by Nathan Roden
“Slipknot. In St. Louis. Nate and I have had these for months. It’s tomorrow night. I almost forgot.”
“Wow,” Duncan said. “Good save.”
I shook my head.
“You don’t forget about concerts at twenty-three.”
“You do when the world turns upside-down on you.”
I looked up at him and smiled.
“I’m glad you’re here, Dunk,” I said.
I pointed at Toby.
“My whole support group used to be right there,” I said. “Right now, my support group is chewing on his foot and still wearing a liberal dose of sweet-and-sour lipstick.”
“Toby is a dang good friend,” Duncan said.
“That he is,” I said. “How am I going to explain to Mom that I might be spending Thanksgiving in Scotland—looking for missing people that I’ve never met?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “How do you explain wearing a Nine-Inch-Nails t-shirt with Batman pajama pants?”
I looked down for confirmation.
“Hey, it was dark, okay?” I jumped up. “I have to go now before I have to explain Batman pants with pee running down the leg.”
I took care of business and then shuffled out of the bathroom and into the living room. No Duncan or Toby. I checked the garage. They weren’t in there, either. I locked the pet door that leads from the garage into the back yard. I was taking Toby with us to the castle since it would only be for four hours.
I’ve remembered to lock the pet door ever since the night that I came home after a gig. It was about four in the morning when I flipped on the kitchen light. For the next minute, two raccoons and I almost destroyed my kitchen when we all tried to leave in a big hurry.
I looked through the patio door and spotted Toby in the corner of the back yard; his “private spot”. I slipped through the door, trying to keep from disturbing his concentration. No sign of Duncan.
The back gate into the alley is always locked. I peeked over the privacy fence. The hair on the back of my neck tingled a little. Toby had finished his outside mission and stood at the back door. I opened the door and followed him in. Toby trotted to the living room sofa, jumped up, and laid down. I looked around with a panic growing in my gut.
Just a couple of weeks ago, my big brother was gone. Forever. Dead and gone. It had now been sixty—no, more like seventy, seventy-one hours since I left Holly at the airport; since the last time we touched. The only reason that I could see Duncan—could talk to him, could hear him making fun of me—the one and only reason—was Holly McFadden.
Holly was half-a-planet away from me. I hadn’t let myself deal with the possibility that I could lose touch with Duncan until Holly and I are together again.
I couldn’t breathe. My pulse was pounding. It felt as if gravity was getting ready to let me go—to let me float away as if I never existed—until my lungs no longer had the fuel to survive. I turned and ran through the open patio door.
“DUNCAN!” I screamed at the top of my voice.
Duncan vaulted through the door opening and threw his arms around my head, muting my screams. He hustled me inside.
“Hey, hey, I’m here. I’m here, little brother.”
My knees quaked and I was hyperventilating. Duncan led me to the sofa. My heart rate and my breathing slowed to normal, and the enormity of what just happened sank in. Not good. Not good at all.
I just screamed my dead brother’s name in my back yard. At seven-thirty in the morning. I might be getting some phone calls.
“You can’t—” I panted. “You can’t just disappear on me, Duncan. Not when Holly’s gone. I don’t know how long…”
“Yeah,” Duncan said, hanging his head. ”I’m sorry. I was out on the front porch when the Big Brown truck pulled up. It was a girl driver—a cute one. She had just dropped off a package when you screamed. You scared the crap out of her.”
I nodded. I think. At the moment, I was focused on how much my life had changed, and how much I was not equipped to handle it.
I was in love with a girl that I had only known for a few weeks—a girl who sees ghosts. A girl who chose to share her gift—her secret—with me. My brother and I have each other again.
But why? And for how long? Dos this all depend on Holly and I being together? How can I know that we will work out? What if Holly hates me? What happens then?
I understand more and more why Holly fought against sharing her secret. Where does it all end? We hardly know each other, but now we are connected by this “thing” that separates us from the rest of the normal world. And neither of us knows why it’s happening.
“Are you going to get it?” Duncan asked.
“Get what?”
“The package,” Duncan said.
“Who is it from?”
“A friend,” he said.
“I’m not in the mood for guessing games, Dunk.”
“That’s what it says on the box,” he said. “From ‘A Friend’.”
Inside the box was a single piece of paper. The paper read, “Have a good time at the concert”. The box contained two identical black leather Slipknot tour jackets that must have cost at least three hundred dollars apiece.
A few weeks ago, I felt like my life was fairly normal. Now, absolutely nothing is.
“Is that mine?” Duncan asked.
“Oh, sure, it is,” I said. “Did I fail to mention that I’ve told everyone about you? Including the fact that you really need a jacket?”
“That’s a nice jacket,” he said.
“Of course, it is,” I said. “I only make friends with people of exquisite taste.”
“I guess it just came up in conversation, huh?” Duncan said, “That you were going to the concert?”
“No,” I said.
I looked at Duncan. He smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“Sounds like you have a major fan,” he said. “Or a stalker.”
“Shut up, Duncan.”
“I’ll get right on that, Sir,” he said.
