by Tim McGregor
The man looked at him with droopy eyes. Another sharp kick and he pointed at something.
“Under the shrine,” he croaked.
The base of the altar was shrouded in a dirty tablecloth. Gantry flung it aside to find the stone ossuary. He gently returned the bones to the box. Gripping it stout, he tried to lift the stone sarcophagus but the damned thing weighed a ton. Scrounging up his ciggies, he lit one and pondered what to do next.
Crossing to the kitchen, he filled a pot of cold water at the sink and returned to the red-lit living room. The two sleeping apes jerked awake as they were doused, blinking and sputtering.
“You two,” Gantry barked at them. “On your feet. See that box? You two are gonna carry it downstairs to the motor parked outside. If you drop it, I’ll cut each of your balls off and stuff ‘em in the other’s gob. Got it?”
Tweedledee blinked mutely at Tweedledum, comprehension coming in slow. Ten minutes later, the two of them lowered the stone box into the boot of the Fiesta and were left gaping as Gantry drove away.
~
They had dinner at a small eatery on John Street. Secluded and intimate, the table flickering under a candle as they shared plates of brisket with mashed potatoes and blackened basa. A normal date, just like any other couple. Billie smiled at Mockler over the tapering flame.
“I’m glad this worked out,” she said. “We’ve barely seen in each other all week.”
“It won’t always be like this, I promise.” He reached for the wine and topped up her glass. “Things will settle down once the unit is staffed up again.”
Billie dug into his brisket, scooping a portion onto her plate. “Do you think something else is going on? Besides the staff shortage?”
“Am I being singled-out? Maybe. Gibson’s been frosty since the Bourdain house burned down. The incident at the punchbowl didn’t help, either.”
“She suspects you know more than you’re letting on?”
“Basically. So, for the time being I need to watch my step and play nice. It’ll blow over in a while.” He dismissed the topic with a wave. “I don’t wanna talk about work. Tell me about your day. How did you spend your birthday.”
“With butterflies,” Billie said, a smile warming her eyes as she told him about the trip to the conservatory.
Mockler listened, tilting closer so she didn’t have to speak too loudly. “He just rode in the passenger seat?”
“Yeah. Took a little convincing. He’s a bit wary of cars. Horseless carriages and all.”
He lowered his voice. “Ghosts can ride in cars?”
“Sure,” she shrugged. “They can kinda do anything.”
“Did he wear a seatbelt?” Mockler asked, fixating on the weird details.
“You’re missing the point,” Billie said, recalling the afternoon spent in the tropical humidity. “You should have seen his face, Ray. It’s hard to describe. Wonder? Or awe. Joy?”
“He liked it?”
“Put it this way, I’d never seen him smile before.”
He put his fork down and studied the woman across the table. Her eyes had caught the candlelight, beaming with the recollection of her afternoon. “That was a very sweet thing to do, spend your birthday doing something special for him.”
“Oh, I had fun, too,” she said. “Have you ever been?”
“No.” He motioned to the waitress for the bill.
“You’ll have to come next time. It’s so weirdly serene.”
“Serene how?”
“All those butterflies flitting around you, thousands of them,” Billie shrugged. “I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s kinda magical but peaceful at the same time. Like time slows down in that big glass dome.”
“I could use some peaceful.” He scratched his chin, concern stitching his brow. “Wait, do we have to bring the kid along?”
“Be nice, detective. Or I’ll make you hold his hand while we’re there.”
When the bill came, he looked at it and handed it back along with a credit card. He nodded at her wine. “Drink up. We’re gonna go.”
Disappointed, she said, “No desert?”
“At the next stop. Kaitlin and the crew are meeting us there.”
Her back stiffened, wary. “We are? When did this come up?”
“Easy. It’s not a surprise party, just drinks.” He took her coat and held it up for her to slip into. “But if someone starts singing Happy Birthday, you’re gonna have to smile and pretend not to loathe it.”
