by Nathan Roden
Quentin clapped Brian on the shoulder. He picked up the phone and punched in a number.
“Holly?” Quentin said. “Are you awake?”
Brian McAllen looked puzzled.
“Is the crew in there with you?” Q said into the phone. “Brian is here. Could you come over, please? And bring them with you? Yes, I’m serious. Okay.”
Quentin put down the phone.
“You’re not mental, Brian.”
Quentin, Holly, Brian McAllen, the Finnegan brothers, Arabella and Bruiser Brady sat together in Quentin’s room.
Both Finnegan brothers were massaging their temples.
“Can I get you something?” Quentin asked. “Aspirin, perhaps?”
“Some water, please,” Myron said. “You swear you didn’t know any of this, Brian?”
“I’ve known for all of thirty minutes, Myron!” Brian said. “And none of us would know if you hadn’t threatened to walk out on us.”
Ian covered his face with his hands and spread his fingers. Bruiser and Arabella waved to him.
“We sure can’t leave now,” Ian said. “This will be the last job we ever have, once it gets out that we’re mental.”
“You’re not mental,” Brian said. “You’re…enhanced.”
“I’ll get that added to our business cards, straight away,” Myron said. “Finnegan Brothers Detective Services. Degrees in Law Enforcement and Criminal Psychology. Eighteen years on the job. Skilled in electronic surveillance and, oh, by the way, did we mention that we are enhanced with the ability to see the recently departed?”
“We ain’t all recent,” Bruiser said. “Miss Arabella and her family have been gone hundreds of years.”
“Well, of course,” Myron said. “My mistake. This is all so new to me, Mr. Brady.”
“No blood, no foul,” Bruiser said.
Myron looked at Brian, who only shrugged.
“We thought our night was over, an hour ago,” Ian said. “We went back to our rooms and opened up a bottle. It was the only way we were going to get any shut-eye.”
Ian looked at Bruiser, Arabella, and the others.
“No offense,” he said.
Dougie and Delbert floated in.
Ian pointed at Delbert.
“Elvis,” he said. “Right?”
Delbert struck a pose and curled his lip.
“Thas right,” he said.
“Why is your friend carrying a stick?” Myron asked.
“Put that thing away, Dougie,” Bruiser said. “Everybody’s friends here.”
Ten
The McIntyre Family
Branson, Missouri
Baron Dallas McIntyre waved his arms, interrupting Duncan Westerhouse’s reading.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Dallas said.
“You mean to say that the wee little folk had not one, but two breakfasts? Every morning?”
“That’s what it says, Baron McIntyre,” Duncan said. “The Hobbits had as many as six meals in a day.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” Dallas leaned backward and belly-laughed.
“You would think they would be great big folk, eating like that. There’s a tradition we could do with, girls! Two breakfasts. Six meals!”
“I’m all for it, Dallas,” Elizabeth McIntyre said. “How many of the six will the men-folk be serving?”
“Well, let’s see,” Dallas said. He winked at Duncan. “There are three of you girls. At two meals apiece, that comes to…well, that’s six right there!”
“And one large man to wash all the dishes and bring the women their pipes and a mug of ale!” Charlotte McIntyre said. She crossed her arms and gave a brisk nod.
“Charlotte!” Elizabeth’s first impulse was to scold her daughter, but then she snorted a little and burst out laughing. Nora McIntyre laughed as well and squeezed her sister’s shoulder. Charlotte’s knee bumped into the book and it fell to the floor. She reached for it, but Nora had already picked it up. The entire McIntyre family stared at Nora.
No one had seen Nora pick up or move anything in the natural world since the sixteenth century.
“Dallas? Elizabeth?”
The female voice came from behind them. A ghostly lady, dressed almost identically to Elizabeth McIntyre, walked through the doorway. This new lady was more transparent than Elizabeth, and she was surrounded by a soft light.
“Oh,” the lady said in a whisper as she put her hand over her mouth. She turned to take the hand of a wide-eyed young man who trailed behind her. This man was surrounded by the same glow.
Elizabeth and Dallas McIntyre stood slowly. They stepped toward the couple and began to weep.
“I can’t believe it,” Dallas said. “Dear Mary. And Frederick.”
Elizabeth reached out to touch her sister-in-law’s face, but Mary took a step back.
“I’m sorry, Lizzie,” Mary said. “But we are not—we have no physical presence here. We were never suspended between worlds. We never questioned why—which you will soon be able to understand.”
Duncan watched the scene in awe. He turned to Nora and Charlotte, who were also weeping.
“I don’t understand anything, Mary,” Elizabeth finally spoke, wringing her hands. “How have you come here—after all this time?”
“My dear Elizabeth,” Mary Montgomery said.
“We’ve come to take you home.”
Dallas and Elizabeth exchanged confused looks.
“Mary, you aim to take us…where?” Dallas asked.
“We’re not taking you, Dallas,” Mary said. “We’re inviting you—to come with us.”
“You mean we have…a choice?” Elizabeth asked.
“That is what we were told, Lizzie,” Mary said. “It is most unusual.”
