by Debi Matlack
“Is there any other kind?” I asked in return.
Dee giggled. “No, silly!”
“That’s what I thought. Now, let’s turn the oven on.”
Fifteen or so minutes later we had the first batch in the oven and Dee had flour to her shoulders. “C’mon, little pastry chef, let’s make you presentable again so your parents don’t think I let you run wild every time you’re here.” Dee and I went around the corner to the en suite bathroom in my bedroom. There was a perfectly good bathroom closer to the kitchen which would have suited all our needs except privacy. It was Deanna’s choice to include Chris or not in our conversation.
I knelt in front of the toilet where Dee sat on the lid while I wiped the traces of flour from her arms and— “How on earth did you get it in your ear?”
Dee grinned and shrugged. “George just lucky, I guess.”
I swiped the washcloth across the back of her neck. “Well, Georgette of the Jungle, what else can you do besides swing from trees?” Rinsing the cloth and wringing it out, I went back to her, now wiping her face. “Can you see things?”
“Well, duh. I can see you.”
“Sassypants. I mean stuff other people can’t see.” I kept my tone light and casual. My subtlety must need some work, because Dee got quiet and still.
“Maybe.”
Finishing with the cloth, I dropped it in favor of the hairbrush. Dee’s thick red hair was unfastened and curled in loose rings. I’d cut somebody for hair like that, so I satisfied my covetousness by grooming hers like a subservient ape. I smoothed the tangles from a day of school and recess and divided it into sections to braid. “You’re not in trouble, DeeDee. I’m curious because I can see things and I think you can too.”
A quick inhalation and she turned to face me, pulling the hair from my hands. “You can?” Her brown eyes were wide and dark. I nodded with a small smile. Relief gusted from her in a huge sigh and she turned back to let me fiddle with her hair again.
“So if you ever need anybody to talk to about it, you can talk to me.” She met my eyes in the mirror and I saw a sense of peace in her eyes. “Do you ever talk to Chris about it?”
Her expression changed subtly and I saw frustration sharpen the softness of her eyes. “Not really. He knows a little, but he just thinks I’m silly and making things up.”
“Your mom and dad know I can see things.”
“They do?”
“Yeah. I finally felt like I had to tell them. If you don’t want to tell them yet, I understand.” She nodded, looking thoughtful. It was quiet for a long moment while I twisted the strands of her hair in my hands.
“You saw her, the lady at the cemetery.”
Now her eyes went wide again. “The one that hurt you! I hollered at her to quit it, she was being mean!”
My fingers wove the strands of copper over, under, around. “She didn’t mean to be. It was the only way she could tell me something really important.”
“But she made you so sick. Poppy doesn’t make you sick.” Aha, busted, my little munchkin. I now have confirmation that you do indeed see more than the average person.
“No, Poppy doesn’t make me sick. He loves us and looks out for us.”
“I know. Sometimes he comes and visits me after I go to bed.”
“Dreaming, or awake?”
“Mostly dreaming, but sometimes awake too. I still miss him, though.”
My eyes burned with treacherous tears, of relief, understanding and regret.
“Me too, little critter.”
I dreamed about Cora, bits of her life cropping up in my sleep. Maybe that was the best way for me to deal with the information she had dumped in my brain. I recognized Pinehaven, parts of it anyway. I even passed my own store as a passenger of my host as she walked by on a rare trip into town. It was still MacAllister’s Mercantile and the man sweeping the sidewalk out front was undoubtedly my great grandfather. The family resemblance runs deep from generation to generation.
While they helped put faces to the names she’d jammed into my memory, the dreams really weren’t helping me sort things out, not yet anyway. The only impact they were having was keeping my brain active all night and making my days a jumble of sleepy interactions with customers and, if I were alert enough, power tools. So far I hadn’t pissed anyone off that I could recall, nor had I severed any important body parts, though a few knuckles got belt-sanded smooth one afternoon.
Saturday morning, a week after my collapse at the cemetery, and after a particularly long night of lucid dreaming, I stumbled down the stairs to open the store. Anna’s daughter was getting married so I had the duty on my own. Ernie dashed ahead of me to take his place in the display window, nosing between a pyramid of books and a stack of wooden fruit crates to peer through a space separating the shades, soak up the sunlight and watch the passersby. I envied him his energy. Mine was going to have to come from a cup.
Coffee was the first order of business and I made a beeline for the machine at the front of the store. There was a knock on the glass of the front door. It was 7:30 in the morning. The sign clearly states that we open at 8:00. It wouldn’t be that damned early except that Carrie’s weekend breakfast customers were often antiquers and I wanted to offer them the opportunity to spend some of their money in my store. That morning I had some online sales that needed to be packed and ready for the post office and someone knocking on my door was not part of the plan. The shades were still down so, unless they were peering through the cracks back at Ernie, I could ignore the noise.
Evidently someone was being a creeper. The early morning sun threw the silhouette of my unwanted visitor on the shade as they knocked again. At least I knew it wasn’t Adam with the full light of day pouring in. Sometimes these antiquers treated my shop like a garage sale or a booth at the flea market and I didn’t appreciate the inconsideration. So, I’m a retail snob, sue me. I made up my mind to disregard the noise until the coffee was brewing but my visitor clearly had other ideas. Another, more insistent knock sounded and I about-faced and marched to the front door, fed up with the disruption in my routine.
