Holly, Curses, and Hauntings

by Jovee Winters

  This time I knew there’d be no stopping Jules. I felt him tear through the veil, and then all color leeched from Blue’s face.

  Standing beside me, panting like a bellows with thick trails of wet dripping from out of his fanged jowls was my shaggy black guardian with burning, demon-red eyes. His muzzle was curled back, exposing his canines, the fur at his nape was lifted, and every square inch of him vibrated with excitement.

  Although, judging by the way Blue suddenly stumbled-plopped halfway onto the chaise lounge, almost missing it entirely, I’d say she saw his excitement as less curiosity and more hungry.

  “Settle down, Juley,” I whispered, curling my fingers into his fur and patting it down. “We have a new friend. Her name is Blue Martin.”

  “B...Blue,” she mumbled with a soft shake of her head as the color suddenly flooded back through her again. “Just call me Blue. Why’s he drooling? Does he eat humans?” She cut her eyes to me just for a second as she asked her question, before returning her wide gaze back on Jules.

  I laughed. I knew she’d thought that. “No, it’s your sage. It’s irritating to ghosts. And Jules being in shifted form gets walloped worse than most.”

  She giggled, the sound high-pitched and shaky. “So that crazy crap does work then? Well, good to know. But Sunshine said it was supposed to clear our—”

  “No,” I shook my head. “Don’t let that faerie play you for a fool. They love to trick the humans. Smudging only works to cleanse the darkness from a home. And even then it’s only temporary. But Juley and I don’t mean you any harm. Do we Jules?” I ran my fingers through his stiff coat.

  He was now having another sneezing fit, head flinging back and forth as thick streaks of plasmic spittle shot out every which way.

  Blue grimaced when a glob of the glowing phosphorescent blue stuff landed right by her feet. Ghosts could get sick, oddly enough. You’d think death would cure a common cold, but no, the afterlife wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  “Well, that’s disgusting,” she whispered even as the plasmic glob began to dematerialize on the living side of the veil.

  The dead lands were typically pretty foul places, which was why most dead preferred to haunt the living lands. It was so much cleaner. It wasn’t like we had a mop and bucket at our disposal.

  She shuddered when it finally disappeared entirely.

  After ten massive sneezes, Jules finally settled down, but his curiosity over Blue hadn’t abated in the slightest. I felt him tense up and I knew he wanted to sniff her.

  “Jules is rather protective of me, you see. You’ve invaded his home. He wishes to ensure that you mean us no harm,” I said by way of asking.

  “Do what now?” she said. “Do you harm? You’re both dead. I’m pretty sure that’s imposs—”

  “You did smudge the snot out of him,” I said.

  Which stopped her words dead and she nodded. “Yeah, I guess I did do that. What does he want to do?”

  “Sniff you, mostly.”

  “Mostly?” She lifted her brows. “Human’s not on the menu with you guys, right?”

  “We’re ghosts, we don’t eat. Though I’d caution you against going into Vlad’s home. He’s been known to tap from the vein a time or a million.”

  Her brows furrowed as she scratched at her temple. I could see her relaxing again, reclining heavily against the chaise and looking at me with narrow-eyed shrewdness.

  “There is something really weird about this town. Do you know that I could swear I saw someone flying in the sky last night?”

  I thinned my lips. “You don’t say.”

  She mimicked my movement. “I do say. A ghost. A ghost dog. A figure in the sky riding a broom. A woman at a store who used a fairy wand to total up my bill. And now Vlad—which I can only assume is short for Vladimir and the only one I know who looked to tap the vein had a book based on him. If I was a betting woman I’d say I have somehow fallen down a rabbit hole.”

  I shrugged, studying my manicured nails. In death, as in life, I remained exactly as I’d been. A 1920’s stylized flapper, with elegantly trimmed nails, slick black curls, wearing long socks and a silk pink robe. I’d long since mourned the death of my vanity.

  In life I’d never have been caught in this getup outside of bedtime, but now I wore this bloody robe everywhere. Ah well, it could have been worse, I knew a fella in the dead realm who’d died with his breeches down around his ankles and his tallywacker flying free.

  “What’s your name, ghost?”

  “Annabelle Lee.”

  Her brows shot up nearly to her hairline. “Annabelle Lee. As in the Annabel Lee?” At my confused look she pressed on. “Quothe the raven nevermore? Edgar Allen Poe?”

  “Ah,” I said, smiling wide at the mention of the poet’s name. “I loved his words. In fact I was obsessed with him growing up as a young girl.”

  Memories long forgotten assailed me then. Me, as a child in the girl’s home, in the library of the orphanage reading over and over again the well-worn copy of some of Poe’s greatest works. In fact, I’d been so obsessed with him and his poems that I’d stopped using my given name and had begun calling myself by my favorite of all. I no longer remembered the name I’d been christened with, I’d always been Annabelle Lee so far as I could recall.

  I blinked back tears as the memories slowly faded from my mind, leaving me only with the feeling of warmth and safety I’d always felt whenever I thought of his classics.

  It was because of his poems that I’d pursued the stage.

  I’d forgotten all about that.

  I inhaled deeply as that warmth continued to travel all the way through me. How could I have ever forgotten something like that? I swallowed hard.

  When I glanced up at Blue’s wavering image, she was staring at me with open mouthed wonder.

  “Are you crying, Annabelle?”

  I touched my cold cheek and was shocked to feel the wetness of actual ghostly tears. “Why, I do believe I am, Blue. I’ll be.”

  Pulling my hand back, I gazed at the drops of wetness in wonder. I’d not felt this depth of emotion in so long I wasn’t quite sure how to handle myself. I cleared my throat, feeling queerly exposed and naked of a sudden.

  Jules whimpered, sensing my flood of emotion, and shoved his big head into my hands, demanding an ear rub. It wasn’t often he and I had a chance to interact physically anymore.

  Unlike me, Jules didn’t seem quite as able to control when he’d apparate. But he’d clearly done it just now. I wondered what that might mean, or if it even meant anything at all.

  “You’re a pretty doggy, aren’t you?” It was Blue crooning to Jules and not me speaking.

  Jules took a long, drawn-out breath, and I knew that he’d forgotten her presence because now he was back to whining and squirming with his need to sniff her.

  I looked to Blue for approval and she nodded.

  With one final pat to his broad head, I released him, and Jules moved with the exuberance of an excited puppy. Blue squeaked and shot back on her heels, but she didn’t move otherwise. Just sat very, very still as the tank that was my guardian sniffed all around her.

  Their differences were almost comical. Blue wasn’t much smaller than my own five foot three-inch petite frame, whereas Jules was a transformed shifter. Far larger than a typical breed of wolf would be, if he stood on all fours he’d come up to her chest, but if he got on his hind legs he’d dwarf her entirely.

  Anytime Jules got too close to her, his muzzle would phase right through her body, causing her to squirm and giggle.

  “That tickles,” she laughed after he’d done it a third time. “Jeez, this is so freaking weird. And yet I sorta wish I could pet you,” she said with a touch of wistfulness.

  In this form Julian was far more beast than man. He could understand me, but that was because of how long we’d been dead together. We’d learned one another’s ways, but in truth he thought mostly as an animal now.

  With one final s
niff right between her legs, naughty boy, he shook his head as if to clear his nostrils of her. Then he curled round and round by her feet before dropping to the carpet and tucking himself into a tight ball, fast asleep again in less than two seconds.

  “Well, I don’t know whether to be insulted or pleased by this,” Blue said with a laugh to me.

  Jules gave a loud, jarring snore of a rumble and I laughed back.

  “You’re lucky. At least he likes you.”

  “And if he didn’t?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t want to know.”

  With one final snore, Jules faded back into the land of the dead. I knew he could not control when he came and went, and I mourned the loss of him already. The last time I’d seen him had been months ago, and the gods only knew when I’d see him again.

