by Ann Charles
“True,” Doc said. “But none of those ghosts were like this one.”
Cornelius flipped the phone toward himself. “How is this entity different?”
“She’s not that different,” I told him.
“For one thing,” Doc said, “she can get inside your head and use you like a puppet.”
“So she can possess a person both physically and mentally?” Cornelius asked Doc while looking at me.
I wrinkled my nose and gave an evasive shrug.
“Exactly,” Doc said.
“Interesting.” Cornelius looked down at the phone. “Have you experienced this yourself?”
“Multiple times, and so have several others who Violet has taken to meet Prudence.”
I turned off of Lead’s main drag and started climbing up the slush-splotched side street. “Yeah, but everyone came out the other side none the worse.”
“Coop would disagree with you,” Doc said.
“Please, Cooper hurt me more that day than Prudence hurt him.”
“And,” Doc continued, “I’m sure Ray Underhill will never step foot in that house again.”
My ex-coworker had gotten what he deserved, in my opinion. The buffoon shouldn’t have insulted Prudence in her own house.
“Mr. Underhill has a black aura most days,” Cornelius pointed out.
I nodded. “That’s probably why Prudence did what she did to him.”
“What did she do?” Cornelius asked.
I squinted one eye. “She messed with him a little.”
“She made him pull out his own eyetooth,” Doc filled in, spilling the beans.
“Doc!”
“What? Cornelius deserves to know what he’s walking into, Killer, and you know it.”
I patted Cornelius’s arm. “Prudence has never really harmed anyone other than Ray.”
“Don’t forget what she did to Detective Hawke,” Doc said, thwarting me again.
“There was no actual physical damage.”
“Violet …” Doc leaned on me.
“Fine, so she planted a trigger word in his head that makes him bark like a dog, but other than that he made it out unscathed.”
Cornelius stroked his goatee. “Interesting. I’ve not heard of a ghost this powerful.”
“Exactly,” Doc said. “Which is why you might want to reconsider going in that house today—both of you. If Prudence is so troubled that Zelda called for help, she could possibly slam either of you with a mental blast strong enough to do lasting damage. If you wait another hour, I can convince my client to reschedule and be there to face Prudence with you.”
“No way, Doc. She’ll mess you up worse than either of us.” With Doc’s mental medium powers, Prudence liked to climb inside of his head and use him as her personal ventriloquist doll, which I found extremely cringe-worthy, even more so than her creepy tooth-collecting fetish since I slept next to Doc most nights.
“How did you find this ghost?” Cornelius asked me.
“She sort of found me.” I took a right, driving slowly toward Zelda’s place. My gas foot seemed to be suffering from a courage deficiency along with my brain. “Listen, if it makes both of you feel better, I’ll go in the house on my own and help calm down Prudence.” That sounded a lot more ballsy than I felt.
“I don’t like that idea either,” Doc said.
I sighed. “You’re a difficult man to please today.”
“I know. You should wear your purple boots tonight and work on warming up my disposition.”
I smiled at his flirting.
“Violet, I’ll go in to meet this ghost with you on one condition,” Cornelius offered.
“What’s that?” Doc asked before I could.
“You join the Tall Medium and me for a séance as soon as I have the proper preparations in order.”
Doc chuckled. “He’s got you over a barrel now, Killer.”
I scowled, knowing exactly why Cornelius wanted to reach out together in the darkness via yet another séance. “A visit with Prudence is in no way equal to summoning an evil changeling and the ghoulish parasite that it dragged through some metaphysical gateway with it.”
“I don’t know,” Doc weighed in. “Prudence is a daunting force of nature.”
I agreed wholeheartedly with him. “But she’s not evil.”
“Are we sure about that?” he shot back.
I turned into Zelda’s driveway. “She’s an Executioner.”
That earned another single raised eyebrow look from Cornelius.
“That doesn’t make her immune to corrupt persuasion.”
Slowing to a stop, I looked up at the beautiful two-story, Gothic Revival–style house with cross gables and arched windows that were spotlighted in my headlights. A shudder rippled down my spine. The old Carhart house, which was now owned by Zeke and Zelda Britton, shined with nineteenth-century charm and grandeur. Unfortunately, a long, violent history festered within its gorgeous buttercream-painted exterior. A past full of murder of the foulest sorts, including Prudence’s throat-slitting long ago, as well as my own dance with death last summer.
Zelda had left the porch light on for us, which made the place look even more like the cannibalistic witch’s house in the forest in Hansel and Gretel. I gulped and killed the engine.
“What’s it going to be, Violet?” Cornelius was staring out at the house, too. “Am I going in there with you or not?”
I stared up at the attic window. In the fading light, I thought I saw the white curtain in the window move.
“Fine!” I growled. “I’ll help you and Doc find that little shit Wilda Hessler, and her evil twin.”
“Don’t forget about her mother,” Doc threw out.
How could I? Mrs. Hessler’s legacy was littered with tales of cruelty and a fascination with creepy clowns. Way too many clowns.
I took my phone from Cornelius. “Doc, you owe me for this.”
“Me?” He chuckled. “You walked into this one on your own, Killer.”
“God, I hate clowns.”
“You and me both,” Doc said. “Listen, I have to go. Be careful in there. If Prudence is truly upset, she may try to take her anger out on you.”
“Of course, her favorite punching bag.” Or rather slapping and pinching in Prudence’s case, although I wouldn’t put it past the riled ghost to sock me in a moment of resentment due to my ability to still breathe oxygen. “I’ll text you as soon as we make it back out.”
“You better. Zeus only knows how I’m going to concentrate on explaining the benefits of IRAs and the downfalls of required minimal distributions knowing you two are inside of that house.”
“Did you say ‘Zeus’?”
“Yeah. Your son is rubbing off on me after all of our mythology discussions lately.” A shuffling sound came from his end of the conversation. “Cornelius, are you still there?”
“Metaphysically or physically?” my seatmate asked.
“Both. Listen, don’t touch Violet while you’re in there.”
Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that rule.
“Killer,” Doc continued, “don’t let Prudence bully you.”
“Don’t worry, Doc, we got this.” I sounded a lot more sure than my butterfly-filled stomach felt.
“For both of your sakes, I hope so.”
The line went dead.
Cornelius frowned in my direction. “What happens if I touch you when we’re in the house?”
“I’ll bite your finger off.” Without further delay, I switched off the headlights and opened my door. “Let’s go saddle this angry ol’ mule before she starts kicking.”
“Did you know that mules can kick in any direction?” he asked as he rounded the front of my SUV.
I snorted. “So can Prudence.”
He followed me up the porch steps, both of us shivering in the twilight.
“You know, on second thought, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Cornelius said, frowning back toward my SUV.
I ra
ng the doorbell. “Why not?”
“As of yesterday, Mercury has gone retrograde.”
“What’s that have to do with us talking to a ghost?”
Most days, astrology and its many theories and premonitions hovered just beyond my fingertips.
“It’s a time of pandemonium for all earthlings, no matter their sign.”
Hell’s bells. That certainly described my afternoon so far. Maybe Cornelius was right about …
Movement to my left caught my attention.
Crap. “It’s too late to back out now.” I pointed at the front room window where Zelda stood staring out at us with only the whites of her eyes showing. The lighting from the sitting room cast half of her face in shadows. Put a knife in her hand and she could give Norman Bates from Psycho a run for his money. “Prudence already knows we’re here.”
Cornelius looked over and flinched. “That’s rather unnerving.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
I opened the screen door and tried the door handle. It was unlocked. The hinges creaked with the perfect amount of haunted house spookiness. I smirked. Stephen King couldn’t have written a better introduction to the old Carhart house himself.
“Come inside,” I said, leading the way into the foyer. “The weather is nicer in here. Don’t mind the banshee, though.”
