The Haunting of Riley Watson

by Alexandria Clarke

Riley stayed on the slopes all day, long past the point of exhaustion. By her final run at dusk, when the ski lift powered down for the night, her usual swagger was gone. She lazily coasted down the mountain, curving wide paths to delay her eventual return to the lodge. Most everyone else had already gone in, the sun no longer bright enough to warm them. When Riley reached the bottom, she unlatched her skies and stepped out of them. Her legs wobbled beneath her, but she lifted the skis to her shoulder and marched off to return them to White Oak’s rental shop.

  “Still here?” Jazmin knelt next to the cozy armchair I’d dragged over to the lookout earlier in the day to keep an eye on Riley. “I thought you’d have gone up to the room by now.” She caught sight of Riley at the bottom of the slope. “Ah, I get it now.”

  “She’s been avoiding me all day,” I said.

  Jazmin patted my arm. “She’s got a lot to process.”

  “Mm-hmm. We need to talk. All of us.” I uncurled my legs from where they were folded beneath me. “Can you grab Riley when she comes in? She might be more willing to listen to you.”

  A few minutes later, Jazmin met Riley at the lobby doors, draped a casual arm across her shoulders, and led her toward the elevators. When I dropped into step beside them, Riley quickened her pace, forcing Jazmin along.

  “You know we’re all going the same place, right?” I reminded Riley. She winced with every step, the long hours on the slopes catching up with her. Tomorrow, she was going to feel like she got hit by a truck. “You can’t run from me. What happened to your hands?”

  Dried blood coated her skin. She rubbed it off. “A blister popped an hour ago.”

  “And you didn’t think to see first aid?”

  Riley shrugged. “It’s just a blister.”

  “I ordered room service,” Jazmin announced as the three of us stepped into the elevator. She was good at breaking up the awkwardness. “I hope everyone likes teriyaki salmon.”

  It was Riley’s favorite, but once in the suite, she turned up her nose at the hot meal and stomped off to take a shower instead.

  “This is ridiculous,” I muttered. “We can’t be like this. Riley needs to cooperate.”

  “Ignore her. She needs time to process.” Jazmin popped the lid off one of the room service platters, revealing a perfectly crisped slice of salmon on a bed of spinach and orzo. “Plus after all day outside, she’s due for a shower. Open the wine, would you?”

  The salmon was so delicious that I considered eating Riley’s portion too, but she eventually came out to claim her dish. When she tried to carry it off to her room, Jazmin raised her voice.

  “I don’t think so, young lady,” she said, snapping her fingers at Riley. “You’re going to eat right here at the table like the rest of us.”

  “You’re not my mom,” Riley declared.

  “No, but we’re the best you have right now,” Jazmin countered. “And we have things to discuss. Take a seat, slick.”

  Jazmin had two modes. Mostly, she nursed an eternal good mood, light and carefree, accommodating toward everyone, but on rare occasion, she employed a tone of voice that very deliberately said, “Don’t even try to mess with me.” I was familiar with that tone. Jazmin used it on me every time I got ahead of myself, whether it was with Madame Lucia’s web show or some other crazy idea I had. But Riley wasn’t familiar with Jazmin’s stern face, so the severity of the order caused her to hesitate.

  “Right now,” Jazmin said.

  Riley sat, plunking her plate next to mine. She pressed the flat of her fork at an angle across the top of the salmon and pushed so that all the layers separated themselves from each other.

  “I don’t suppose I can have a glass of wine,” she remarked.

  I handed her mine. She eyed me with suspicion before taking a sip.

  “Gross,” she said, pushing it away. “I hate red. You’re supposed to drink white with fish.”

  “You’re twelve,” I reminded her. It was low-hanging fruit. I knew Riley hated to be reminded of how young she was. “What do you know about wine?”

  “Apparently more than you if you’re drinking red with fish.”

  “I picked the wine,” Jazmin chimed in. “Now shut up, both of you. We have things to talk about. What did the cops share with you?”

  “They didn’t tell me squat,” I said. “But they tried mighty hard to convince me to go to therapy.”

