Page 22 of Giving Up The Ghost
“He’s been a bit obsessed lately, if you haven’t noticed,” Ezra grumbled. “Not that I begrudge him his… Well, whatever this is. But it’s been driving me up the wall, trying to actually make this ability of mine work, you know? And it’s not like there’s a shit-ton of information about it just lying around. So, I asked Lisa if she’d ever met anyone with it. And it just sort of spiraled from there.” He shrugged again, this time folding in on himself before he glanced up at me. “She was the one who mentioned synesthesia. Said it’s like how she experiences ghosts sometimes, but she has smells that tell her what sort of haunt it is. Like roses mean it’s a mother or grandmother, cabbage is a murderer…” He trailed off, fussing with the remains of his pie. “I didn’t want to mention it to Oscar because, well, it feels ridiculous, doesn’t it? Color coding shit like this. But it’s how it comes to me, when I pick up on these feelings. My brain saysoh this is rose-red. This is lime green.Anyway, whatever Charlotte was planning made me feel like the color of old liver and throbbed like a bruise.” He scooped up a forkful of the pie filling and licked it thoughtfully. “With ghosts, it’s more clear-cut. The synesthesia is easier to decipher for me. But with people… We tend to be too tangled up, I think. Not saying that ghosts can’t or don’t have complex inner lives or some shit just that, for the most part, they seem pretty one-track. They’re here because something is unfinished because they’re angry or sad or mad or scared.”
“That seems to be simplifying it quite a bit,” I pointed out mildly.
Clicking his tongue, he madeaso whatgesture with the fingers of his free hand. “Well, yes, but that’s the best way I can explain it. Maybe whatever wire got knocked loose in my head that lets me pick up on this shit is better tuned to the dead than the living. Or maybe I just don’t like poking at the motivations of the living too much.”
Essie, the proprietress, hurried over to our booth with a fresh carafe of coffee for me and another glass of water for Ezra. “Now, Mr. Baxter, you’re not telling me you came all the way to Avesdale and are not seeing your parents? Shame on you, young man,” she scolded, but it held a note of teasing. Ezra, though, curdled like milk.
“I came to Aldcote to show my friend Julian here the Roman ruins,” he replied stiffly. “And The Box.”
Essie rolled her eyes, pouring me out another cup with a click of her tongue for Ezra. “The Box. That place. Bunch of miscreants, them. At Christmas last, they set up a creche with agoat in the manger! Agoat!”
“Well,” I suggested, “that seems to be the natural place for a barnyard animal as a manger typically holds hay or other foods.”
Essie finally took a good look at me, sniffing like I smelled bad. “Not funny, young man. A goat in the manger instead of the baby Jesus? I thought your folks were about to blow a gasket,” she said, turning back to Ezra. “They petitioned to have the shop removed from the street fair but only got about a dozen signatures of support. Including mine,” she added staunchly. “Now, you tell your mother I’ll be ordering a dozen of those Easter wreaths from the ladies’ circle at the church this next week—I’m decorating the café with ‘em this year. Tired of the old tinsel rabbits, you know?”
Ezra hummed dismissively, applying himself to his pie with a grim determination that seemed to satisfy Essie. She murmured a fondThere’s a good ladand hurried back to the counter, disappearing into the kitchen area with a whistled tune. He glared after her and pushed the remains of his pie away with a grunted curse. “I’d hoped it would be someone else behind the counter today,” he admitted. “Thought I suppose it was a fifty-fifty chance to be Essie since it’s likely still just her and Joe who run the place.”
“She’s known you a while then.”
“Brilliant observation, Holmes. I do say, you must be the most cunning mind in all England!”
“Ass.”
“Arse.” He smirked. “And she’s known my parents since before I was born. They live here.” He gestured at the window overlooking the narrow, old high street of Avesdale. “Have since I was a teenager. Before that, they lived in London but visited their parents here. They’re both from Avesdale.” He shrugged, folding in on himself. “Most of my family moved back to this general area over the past few years.” He rapped his knuckles against the table and motioned for me to stand. He waved to Essie, who stuck her head out of the kitchen, and we headed out onto the sidewalk. “Oscar took pity on me during school hols,” he added. With a fond smile, he pointed down a narrow lane we were passing. “See that old storefront? With the pink and green awning? It used to be empty when we were kids. This wanker named Jamie Hyers was always after Oscar for being able to talk to ghosts and all, and Oscar was already my bestie by then, so I was, of course, honor bound to defend him.”
I grinned. “Of course. What’d you do?”
“Convinced Jamie to help me ‘investigate,’” he said with air quotes, “so we could prove Oscar wrong. Mr. Connagher, the apothecary who’d owned the shop before the First World War, was more than happy to disabuse Jamie of that notion.”
My startled laugh was loud and bounced off the narrow alley as Ezra swung us back into motion. I wanted to ask Oscar about it, to see his expression at the telling of the story. Would he claim Ezra was putting me on, that it wasn’t that big of a deal? Or would he expand on it, flesh it out where Ezra had left empty spots? Ezra glanced at me as we reached the corner of the high street and a surprisingly busy cross street. He raised his brow in askance.
“Just thinking that I wish Oscar were with us. No offense. Your company is great and all, but I kind of feel bad…”
“Because you’re seeing parts of his past without him here to talk about it.”
“You can read minds now?”
He grinned. “You’re kind of an open book. Come on. The Box is across the street.”
The Box was a black spot in a row of quaint little storefronts that were trying to preserve the old-fashioned feel of the town center despite several very modern names on the shop windows. With its matte black door and Gothic affectations and the strong smell of patchouli wafting out onto the sidewalk, it reminded me of the shops I’d haunted as a teenager and, yes, even my early college years. I half expected a blast of Bauhaus or Siouxsie to hit us in the face when Ezra opened the door, but instead, it was the tinkling sound of some New Age spa music and the trickle of water, the latter of which came from a collection of countertop-sized fountains all plugged into a power strip near the cash register. A middle-aged man with a receding hairline and bushy brows emerged from a curtained area behind the counter, frowning until he saw Ezra. The frown didn’t turn into a smile so much as soften, the beetled brows lifting a smidge as he raised a hand in greeting. “Wotcher, Ezza?”
“Mick,” Ezra acknowledged. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
“Where else ‘m I gonna be, eh? Some of us aren’t gallivanting ‘round on telly, are we?” He came around the counter and gave Ezra a back-thumping embrace, which Ezra returned wholeheartedly. “No Ozzy then?”
“Not today. He’s… going through some shit.”
Mick’s expression darkened. “Landon Price?”
“Er, no.” Ezra glanced at me, but I couldn’t decipher his meaning like Oscar could. I just widened my eyes and gave a small shrug. Ezra rolled his eyes and focused his attention back on Mick. “He’s at the old pile down the way, going through some family stuff that his cousin just got out of storage.”
Mick sniffed, folded his arms, and leaned back against the counter, affecting a veryfuck off who caresdemeanor, but nervousness still wafted off him in heavy waves. “You picked a bad time to come back, mate. Landon’s number ten.”
“Ten?” I asked. “Ten what?”Shit. Is Mick the one? They say serial killers often want to be recognized. No, that’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t just pop that out like that. Would he?I eyed Mick more closely. He was on the fringe of the mediums’ little circle, wasn’t he? Not quite in the thick of things. Maybe he’d been envious? Or maybe it’d just been some crime of opportunity, seeing as how the shop drew in folks into the paranormal?
Mick sucked his teeth. “What’s your problem?”
I shook my head. I was being ridiculous, overthinking things. But the fact remained that now we were up to ten, apparently, and they weren’t random accidents. “Jet lag.”
