NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery

by Jones, Bruce Elliot

  She chuckled, “It will be, dear!” She pirouetted to another cabinet above the range, opening it, scanning. “Oh, dear! Byron, dear, I don’t see any Pontarlier!”

  “S’at?” from Mr. Adams, studying the tall lime bottle at table’s center, “bug spray?”

  “It’s a glass,” Byron muttered, looking down at his phone, “with a bubble or bugle bottom, and no, I’m afraid I don’t have any. Try the door to the left, those might do.”

  Mr. Adams scowled at the bottle. “What is this stuff?”

  “Absinthe,” I told him. “A green hued liqueur.”

  “Liquor?”

  “Liqueur,” I repeated.

  “Got alcohol in it?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Then whatza difference?”

  Liz swooped around the table gracefully, depositing a glass skillfully before of each of us. “The proper preparation of absinthe requires an exacting ritual the true practitioner knows by heart!” And she danced away.

  “I like the way you fan that skirt!” Adams leered. He leaned into my shoulder surreptitiously. “See all the way up to her bakery goods!”

  “Thank you,” I nodded, “I’ll make a note of it.”

  He gave me a drippy grin.

  Liz was dumping ice cubes from the fridge door into a small glass pitcher. “Tis the good of the gods! And of artistic genius through the ages! Van Gogh imbibed it regularly, did you know?”

  “Oscar Wilde, too.” said Katie, “Rimbaud, Lautrec and Hemingway.”

  “Any bottled water?” Liz asked Bryon.

  “Over the fridge.”

  “Ah!” and she poured some into the pitcher of ice.

  Adams picked up the green bottle, held it to the light. “Green all right, but I don’t see no fairy!”

  “It has to do with the herbs, absinthe, anise and fennel that goes into the distillation of it,” from Katie. “Or, some would say, what the distillation does to your head afterwards.”

  Adams squinted at the label. “What in tarnation’s ‘wormwood’?”

  “What it does to your head,” I told him.

  He put down the bottle. “I don’t get it.”

  “Stick around, you will.”

  He snorted. “Makes you drunk, does it?”

  “Adam!” Liz barked sharply and the old hound sat up straight like a new pup. “The drinking of a masterly prepared absinthe has nothing to do with inebriation!”

  “What so damn special about it then?”

  Liz took a box of sugar cubes from the cupboard, rolled her eyes. “Katie--?”

  Katie leaned toward the old man. “At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, absinthe was almost a Bohemian fashion, Mr. Adams.”

  He stared at her. Bohemian.

  What does a colorful woman like my mother see in this man? I pondered.

  “It was closely identified with rebellious art culture,” Katie told him, “so much so that many conservatives mounted campaigns against it, finally got it banned here and in parts of Europe.”

  “Illegal!” Adams exclaimed. But he grinned.

  “Well, not anymore, really.”

  He held the grin, rubbed his knuckled hands together. “Bring on the fairies!”

  Liz reached over the table, uncorked the bottle, and began pouring for each of us. “Without a true Pontarlier glass I can’t be absolutely sure,” she said, one eye closed, licking the side of her mouth intently, “however—“

  “—however you’ve had considerable practice,” I put in.

  Katie gave me a dirty look.

  Liz just smiled. “When you’re a little older, dear…I’ll tell you everything!”

  “God forbid.”

  Liz set down the bottle carefully, produced a fork and laid it over the lip of Mr. Adam’s glass. “Now again, we don’t have a proper absinthe spoon but an everyday fork will do!”

  She placed a cube of sugar atop the fork.

  “Don’t cotton to sugar in my coffee!” from Mr. Adams.

  “It’s neither cotton nor coffee,” Liz soothed, smiling.

  She began to slowly pour the ice water over the top of the sugar cube. “The universal ratio is 3 to 1, water over absinthe. There!”

  “Ya made it all cloudy!” Adams bounced.

  “That’s because she made it correctly,” Katie smiled, eyes shining, “perfect, Liz!”

  “Why, thank you, dear! Now! It should be drunk very slowly to truly appreciate the flavor! Everybody lift his glass!”