I snatched the front door open to glower upon the startled face of Barrett Eberhardt. He blinked and ventured, “Hi.”
“Good morning.” I was still annoyed but flattered he’d stopped by. We stood awkwardly in the doorway until I stood aside. “Come in.” Not unlike inviting that damned vampire into my store. He stepped inside and I closed and locked the door behind him. “What brings you out to the boonies on this fine, early morning?” Emphasis on the early.
My desire to marry him induced by my pitiable state a week ago had cooled, but he was still a damn fine looking man. He was even better looking now that I could see him clearly without the haze of pain. Khakis and a pale blue oxford shirt set off his eyes and the stubble framing his mouth was attractive, rather than looking like he just hadn’t bothered to shave because it was the weekend. His expression was still unsure and he seemed glad I had initiated the conversation. “I came by to see how you were doing.”
At 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday. Annoyance and flattery at the same time. Well-played. “I’m fine. Fully recovered from the migraine.” This was not the easy conversation I imagined we might have when we met again. Instead a vague tension seemed to hum between us like a high-voltage wire. Seeking distraction, I nodded toward the interior. “Let me show you around.”
“Thanks.”
We wandered among the displays, Ernie trailing us, me offering brief descriptions and Barrett responding with standard polite phrases, but nothing with much enthusiasm behind it. “So, you restored all the furniture?”
“Well, I’ve done something to almost all the furniture, even if it was just to change the hardware.” I indicated a French Country hutch I had Frankensteined together from other cannibalized pieces. “This was a coffee table and an old bookcase in another life. Some paint and some trim and now it’s something new.”
“Very nice.” So, Herr Eberhardt
was not a man of many words today. I resisted the irrational urge to mime my way through the rest of the tour. We moved along the aisle, stopping by the books.
“This place was my grandfather’s, and it was full of all kinds of junk. I just took what was here and tried to make something new out of it.”
“That’s very creative.”
For a compliment, it sure sounded like he’d read it off some crib note jammed in his sleeve. Pulling teeth was a fair metaphor of how easily the words flowed between us, and I could talk crap to anybody. “See anything you particularly like?”
He shrugged. “My tastes are pretty Spartan. I don’t go for much in the way of frippery.”
Oh no, he didn’t… Frippery? Trivialize my work by calling it frippery? Why was he being such an ass? Hard pressed as I was, I tried to maintain some degree of friendliness. “So, you like functional, nothing wrong with that. But who says something can’t be attractive as well as serve a purpose?”
“I didn’t say that. I just meant that I tend to like things plain.”
Then go shop at IKEA or Scan Design, dude. But I kept a lid on my sarcastic thoughts; he wasn’t here to shop, he’d come here to see me and was making a complete hash of it. I opted instead for something more philosophical. “Creative expression is what makes us human.”
He looked up and met my eyes, a question and perhaps a little surprise evident on his face. Well, I hadn’t exactly been Albert Einstein when we last met, so perhaps a display of mental acuity was not out of place, to make him aware he wasn’t dealing with your average small-town shopkeeper. Herr Barrett, however, wasn’t going to be so easily impressed. With a shrug, he told me, “I don’t know about that. I’m a science guy at heart.”
“Science is just as much an art form as literature, or painting.” Now he looked startled. “After all, every discipline is just how someone perceives the world around them and conveys that vision to other people, be it through music, art or science.”
His expression became speculative. Smarter than the average bear, am I not, Herr Eberhardt? Maybe I was showing off, just a little, but that’s who I am. I’m not going be all sugar-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth just to be more socially acceptable. He could take me as I am or not at all.
“I see your point.” His gaze fell on the books and he cocked his head, his eyes narrowing as he took in the covers in the Occult section. The titles ranged from discussions on pagan holidays to local ghost stories. He looked back up at me and gestured to the books. “You’re clearly an intelligent person. But you don’t mean to tell me that you believe in this woo-woo stuff, do you?”
“Woo-woo stuff,” I echoed incredulously. He conceded my intelligence then insulted me in the same breath. Sure swatted that one out of the park. Not only had my annoyance returned bristling with weapons, but she’d brought outrage along just for fun. I was done trying to maintain the trappings of civility. The gloves were off. I took a deep breath, arms crossing of their own accord across my chest. So maybe I was being a little...okay, a lot defensive. He was insulting me, in MY place, dammit.
“That’s a very mature choice of phrasing by an educator. I hope you keep more of an open mind for your students’ thoughts and opinions.”
“You do believe in that stuff? Like ghosts?” Doubt and more than a trace of derision steeped every word.
“I don’t believe it. I know it.”
A dubious smile crossed his face, conjuring those damned dimples. Except instead of making me want to marry him, I now wanted to punch that smirk right off his lips, especially after they uttered the words, “What proof do you have that ghosts exist?”
