The Duck Pond Incident

by Charlie Humphries

  “Let me check. I take it you enjoy the way gender was presented throughout?”

  “It was a refreshing look at it, yes. I admire her writing style a lot, actually. I had aspired to similar things myself.” Mx. Smith took up their customary space on the counter, crossing their ankles and kicking forward and back. Amelina replaced the book - unmarked, still perfect and unread to any mortal eye - and bit her lip as she scanned the shelves.

  “It might be downstairs. Watch the shop for me.” Amelina stomped down to the stockroom, chilled and gloomy, woke up the internal computer to search for the next book. It was one she hadn’t read just yet, so maybe after Mx. Smith had finished with it, Amelina might loan it to herself. They did have a copy, right in the back, where she still meant to replace the dead tubelight, another thing still on her to-do list.

  A series of sneezes filtered down through the gloom, making her start a little: a customer, first thing on a thundery, biblical shower type of morning? She clattered back up the stairs, leaving the book on a corner table for Mx. Smith to find and exploded behind the counter with a smile.

  “Good morning! Can I help you?” Her customer was actually two white men, damp, short dark hair curling from the moisture in the air. Their dull raincoats dripped onto her beautifully swept, pristine floor, but at least they weren’t shaking out umbrellas all over the stock.

  “Hi, yeah, I need a book for my niece who’s turning eight. I wanted something fun, but educational. Maybe a history book?”

  “Sure, let me show you my favourite kid’s history book.” Amelina guided her customer around the corner into the children’s and teens’ section, leaving the other guy to just browse in fiction, quietly dripping. Mx. Smith peered from below the counter, narrowing their eyes at this lonesome man. They had a funny feeling, weren’t sure of them - especially as he was less interested in the books and more in the shop door and its lock. He took a little, jaunty stroll downstairs to non-fiction, peeped around the office door and a slow smile spread across his lips. He took out his phone and sidled into the office, taking quick snaps of the back door, the desk lock, the computer. Mx. Smith stirred the cockles of their heart into a smouldering burn and extended their very essence into the spinning motes in the air, extending and pushing them up the creep’s nose. It wasn’t long before he was sneezing and spluttering, coughing into his hands. He fled upstairs as Amelina was finishing her sale. The pair left, letting in a cool breeze as they opened the door and melted into the rain.

  “Amelina, those men are no good. While you were up here, his mate was in the office, taking pictures, canvassing the place.”

  “You’re sure? I can’t go to the police and say, ‘Hey, go find and arrest these two white guys because my ghost friend saw them acting dodgy!’”

  “Why not? White people are always calling the police on black people!”

  “Smith, look at me. I am a Latina woman working in a going-bankrupt bookshop. I will not be taken seriously and have no evidence because I was up here the whole time. If, when, they make a move, well, we’ll just have to deal with the fallout.”

  Amelina left Mx. Smith to ponder on the injustices of the world to get a mop for the drips on the floor. She’d had visions of somebody slipping and the shop couldn’t afford a lawsuit.

  The rest of the day was punctuated with a wave of customers seeking shelter from the rain. Amelina found the umbrella bucket, kept an eye on the floor for creeping puddles, made eight cups of tea (three sugars between them) and one cup of coffee with a drop of milk, but all the while she was taming the flutter of anxiety that was a constant at the back of her mind. She was loathe to call time at six ‘o’clock, and allowed the last two people in the shop to mull over their purchases. But they were considerate and paid up quickly, leaving with promises to come back and tell her how they got on with their chosen books. Amelina switched round the sign to closed, secured the front door and set about the locking up routine, taking care to double lock what could be. Mx. Smith drifted through each section of the shop, morose with heavy sighs, touching their beloved books with weightless fingertips.

  The rain eased off just after Amelina fell asleep, tucked up in her single bed. Mx. Smith didn’t sleep so much as plunge into oblivion. But they couldn’t face that, anxious as they were about their precious books and shop. They sat on the upstairs window seat, tracing water droplet paths down the window.

  Mx. Smith was so high strung that they missed the click of the back-door lock being sprung free in the basement. But they couldn’t miss the creak of the floor as somebody moved their weight over it. Mx. Smith stopped tracing patterns on the glass, stared at their translucent reflection and made a decision.

  They allowed their weightlessness to plunge them through the floor, down through the main shop floor into the basement-office. They took up position by the back door, watching the pair of men - the same from earlier they were sure - busy over the desk drawer. One was busy with picks, the other held a torch, aiming the beam on the lock. They were oblivious to Mx. Smith’s presence.

  They hadn’t really experimented with their death-powers, not really. As far as they were aware they were little more than getting ashes up people’s noses and floating through floors. But this was different, this was their final resting place and nobody was taking that away. Mx. Smith took a breath and began creeping into view, making themself seem solid. They fashioned an axe, a long hatchet with a gleaming blade, out of ashes and shadows. They thumped the head on the floor and the two men shot up, the torch beam turning on Mx. Smith.

  “Get out!” they howled, and hefted the axe high. The men fled, through the stacks, up the stairs, to the main shop floor. There was a clatter as they dropped the torch and picks, and they started to panic when they saw the secure front door and window-grilles barring their freedom. Mx. Smith took the stairs one at a time, thumping the axe head on each tread, counting down their doom. The pair panting, eyes wide and rolling, fled upstairs, trying to find anywhere to hide. They settled on the customer toilet, throwing the flimsy lock across and sitting in absolute darkness. Mx. Smith teased a chuckle from between their lips and allowed the wisps of their death-axe to blow away in the draught. They paused on the shop floor, stretching out their arms to encompass the whole of the dark, quiet shop and took a deep, greedy breath, drowning in the smell of books.

  The next morning dawned bright with a cold edge to it. Amelina arrived earlier than was necessary, fumbling with her work keys to get through the front door. Mx. Smith met her at the door, putting a frozen finger to the young woman’s lips, pointing at the torch and lockpicks on the floor. Amelina raised an eyebrow.

  “They’re in the customer toilet still. You’ve got them red-handed,” whispered Mx. Smith. Amelina took a moment to make sure she was understanding correctly before shutting the front door behind her. Then she picked up the phone, looked at Mx. Smith and whispered, “I trust you,” before dialing 999. She waited outside the shop, careful to look normal and as unsuspicious as possible, and went through a small speech for the police. Her heart was beating hard when the police turned up, two white officers, one a broad, huge man with a five o’ clock shadow and a tall, lanky woman. They took Amelina’s name and a short statement before asking her to lead the way to the customer toilet. The broad officer knocked on the door of the toilet and Amelina held her breath, anxious to get the whole thing over with.

  “This is the police. Open the door.” There was a frantic whispering and a quiet argument before the door was peeled open. The two would-be thieves were pale and had huge bruised bags under their eyes.

  “Have a little trouble, did we?” The officer took his notebook from his stab vest, along with a pen.

  “Is it gone?” the shorter thief, the book-buying thief, whispered.

  “Is what gone?”

  “The maniac with the axe?”

  The officers raised cool eyebrows at each other, turning an eye on Amelina.

  “We close at six and I was at home by h
alf seven. Nobody is on the premises overnight.” Amelina felt annoyance at being questioned when they were with a pair of trespassers in her customer toilet. She banked the fire threatening to overspill in her belly, telling herself that getting angry with the police would get her into more trouble than the men. She put on a small smile.

  “I can pull the CCTV footage of my locking up last night, if that would be useful?” The officers agreed that would, indeed, be useful to the chagrin of the would-be thieves. As Amelina was turning to lead the officers downstairs, the male officer piped up, “get us a cuppa while you’re at it, love. We didn’t get much in the way of breakfast when the call came in.”

  Amelina stopped and felt a tingle of annoyance settle in her heart. She mustered every iota of self-control she possessed and turned around again.

  “How do you take it?” she asked, going for a neutral tone.

  “Like my women: hot, wet and milky.”

