“Someone,” I said, casting a pointed look in Anna’s direction, “thought it would be a good idea to take me to a mental asylum.”
Alexander’s perfectly pouty lips stretched over his teeth, directing a grimace in Anna’s direction. Anna waved at him as if to dispel his dislike.
“It wasn’t a mental asylum,” Anna stressed. Alexander flipped his glance to me and I nodded.
“Bridget said it was. So it was,” Alexander stated simply and then tossed his head, completely dismissing her. He placed my clipboard on the counter with the signing out book and pen on top of it.
“Do you have a tissue back there anywhere, Alexander?” I asked and finger waved at him. “I touched things while I was there yesterday and although I’ve washed my hands several times since …”
Alexander wasn’t good with germs. Real or imaginary. He ducked behind the counter for a moment and then came up with a tissue. When he handed it to me I was careful not to touch him.
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Bridget,” he said and gave me his toothpaste-advertisement-tooth-pinging smile. This friends thing wasn’t so hard. It was so strange that it had never seemed that important in life, but now small things like this made me happy. The alive Bridget wouldn’t have tolerated his imaginary germ phobia. She wouldn’t have asked for a tissue to hold the pen. She probably wouldn’t have even spoken to him all that much. I was beginning to think that maybe the alive Bridget hadn’t been the nicest person.
“You have antibacterial wipes, right?” I asked, as I offered Alexander back his pen without letting the now infected tissue touch his hand. “For the clipboard when I come back? Or do you need me to get some while I’m out?”
“I have some, but thank you.” Alexander motioned for me to hold out my hands palms up before touching the clipboard. “I’m not sure how potent crazy people germs are but every little helps,” he said and squirted some very expensive looking hand sanitiser on my palms, some on his own and then demonstrated how to rub it in. I copied what he did.
Anna watched in silent fascination. I imagined that she’d never been ignored in her life, or afterlife, at any point. It was so strange that in a way she reminded me of me. I’d have to make a conscious effort to be nicer to her.
Anna snapped her fingers in front of my face several times. “We don’t have time for this foolishness. This isn’t helping your adjustment any more than his.”
And then that resolution evaporated and I was once again fighting the urge to smash something into her in face.
“You are so rude. Rudeness is ugly.” Alexander peered down his perfectly aquiline nose at her before turning to me. “Have a lovely day, Bridget.”
“And you, Alexander,” I said. He gave me another tooth-pinging smile and then retreated into the back room.
“He was extremely rude,” Anna mumbled.
“Well, I think he’s delightful,” I said, feeling extra smug as I led the way to the tunnelling room.
Anna and I made it to the first assignment without issue. We landed in the hallway of a house. The excited chatter of children drifted down the stairs to us. I checked the sheet for instructions on what to do, made sure no alive person was around to see, then moved a child’s red raincoat from resting over the banister to hanging on the coat peg by the door as the sheet said. Anna fussed with the coat, arranging the way it hung while I ticked the assignment off.
She had a habit of readjusting everything I moved. At first I’d found it irritating, now it nearly drove me out of my mind. The assignment sheet said “move the red raincoat from the banister and hang it up by its hood on the third coat peg from the left”. It didn’t say “fuss with it until it looks like a piece of modern art” or “angle it so the light hits it a certain way and amplifies the colour”. It just said “move it” so I just moved it.
I tunnelled without waiting for her. It was bad enough that she had to accompany me, I wasn’t waiting for her to finish faffing. I landed in a neatly manicured garden. It was about half the size of ours at home but immaculately kept. The vibrant and evenly green grass was trimmed close to the soil and completely devoid of any imperfections. There was a border of blooming plants roughly three feet wide around the grass. An elderly lady was kneeling on the grass, bending over a section of the border. I’d have said she was weeding but there didn’t look like there were any weeds in sight. She wore bright yellow gardening gloves patterned with sunflowers and a straw hat with matching blooms decorating the brim. She was humming while she worked. She seemed happy.
“How many times, hon?” Anna appeared to my left. “You can’t just disappear whenever you feel like it. I’m supposed to supervise you.”
“Then you should keep up,” I said, checking my sheet for the assignment. “This is my job. My job isn’t to wait on you. My job has a schedule.”
Anna pulled out her notebook and jotted something down. Probably about my attitude. A lot of people seemed to have a problem with my attitude.
I left Anna scribbling away and headed in the lady’s direction. The assignment was to move her trowel from pointing downward, so the prongs were directed into the grass, to upward, so the prongs were pointing to the sky.
I looked down and saw the trowel. It wasn’t just the rubbishy plastic kind my mam had for the odd occasion she’d thought about doing something to our garden, it was a professional looking thing. Professional with three excessively sharp claws. Why did they need to be that sharp? You only used it to scrape mud. The morning sun glinted of one of the wickedly curved prongs. They were metal.
The toast I’d had for breakfast started to churn up with the copious volume of tea I’d consumed. Most of my assignments required me to move keys, a mug, a raincoat. Something innocuous. And I liked to believe that mostly my actions had no greater effect than the subject of my assignments just thinking they were forgetful. Turning this velociraptor claw of a trowel prongs up just did not have that same type of vibe.
