Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete First Season (Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete Seasons Book 1) (12 page)

The cries continue unabated.

“I felt fine when we left,” I say. “Tired, but fine.”

He nods and rubs his temples.

Near the entrance, someone has left a walker. I stumble across the outdoor carpeting and make a grab for it. I miss. I tumble onto the ground and trigger the automatic doors. They whoosh open. From inside, the sound of crying increases, louder, more heart wrenching.

I pull myself up and onto the walker, triggering the doors each time they try to close. By the time Malcolm reaches me, his skin has gone a horrid shade of gray.

“You look awful,” he says.

“That makes two of us.”

We hobble toward the facility entrance, the doors wide open now. With each step, the cries grow until I’m certain the sound is thickening the air around us.

“I have the strangest urge to tell you about the time I lost my shorts during a soccer game,” he says, his breath labored.

“During the game? You mean on the field, in front of everyone?”

“Yes, it was ... humiliating, to say the least, and I wasn’t wearing any—”

I place a finger over his lips. “Not now.”

“But—”

“Someday, when this is all over, if you still want to tell me, you can. But not now. She only wants to feed on your shame.”

Understanding dawns in his weary eyes. “Of course. That explains why I want to also tell you about all my bad dates.”

“I can’t believe you ever had a bad date,” I say. He’s too smooth and charming.

“I’m refraining.” Somehow, he manages a wink. “Later, and you can tell me about yours.”

“There isn’t anything to tell.”

I start up our trek again. We’re almost to the lobby and the carpeted floor there. I’m not certain how much longer I can walk, and falling there, rather than the hard tile of the entrance, feels like the better option.

“So all your dates have been amazingly good?” he asks.

“There haven’t been any dates,” I say, palms sweating against the walker’s handgrips. “Good or bad.”

Malcolm halts, so I plunk the walker forward a foot or two without him. I’m on the carpet now, and the surface steadies my footsteps. When Malcolm doesn’t catch up, I crane my neck to peer at him.

“You’ve never been on a date?” His gaze surveys me, from wobbly feet to the top of my head, his look incredulous.

“No.” Only now that I’ve confessed do I realize how odd it is for a woman my age to have never dated. How … humiliating.

Something crackles in the air, raises the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck, like a surge of electricity. A second later, a force knocks me across the room, into the reception desk and onto the floor. I fight to regain my breath, my bearings. My vision tunnels to a single point before expanding.

“Thank you, ghost hunter,” a voice says, melodious and feminine, and just this side of seductive. “That was a most delicious bite of shame you served up. I do hope there’s more where that came from.”

Mistress Armand is still lithe and tall, her glossy black hair streaming down her back, her white caftan fluttering around her. And yet, something about her is massive. I’d call it her aura, but I don’t believe in such things; my grandmother never did, anyway. Something surrounds Mistress Armand like a force field. It glows and crackles and gives off the occasional spark.

Any words I might say would be lost in the electricity that fills the air. Silence may be golden; in this case, I suspect it may be the only thing that saves us.
Don’t speak
.
Don’t utter a word
.
Don’t feed her
. I frown, hoping to convey this idea to Malcolm with thought power alone. All I get for my efforts is Mistress Armand whirling to follow my gaze.

“Oh, and there he is, the man with so many secrets, and some of them are oh, so shameful, you bad boy. Do tell, Malcolm. I’m certain Katy will want to hear all of them. You know I do.”

He is a man frozen, is what he is, whether from shame or for other reasons, I don’t know. Then I see his fingers twitch. They twitch again, toward the hall that leads to the wing with the resident rooms, the wing from which all the crying still echoes. In that slight twitch, I discern a single message:

Go!

I crawl, knees scraping against the rough carpet. Before I vanish down the hallway, I hear Malcolm’s voice, so strong and steady, I wonder how he manages it.

“I’ll tell you my secrets, Mistress Armand, but you have to tell me some of yours.”

* * *

The sobs and wails from the residents’ rooms weaken me further. I continue forward on hands and knees. Every time I try to push to stand, another cry assaults my ears. At last I reach Mrs. Greeley’s door and slump against it.

“Mrs. Greeley? Are you in there? Are you okay?”

“Katy, dear, is that you?” Her voice is anxious, but free of tears.

“It’s me.”

“I’m trapped. That witch jammed something in the door handle.”

“Give me a moment,” I say. Oh, the handle is up so, so high. Can I stand up to reach it? How can I not try? I let my head thump against Mrs. Greeley’s door, the sound that of defeat.

“Close your eyes, dear,” Mrs. Greeley says.

“What?”

“Close your eyes. They’re blinding you to the falseness of her voice. With them closed, you will hear her for what she is.”

Certainly I’ve blinked since entering the facility, but I haven’t left my eyes closed, not for more than a moment, if that. I don’t want to fight ... blind. But that’s exactly what Mrs. Greeley is doing, and so far she’s the only one not caught in this web of sorrow and shame. I think about the séance and how Mistress Armand insisted Sadie keep her eyes open. To confront her personal demons? Or to let Mistress Armand feast on some shame?

I shut my eyes. At first, nothing changes. The crying rings louder in my ears. But strength returns to my limbs. I reach up and open Mrs. Greeley’s door. It creaks, and Mrs. Greeley claps her hands together.

“Well done!” The tap of a cane accompanies her voice. “Now, we must get down the hall and tell the others to shut their eyes.”

A shriek echoes through the hallway, wretched and otherworldly. In it, I detect the barest hint of Mistress Armand. There is no seduction left, but an occasional musical tone breaks through, tempts me to open my eyes.

“Don’t,” Mrs. Greeley says. “Yes, I feel the urge too,” she adds, “but I simply can’t comply. I’m certain Mistress Armand didn’t count on me.”

