by Vered Ehsani
A day later, Cilla sent an invitation for me to join her for mid-morning tea, as if we hadn’t just endured two that week. But as she was my friend, and my only one at that, I couldn’t refuse.
What she failed to mention was that her godfather would be joining us. Then again and to be fair, I failed to mention that Gideon would be too, as he had decided to follow me, despite my protestations. I ignored him, but I couldn’t do the same to Mr. Timmons.
The moment I entered, he stood and ushered me to a seat with a grand motion of his arms. “I forgot to congratulate you at your cousin’s delightful tea.”
Warily, I sat. “Yes?”
“It seems your prediction regarding the results of the lion hunt were quite correct.” He clapped slowly, every motion brimming with humor.
“Thank you,” I said in a tight voice.
“Although,” he continued, “you didn’t predict the rampaging automaton.”
I smiled at that. “Nor its temporary theft.”
If he knew anything about the theft, it didn’t show at all. Instead, he said, “Shocking, wasn’t it? This calls for a cup of tea, wouldn’t you agree, Mrs. Knight? Or should I call you Miss Knight as the Africans do? Mrs. Knight really doesn’t suit you at all. It ages you terribly.”
I glared at his back as he casually strolled out of the room. “Why oh why does that man irk me so? Apart from the fact he’s so… so… irksome. Evilly irritating.”
“Aren’t you in a mood?” Cilla interrupted my rant. “He has his flaws but he’s hardly evil.”
I made some non-committal noise.
Cilla stared at me with serious eyes, and for a fleeting moment, I was tempted to ask her age, for she didn’t seem so young. “My uncle is the truest friend to those fortunate enough to have earned his trust,” she finally said.
I snorted, which was a reaction I’d been having quite a lot lately. Perhaps the dust aggravated it. “And for the rest of us?”
Cilla tilted her head and smiled knowingly. “What makes you think you aren’t already part of that privileged group?”
I shook my head even as my heart betrayed me with an unsteady beat. “He doesn’t care for my opinion nor, indeed, for me.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Cilla said.
Flustered, I committed a mistake fatal to any Society operative: I didn’t pay attention to my words. “Anyway, it’s of no consequence, as I still have my husband’s ghost to contend with.”
As soon as I said that, I groaned and could barely restrain slapping my forehead. Gideon floated behind Cilla and shook a finger at me, more amused than angry.
“How perfectly thrilling,” Cilla trilled. She turned as Mr. Timmons walked into the room carrying a tray with a teapot and cups. “Uncle, you’ll never guess but Bee is being haunted by her dead husband!”
Mr. Timmons gave me an indecipherable look as he poured out the tea. “Thrilling indeed.” His tone was unusually flat.
“What does your husband want?” Cilla asked.
“Why do you ask?” I demanded, put out by her lack of concern that my dead husband’s ghost was stalking me.
“There must be a reason,” she persisted.
“There’s nothing reasonable about haunting one’s spouse,” I said. “It’s inconvenient enough to do so when you’re both alive, but after that, it’s just simply bad manners.”
“Here, here,” Mr. Timmons murmured.
I pursed my lips, for I really didn’t appreciate his support or false sympathy. Gideon chuckled at my discomposure and I shifted my dark look to him; he smiled his radiant smile back at me, unconcerned about the slight of character I had directed at him.
Even in death, he was breathtakingly beautiful and cheerful with absolutely no just cause to be so.
Cilla leaned toward me, her face blocking my view of the husband in question. She whispered, “Did you murder him?”
“What an indecent question,” I said as I slammed down my teacup, then stood and paced the room. I glanced about, but Gideon was no longer with us.
“It’s a fair question,” Mr. Timmons said softly.
“You keep out of this,” I said, wagging a warning finger at him.
“Well?” she persisted. “Did you? Maybe that’s why he’s still around.”
I sat upon the sofa next to Cilla, wondering how to respond. “If I did, I’d think he should look angry about it.”
Cilla tapped her lips with one finger. “Perhaps not. Perhaps he enjoys haunting you as his revenge. Some ghosts are like that, you know.”
