Twelfth Night (A Wendover House Mystery Book 2) by Melanie Jackson Page B

but something was there—and I
wouldn’t go in that bar again for any amount of money. I put it out of mind
because you can get brain damage thinking about spooks and stuff, but I haven’t
really forgotten. So, yeah, Brandy, I believe you about your ghost. I totally
and completely believe you.”
    The spell broke. The bubble of silence popped and I could
again hear the clock ticking off the seconds, counting down the hours.

 

Chapter 4

 
    “I knew someone,” the queen said abruptly, her words
slightly slurred. I think we were all a little startled to hear her speak. She’d
been silent for hours. “She was blind. So she couldn’t see her ghost, but she
could hear it. And it was nasty—oh yes, it was.”
    There was a giggle but it didn’t last long. The memory of
her blind friend brought up some buried fear and it cut through the alcohol and
laughter.
    Some amount of dread is pleasant, but we had passed beyond
that point. We weren’t telling stories anymore, we
were conducting therapy and maybe even exorcism. I think we all probably wanted
to stop it, but our fascination was ever stronger. We were compelled to go on.
    “Her name was Liz—is Liz, I guess. She was from upstate. Tough broad. Peace Corps, but not the kind
usually drawn to nursing. Not really my type—too cunnin ’. But I knew her from school and I’d heard
about her accident—and I was in Bangor anyway, so I did my Christian duty and looked
her up.”
    Her Majesty’s lips were small and pursed. Mary looked like
her usual sour self. It shouldn’t surprise me to learn that she had ever lived
anywhere else since she had obviously gone to nursing school, but somehow it
did come as a shock. She felt like a fixture of the island, as trapped here as
any of my family had ever been.
    “I got to her apartment near dusk. It was on the third
floor. There was no elevator and the stairs were dark. I was wet because it had
started raining and I had forgotten my umbrella. The day had started sunny
enough, but you just can’t trust the weather in October. Though I think now maybe
that wasn’t why it was raining.”
    Her eyes flicked over to me and then quickly away.
    “Liz was always kind of pale but I could see right off that
she wasn’t well. She was also packing up boxes as fast as she could. There were
clothes and books all over the floor. At first I thought maybe she looked so
bad because of the accident—’cause she was overdoing it, making herself sick.
The wreck took her eyes but also broke several bones.
    “But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that at all….”
    Everett took her hand and Mary smiled gratefully, easing her
hard features into something more attractive. It was a kind gesture on
Everett’s part and surprised me a little. I tend to think of him as being a
universal jerk, but of course he isn’t really—just, say, about ninety-five
percent jerk.
    Her other hand crept up to the table and gripped the edge.
The black taffeta of her dress crackled as she leaned forward. When she spoke,
her voice was no longer colorless, and once the dam opened she was—like the
others—a verbal river in spate , words pouring out of
her with more turbulence than precision. We understood her though even with the
confusing pronouns that littered the story.
    “We both knew a girl in college named Caroline. Kind of mean,
dishonest, though Liz would make excuses for her because Caroline worshipped
her. You know the type. A little dumb too. Heavy—fat really. Digging
her grave with an ice-cream spoon because she was so miserable.” This
was the Mary I knew—judgmental and spiteful. “She flunked out the first year—no
stomach for the work—and she went to char for some old lady downstate who
needed a practical nurse. Liz didn’t keep particular track of Caroline after she
left school, but Caroline liked Liz and always sent a Christmas card telling her
what she was up to, and Liz felt obliged to write back.”
    “One day, at the end of summer,