Steeped in Suspicion

by Eryn Scott

  She waved one last time and then disappeared down the hall. In keeping with his manner, Mr. Suspenders had a surly comment to add to Daphne’s even though the front door already closed behind her.

  “Oh, Daphne.” He tsked. “You don’t want to go like Helen. Not unless you’d like to be murdered too.”

  I gasped. The room spun.

  Murdered?

  By the time my vision cleared, and I turned around, Mr. Suspenders had disappeared.

  2

  I blinked at the now empty room.

  The surprise of Mr. Suspenders’ words, added to his sudden disappearance, caused confusion to swim about me in a dizzying daze.

  Murdered? But my grandma died in her sleep. Hadn’t she?

  It was possible I’d heard him incorrectly.

  Sure. That could be it.

  As my foggy thoughts cleared, my shock gave way to anger. Normal people didn’t say terrible things like that and leave. I didn’t care how ill-disposed to small talk Mr. Surly Suspenders seemed; he had some explaining to do.

  A wall of worry hit me face-first as I wondered if he could’ve been the one who had hurt her. I shook my head. No, surly as he was, he had an air about him that was … not kind exactly, but not threatening either. Plus Daphne hadn’t seemed scared of him or of leaving me here alone with him.

  Without overthinking the situation anymore—as I had the tendency to do—I went in search of him. Had he left? No doors had closed after Daphne left, so he must still be in the house. I turned toward the kitchen to investigate.

  When I entered the room, my phone began buzzing. I fished it from my pocket. Mom, I guessed. The name flashing across the screen confirmed my suspicions.

  Instead of answering it, I did something very unlike myself—I hesitated. Usually, I wouldn’t think twice about taking a call from Mom. She was my best friend, my only remaining family, and the person I trusted the most.

  But that word: murdered, kept cycling through my brain as my thumb hovered over the answer button.

  Mom knew me too well. She would be able sense something was wrong. I needed to wait until I talked to Mr. Suspenders. I pressed the ignore button and cringed as I shoved the phone back in my pocket, waiting for the inevitable voice mail.

  In the meantime, I started my search in the kitchen. It was empty. The glass bird still hung in the window. Memories of the morning sunlight reflecting off the colored glass as Grandma and I made pancakes for breakfast came flooding back to me. I would sit on the counter helping her measure ingredients and stir. She would pop blueberries, raspberries, or pieces of banana in my mouth like I was a little baby bird. I didn’t know how I felt about those memories, so I focused on my task to locate Mr. Suspenders.

  From the kitchen, I climbed the narrow staircase up to the second floor, where my grandmother’s bedroom and her guest room were located. The rooms were dark and quiet. I peered into her small bedroom. A large antique clock ticked away from atop an oak dresser. A light summer quilt had been neatly spread over the bed and tucked under each corner.

  Who’d made her bed? I wondered. Had it been Mr. Suspenders or someone else? I didn’t know if my grandma had friends. Maybe she didn’t have any, which would explain why some random guy my age was taking care of her plants. My grandpa had died when I was very young, so she’d been alone for a long time. But even so, it seemed odd for her to have left me her home, especially after our estrangement. Was that because she had no one else to leave it to or because she still felt a connection to me after all this time?

  The questions piled up, but I had no answers. I turned around to check the guest bedroom. Nothing but memories in there either. The dull ache returned in my chest as I scanned the room Mom and Dad used to share. I remembered climbing into bed with them in the mornings, sandwiching myself between them, covered in blankets and love and laughter. Sometimes Grandma would find us and joke like she would climb in too, and we would all giggle until we were awake and ready for a day of beachcombing.

  And while the memories made me smile and served as a reminder of all the great times I’d experienced here, they were from a different time. That had been before everything changed, before the accident, before my diagnosis, before the fight. Old wooden floors creaked under me as I turned to check the bathroom situated in the middle of the two rooms and found that empty as well.

