by Terri Garey
Halfway there, my cell phone rang, spoiling the quiet with a reminder of reality. I sighed, but kept walking as I dug it out of my purse. The caller ID said STORE.
“Hey, Evan. What’s up?”
“Nicki?” He sounded frantic. “Are you sure nothing followed you home from the hospital the other day?”
My heart sank. “What happened?”
“Butch stopped in to bring me lunch again. He went in the bathroom to wash his hands, and saw the creepy-looking ghost of an old woman in the bathroom mirror.”
Give her a mirror and she’s even worse, Selene had said about Mary, as they floated over my bed.
“Say what?” I didn’t want to believe it.
“He’s completely freaked out, Nicki. I’m afraid he’s going to faint or something.”
The idea of Evan’s boyfriend Butch fainting would’ve been funny if not for the circumstances. Butch was well over six feet, heavily muscled, and bald as an egg. He made his living as a bouncer, even though he was a total pussycat.
“Sit him down and tell him to put his head between his knees.” I’d heard that somewhere. “I’ll be right there.”
“Hurry, Nick,” he said, and hung up.
I broke into a little trot, even though I had no idea what I was supposed to do when I got there.
“Evan’s overreacting, as usual,” Butch said, but he looked a little pale, and he was clutching his mug of hot tea with both hands. He was sitting in the chair behind the counter, the one we called the catbird seat. “It was probably just a weird reflection or something.”
“I’m not overreacting,” Evan contradicted, his voice a little too high. “You’re underreacting. What the hell is going on, Nicki?”
I stowed my purse beneath the counter and took a deep breath. It would do no one any good to get defensive. “I don’t know, Evan. I wasn’t here, remember?” I put a hand on Butch’s brawny shoulder and rubbed it soothingly. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, shooting Evan a worried glance. “I just thought I saw something, that’s all.”
“You came running out of that bathroom like a bat out of hell, Butch Bernaducci,” Evan retorted. “Your eyes were as big as saucers. I’ve never seen you look like that—never.”
Butch shrugged, obviously having decided to downplay the incident. “I spook easily. What can I say?” He took a sip of tea.
Evan’s lips compressed into a thin line. “Don’t you play the ‘big, bad bouncer’ card with me,” he said. “I know you, and you were scared to death!”
“Why don’t you just tell me what happened,” I said, knowing full well how touchy Evan could be when he was worried.
Before answering me, Butch leaned back in the chair, doing his best to relax his body language. He reached out and took Evan’s hand, pulling him closer to the chair. “It’s okay, babe,” he murmured. “Calm down.”
Evan sighed, letting his shoulders slump. “More tea?” he asked him, in a much softer tone.
Butch shook his head, then looked at me. “Seriously. It was nothing. I was washing my hands at the sink, looked up, and thought I saw an old woman, standing behind me. I whipped around, but there was nobody there.”
“An old woman?” I asked him faintly, feeling more and more doomed.
“I imagined it,” Butch said stubbornly, squeezing Evan’s hand. “I didn’t get home until almost four this morning, I haven’t had a lot of sleep.”
Evan looked at me mutely, obviously not buying it. Unfortunately, my buddy knew all too well that I was a dead-chick magnet, and it was entirely possible that what Butch had seen was all too real.
“I’ll go check the bathroom,” I said bravely, though I felt anything but brave.
“I’ll go with you,” Butch said, and I could’ve hugged him. I knew his concern was mainly to allay Evan’s fears, but I’d take whatever support I could get.
He stood up, handed Evan his mug of tea, and together we walked down the hall that led to the bathroom. Evan stayed behind, watching us nervously. The bathroom door was wide open, and the light was on—Butch had obviously left in a hurry. Screwing up my nerve, I walked in and looked around, then looked in the mirror. Aside from me and Butch, who was standing in the doorway behind me, there was no one reflected in it.
“See?” he said loudly, for Evan’s benefit. “The lights are on but nobody’s home. I just need some sleep.”
