The Teacup Trail

A meta    physical 

Opening. An event horizon

Of what was and what will be.

Like a cat trapped in a box, 

A runner on a loop is both

Anything and nothing.

Another turn, another

Patch of Spanish moss 

Along the trail. The branches

Like green fabric that fades away,

So it seems, like me.

I was air and breath and wind and song.

Shadows turned bright, the world moved

Against and through me.

Is location, time? In space, it is.

What were the uncountable laps

But a fantasy of perpetual motion?

A mutable discovery erased

Upon contact with the ground.

The everlasting pleasantness 

Of things or people or places—

The so-called difference

Afforded to a higher plane,

Exists as a transient hope of 

Never resting, never falling.

Imagination’s immortality

Against a brutal wall.

with muted steps

and held me there.

~~~~

A rush of street veins, the trains spitting up soggy girls,

stale microwaved coffee ebbing away at

your tongue as the guitar twangs of an indie rock band

fills afternoon silence with salt,

something that loses its taste after a moment or two.

You’ve been scribbling down cluttered

thoughts into notebooks fragile and

ridged like leaves drowned

in muddy storm puddles.

November means bruised clouds always on the edge

of breaking, sleet peppered with

regret and slivers of the moon.

One day when you’re not thirteen anymore,

you know you’re getting out of this city.

your ghosts are not your own (may 2013)

It starts when, in the shudder of spring warmth,

ghosts shatter in skyscraper shadows.

You spend afternoons drifting in the streets,

trying to find the missing seams of your bones.

Instead, you:

stumble upon a philosophy major who asks for the purpose

of the blurred horizon, which you do not know the answer to;

meet a coffee barista who is saving up for a rose-gold city south of here,

somewhere beyond the trills of sunrise, beyond hearts stolen and crushed;

listen to the stories of the girl standing with a cardboard sign at the gleaming traffic light,

green blinking into yellow blinking into red over and over and over.

It’s been creeping upon you for weeks, this recognition

that you are fourteen, one kid standing in one place,

there is an infinite expanse of worlds beyond,

and your ghosts are scorns of an ubiquitous past.

Let me introduce you to my father, feel every ache, learn each track and tree he taught me, commit and soothe each wound he placed on me.

Here are the mountains whose ridges are my bones, whose peaks push up the surface of my skin where my hipbones should be, here are the stones of my teeth, lined up broken walls and cairns along the edges of the fields the Walkers of Walker Mountain cleared.

So you want to touch me, get ready for flashing rattlesnake fangs, not just the scars you can see.

I hope you are ready to kiss twelve years of battle-hardened fingers, that you will not be surprised to taste blackberries where my lips should be.

Let me introduce you to razorblade blue skies, to sickened stomachs from gorging on sugary stars. Shake the hand of my seven-year-old self, don’t wince when you feel bloodied bear claws instead of soft hands.

I am walking with a boy named Jack; he has spikes on his jacket like a stegosaurus and when he exhales, his breath comes out like a dragon’s cigarette.

We are not talking. I am still in my pajamas. I am not tired but still dreaming. I wonder if this is the feeling other people seek through medicines.

The boy named Jack touches my elbow with one finger like he is testing my temperature. I look at him pointing to a crow with a guitar finger.

The crow has a puppet’s head. It cries with a gutter sound and spreads its wings. Each feather is a different shade of black.

The boy named Jack puts his hands in his pockets and starts walking away. The crow opens its beak, pink and ugly, and screams after him. It jerks its head to me and seems to be pleading. I walk after the boy named Jack. The crow follows us.

Jack tells me the sun will be punching through the clouds soon and we can pick up the pieces if we reach the top. There are wet leaves plastered to our shoes. The air smells like moss; my lungs are growing mold from breathing in and out. The boy Jack does not look like a leaky dragon anymore. He is on a mission. Almost smiling.

The crow is at the top already, waiting for us. I wonder if all the trees smell like maple and newborn babies. I can feel May. She is shy, hiding, leaving the fringes of her cold shoulder on crumbling logs. We try to reach her. I look for weeds and buds. I forgot how damp the springtime is. I wonder if she is crying because her sister December has died.

Run run run, says Jack. His arms are up and forward. He is trying to hug the sky. He is standing on top of a cragged rock and I’m trying to run and I wonder if he will dive out onto the trees just so he can haunt this forest.

There she is, May’s lovely face peering up from the hills. Is it safe?

