” She gestured to her bright yellow and brown dress.
Cordelia glanced at me. I tried not to laugh.
“You can wait in the formal living room while I finish getting ready. Cordelia, take Misty in there.”
I knew before I even entered the formal living room that it would be the worst room in the house as far as the ghosts were concerned. I knew from past visits that it was crammed full of Victorian antiques: cedar chiffoniers, burr walnut credenzas with marble tops, and about a dozen antique clocks all ticking loudly and annoyingly. Every available space was crammed with ruby glass, Vaseline glass, huge, unwieldy epergnes, monstrous majolica ware, and one patch of carpet was overtaken by Victorian Staffordshire dogs in every available colour. It was hard to see the walls, as they were overpowered by old oil paintings in ornate, massive, musty old frames.
Cordelia turned to me. “You know, the magazine could do a haunted feature on this house. When I stayed over as a child, I used to have screaming nightmares every night. I always dreamed that evil presences were chasing me and when I looked up, I saw big, black blob entities gripping the ceiling. They were terrifying dreams. I was always too scared to open my eyes for ages after I woke up.”
I murmu
red in sympathy.
“When I visit Granny now, I sleep on one of the leather sofas in the informal living room,” Cordelia continued. “It’s very uncomfortable and my legs hang over the edge, but I don’t have the really bad nightmares all night, just ordinary nightmares.” She broke off and laughed.
At that point, Cordelia’s granny entered the room.
“This is a lovely room,” I said.
Granny looked affronted. “I can assure you, Misty, that it’s very clean in here. I do not need a broom!”
Granny stormed out, while Cordelia and I raised our eyebrows at each other.
All the way to town, Granny complained about everything, including Cordelia’s driving, at the top of her voice. I was thankful when we arrived and I was able to get out of the car.
The first place we entered was a gift store. “Do you have the pink hand cream?” Granny asked the shop assistant in a booming voice.
“No, that company shut down. We can only get another brand and it’s always lemon.”
I walked outside while Granny was stridently berating the man for being so inconsiderate as not to supply pink for customers. I walked into a nearby store which had incense, crystals, and tarot cards. Cordelia followed me in. Soon, Granny appeared and yelled, “I can’t stand the smell of this heathen muck! I’m waiting outside.”
Next was a clothes store. Granny said at the top of her lungs, “Look at this overpriced muck! I don’t like sloppy, ill-fitting clothes like this! I like tailored clothes.”
Cordelia and I hurried outside and waited for Granny outside the door. When she emerged, Cordelia tried to steer her to the car, but she wanted to look inside a secondhand bookstore. She immediately cornered the sales assistant. “This is my granddaughter, Cordelia. She’s a journalist. She doesn’t write this type of muck here; she writes proper articles. That’s her friend, Misty. Do you have any decent antique books? I was an antiques dealer. I used to live in Melbourne. My friend Florence lives there too. Florence is coming to visit me soon, but she’s having to help her daughter move house this week. I’d make her do it herself, but Florence isn’t strict like I was with Cordelia’s mother.”
At this point, I headed off to look on the shelves. I found a single ‘History’ shelf after a large and well packed section of ‘Romance.’ The ‘History’ books were all general, but I looked at them one by one as Granny was on a roll telling the man her life history, as well as all Cordelia’s personal business. I was about to walk out of the store and wait outside, when I saw a dusty volume for a high price. It was a 2004 paperback edition of The Faerie-Faith in Celtic Countries, written in 1911 by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, an anthropologist and Celtic mythologist and folklorist. One section jumped out at me. I did have his book online, but hadn’t come across this section before.
A Druid Enchantment. After this strange psychical narrative, there followed the most weird legend I have heard in Celtic lands about Druids and magic. One afternoon Patrick Waters pointed out to me the field, near the sea-coast opposite Innishmurray, in which the ancient standing stone containing the ‘enchantment’ used to stand; and, at another time, he said that a bronze wand covered with curious marks (or else interlaced designs) was found not far from the ruined stone tomb and a tunnel leading into a Neolithic tomb on the farm of Patrick Bruan, about two miles southward. This last statement, like the story itself, I have been unable to verify in any way.
‘In times before Christ there were Druids here who enchanted one another with Druid rods made of brass, and metamorphosed one another into stone and lumps of oak. The question is, Where are the spirits of these Druids now? Their spirits are wafted through the air, and the man or beast they meet is smitten, while their own bodies are still under enchantment. I had such a Druid enchantment in my hand; it wasn’t stone, nor marble, nor flint, and had human shape. It was found in the centre of a big rock on Innis-na-Gore; and round this rock light used to appear at night. The man who owned the stone decided to blast it up, and he found at its centre the enchantment--just like a man, with head and legs and arms. 1 Father Healy took the enchantment away, when he was here on a visit, and said that it was a Druid enchanted, and that to get out of the rock was one part of the releasement, and that there would be a second and complete releasement of the Druid.’