I turned around, looking Butch in the eye. Evan couldn’t see me as I mouthed the words, “Thank you.” I knew full well what he was doing. If Evan got it into his head that the store bathroom was haunted, it could be the end of Handbags and Gladrags. I couldn’t keep it going without my best bud. At best, he’d insist on moving the store to another location, but we’d just recently renewed our three-year lease.
“There’s nothing here, Evan.” I stuck my head out the door so he could see me. “The bathroom’s empty.”
“I don’t care if it’s empty or not,” he retorted. “Talk to it. Tell it to leave.”
I really wished he’d stop saying “it.” With a resigned sigh, I straightened up and turned around to face the mirror again. “If there’s anyone here, could you please leave us alone? You’re scaring my friend.”
“Friends.” Evan called out from down the hall. “It scared Butch, too.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Stop saying ‘it,’ Evan, and be quiet. On the off chance there is someone here, you could provoke them.”
“Hmph,” I heard him mutter. “It doesn’t seem to mind provoking me.”
“Okay, enough of this,” Butch said, behind me. “For the last time, I’m sure it was nothing. I’m just tired.”
I turned around, flipped out the light, and stepped out of the bathroom. “Why don’t you take Evan home and get some sleep, Butch?”
He glanced at Evan, then back at me. “Maybe we should stay.”
I smiled at him, knowing he was worried about leaving me here alone. Big as he was, he couldn’t do a thing to protect me, but it was sweet that he was willing to try.
“Go home, Butch. I’ll be okay”
The store was very quiet after they left.
I’d been there alone many times in the past and I planned on being alone there many times in the future, so I refused to let the quiet bother me. I could’ve turned on some music—I usually did, particularly when I was there by myself—but not today.
Instead I locked the front door, flipping the CLOSED sign toward the sidewalk. I was going to find out what was going on, and I was going to deal with it. I’d fought for my life before—my friends, my house, my store, my relationship with Joe—and I’d won.
I had to believe that I’d win this time, too.
I stood at the front door for a moment, looking through the glass onto the streets I walked every day, listening to the faint yet familiar sound of traffic on Moreland. This was my world, and I had to sharpen my wits to save it, so I’d start with what I knew.
Three spirits had visited me the other night in my room. They’d shown up the next day, very much alive, right here in Little Five Points.
Selene seemed determined to needle me from the start, flaunting herself in my store, teasing with Evan, and finding a way to get Joe’s undivided attention.
And what was up with that, anyway? Faking a heart attack was a masterful stroke, but why have Mary fake her own death, too? Seems like Selene would get more face time with Joe if her so-called mother was alive but lingering.
Maybe the three of them thought it would be more fun for Mary to haunt my store than to lie in a hospital bed all day.
“Great,” I muttered, wishing the thought hadn’t occurred to me. It was just twisted enough to make sense.
I was so screwed.
Closing my eyes briefly, I swallowed hard and got a grip. Right now, right this second, I had a more immediate problem; was my store being haunted?
Heart pounding, I walked down the hallway to stand in the bathroom doorway.
I took
a deep breath and flipped on the light.
“Mary?” Who else could it be? “I know you’re here.”
No answer.
“I remember the other night, you know, and I recognized Selene when she came in here earlier.”
Nothing.
My intent was to be bold, to show no fear, but I had an ulterior motive, too—maybe Mary could be reasoned with. Old people usually liked me.
“I know what’s going on,” I lied.
Silence.
“Talk to me, Mary. Let’s work this out.”
The mirror showed a dark-haired girl with a hopeful look on her face, and I almost felt sorry for her in one of those “oh no she’s about to be murdered” movie kind of ways. She was me, of course, and I didn’t look nearly as brave as I was pretending to be. Staring at myself in the mirror, a memory surfaced; a slumber party when I was twelve, when my girlfriends and I dared each other to go into a darkened bathroom and play “Bloody Mary.”