Anna stood with her arms folded and foot tapping. So many people did that in the afterlife when they were annoyed. It was like they’d all forgotten how to be real people and that there was a huge range of ways to show annoyance. Like slapping someone hard across the head with a clipboard, for example. Yeah, that would be a good change to the status quo. Suddenly all the blow-to-the-head deaths made much more sense.
“What’s taking so long?” Anna asked.
“I don’t think I can do this one,” I said. I looked over at the lady, who was obliviously still humming to herself while plucking tiny weeds from the flower beds.
“What do you mean, hon?” Anna peered over my shoulder. “Just flip the trowel over.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to.”
“Don’t want to? What do you mean you don’t want to? Just move the damn trowel. We have a schedule to keep, remember?”
I turned to face her. “Do you know what will happen if I flip it over?”
She arched a thin, pencilled eyebrow at me. “Do you know what will happen if you don’t?”
“What will happen if I don’t?” I asked.
“I’ll have no choice but to report you for non-compliance on your assignment to the bureau. The bureau will then investigate and determine a course of action.”
“Which would likely be …?”
“Re-education. Something your parole officer is trying incredibly hard to save you from though I have no idea why. I think it would be the best thing for you.” Anna expelled an enormous sigh when I made no attempt to flip the trowel. “You complete an assignment and you move on. You flip it over and move on. What’s the problem here?”
“Once I moved a lady’s handbag and she tripped over the strap and stabbed herself with a fork.”
Anna opened her mouth, paused and closed it again without speaking. Obviously deciding that my part in the previous accidental homicide was no matter to her, she pointed to the trowel. “This is your job. You need to complete this assignment so we can move on. Complete the
assignment.”
“No.” I clutched the clipboard to my chest and stepped back.
Anna’s attention jumped from me to the trowel and back again. “Move the damn trowel.”
“No.”
“Move the damn trowel!”
“You move it.”
“Fine.” Anna bent down and flipped the trowel over. Instead of just nudging it over she did her artful arranging again. She carefully lifted it a foot off the ground, using both hands to turn it over and place it back down. She stepped back, angled her head as she looked at it, then crouched down and moved it an inch to the right.
“Karl? Karl? Is that you?” The lady spoke with such longing in her voice it made the churning in my stomach speed up like a washing machine on a spin cycle. I was so glad I hadn’t eaten much today yet or I’d have been throwing up all over the lovely blooms.
Some part of my brain wondered if the lady would be able to see ghost vomit or if she’d sense something if she put her hands in it. The other was wondering when the GBs would show up and exactly who they would be carting off. Me for not doing my job or Anna for doing it for me and unintentionally haunting someone. Maybe it was just better to get out of Dodge before they showed up. Would they know we had been responsible or just that the lady had been haunted? But then I was supposed to be haunting her so would it flag up at all? This stupid afterlife was so complicated.
The lady climbed stiffly to her feet and stepped toward Anna with her hand outstretched, as though she were reaching for something she couldn’t see. I wasn’t sure what the lady would feel if her hand went through Anna. I’d been walked through more than once and the alive people hadn’t seemed any worse off for it then.
I grabbed Anna’s arm and tunnelled to the next location before anyone caught us. It was a noisy arcade on the seafront. We landed outside on the pavement and I dragged Anna to the side and pressed her back to the wall so we’d be out of thoroughfare.
“Are you okay?” I asked, peering into Anna’s dazed face. She didn’t respond so I gave her cheek several light taps. I could have slapped her really hard. It would’ve been completely legitimate. This would’ve been the perfect excuse, but somehow that just didn’t seem right. She blinked rapidly and finally focused on my face.
“You are in so much trouble,” she whispered. “They’ll lock you away for this. Forever.”
“Me?” I shrieked at her. “You were the one who haunted her.” I knew I should’ve slapped her when I had the chance.
She shook her head at me. “I don’t know if I can keep this kind of secret.”
“What kind of secret?” Officer Leonard asked from behind me. Startled, I whirled around to face him. He smiled his amiable smile at me and inclined his head. “Ms Sway.”
I folded my arms and frowned at him. “Why don’t you make that popping sound all the time when you tunnel?”
“It gets tiresome to make it all the time. It’s the same with the smoke,” Officer Leonard said with a small shrug. “And sometimes it’s helpful if you don’t announce your presence.”
“Why would that be helpful?” Anna asked in a voice at least one octave higher than her usual pitch and in a tone that couldn’t have said “we’ve just done something super illegal” any clearer than if she had actually used those words. Or if the flashing neon lights of the arcade signs above us had spelled it out.
“So you can catch people doing things they shouldn’t be,” Oz said as he sauntered out of the arcade.
I glanced between the smiling GB and my scowling parole officer and wondered how bad of a person it would make me to throw Anna under the proverbial bus. I’d been super nice to my housemates and to Alexander today, so that would keep my karma in balance, right? Before I could decide Anna pushed me first.
She pointed a finger at me. “It was Bridget!”
Chapter Nine
I stared at Anna, my mouth ajar. Oh, it was on now! She was going to try to blame it all on me? I hadn’t even done anything! Okay, so that was sort of the problem, but still, that was not going to fly.
