WalkingHaunt

by Viola Grace

  Orkill dropped the shuttle neatly onto the landing pad. “I know this is not where you want to be, but it will be home until something else can be arranged.”

  Yoh jerked her head in agreement. “It is a personal irritation. I will get over it, or I will have another home built. Either one is fine with me.”

  He grinned. “Can I contribute to the design?”

  “You can, but I think my gran will have something to say about it.”

  He winced. “Can you wait a day before you summon her?”

  She laughed. “I can, but you will have to explain it to her when I bring her here.”

  “I have to ask, why her, why not your mother or your other grandmother?”

  Yoh sighed as she got to her feet. “My mother is content to visit every month or so, but she was tired, and she is enjoying her time with the other souls. My other grandmother is still alive, but because I am a bastard, she will not have anything to do with me. My mother was only welcomed by her own people in death.”

  His arms came around her from behind. “I am sorry. I didn’t know.”

  She smiled at the warmth that went beyond body heat and seeped into her soul. “I know you didn’t. Don’t be sorry. My mother loved me, my gran loved me, I turned out all right and I have a few friends beyond Niisa, though she is usually enough. I have a good life, and you are just making it better.”

  He kissed the side of her neck. “I am glad I can contribute.”

  “Every time I think my life is full, you wedge it open and show me something else that I have room for, it is quite the contribution for a man I have known less than three weeks.” She sighed as he walked with her to get her bag and his from the storage area.

  Stepping out of the shuttle, the air of Wedderal was blessedly familiar if a little cool. She inhaled and exhaled, getting back into the rhythm of her home.

  When she couldn’t put it off anymore, she joined the others entering their new home.

  The base was utilitarian in the extreme and lacked any kind of flare or personal touches.

  “Okay, Niisa. You have an unlimited budget to make this place friendly and comfortable. Enjoy.”

  Niisa grinned, arm in arm with Debarren. “I can see potential, but you will want something closer to the spaceport or the capital. It is a hard thing to decide.”

  “You can also look for something over a hundred acres with a good water table. Once we secure the land, I will set you on the zoning.”

  Niisa chuckled. “So, we will be moving then?”

  “It may take two years to get a new outpost set up, but we will definitely be moving. No budget. You know my accounts.”

  Debarren hauled Niisa off on a tour of the second floor while Yohwen checked out the kitchen. The cupboards were bare, so there was a trip into town on her list of things to do. Niisa was a hopeless shopper when it came to food, so Yohwen would be on her own.

  “Do you cook?” Orkill was surprised.

  “Of course I cook. Niisa is hopeless, and my mother worked a lot, so it was a matter of necessity.” She checked the amount of storage space and made sure that the appliances worked.

  The chiller was cold and the stove got hot. It was a solid start.

  She verified the sink and the faucets.

  “You are fairly thorough.”

  “Not really, I would like to check the caf machine, but there is no caf. Shopping looms rapidly in my future. Come on, there should be a garage.”

  The small vehicle storage contained six sleek personal gliders. Each had a wide platform that supported the business side of the vehicle and would do fine for a first shopping round.

  “Enough of this poking around. We can live out of the shuttle for at least two months. You need some rest.” His expression was hopeful.

  She laughed and swayed up to him. “Do I?”

  “Yes, yes, you do. I need some rest. We could save sheets and do it together.”

  Yohwen went up on her toes to kiss him. “That sounds horribly sensible. Race you upstairs.”

  She was off, and his heavier footfalls were right behind her. It wasn’t the worst way to spend a first night in a new house.

  Chapter Ten

  Yohwen brought in the few items she had been able to obtain before her brother had been told that she was in town. After that, things had gone downhill quickly.

  Niisa looked at the few bags that she had and cocked her head. “I thought you were laying in supplies.”

  Yoh dragged in a calming breath. “You three will have to do all the shopping. No one in town will serve me.”