  “Hello?” I called out, pausing on the landing at the top of the stairs. “Sir? Mr. Suspenders?” The volume of my questions ebbed with my doubt. My words echoed off the white and black tiles of the bathroom floor and shower behind me. No response.

  Speaking of responses, I checked my phone. No voice mail from Mom—yet. Yeesh, it must be a long one. I gripped the phone in my hand as I continued my search.

  While clomping down the front stairway, I paused at the small window on the landing. Through it I spied the neighbor’s house, bits of the stained wood and stark white moldings peeked through the line of treelike rhododendrons outside.

  Carl’s house, I mused, remembering Daphne’s comment about how he hated my grandmother. Did he have something to do with her death? I wondered. Was his hatred for her why Mr. Suspenders thought she’d been killed instead of dying in her sleep?

  Frustration leaked out of me in a huff. I couldn’t answer any of these questions if I couldn’t find the man who’d triggered them.

  The rest of the stairway passed by in a blur. Taking a hard left, I walked through the study and adjoining library where I used to sleep on a cot when we stayed here. The floor-to-ceiling windows created the illusion of being outside, right in the middle of her wildflower garden. I remembered gazing up at the stars and watching the moon as I fell asleep each night, lulled into slumber by the crashing waves just outside the ancient panes of glass.

  I checked the downstairs restroom, now designated for tea shop customers. Nothing. I chewed on my lip as I returned to the main tearoom space.

  The house was empty.

  Where’d he go?

  I put my hands on my hips, stepping closer to the bar. Had he been hiding behind it this whole time? I leaned forward to get a better view, but it was as empty as the rest of the house.

  My fingers swept across the lacquered wood. It held stacks of menus and small mason jars, each filled with a tea light. Behind the bar, there was a wall of shelves, stacked with jar after jar of dried leaves, labeled with a careful, curving script, handwritten to label each blend.

  It was the tea lover’s equivalent to a wall full of books in the eyes of a bibliophile like me.

  The large room was mostly windows on one side. Lofty picture windows spanned the space between the wood floor and the vaulted ceilings. The white-capped waves and pebbled beach visible through the windows took my breath away, much like the coastal wind sometimes did when a gust would hit me full force.

  My phone buzzed in my hand, startling me from my reverie. And that will be Mom’s voicemail, I thought. But it wasn’t. Three rapid-fire texts came through instead.

  Hey, sweetie …

  How’s the house? Is it weird being back there?

  Do you need me to come out?

  Uh oh. Three questions in a row. Mom was officially having a hard time with me being here.

  Pulling in a deep breath, I reminded myself that she only got intense like this because she loved me and worried about me. And honestly, the woman had reason to worry. When most parents’ biggest worries were puberty and attitude, my mom was raising me alone, helping me fight a life-threatening disease. And she’d been by my side, my rock, through all of it.

  As my thoughts drifted, my gaze strayed back to the view outside.

  Just then, I spotted a man’s silhouette out on the beach.

  Mr. Suspenders.

  Gotcha!

  I typed up a quick message, telling Mom I couldn’t talk, but that I loved her and would call later. Sliding my phone back in my pocket, I headed out the back door, onto the porch.

  The salty sea air plastered my dark hair t
o my face. Sparrows’ sharp chirps cut through the lengthy trills of songbirds. Tall, sage-and-lavender-colored grass grew all around the cottage, creeping right up to the edges of my grandmother’s garden, which created a barrier from the wild coastline.

  I stormed past it all, straight toward Mr. Suspenders.

  He stood with his back to me, facing the water. I’d always found the waves mesmerizing to watch, and it seemed he did too by the way he stared out at the rolling water.

  My feet slipped on the mixture of pebbles and sand as I approached him. The coastal wind swirled around me. Clouds rolled along above us, their movement making me even more unsteady. The crunch of my shoes on the rocky shore betrayed my approach.

  But he didn’t turn around.

  “Hey,” I called. My words broke and fell to pieces, dragged away by the wind.

  Still nothing. He stood just as still, gazing out at the water.

  As I stepped up to him, any confidence I’d gathered dispersed as quickly as tea leaves in the wind. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t a confront people person. I was barely an introduce myself person. But the word “murdered” simmered inside my brain, pushing me out of my comfort zone.

  I needed to know.

  “I—have a question,” I said, stepping closer.

  The man didn’t move. At that point, I was right behind him, his broad shoulders looming in front of me.

  Murdered. The word swept over me, around me, behind me. It pushed me forward like a gust of wind.

  “Sir,” I said more forcefully, then I reached forward to tap him in the shoulder.

  But my hand went right through him.

  3

  A chill washed over my fingers as if I’d wafted them through a cloud of liquid nitrogen. My whole body froze stiff, making the dry-ice comparison even more real. Even when he turned around, I remained unable to move a limb.

  He jumped in surprise, his wide eyes flicked down to my hand, now sticking through his chest.

  Our eyes met. The ocean wind whipped around me, and the waves moving in the background made my vision unsteady.

  As of its own accord, my hand moved to the left, wafting through his collarbone. The chill intensified. My fingers curled, though I couldn’t see them through his opaque body.

  As if I’d ever encountered a body that wasn’t opaque, I scoffed inwardly, pulling my hand back to myself.

  “You can see me?” he asked, breaking my thought process. All his cocky confidence from earlier was gone. In fact, his tone shook.

  When I met his eyes again, he was watching me with that intense gaze, leaving goose bumps in its wake. I couldn’t even begin to answer his question. What was I even seeing? Things like this only happened in the books I shelved in my job at the library.

  Daphne’s lack of reaction to him earlier now made sense. What if she hadn’t been ignoring his comments? What if she hadn’t even heard them? He wasn’t the neighbor here to take care of the plants.

  The scariness of the situation wrapped around me as my thoughts careened toward what this might mean. My heart raced, and my breath became shallow. It’s impossible, I thought, shaking my head. I didn’t believe in ghosts. That sounded too much like a conspiracy my tea-leaf-reading grandma would’ve bought into. But not me. I was rational, like my mother.

  I backed away from him.

  As I was about to turn and run, his face softened, and he held up his hands.

  “Please. Wait.”

  Only two words left his lips, but the emotion wrapped around them was so intense that it held me in place. Memories of myself making a similar plea crowded in my mind—the kids at school skirting around me, scooting farther from me at lunch, even running away from me at recess.

  Please.

  Even after the teacher explained to them that leukemia wasn’t contagious, that they couldn’t get sick by being my friend.

  Wait.

  I stopped.

  He took a slow step forward. “I’ve—It’s been so long since I’ve met someone who can see me … you caught me off guard. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  I focused on breathing.

  He stood up straighter. “I’m Asher.”

  My brain struggled to compute. He had a name. Asher. He looked real.

  “What are you?” I finally croaked.

  I surveyed his body, focusing on his tweed pants and the suspenders I’d used as his moniker. He wore a white linen button-up shirt underneath the suspenders, tucked into his pants. Was what I’d mistaken as hipster attire actually old-timey clothing?

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, pointing behind me. “In my grandmother’s house?”

  “It was my house, back when I was alive.” Asher’s countenance had completely shifted. The surly and sarcastic man from before was gone. Now his blue eyes held an earnestness, an undeniable need.

  Back when I was alive … Confirming he wasn’t anymore.

  The sound of the waves normally had a calming white-noise effect, but at his statement, the crashing became overwhelming.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t …” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

  “I died about a hundred years ago.” He caught my gaze with his.

  I coughed, not sure why hearing him say it aloud made such a difference. “You’re truly a ghost?”

  He tipped his head to one side. “I’ve always preferred spirit, but sure.”

  My throat went hot, and a metallic flavor coated my tongue. I swallowed. “But you don’t look like a ghost.” I rolled my eyes at myself. “Not that I expect you to be wearing a sheet with two eyeholes. It’s just—you look solid, is all.”

  If I hadn’t seen my hand pass through him, as it would’ve through a cloud, I wouldn’t have believed it myself. He appeared to be the same as any person I’d ever seen.

  “I’m at my strongest here, where I spent most of my life. Maybe that’s why you can see me so clearly.” Asher wet his lips and glanced down at the ground.

  “Why did you say my grandma was murdered?”

  His face darkened, and he turned toward me. “Because she told me.”

  A gasp escaped my mouth. “Is she a ghost too? Am I going to see her?” Simultaneous feelings of excitement and worry flooded my heart.

  Shrugging, he said, “She’s here in a sense, though not like I am. When a spirit is in turmoil, they tend not to settle for a while. I didn’t regain sentience for almost two years after my death, so it may be awhile until she can take a form you might see.”

  Turmoil.

  That word kicked me in the gut. I sank down onto the sand, ducking against an intense gust of sea wind. When it passed by, I peeked up from under my hair. Asher knelt beside me. He wore concern as plainly as he wore those suspenders.

  “Everyone thinks she died in her sleep.” I pinched my lips together. “It was her heart.”

  He settled onto his butt, though it made no indent in the rocks and sand like mine. “She was having issues with her heart, but that’s not what killed her. I watched her take her nightly medications. She became short of breath, and her pupils were dilated, and then she went to bed. Moments later, her spirit floated past me. She looked straight at me for the first time and said, ‘I’ve been poisoned. Tell Rosemary I’m sorry.’ Then she disappeared.”

  My body swayed. This wasn’t happening. I sucked in a quick breath. “Did you see who did it?”

  At my question, Asher’s jaw clenched tight. His broad shoulders fell. “No. I had just come inside when she was getting ready for bed. I like to watch the sun set.” He pointed to my left toward the lighthouse that sat at the tip of the spit that created Pebble Cove.

  Asher’s words blurred together, creating a buzzing sensation in my ears.

  “How are you the only one who knows this? Didn’t the doctor figure out the cause of death?”

  He clasped his hands behind his back. “When they were here, the medical team said she’d been diagnosed with heart disease, and there was no need to do
an autopsy.”

  Shutting my eyes tight, I pulled in a long breath. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. I wasn’t sure if I was talking about the ghost sitting in front of me or his insistence that my grandmother was murdered. Or both.

  Suddenly it all became too much. The wind beat against my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I scrambled to my feet. Swiping my hair out of my face, I looked at Asher.

  “I—uh—need time, and space … and maybe food. I’m—” But before I finished my sentence, a shape in the water caught my eye.

  As the waves pulled back, they revealed a form laying in the wet sand below the tide line. At first I thought it was a piece of driftwood, the gnarled base of an oak. The waves raced forward again, crashing over and covering the shape. But when they retreated the next time, I knew I wasn’t looking at driftwood.

  “What’s wrong?” Asher asked, his face contorting into a frown.

  I gawked at the water for a moment more before returning my attention to him.

  “It’s …” I couldn’t find the words, so I pointed toward the crashing waves. “Is that …?” A shiver wound up the skin of my back like a rolling pinprick as I spit out the broken question.

  I could tell the exact moment Asher caught sight of what I’d seen because his Adam’s apple dipped as he swallowed.

  My feet started forward as if of their own accord. They slipped and stumbled through the sand and pebbles, mirroring my total mental disequilibrium. After a few sliding steps, I made it to the firmer wet sand and stopped, reveling in the minuscule amount of stability it provided.

  Another shiver ran over my body as Asher came up next to me soundlessly. He didn’t stop but approached the shape. His feet made no imprints in the sand nor did they disturb the water as he walked into the waves.

  But if his ghostly form was chilling, it turned out to be nothing compared to what he said when he looked up a moment later.

  “Call the police. This man is dead.”

  4