Herr Eberhardt being a jackass stomped my desire to keep my private life to myself right into the dirt. As hard as I had worked to keep what I could do quiet, people found out. So far, it had been mostly on a need-to-know basis, but now, just to prove a point, I was about to flaunt my semi-secret to a near-stranger. Well, go big or go home. “What proof do you have that they don’t?”
“I can’t see them.”
“Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Can you see air?”
“No—”
“But you breathe it.”
“Yes.”
“Then can you, Herr Rational Eberhardt, deny that maybe there are things that can be seen by some people and not others?” I smirked at him. “As a ‘science guy’, you undoubtedly are good at math. Am I right?” He nodded, caution evident in his expression. I tapped myself on the chest with an index finger. “I suck at it. No matter how hard I tried, I never got it. I’m more of a visual and words person.” Staring him right in the eyes I asked, “Does that make me less intelligent?” So help me God, if he’d said yes, I’d have killed him on the spot. With my brain.
“No, of course not.” At least he was paying attention.
“Exactly. But you have an ability that I lack, a perception that I don’t. So, it stands to reason that I might have an ability that you lack, correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“No ‘but’. Either you concede the possibility exists that I can perceive something you don’t or this conversation is over.”
“But that stuff doesn’t exist.”
Biting my lips almost through, I slammed the lid on a number of obscene retorts that all struggled to escape and settled on a literary one instead. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’” That’s right, jackass, I’m well-read too. With a sigh, I reached down, selected the book, Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet, and stabbed it in his direction. “It does exist and this man could see and do things no one else could. He also had a head injury that triggered his abilities.”
Herr Skeptic took the book from me with more prudence, either of me or of a potential unearthly attack, I don’t know. “So you can see ghosts.” So much doubt in his voice. So much for the start of a beautiful friendship. I could feel it weakening as we spoke, flapping its featherless wings and squawking pitifully as it died.
“I see two of them right now.” One was Poppy, who was around all along anyway. My grandfather had a disapproving frown firmly in place and he regarded Barrett with a narrow gaze. You going to let him talk to you like that, little girl? Next thing you need to show him is a boot in his butt on the way to the door.
The other spirit was an elderly black man sitting on a crate along the back wall, listening to our conversation with interest. I saw him from time to time, he may have been a customer when it was still my great-grandfather’s mercantile, there was no telling. Ernie sat beside him, glancing up and meowing, undoubtedly begging for attention or food, either one was fine with him. The elderly man glanced down at him and smiled. Sorry, kitty, I don’t have anything to give you.
“Oh? Are they telling you anything?” Skepticism was heavy in his voice. I was pretty damned tired of it. Sarcasm weighted my speech.
“Well, my Poppy is wondering why I haven’t thrown you out, the other gentleman hasn’t said anything to me yet.” I glanced back at the old man. “Do you have any thoughts on the matter?”
He chuckled and pushed his cap back with a bony hand. No ma’am, but you could tell him his Oma said she taught him better than that.
I snorted. “I imagine she did.”
Herr Eberhardt’s eyes went a little wider. “Who are you talking to?”
I met his eyes with a level stare. “You wanted to know if they had anything to say. The gentleman in the back said your Oma taught you to have better manners.” Now the blue eyes were wide open, staring from me to what was for him an empty corner of the room. “You know what?” I told him, “I think Poppy is right, why are you still here? You came a long way to ridicule everything I hold dear. Thanks for stopping by to enquire after my continuing good health, please don’t come again.” I walked ahead of him to the door, unlocked it and let it stand wide open. He followed me, pausing at the opening. He realized he was still holding the book and offered it to me.
<
br /> “No, you keep it, consider it research. Edgar Cayce’s abilities are well-documented, maybe it’ll satisfy your scientific need for proof.”
He shook his head with a wry expression. “This didn’t turn out quite like I had expected.”
I nodded. “I’m sure it didn’t.”
He seemed ready to say something else, thought better of it and raised the book by way of farewell. “Thank you for the book.”
“Read it.”
He nodded and left. I watched him get into a blue Mini Cooper and drive away.
That young man needs to learn a thing or two.
I sighed. “He sure does, Poppy, he sure does.” And I shut the door and went back to making coffee, mourning the loss of something I never had.
Chapter 17
The next week, Scott and Lillian came by and we had lunch at the Yellow Submarine. I didn’t broach the subject of the disastrous visit from Barrett but it was clear Scott was bursting with something. As I took a sip of my tea, he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“So, Barrett said he got his ass handed to him on Saturday.”
I snorted, putting my drink down before answering to forestall drowning or spraying them with sweet tea and saliva. “He brought it on himself. How can he be so nice the first time we met, despite my obvious affliction, and then be such a douche the next time?”
Scott hooted with laughter. “When you two first met, you were a casualty and he was able to go into automatic. The second time, he was really meeting you for the first time. I’d have given good money to see you go toe to toe.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “That awkwardness is a sure sign that he likes you.”
I gave Scott a dark look. “Awkwardness. Not the first term I would have used. Another word that starts with an ‘a’ but ends with ‘hole’, yes. I see why he’s divorced. I’d hate to see how he treats someone he really likes.”
Lillian smiled. “It’s not like that. He and his ex are still friendly. But he gets nervous in social situations; it makes him defensive and stiff.”