Cornelius hesitated on the threshold. “You didn’t mention a banshee, only a ghost.”
“I was kidding.”
“You’re a physical medium, Violet. You shouldn’t joke about things that could come true at any moment.”
“Good point. No more joking until we’re back in the car. Now get in here.” I grabbed his sleeve and pulled. “Trust me, you don’t want to make Prudence wait.”
Chapter Four
No sooner had I closed the door behind us, the deadbolt locked on its own with a loud clunk.
“Fuck,” I whispered and stepped back, bumping into Cornelius. “That wasn’t me.”
“I’m beginning to understand the Tall Medium’s trepidation about entering this edifice.”
I turned my back to the door, facing the shadow-filled length of the narrow hallway. The entryway to the kitchen on our right was dark. Ahead on the left, the dim glow from the sitting room’s lamps added an eerie atmosphere to the scene that had hairs standing up here and there all over my body.
“Enough of this spook show,” I muttered and flicked the light switch next to the door.
The wall sconces and overhead chandelier stayed off.
The light at the end of the hall dimmed further.
“What the hell?”
Cornelius sniffed. “Do you smell vanilla-rum custard and honeycomb cake?”
I didn’t even know what honeycomb cake was, but I’d certainly like to give it a try now that he’d mentioned it.
I sniffed a couple of times, picking up the usual scent I associated with this hair-raising house. “I smell plain old vanilla. The rest is your stomach playing tricks with your mind.”
“You should have let me eat before bringing me here.”
“You’ll live a little longer without protein.”
I flicked the light switch back down, figuring it was a two-way toggle offset by another switch somewhere else.
The foyer lights stayed dark. The light coming from the sitting room extinguished entirely, leaving us neck-deep in shadows.
Beelzebub’s balls! That wasn’t a good sign.
I hated coming into this damned house.
I reached for Cornelius, who hadn’t moved since I closed the door behind us, and latched onto his coat sleeve. His breathing was steady yet, more so than mine.
My eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. Faint light from the front porch trickled through the fancy etched window in the door, allowing enough light to drape everything in shades of gray.
“Soooo,” I said in the heavy quiet surrounding us. “Tell me more about this Mercury going retrograde snag.”
“What do you think you are doing?!” Prudence’s voice sliced through the shadows, her Mid-Atlantic Eastern accent sharp with disapproval, reminding me of Katharine Hepburn chewing out poor Rooster Cogburn.
I turned toward the sound of her voice. In the dim light, I could see the outline of Zelda at the other end of the narrow foyer, blocking our way. Only something wasn’t quite right. She looked crooked, her arms and neck at awkward angles.
“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,” I recited the first line of the goose bump–inspiring poem that Natalie used to whisper to me when we were kids. She’d wait until after everyone else had gone to bed and we were alone under the covers with only our flashlights to keep the monsters away.
Cornelius covered my mouth with his cold hand. “If you speak the rest of that poem, a demon in the shape of a crooked man will be summoned.”
I pushed his hand away. “That’s just an urban legend.”
“Legends are usually based on truth.”
Zelda, or rather Prudence, took a couple of lurching steps in our direction, her arms and legs moving awkwardly.
Cornelius let out a high-pitched mewling sound. “She looks like a scarecrow.” His voice sounded higher than usual. “You said nothing about a living scarecrow in this house.”
“Officially, Prudence isn’t living.”
I heard the click-creak-click of the door handle. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve changed my mind. I’ll wait outside.”
“We have a deal.” I turned and clamped onto his arm. “You’re not leaving.”
“I’m certainly not staying here with that.” He unlocked the deadbolt and tugged. The door didn’t budge.
“So, she looks like some kind of zombie scarecrow in the dark. What’s the big deal? It’s just a woman possessed by a ghost.”
“I have a strong aversion to scarecrows.” He jerked his arm away, pulling free.
