Ghost in the Canteen (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 1)

by Rasmussen, Jen

  7. Find out Jeffrey’s true name

  A pity that this breakthrough actually added to my list rather than subtracting from it.

  The next day I very manipulatively went back to Charlie’s house, ostensibly to pick up a few things I’d forgotten, after six o’clock, when I knew he and Warren would be there, and be hungry.

  I had visions of a sad situation, in which the kitchen was a mess, and nobody could find the paper towels, and they were perhaps gaunt and dressed in rags. This was not the case. Both were sitting at the kitchen table when I walked in, Warren reading a book and Charlie clicking away at his laptop, a cozy little family. I could smell tomato sauce. When had Charlie learned to make tomato sauce?

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I shut the door behind me. “I should have knocked.”

  “Why would you knock?” Warren didn’t wait for an answer to this uninteresting question, and instead gave me a hug and showed me a gap in his mouth where he’d lost yet another tooth. Charlie just looked me over like he was trying to decide something, how he wanted to greet me, maybe, or else why my hair looked so bad (hard water in that hotel bathroom). Finally he said, “Want to help with the spaghetti?” Which I took to mean, We’re totally cool, Lydia.

  Luckily any awkward silences that might have come between Charlie and I at dinner were killed in their infancy by Warren. He chatted away about Bobby Kinsala’s dead hamster, which Bobby had brought to school in a shoe box for show and tell, and how much he liked meatballs, and the proper way to throw a football, and Mrs. Baggart the principal’s funny looking legs. (I had noticed this myself, they really were weird.) By the time he’d exhausted all his topics, he was exhausted himself. I put him in front of a movie with a plate of cookies, and when I came back into the kitchen, I saw that Charlie had poured us bourbon-and-switchels. He gestured for me to sit, which I dutifully did. I was half expecting another lecture, but then, you don’t usually serve the good bourbon to people who are in trouble, do you? Plus mine had a twist of orange.

  “I’m still mad,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “And nothing is resolved.”

  “Okay.”

  “And nothing is going to get resolved if you just keep saying okay.”

  “You don’t think agreeing with you is a good way to resolve things?”

  “Okay does not mean you agree. It means you want me to move on to whatever I’m going to say next.”

  “Which is?”

  “This is stupid. Check out of the hotel.”

  “Well that didn’t take long.” I took a drink in an attempt to hide the relief on my face. I was still smarting from the evidence when I came in of how little I was needed around here. It wouldn’t do to give away that I probably wanted this more than he did. “What changed your mind?”

  “I had a fight with Warren last night. I told him our thing about how you’d be working more and wouldn’t be able to be here so much. He said the after-school program sucks and he won’t go.”

  Good for you, Warren. “He used the word sucks?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well that’s your fault, you know.”

  “The point is, it’s not up to him, but I should consider his feelings. And I can’t just keep asking Amy to watch him. If we’re going to need a more permanent solution, then it seems fairest to him if I take my time to figure out the best one. Abrupt change isn’t so good for him anyway.”

  “Is it good for anyone?”

  Charlie sighed, drained his glass, and made himself another. He almost never had a second drink.

  “It’s because the anniversary is coming up, isn’t it?” I asked.

  Charlie stiffened. “It’s made me sensitive to the dangers of your job, yes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a point.”

  “You do have a point. I also have a point.”

  “One point at a time. Let’s just take things day-to-day for now. But we are going to have that talk. Soon.” Charlie ran his hand through what remained of his hair. “And speaking of, you know, the anniversary. Brian McLeary called for you.”

  “Well, that’s nice of him. Usually it’s just the annual email. Did anyone else call?”

  “No, who else were you expecting?”

  “Do you really want to know? Because it has to do with that thing you hate.”

  He took another long swallow of his drink. “Lay it on me.”

  I took my phone out of my pocket and showed him my checklist.

  “Is the bake sale crap really that important? I know Warren’s excited to go but—”

  “But not as excited as Katie Long,” I said. “I need to stay on her good side. She’s one of the calls I’m waiting for. I need another remnant of Tom’s.” As I said it, the clarity born of liquor brought another item to my attention. I took my phone back and started clicking with my thumbs. “And if I want to banish Jeffrey, I’ll need another one of his too.”

  8. Get remnant to banish Jeffrey

  “Treat it like any other project,” Charlie said. “Break it into manageable pieces. Let’s start with the Jeffrey part. Which things do you need to make that happen?”

  “Maybe his true name, definitely a remnant, and the incantation, which Cyrus says is different from my normal one.”

  “But he didn’t actually give it to you.”

  “It’s Cyrus.”

  “Okay, well, that sister you met can help you with the first two, no?”

  “Ew. Greta Litauer is so creepy.”

  “But she might be usefully creepy. Come up with another excuse to talk to her.”

  “More family history?”

  “Something better.”

  “I’m an aspiring writer and her stories about her childhood with my long-lost grandfather inspired me to write a book.”

  “Perfect. Everybody wants someone to write a book about them. Call her.”

  9. Call creepy Greta Litauer

  Which I did, the next morning, right after I checked out of the hotel. Greta was as delighted as predicted with the idea of sharing tales of her beloved brother and their very special, I’d-pull-out-a-guy’s-teeth-for-you kind of relationship. I arranged to see her that very afternoon.

  Contrary to what I would have predicted, Cyrus’s cousin was less agreeable than Greta. I had an email from him, but it wasn’t the bargaining sort I was hoping for. He’d thought the books were in his attic, but it turned out his sister sold them before she died. He wasn’t exactly sure where they’d gone; a private collector had taken some, and a used bookstore the rest. Perhaps he could dig that information up with a little effort.

  I supposed a little of his effort meant a little of my money. I wrote back that yes, I’d be so grateful if he could get me the details of both the store and the collector. Then I bought him a gift certificate for an online bookstore, because nothing smoothes over the awkwardness of a bribe like replacing vulgar cash with a brightly colored e-card. I waffled a little over the dollar amount—fifteen was too small, thirty seemed extravagant—before settling on twenty-five and attaching a note: For all your kindness in connecting me with the right book, may I return the favor.

  My next and last order of business was calling Amy Lin to ask if she could grab Warren after school to play with her son—yet again, we owed Amy a pound of flesh by this time—in case things got long with Greta Litauer. We also caught up a little. It seemed that her friend Norbert, the one she’d introduced to Charlie at her party, was quite taken with him. They’d seen each other twice since (a fact Charlie had failed to mention to me), although I’m sure my disappearance had put something of a damper on their dates.

  I finished all that by the time I hit the bottom of my second cup of coffee. It was only 10:30 in the morning. The house was quiet. I was, as you might guess, exhausted from my little canteen adventure, and drained from my fight with Charlie besides. I did not want to go to Greta Litauer’s house. What I really wanted was a three or four hour nap, followed by an afternoon curled up in pajamas with the
remote and a stack of magazines.

  But go to Greta’s I must, so I got out my file on Jeffrey and read over my notes from my last visit to his sister. The vague but bone-deep dread I’d been feeling about Jeffrey pulsed through my jaw as I remembered her chilling little smile. Oh no, one punch would not have done for Cal O’Rourke. Jeffrey tied him up and pulled out seven of his teeth with a pair of pliers from our father’s toolbox.

  I really, really wished I could do that pajama thing instead.

  THIRTEEN

  * * *

  Greta’s house was as beat up and dusty as I remembered it. As was Greta herself. Once again, I made her tea. Why was I always making things for old people in their gross kitchens? Much to my relief, we did not sit down in that airless living room when I was done. It was a beautiful fall day, warm and sunny but with just that hint of crispness in the air, and Greta wanted to sit outside.

  The concrete slab of her back patio was barely visible in her small but wildly overgrown yard. There were two folding chairs leaning against the siding that looked like they hadn’t been moved in years, a suspicion confirmed by the fact that the dull gray paint behind them wasn’t as sun-faded as that on the rest of the house. I kicked aside some vines, engaged in a brief turf war with a couple of spiders, and finally found enough space to set up the chairs. I brought TV trays from the living room, then went back for Greta and offered my arm to help her outside.

  I wished I was wearing long sleeves. Her hand was dry and papery and cold, her touch light, like the touch of an old dead thing, a dozen dead moths falling from a box taken down from the top shelf, tumbling over your skin. I hoped she didn’t feel me tense up, and that my smile looked natural.

  “So.” She settled into her chair with a creak, the source of which was unclear, whether the chair or her bones. “You want to write a book about my Jeffrey. You’ll be trying to prove his innocence, of course.”

  “Of course.” Duh. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? Greta would give me anything I wanted, probably including this horrible old house, if she thought I was going to clear her brother’s name. “And from the things you told me last time I was here, I think his childhood is very relevant to the man he became,” I went on. Which was certainly true, just not in the way she thought.

  “So you want to use my stories to show his character.” Greta took a loud slurp of her tea, swishing it around in her nearly toothless mouth before swallowing.

  “Yes, exactly. You know, provide some background, show what kind of family he came from, what kind of person he was. But I also need to research his life in general. If you have anything that could help me, old diaries, others of his things I could look through...” I let the sentence hang.

  Greta dismissed it with a wave. “You saw everything last time you were here.”

  “That’s all there is?” I didn’t bother trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice; it went with my act just fine. “Nothing else, maybe things you keep out instead of in that box?”

  Greta considered this. “I think there’s also some of his old books on my shelves, but I don’t know whose is whose anymore.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, and of course there are Cal’s teeth.”

  The hot tea turned cold in my stomach. “I beg your pardon?”

  Greta didn’t answer, merely got up on shaky legs, then hobbled off into the house. It would have been polite to help her, but I really didn’t want to make what she was about to do any easier for her. Maybe she’d get tired and forget the whole thing. Remnant or no remnant, I did not want to see the unfortunate Cal O’Rourke’s teeth.

  Too bad for me. She came back outside a few minutes later with a small box, plain white cardboard, the kind cheap watches and earrings come in. She opened it and held it out in one liver-spotted hand. Inside was the square of cotton that had once cradled whatever originally came in the box. Now it cradled several teeth, most with dried blood still on them. I coughed, dangerously close to gagging. Greta fixed me with an intense, triumphant, and utterly mad stare, waiting for some reaction.

  “He was such a good brother to you,” I said in as steady a voice as I could.

  She nodded and sat back down, box of teeth still clenched in her gnarled hand. Mercifully, she put the top back on. “Yes, he was.”

  “I’d like to show that when I write about him,” I said. “How he looked out for you. Someone that protective of his sister doesn’t seem like a person who would hurt young women.”

  “You are absolutely right.” Greta pounded the arm of her chair for emphasis. “Of course he wouldn’t.”

  “Were you always close?”

  “Oh yes. He used to watch me when I was a baby.” The thought of Jeffrey Litauer charged with the care of a baby girl gave me the willies. I took a sip of my tea to mask my face.

  “Did he watch you a lot, as you got older?” I asked.

  “Certainly. He took care of me. We were always together, my Jeffrey and I.”

  I did not like the way she kept saying my Jeffrey. It smacked of a relationship I did not want to explore. I thought it best to get to the subject of names as quickly as possible and then end the conversation, which probably explained my inelegant transition. “If you were always together, did you two have any special names you called one another? A special language of your own?”

  Greta frowned. “What do you mean, special language?”

  I shrugged. “I was very close with my brother, Nat.”

  “Was?”