Indeed she didn’t. I push to stand, then hold my hands out in front of me, fingertips straining against the air. I will crash into something on my trek down the hall, without a doubt.

“Stop!” The command is robust, so much so that I do falter in my steps. That low, musical tone is stronger. My eyelids flutter before I squeeze my eyes shut again.

“Go,” Mrs. Greeley urges.

Yes, but where? I don’t dare open my eyes. Before I can move in any direction, something crashes into the backs of my legs.

“Oh! Katy-Girl, is that you?”

“Mr. Carlotta?”

“Keep going,” he says. “You’re covered. Annabelle and I will guard your back.”

“Old fool,” Mrs. Greeley mutters, but her voice is nothing but tender.

I still don’t know which way to walk, not with my eyes closed. Then something cold and familiar brushes my cheek. The words
Katy-Girl
float into my mind. My grandmother. She’s here, and she’s showing me which way to go.

Gingerly, I take a step, then another. My grandmother nudges my face, first the right cheek, then the left, helping me navigate around obstacles. Every few feet, I call out.

“Shut your eyes. Don’t open them.”

Bit by bit the sobs subside. Bit by bit, the care facility quiets. Despite the fact that Mistress Armand’s words now cajole and mock, they hold no power. Not over me, and not over anyone in the facility who has their eyes closed.

Even so, or perhaps because of this, she comes for me. Where Malcolm is, I don’t know, and I don’t open my eyes to find out. Mrs. Greeley cries out. Mr. Carlotta calls, “Hang on! She’s broken through.”

I hold still. I’ve reached the common area. From the television comes the muted hum of a morning news program. The crying has all but ceased. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I think I detect snoring. My grandmother swirls around me like this alone will protect me. I feel her against my eyes, as if she’s trying to remind me not to open them. Then the other presence enters the room.

“You think you know him,” Mistress Armand croaks. Without everyone’s shame, she is a weak thing. “That will be your undoing.”

It’s nearly enough to tempt me, nearly enough that I open my eyes. But I don’t. I clench my fists against the urge. My grandmother whips around me like a cyclone. I think we might stand like this forever—Mistress Armand too weak to attack with anything but taunts, me not daring to open my eyes.

Then a thump echoes in the common area and her presence vanishes.

“You can open your eyes, Katy.” Malcolm’s voice is calm and welcoming, and with my eyes closed, its rhythm is startling. I think I could listen to him like this for a long while. But instead, I open my eyes. When I do, his are the first thing I see. He glances downward.

There, on the floor, his foot secures a Tupperware bowl. Inside the bowl, the misty and shrunken image of Mistress Armand floats.

“Nice work,” I say.

“You too.”

We don’t lift the container. Instead, the night manager brings us a thin cookie sheet from the facility’s kitchen. We slide it beneath the bowl, and now our trap is mobile.

Malcolm drives. I clutch the two pieces—bowl and cookie sheet—until my hands ache. We drive past our usual release point, the windbreak with a little creek. We drive past the nature preserve and state park where we release the meaner ghosts.

We drive for another full hour after that. The wind chases my hair around my head, into my eyes and mouth. I still clutch the bowl and cookie sheet. Malcolm leaves the freeway, navigates back roads until he finds a deserted gravel road that’s barely more than a path. Next to a plowed-under cornfield, he stops the convertible.

He holds up a hand. “Hang on,” he says and rounds the car to open my door.

I step out, Malcolm’s hands joining mine. Together, we stumble through the ruts and rows of the cornfield. We stand in the center of what must be the most desolate spot on earth—or would be if Malcolm weren’t next to me. Then we set the container on the ground. We don’t bother to remove the cookie sheet. The wind or an animal will knock it off soon enough. In the meantime, Mistress Armand can stew in her own mist.

We return to the convertible without looking back. Halfway across the field, Malcolm takes my hand.

* * *

“Things are changing,” I say to Malcolm right before we enter Springside Township. It’s the first words we’ve spoken since leaving the cornfield. “I used to know what to do, how to capture ghosts. But ghost eating? Mistress Armand? None of this makes sense. I can’t believe my grandmother wouldn’t tell me about such things.”

Malcolm is silent, jaw tense. In front of us, the stop light for Main and Fifth turns red.

“What do you think she was?” I ask. “You said before you thought she was human.”

“I did,” he says. “I think at one time, she must have been. I think the addiction ate away at her. I mean, look at Nigel compared to me. He’s only two years older.”

But looks at least twenty.

“I wonder if my grandmother ever knew of such things?” I think she must have. Maybe she died too soon to tell me.

“About what Mistress Armand said—” Malcolm begins.

I cut him off. “I doubt you have any shameful secrets. And if you do? So what? That’s in the past.”

I want to reach over, pat his knee or something. I don’t. Instead, I clutch my hands together and hope I’ve said the right thing.

He sighs. The light turns green. With a single nod, he puts the car in gear.

Malcolm slows the convertible when we reach my street. We crawl up the road, well under the speed limit. In fact, I could walk home faster. All appears quiet. Still, my heart thumps with worry.

Inside my house, warm air greets us. The frost has melted from all the brass doorknobs. I do a quick circuit, but not even a sprite is in residence. The only proof I have of last night’s ghost infestation is the mess—cold cups of coffee scattered all over the place, brown stains on the carpet, a splatter pattern on one wall that would be creepy if it were blood rather than Kona blend.

Malcolm casts a wary look around. “Where’s Nigel?” He bolts and is out on the street before I can suggest an answer.

We find Nigel next door, in Sadie’s kitchen, drinking coffee. Sadie chats happily over the drone of a talk show host. Nigel stares into the middle distance. Whether he hears Sadie or not doesn’t seem to matter. Odd contentment lights his face, and the man who stared mere hours before with horror and hunger is banished. Malcolm places a hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezes.