by Raven Snow
Chapter Twelve
There was a lot that happened and it all happened fast. Lady hadn’t listened to Crispin’s warning to stay clear of the ghostly figure so much as she had fallen backward onto her butt. She sat there in the dirt, frozen and useless. The survival part of her brain didn’t know what to do. Stay very still? Sure, why not? It wasn’t what Crispin had suggested, but it was what was happening. Lady’s entire body had locked up. Even with her mouth open, she couldn’t seem to make a sound.
The humanoid figure stayed right where it was, boots hovering inches above the ground, staring down at Lady with hollow eyes. It looked so very much like Otsuya, but it couldn’t be, could it? That was impossible… Then again, this was Dark Lake.
Suddenly, there was a hand on Lady’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here.” Lady wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or Otsuya. Either way, her eyes snapped to him. They took on a little more depth then, became less hollow and more… soulful, familiar.
A voice whispered through the trees. Lady felt it more than she heard it, and she wasn’t at all sure what it was saying. A name, perhaps? She looked around, trying to determine where it had come from. All around them, it felt like. When she faced forward once more, Otsuya was gone.
“Come on.” Crispin was pulling at Lady’s shoulder with urgency. “We need to get out of here. They’ll have definitely heard that inside.”
“What the heck just happened?” Lady stayed planted where she was. She wasn’t sure she could move even if she wanted to. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest, she thought for certain it would burst out.
“We need to get Dom.” Crispin pulled at Lady again.
That time, Lady listened. She scrambled to her feet. “If everyone at the house heard—whatever that was—shouldn’t we wait for him at the car?”
Crispin glanced back in the direction they had come from, back toward the gate. He winced. “That would probably be the smarter thing to do, but…”
Lady nodded. “We need to go make sure Dom gets out okay. Got it.” The Antonie family catching them skulking about wasn’t the biggest risk. There was something else in these woods, something other than even Otsuya.
Crispin could move fast when he needed to. With the aid of both penlights, they made good time through the woods. They were paying less mind to the sticks and underbrush that cracked underfoot. That was the least of their concerns at the moment.
As Crispin had guessed, it looked as though the lights in the house were on. More than that, someone was standing at the front door. “Crispin,” Lady hissed. She grabbed him by the arm before he could go around the house.
“Dom is around the side of the house.”
“I know that, but look.” Lady pointed at what she had seen. There was the dark shape of a man standing at the front door. As they stood there and watched, he reached out and banged the knocker. “I guess he decided not to leave after all.”
“Who?”
Lady chewed on her bottom lip. The skin was dry there, chapped from the cool night air and all her running. There was only one person she could think of that it would be. She pulled her cell phone from the back pocket of her skinny jeans.
“What time is it?” asked Crispin, glancing over at the face of Lady’s cell phone. “It’s late. And it’s just the three of them there, right? Shannon and her daughters? They’ll never open their door.”
Lady found the number she was looking for in her contacts and made the call. There was a good chance she was making a huge mistake. She followed through with it anyway.
“What are you doing?” asked Crispin, watching as Lady brought the phone to her ear.
“Hello?” answered Shannon, sounding every bit as confused as Crispin.
“Hey. Sorry to call you so late,” Lady said into the receiver.
“It’s all right.” The sigh of relief Shannon breathed made it sound like it really was. Granted, the confusion bled right back into her tone with the next words she said. “Why are you calling so late?”
“I’m actually in your yard right now.” Lady ignored the wide-eyed look Crispin gave her. “I’m looking at a man standing in front of your door. I think I know him.” There wasn’t a response on the other end of the line. “Maybe you should let all of us in. I think, maybe, we can figure out what’s going on together.” Again, there was silence. “Unless you know something that I don’t.”
When Shannon didn’t say anything, Lady was afraid that she wouldn’t. She was afraid that the next step would be to call the police. That certainly seemed like a likely possibility. “All right,” Shannon said finally. “All right. I’ll open the door.”