  Riley snorted into her orzo.

  “Something to say?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Riley,” Jazmin said, diamond-sharp again. “Did they tell you anything about what’s going on at King and Queens?”

  Riley spun wilted spinach around her fork. “Yeah, they did.”

  “And?”

  She rested her cheek in her palm, squishing her skin up to her eye. “They sent the fire department’s recovery crew out there, but there wasn’t much to recover. The fire burned the whole place down. They found two sets of remains.”

  “Shouldn’t there be three?” I asked. “Tyler, Daniel, and—”

  “My dad,” Riley finished. “Yeah, I asked the same thing. They found Tyler in the freezer and Daniel in the hallway. They don’t think Dad made it out alive though, especially after I told them about the ice pick. Their guess is he’s buried in the rubble somewhere.”

  I bristled. “They shouldn’t have dumped all that on you.”

  “Why not? I asked.”

  “It’s not appropriate for a kid.”

  “I wanted to know,” Riley said. “It was my right to know. Besides, I’m not upset. It’s actually kind of a relief.”

  Jazmin, who had been swirling her wine around in the glass, went still. “What is?”

  “King and Queens is gone,” Riley said. “All of it. That includes the old wing. No more old wing, no more ghosts, right?”

  Jazmin’s eyes met mine over the table. I shook my head.

  “Did they tell you what’s going to happen to you now?” Jazmin asked.

  “Yeah, kind of,” she said. “Foster care, right? Sounds like a blast. They aren’t going to enter me into the system until they clean up the mess at King and Queens though, so I have some freedom to kill.” She finished off the last bite of salmon and shoved the orzo off to the side of the plate. “Can I go now? I told you everything they told me. I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”

  “Yeah, go,” I said.

  She didn’t need me to tell her twice. Her damp hair whipped around as she left the table, showering me with lemon-scented droplets. As she disappeared into her room, I refilled my glass of wine to the top.

  Jazmin reached across the table to clutch my hand. “She’ll get over it. Don’t worry.”

  “It’s not her I’m worried about.”

  I slept in the next day and still woke up groggy and disoriented. Like yesterday, the sun hit me like a punch in the face, searing my eyelids and casting a hot glow across my skin. My ever-present nausea roared its ugly head again. I drew the blinds shut and pulled the covers over my head, letting the cool sheets soothe my flushed skin. Was I getting sick? Had I come down with the flu what with all the wet, cold weather and horrible stress? Or was it something else?

  The suite was serene. Neither Jazmin nor Riley bustled about in the kitchen. Both bathrooms were quiet. No water ran to indicate that someone was in the shower or bath. I checked the alarm clock. It was eleven a.m. By now, both of my roommates were likely dressed and ready for lunch, whereas I was ready for a hot bath and another nap to take me under. I dragged myself out of bed and into the adjacent bathroom, where I filled the Jacuzzi tub with hot water and enough bubble bath to wash a horse, then slipped into the searing mixture. It helped with the nausea but not the stress. I sank deeper, letting the water fill my ears, then submerged myself completely, eyes squeezed shut to keep the suds out. I wished I could stay there forever, where the noise of the outside world was dampened by the weight of the water, and nothing existed except for me and my body.

  “Trying to drown
yourself?” a sardonic voice, clear as day, asked.

  I made the mistake of gasping and inhaled a mouthful of bubbly hot bathwater. I lurched upward, splashing water like a tidal wave across the bathroom floor as I cleared the surface and hacked liquid from my lungs. Stella, still wearing that red ball gown, perched on the closed toilet, one limber leg crossed delicately over the other. She picked up her heels as the pink sudsy water rushed across the floor toward her, as if she didn’t want to ruin her nonexistent shoes.

  “My, my,” she said. “Aren’t we a sight for sore eyes?”

  I covered myself with my hands, using the wall of the bathtub to shield the rest of myself from Stella’s view. “Do you mind?”

  “Oh, please. I’m dead. What is modesty?”

  “Of vital importance when you only have a shred of it left,” I barked back. “Turn around.”