“So whatever has kept us bound here for so long—this cause is fulfilled?” Elizabeth asked.
“What event has brought this about?” Dallas asked. He reached for his weeping daughters and pulled them close to his side.
“We have endured here for five hundred years, trapped between worlds—to come to America?” Dallas asked. “What else has changed? What else have we accomplished?”
“I found Duncan, Father,” Nora said softly. “I met him while he still lived—half a world away. And now we’ve found each other again.”
Dallas squeezed Nora’s shoulder and did not know how to respond.
“Nothing further was explained to us, Dallas,” Mary said. “We were asked to come and invite you to come with us—to come home, and to rest from your long journey.”
Nora pulled away from her father’s embrace.
“Who gets to make this choice, Aunt Mary?” Nora asked. She glanced at Duncan. “All of us?”
“Who is that young man?” Mary asked.
“This young man is most able to talk and walk all by himself, Ma’am,” Duncan said. “He has even been known to use some simple tools.”
Duncan bowed deeply and with a flourish.
“Duncan Spiderman Westerhouse. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. and Mrs….?”
“Montgomery,” said Frederick. “It is nice to meet you, Dunc—”
Frederick’s voice trailed off when a small horse brushed past him. Honey threw back her head, shook her mane, and whinnied.
“Oh, my word!” Mary exclaimed. “Is that—Honey? Look, Frederick!”
Honey stepped to Charlotte’s side. She nudged Charlotte’s shoulder almost hard enough to knock her over.
“You wait just a minute, you old battle-ax!” Charlotte said to Honey. She pushed the pony sideways. “We have visitors!”
“Where is Arabella?” Mary asked.
“Scotland,” Dallas said.
“Aye,” Frederick said. “She mourns her brother, no doubt—though he has attained his rest.”
“She has made peace with his crossing over,” Elizabeth said. “She merely wished to visit the forest above the former castle grounds, where David was last seen. This choice…it applies to Arabella as well?“
“Y
es,” Mary said. She tilted her head as if she was listening.
Mary turned to face Duncan.
“You may come as well, young Mr. Westerhouse,” she said.
Nora and Charlotte squealed. Nora broke free from her father’s embrace and threw her arms around Duncan’s neck. Duncan smiled and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Elizabeth was staring at him. They locked eyes. Duncan continued to smile, but Elizabeth saw that his eyes held a sadness.
“When must we decide?” Elizabeth asked.
“What do you mean, Mother?” Nora asked. “We have waited for this for so long. We have Honey back, and Duncan…”
“David has already gone. He’ll be waiting for us,” Charlotte said as she grabbed Honey’s mane with both hands and hugged her.
Mary and Frederick exchanged a nervous glance.
“When Arabella returns, you each must decide,” Mary said. Mary took a step toward Elizabeth and whispered. “Do you mean—that you may choose to stay, Lizzie? I don’t understand.”
“I cannot stop thinking about Holly, Mary,” Elizabeth said. “She has been our only connection with the present world since her family moved into our home. She was sheltered and isolated—all because she could see us. She has been like a member of our family. Her parents were thought to be lost at sea, but they may still be alive. This is why she has returned to Scotland. I…I don’t know what to do.”
“Lizzie,” Mary said. “I understand your feelings for this child. But no one is required to stay suspended between worlds forever. You do not belong in this world, and that is why we have been sent for you.”
“What further good might we do here, Elizabeth?” Dallas whispered.
“Is this the best there is for us? The best we can do, Dallas?” Elizabeth asked. She was weeping.
“Did you ever think that we would have to leave here—with regrets?”
Dallas and Elizabeth walked into the office where Wylie was busy at the computer. He looked up.
“Hello, Mr. And Mrs. McIntyre,” Wylie said. “Is story-time over?”
“Wylie,” Elizabeth said. “We need to talk.”
Eleven
Wylie Westerhouse
Branson, Missouri
The words rolled smoothly from the charismatic young man’s lips. There was no doubt about it—he was a natural public speaker. It was not his fault that he was asked to cram three months’ worth of training and memorization into two weeks.
“The crops had failed for the fifth consecutive year,” the young man spoke. “The cattle were thin and weak; barely able to stand or to battle with the disease that decimated their numbers at an alarming rate. Uh, I’m sorry, what year was that, Wylie?”
I leaned against the railing of the Juliette balcony, staring into space. My thoughts were thousands of miles away.
“Wylie? You still with us, dude?” asked the second of the two tour guide trainees on loan from Elvis Rushmore and his Black Velvet Elvis’s Haunted Tours.
“What?” I said, turning to face them.
They smiled at me as if I was an absent-minded three-year-old with no attention span.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Both of you are doing great. I was off somewhere in the cosmos.”
“No prob,” the first man said. “This script must be really old for you.”
“No,” I said. “It’s still all really cool to me.”
I looked down at the stone banister and rubbed my hand on it. I recalled the rush of emotions that ran through my mind the last time I had done so. This was where I stood on the day that the ghost of Princess Arabella McIntyre nailed the voice of Patsy Cline and saved the castle from disaster. That’s kind of a long story. I hope you know it already.