Lady hung up the phone and turned to Crispin. “We’re going in.” She realized it was probably unfair to automatically include him. “Well, I’m going in. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can go get Dom and the two of you can leave. I realize I kinda made this move without consulting you.”
Crispin’s shoulder sagged a little. “No, I’ll come with you. You sure seem to think you know what you’re doing.”
“Thanks.” Lady forced a smile in his direction. She hadn’t wanted to go alone. She would have, though reluctantly. “So, Otsuya is a ghost, huh?”
“Um.”
“Don’t answer that. Let’s just get inside first.” Lady walked out of the tree line. She raised a hand to hail Doyle as he turned toward the sound of her approaching. “Hey there! I thought it was you.”
The usual frown on Doyle’s face deepened into a scowl. He regarded her down the length of his nose, his eyes glinting in the moonlight as he looked her up and down. “I thought that was you on the phone,” he said with a sigh. “I considered leaving. Perhaps I still should.”
The front door opened, drawing Doyle’s attention. Shannon stood framed in the yellow light of the doorway. Her hair was in rollers and a plush pink robe was fastened tight around her nightgown. She swallowed thickly before speaking. “It’s, ah, a little late for visitors.”
Doyle was quick to turn his scowl into a surprisingly charming smile. He reached to his breast pocket and produced what looked to be a business card with a flick of his wrist. “Doyle Bathery,” he said, like he was only reminding her of the name. “I’ve tried speaking with you a few times before.”
Again, Shannon swallowed. She took the card from Doyle but didn’t meet his gaze. “I know who you are. I’m not interested in doing business with you.”
The smile on Doyle’s face never wavered. He clearly wasn’t someone content to take “no” for an answer. “Why don’t we sit down for a bit and talk this through?”
“I think that would be a good idea,” said Lady, before Shannon could refuse Doyle again. “Sorry,” she added. “I’ll, um, take full responsibility if things go… sideways.” She wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but it sounded responsible.
It took several long seconds for Shannon to step to one side of the door. She opened it a bit wider, allowing everyone inside. Thankfully, she didn’t stop to ask Lady and Crispin why they were there so late as well. Maybe she thought they had arrived with Doyle. That might be just as bad, if not worse.
“Was it that guy?” asked a familiar voice from the stairs.
“What did he say?” asked a second familiar voice.
Lady looked up to see Adora and Fabia on the landing. They looked much as they had earlier in the day. One had a silk scarf around her head. The other had some kind of gray mask dried to her face.
“You didn’t let him in, did you?!”
Lady wasn’t sure which of the girls had shouted that last part. Not that it really mattered. “I would appreciate it if you two would join me down here for a moment!” Shannon called back, her tone ever so slightly strangled. The girls began to voice what Lady guessed was a shrill protest. Shannon cut them off. “Now, girls.” She looked back at her guests with a strained smile. “Right this way.” She walked across the foyer on soft, slippered feet. She stopped only once they had reached a sittin
g room.
“Such a lovely home you have here,” said Doyle, looking this way and that. His hands were clasped calmly behind his back. “They don’t make them like this anymore. Really, they don’t.”
“It certainly is old,” Shannon agreed. She motioned all around them. “Take a seat anywhere you like.”
Lady made a point to sit next to Crispin. Together, they took an antique love seat. Shannon chose a chair, leaving Doyle on a sofa all by himself. The girls entered a moment later. Shockingly, they hadn’t taken the time to bother with makeup. They had done as their mother had instructed and come down immediately. They hovered near the door, both looking terribly uncertain.
Doyle made a point to smile in the direction of the girls. He patted the sofa cushion to his right. “You’re welcome to join me. There’s plenty of room.”
“We’re fine,” muttered the girls, both of them.