A total freak-out game, perfect for inspiring squeals of terror among pajama-clad teenage girls. All alone in the dark, you’d light a candle, face the mirror, and say, “Bloody Mary” three times. Legend had it that anyone who dared say it the third time would go insane.
Say it.
The instant those words came to my brain, the bathroom lights went out. I screamed, I couldn’t help it, and leapt back through the doorway into the hall.
It would’ve been so easy to grab my purse and get the hell out of Dodge right then and there, but the sudden fright made me furious. I was no longer a pajama-clad teenage girl, and I wasn’t going to act like one.
“Okay,” I said, admittedly jittery. I started pacing the hallway to regain my calm. “Whatever.” I took a deep breath and raised my voice a little, not particularly eager to get near the bathroom just yet. “I don’t know why the three of you decided to start trouble with me, but whatever your problem is, you’ve picked the wrong girl to mess with.” I was proud that my voice wasn’t shaking, because my knees sure were. “I’m not easily spooked.”
Hah.
A loud thump immediately made a liar out of me—I must’ve jumped a foot. The noise had come from the office, down the hall to the right. I forced myself to take the few steps to that doorway and looked in—the magazine Evan had been reading earlier was lying on the floor in front of the desk. I bent over to pick it up, and heard a scraping noise, which seemed to be coming from the front of the store. Tossing the magazine onto the desk, I headed that way, only to let loose another shriek of fright at the woman standing by the cash register.
She hadn’t been there a couple of seconds ago. She showed no reaction, just stood there, unmoving. And then I realized why—it was one of the store mannequins. Elizabeth Taylor, dressed in a glittery holiday cocktail dress I’d put on her just yesterday. She’d been moved from her place in Better Dresses.
I had goose bumps on my arms, and my feet felt like lead, but I made them move. I walked slowly toward her, not knowing what to expect. Nothing happened, though; her blank-eyed violet gaze was fixed on the wall, as always, her pose as wooden as ever.
“Very funny,” I said loudly, to whoever’d done it, and was rewarded (if you can call it that), with an old woman’s cackle. “I heard you,” I called out, refusing to be cowed. This was an obvious attempt to scare the bejeebers out of me, but I wasn’t ready to hide under the bed just yet. “I know it’s you, Mary.”
No answering cackle this time, which I wasn’t sure was good or bad.
Silence. She evidently liked to play hide-and-seek.
Grimly, I took the mannequin around the waist and dragged her back to where she’d been standing. I’d never feel the same about Elizabeth Taylor again—Evan could dress her from now on.
“Ouch!” I felt a pinch, but there was no one there when I spun around.
Rubbing my arm and setting my chin, I went back down the hall to the office, determined to do some research and find out what the hell was going on. This was all too weird, and I was just as capable of using Google as anyone was.
“This is my office,” I said as I sat down at my desk, “and my store. You’re not running me off. I’m ignoring you now,” and got down to business.
Fifteen minutes later, having determinedly ignored tapping noises in the ceiling and scratching sounds from the file cabinet, I hit pay dirt. A Web page about ghosts and hauntings led to an article about visitations vs. nightmares:
The “mare” in “nightmare” does not come from a female horse, but from the word “mara,” an Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse term for a demon that sat on sleepers’ chests, giving them bad dreams. Those suffering from vivid dreams while experiencing sleep paralysis are often said to be victims of “Old Hag Syndrome.”
I groaned aloud, unable to help myself.
Quiet, you old hag, the little girl had said. Why should you be the only one to have any fun? Choke this one, smother that one…I mean, really, Mary. Do you think we don’t know what you do to them when you’re alone?
Mara. Mary.
I took a deep breath, staving off panic.
Okay, so were all three of them some kind of dream smothering monsters? Selene seemed to prefer the more direct, human-to-human method of torment, and I knew nothing at all about Kate’s methods.
Yet.
The three of them were an unholy triad of different ages and different styles, it seemed. I sighed, and went back to reading. Clicking along, a snippet of information regarding the “Triple Goddess” caught my eye.