“The hunger of the people, the desperation of those on the brink of extinction—the people were reduced to the primal survival instinct of animals,” I quoted from the next lines of script.
I spent over two hours working out this one particular section of the monologue. From the very first tour that I watched Holly lead, it gave me goosebumps when I heard her bring that historic event to life. I was a nervous wreck when I auditioned for her. She gave me a standing ovation.
“Hundreds of people were driven to overpower the gates as if by a single mind. In the place where we now stand, three generations of Royal family; their guards and their staff were overrun and brutally slaughtered.”
The three of us stood in silence for a few moments.
“I don’t think I’ll be forgetting that particular passage anytime soon,” I said.
“That is awesome,” the two men whispered, scribbling in their notebooks.
I looked at my watch.
“It’s almost noon,” I said. “Let’s call it a day.”
“Okay,” one of the men said. “We’re going to Chili’s for lunch. You wanna come with us?”
I shook my head and tapped my watch.
“Sorry. My afternoon is spoken for already. Thanks for the invite.”
“Eight o’clock in the morning?” one of them asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry to be on such an insane schedule, but I’m in a tight place, here.”
“Not a problem,” the first man said, “A friend of Elvis is a friend of ours. Besides, Christmas is around the corner, and your boss is paying us like we’re doing brain surgery on the President.”
I nodded.
“I do highly recommend Quentin Lynchburg as an employer,” I said.
Both men laughed.
“If I didn’t love the night shift so much, and telling spooky ghost stories, I might just give Elvis my notice and join you full-time,” one of the guys said.
“I hear that,” I said.
I didn’t know what else to say.
I watched the two of them leave. I jumped after I turned around—I was face-to-face with Honey, Charlotte’s semi-transparent pony. Honey shook her head.
“I think she thought you were Duncan,” Charlotte said.
“He’s around here somewhere,” I said.
“Making lovey-dovey eyes at Nora, I’m sure,” she said. “I’m surprised that you can still see us. Holly has been gone for some time now.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m a little surprised myself—pleasantly surprised that is.”
“I’m glad,” Charlotte said, smiling. “I like you. And Duncan, too.”
“I’m very glad to know all of you,” I said.
Duncan sneaked up behind Charlotte.
“Hey, Half-Pint,” he whispered in her ear.
“Hey, Chunky-Dunky,” Charlotte giggled.
Duncan squinted at me.
“Thanks a lot, Wylie,” he said.
“It just slipped out, once,” I said.
“You’re not supposed to tell lies, Wylie,” Charlotte said.
“Uh-huh,” Duncan said. “That’s what I thought.”
Duncan jumped when Honey goosed him from behind.
“Hey!” Duncan yelled. He turned around and grabbed two fistfuls of Honey’s mane and pressed his forehead to the pony’s nose.
“Honey!” he said, “Why the long face?”
Charlotte laughed.
“He always says that!” she said.
“I gotta run home,” I said. “I’m going to lock up and turn on the alarm, so you’ll have to use the wall.”
“Ha!” Duncan said. “Ha! Ghosts—use the wall! I get it! You are a riot, Mr. Westerhouse!”
I locked up and drove straight home. I think. I don’t remember the trip.
When I got home, I followed Toby into the back yard. While he trotted off into the back corner where he does his dirty business, I scouted around to make sure he hadn’t left any land-mines in clear view. I clean them up on a regular basis, but I had been busy, and it’s getting dark really early. I don’t have many guests—especially, famous young ladies.
I fed Toby and then headed for the shower. I just showered five hours earlier, but it’s the respectable thing to do when one is expecting guests, righ
t? Being clean, and shaved, and well-dressed, and wearing one’s special-occasion cologne?
I grabbed the latest edition of Rolling Stone and sat down in the living room. I peeked out the front window a few times. Okay, it was a whole bunch of times. I wasn’t sure if I was looking for a Porsche, or a pizza-delivery beater car, or a Hummer limousine. It was none of the above.
An enormous shiny black SUV pulled into my driveway. In fact, it filled up my driveway. I waited. No one got out. The engine was still running. I peeked around the curtain and didn’t know what to do next. The headlights flashed on and off.
What was that supposed to mean? I thought.
My cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the area code or the number.
“Wylie?” Skyler said.
“Hello?” I said. “Is this you?”
“It’s me,” she said. “Can you open the garage door?”
“Well, I can,” I said. “But it won’t do much good. The garage is full of drums and stuff.”
“We may have been followed,” she said. “It will be easier to sneak through the garage.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “Watch you step, though. I doubt if I have enough insurance to buy you a new pair of shoes.”
“Be careful,” she said. “I got it.”
“Garage door opening in T-minus thirty seconds, Agent KwyK,” I said.
“Funny,” she said. “Very funny. Out.”
When the door began to move, I saw the passenger door of the SUV fly open. A flash of black athletic shoes appeared, beneath a pair of baggy bib overalls. A pair of sunglasses and a huge mop of curly blond hair completed the disguise. Skyler KwyK ducked underneath the garage door. I switched buttons on the remote control, and the door began to close.
Skyler put her phone to her ear.