I restrained another snort, silently cursing the dust, and said, “Not Gideon Knight.”
“Oh, do spit it out, Bee,” Cilla ordered. “I really don’t have the constitution for such suspense.”
I frowned and toyed with a fan I’d left on a small table. “It’s all because of our wedding vows,” I explained, flapping the fan before me. It did nothing to soothe my heated face. “He suggested we change it from, ‘Until death do us part’ to ‘And nothing shall part us.’ I thought nothing of it at the time, or rather I supposed it was no more than his romantic inclination, so I humored him.” I flung the fan down and covered my face with my hands.
Mr. Timmons had remained uncharacteristically silent through all this, listening with an unnerving intensity. Now he spoke, startling me. “Tell me, Mrs. Knight, what did you see in him?”
I stared at him, put out by the question. “I beg your pardon? It’s one thing for me to slight my deceased husband, but quite another…”
He waved a hand to stop me. “That’s not my intention. Did you see something?” And he stared at me meaningfully.
“Oh.” I paused to dwell on the implications. “Are you suggesting he was a… a paranormal? And that I would marry such a being as that? How outrageous.”
Cilla clucked her tongue at me. “That’s a rather extreme stance, Bee. I’d have no issue with marrying a paranormal.”
“Then you can’t have had much experience with them,” I said caustically and stopped myself before I could continue. I was being rude to two of the few people in this world I could be free and open with about my work.
Mr. Timmons, however, seemed unconcerned with my slip in manners and smiled his superior, knowing smile. “Madam, to cause a wedding vow to have such power requires a certain capability not normally found in the average member of society. In fact, it would require both parties to have certain capabilities.”
I dwelt on that notion for a moment and didn’t like the possibilities it engendered. “Well, I did find him unnaturally attractive,” I admitted, my face heating up further. Frowning, I waved the fan energetically. “Not in the regular way. But he was so charismatic.” I smiled, lost in memories. “His eyes were quite hypnotic. Everyone always said he could persuade the Devil to dance.”
I gasped, wondering why I had never previously suspected anything, and why I had never studied Gideon’s energy. At the time, I’d thought it would’ve been rude and an indication of a lack of trust on my part. But since when had concerns over propriety stopped me before?
Was it true that Gideon had supernatural charisma that had allowed him to manipulate others into his bidding? And if so, had he used that power on me? To what end?
Mr. Timmons nodded his head, as if he’d already figured out this whole situation and was just waiting for me to arrive at a similar set of conclusions. “And you never thought to view his energy?” he asked, eerily reflecting my own inner question.
“No, I prefer not to intrude on people’s privacy, unless I need to,” I explained, still debating with myself on the wisdom of my self-imposed policy. Perhaps Gideon had swayed my thinking in this regard.
Mr. Timmons shrugged as if to say that manners were wholly unnecessary in such matters.
Then another question struck me. “And how did you know I could…?”
He smiled in that condescending way of his. “I may not have the depth of your perception, but I too can detect certain qualities, and yours are very clear.” He paused
to scratch a sideburn. “I worry for you, Mrs. Knight. While your husband’s powers have declined in death, he still has an unnatural sway over you.”
“That’s quite enough,” a voice whispered around us. I watched Gideon materialize by the fireplace.
“Mr. Gideon Knight, I presume?” Mr. Timmons asked.
“You presume too much,” my dead and now much disenchanted husband said.
“You can see him?” I asked, slightly impressed but not overly so. It wasn’t a completely uncommon skill to be able to discern the presence of ghosts. Reading energy fields, on the other hand, was a far more subtle and considerably less common ability, one that Mr. Timmons seemed to possess in a small measure.
“I don’t,” Cilla muttered but Mr. Timmons nodded his head.
“Indeed I do, Miss Knight. Indeed I do,” Mr. Timmons said.
Well, this was quite the pickle: Gideon and Mr. Timmons, facing off like two stray dogs, and I shuddered to think what I was supposed to be in the scenario. I slid closer to Cilla, hoping to look just as innocent and confused as she did.
