Stolen Ghouls

by Alex A King

  “Jack’s been cooking up a storm since we’ve been cooped up in here. Never one to let grass grow under his feet, that one.” She stopped to smile at me. “That’s a lot of questions you’ve got swirling around in that noggin of yours. I can hardly make them out but I can guess what you want to know. Let’s get something to eat first, then talk.”

  We turned a corner, stepped through an open doorway, and I found myself in the kind of room people fancier than me called a drawing room. The ceilings were high. The walls were covered in bookcases and art. A fireplace was burning under an ornately carved mantle that was as high as my head. The couches and chairs had the heft of furniture made in the days when wood was turned by hand and passed down through the generations, along with houses and titles. None of these pieces had arrived in cardboard boxes, packed with bolts, a hexagonal wrench, and instructions translated from Chinese into something like English, but not quite. Was I clean enough to be in this room? My last shower was gods only knew how many hours ago. I smelled like I’d clawed my way out of an orgy on Mykonos.

  Should I sit? Stand? Beg for a shower?

  Did places like this have showers, or was it all claw-footed bathtubs and servants hauling buckets of hot water from the kitchen floors below, ala Downton Abbey?

  “Make yourself cozy and I’ll be right back. Sit anywhere you like,” she said, answering one of my unspoken questions.

  For hours I’d been wedged in an airplane seat or stuck behind the wheel of the compact rental. Now I wanted to move around and work the kinks out of my muscles before I developed that hunchback I was so worried about after my chat with Kyria Aspasia. I wandered along the drawing room’s back wall, inspecting the books crammed like sardines into the impossibly tall book shelves. Best sellers—old and new. King, Krantz, Koontz, Patterson, Cooper. Slung across the backs of the couches, fluffy throws waited to be draped over the legs of the world’s comfiest reader. The only thing missing was cats.

  I sat. Stood up. Sat in a different spot. The furniture was all made to make a body comfortable for hours.

  Betty appeared in the doorway with a rolling cart groaning under the weight of more than two dozen different goodies. The promised cake was present, as were eclairs, napoleons, and delicious-looking bite sized confections I suspected had European names of one flavor or another.

  “Jack insisted I bring you some of everything,” she explained. Along the way she’d swapped her nightclothes for loungewear in pale lavender.

  “Will he be joining us?”

  “And leave his beloved kitchen?” She laughed merrily. “It’s a wonder he doesn’t set up a cot alongside the ovens. Rare is the occasion when I can get that man to do anything except bake. It’s a wonder he wasn’t born with a spatula in one hand and a mixing bowl in the other.”

  A wonder—and a stroke of good luck for their poor mother.

  I started with cake and worked my way through an entire spectrum of desserts. In between, there were mouthfuls of hot coffee with lashings of cream and whiskey. Nobody on Earth could accuse the Honeychurches of being stingy.

  When I was stuffed to the gills, I paused with the fork in my hand. It was loaded with fruit tart and hovering dangerously close to my mouth.

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “At the beginning is the best place, I usually find,” Betty said.

  The beginning. Where was the beginning? So much action packed into such a tiny window of time. But it had all started with Roger Wilson’s ghost begging for a salt circle in the Cake Emporium’s kitchen.

  “What has the power to scare a ghost? Could a person scare the bejeezus out of them?”

  “Ghosts are still people, in a manner of speaking. They can’t help carrying at least some of their fears beyond the grave. Whoever said you can’t take it with you was referring to material goods. Fears, likes, dislikes, loves, grudges, prejudices, they crossover just fine. So even if their fears are baseless they can still feel the emotion.”

  “Even though they can’t technically be hurt?”

  “Oh, you can still hurt a ghost. Not in the usual way, of course. Shoot them or throw a rock and it’ll sail on through. But there are ways. Flick salt at a ghost and it’ll be like shooting them with a BB gun.” She looked at me. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  I told her about my annoying shadow, the one performing irritating party tricks, and the salt I tossed at its arts-and-crafts tornado.

