Inside the Executive's Pocket

by Etta Faire

  I looked out the window in the kitchen, just to see if there were any weird birds around, or any boxy shadows. There was nothing but the woods surrounding my house and my car. A breeze blew the branches of the hydrangea bushes and I jumped at the movement, then felt silly about it.

  There was nothing there. And I was safe in my house with my dog and my ghost of an ex-husband. The growling and scraping sounds were probably my imagination anyway.

  I reached for the doorknob, tempted to go out and check for scratches on my hood. But I knew that’s what an extra in a horror movie would do after successfully escaping the thing scratching at her car. And I needed to think like the heroine. A heroine would check in the morning, I decided.

  I looked down. Rex was staring at me, head cocked to the side.

  “Sorry, Rex,” I said, grabbing his dog food from the cabinet. I set it in the microwave then put away the dishes by the side of the sink. “I got your dinner.”

  I needed to calm down and get back to my routine. Taking on Gate House also meant I was signing on to take care of the property, which was outlined for me in great detail, from when I was to have the dishes put away to how long I could have the drapes opened.

  I set Rex’s bowl down and watched as he gobbled his food practically in one bite.

  I gave his head a quick stroke as he ate. “One of these days I’m going to find out your story.”

  He seemed to give me a knowing look from the corner of his eye.

  After I finished the house routine, I threw a frozen pizza into the cold oven, then grabbed all three of my scrapbooks from off the shelf in the dining room, and my shoebox full of paranormal notes and articles.

  I sat down at the dining room table and opened “the box” first. Every time someone mentioned anything about the Dead Forest, shapeshifters, the growling birds, or any other weird rumor, I wrote it down and stuck it in an old shoebox so I wouldn’t forget it.

  I quickly added a note about the birds I just thought I heard, then I pulled out other notes, one after another, realizing immediately I needed to get better organized. My mother would have had these all bound in a binder with color-coordinated stickies.

  I examined each scribbled piece of gibberish like it was key information.

  During a seance at Gate House, Mrs. Carmichael mentioned the curse was brought on because of the way Henry Bowman treated the workers in his brothels back before 1900.

  Why do I look exactly like Eliza (Henry Bowman’s nanny and the woman who put the curse on Gate House)???

  Someone told me a long time ago (can’t remember who or when) that the Dead Forest was home to shapeshifters, or that shapeshifters dragged their prey in there so they could tear them limb from limb without anyone hearing them scream. Or maybe I just somehow know this.

  It was that last note that made me the most nervous because I couldn’t remember who told me the rumor, and I happened to be dating a shapeshifter that my dog did not seem to like one-hundred percent.

  I opened one of the three scrapbooks I’d found in various places at Gate House. The faint smell of musty dust came with the turning pages, making my nose twitch.

  I had three scrapbooks so far: There was a Crooked Man, Upon a Crooked Stile, and the last one I found titled A Crooked Mouse.

  I looked through the one about the crooked mouse, particularly interested in the pages marked Signs because many of those signs from the early 1900s were coming true today.

  I stopped on the photo of the glass figurine of a sparrow. I saw that same, one-of-a-kind bird at Delilah Scott’s house, when she told me it was time to take sides. Delilah Scott was Potter Grove’s oldest living resident, but she seemed pretty far from addle-brained, so the “taking sides” comment was more than strange. And now, George was saying that too.

  The photos of the grouse foot and bear skins were next. They were also signs that had come true. Three eyeless bear skins had been staked along the fence behind George’s barbershop not too long ago, around the time Bobby and his brothers went missing. And Bobby had left the grouse foot with Shelby.

  A chill went up my spine when I caught a glimpse of the photo of the guy in the old plague doctor mask, the kind that resembled a cross between a gas mask and a bird costume. He was staring right into the camera, like he could look through the thin, disintegrating photo paper straight to me. Large, metal grommets had been placed into the black cloth around the eye area of his mask. And a long black beak hung where a nose and mouth should have been.

  I could hardly imagine being a plague victim back in the day, on my last legs, looking up for some hope and comfort in my pain, and seeing that. The very face of death itself. And he was your doctor.

  But the last page of the scrapbook was definitely the creepiest. The pieced-together skeleton of a gigantic bird next to a woman smaller than it with the caption, “Last one. Never again.”

  I knew there were people living in Landover who could tell me more about this unwritten history of the county — the shifter war, the curse, the meaning behind these photos. But, nobody was talking. Or maybe it was that I couldn’t get myself to ask.

  I already seemed crazy enough to everyone.

  My stomach rumbled when the smell of pizza reached my nose, but I knew to ignore it for about five more minutes. I liked my pizza crispy. Plus, I was too engrossed in my notes to get up just yet.

  I rubbed my eyes. There had to be a connection here I was missing. But I’d searched the entire house, and there weren’t anymore scrapbooks. Okay, so I’d really only searched the rooms I was comfortable searching, which were about seven. But I searched those seven very well.

  There were still many, many rooms in Gate House I couldn’t get myself to even enter, yet.

  I put the curse notes back into the shoebox and opened my laptop. My head ached and my eyes burned. I was tired, but my day wasn’t over yet.