  Even sitting on a toilet, she managed to look regal as she twisted around to give me some privacy. I stepped out of the tub, pulled on a White Oak robe, and squeezed the excess water out of my hair. Then I wobbled and nearly fell over as the headache hit me again. I plopped down on the edge of the bathtub.

  “God, I feel like I got hammered last night,” I said. The pattern of teal tiles swam below me. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

  Stella swept the train of her dress to the opposite side. “Many things, I’d imagine, but let’s start with the obvious. You reek of despair. Why the stench? The majority of your problems have been, well, extinguished.”

  I rolled my eyes at the awful pun. “You were the one who told me my problems followed me to White Oak. Then again, right now, it feels like you are the problem.”

  Stella tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Your problem is your past, which both Odette and I have been trying to tell you since you first shared blood with us.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’m screwed up. I get it.”

  “Put out the self-pity,” she sneered. “It tastes like cheap champagne. All of this post-traumatic crap is nonsense. Pull yourself together, woman. You have a mission here.”

  “So you keep saying. What do you want me to do, Stella?” I asked. “Oliver Watson died in that fire. He won’t be able to hurt anyone else.”

  “I’m not talking about Oliver Watson.”

  “Then what? Give me something to go on.”

  Stella’s heels clicked as she strolled across the tile floor. The tip of her finger lifted my chin. Not physically. She wasn’t that powerful, but her shimmering energy coaxed my face up to look at her.

  “Do something,” Stella said. “I don’t care what, but don’t sit here and fulfill the prophecy your mother made for you. Make yourself a real woman.”

  “I have no idea what that means.”

  She pursed her cherry-colored lips. “Then I can’t help you.”

  She vanished, one second there and gone the next. I shuddered. The temperature in the bathroom had dropped with her there. Ghosts seemed to suck all the warmth out of the air, with their attitudes and energies.

  It was always the same crap. A spirit comes along and demands results without specifically stating what those results are meant to be. Odette was the same way, but at least she had a reason for being coy. If she revealed too much to me, the other spirits at King and Queens—the less innocent ones—punished her by making her feel the pain of her death over and over. Stella, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be likewise afflicted. If she wanted, she could hand me the answers to whatever supposed trouble was heading our way. Instead, she expected me to figure it out all by myself, and I sure wasn’t in the mood to do so. However, I had to do something other than lie about in the hotel room all day, waiting for the cops to tell us how to proceed. So I called Earl.

  Earl was less conspicuous in a worn, forest-green sweater and tan pants than he had been the day before in his suit. He waited for me in the lobby, peering out at the mountain-goers through the lookout. I watched him from a distance, trying to get a read on what it might be like to sit across from him and tell him about my problems. I noticed his hair was not actually white, but rather the fairest of blond. He had a good head of it for his age, and his limber figure spoke of regular exercise. He noticed me long before I expected him to, as if he sensed me approaching him, and turned to greet me.

  “Good morning.” He checked his watch. “Actually, good afternoon. I’m glad you called. I didn’t think you would.”

  “Neither did I,” I said. “To be clear, I don’t think I need a psychiatrist. I don’t want any medication or anything like that. My dad was worse when they made him take pills.”

  “Let’s not talk about that just yet.” Earl plucked white dog fur from the front of his sweater and grimaced. “Hazards of keeping a big ol’ beast at home, but what can I say? My son convinced me. Shall we go somewhere private?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Right. Then how about a coffee?”

  We ended up at the Slopes Café. Earl insisted on paying for my latte and blueberry scone even though my stay at White Oak was entirely complimentary. I didn’t argue with him. He came off as the type of person who could win a courtesy war with nothing more than a smile. We snatched up a free table in the center of the room, right next to where the café line formed. People continually brushed against our shoulders as they came in from the snow and stood around wondering what to order. It was a welcome distraction from the conversation at hand.

  Earl drank Earl Gray tea. Go figure.

  “What’s your last name?” I asked him.

  “Is that important to you?”

  “I just find it odd that the police officers only referred to you as Earl yesterday,” I mentioned as I broke the scone into chunks and dropped them one by one into my coffee to marinate. “It’s a casual question of legitimacy.”