I walked through the door of the Home Improvement Center and looked around.
“Are you making a return, Sir?” asked a lady in a blue and orange smock.
I guess I looked puzzled. She pointed at the box under my arm.
“Oh,” I said. “No, I’m looking for Nate Barlow.”
“Mr. Barlow’s office is at the opposite end of the store,” she said. “He may be on a conference call, but it shouldn’t take long.”
I’ll never get used to hearing Nate called “Mister”. It’s hard for me to picture a sweating Mr. Barlow tossing his hair before twirling a drumstick into a cymbal crash.
I met Nate in the hallway outside of his office. He almost ran me over when he turned the corner.
“Hey, Wylie,” he said. “You’re up early.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I started to call you this morning but I decided to drop by instead. You got a minute?”
“Just barely,” he said. “I have to brief the department managers for the holiday schedule. It’s just about the crazy time of year for retail, you know.”
“Yes, I remember,” I said. “It’s not like ancient history for me, you know.”
I followed him back into his office.
“Did you forget about tomorrow night?” he asked.
“To tell you the truth, I did until this morning,” I said.
He nodded.
“Lots of distractions.”
“Big time,” I said. “So do you—you still want to go?”
“We paid dearly for those tickets, Bro,” he said.
“That we did,” I said. “And we can take Duncan.”
“Yeah,” Nate exhaled and sat down in his chair. “He can use Tooie’s seat.”
Ouch.
“It’s not like anybody’s gonna sit down for long,” I said.
“I guess not,” he said. “Are you gonna bring your mask?”
“I thought they were mandatory,” I said with a smirk. “You?”
“I’ll bring it,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get in a better mood and put it on. I hope so.”
“It’ll look great with this,” I said, handing him the box.
Nate took the box and opened it. His eyes glassed over when he saw the jacket.
“Wow,” he said. “Did you—? This cost a fortune, Wylie. Thanks.”
“It’s not from me,” I said.
“Huh…?”
“It’s from Skyler,” I said. “They came this morning—two of them. ‘From a Friend’, that’s what the note said. They couldn’t have come from anywhere else.”
“You told her we were going?” Nate asked.
“No,” I said. “Like I said, I forgot about it until this morning.”
Nate shook his head.
“Do you have any idea how weird this is?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “The only normal thing that I’ve seen in the last two months is the sweet and sour red lipstick that I can’t get off of Toby’s face.”
Nate laughed. Then he laughed harder. It was like he couldn’t stop laughing, and that scared me. When he stopped laughing I think he was crying a little bit.
“Sorry,” he said. He turned his head and wiped his eyes.
“You don’t ever have to say ‘sorry’ to me, Nate. Never.”
Fourteen
Cyrus and Scottie
Near McIntyre Village, Scotland
“Where do you think you’re goin’?” Cyrus Findlay asked Scottie Rose. The two had checked into a hotel on the outskirts of town using the aliases of their forged identities.
“I’m goin’ to check up on my Mum,” Scottie said.
“You can’t do that,” Cyrus said. “Wellmore will come unhinged if we’re seen around here. Use your head, Scottie.”
“I’m only gonna walk around the place, make sure everything is okay,” Scottie said. “This is my Mum I’m talkin’ about, Cyrus. I’m not gonna stroll up the garden walk and say ‘Top o’ the mornin’! I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Look, we’re only here to meet up with Wellmore and get our instructions,” Cyrus said. “If he was to find out—”
“Don’t be such a fussy old woman,” Scottie said. “I’ll have a look around the place, and I’ll be right back in two shakes.”
Scottie paid for his ticket and stepped aboard the train. He got off one stop away from the home of his youth; a defensive tactic that he had learned from Cyrus. This left him a walk of just over a kilometer.
Scottie smiled when he saw the lanterns lighting his mother’s garden. Warm lights glowed behind the windows at the front of the house and smoke puffed from the chimney. Scottie stood still for several minutes, hidden from view. He stayed until he saw his mother’s profile pass in front of a kitchen window. He cleared his throat, blinked several times, and turned away. His cheeks were warm from embarrassment even though he was alone.
Scottie walked back toward the train station. He looked down at the small duffel bag he carried—the duffel he had carefully hidden from Cyrus. Two blocks from the train station, Scottie ducked behind a large tree. He pulled a bowler hat and a large pair of tortoise-shell spectacles from the duffel. The spectacles were fitted with thick, clear lenses. Scottie put on his disguise and dipped his head as he stepped through the door of one of his favorite old pubs.
Scottie took a quick inventory of the people in the pub and saw no one that he recognized. The man tending bar was new and hardly looked old enough for the job. The boy looked strangely familiar to Scottie. He caught himself staring and then hurried past the bar.
Scottie sat down at a small corner table. He waited patiently while the bored and tired barmaid made her way across the room. He ordered a beer in a deep and gravelly voice. The beer was cold, and delicious, and slid effortlessly down his throat—the same way as the next five mugs did. Scottie relaxed, and hummed along with the jukebox.
