by Tegan Maher
“I doubt it.” She set her box down and gathered a handful of paper from the floor. “Scout’s no slouch, and the kids know he’s the one keeping the place up. Most of them wouldn’t do anything like that just out of respect for him, but the few that would are too scared of him to try it.”
I pulled in a deep breath and released it, then joined her in picking up the mess. “Regardless of how it happened, the result is the same. We’ll just clean it up and move on.”
It only took a few minutes to get the living room back in order, but it was obvious we were going to need a construction dumpster. I said as much and she laughed.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said. “Bless your heart. This is Mercy, remember? If you wanna haul off lots of garbage, you’re on your own unless you can put it in a can and take it down to the end of the drive, where the county will pick it up. I think they charge extra if you have extra cans, though, and there are some things they won’t take. You have to haul it to the dump unless you’re a construction company and happen to own a couple.”
Peachy. “So how far is the dump, and how much does it cost?”
She waved a hand. “It’s only a few miles, and it doesn’t cost anything. But really, for what we’re doing now, it would be easiest to get another can and just set them at the end of the road for the garbage guys.”
“The garbage guys it is, then. I think there are two more cans out there, so we should be set.” Since the one was full of wallpaper, we dragged it outside and brought an empty one in, setting it down in the doorway to the kitchen. I flipped on the light and stopped in my tracks after I’d taken several steps into the room.
The slate-colored marble on the counters and center aisle had about an inch of dust on them, but right square in the middle of the aisle, somebody had written in the dust.
Dee crept closer to get a look. She squinted, then chanced a glance at me. “Geloub?”
I scrunched my brow and studied the single word drawn in the dirt and tried to make heads or tails of it. I shrugged. “I have no clue.”
A put-upon sigh sounded from beside us, and we about jumped out of our skins.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. It says get out, you stupid twits.” A plump older woman in a faded floral housedress and hot pink galoshes was standing in the corner by the table, scowling at us. Or rather, a translucent spirit of a woman was hovering there, dressed for doing yard work. “This is my house, and I don’t want you in it.”
I stifled a squeal and jumped sideways into Dee, who wasn’t exactly stable herself. My eyes met hers, and I was sure the panic I saw there was reflected in my own. She dropped the box of supplies she was carrying, and we about ran each other over beating it out the front door.
I slammed it behind us with the same force a teenager in a snit would have given it, and we didn’t slow down until we were back in the truck, doors locked. We were both panting, and my heart was beating quadruple time.
“You saw that, right?” I asked, just to make sure.
“Yeahhhh, I saw it ... her,” she answered, her cheeks flushed.
“What the hell was it?” I demanded, majorly freaked out as I white-knuckled the steering wheel and peered out the window toward the lodge.
“How should I know?” she tossed back at me. “It’s your house.”
“But you’re from around here.” My heart was slowing and reason was returning. It occurred to me that this was just the icing on the cake. My marriage was over and I was working at a dive bar and living in a Podunk town where people murdered each other with rolling pins. The house that was supposed to be my dream escape and new beginning was a dumpster fire. Of course it was a haunted dumpster fire, because that was exactly how my luck was running.
I couldn’t help it—hysteria took over and I devolved into helpless laughter. It was either that or cry, and I’d done all of that I was going to do. It only took a couple heartbeats for Dee to follow suit.
“Your house ... ”—she motioned toward my possessed manor—“really is haunted—by a ... a bag lady!” Tears were coursing down her face, and she pulled a cleaning rag out of her pocket and wiped her eyes.
“I was just busting your chops that first day, but I was right,” she sniffled a few seconds later, then tried to get control of herself.
For my part, the laughter ran its course, but the more I thought about it, the madder I got. Dee regained control of her senses a little slower, but when she saw my mood had shifted, her expression changed from panicked mirth to concern.
“Toni? You okay?” Dee asked, then shook her head. “I mean, as okay as you could be, considering ...”
“No,” I said, slapping the steering wheel. “No, I’m not. Who does that old bat think she is?”
She looked at me like I’d gone completely round the bend as she struggled to find an answer to what was, to her, an irrational question.
“I don’t know,” she said when nothing better came to her.
I leaned forward and looked out the windshield toward the house, alert for any movement. I remembered the swaying curtains I’d seen the day before and a disconnected piece of my brain was relieved it wasn’t another yet-to-be-discovered nightmare repair causing it.
The longer I thought about it, the madder I got, until I shoved the door opened and jumped out of the truck. I’d already stalked a quarter of the way to the house before Dee chose to follow me back into the insanity rather than wait in the safety of the truck.
”What on earth are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” she asked, rushing to keep up. “An actual, honest-to-God ghost just told us to get out. I don’t know how many horror movies you’ve watched, but failing to follow that directive literally never ends well.”
I scowled and forged on, afraid to slow down lest I lose my head of steam. “Well good thing we’re not in a movie then. This is my damned house, and some old bitch in a gardening dress isn’t going to throw me out of it.”
I pushed the door open so hard it banged against the spring stopper behind it, and marched back into the lodge, determined to have it out then and there.