  Everybody did.

  “Hold it up! Close your eyes. Now…think about the person seated next to you! Now, think of everyone in this room! Got it? Now, think of the first thing that comes to your mind!”

  Everyone thought.

  “Adam, dear,” from Liz, eyes still closed, “no green fairies, please…”

  “How’d you know?”

  “…think of someone real, dear! Everybody got an image?”

  Everyone said they did.

  “Then bottoms up!”

  * * *

  An hour later the green bottle was empty.

  So were most of our minds. Of all bad thoughts.

  Liz sat smiling across from us now, finishing her third glass. “Byron? How do you feel?”

  “I luf you, Liz…” Mr. Adams said.

  “Thank-you, dear. Byron?”

  Byron looked simultaneously lidded and amazingly focused. “Actually…great.”

  “Good for you! Katie?”

  “I luf you, Liz…” Mr. Adams said.

  “Kate--?”

  Kate was dreamy but alert. “I forgot about the color…” she said. “Everything is…Liz, was your skirt blue or did you change?”

  “It was blue. Still is.”

  Katie nodded, smiled. “Looks…limey. Be-u-tiful as…Shubert ice cream…”

  Liz grinned. “I think that’s ‘sherbet,’ dear…Shubert was a composer.”

  “Right. Green as Shubert…”

  Liz turned to me. “Elliot--?”

  “I luf you, Liz,” I said.

  “Hey,” Mr. Adams slurred, “thaz my bakery yer talkin’ ‘bout!”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “S’alright, s’alright. Yer a good kid, Elliway.”

  Liz set down her glass. “Now…I want each of you to tell me who you were thinking of that last time! Don’t be shy, now!”

  “Is this a magic trick?” I mumbled.

  “Just tell the truth, all of you. Byron--?”

  Byron looked a little uneasy. “Truthfully? I…was…actually I was thinking of Donna…”

  Liz nodded. “Good! Katie--?”

  Katie expression shifted. “Huh. Yeah…me too. Donna.”

  Liz smiled. “Adam, dear?”

  “Fairies.”

  Liz sighed, turned to me. “Elliot--?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, me too. Donna.”

  “She’s dead,” Byron said. “Isn’t she?”

  Everyone turned to him. He was pale as death.

  A cannonball explosion rocked the house.

  The lights flickered…dimmed…

  A timpani hit the window musically, like a million drumming fingers, the others jumping at the shaking panes.

  “Easy,” I said, heart thudding, “it’s just a thunderstorm.”

  “This was a mistake…”

  We all jerked to Liz. She stood before her chair, staring blankly into space. “…a mistake.” Then collapsed backward into it.

  Katie cried out. I lurched from my seat. “Liz!”

  The lights went out…

  …then flickered back on. Byron was already at my mother’s side. “Mrs. Bledsoe!”

  She stared at the blinking ceiling fixture, mumbling something. I pushed Byron out of the way. “Mom!” Her mouth hung open, saliva starting at the side. Heart attack!

  “Mom!”

  Katie eased me aside, grabbed Liz’s wrist with thumb and forefinger.

  “She’s in shock!” I wailed.

  Katie shook
her head. “More like a trance.”

  I bent to my mother’s flickering face. “Liz—?”

  She stared through me. “…some-thing…”

  I bent closer. “What--?”

  Her eyes were rolled white. “…s-something dark…on its way to you…”

  The room went black under the next shock of thunder….then dimly gelatinous with shadow tears from the panes.

  Over the next roll of thunder a light rapping sounded from the front door.

  A wild-eyed Byron pushed past me. “Donna!”

  He spun in place as Liz’s fingers clamped his arm like a striking snake. “Don’t open it!”

  Byron ripped away from her wildly, stumbled under chuckling thunder. “It’s Donna! I know it!”

  Katie cut him off at the doorway. “No,” she attempted above the rain, “Donna would use the buzzer!”

  She made a grab but he swept past her toward the black cavity hallway.

  I lurched after him, twisted my ankle in an errant chair leg, crashed to the floor. “Byron, wait—“ the rest drowned out by the storm.