  Orkill had been speaking quietly with Debarren, and he looked up in shock. “What?”

  “I told you this was close to my family’s holdings. They locked down the shopping by the simple expedient of calling all the vendors in town. I can’t buy anything there.” She tried to look like it didn’t hurt as she put the few meals’ worth of food into cupboards and cold storage. At least she had gotten caf, but there were no cups to pour it in.

  Orkill pressed his hands on her shoulders. “Come with me.”

  Tears clogged her eyes. She was struggling to keep calm in a place where no one wanted her.

  He tugged her, and Debarren and Niisa walked with them to the shuttle. She sat down in the rear of the ship and wallowed in her misery.

  Niisa sat next to her with a grim expression on her face. The shuttle lifted off, and Niisa held her hand.

  Numbly, Yoh asked, “Where are we going?”

  “To end this once and for all.”

  In her misery, she couldn’t understand what was going on until Orkill walked out of the shuttle ahead of her and the Dahl family home was displayed past his shoulders.

  Figures came out of the home and walked toward them, smiles on faces and pride in their bearing.

  “Welcome to the Dahl family home, Citadel reps. You are welcome to all we have.” Her brother was magnanimous, and she recognized his voice.

  She wrinkled her nose at the offer but remained silent, trying to figure out what Orkill was up to.

  “That is lovely. It seems you have an issue with one of our reps and that is causing us a problem. We certainly don’t want it to cause you a problem.” He stepped aside, and for the first time since she was a child, she stood face to face with her brother.

  His pleasant features twisted into a sneer. “What is that bastard doing here?”

  The slap to her emotions hurt.

  Orkill reached back and pulled her to stand next to him. “You mean Specialist Dahl, Master Haunt of Wedderal? She has agreed to join the Citadel and has already used her talent to save millions of lives.”

  His sneer stuttered. “What?”

  “I believe that you heard me. Is that your lady wife and your lovely daughter?”

  The woman standing behind him stepped forward with her child on her hip. She stepped past her husband and extended her hand to Yohwen. “I am glad to meet my husband’s only sister.”

  “And I am happy to meet my niece, Minway. Yinway is waiting to spend time with her.”

  Orway was standing there, horrified and bemused by his wife’s actions. “Teelya. What are you doing?”

  “I am greeting the only blood relative you have left. I am sorry, Orway, but your father was not a good, kind or sensible man. Instead of living up to his obligations, he called her mother a whore and ignored his own actions. A daughter fell into that crevice. If someone was treating Minway as you have treated Yohwen, would you stand idly by?”

  He was confused. His frown showed it. “Of course not. I would defend my child.”

  Teelya used her grip on Yoh’s hand to pull her close. “Who was there to defend her when her parent turned against her? Your father taught you to hate and resent her, but it was his own behaviour that he was talking about. She would never have been in this situation if he hadn’t lied to her mother and tried to have one last fling before marrying your mother.”

  Orway backed up a little as his wife used a flat
tone on him. “My father said…”

  Yohwen spoke calmly. “My mother was a student, working nights at a café. He came in and flirted with her for three nights straight before she went out with him. Her friends and previous boss confirmed it. They had no idea he was engaged. I looked into it after the boss died and had no reason to lie.”

  Orway ran his hand through the same scarlet hair that Yohwen wore. “Can you bring him here tonight?”

  Yohwen frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Teelya solemnly said, “He died a week ago.”

  Orkill’s arm shot around her waist as Yohwen collapsed.

  She woke up in a cool, blue room, and Orkill had a compress on her head. Niisa and Debarren were standing by, and Minway was sitting on her feet.

  “What happened?”

  Orkill smiled and removed the compress. “You just found out your father was dead. Then, you fainted. And I caught you.”

  She struggled upright. “You get a cookie, as soon as I can find someone to sell me ingredients.”