“Okay, you hateful old bat. Get out here right now. We’re gonna have us a sit-down, because this is my house.” My voice echoed back at me from the depths of the house, but the woman stayed hidden.
“I’m not kidding,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest and tapping my toe. “Show yourself right now, or I’ll find the closest thing to a priest in these parts and have the grandest exorcism you’ve ever seen. I’ll have you banished to a shaving-cream can.”
I was mostly talking out my butt because I had no idea if exorcisms were real, or whether they could actually lock a spirit into an object or not. I was a huge fan of witch cozies, though, so I had a lot of material to threaten her with. I figured if this was real, surely at least part of the stuff I’d read had some merit.
I waited a few more heartbeats. “What’s the matter? Chicken?” Most of my mad had worn off, and the silence was starting to get a little scary. I mean, what if she was some kind of demon or something, dressed as a little old lady?
Before I could lose my nerve, a shimmer appeared in the air a few feet from me, then took her shape. She was scowling at me over her wire-rimmed spectacles, her grey eyes snapping. Most of her scare factor, if you set aside the fact that she was dead, was nulled by the giant pink dahlia that was glued to the ribbon of her floppy hat. Combined with the fuchsia galoshes, it wasn’t exactly the stuff of nightmares.
“You sure got a mouth on you,” she said, crossing her arms to mirror my posture and drawing her brows down. Poor Dee, bless her heart, was staring in rapt attention, her gaze bouncing back and forth between us.
“And you’re awful bossy for a little old lady with no body,” I snapped back.
She raised a brow and examined me with a shrewd gaze. “You got backbone, though. Even if it is trumped by a lack of common sense.”
The conversation had turned surreal, but then again, so had the entire afternoon. It was time t
o hash this out.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Maisie,” she replied. “Maisie Briggs. I own this place.”
“No, Maisie,” I said, shaking my head, “you don’t. I own this place. You maybe used to own it, but now I do. So it seems we’re gonna have to have a meeting of the minds, here.”
“You ripped down my cabbage-rose wallpaper,” she said, glowering at me. “Do you have any idea how much I paid for that?”
“Whatever you paid, it was too much,” I snapped. “It was ugly.”
“It was the height of fashion when I hung it,” she said.
“Well it’s not today,” Dee said, finally finding her voice. “And it was peeling and stained.”
Maisie sighed and her shoulders slumped as all the hot air went out of her. “I know it was. It’s just hard seeing the place changing, and not having any say-so in it.”
It was an olive branch, and I reached for it. “Look, why don’t we sit down and hash this out? I’m sure we can come to some kind of an understanding that works for all of us.” I couldn’t believe those words even came out of my mouth, but my brain was already adjusting to my reality. Or maybe the shock just hadn’t set in yet. Whatever the reason, I couldn’t have a disgruntled ghost slinging trash around and writing messages in the dust.
Chapter 17
WE DRIFTED TO THE KITCHEN, where Dee and I took a seat.
Maisie floated to the end of the table. “I reckon I’ll go first,” she said. “My husband and I built this place, way back before Mercy was much of anything. We got the land for a steal, and he was a carpenter. He and his brothers built this place from the ground up. Even cut the lumber themselves.”
Her eyes drifted to someplace we couldn’t see, and she smiled. “Boy, was he ever a sight. Workin’ away at the house we were gonna raise our babies in. I knew then, I’d got me a good one.”
“So what happened?” Dee asked, elbow on the table and chin in hand.
Maisie lifted a shoulder. “We did just that. Raised four strappin’ sons and a beautiful baby girl.” A shadow crossed her face. “And we lost one a few days after he was born, but still, we were lucky compared to others.”
“Then what?” The house obviously hadn’t burned down, so it must have been some other tragedy that trapped her in the house.
“Then nothin’,” she said, adjusting her spectacles. “We lived long, happy lives. My Freddy passed a decade before I did, and I stayed on, helping my daughter Sarah raise her babies. My boys moved away, then Sarah’s boys did, too, and it was just us girls. Her husband passed, and she moved back in with me.”
“So why’d you stay around, then?” I asked.
“I don’t rightly know,” she said. “I was awful worried about Lizzie, Sarah’s grand-daughter. That girl had the worst luck with men, and she ended up movin’ in with us a couple years before I passed. She had two boys, and her husband left her for another woman.”
I did some mental math. “So those two boys are the ones I bought this place from?”
“I’d say so, yes. Assumin’ I didn’t lose track of a couple decades.”
“What were their names?” Dee asked.
“Oliver and Robert.”
I shook my head. “There was a couple listed as owners, not two guys, and the man’s name was Eugene.”
“Probably that fancy-pants couple that came in a few years back and tried the same nonsense you’re talkin’ about,” she said. “Except she had this cockamamie idea to go tearin’ down walls and makin’ it some sort of resort.” She shook her head. “Not on my watch. Freddy worked too hard puttin’ them walls up for me to let somebody tear them down.”
I hid a smile. “I take it your dust-messages from beyond worked better on them than it did on me?”
She snorted. “Shoot, all I had to do to them was flick the curtains a couple times and make some moaning noises the first time they slept here. They hightailed it out of here, and I haven’t seen them since. Didn’t even come back for the fancy kitchen stuff. Which brings us to the here and now,” she said, all business once again.