  “He passed away.” Five years ago today, as a matter of fact. I supposed that was why I thought of this particular angle to approach the subject of names from. Greta didn’t say she was sorry, just kept me fixed with her creepy pale gaze until I went on talking. “Well, we had this whole little world of our own. We called it Forestland.” I laughed as my hand automatically rose to my locket. I moved the silver oval back and forth on its chain. “Not very creative, I know. We were no Brontës.” I glanced at Greta and was yanked out of my reverie by her blank face. Not a Brontë fan, then. And if the topic wasn’t her own brother, she was clearly not interested. I cleared my throat and let the locket slip between my fingers. The metal was warm when it returned to my neck. “The point is, it was our own private world. Including the language spoken in Forestland, the words we made up and the names we called each other. We could talk at the dinner table and nobody else would even know what we were saying. It was just for us. I just wondered if you and Jeffrey had anything like that.”

  “He called me Ugly Bloodhound.” Greta said this with no emotion whatsoever.

  “Ugly Bloodhound,” I repeated.

  Greta gestured at her face. “My cheeks, you know. Always a bit jowly. Bloody, for short.”

  Bloody. Of course he called his sister Bloody. I had no words, so I just nodded and moved on to my next question. “And what did you call him? There must have been something besides Jeffrey.” Another thought struck me. “Did he have a middle name?”

  “What did you ask?”

  “What his full name was?” I smiled a little.

  She did not smile back. “Who are you?” The words shot out of her like pellets. She had that confused, angry look about her that really old people sometimes get. I hoped maybe she’d just become disoriented.

  “What do you mean? It’s Caroline, Miss Litauer. Caroline Bingley?” I thanked my lucky stars that Charlie had come up with the idea of a fake name, that first time I came to see her. And hoped, once again, that Greta Litauer wasn’t a fan of Pride and Prejudice. Knowing her as I now did, it certainly seemed unlikely.

  “He told me.”

  Thinking as I was about Charlie, for a second I absurdly thought she was talking about him. “He... what?”

  Greta stood up on shaking legs. The chair fell backwards into the weeds behind her. “He told me someone might come and try to trick me. He told me I’d know you by that kind of question.”

  I shook my head, started to say something, but I could see it
was no good. It was too late to salvage this situation. Greta’s face had stiffened into a snarl. Her eyes darkened until I thought, and immediately hated myself for not thinking of it before, that she might be a fiend, too.

  She took a step toward me.

  She was tiny, frail, weak. It wasn’t like she could take me in a fight. But I was scared in a way I’d never been scared of my apparitions. Almost as scared as the night Helen Turner nearly made me bite my own finger off. And all that fear, just from Greta Litauer’s face.

  She opened her mouth to speak.

  With a desperation bordering on panic, I did not want to hear what she was going to say. I was deeply and instantly convinced that it would harm me badly. Without another thought, I jumped forward, snatched the box of teeth out of her hand, and ran like hell.

  The yard was fenced, no gate visible through the tangle of wisteria that had taken over. The only clear way out was back through the house. As I ran through those stale rooms I could hear her behind me, shouting something in a quivering, rasping voice. But that was all I heard. No pursuit, no flying fiend suddenly moving faster than any eighty-year-old woman had a right to, no Roderick-Turner-style exhale as teeth sank into me. I slammed the front door behind me and sprinted across the lawn.

  I scrambled into my car, then dropped the keys like some bimbo in a horror movie. I had to push aside the floor mat and various debris to get them. Funny, the details you notice when you’re terrified, the way things take on a dream-like quality. I noted a couple of dried-out dandelions clinging to a quarter and two nickels, a reminder that I hadn’t cleaned out my car since the spring.

  And all the while I was sure that any second I’d hear the thump of someone landing on the hood, the shattering of the windshield. But when I sat back up, there was nobody. I looked back at Greta’s house.

  The door was opening. I couldn’t see anything in the growing sliver of black behind it.

  I jammed the keys into the ignition, and did not look back again.

  I was halfway home before I came halfway to my senses. The first thing I noticed was my own ragged, wheezing breath. The cardboard box that held Cal O’Rourke’s teeth was on the passenger seat beside me.