  I needed to find Rebecca Torrance, the lone survivor of the Dead Forest incident, the one who was tried for the murders.

  I pulled the pizza out of the oven, surprised by how almost-burnt it was. How long had I been staring at notes, trying to figure out the signs and the curse?

  I put the blackened pizza on the cooling rack, telling myself it wasn’t that burned, mostly because I was too lazy and hungry to try another round of cooking. And then, I hurried back to my laptop.

  Facebook was usually my go-to for finding people because most everyone was on it. But this time when I ran a quick search for Rebecca Torrance, seven women stared back at me, all under forty. My Rebecca Torrance needed to be in her 60s.

  I quickly typed her name into Google but also got nothing, except the same old articles from 1978 I already had sitting on the table next to me. I couldn’t blame this woman for hiding, for never wanting to return to Landover, for changing her name and her identity.

  If she wasn’t the murderer, then she was just as much a victim as the deceased.

  She’d been a crumbled, broken mass on her last legs and the town had come to her rescue by wearing its plague mask. They hadn’t really come to help. They were just there to let her know her time was up.

  I chiseled off a piece of pizza from the side that wasn’t too burned and called it a night. It had been a long day, and I wasn’t even sure I had the energy to get the dishes done and put away.

  Sylvia appeared by the island behind me as I was rinsing my plate. She had a quiet kind of beauty to her that I could see even through her faded ghostly self.

  “I never told you what you could expect for payment,” she said, a confidence to her voice that made her seem much older than her 22 years.

  I turned off the water, grabbed a nearby dishtowel and turned around. She had my full attention.

  “Jackson told me the spirits you agree to help needed to pay you in secrets. About the curse.”

  I leaned against the sink. “I’m pretty sure seeing the inside of the Dead Forest is going to be enough of a payment. It seems to be pretty connected to this curse. Just res
t up for our channeling.”

  She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “This has nothing to do with the curse, but I think you’ll like it. I’m not sure Jackson will, though. There was this crazy party we had at the roller rink once. Your ex-husband was there…”

  “Done. You had me at ‘Jackson probably doesn’t want you to know about this.’” I laughed like I had been joking. “I would definitely like to see that party.”

  When I thought about it, I didn’t know too much about my ex’s upbringing, other than the fact his mother died when he was very young. His dad used to be sheriff of Landover before the whole family decided to live off the estate after the boater’s accident was covered up. And no one in town seemed to like Jackson’s side of the Bowmans, but then they were the strange family at the top of the strange hill.

  “I’m ready to do a channeling whenever you are,” she said. “I’m very anxious to see what happened.”

  “I’m too tired tonight and I have a date tomorrow. But how about the day after that?”

  I smiled just thinking about my date. Justin was perfecting his garlic shrimp recipe and I jumped on the chance to be his guinea pig once again. He was trying to recreate the one from Chez Louie’s. This was his second attempt and the first had been pretty darn perfect, in my opinion, but he said it had too much garlic. I agreed, but only because I wanted him to keep trying.

  I was more than ready for my date. Rosalie’s stinky sachets were already sitting on the credenza, ready for me to stuff into my pockets so no spirit could ride on me tomorrow. My good bra was clean. And I’d just given myself a pedicure.

  I was going to have a ghost-free date night with garlic shrimp and a smoking hot shapeshifter tomorrow. And this was one area of my life my ghost friends were not going to ruin.

  Chapter 5

  Searching

  I called Sylvia’s mother as soon as I found her number the next day just before work. I could hardly believe she was still alive, and that there were still people with listed numbers you could easily find just by searching for their names in the online white pages.

  Unfortunately, finding people was usually the easy part.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say you were?” the older-sounding lady asked for the third time. I was actually just happy she hadn’t hung up on me yet.

  I sat up on the couch so I could try to make my voice loud without sounding like I was shouting at her. “I’m a medium, and I know this is weird and difficult…”

  “A medium,” she interrupted. “Pardon me, but are you trying to tell me you talk to dead people?”

  “Yes. And Sylvia, your daughter…”

  Click.

  It was the story of my life. Nobody believed in ghosts or mediums, so I just sounded like a crazy person, calling people out of the blue to open up old wounds for them. I was only trying to do what was right and help them out, but it never came across that way.

  I should just lie next time.

  Sylvia appeared by the couch. “My mother was always a difficult person.”

  “We must have the same mom.” I joked.

  “She’ll come around. Just keep trying. I don’t know what help she’ll be, though. The murderer had to be someone at the Executives Club because all four of us were members of it.”

  Sylvia had a good point. “How many people were members?”

  She looked at the ceiling. “There were about thirty of us or so altogether.”

  That was a lot of suspects. “Do you remember anyone in particular who didn’t like you or was maybe a little jealous of your success?”

  She shook her head. “Honestly, I can’t even remember who was who.”

  Ghosts and their bad memories. Maybe Mr. Peters would remember more.

  But right now, it was time for me to slip some stinky sachets into my pockets and head off to work.

  The sky was cloudy and gray today. I zipped my puffer coat all the way up and checked my car over before I got into it, standing on my tiptoes so I could see the hood. There, in the middle of the faded paint job at the top, were three long scratches. Great.