  Betty nodded like she knew exactly what I was up against. “Throwing, you say? Sounds to me like in that case you’d have a poltergeist. Poltergeists are funny things. Not inherently evil, although I’ve no doubt some are. They were originally people, after all, and there is nothing worse than people when they put their minds to it.”

  “What exactly is a poltergeist? I’ve never met one.”

  “All those ghosts you’ve seen and you’ve never encountered one?”

  “Not on Merope. I’ve heard about them and I saw the movies—even the awful remake. But I’ve never seen one. Why can’t I see it?”

  “I don’t know that anyone has ever seen a poltergeist. Ghosts are just energy, and all their energy funnels into trying to be seen. Poltergeists are ghosts that are good and peeved off with their situation, and what energy they’ve got they use for throwing tantrums They’re driven to act. Merope doesn’t have active poltergeists, as far as I know, otherwise we would have all heard about invisible hands flinging things around. People always talk about moving objects without people doing the moving. The question is where did this one come from and why is it following you around?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it wants my help? If it would communicate instead of dumping coffee on my head, I’d be more inclined to help out.”

  “You’re wrong, you know. About where this started, I mean.” My face must have reflected everything I was feeling, because Betty leaned forward and took my hand. “Happens to the best of us,” she said, “and you, luv, are the best of us. It didn’t start with the dead man in my shop. It began with the brick that got tossed through my little shop’s window. Ten quid says that brick was your poltergeist right there.”

  “If it hadn’t thrown that brick, Roger Wilson would be starting to smell pretty bad right about now.”

  Her hand tightened around mine. “Roger Wilson, you said? The Englishman?”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Wilson was a regular. He liked to come in and chat about England.”

  “Was he … unusual?”

  “He had to be at least a little bit tuned in to the weirdness in the world if he could see our little shop. But he never said how and I didn’t like to pry. But he definitely possessed that spark. What did your policeman make of his death?”

  “The coroner decided it was a heart attack. Mr. Wilson insists it was murder. I don’t suppose you know anyone who would want to kill him?”

  “Half the people who ever met him, I suppose. He could be abrasive. What is he like as a spirit?”

  “Abrasive would be an improvement.”

  “I wonder who would kill him, and in my shop, too.” Tight curls bobbed around her shoulders as she shook her head. “That’s too bad. He wasn’t much of a customer, although he did have a fondness for Jack’s scones, but it was nice to talk to somebody from home.”

  Wheels turned in my head, sluggish at first because they were drunk on sugar. Something important had been said but I couldn’t figure out what. Exhaustion set into my bones. The past couple of days had been a marathon.

  “Why was there salt around your house?” Calling Betty’s abode a house was like calling the pre-sunk Titanic a raft.

  “An old—I’ll say nemesis because that’s more accurate than enemy—decided to have a bit of fun and trapped Jack and me at home.”

  I glanced at our surroundings. “There are worse places to be trapped.”

  She laughed. “That there are, and I’ve seen some of them with my own eyes.”

  The gears were c
licking along at a decent pace now. “You and your brother, you’re not ghosts, are you?”

  “Oh no, we’re very much alive. But we’ve got more than our fair share of the mystical factor in us. Ghosts aren’t the only thing that’ll come to a halt when there’s salt around. It works on just about anything most people would consider paranormal. That salt made an effective cage until you happened along to give us a helping hand.”

  I stood. Hard. “I have to get back to Merope.”

  If she thought my haste was strange it didn’t show. “Let me make you a box to take back. Jack would have a fit if he thought I sent you home hungry.”

  Nobody would ever go hungry around Betty. She would feed the world if she could.

  I pulled out my phone to purchase a return fare.

  “You won’t be needing that,” Betty said. “I told you I know a faster way to travel.”

  “But the car …”

  “Jack will see to it that your rental is returned, safe and sound. This way.”