  He wasn’t much, but he’d been the most company I’d had in ages.

  I looked at Blue and she at me, and there was a question burning in her eyes. But I was starting to grow tired, and I needed to escape back into the land of the dead for a while. I’d suffered far too many emotional jolts tonight. I needed time to regather and regroup.

  Already feeling my tenuous grip on the veil slacking, I nodded at her. “Friends?”

  She nodded right back with a sweet smile. “Friends.”

  IT TOOK ME OVER A WEEK to recover from what had been done to me before I could visit again, and when I did I was halfway toward feeling excited at seeing my new friend again.

  “Wake up, Eerie,” I said with a light shove to her still body.

  I was in the land of the dead. The only time I was in physical form, and with me was Eerie. The only time we got to meet up was when she crashed.

  Literally.

  Zombies didn’t sleep in the traditional sense. They had the stamina of a toddler who’d just ingested a sack of sugar. They just kept going and going. But there was a point when they’d simply stop. It was like their brain just flipped to ‘off,’ and down they went, didn’t matter where either.

  Dancing. Shopping. Sex...though, I didn’t often like to consider that zombies might feel the need to get things on. They were dead after all...then again, so was I. Glass houses and all that.

  But when Eerie shut off, she came here. The land of the dead, the alternate yet same dimension. Everything on this side looked the exact same as it did on that side, except it was a little bit spookier I supposed. There were cobwebs everywhere and mounds of dried, crinkly leaves. If a tree were living on the other side and in full bloom, on this side the branches were spindly and gnarled and full of withering blossoms and leaves.

  This was the land of the dead after all. And we had no sunshine here, just perpetual night, but there was beauty in that too.

  Only in the dead zone could I leave the tether that held me bound on the living side. I didn’t have many neighbors in this part of the dead land, living in a town that boasted almost nothing but immortals meant I was sorely lacking for company.

  There were a plethora of homes, all in states of soiled disrepair, and store fronts with darkened empty windows that stared back at me.

  Occasionally I’d witness a human pass through the veils, but they never seemed to want to linger as I had. A few times I’d even caught them pass through to the other side.

  Heaven generally.

  If the human went to Hell, they usually had a welcome wagon of the dead waiting to drag them down to it. But to get to the light they had to make the decision to step through a door.

  And every door was different. Personalized for them only.

  I’d tried several decades ago to travel through one of the doors, wanting so badly to leave this solitary misery behind. But the moment I’d latched onto the knob I’d been flung violently back. So hard in fact, that I’d ripped through the veil, phasing from the dead back to the living. I’d been knocked silly and had gone into a type of coma for almost a week.

  I’d learned then never to enter through anyone else’s door but mine. The problem was my door had never come.

  I sighed, glaring at Eerie’s pretty face. Her ruby-red painted lips were parted, her clear nearly colorless eyes closed as though in slumber. But no breath escaped her. She was in the death trance.

  Sometimes when she was collapsed in the dead realm she was actually awake long enough to keep me company. But whatever she’d been doing—and she’d clearly been doing something judging by the very strange attire she now wore—she’d tuckered herself plum out.

  She was dressed in puffy pants with rope coming off it. Rope that was singed at the edges. And her hair was in wild disarray around her head, and there were brambles and snarls in it.

  “What in the devil were you doing out there, Eers?” I whispered as I patted the top of her hand. Rare was the day when Eerie shut down like this, usually there was still a flicker of life in there.

  Right now she was completely lifeless, truly like one of the dead.

  I bit my bottom lip, feeling strangely nervous for my only real friend. Well no, I guess I had another one now.

  Blue Bonnet, whose name I still thought was ridiculous, but that was slowly starting to grow on me all the same.

  I wanted to see what Blue was up to now and if maybe she was playing more of her music. What time was it in the living realm? Being in a place of perpetual darkness made it very difficult to judge time. What if I went back and she was abed for the night?

  I wrinkled my nose, feeling restless and broody, though I wasn’t sure why exactly. Maybe I wanted to know if it’d been a fluke what had happened to me the other day. Feeling like that again.