Doyle turned to Lady next. “So what part do you have to play in this meeting of ours?” he asked through his smile. Lady could tell that he didn’t mean any bit of that smile. He was angry with her. She could tell from the way his eyes bored into her own. He would be telling Ms. Poole about this later. Lady wondered if Ms. Poole would be angry with her again. Or should she be the one angry with Ms. Poole? What exactly was the old lady condoning by giving a guy like Doyle a reliable place to stay? Then again, how much did she know about Doyle, really? Maybe this wasn’t as shady as it seemed.
Yeah right.
“Lady here was the one who convinced me to open the door,” Shannon explained. “Believe you me, I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Adora and Fabia shot Lady looks like she was a traitor. Lady ignored them. “I thought we all had a lot to talk about. Sitting down and getting it all out there felt like the most efficient way to resolve things.” To her own ears, Lady sounded like she knew what she was talking about. She sure hoped she did.
“Well, I do like things to be efficient.” Doyle reclined on the sofa. He raised a hand to Lady, sardonically motioning for her to proceed. “By all means…”
“So.” Lady said the word dramatically, divorced of its usual meaning, like a commencement. She steepled her fingers and looked to each person in the room in turn. “I think everyone in here knows something important. Together, I think we have all the pieces to a pretty important puzzle.”
Either Adora or Fabia raised her hand. “I don’t know anything,” she said when Lady turned to her.
“I don’t either,” her sister agreed.
“Almost everyone.” Lady amended.
“What puzzle are we talking about?” asked Shannon. Her hands were folded in her lap. She was fidgeting with them.
Lady was about to say that they were talking about who murdered Lucette Antonie, but it was more than that she realized. There were bigger questions at play. “Otsuya is dead, isn’t she?”
Shannon looked at Crispin. Crispin looked at the ground. “I thought you knew,” said Shannon upon looking back to Lady. She spread her hands helplessly.
“How was I supposed to know?” Lady fought the urge to raise her voice. Doing so wouldn’t help anything. “Since when is anything about ghosts common knowledge?”
Shannon raised her shoulders in another helpless gesture. “I thought you did. You live with her. You’re friends with Crispin, and I know those two have always gotten on very well.”
“You knew from the start?” Lady looked to Crispin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you!” Crispin had said that before, but he sounded more defensive this time. “And it wasn’t. That’s… personal, isn’t it?”
Lady wasn’t sure if it was or not. She hadn’t met any ghosts before. At least, if she had she hadn’t realized they were ghosts at the time. Apparently, ghosts looked and acted just like everyone else.
“I didn’t think it had anything to do with all this,” Crispin continued. “I’m still not sure how it fits in with all this. I really didn’t expect to see her here tonight. Though…” Crispin trailed off, and Lady thought she knew what he was thinking about when he did so. He was picturing the old photo Lady had found. He might know Otsuya was a ghost, but he hadn’t known about that. He hadn’t known who she had been.
“We should really have Ms. Comfrey over for this,” said Shannon suddenly. She moved to the edge of her chair as if to rise. “She knows much more about the minutia of it than I do—or anyone else in this room, for that matter.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Doyle. “There’s no need to bother her at this hour.”
“What does Ms. Comfrey have to do with it?” Lady asked Shannon. She tried her best to ignore Doyle. As far as she was concerned, he was being very rude. Not that she had ever had much fondness for the guy.
“Ghosts,” said Shannon. “It’s part of her gift.”
“I thought her gift was life.” Lady still didn’t understand how “gifts” worked. She knew that some witches had a specialty. She wasn’t sure what her own was yet or even that she had one.
“It is. That’s part of it.” One of Shannon’s hands went up to her mouth and fluttered there, considering. “I’m not sure if it’s my place to explain what it is that she does.”
Doyle had no such reservations explaining Ms. Comfrey’s gifts to Lady. “She can make the incorporeal corporeal again… in a sense. Think of it like a skin graft for the soul.”
Lady wasn’t sure she completely understood. “So, what? She’s like a zombie?”
“Oh, heavens no!” Shannon exclaimed.