“What was Ms Sway?” Officer Leonard asked Anna.
“What can we help you with, Officer Leonard?” Oz stepped forward and practically in front of me. Normally I found it a little annoying when he did that, but if he was going to prevent Officer Leonard carting me off for dereliction of duty I was more than happy to hide behind him at that moment.
Officer Leonard gestured around us. “Oh, I was just taking a stroll on the promenade and saw Ms Sway, so I thought I’d come and say hello. What are you doing here?”
“My job,” Oz said.
“Your job now includes random checks on your wards?” Office Leonard asked.
“It’s in my purview to check on her whenever I feel the need,” Oz reminded him.
“I’m aware of what rests within your purview, Officer Salier, but why would you feel the need to check on her right at this moment?” Officer Leonard asked.
“You startled her,” Oz said simply. “I felt it through our bond so I came to check everything was okay.”
“Really?” Faux surprise laced Officer Leonard’s tone. “Oh, I’m sorry, Ms Sway. I had thought you were made of sterner stuff.”
“I’ve had a stressful couple of days,” I said with a small shrug. I wasn’t happy that Oz was making me out to be jumpy, but it wasn’t like I could just contradict him in front of Officer Leonard. And I supposed the illegal haunting hiccup had hitched up my adrenaline levels a bit.
“Still, I must have startled you quite badly for your parole officer to feel it through your bond.” Officer Leonard gave me what I was pretty sure was a reproachful look.
“I’m a delicate flower,” I said with another shrug. In for a penny …
“Have you finished saying hello?” Oz asked.
“I hadn’t actually started but I believe I’m needed elsewhere.”
“How do you know?” I asked Officer Leonard and both men turned to me, Officer Leonard with a smile and Oz with a be-quiet frown.
“How do I know what, Ms Sway?” Officer Leonard asked.
“How do you know you’re needed elsewhere? You didn’t check any sort of gadget. You didn’t do the head tilt thing that you all do when you’re listening for something. So how do you know?”
Officer Leonard’s smile widened. “I didn’t. I was making a polite excuse to leave.”
“Oh, right,” I said.
“It’s always a pleasure, Ms Sway. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.” Officer Leonard inclined his head.
“The only way you’ll see her is if she finds another dead body and gets dragged back into the interrogation room,” Oz said. “And that’s not going to happen. So unless you’re planning on requesting an official meeting through official channels …”
“Again, I was just being polite,” Officer Leonard said and then disappeared.
I punched the back of Oz’s shoulder, which very much felt like punching a brick wall. He turned. He didn’t even have the good manners to pretend it had hurt.
“What was that for?”
I punched his shoulder again. “You just jinxed me! Why do people keep doing this to me?”
“Doing what?”
“You just said I won’t find another dead body, which practically guarantees I’ll find another dead body.”
Oz looked at me as though I was speaking another language. “What logic are you using?”
“Afterlife logic. The next dead body I find is on you,” I said, pointing a finger right in his face.
“I’ll bear that in—” Oz tilted his head, his eyes focusing on the horizon but his attention turned inward. And then he disappeared.
“It’s super annoying when you do that!” I scolded the place where he’d just been standing.
“He can’t hear you, hon,” Anna said, stepping away from the wall now the danger had passed. “He’s gone.”
“And you!” I rounded on Anna. In all the GB/parole officer drama I’d completely forgotten
she was there.
Anna stepped back and had the gall to look shocked. “Me? What?”
“What?” I stepped toward her and closed the gap, only just pulling short of jabbing an accusing finger into her chest. “Not only did you illegally haunt that lady but then you tried to push it on to me—”
“I didn’t illegally haunt anyone. You refused to do your job and I helped you out—” Anna’s voice jumped up at least two octaves. Any higher and all the glass in a five-mile radius would’ve shattered.
“No. I’m a facilitator. Not you. If you do it that makes it illegal haunting. Not to mention,” I said, speaking over her objections, “you should’ve reported the fact I refused an assignment, which you didn’t, so that means you’re in significantly more trouble than me. Twice over. I’ll just go into therapy for my issues, but you?” I shook my head and gave her my best pitying look. “Who knows what they’ll do to you?”
“Who knows what who will do to her?” Officer Leonard asked from behind me, making me jump. Again.
I whirled around to face him. “Stop sneaking up on me!” I said with a little more screech than probably should’ve been directed at an officer of the afterlife über police.
Officer Leonard smiled politely, unperturbed at my outburst. “My apologies, Ms Sway. You are obviously the delicate flower you professed to be.”
“Yes. I’m very fragile,” I said and gave him my best flat expression and he laughed. “Is there something I can help you with now?”
“I merely forgot something the last time I was here,” he said.
“Oh?” I asked.
Officer Leonard placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder and disappeared. Taking a startled Anna with him.
“Ohhh.” I pointed to the spot where they’d just been standing and shook my head. “This is not good. This is very not good.”
“Who are you talking to?” Gary asked from behind me and made me drop my clipboard as I whirled around once again.
A Little More Dead Page 13