“Indeed,” I said. “I can tell you, I’m not leaving.”
“Neither am I,” Dee added. “We’re stuck with each other, so we better find a way to make it work. That fancy kitchen stuff is gonna get put to good use, and Toni needs a home.”
Maisie considered us, her gaze thoughtful. “What are you plannin’ to do to the house?”
I pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I don’t exactly know yet.”
“But she wants to restore it, not tear down walls and change it,” Dee added. Since that had been her main complaint about the former owners, it was a nice touch, and I agreed.
“I’ll probably bring the plumbing and wiring up to date, but I like the structure just the way it is,” I said.
She waved a hand. “I don’t care about the plumbing. That’s new, anyway. We didn’t have running water when we built it, though we added it quite a bit later. The bath at the end of the hall was originally a nursery, and Sarah added the ones between the bedrooms. Her husband was a gifted carpenter, too.”
“I’m changing the wallpaper,” I said. “I’m not a flowery type.”
“Oh,” Dee said. “I actually kinda like the blue paper in my room, as long as it cleans up.”
Maisie smiled and shimmered a little. “That was Lizzie’s room. She picked that paper when she moved back in here.”
I raised my brows at the absolute absurdity of the situation. “Okay, then. It’s your room. If you like it, then it’s your call.”
Our ghostly roommate turned back to me. “Lemme lay it out for you. I won’t cause a fuss as long as you don’t knock down any walls, don’t turn it into some type of hippie retreat, and you fix the fountain out front. Freddy worked an entire summer building it for me, and I want to cry every time I look out there and see it crumbling away to nothing. Oh, and bring my rose garden back.”
Dee and I looked at each other. “What rose garden?” she asked.
Maisie rolled her eyes. “Honesty. You buy a place and don’t even take the time to walk the grounds?”
I shifted my weight, a little ashamed to admit I hadn’t even bothered to walk around the house before I bought it.
She pointed toward the backyard. “I had a beautiful garden out there. Freddy mail-ordered me different breeds of roses from all over the world every year for my birthday. The roses are all still there, or most of them are, anyway, but it’s all overgrown.” She sighed. “We put so much work into laying the brick for the paths through it, and now it’s probably all ruined.”
The quiet stretched on for a few minutes. I had a ton of questions but wasn’t sure where to start. Dee beat me to it.
“Sooo,” she drawled, “I’m not sure what etiquette is on this, but how did you ... you know.”
Laughter danced in Maisie’s eyes. “Kick the bucket, you mean?”
We both nodded. I’d been wondering the same thing but hadn’t quite figured out how to ask.
Maisie waved a hand. “Nothin’ fancy or weird. I was prunin’ the roses I was just telling you about and had a heart attack.”
“That explains the dress, then,” I said.
She huffed a breath out through her nose. “Yeah, that explains the dress. Though to be fair, the only real difference is the galoshes. I spent most of my time out there when I got older and didn’t have anything better to do.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said, coming to a decision. “If you promise to cut us some slack, we’ll get that garden back in shape.”
“And the fountain?”
“I’d already planned to fix it, anyway,” I replied, “so ... we have a deal.”
“Now,” Dee said, raising a brow. “I have my first ever paid cake to bake, so if you’re finished writing in the dust in the kitchen, I’m gonna need to clean it.”
Maisie scowled at her. “Don’t get too big for your britches there, missy. It was my kitchen firs
t, and you wouldn’t have all that fancy-pants equipment if it weren’t for me.”
Convoluted logic, yet incontrovertible, and I suspected that was only the beginning. It looked like I had myself a haunted lodge.
Chapter 18
I PULLED INTO THE BAR just as Don was loading his fishing gear into his truck.
“Another day at the lake?” I asked, smiling.
Don nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You don’t know life until you’ve sat by a lake with your pole in the water and a cold one in your hand. It’s more relaxing and peaceful than any hoodoo meditation stuff I hear all those city people are into.”
I chuckled. I was sure all those city people, at least all the ones I knew, would have to disagree with him. The entire concept, from sitting in the dirt on a lake bank to actually touching a fish, would sound traumatic, not peaceful. “Well, I hope you find all the Zen your heart desires. And maybe, if you find enough, you can bring some back for me.”
He dipped his chin and smiled, then patted me on the back. “Will do. And thank you. The place was in great shape this morning, and the boys said you did a fine job.”
“Thanks!” I said, happy I’d made a good first impression. I paused at the door. “Don? What do you think happened to Fiona? The guys told me you’ve been here your whole life, so what’s your take?”
Don stopped what he was doing and looked at me like I’d told him the earth was flat or something. He shook his head. “I have been here my whole life, and it just so happens I was good friends with her in high school.” He smiled. “She wasn’t always so difficult. We lost touch when she moved away, though, and never really reconnected once she moved back.”
“So she didn’t always live here?” I asked.
“No,” he said, shoving his tackle box into the back of his truck. “She moved away before she finished high school and only came back about ten years ago or so. Why?”
I shrugged. “I guess I just figured she was someone who had spent her entire life here. So why’d they move away?”