Yes, we tell her, the boy Jack and me with our hands up. She is the only god that matters. Yes, it is safe now. Come. Hurry. We’ve been waiting for so long. 

Grace sniffed. Yep, she definitely was. “Give me a minute!” She paced her bedroom and dialed a phone number. It was late, especially on the east coast, so getting his voicemail didn’t surprise her. The beep sounded. “Hi, Mr. Davis. I just wanted to say I’ve changed my mind. I won’t be selling the bed and breakfast, after all. Thanks.”

She ended the call and tossed her phone onto the bed—her bed now. That left one thing more to do before going downstairs for Classic Horror Wednesday. Without bothering to sit down, she opened the family bestiary to the first page and used her grandfather’s old-fashioned ink pen to inscribe her name and the year on the line below his. She smiled. The things they would all accomplish together. Her grandfather hadn’t just bequeathed a bed and breakfast. He’d done what she hadn’t been able to do—help her find a place to belong.

Downstairs, someone had managed to make an unburnt batch of popcorn and three bowls of it sat on the coffee table. Grace snatched one up before claiming a corner of the couch. Imhotep lounged on the other end, and Phee reclined in his usual armchair. Rosie walked in from the kitchen, TARDIS mug in one hand, and sat down in between Grace and Imhotep. The dog nuzzled up to her.

Honoria floated into the living room, paused, and then breezed out.

“She doesn’t like horror movies,” Phee explained.

“Naturally.” Grace stretched out her legs on top of the coffee table. “So, what are we watching?”

“The Wolf Man,” Rosie said, scratching Imhotep behind the ears.

Grace popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth. This was it. They were her friends now. They’d be the ones to always have her back, to always rig up a system to pull her out of hell more easily.

As the opening credits began, Grace said, “You know, I’ve been thinking. Pembleton Family Supernatural Agency doesn’t really work anymore.” Though family, Rosie and Phee weren’t Pembletons. “We should change it.”

And thus began an argument that would undoubtedly last the length of the movie. Outside in the distance, Barnaby—for that’s what they decided to call the thing in the pond—splashed and growled contentedly. A pet water monster and a resident ghost—nothing about this would ever be normal. And funnily enough, Grace was more than okay with that. After all, she could see the stars here.

“How deep is this again?” she asked.

“About fifty at the center,” Phee said, fiddling with the pulley and crank system they’d set up around an ash tree.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. We can handle it.” Rosie stood in bare feet, red swimsuit visible through a white tank, blond hair gathered into a messy bun.

“I know,” Grace said, strapping on her flippers.

Rosie took her glasses from her and then handed over her optical mask, latched her helmet, and adjusted the camera. Phee held up her oxygen tank for her to shoulder on. Then he attached the safety cable to her harness via a karabiner. Who knew those college SCUBA lessons would come in handy for fighting monsters?

“Thanks.” Grace, dragging in a deep breath, shook out her arms. A piece of cake. This was going to be a piece of cake. Find the creature, identify it, kill it if possible. Except she didn’t want to kill anything. Hopefully the thing felt the same way, although after the previous night’s misadventure, that didn’t seem all that likely.

“You’re going to be fine,” Phee said with a reassuring smile.

She nodded. Her pulse raced. Fine wasn’t even her goal. Surviving was her goal. She’d even take hanging on to life by a thread.

Rosie bent to look at her squarely. Her eyes were brown, warm, assuring. Two days wasn’t enough time at all for Grace to befriend strangers. It usually took her six months just to get beyond ‘Hi, how are you?’ and much longer to get to friends. But that’s what Phee and Rosie were. Why else would she dive into a murky pond in search of a deadly beast?

Grace’s breath came easier. She had no opinion on the universe, the existence of fate. All she knew was that there were people on this earth she was meant to find. Meant to protect.

Time to girl the hell up, Pembleton.

She nodded. “I’m good.”  

She stepped up to the water’s edge, slid the regulator into her mouth, closed her eyes. Deep breaths. In and out. Breathe until your path clears, until the world centers itself, until you come face-to-face with yourself and embrace the truth you keep.

Grace gripped the sword hilt and dove.

Even in the autumn sunshine, the water was bracingly cold. After a full-body shiver, she shined the dive light around. Rocks and stringy vegetation covered the bottom of the pond, about fifteen feet down. The land sloped downward into darkness beyond the range of the light.  