  Maybe I wanted to see if I could feel again.

  Maybe I was just curious.

  More than likely it was all of the above.

  But I couldn’t leave Eers alone like this, not without some flicker of movement or a sign of life that she would snap out of this trance just as she’d done every other time before.

  I shook her by the shoulder. “Eers if you’re in there, wiggle your toes or something.”

  “You worry too much, pretty little ghost.”

  I gasped and then smiled, shifting around on my heels as I glanced up. His face was youthful, though he was anything but.

  Handsome in a timeless kind of way, with tight dark curls and skin as dark as rich earth, Time smiled down at me from his perch on the sickle shaped moon. It was his favorite place to sit. The moon sat so impossibly low upon the hill before me tonight that it seemed I could reach out and grab the edge of it.

  “Time,” I grinned from ear to ear. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  He looked no older than fifteen to seventeen years of age, but he predated all of humanity. There was nothing and no one older than him. This face he wore now was not his true form, but it was the one he preferred most. No one really knew what he looked like, though there’d been rumors of fangs, a tail, and demon eyes.

  “Who says I’m here for you, Annabelle Lee?” he kicked his foot out, back and forth, looking insolent and proud.

  I narrowed my eyes, gripping tighter to Eerie’s hand. “Why are you here then?”

  He snorted, before looking down at Eerie with a look I’d never seen him wear before. There was curiosity there, but something else too. Something I had no name for.

  Time wasn’t Death, and yet the two had always worked hand in hand.

  I cocked my head. “You leave her be.”

  He snorted and batted my words away with a flick of his wrist. “My business is my business and you’d do well to see yourself out of it.”

  It was never wise to tangle with Time. He wasn’t known for having the most forgiving of dispositions. I wet my lips.

  “So why are you here then? You’re not exactly known for making house calls.”

  “Do I need a reason to visit a friend?”

  I might be dead but I wasn’t stupid. “Which one of us do you mean?”

  “Ouch,” he grabbed at his chest, “you wound me. But, if you must know, I c
ame to see you tonight, sweet Annabelle Lee. You see things are about to change because of you.”

  I frowned. “Me? I haven’t done anything.”

  “No,” he shrugged, “but you will.”

  “Will what? What will I change?”

  “Everything. You’re the catalyst, which I find fascinating considering you were nothing but a bit player until the veil dropped over Blue Moon Bay.”

  I frowned, hating to be called a bit player at anything.

  “Ah yes, the actress who owned the hearts and minds of men and women. You were never second in life, not up on that stage, were you?”

  He confused me and I didn’t handle confusion well. So I said nothing.

  He waited, looking at me expectantly, as though I should be saying or doing something I wasn’t. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what that might be. Finally he sighed and rolled his eyes. “Ah, the dead, no sense of humor the lot of you.”

  “I laugh.”

  “Pft.” He raspberried at me. But then the half-smile faded from off his handsome face and he turned suddenly very serious. The youthful voice of the child was replaced by the deep cadence of an ancient as he asked, “Do you want to know your fortune, beautiful ghost?”

  I shivered, wrapping my robe tightly around my trembling body. Blue Moon Bay had a fortune teller, a bloody brilliant one—Madame Bouvier. But only Time knew it all. Every possible outcome and choice.

  Heart beating like wild horses in my chest, I nodded my head. “But you never tell the fortunes of others.”

  Gone was the youthful rascal I was familiar with, instead the boy perched on the edge of the moon looked suddenly transformed into the image of a beautiful but deadly man with glowing gold eyes and a neatly trimmed beard on his handsome dark-skinned face. Even the tenor of his accent changed to something more fluid, more alien-like.

  “Unless those choices could change something that matters deeply to me.” He cocked his head, and I heard the meaning behind his words but I was too slow to decipher them.

  He went still, as his gaze shifted from me to Eerie, looking at her again with something I couldn’t begin to fathom. What had Eerie done to him? Why did he suddenly seem to have such an interest in my friend?