by Jody Klaire
“Nah, I ain’t got a gym at home.”
“You’re never leaving here, are you?” Renee asked. She must have seen the excitement, rumbling and bumbling in my stomach, through my wide-eyed look.
“Not unless they arrest me.”
Martha hurried back and smiled at us like mothers do to small children when they are being goofy to the point of cuteness.
“This is some place, Martha,” I said.
She waved it away. “Oh, it’s nothing, just one of the small cabins but it will do until we can get you back on your way.”
I went to say that this place was anything but small but Martha started issuing directions.
“The bathroom is at the back, next to it is the utility room.” She started talking about settings for the machines and I drifted off and wandered to the staircase.
“Boo.”
I spun around, feeling like I’d been hit in the butt with a Taser gun. Martha was still yabbering away to Renee about how to get the most out of a wash cycle. I looked for Earl. He was in the kitchen with his head under the sink, I guessed fiddling with the stopcock.
“Over here.”
An icy cold shiver ran up my spine, and I turned to glare at a very shocked-looking blob of shadow hovering next to the gym.
“Quit it,” I muttered.
“You can see me?” it asked. I could hear the astonishment in its voice.
Here’s the thing with ghosts and me. I don’t “see” them specifically. I can feel them and when they are about, I get a visual in my mind’s eye just like I would a vision. Sometimes, like with Nan, they are a sudden inexplicable breeze, a swirl of energy as they reach across whatever separates this world and wherever they are.
Hovering shadowy blobs were a new one on me. “I can see something,” I whispered. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Like?”
I glanced at Earl who was now swearing to himself and rubbing an oily hand over the back of his receding hair. “Like a light or somethin’.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
I felt a ripple of cold shoot up my arm as blob-shadow poked me.
“No and quit poking already,” I said, rubbing the spot on my arm. “So, do you have a name? A reason why you’re hanging around.”
“Can’t remember,” Blob said. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”
I looked down at Earl who had just bashed his head on the edge of the cupboard he was being swallowed by.
“Earl,” I said. “You got ghosts?”
Smack, another load of cussing and Earl’s shocked, slightly paling face appeared. “What did you say?”
“Ghosts. People that hang around when they are meant to go someplace else.” I got another poke for my words as Earl’s eyes widened and he looked around as if searching for it.
I lowered my voice to address Blob. “You torture him, don’t you?”
The mischievous laugh confirmed my suspicions.
“Earl,” I said, trying to snap the guy’s focus back to me. “You know who it is?”
He nodded, glancing around the room. He tugged at his shirt collar with an oily finger. Blob moved closer.
“Who?”
He got to his feet and peeked down the hall toward where Renee and Martha were now discussing the perils of odd socks.
“Supposed to be Randy. He was all of nineteen, broke into the cabin with a group of friends.” Earl shivered. “Was way back, way before my old grandpa was even born.”
“And this Randy,” I said, looking at Blob and trying to see if it was following the conversation. “What happened to him?”
“We renovated the place,” Earl said, his hands clasped together. His wedding ring looked a size too small for his chubby fingers. “Found bones.”
“Randy’s?”
Earl shrugged. “Either way, he went missing. The whole town went out searching for him and he was nowhere to be found.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “His sweetheart was distraught but less than a year goes by and she married his best buddy.”
Blob pulsed with rage and I shuddered.
“Who?”
“Who?” I asked. “Who was the best friend?”
Earl pulled up his trousers by the waistband as if to reassure himself that they were still there. I didn’t get why as his belly was more than big enough to keep them from falling down.
“Jasper McKinley,” he said. “Ancestor of the McKinley family over on the east side of town.”
Before I could ask anymore, Martha and an exhausted-looking Renee came into the kitchen area. Blob hovered over by the windows but I could feel his sadness.
“Well, we’ll leave you to it,” Martha said, tutting at Earl as he scratched his head and glared at the open cupboard. “Earl and I will be in the café should you need us.”
Earl nodded in agreement.
“Stay until you need to,” she said. “Better to be safe, yes?”
Renee and I walked them to the door.
Earl mumbled an apology. “I’ll come back and fix the water tomorrow. Pipe must be frozen or something.”
They went on their way and Renee turned to me, hands on hips. “Okay, what is going on?”
Blob and I both tensed with her tone. “What do you mean?”
“Aeron, you were babbling to yourself in the hallway.” She raised her eyebrows, eyes narrowed. “Martha started asking if you’d gotten concussion in the avalanche.”
“Ah,” I said, noticing that Blob was now laughing. “I was meeting a local.”
Renee flew to my side, gripped my arm until her nails dug in, and squealed as she hid behind me.
Blob laughed even louder.
“Relax,” I said, trying to get her to stop cutting the circulation off. “He’s a pain in the butt with a sneaky sense of humor but he’s not all bad.”
Blob looked as shocked as any floating shadow could.
“His name could be Randy.”
“Could be?” Renee asked, clinging to my arm like it would stop Blob from scaring her.
“From what Earl said, his best friend could have killed him to marry his girl.”
Renee put her hands to her mouth. “Oh that’s awful.”
Blob agreed.
“Aeron, we have to do something,” Renee said, peeking around my shoulder. “He needs our help.”
“Randy was around before Earl’s grandfather was born,” I cut in before Blob and Renee ended up re-enacting some kind of ghostly murder club. I gazed at Blob who looked almost like his arms were folded.
“And?”
“And,” I said to Blob, making Renee stare in his direction as if wondering who I was talking to. “That means that Earl is what . . . late sixties maybe?”
Renee shook her head. “I’d say fifties.” She leaned into my ear. “Is he here?”
“Okay fifties,” I answered, pointing in Blob’s direction. “Which would make his dad about seventy or eighty and a grandfather ninety to a hundred.”
Renee, I guessed, had already cottoned on to where I was going with my explanation as she was too busy squinting at the spot Blob was hovering in.
“Which would mean Randy was killed or died over a hundred years ago at least.” I watched her scouring for what she so clearly couldn’t see.
Blob slunk its shoulders, which was an odd sight, considering he was just a muddy shadow. “What do I do now?”
“Maybe you could ask Nan for help?” Renee said, wandering over to where Blob was. “You helped free the girls back in Oppidum when you got justice.”
“Renee,” I muttered as Blob edged closer to her. “We’re here for a night and Nan is supposed to be resting not gallivanting around in ether space solving mysteries.”
“Ether space?”
I shrugged. “Sounds good and I’m keeping it.”
Blob moved over to the staircase and seemed to slump down onto the steps. “I hate being alone.”
Boy, did my heart swell up with those words.
“Great. I’m not some kind of detective.” I looked at Renee. “We’re meant to be training, Renee. We’re meant to be doing what CIG wishes, or did you forget?”
Renee scowled as I used the word CIG but I rolled my eyes.
“He’s a spook, who’s he gonna tell?”
“Fine,” Renee said, her eyes tracking over my face. “But we could try and help a little?”
“Nan is probably resting after saving our hides earlier,” I raised my eyebrows at her. “Or did you forget that?”
The blush crept not only up Renee’s cheeks but through her aura too. I was gonna start to tease her but a gust of wind announced Nan’s arrival.
“What’s cookin’, Shortstop?”
“Great,” I muttered. Like Blob, I could hear Nan loud and clear as though she were standing in front of me. That was a new one too. “Now you’ve woken her.”
Renee jumped and squealed as if Nan had nudged her in the back and both Blob and Nan laughed. I guessed all ghosts found it fun freaking out the living, must have been hard trying to fill the time.
“You,” I said to Nan. “Are meant to be resting like you promised? And you,” I said to Blob, “should be looking for lights or halos or some kind of choir.” I turned to Renee. “And you should know better than to talk to things you can’t see.”
“Shortstop,” Nan said. “Stop your whining and tell me why I’m here. I ain’t got all night, there’s a card game going on.”
For some reason that surprised me. “You play cards? Since when?”
“Since always,” Nan said. “But I lost my best opponent when your grandpa passed so I’m making up for the lost time.”
The visual of my Nan and the grandfather I’d never met together again and playing cards made me smile. A big smile from somewhere so deep within that it felt like I was in the fields in summer with the warmth on my back.
“Focus,” Nan interrupted. “You can croon later.”
“Renee here,” I scowled at Renee who had leaned against the grand piano, “decided that Blob there,” I pointed to him on the stairs, “needs justice in order to pass over.”
“Him?” Nan asked. “He’s older than me!”
“My point exactly.”
Renee wandered over, waving her hands through the spot where Nan was speaking. “I need headphones or something,” she muttered. “What is she saying?”
A breeze lifted Renee’s hair off her neck, and she shrieked.
Nan and Blob laughed.
I folded my arms and sighed. Scaring Renee was clearly the new sport. “Can you figure out who this blob-specter-thing is?”
Renee hurried over to me and ducked under my arm. Commander Renee Black, big hero, terrified of spooks. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, attempting not to shake my head at her. She was a dimwit.
She looked up as I thought it, shrugged, and burrowed in further. “Don’t do spiders all that well either,” she mumbled, clutching hold of me.
“I’ll ask your grandpa. Get back to you when I know.” I jumped, which made Renee jump. Nan had been silent for so long I thought she’d gone.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” I called out after her.
A tutting drifted on the air to me. “Come now, Shortstop. If you got made to stop here, you got things to do here.”
I hated the sound of that but she was gone before I could ask questions.
“What?” Renee asked. I guessed she’d felt me tense. “What’s wrong?”
Not wanting to scare or worry Renee anymore and pretty much knowing that Nan was right, I walked to the kitchen and reached under the sink. It took one quick turn to shift the stubborn stopcock.
“Nothing that some hot chocolate won’t fix,” I mumbled. “And a change in identity.”
Chapter 6
THE NEXT MORNING Renee and I left Blob to his haunting and walked on the snowy mountain road down into the little town. Martha and Earl had spare ski jackets in the cabin but Renee’s jacket was a fetching bright pink and the only one that would fit me was a violent purple color.
We trudged our way from the quiet lane the cabin was on and met the main road of the town itself. We rounded the corner and Renee and I stopped in unison. Both of us were awestruck at how much we’d missed in the darkness.
The roadway, which was covered up in a fresh fall of snow, was lined on either side by trees that looked like they were standing at attention. Their bare lower trunks, slim and straight, were topped off with white-covered hats that speared up into the white sky. In front of the trees were benches, which looked like somebody had shoved fluffy cushions on them.
The lights on either side looked like something out of a movie, bubbles perched on top of green ridged posts that curved into a set of three like a chandelier.
I stepped onto the road, then off it, then back on, then off it just to get another shudder of awe as I checked out the twinkling shops. Some of the buildings had those flat fronts which matched the pioneer flavor that Martha had captured in her café. Then there were shops that poked out along the sidewalk, the bay windows bright and welcoming topped with white hats of their own.
It was the kind of place that should have had “resort for the rich”embossed in great big letters on a sign someplace. I searched around for something to tell me the name of this place but I couldn’t see nothing. When I did spot a sign, covered by its own smattering of snow, Renee dragged me past it. I guessed I still weren’t officially allowed to know where I was.
“I thought it was tiny,” Renee murmured as we wandered past a log cabin bar aptly named The Ice Cooler. It was easily as big as the main street back in Oppidum. There were three hotels I could see, a cluster of shops all selling ski equipment, and Martha and Earl’s café. They had a police and fire and rescue station in one building opposite the café that looked much like the flat-topped pioneer style.
If it weren’t for the few buildings in that style, I wouldn’t have known we weren’t in a little Swiss village ready to ski the Alps. I would have sworn by the chocolate box buildings that we were there. The mountain mist and the heavy, bluey-white light made me feel like I’d wandered into a painting. I officially loved this place.
I must have sighed out loud as Renee bumped my arm with her shoulder. “You getting dreamy there. Let me guess, pecan pie?”
“Nope,” I said. “Not this time . . . but now that you mention it—”
“Sheriff first,” she said, shoving me forward. “Then you can feed the beast.”
Grumbling, I followed Renee down the bustling sidewalk. There was a nervous energy humming through the air as I watched people raiding the grocery store.
“Polar vortex,” I heard someone muttering. “Like winter isn’t cold enough up here.”
“That sounds ominous,” Renee said as we got nearer to the station. “And that looks ominous.”
I followed Renee’s pointed finger to the small group gathered outside the police station. The nervous energy was laced with panic and Renee walked up to a man at the back and asked what had happened. He turned to look at her like she had asked him if the mountains were tall.
“Avalanche,” he said. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“We were in it,” Renee answered.
The guy’s eyes widened and he dragged us both through the crowd and presented us before the very harassed-looking deputy.
“Hal,” he said. “These ladies were caught up in it. Doc Mayberry in there?”
Hal gripped his brimmed hat in the kind of manner that my father always did. A gesture that showed alarm and annoyance all at once. “Well, you sure don’t look banged up, but sure thing,” he said after a long silence. “Er . . . come on up.”
I looked at Renee who shrugged. She wasn’t going to argue with skipping the line. I could tell by her “not a word” face.
We headed into the station as Hal led us down the corridors. Inside it was kinda like I guessed most police stations looked. Even walking inside made the hair on my arms try and jump out and d
ive for cover. It was never good when I entered a police station—I ended up arrested, escaping, or getting charged with murder. I glanced over my shoulder at the doorway. Maybe I should have just waited outside.
Renee touched my arm and gave it a squeeze. “It’ll be alright.”
I tried to smile off the rapidly building need to hurl myself through the nearest exit. I looked to my right as we passed a set of double doors. The fire crew were huddled around a table, looking at some kind of map. I tensed as I felt the panic ripple over me from them. They looked calm but they were anything but.
“So, you get hit anywhere?” Hal asked. His twang placed his origin way more south than where we were now.
“Nothing too bad,” Renee answered. “But our car has probably ended up down the mountain somewhere.”
Hal blew out a breath, took his hat off, dipped his eyes, and crossed himself. “Yours,” he sighed and led us down the corridor, “and the other poor souls down there.”
“Others?” Renee asked, glancing my way. Concern glinted in her eyes. I was sure we’d been the only ones on the road but with the low visibility there could have been cars up ahead of us.
I tried to shake off the flicker of a dream that I’d had that morning. I had woken up in a sweat, sure that I’d just relived our adventure in the night. Only now, the deeper we walked into the station, I realized that the flicker had shown daylight.
Uh oh.
We got to the sheriff’s office before Hal could answer and he knocked like a school kid on the principal’s door. I could see now that he was a lot younger than he first appeared. His weather-beaten face aged him a good ten years but he was young, maybe even younger than my twenty-seven years.
“Sheriff McKinley,” he said, opening the door. “There’s two ladies here, they got caught up in it too.”
We headed into the room and I got a lightning flash of pain down my left leg. I had to bite my lip not to yelp out loud. McKinley sat on his desk with a bottle of whiskey in his hand as another guy, who I assumed was the doctor, prodded at his leg.
“You got out?” McKinley asked. “Thought I was the only one who made it.”