  “I am sorry about that. I overreacted when the town gossips started calling to tell me you were swanning in.” Orway was sitting in a chair just behind Debarren. “It was a conditioned response when I heard that my father’s bast—that you were in town. It is going to take time to loosen that hold on me.”

  Teelya was sitting and holding his hand, but Minway wasn’t hesitant. She crawled up Yoh’s body until she was staring at her, eye to eye. There was an orange flare around her pupil that appeared and faded just as quickly. “Uh oh.”

  Teelya sat up. “What is it?”

  “Could be nothing, could have been a reflection of my eyes in hers or could have been a Haunt flare.”

  The baby giggled and drooled, showing two teeth in her lower gum line.

  “Hello, Minway. Your great grandma is eager to see you.”

  The girl turned and settled against her chest, giving Yoh no option but to wrap her arms around her. Yoh looked over to her brother. “How long until sunset?”

  He frowned. “Two hours.”

  She grimaced. “Can you draw the curtains? We can get to the bottom of this right now.”

  “We can? I thought it had to be dark.”

  “It does. Draw the curtains.”

  The baby started sucking on her finger and gnawing with her stubby little teeth.

  The rest of the Citadel reps stood by and let her run her show. They had broken the ice. It was up to Yoh and Orway to swim out of it.

  Orway and Teelya closed the curtains until they were all standing in the dimness. Yoh called Yinway first.

  “Hiya, Gran. How have you been keeping?”

  “In the ether. Now, who is this young lady?” Gran was bending over and wiggling her spectral fingers at Minway.

  “This is Orway’s daughter, Minway. We are here for a reconciliation or a truce of sorts, and I thought that it would be nice to have you here for it before I call on your son.”

  Her grandmother walked around the room, smiling at those she had met before their trip and pausing in front of Orway and Teelya. “So, you were the young woman gullible enough to marry my grandson?”

  Teelya blinked and smiled. “I am. He is not as bad as all that. He just got some awkward information early on, and we have been working to determine falsehood from reality. It is an ongoing process, but Minway deserves the truth.”

  Yoh laughed as the spectral Yinway hugged Teelya. It was a strange feeling that most folk never experienced.

  Orway was the next one hugged. Gran said, “You are getting that one on credit. I need to see proof that you didn’t turn into your father.”

  Right. Father. “Okay, I am calling him.”

  She looked for him, and for the first time, she felt a soul resist her. She set her jaw and yanked him back to face his family. “Greetings. Welcome back to Wedderal.”

  He flexed his jaw and scowled. “Why did you let that bitch in our house, Orway?”

  Orway got to his feet. “She isn’t a bitch, and her being a bastard is your fault not hers. Why did you treat your own child that way?”

  Her father looked from one to the other. “You poisoned my son, you bastard.”

  Teelya got to her feet. “Why do you hate her?”

  “She is an embarrassment. Her mother should never have brought her to term, but she wouldn’t listen to me. So, I told her family, and they threw her out. At that point, I was sure that she would end the pregnancy, but she didn’t.” His light and shadow features curled in disgust.

  Carefully balancing Minway, Yoh got to her feet. “And because you had gone to her family to tell them about the pregnancy, there was no way you could deny paternity. It was only because my mother left her family and yours without any support that you stopped stalking us.”

  “You couldn’t be raised near my son. Think of the humiliation.” He sighed, and Orway looked at him with dawning sickness.

  “You were embarrassed by your child or by your lack of self-control?”

  He looked at Orway. “She was proof, and your mother never stopped asking me about her. I had to make sure that she couldn’t get work here to raise the child close to you. I had to make sure they went away. If my bitch of a mother hadn’t kept track of them, you would be the heir to the Dahl fortune not her.”

  Orway blinked and put his arm around his wife. “I am doing well, my family is doing well. I don’t need the Dahl money.”

  “Yes, but my life would have been better if you had been the sole heir.”