  His partner rolled her eyes and mouthed, “I’m sorry” but her silence just added to Amelina’s frustration. Amelina headed down to the office to sort the CCTV footage and was overwhelmed by the need to spit in the officer’s tea.

  “I’m sorry, Amelina. I didn’t know you’d receive this sort of treatment. For all my words and experience with gender and the LGBT community, and for all my reading, I’m still looking at the world through a white-person’s lens.” Mx. Smith sat on the office desk, a pale rose spreading into their transparent cheeks. They ran a hand through their hair, but couldn’t quite meet Amelina’s eye.

  “I should have asked Mr. Issacs to phone the police instead. They would have taken him more seriously. I don’t know what to do, how to react. If I’d called him out on his ‘cuppa’ comment, it would have been the whole ‘just being friendly’, ‘calm down’ crap that women get all the time. But then by saying nothing he gets away with it and will keep doing it.” Amelina stirred the tea with such force that a miniature vortex spun out of the depths.

  “You need to take a stand. Call him out on his bollocks. All it’ll take is ‘I don’t like the way you spoke to me.’ He’ll try and justify it, you get the ‘hysterical woman’ treatment and you ask him to apologise, hand over the footage and job’s a good’un. Although, I doubt Mr. Isaacs will want to press charges.”

  “We can only hope he does.”

  Amelina took up the tea - made in the worst mug she could find - and handed over the CCTV footage. The would-be thieves had ventured out of their cubicle and had settled themselves on the window seat. They stared at the mug of tea with a starving man’s look, but said nothing.

  “Cheers, love.”

  Amelina let a moment pass, but decided that this was it, time to draw her line in the sand.

  “I don’t appreciate being called ‘love’, or your comments about how you take your tea, either.”

  “Oh, well, where I’m from that’s just the done thing, everyone’s love or sweetheart. I guess you don’t have that from where you’re from?”

  His ignorance choked Amelina silent as her mind fought to think up a suitable, sensible response that wouldn’t land her in handcuffs for being threatening, or worse. However, Mx. Smith’s guilt manifested itself as a severe drop in the temperature and a biting draught stirred the pages of the books displayed on tiny side tables. A large art book wriggled out of its case and plunged to the floor with a crack like thunder.

  “There a window open?” The officer took a sip of tea and then paused with the mug’s rim balanced on his lower lip. He wrinkled his nose and went to put his mug down but instead ended up sneezing violently, sloshing hot tea all down the front of his stab vest, all over his thighs. He yelped in discomfort, dropped the mug and managed to step on it, falling backwards, with a jingle of cuffs, onto the carpet.

  For a moment, Mx. Smith allowed a small seed of pride to flare like a supernova in their heart before settling down. They stopped the rustling of the books, the draught and even went to replace the beautiful art book back on its table.

  “Holy shit,” whispered a thief, and his partner pointed at the book floating in mid-air. The room paused a beat as everyone gawped, not quite believing their eyes. All apart from Amelina who was choking with laughter, biting hard on her thumb.

  Mr. Isaacs decided to not press charges, mostly because of potential costs and the emotional strain involved. He was perplexed at the embellished tale being told about the haunting of his business.

  “I didn’t think upstairs had a draught problem. Maybe we don’t notice it?”

  “I never noticed a draught. It was weird, but-” Amelina shrugged, “just adds to the character of the place.”

  Mr. Isaacs nodded and smiled a little. The shop door crashed open with a clang of bells and a gaggle of students spilled in, each with a large rucksack. They held a quick, whispered conversation before a lanky, young black woman with dreadlocks stepped forward and cleared her throat.

  “Is this the haunted bookstore?” she asked. Amelina and Mr. Isaacs shared a look and a hopeful smile picked at the corner of his lips.

  “So I’ve been told, yes. How can I help?”

  “We’re from the Paranormal Investigators Society up at the uni. We’d like permission to sweep for this ghost, please. Won’t get in your customers’ way or anything.”

  “Well, I don’t see why not. Amelina, please will you watch the till while I show our guests upstairs? Thank you.” Mr. Isaacs straightened his bowtie and began an impromptu history of the store, the group of investigators taking notes.