Lady recalled the time she had injured her hand. Ms. Comfrey had affixed some sort of second skin over that while it was healing. It had looked and felt like real skin, even though underneath she had been injured. “Where does she get the skin from?”
“Let’s not talk about Ms. Comfrey while she isn’t here, hmm?” Shannon’s voice had grown mildly manic. She was still sitting at the edge of her chair. “What does Otsuya have to do with any of this?”
“A lot, I think.” Lady reached into her back pocket and removed the stack of photos. It wouldn’t look good that she had taken them, but she didn’t see any other way around it. “I haven’t really gotten a chance to look into this yet. I was hoping you would know more than I do.” She stood and crossed the room to Shannon. She handed her the pictures. “These are from back when this place was a school.”
“I can see that. Where did you get them?”
“I found them while I was cleaning out Ms. Poole’s storage room,” Lady lied, thankful Shannon hadn’t been immediately suspicious.
“Hmm.” Shannon patted down her collar until she located a pair of reading glasses on a chain. She sat them on the end of her nose and peered down at the picture thoughtfully. “What year is this? I wonder if it was before my time. No, no. I think this was after. Goodness, this had to have been taken right when the school was about to close. That’s—Oh! That’s Otsuya there, isn’t it?”
“Did you know her when she was alive?” asked Lady.
Shannon stared at the photo a little longer, lost in her own thoughts. Finally, she shook her head. “No. I wasn’t in Dark Lake when the school closed. I wasn’t very happy with mother back then. I’m afraid I didn’t know Otsuya when she was alive.”
“But did you ever hear about her?” pressed Lady, hopeful for answers of some sort. “Do you know how she died?”
Shannon shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not.”
“Wait, so… All this time you’ve known she was a ghost and you never knew how she died?”
Shannon looked across the room to Crispin. He shook his head as well. “Sorry,” he told Lady. “That also seemed… pretty personal.”
Lady wondered how she would feel about people discussing her cause of death if she was a ghost. She liked to think she would feel fairly ambivalent about it, but she supposed that depended heavily on how she had died. Lady looked to Doyle. “I bet you know how she died.” She had no evidence to supp
ort that assumption, but she felt secure in the knowledge anyway.
The corner of Doyle’s mouth lifted slightly. He was still smiling, but the expression was mirthless. He was losing patience with Lady, it seemed. “I do,” he said.
“And?” Lady motioned for him to continue. “It’s connected to the deal you have to offer the Antonie family, right? Why don’t you go ahead and make your sales pitch?”
Doyle raised an eyebrow. It seemed as though he might not answer, but at last he did. “I was hoping to have a private meeting, but I suppose this will have to do.”
“It will,” Shannon said with a nod. Obviously, she still had no desire to be alone with Doyle.
“Otsuya is a client of mine,” began Doyle. “She went to school here before your mother closed it down. She had certain talents that weren’t… appreciated back home. That’s why she saved up her money and came out here. Of course… when the school closed, she had nowhere to live. She had no money to live off of and had difficulty finding herself a job, as you can well imagine. That’s when she made herself a deal with me.”
“What kind of deal did she make with you?” Shannon asked slowly.
“She wanted to research the town more. She wanted to study the creatures here and have the means to do it.”
“And what happened then?” prompted Shannon.
“Eventually, her mother convinced her to come back home. Her father felt differently. From what I hear, it didn’t really work out. News of Otsuya’s untimely death reached me not long after that.”
“What about your deal?” asked Shannon, still on the edge of her chair. “You promised her the ability to research the town.”
“And she has ample opportunity to do that now, doesn’t she?”
“You tricked her,” spat Shannon. “And no doubt you want to do the same to me. What does this even have to do with my family?”
“None of this would have been necessary had your mother not closed the school down.”
“But she wasn’t responsible for the displacement of the students.” Shannon glanced nervously in Lady’s direction. “I’m sorry, but she wasn’t.”