~
Maya liked being at the hotel. It was different. Sprinting down the hallway with its long run of carpet and sconce lights, she pretended that she was somewhere else. On vacation in a different country. Outside of the hotel was not the frigid snowbanks of winter but palm trees and a warm breeze. Disney World just a short drive away.
Mama and Noah were still antsy, bickering over the expense of staying at the hotel when they had a perfectly good home to go to. Mama refused, said she wouldn’t go back until it was safe. They were always fighting now. Usually over money but there was other stuff, too. Stuff they didn’t talk about when she was in the room, stuff they yelled at one another about behind the closed door of their bedroom.
How much longer till the baby comes? Was it one more month or two? Maya couldn’t wait. She had been told that the birth part might be scary but everything would change once her baby sister or brother was here. Everyone would be happier and the yelling would stop. It would, Maya concluded, almost be better than going to Disney World.
Almost.
“Maya?”
Mama stood at the far end of the hallway, waving her in. Her big belly sticking out. “Come on back to the room, honey.”
The pounding of her sneakers echoed through the hall as she ran. She hadn’t seen another person in the corridor. It was like they had whole floor to themselves.
“Can I do the door?”
Mama handed over the card and she inserted it into the lock, saw the green light flick on and pushed the door open. The TV was on, tuned to the boring news station, but no one was watching it.
“Where’s Noah?”
“He went out,” Mama said.
“Where?”
“Just out.” Her mother eased herself back onto the bed, swinging her legs up. She seemed tired all the time now.
“Can I go get some more ice?” The ice machine was down the hall, in a little nook where the candy machine was. Unlike the vending machine with the snacks, the ice machine was free. She could make it chunk-chunk ice all day if she wanted to.
“Not now. Let’s do your reading.”
“Do I have to?”
Her Mama patted the spot on the bed beside her. “Yes. Let’s get it done. Come on.”
Plucking books from her schoolbag, she hopped onto the bed and turned the dog-eared pages of her green workbook to the current lesson. Mama opened the textbook. “Which number are we on?”
“Six.”
“Okay. Ambulance. Wow, big words today, huh?”
Clutching the pencil in her fist, Maya wrote out the word, stopping to say it silently to herself to work out the spelling. The work had three parts to it: the spelling, her own definition of the word, followed by a small picture. Drawling the picture part was the easiest.
Chewing the end of the pencil, she thought about how to define the word and then scribbled into the notebook. A truck for sick people. Dead people sometimes.
“Done,” she said. “Next word.”
No word came.
“Mama?” Maya turned her head to find her mother crying. That wasn’t unusual.
What was odd was how her mother’s breath was fogging the air. The room had suddenly gone really, really cold.
“Mom…”
The TV blacked out. Then the lamp flickered. She felt her mother pull her close, bear-hugging her hard against the bump of her baby sibling. She listened to her mother whispering the Lord’s Prayer.
Maya tried to keep her teeth from chattering. “
Did it follow us?”
The lamp flickered back to life. Mama was staring with wide eyes at something across the room.
The big mirror was white, the glass completely frosted over. Except for two spots in the middle, shaped like tiny handprints.
~
The tequila place was a block away on James, an upscale taco bar that Billie had wanted to try for ages. Standing under the warm glow of a chandelier of ringed candles, the first thing she saw was a skull. A feminine skull in a frame, stylized for the celebration of Dia de los Muertos. Kaitlin, she surmised, must have picked this spot.
The ladies were huddled underneath the skull, crowded into a small table. Jen and Kaitlin, Tammy sitting next to a woman Billie didn’t know.
“She’s here!” Kaitlin said, launching out of her chair. She swept Billie up in a tight squeeze and kisses that smacked of margaritas. “Happy Birthday!”
“Thanks.” Billie felt her cheeks reddening already, squirming at being the centre of attention. “Did you organize this?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Kaitlin cautioned. “I know you don’t like a fuss so it’s just drinks with the ladies.”