  I lurched up, the room spinning, heard Byron crash blindly into narrow walls as the rapping from the living room turned insistently louder. “Donna! I’m coming!”

  I hit the blackened living room just behind Byron--dove, caught his thigh, dragged him to the carpet, held on. “Byron, don’t open it!”

  He kicked me in the face. “Donna!”

  Through the black frame of picture window, under fickle lighting I glimpsed a reedy, rain-swept figure at the doorstep before it went dark again.

  The knocking became a pounding boom above the storm.

  I pushed up in time to hear Byron’s fingers clawing at the lock, rattling the chain.

  “Byron, no!”

  The door crashed inward under a giant’s hand of wind, banged the opposite wall stridently.

  Lightning danced briefly over the thing swaying at the step; dirty blonde hair plastered, eyes sunken caverns, black blood scalloping white cheeks in livid streaks.

  “By-ron” Donna said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  No. It was not a dream.

  No, Donna was not back from the grave.

  Yes, the electric finally came back on.

  What Donna was back from was a nasty fall on the Sanderson’s rain-slick sidewalk. Stunned and bleeding she was; a walking zombie she was not.

  Fortunately, husband Byron—unlike the rest of us absinth-headed idiots—was quick to realize the above and pull his bruised, rain-dripping wife through the door and into the warmth of a dry house, dry arms and a hug that must have nearly broken her spine. “Donna! Baby! Are you all right?”

  When she was through having the life crushed out of her, Donna stood back dizzily, blinked up at her husband and the rest of us. “…I…tripped…”

  Katie managed to shrug off enough of the green fairy to finally take charge, throwing a protective towel over the faithful divan, seating Mrs. Sanderson carefully and gently wiping with a warm wash cloth until the pretty beach bunny face was again visible.

  Byron wasn’t as immediately consoled. “She won’t stop bleeding!” he wailed.

  “It’s a scalp cut,” Katie assured calmly, checking both of Donna’s ears, “they always bleed like hell. But it’s superficial. Her eyes aren’t dilated and there’s no bleeding from her ears--she isn’t concussed. She’ll be fine. Help me get her out of this soaked dress. Elliot—?”

  I stood watching wobbly, still in a warm lime haze. “How can I help?”

  “By turning around.”

  I did. Suddenly I remembered Liz in the kitchen, and looked to find her in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, face rife with guilt.

  I came to her. “Liz! You okay?”

  She nodded. “Sorry about the absinthe…it can be tricky stuff.”

  I put an arm about her. “Hallucinogenic, anyway. For a second there I thought I had a bit part in The Monkey’s Paw.”

  “I am sorry, Elliot. Poured everyone too much of the green fairy. I thought the house was clear.”

  I felt a cold thrill.

  I frowned at the top of her head. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just--I thought you said the real source of the haunting was the nursery. It must be something else, too.” She swatted the air. “Oh, but I’m just being a half-baked old woman, don’t listen to me! There is nothing else!”

  I glanced guardedly past my mother’s shoulder and spied Katie’s handbag lying at the end of the divan. But there is something else…

  The carpet ball.

  Donna sat in bra and panties now under a warm army blanket, with Katie combing the tangles from her hair, careful of her newly bandaged brow.

  “You know,” she said, “I think you’re going to live.”

  “Sure you’re okay?” Byron begged beside her, both her hands clutched in his.

  She rewarded him with focused eyes, a wan smile. “Fine.”

  “The kids?”

  “They’re fine, they’re with my folks.”

  Byron sagged with relief.

  “I’m sorry,” Donna offered meekly.

  “It was an accident,” Byron told her, gently kissing her temple.

  “No, I mean I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Byron!”

  He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry too! It was my fault!”

  “No, it was my fault!”

  “No, I’ve been an asshole! For…ever!”

  “You’ve been wonderful, I’ve been the asshole—the spoiled little rich girl!”

  “I love you!”

  “I love you!”

  They fell into a tongue-entwined embrace.

  Katie cleared her throat loudly and stood up. “I think my work is done here!”

  She looked around for Liz, spied us by the door. “Any more of the green lady around?”