Silence. That was what made diving in certain places so eerie. It wasn’t the blackness or the beyond or the unknown that terrified. It was the silence. The world nowadays didn’t let people get used to silence. It shoved voices and music and horns and anger into your ears until the absence of the cacophony was akin to the absence of a limb. No matter how you tried to fill the space, the whole could never be the same whole it was once.  

She kicked off toward the center of the pond. Whatever was down here probably resided at the deepest, darkest point.  

It definitely had tentacles. How many, she wasn’t looking forward to finding out. If this was her fate, to die at the hands of a supernatural monster, it had better be a fast death. Hell, maybe Rosie and Phee could even use the video to prove the beast’s existence—or to make a monster movie. If they got rich from it, that wouldn’t be such a bad legacy.  

The sword, though not heavy, was unwieldy in the water. Even with all of last night’s planning, they hadn’t properly thought this through. Splendid. No wonder nothing ever worked out for her. She was always rushing headfirst into things with barely half a plan, like coming all the way to Kentucky to take over the family business.

Which is not what she was doing. As soon as she got out of this pond, she was heading straight back to Pennsylvania and not looking back.

She swam forward. The silence pressed in on her ears, or maybe that was the increasing depth. A rumble rippled through the water. The shadows in the foliage off to the left moved.  

This was it. Gripping the sword hilt in both hands, Grace focused on calming her racing heart.

The beast slithered out of the darkness. This didn’t look like the pictures. This was massive—a great, long, scaly thing nearly fifteen feet long with spikes down its spine and horns on its face. That tail must have been what she thought was a tentacle. And teeth that gleamed in the lamplight. Holy sea monsters, Batman. That was a lot of teeth.

Grace floated, paralyzed, as the creature slithered sinuously toward her. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to get back to the safety of her friends. But there was no point in trying to swim away. It would be on her in a blink, crushing her bones between its jaws like sticks.

So she’d die, but not without a fight. She raised the sword. The beast paused in its advance and blew out a breath through huge nostrils. When it turned one big black eye on her, she was struck by overwhelming sadness.

If it wanted to kill her, it would have done it already. Maybe the sadness was just loneliness. Maybe her grandfather had come out here to play with it and talk to it and it just missed him. Maybe they’d been wrong about it all along and what they’d seen as aggression was simply grief, that singular emotion that could break down language and species barriers.

She held up the sword to show him—for she was somehow sure now it was a he—and released her grip. The blade fell, sending up a puff of dirt when it landed.  

The creature made an odd guttural noise. He swam closer and sniffed at Grace. She held as still as she could in the water, moving only her eyes. Her life should be flashing in front of her right now, shouldn’t it? But a spiked nostril and a dark, depthless eye consumed her vision. That eye held secrets, memories, truths, eons. How had it ended up here?

He circled her—once, twice—its body twisting and singing against hers. She was touching history, touching imagination. This curious, trusting, gentle monster was no monster at all.

On the third pass, though, his tail spikes caught on her regulator line, on the rope connecting her to Phee and Rosie. The line broke with a muted pop, and there went her air. Oh, no. No, no, no. Her lungs were spent, and the panic racing through her only accelerated the burning. She kicked out and clawed for the surface.

No, calm. She had to stay calm, had to go slowly. But slow wouldn’t get her there in time, and already, her weakened limbs couldn’t drag her upwards fast enough. Fire tore through her lungs and into her throat. Black spotted her vision. This was the end, and what a sad, miserable end it was. How embarrassing to die in a measly fifty-foot pond.

When she approached the verge of passing out, the creature grabbed her. At least being crushed and eaten would be a quicker death than drowning. Instead, he enclosed her in scaly arms, pulled her snug against his belly, and shot to the surface. They broke through like a rocket through the atmosphere. Minus the flames. They twisted in midair and landed hard in the grass.

Grace groaned. Her bones gelatinized, and her head had been smashed to bits. Hadn’t it? She rolled off the beast’s belly and dropped into the grass. Nope, that hurt, too. It even hurt when she breathed, which she was doing quite heavily. “Shit.”

“That’s a quarter for the swear jar,” Phee said.

A smack. Then Rosie’s voice. “Shut up. Grace. Grace?”

Grace opened her eyes to bright blue and puffy white. Too bright. She closed them again. A hand slid behind her neck. Rosie. Phee, too. Both leaning over her and blocking the sunlight. What a beautiful sight. “I think . . . I might have broken . . . my entire body.”

Phee laughed with relief. “You’re alive, though. When the rope broke, we thought . . .”

Rosie helped her sit up. “Yes, you’re alive, and we’re so grateful for that, but are we going to talk about the water dragon thing that saved you?”

The creature flipped onto its stomach, leaned forward, and licked Grace’s face. Undocumented monster slobber. Awesome.

“Maybe we should also talk about the fact that it’s not as murderous as we thought,” Phee said.

“Could still be murderous,” Rosie said. “Could just be luring us into a false sense of security.”

As the creature slobbered on her, Grace couldn’t stop her laugh. It was just a giant, scaly puppy. Her playful push had little impact. “Yeah, yeah, thanks for saving my life, you big lug. I’ll make it up to you one day.”

“He saved you?” Phee asked.

“Try to keep up,” Rosie said. “What are we supposed to do with him?”

Grace shrugged. She couldn’t deny those big puppyish eyes. “Keep him?”

“Keep him?” Phee repeated, climbing to his feet. “He tried to drown me last night. Am I the only one who remembers that?”

Grace waved a hand. “Misunderstanding.” She petted the creature’s head. His scales weren’t as rough as they looked. “Isn’t that right, boy? You were just playing.”

Rosie laughed, a throw-your-head-back and slap-your-thigh kind of laugh. It was infectious, and Grace soon joined in. Ridiculous. She’d only been here for three days, and each day outdid the previous in ridiculousness.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, still breathless from her fit of laughter. “And I dropped the sword.”

Grace let out a soft groan. “You just almost got eaten. Forgive me if I need some time to decompress.” She pushed her hair, still stringy and wet from the struggle, away from her face.

“You should be invested in this, Grace,” said Phee.

“Why? Because I’m a Pembleton and I’ve got special instincts?” Grace said, tossing his words back to him.

Rosie sipped her tea. “Because you’re not going to be able to sell this place if it’s got a monster lurking to gobble up tourists.”

Good point. ”Do you want me to sell it?”

“That’s not the issue at hand.”

Grace sighed. “Okay.”

“The issue,” said Phee, “is we still don’t know what that thing is.”

“What about the book? We could make a list of all the water monsters with descriptions that match what we saw.”

“Only we didn’t see a lot. All I saw was the tentacle around my ankle.”

Rosie shook her head. “The book doesn’t have an index.”

A bad bit of luck. That thing was huge. It’d take days to get through all the entries. That could be a winter project, though, indexing the entries, maybe even digitizing the entire thing.

“The only way we’re going to know how to handle it is if we find out what it even is,” Phee said. “We can try in the morning. I’ll go in with a camera and see what I can find.”

“No, I should do it,” Rosie said, waving her tea cup a little too emphatically. “I’m a stronger swimmer. That pond is bigger than it looks.”

“I know how big the pond is,” he said with a gentle scoff. “Do you remember that summer—”

“You turned it red and we both had to undo your damage? Yes, I do, actually.”

The warmth from the tea spread through Grace’s body. Even if she wasn’t going to keep it, this bed and breakfast was her legacy, hers to protect. “I’ll do it,” she said.

That killed the argument. Rosie and Phee exchanged a nervous glance.

“No,” Rosie said, waving her teacup more wildly than was rational. “You don’t—you don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t,” Grace said, a small smile tugging at her lips, “but it’s my job now. For a few days more, at any rate.”

Rosie looked again at Phee, who shrugged.

“If she wants to do it . . .” he said.

Rosie let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. But you’re not doing it alone. We’ll be there the entire time.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Grace said with a nod. She sipped her tea as the silence lengthened. Was it the super special tea making her want to risk her life?

A silvery specter whooshed through along with a rush of cold. A book toppled from the shelves and smacked the hardwood floor.

“Sometimes, Honoria sends us messages by through books.” Phee wrinkled his nose. “When she’s mad, she throws them.”

Rosie crossed the room to pick it the fallen book. “Yeah, but I don’t think this one’s for us.” She handed it to Grace.

Peter Pan. It was old, worn, the pages yellowing and falling out. A well-loved book, then. Her grandfather’s name was inscribed on the inside cover. Grace chuckled. She never should have doubted. “This is my favorite.”

“Odd,” said Rosie as she settled back on the couch.

“I think she just made you a member of the family,” said Phee.

Grace turned to the first page. She wasn’t so tired anymore.