  “I use my first name only because it helps my clients feel more at ease,” he said. “It’s a question of familiarity rather than legitimacy, and it helps foster a less stressful association with the notion of therapy. Most people—even the ones who admit they need help— aren’t keen on sharing their darkest secrets with anyone, let alone a perfect stranger. For instance, how long did it take you to pick up the phone and call me?”

  Instead of replying, I fished a lump of soggy scone out of my coffee and jammed it into my mouth. Earl smiled knowingly.

  “Why don’t we cut the crap?” he said, crossing one leg over the other and cupping his knee with intertwined fingers. “Both of us know you didn’t call me up to have coffee, so let’s get right to it. What’s bothering you? Other than the obvious.”

  His straightforward approach worked for me. No beating around the bush. No senseless reassurance that felt empty and useless anyway. He asked a question and expected an answer. That was it.

  “Everything,” I said truthfully. “Even before I came to King and Queens, everything was all screwed up.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Earl said.

  I wasn’t paying Earl for his time—this session was “off the books” as he put it—but he listened to me yammer on and on about my family and my life and my lack of professional employment for a good hour before he checked his watch again.

  “Do you have to go?” I said, catching him in the act. All that was left of my latte and scone combo were a few soggy blueberries at the bottom of the mug. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

  “Not at all,” Earl said. “I have another client to get to, but I think you and I have made excellent progress. I know a little more about you now, and we can keep going from here.” He extricated a business card from his pocket. “If you’d like to keep going, that is.”

  I examined the card. “No way. Earl Gray is not your real name, is it?”

  “Why do you think I ordered the tea?” He smirked as he pulled on his long, gray overcoat. “Listen to me, Lucia. You are not broken. No one is. You are the way that you are because you learned to be that way from other people. When you look at yourself, you see the negative traits you inh
erited from your mother and father, but you ignore the positive characteristics that you picked up from other people, like your best friend and Riley. Because of that, I have homework for you.”

  “Psychiatrists assign homework?”

  “We do indeed.”

  “Fine, hit me with it.”

  Earl buttoned his coat. “I want you to look at yourself from someone else’s perspective. Someone who knows and loves you well. My suggestion is to pick Jazmin. It seems you and her have quite the bond, and she likely knows your attributes as well as your flaws. Ask her to describe you and see what she says. You might be surprised by what you hear.”

  “Jazmin’s my best friend,” I said. “She’s obligated to say nice things about me.”

  “Miss Star, if you believe the key to friendship is obstructing honesty, then I fear for all of your personal relationships,” Earl replied.

  “That doesn’t seem very therapeutic of you.”

  “I’m more than my profession,” he said. “And I won’t pussyfoot around a subject that clearly needs to be addressed. Until next time, Miss Star?”

  “I suppose so.”

  He waved goodbye and left, ducking underneath the door frame to avoid banging the top of his head. I wondered what kind of life his son had. I wondered about fathers in general because mine had been such a screw-up. I imagined Earl tossing a football around with a miniature version of himself. It was a pleasant thought, so I ordered another coffee and entertained myself by making up an entire life story for the psychiatrist. Whether it was accurate or not, I never intended to find out. As I muddled my mushy blueberries, a pair of purple heeled booties, totally inappropriate for the weather, approached my table.

  “What on earth were you doing with that man?”

  The voice was too familiar. I’d grown up with that drawn-out screech, faint Latin accent, and tone of immediate disapproval. With growing terror, I followed the boots up to the face.

  “Mom?” I uttered in disbelief.

  There she was, Eliana Star, in all her horrifying glory. Even wearing heels, she barely topped five feet, but the sheer volume of her blonde hair—which took hours in a salon chair to achieve—gave her a couple extra inches. My mother had a nose like a rat, pointed toward whatever business wasn’t hers, a trait I thankfully had not inherited from her. We hadn’t seen each other in a number of years. We weren’t exactly on non-speaking terms, but I wasn’t interested in her life and she wasn’t interested in mine. There wasn’t much of a point in pretending otherwise.