“You’re kidding me. After all of the freaky shit you’ve encountered, scarecrows are your kryptonite?”
He grunted. “Why won’t this damned door open?”
“Because I will not permit you to leave,” Prudence the scarecrow said, her voice right behind us now.
Cornelius let out a squawk, struggling, kicking, and muttering at the door to no avail.
I rubbed my forehead, not sure if I should help him try to escape or slap some sense into him. This was the first time Cornelius had ever panicked in front of me, and we’d faced some scary shit together. Hell, one night in the haunted Homestake Opera House he’d stood toe-to-toe with a spiky bitch whose bite was way worse than her bark, and he had the scar to prove it.
“Cornelius,” I said, taking hold of his arm again. “You need to calm down. Prudence is not going to hurt you. Are you?” I looked back into the whites of Zelda’s eyes and frowned. At least I hoped not.
“I have not determined what punishment I will perform upon this scoundrel.”
“He’s not a scoundrel.”
“I hate scarecrows!” Cornelius put his foot on the wall next to the door and yanked on the handle.
Sweet creepy-crawlies! “You’re going to rip the dang handle off if you don’t calm down.” I tried to pull him away from the door, but he was incredibly strong for a stick insect.
“You should not have trespassed,” Prudence said with a deep snarl, red-lining my spook-ometer gauge. She tore off Cornelius’s Cossack hat and threw it behind her.
“Dammit, Prudence, knock it off!” I whirled on her. “Zelda called because you were scaring her with your stomping around in the attic. She asked me to come help.”
“I was not speaking to you, Executioner.” Prudence shoved me into the wall and grabbed Cornelius by the ear.
Cornelius yelled in pain, trying to pull free. But Prudence’s grip was badger-like, a fact I’d experienced myself more than once in the past.
“Be still!” she ordered, her voice low and gravelly, sounding almost demonic.
He froze.
S
o did I.
Doc was right. I shouldn’t have brought Cornelius here today.
“Prudence,” I said in the calm, level tone I often used when playing referee to my twins. “Let. Him. Go.”
“Not until I determine why he is attempting to bring uninvited pests into my house.”
What the hell was she talking about?
“What pests? Cornelius, do you have a talking cricket in your pocket along with your lucky cannon?” He rarely left home without an auspicious talisman of some sort. Maybe Jiminy Cricket was his newest version of a rabbit foot.
Prudence scoffed at me. “The depth of your ignorance is baffling.”
“Don’t start, Prudence,” I muttered, crossing my arms.
She didn’t listen. “Frankly, I am astounded that your ancestral line was not exterminated long ago by a fribble troll.”
“My line is as fierce and vicious as yours.” Maybe even more, being that mine was still in flesh-and-blood existence, whereas she was the last of hers.
“Your line is made up of club-swinging cave dwellers.”
“Listen, if I wanted to be insulted, I’d have gone to the Deadwood police station to see Cooper and his crew of Keystone Cops.”
“How am I supposed to accomplish the tasks remaining with a bumbling blunderbuss at my disposal?”
“That’s it.” I threw up my hands. “We’re leaving. Tell Zelda I tried to help but I couldn’t squeeze past your big, fat-ass ego filling the foyer.”
I reached for the door handle, but she shoved me back into the wall again. Before I could recover, she did a full-body slam into Cornelius, flattening him against the door with his head turned in my direction.
“I can’t … move,” he managed to get out between gasps for breath. “The evil scarecrow … somehow made my … muscles freeze.”
“She’s not an evil scarecrow, just a zealous, territorial ghost in green flannel loungewear with the power to possess and manipulate the living with her mind.”
His eyes widened. “And that’s … better?”
I half-cringed. “Look on the bright side. At least she hasn’t tried to pull out your teeth yet.” I pushed on Zelda’s shoulder, but she wouldn’t budge. How in Hades was such a petite woman so impossible to move? It was like she’d turned to solid marble. “Prudence, let him go.”