“Mother, maiden, crone,” I read, and my heart beat faster.
The three main aspects of femininity embodied as one. This concept was embraced by a variety of ancient cultures, and continues to be a central idea in neo-pagan theology. The notion of a female triad is directly related to the three phases of the moon (new, full, and waning) as well as the basic theory of reincarnation.
A footnote filled with links directed me to see “Brigid,” “the Moirae,” “the Fortunae,” and “the Norns,” which I did, reading for quite some time.
Holy crap on a cracker.
They were real, they were ancient, and judging by the mischief they’d already stirred up, they were going to be a major pain in the ass.
CHAPTER 8
A psychic disturbance of this magnitude required backup. As much as I loved Joe, I didn’t feel like we were on the same wavelength in this situation. Bringing up Selene again would only start trouble, and besides, I had a much better resource.
My sister, Kelly, and her boyfriend, Spider, were a fountain of information when it came to the paranormal. They lived in Savannah, where Spider made his living as a haunted tour guide. Kelly lived with our Grandma Bijou in a stately old mansion called the Blue Dahlia, rumored (and rightly so) to be haunted.
She and Spider were obviously made for each other, and Kelly couldn’t be happier in that drafty old house full of creaky floors and hidden secrets. We were twins, though neither of us had even known the other existed until just last year, when fate finally brought us together. We hadn’t known about our grandmother, either, though she’d known about us. Grandma Bijou was quite the character; a “sensitive” who lived a double life as Leonard Ledbetter, an elderly man who ran a florist shop, and as Bijou Boudreaux, aging Southern belle extraordinaire, stalwart denizen of Savannah society. Her daughter Peaches had been our birth mother, and made her living as a psychic, as the “knack” for communicating with the dead seemed to run in our family. It had been at Bijou’s urging that Peaches had given us up for adoption, and nobody’s fault but the adoption agency’s that we’d been separated. Peaches was gone now, killed in the car accident that brought Kelly and me together, and we were at peace with the decisions Bijou and Peaches had made; they’d only wanted to give us a shot at normal lives, far away from the world of spirits.
Hah. Best-laid plans oft go awry, as they say.
Kelly answered on the third ring. “Hey, Nicki.”
“Hey. I’ve got a problem.” N
o need to mince words with your sister. “Three female spirits are after me, and I don’t know what to do. Have you ever heard of the Moirae?”
“Are you kidding me?” She obviously had. “The Three Fates? Tell me what happened.”
I told her, as best I could, about the dream that hadn’t been a dream.
“I couldn’t move or speak or—”
“Sleep paralysis.” She sounded like a college student offering the correct answer to a quiz question.
“Old Hag Syndrome,” I said, just a teeny bit proud of myself for knowing that before Kelly did. “Except I wasn’t asleep, and I’ve since seen them all in the flesh. They showed up in Little Five the next day. They’re out to cause trouble, Kel—” I glanced toward the hallway. “They’re already causing trouble.”
Quiet now, she listened.
“There’s three of them; a dark-haired woman, a young girl, and an old woman.”
“Mother, maiden, crone,” she murmured, confirming the direction of my Internet searches. “It’s a common representation of the Fates; all three phases of womanhood.”
“The brunette is hardly the motherly type,” I said sourly, “but she’s pretending to be. The girl is pretending to be her daughter, and the old woman is pretending to be the grandmother.”
“I don’t understand,” Kelly said. “Why?”
“I don’t know. She faked a heart attack…”
“Who faked a heart attack?”
“The old one.”
“Why?”
Having Kelly ask me aloud the same questions I was asking myself actually made them easier to sort through.
“To get Joe involved, I guess.”
There was a silence. I knew Kelly was thinking hard, and took comfort in that. Even if I screwed up and ended up dead, I’d discovered it was invaluable having a sister who understood my very strange life, and had my back.
“What time did all this happen?” she asked quietly.