I stood, rooted to the spot in shock. My aunt, the former Keeper, had left to me in her will a silver chain, and hanging off the chain were keys and a citrine seal. At least, I had thought they were all keys when I had first taken delivery of them, but I had long since realised that one of the keys was, in fact, a small, bronze rod covered with interlaced designs.
Douglas had told me that The Orpheans were an ancient Druid society.
I knew that I had only been able to see ghosts since my aunt had died, but then the thought struck me: what if I had only been able to see ghosts since I had taken to wearing the chain? Since I’d returned from England, I had never taken the chain off, so I was always wearing the rod.
What if the rod was, in fact, an ancient Druid enchantment that enabled me to see ghosts?
Chapter 11
I had paid for new tyres with my greatly reduced wages from the magazine, and my car had survived the drive to Armidale. The blinkers had stopped working, but I’d been lucky that no police had been behind me when I was turning. My cat Merlin was along for the ride, and she didn’t like the long drive at all.
She yowled so much that I had to let her out of her carrier crate, and then she sat on the seat next to me with a mean look on her face for the rest of the drive.
I drove straight to Aunty June’s motel. I got out of the car and stretched before hurrying to her door. I knocked, but there was no response and there was no sign of her bright red car. I spotted a woman behind big windows at reception so walked over. She assured me Aunty June was still booked in.
I would have to try again later. Aunty June never responded to calls or texts, but I left a text message telling her I was in town. I checked the map on my phone and got my bearings.
I hoped that my new flat mate, Brandon, was a nice guy. I was a bit nervous about living in the same house as strangers, even if it wasn’t for too long. It was just on dark when I pulled up outside a blue brick home quite close to the centre of town, near the old convent. I somehow managed to drag my luggage and Merlin’s luggage—cat food, water bowl, food bowl, litter tray, litter—plus Merlin, now back in her cat carrier, out of the car and then dragged it all up the seven or so steps to the front of the house. I rang the doorbell, once, then twice. Lights were on, so surely this Brandon guy was at home.
It was with some relief that I presently heard footsteps, and the door opened to reveal a man, slightly shorter than I was, with bulging biceps and broad shoulders. I knew immediately I’d like this man, if for no other reason than that he was holding two champagne glasses, and he offered one to me.
Brandon proved to be as camp as a row of tents. I think he’d already had more than one glass of bubbly too, as he seemed overly happy. He even made soothing noises when he greeted Merlin and she purred in response, so unlike her. He showed me to my room which overlooked the street. It was nice enough, but I suspected it might be a little dark in daylight. The desk was just under the window, so at least I’d have a view when I was at my laptop. The front yard had lovely old trees. I could sense the spirit of an old lady, but she seemed welcoming and was for now, at least, keeping to the background.
I was grateful that Brandon insisted I eat dinner. “Come on, you need to eat up. I made dinner and I’m ravenous. I was waiting for you to come so I could eat with you. You can unpack later.”
I thanked him. “Now where can I put Merlin’s litter tray? I can’t let her out of the house, or she might run away, if that’s okay.” I was quite anxious having Merlin in a strange house.
“Sure. There’s a little laundry room at the back of the house. It doesn’t look like it’s been used since the house was renovated. You can put her things in there.”
I carried Merlin’s cat carrier into the room, along with the big bag containing her litter box and litter. It was an expensive, hooded litter box with a swinging door and a charcoal filter which, so the label said, ensured that no cat odours escaped into the house. I filled the litter tray and then let Merlin loose. She ran into the litter and then stuck her head out the swinging door, glaring at me. I set down a bowl of water and a bowl of her favourite Furball Formula dry food next to it.
I emerged from the room and found the dining room. The house was large, a veritable labyrinth of rooms. The huge, oak table caught my eye, and I was admiring it when Brandon came in from the kitchen, burdened by two steaming plates. My stomach growled loudly in response. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was until then.
“The place came furnished,” Brandon said, nodding to the table. “You’re a vegetarian, they told me? I’ve made some vegetarian lasagna. It’s my grandmother’s recipe.”
The lasagna was delicious, but I’d only eaten half when Brandon launched into what I soon realised was his favourite topic. “I’m in love and I don’t think he has a girlfriend, but sadly, I’m sure he’s not gay.”
“Oh,” I said between mouthfuls.
“Yes,” he continued. “He’s the most gorgeous, stunning creature I’ve ever seen. So clever, too. He’s tall and has lovely muscles. He’s always very nice to me.”
I swallowed another mouthful. “That’s good.” I wondered why Brandon was telling me, a complete stranger, all about his love life. I could only assume it was because he could only speak with someone else within the agency. I knew how hard that was, having had to keep stuff from my best friend, Cordelia. I made an effort. “What’s his name?”
Brandon looked perplexed. “He works with us, so I shouldn’t say. Let’s call him Fred.”
I laughed. “Fred it is. I’m surprised you don’t have a boyfriend, Brandon.”
“So am I,” Brandon said, with deep feeling. “I’ve always been unlucky in love. It’s good that work keeps me so busy. Speaking of which, if you need help with anything, let me know. I have some spare time at the moment.”