Another half-hour and two more beers, and Scottie felt right at home again. The front door opened to the sounds of laughter. Three regular pub-crawlers entered. They shouted greetings to everyone. The loudest man was dressed to the nines and had a brilliant smile. Another was tall and very thin while the third man was short and portly. They took turns hugging the reluctant bartender and addressed him as ‘Junior’. Scottie was quite sure that this was not the first pub on these men’s nightly tour. He recognized all three of them. And more importantly, they all knew him.
Scottie tugged down on the brim of his hat. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a worn paperback. Once, long ago, he attempted to read it, but quit after a few pages. He kept it with him for emergencies, such as when he needed to discourage people from talking to him. Like right now.
He had downed many a pint and thrown many a dart with this trio. When Scottie selected the secluded table in the back of the pub, he forgot that it was near the pub’s dart board.
“Evenin’, Mate,” the loudest man said. Scottie peeked up and touched the brim of his hat.
“Fancy a game?” the man continued. “We could use a fourth.”
“No,” Scottie feigned a cough and answered in a coarse whisper. “Thank you. A little under the weather.”
The tall man pulled darts from the board.
“I’ll take the skulls and crossbones,” the short man said, holding out his hand.
“I think not, mate,” the tall man said. “I fetched them first.”
The short man put his hands on his broad hips.
“How many times you have to be told, Moron? It’s Winner’s Choice. And I cleaned the both of your clocks, two nights ago. Go and fetch us a round and drown that last brain cell that you’re hanging on to.”
The loud man crossed the floor toward his friends. He pulled a flat black box from his pocket.
“While you two ladies argue over the house tips, take a look at these.”
“Ho, ho, ho!” the two friends leaned back, laughing.
“Those are gorgeous, mate!” the thin man said.
“Nothing says ‘Pure Class’ like a set of Naked Lady Darts!” the short man said.
Arabella McIntyre shook her head. Bruiser, Dougie, and Delbert floated at Arabella’s side, scanning the pub for any sign of the men they were looking for. But suddenly, they were side-tracked by a new set of darts.
“Ow!” Bruiser and Dougie squealed. They were looking over the shoulders of the loud man with the new darts when Arabella grabbed each of them by an earlobe. They followed Arabella away from the men, having little choice. The loud man dropped his dart case and whipped his head around. He looked puzzled and rubbed both of his ears vigorously.
“What was that all about?” Bruiser asked.
“Yeah,” Dougie said, “We just wanted to have a look. It’s not like we’re gettin’ anything else done here. And Delbert was lookin’, too. You didn’t jerk a knot in him.”
Delbert nodded at Arabella.
“Thank you very much,” he said.
“Are we gonna follow these three around town until they pass out?” Bruiser asked. “What kind of plan is that? We could split up and—”
“We could split up and pass right by the two men we’re looking for, and we would never know it,” Arabella said. “These three men are most likely acquainted with the one’s we’re after, and sooner or later they’ll likely end up in the same place.”
“So how many pubs have you been in, Arabella?” Bruiser asked.
“And what do you know about bein’ a detective?” Dougie said.
“Believe it or not,” Arabella said, “Ale and men have been around for a long time.”
Delbert yawned.
“I’m learnin’ quite a bit about bein’ a detective, myself,” Delbert said. “Like, it can be pretty dang boring.”
Bruiser rolled his neck and stretched his arms over his head.
“You’d think there would be at least one ghost around willin’ to help us,” he said. “They won’t even talk to us.”
“A couple of ‘em did unti
l you scared them off,” Delbert said.
“That guy called me a Yankee!” Bruiser said, clenching his fists. “He don’t even know me, and he started right in callin’ me names!”
“That was just rude,” Dougie said.
“Actually, he just called you a Yank,” Delbert said.
“Well, what’s the gall-darned difference?” Bruiser growled.
“This town is much too small for two locals to hide in,” Arabella said. “Especially locals with a taste for drink. From what Holly says of these two, it is not likely that they have changed their ways.”
“Well, I don’t see this dart game ending anytime soon,” Bruiser said. “C’mon, Dougie. Let’s check out the other room. There are some dark corners in this place that somebody could hide in.”
Bruiser and Dougie checked the other room, and then rejoined Arabella and Delbert near the dartboard. Delbert leaned against the wall with his eyes closed.
“Zip, zero, nada,” Bruiser said. “What do you wanna do, Arabella? I’m not carrying Delbert home. He looks like he’s ready for his binky.”
Delbert stood up straight and popped his sleeves.
Arabella sighed.
“We start again tomorrow at sunset,” she said. They started toward the front of the pub.
“What do you two think about that McIntyre business?” the loud man said as he stepped to the line for his first turn with his brand new darts. His first dart stuck in the wall—six inches to the right of the dartboard.
All four ghosts halted in mid-step.
“That’s it, then,” the bartender called out as he picked up the men’s empty glasses. The barmaid was on one of her frequent breaks. “Dad says to quit serving anybody who can’t even hit the dartboard.”
All three men laughed— especially the loud man’s friends, who delighted in the fact that the fancy new darts gave him no advantage.