  “Yeah!” from Mr. Adams, fisting the air, “let’s celebrate the reunion!”

  “You’ve had quite a sufficient celebration, I think,” Liz admonished, “for that matter, all of us have! How about a Maxwell House moment, instead?”

  “What green lady?” Donna wanted to know.

  Everyone turned to her, laughing as one.

  Donna frowned at her husband. “Am I missing something?”

  Byron grinned, turned to Liz. “Is she missing something?”

  “No more celebrating!” Liz warned.

  Donna sat back stiffly from Byron, arms folded, brow cocked. “So! This is how you pine away for me! Partying in my absence!”

  “It’s called absinthe!” Mr. Adams corrected her. “And I say we all have just one more little drink!”

  “Absolutely not!” Liz barked.

  Everyone gave her hangdog looks, sticking out their lips.

  “Well, I haven’t been celebrating!” Donna stood quickly—swayed a bit, was rescued by Byron. “Easy! You need to rest.”

  “What I need is to have a nice romantic dinner with my husband over a bottle of disgustingly expensive wine! You guys don’t mind, do you?”

  We all shook our heads.

  “Save ya some of the green stuff!” from Adam.

  “What about the kids?” from Byron.

  “I told you, they’re with my parents, safe and sound!”

  Byron took her arms. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? I called and called!”

  “Turned the horrid thing off.”

  “What about your parents’ landline in Sacramento? You take a trip together somewhere?”

  Donna smiled coyly, pulled him close to peck his cheek. “I’ll tell you all about that, my handsome hubby, after dessert at Marcello’s!”

  “We are intolerably broke,” he nuzzled her neck.

  “I’ll take her!” I called from the door.

  “Sold!” from Donna, “I’ll just get dressed!”

  “Don’t bother on my account!” I called.

  Byron followed upstairs quickly after his wife, pointed a gun-finger at me. “Sh
oot him if he moves!”

  Mr. Adams looked after them sadly, finally turned to Katie. “Guess this means you won’t be in the family…”

  Liz sighed, dragged him toward the kitchen. “She can send you snappy photos through your email.”

  “Ain’t got no email!”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  * * *

  Over coffee and crumb cake, Liz regaled us about her and Adam’s wedding.

  How it was going to be in the rose garden of the Del, just like Byron’s and Donna’s nuptials. How she would invite everyone she knew from Cincinnati, order in tons of flowers, a wedding cake ten feet high. At the end of it she was nearly in tears. “It will be the event of the year! I only wish dear Charles could be there!”

  “Who’s ‘dear Charles’,” Adam demanded.

  “He’s my father,” I told him.

  “Wal, what in hell ya want him there for?”

  “He’s dead, Adam,” I assured him.

  “All the more reason!” He pounded the table. “I won’t have it!”

  Liz patted the air before him, whirling back to the counter. “Adam, sweetie, do try to sustain at least a partial train of thought! Who wants more crumb cake?”

  “No thanks!” I slapped my stomach.

  “Coffee? Katie?”

  “Stuffed.”

  “Adam, dear--?

  “Take ‘nother hit of thet green stuff!”

  “Not even if the bottle weren’t empty! Elliot, dear, why do you keep looking at the wall clock?”

  Had I been? “Huh? Oh. I don’t know.”

  “She’s with Byron now, dear, everything’s going to be just fine, didn’t I tell you? Maybe he took her for a late night drink at the hotel! Did I mention the cute little Tiki bar Adam took me to?”

  “About a dozen times, yes.” I drummed the table.

  “And the Crown Room! So lovely, so regal! They’re doing some major refurbishing on the east wing of the Del—“

  “So you said.” I drummed the table.

  “How ‘bout a round of poker!” from Adam.

  “Afraid we don’t know where Byron keeps his cards,” Katie said, elbow propped on the table.

  “And the ballroom--,” Liz went on dreamily.

  I found myself looking at the kitchen clock: 11:46.

  “—it’s all being redone to match the style of the 1800’s! The furniture, the wallpaper, they even found the original antique clock that hung over the fireplace, put it back in place there!”