  From across the room, Yinway laughed. “And there you have the crux of the matter. I raised a selfish boy who turned into a selfish man. It was my sin that made him this way and that is why I corrected it in the only way that Yohwen could accept. I gave her everything I had, because my son had taken almost everything she needed.”

  Yohwen smiled down at Minway with tears tracking down her face. “I know, Gran. Now, we need to plan for this little one, so how about we set up an education fund for her?”

  Her father lunged at her. “Get away from my granddaughter. She is not yours.”

  He passed through them both.

  Yoh turned to face him, soothing the confused baby. “She will be a Haunt, just as I was a Haunt. She will have a talent built into her very genes that will let her talk to you any time she wishes, or she can banish you with a thought. You might want to think about how you want her to view you. It is your choice, Father.”

  His mouth opened and closed silently.

  She smiled. “We will talk again when you finally come to grips with the fact that you not only wanted to destroy your own blood, but then you tried to starve it to death. Think about it for a while. I will pull you back one day soon, and I will know if you are ready to talk.”

  He disappeared, and gran exhaled heavily. “Well, that was fascinating, but I have never been a fan of this house. Call me when you get to the base, Yoh.”

  “You know I am at the base?”

  Yinway laughed, “Of course. I ordered it built twenty-five years ago. I had a vision that you would live there, and it seems we are in the early stages of it being a reality.”

  “I will talk you later, Gran.” She turned her cheek for a spectral kiss, crackling with energy.

  Minway turned up her chubby cheek, and Yinway repeated the caress.

  Gran hugged Orway and Teelya, kissed Niisa’s cheek and the men were treated to a pat on their behinds by the hands of the energy form.

  “Goodbye, Gran.” Laughing, Yoh sent her back to the outer sphere.

  Debarren opened the curtains, and they all stood around staring at each other.

  Minway was pulling on Yoh’s hair.

  Yoh walked over to Orway and extended her hand. “Hello, brother. Are you interested in a fresh start?”

  He smiled and gripped her hand. “It won’t be fresh, but we can set the past aside and go forward. I don’t think that Teelya will let us do anything else, and Minway seems attached to you.”

 
Teelya grinned. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I need a drink. Shall we adjourn to the dining room?”

  “Hell yes.” Orkill put his arm around her waist, and the other couples did the same. With her niece in her arms, Yoh felt a frisson of hope.

  Her life had been solitary up until this point, but now, she was surrounded. If she could get used to this, she could get used to flying across the stars at a moment’s notice. She chuckled and shifted the baby as she realised that the second option was far less jarring to her sense of self. It seemed she had her own adjusting to do. After all, life was short and then you did spectral laps through the sky over the living friends you left behind.

  There were worse fates than constantly being surrounded by the ones you love and have loved.

  Author’s Note

  Fine, the sex occurred off the page. I am a horrible human being. That said, Tales of the Citadel is now on hiatus until I finish twelve fairy tales that I already have cover art for.

  I will enjoy my travels through even shorter teeny-weeny stories. I hope you will too.

  Thanks for reading,

  Viola Grace

  http://www.violagrace.com

  viola@violagrace.com

  About the Author

  Viola Grace was born in Manitoba, Canada where she still resides today. She really likes it there. She has no pets and can barely keep sea monkeys alive for a reasonable amount of time. Her line of day job tends to be analytical which leaves her mind hopping to weave stories. No co-worker is safe from her character analysis. In keeping with busy hands are happy hands, her hobbies have included cross-stitch, needlepoint, quilting, costuming, cake decorating, baking, cooking, metal work, beading, sculpting, painting, doll making, henna tattoos, chain mail, and a few others that have been forgotten. It is quite often that these hobbies make their way into her tales.

  Viola’s fetishes include boots and corsetry, and her greatest weakness is her uncontrollable blush. Her writing actively pursues the Happily Ever After that so rarely occurs in nature. It is an admirable thing and something that we should all strive for. To find one that we truly like, as well as love.