  We were back in the hallway again, with its fantastical art and paintings of people who’d died probably centuries ago. We turned a corner and I found myself standing in front of French doors, staring into the magnificent gardens.

  “The way to Merope is through your garden?”

  Betty’s laugh tinkled. “Not exactly. Sometimes a garden is just a garden. Wait right there. I’ll be back in just a moment.” Before I had a chance to blink, Betty vanished around the corner with the dessert-laden cart. She reappeared almost instantly carrying a tray of eclairs decorated like mummies and a white Cake Emporium box. “This is for you, luv.” She gave me the box.

  Despite my straining waistband and my distended stomach, my mouth watered. My mouth could be stupid when it came to desserts.

  Betty opened one of the French doors. “I’ll go first. All you have to do is follow me.”

  I stepped forward. The garden vanished and we were standing inside the Cake Emporium’s kitchen.

  “How?” I said, rattled but not broken.

  “I think ol’ Bill Shakespeare said it best: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But the truth is that our little shop exists in all times and places. I think I mentioned it before.”

  “Multiple times and places … all at the same time?”

  “You visit us on the island of Merope in the Aegean Sea, where it’s currently 2018. One of our regulars is from Alexandria, Egypt, 3000 years BCE. The man you helped the other day visits from 60 BCE. I can hear you wondering how that’s possible. The truth is that I don’t fully understand the why myself. I don’t like the expression much, but it is what it is.”

  Virgin Mary, my world was growing stranger by the day. Sands were shifting. Reality was expanding. Either that or I really needed a referral to a psychologist. If only Andreas was still alive, he’d know someone good.

  “You’re quite sane,” Betty said, reading my thoughts. “Saner than most. You’re just gifted and therefore more aware of your surroundings then the average person.”

  “Do your other customers know the Cake Emporium exists in multiple times and places?”

  “It exists in all times and places. Wherever there are people you can come right in and enjoy a slice of cake if you’ve got that spark. But to answer your question, I suppose so. I don’t talk about it casually to just anyone, but we get all types in here. I shouldn’t be surprised if at least a handful of others know.”

  Betty bustled out of the kitchen to the storefront, where she slid the eclairs into the closest cabinet and then switched the CLOSED sign to OPEN. She paused to look at the front window, smile as big and full as her hair.

  “The window is fixed!” she said, clearly delighted.

  “I might have hinted to the window guy that it was in his best interests to get it done quickly.”

  She beamed at me, cheeks pink, eyes bright. “You’re a marvel.”

  I gave her a quick hug and then I was on my way, box in hand.

  Without my bicycle, I was forced to walk down to the dock where my transportation was chained to the bike rack. My phone rang as I was throwing my leg over the bar.

  “I have to confront him,” Angela said in a brisk and breezy voice that told me a crazy idea was about to roll out of her mouth. Sure enough, it did. “Tomorrow morning I am flying to England to tell Sir Teddy Duckworth what I think of his lies. You cannot lie about owning a castle. What kind of monster does lies about his castle?”

  “Technically he didn’t lie about anything except size, and men lie about that all the time. Can’t you just … I don’t know … ignore him and move on?”

  “So he can lure some other woman into his castle trap? No. I cannot stand by while he misrepresents himself.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “That is why I am calling. Before I leave, I want you to make sure he does not have a criminal record.”

  I already knew the answer to this one. “He’s clean. I already checked.”

  “This is why I like you when I do not like most people,” she said. “You understand me. But I want you to dig deeper. We both know that not all crimes end up in a police report. If he slapped a puppy or threw a cup at a girlfriend’s head, I want to know about it. Do whatever magic it is you do and get back to me before tomorrow morning.”

  Before I could bounce a rebuttal off her head, she ended the call.

  I rode home, shoved my precious Cake Emporium cakes in the refrigerator, and contemplated the past forty-eight hours, which had been chaotic, at best.