  “What the actual fudge?” Mx. Smith poked the top of their head through the ceiling.

  “I may have accidentally uploaded all the CCTV footage to Youtube and Twitter. Don’t you see? If we can spread the word we might be able to get more customers in, stay open, and you won’t have to spend eternity in fancy flats, looking at naked people.”

  “Amelina, that’s bonkers but may just work. Seems I have an audience to baffle and intrigue.” Mx. Smith slid back through the ceiling, looking a little excited at the prospect of having a whole new audience to interact with. Amelina grinned and looked out the long shop front window, at the gathering storm clouds full of purifying, cold, clear rain.

  Five Hundred and Seventy-Seven Miles

  The climbing roses are dying. They are all faded shades of red and pink that will wither to grey before too long. As I pass through the kitchen with my garden shears, gloves and sun hat, I catch a glimpse of the calendar on the wall. I pause. Has it really been ten years?

  I continue on to the garden. These roses were labelled as “hardy,” able to survive winter frosts and we’re barely out of September. I cut through brittle stems with a dry crunch with the first pass of the shears.

  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been in Germany for ten years now. I won’t wonder what would have happened if we stayed: that’s what brought us to Germany in the first place.

  There’s the pop of asphalt as my husband brings the car up the drive. The engine idles for a few moments before falling silent. My shears go snick, snick. The cloy smell of decay is heavy in the air. Ten years and we’ve never phoned home once; no Christmas cards or birthday presents. I stop cutting and my heart squeezes inside my chest. We are such monsters.

  My husband rounds the house and plants a kiss on my cheek.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, the smile fading from his lips.

  “It’s been ten years,” I whisper, resting the shears point-first on the ground.

  “What?”

  “Melly.” I hoist the shears up, hack at the dried rose bush with vigour. Tears are hot behind my eyes and it’s all I can do to not wilt. All he can do is sigh and fold his arms. He passes in to the house and I hear the door to the living room slam shut.

  Melly will be twenty-eight by now. I did look her up on Facebook. Her profile picture shows her cheek to cheek with her girlfriend and she’s all smiles. I didn’t send her a friend request. I think she still lives in the same house and I like to imagine that s
he’s made it her own.

  I’ve had to cut the rose bush down to the bare minimum. The ground is carpeted with dead roses, twigs and slimy leaves that would have turned to mould. It had been such a pretty rose bush and now it’s fallen to ruin. I can hear the hiss and crackle of the television as he channel surfs and a little part of me wishes he would just drop dead.

  I can’t remember whose idea it was in the first place. Let’s see what happens if we leave Melly and start life anew. It was decided that we would leave on the eve of her eighteenth birthday, so that when she awoke she would be a legal adult.

  We are such monsters.

  *

  It begins to rain as I duck into the coffee shop. The water streaks down the windows and blurs the outside traffic to dull patches of colour. I’m a few minutes early according to the clock behind the counter, but he’s here all the same. He’s sat in the corner with a paper folded over his knee. The smell of coffee is rich and delicious in the air; there is low chatter from the other customers. It is cosy in here. I order an overpriced hot chocolate with whipped cream, and approach Daniel.

  “Mel, good afternoon.” He finishes his article and puts the paper down on the table. He motions for me to sit and I do, shrugging out of my coat. My glasses are steaming up and I rub them on my sleeve to smear them into some sort of semblance of clean. My drink arrives and I begin to spoon off the cream.

  “Daniel, I didn’t think you liked public appearances.” I peer at him through streaky lenses and give a smile.

  “Well, we can’t all hide away forever, can we?” He gives me a small, almost sad smile in return, and picks up his briefcase and flicks the clips open. I raise an eyebrow.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “See for yourself.” He takes out a manila folder and slides it over the table. I look at it, a lump pushing up from my stomach and lodging itself in my throat. I draw in a shallow breath. My heart starts to pump faster and I don’t want to believe what Daniel has found.

  I flick open the folder, close my eyes.