“You will refer to her by her proper title: Mrs. Knight. Only her close lady friends are so informal with her,” Gideon said in his soft voice.
“I wish you’d tell Jonas that,” I interjected.
Gideon continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “And stop questioning her.”
“I see no reason why I shouldn’t engage her in pleasant conversation,” Mr. Timmons said in an unusually calm tone but his eyes were storm clouds.
“She’s my wife,” Gideon whispered. His voice sounded all the more deadly for the low volume.
“You’re dead,” Mr. Timmons said, quite unnecessarily, I might add.
“Gentlemen, I’m still here…” I said.
“And I’ll be damned if I let another man…” Gideon continued as if no one else had spoken.
“… still here, in the room,” I said.
“What’s he saying?” Cilla asked, poking my arm.
“Yes, you will be damned,” Mr. Timmons interrupted and his calm dissolved into a growl. “And what won’t you let another man do? Talk with her? Maybe marry her? Can you stop her?”
“Exactly,” Gideon hissed.
“Enough,” I near shouted and slammed my fan against the coffee table—Oops, I think I snapped the fan in half—as I stood. “I am widowed, Gideon,” I told my dead husband, “and therefore free to converse with other men or even marry again as I please.”
Gideon sulked and Mr. Timmons grinned triumphantly.
“And,” I said as I turned a sharp gaze to Cilla’s godfather, “I don’t wish to marry, nor will I in the foreseeable future, and certainly not to another paranormal. Pardon my prejudice.”
“I find your prejudice rather odd, considering what you are,” Mr. Timmons said. He shrugged his broad shoulders as if my words were of no importance to the ultimate outcome of the conversation that he clearly seemed to feel he had won.
Gideon stared at me, an outright glare that froze me deep down in a place only he could reach.
I softened my tone as I told him, “I’m sorry, Gids, but you’re dead and you really do need to move on.”
Gideon smiled, and it was a rather unpleasant, icy smile. “Our vows transcend such minor inconveniences,” he said with a wave of his hand, dismissing the issue of being dead as one might dismiss a fly.
“Well, it may be minor to you,” I said, heat flushing my face and my words again, “but I assure you, I’ve been highly inconvenienced by your untimely demise.”
“I do apologize for that, my dear,” Gideon said, his cold glare fixed on Mr. Timmons, “and it’s a situation I hope to remedy at the soonest opportunity.”
“Oh?” was all I could think to say. My eyebrows, slim little things, disappeared into my hairline, for this was all news to me, and I didn’t count it as good news. I had just accustomed myself to being a widow and now Gideon seemed to believe that could change again.
“So now the truth comes out,” Mr. Timmons sneered.
“What truth?” Cilla demanded.
“Yes, indeed,” I added. “Pray tell, what?”
Mr. Timmons turned to me, his eyes flinty in the dim light. “Either Mr. Knight knows of a way to return to the land of the living, perhaps by invading a convenient body, or he plans to have you join him in the next world.”
He studied my reaction, and I diligently avoided reacting, simply by not dwelling on the implications of this statement. Instead, I sniffed while pulling on my gloves. “Be that as it may, gentlemen, but I have quite overstayed this visit. Cilla?”
“Oh yes, Bee. Let me escort you out,” she said, hastily tugging on her own gloves. “According to Mrs. Beeton, a social visit should never extend beyond twenty minutes or so, else risk being viewed as impolite.”
“Exactly,” I said. I stood, ignoring the puzzled countenances of the two man-like creatures. “And as we’re in danger of exceeding that socially prescribed limit, we must be off.”
“We’ll see about that,” Gideon whispered and vanished into the floorboard, and that was the last I saw of him for quite some time.
Yes, we will, Gideon, I thought. And we shall be discussing your plans at the next possible opportunity.
I led the way, relieved to have extracted myself from an awkward conversation, but I was now left wondering what it had all meant.
“Dear Bee,” Cilla whispered as she grabbed my elbow, “whatever do you make of all that?”
I patted her hand but, in fact, I didn’t have a single answer to give her.
Chapter 21