She clutched Kaitlin’s hand, giving it a squeeze. Grateful to have friends like this.
More hugs from Jen and Tammy that left her even more choked up before everyone squeezed in to the table. A tall margarita stood sweating for the guest of honour.
When the unknown woman extended a hand, Billie remembered her from the photo on Tammy’s phone. The silver hair and sharp features. Stunning in the photo, breathtaking in real life. Her hand was slender and cool but her palm was oddly calloused. “Hi,” the woman said. “Rowena. I hope you don’t mind me crashing your birthday.”
“No, no. I’m glad you could make it.” A quick, knowing glance at Tammy before she continued. “Tammy said you’re a metal artist?”
“Yeah. That’s the goal, anyway. I’m mostly a welder by trade.” Rowena smiled, her eyes intense. “Listen, when Tammy said we were going to a birthday bash, I brought something for you. I didn’t know about the no-present rule.”
She placed a small object on the table. Wrapped in lime green tissue paper.
“That’s sweet of you,” Billie said. Unfolding the tissue paper, she found a rough cross forged of metal buckled with a thin leather string. “Wow. Did you make this?”
“Those are old square cut nails, salvaged from a house that was being demolished.” Rowena pointed out the flared heads of each nail. “It’s meant to look like a Celtic cross.”
Slipping the leather strap over her head, Billie dangled the pendant cross against her chest.
“I love it. Thank you.”
“Happy birthday,” Rowena said. She leaned back and smiled at Tammy, pleased.
Kaitlin broke in, pushing the margarita before Billie. “Here’s to your health, Culpepper.”
The first one went down quickly and another appeared before her magically. Jen clasped her hand tight, relating a story about someone they both went to high school with who had come into the Doll House recently. Not a friend of theirs at the time, but the woman had unpacked her life story to Jen in the shop. Weirdo situation, Jen confided, as Billie tried to put a face to the name. Mockler eased into a conversation with Kaitlin and Tammy and Rowena but the music was loud and Billie couldn’t track what they were gabbing about.
Another glass with a salted rim appeared on the table before Billie had finished the second. Kaitlin winked at her with a sly ‘bottoms up’ grin. Billie sighed, telling herself to slow down. What was it about birthdays that made your friends douse you in booze?
The space beside her felt empty and she reached for Mockler. He was checking his phone, a stitch of sober concern on his face. She squeezed his hand. “It’s not work, is it?”
“No.” He got to his feet, aiming for the door. “Someone left a message. I guess I didn’t hear it ring. Hang on.”
Squeezing through the crowded bar, he stepped out of the noise to the quiet street. Jen was asking if she had done anything special for her birthday and Kaitlin asked if she had checked her horoscope this morning. Rowena perked up at that, quickly recalling the date to peg Billie’s zodiac.
“You’re an Aquarius,” Rowena said, with a knowing smile. “That makes sense now.”
“It does?”
Rowena was about to respond when Mockler plunked back into his chair. His face was ashen.
“I have to go,” he said.
“No,” Billie declared, the margaritas rendering her voice a little too loud. “Work can manage without you. For this night, at least.”
“It’s not work.” The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed. “Christina left me this rambling, weird message. Saying goodbye.”
The ire boiled up instantly, fuelled by the tequila. Billie squared him up in her eyes. “She is not ruining my birthday.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” His jaw clenched and unclenched. A blind person could have seen him squirm, pierced on the horns of a dilemma. “She sounded really messed-up. Saying it was all going to be over soon and she wanted to say goodbye.”
Red flags shot up. The carefully chosen words of the desperate. A suicide note, via voice-mail.
“She wouldn’t do that,” Billie said, quickly trying to focus, to sober up. “Would she?”
His eyes seemed dead, weighed down under some awful anchor. When he finally spoke, his voice was hushed. “I don’t know. I told you how bad her depressions could get.” He looked at his phone. “She didn’t call. Just snuck a message into the voice-mail.”