  “I’m still here, you stupid cow,” Roger Wilson said from the living room.

  My bag fell to the ground. I tumbled on to the couch, eyes closed. Using the power of my feet, I shucked my boots one at a time. Mmm … nice, soft couch. Good couch. “Yes, I know,” I muttered. “I put you there.”

  “So what, you going to let me go any time soon? I’ve got things to do, places to be.”

  “Like where and what?”

  “Like hide, don’t I? Whoever killed me, how long do you think it’ll be before they figure out I’m stuck in here like a sitting duck?”

  I opened one eye, then the other. “Wait—you came to me.”

  “That was before I realized you’d be a sneaky little git and trap me in a circle the size of a postage stamp!” He paused a moment to slap a suspicious look on his face. “Where have you been, anyway?”

  “Busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Are you my mother?”

  “I bet you’re a bloody disappointment to her, too.”

  “Only when I put my feet on the coffee table and fail to find a husband. To be honest, I don’t know what do with you. For now you should be safe in there.”

  “My bloody murderer will come for you. It wants me and it won’t give a fox’s fart if it has to go through you to get to me.”

  “It?”

  “Him or her! It’s a bloody ‘it’ to me, innit?”

  I lined up my questions and launched at him from a different angle.

  “What’s your superpower?”

  That punched the wind out of his sails. “What’s that then? What are you talking about?”

  “The Cake Emporium.”

  “What about it?”

  “You can see it.”

  “Yes, because it’s bloody well there. Anyone with a pair of eyes can see the place.”

  “Nope. Not anyone.”

  He gawked at me. “You’re bonkers, that’s what you are. Bonkers. Barmy. A sandwich short of a picnic.”

  “Only people with certain abilities can see the Cake Emporium. To everyone else it looks like an abandoned storefront. I can see it perfectly fine, but lucky me, I see dead people, too. So what’s your story?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  He did know. It was all over his face, more obvious than a milk mustache. I shot an arrow into the dark and hoped it would strike him in the mouth.

 
“What do you know about the poltergeist that’s following me around?”

  “Poltergeist? What poltergeist? All this shite about shops and poltergeists and whatnot, why don’t you get off your arse, you lazy sod, and figure out who killed me? Go on. Get out of here.”

  “This is my place, you know that, right? Everyone seems to forget this is my place and I make the rules. I don’t even know that you were murdered. There’s no evidence except your body, and it says you should have spent more time in the sun and eaten a meal now and again.” I didn’t want to say it to his face, but it didn’t seem like anyone cared enough about him either way to bother killing him, despite his immediate bounce-back from beyond the grave. My two main suspects didn’t check out, and the third, his lover, was taking an extended mental health vacation in her outhouse at the time.

  Or at least that’s what her husband told me. Her estranged and cuckolded husband. What if he was lying? No—he wouldn’t lie for her. I was there, I saw his face, he genuinely believed his wife was huddled in the outhouse, enjoying her me-time. But Kyria Fasoula wasn’t exactly a bastion of morality and honesty. Were the police still guarding her room? We needed to talk, Kyria Fasoula and I.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  Unlike Betty, Roger Wilson wasn’t privy to my inner monologues, which mean he had no clue his murder—or not—was kicking me out the door. As though someone had stuck an invisible stick up his butt, he jerked bolt upright.

  “I was too bloody murdered.”

  “What was your relationship with Kyria Fasoula like?”

  The stick came out. He seemed to deflate. “Eleni? She doesn’t have nowt to do with any of this. You leave her out of it.”

  “Do you or don’t you want me to find out who killed you?”

  “We shagged a few times. There’s nothing more to it than that.”

  “She was leaving her husband. Did you two make plans for a future together?”

  “I wanted to talk about it but she wasn’t having nowt of that. Said she didn’t want to wash another man’s underpants. Told her that I’d just throw out the dirty ones and buy new ones, but that didn’t change her mind. She wasn’t interested in trading one man for another.”