  They were probably bird scratches.

  I couldn’t get to Justin’s fast enough after work and it wasn’t just the garlic shrimp or the hot-date parts. Rosalie had been in one of her moods, making me switch the window display every half an hour and complaining about the lack of sales (even though today’s sales were no different than any other day).

  Her cousin coming to visit seemed to be making her extra unusual.

  Sitting in my car in the parking lot of Justin’s apartment complex, I pulled out my phone and was just about to text him to come down and get me when it occurred to me just how strange the parking lot seemed tonight. I looked around.

  It was already dark, a crescent moon hardly doing much to illuminate the evening sky. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, yet everything seemed different, as if the air was thicker and sweeter. The creases in the trees’ bark seemed crisper. The gentle sway of the leaves was more noticeable, more enticing.

  Justin’s apartment complex backed up to the Dead Forest, which was a pretty expansive wooded area that extended out for miles, past the drive-in and eventually separating Landover from the rest of civilization, like a natural border protecting everyone else from those weirdos in Landover. In fact, the first city you got to on the other side of the forest was named Normal City, probably because whoever named it was thankful to finally get to something normal.

  I fumbled with my phone. Justin’s apartment complex had a locked main door but no buzzer system. You had to call the person who lived here to come down and unlock the main door for you and escort you up to their apartment.

  When I asked Justin why they were so protective at his place, he just shrugged it off. “Probably extra security so the residents feel safe around the Dead Forest. A lot of people believe in the rumors.”

  I wasn’t sure I was buying that answer anymore, especially not since I thought I saw Justin going into the Dead Forest once. Of course, that was also at a time when I was having a lot of heavy hallucinations and vision problems when I first started channeling, and he had denied doing it.

  I realized my finger was still hovering over the send button on my text that told Justin I was here. I stuffed my phone back into my pocket, grabbed my bear spray from the glove compartment, and got out.

  The night air was heavy and warmer than I thought it’d be. Flimsy-jacket warm, and I was wearing my big puffer coat. Why did I always pick the wrong outerwear?

  A weird mist circled through the trees, and just looking at it sent a shiver up my spine. I wasn’t sure what I was doing or expecting to see besides an empty parking lot, but I just wanted to look around. There was definitely something different about my boyfriend’s apartment complex tonight and I was going to figure it out.

  The building itself looked like your everyday, regular, beige five-story apartment building from the outside. No balconies. No bars on the windows. Plenty of streetlights. Nothing that cried out “different” or even “special.” I walked around the back, looking in all directions for anyone or anything strange.

  And even though I purposely tried to maintain a safe distance from the Dead Forest, once again, I found myself walking closer to it than a sane person would walk. And I wanted to get closer. I stepped onto the curb at the end of the parking lot and into the soft squishy grass in front of the trees. It was almost as if the forest was beckoning me, drawing me to it.

  Don’t you want to know my secrets, Carly? Just come on in. I’ll show you…

  The closer I allowed myself to get to the Dead Forest, the more comfortable I became doing it. I peeked in between the trunks for that thing I saw the other day. The air seemed to get warmer too, which had to be my imagination. Trees didn’t give off warmth.

  Off in the distance, I thought I saw a soft light. I blinked and squinted at it.

  The sound of a cracking stick behind me made me gasp and turn on my heel, finding myself face
to chest with someone tall. Thin, tight black dress shirt, lots of cologne.

  I looked up, recognizing the pale, blonde man immediately. Justin’s neighbor, Knox. I’d met him several times before. He was certainly a stunning man in a probably-way-too-dangerous-for-even-a-fantasy way.

  “You scared me,” I said, my voice louder than I expected.

  He looked down at my hand, which was clutching the bear-spray canister so tightly my fingers had turned pink. “Looks like you came prepared to be scared,” he said.

  This man made my knees wobble and I was never sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It was definitely a dangerous thing.

  I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. “I was just about to text Justin.”

  “I see,” he said. “Probably a good idea.”

  I nervously motioned toward the forest, prepared to make small talk because this guy was still staring at me suspiciously. “I thought I saw something in there.”

  He made a dramatic show of looking in the forest. “What did you think you saw?”

  Something told me not to tell him about the faint light, deep amongst the mist, because that would’ve seemed crazy, or not crazy enough. And I didn’t want to chance it either way. “Probably just an animal,” I said.

  “Well, it’s gone now.” He didn’t seem to buy it. He looked at me like a teacher being handed the dog-eating-homework lie.

  After a few seconds of silence where I got the impression I was supposed to elaborate on my lie (but I resisted the urge to), he pointed to the complex. “I was just headed inside. I can take you up to Justin’s apartment, if you like.” His voice was slow, like someone carefully choosing every syllable. He pointed toward the dimly lit door in the back of the complex that also required a key card to get in. “It’s no trouble.”

  “I’m good,” I said, ready to text Justin that I was here. “It’s probably no trouble for Justin either, to stop cooking and come all the way down…”

  Knox wasn’t listening. He was already halfway to the back door. Surprisingly fast. I followed behind him.