The next decision was obvious as hell, but that did nothing to dampen the acrimony in her belly. “You can’t,” Billie said. “You can’t just run off to rescue her.”
He looked at her, his eyes inscrutable. “What if it’s real?”
“Now? She just happens to choose my birthday to attempt suicide?” It just blurted out and she wanted to take it back immediately.
This is why she never tempted fate by celebrating the feast day of Saint Agatha. Something always went wrong, some tragic fucking teenage crisis always trumped it. Looking down, she saw Mockler’s hands gripped together, the knuckles white. Itching to go, unable to endure the open-ended question of whether or not his ex-girlfriend had opened her wrists in a warm bath.
Good God, she thought. Selfishly, of course. What if Christina had done the unthinkable and lingered on to become a ghost? What then?
See? Selfish.
“Go,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” He was already out of his seat, plucking his coat from the back of the chair. “I can’t just brush it off.”
“I know. Just go.”
He bent down to kiss her goodbye. Some half-assed peace offering. Billie pulled back, wanting none of it. Their eyes met. A cold front moving in.
Mockler straightened up, hesitating like there was more to say but nothing was forthcoming. He turned away, shrugging into his coat as he pushed out the door.
Tammy was telling a story that had everyone else in stitches. She had a knack for relating stories that left people wiping their eyes as they laughed. Billie leaned forward, trying to get the gist of the tall tale but an invisible miasma held her back, cutting her off from her own birthday celebration like a leper banging feebly on the doors of a cathedral.
Birthdays sucked.
Remember that for next year.
Chapter 19
HE DIDN’T HAVE a clue where he was headed. Just out of the city, away from the soulless light of the street lamps and the droning noise. He needed quiet and he needed solitude. With the lights of King’s Lynn fading in the rear-view mirror, he motored past a village and onto a dark country road. Black fields on both sides of the narrow road, a cottage here and there. A sign flared up in the headlights, something about an abbey. Stomping the brakes, he reversed up the road and followed the direction on the sign.
The ruins rose up picturesque and stark in the headlights. Nothing left of the old abbey except the stone wa
lls and the peaked arches of the windows, a few carved details in the stonework.
Gantry killed the headlights, letting the night swallow the abbey once more. The sandstone walls were still visible, a dull white in the thin wash of moonlight like ribs rising from the earth.
Opening the boot, he found the torch and the dirty sheet tucked into the well. Reaching into the stone box, he transferred the bones to the oil-stained sheet and gently gathered up the ends of the material into a sack. The dusty bones tinkled and clicked as he carried them into the ruins.
He unfurled the sheet onto the cold grass, like he’d come for a picnic, and then set about rearranging the bones into some semblance of their natural architecture. The brittle slats of the ribcage were difficult to figure out but accuracy wasn’t required here. He leaned back, looking at the assembled skeleton on the cloth. Close enough.
The next bit was the hard part. The candles situated around the remains were more set-dressing than anything, allowing him to concentrate. Deep focus was the key. If he had Billie with him, the conjuring would be a walk in the park but he was on his own this time.
Minutes ticked by, ten and then twenty, with nothing to show for it. Gantry rose to his feet with a groan and leaned against the sandstone wall. Lighting a cigarette, cursing at his own ineptitude. Maybe old Margaret Reed, protector of King’s Lynn, was too far gone to be brought back. Either that or he just didn’t have the skill to do the job.
“Sad, old bastard, you are,” he growled to himself. “Washed up mage with a bag of useless tricks.”
“Ye have the bastard part right,” hissed a voice behind him.
Gantry twisted around, the cigarette falling to the wet grass.
Margaret Read stood on the other side of the unfurled sheet, looking down at her mortal coil. Wisps of smoke drifted up from her hair and fissures of glowing red crackled all down her skin like the hairline fractures in old ceramic.
Christ Almighty, he thought. She’s still burning.
Her eyes came up and found his. Glowing embers against charcoal pupils. “You’ve got a hell of nerve, playing this trick again,” she said.