~~~~

She sipped a beer and sat on the top step of the back porch as Phee and Rosie, unbothered by such nonsense, tossed a softball in the yard. Imhotep ran between them, chasing the ball in flight. Behind the scene, the pond reflected moonlight, the surface rippling sporadically. The monster underneath?

Phee said something, his words muffled by distance, and Rosie’s laugh rang through the night. Grace ran her thumbnail along the grain of the step. You’ll never belong—anywhere or to anyone. She’d spent her childhood torn between her father’s European heritage and her mother’s Indian, admiring both and living up to neither. Even her own family no longer expected anything of her. Sneakers appeared in her vision, followed by Rosie sitting down beside her.

“Hey,” the blonde said. ”Everything okay?”

Grace shrugged.

“First mission blues. I get it. Happens to everyone. Come toss the ball with us. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Maybe another time.”

“Come on. You did great. Your idea was solid, and it was the only reason we got rid of those gosh darn birds. So, what’s up?”

Grace sucked in a deep breath. The autumn air was cooling down fast. She zipped up her sweatshirt and buried her hands in her pockets. She didn’t know Rosie, not really, or Phee. Or was sending byangoma back to where they came from enough to make friends out of strangers?

The caretaker threaded her fingers through her hair, shook it out, waited quietly.

“Ah, it’s no big deal. I just . . .” Grace let the words go. She wasn’t good enough at words to make the abstract pang in her chest concrete.

Rosie bumped her shoulder against Grace’s. ”You just what?”

Words were hard, feelings harder. Still, they had to escape eventually, or else the pressure would crack her heart open. And who better to escape to than someone she’d most likely never see or speak to again?

“The byangoma weren’t exceptionally charitable in their predictions of my future.”

“They’re birds. What do they know?”

“You didn’t hear them.” Grace sipped her beer, crisp and refreshing. ”I’m a nobody. I’ve got a useless degree, no career prospects, friends who don’t keep in touch with me...”

“Yeah, and? The future isn’t fixed. Why let someone else—something else—pin you down to one?”

Grace rubbed her eyes. Because negativity spoke loudly, and she listened too much. Because she didn’t trust herself to make her own decisions. ”Do you ever feel like you shouldn’t be where you are but you don’t know where to go to not feel like that?”

Rosie’s face was pale in the moonlight. ”Are you kidding me?”

“What? No. Why—”

“My parents died near the end of my freshman year. I spent a lot of time running from everything, not really knowing where I was headed, only knowing I couldn’t stay where I was.” Rosie mussed her hair again and sighed. “And then when I screwed up and lost my softball scholarship, I had nowhere to go.” She popped open a beer and took a sip. ”That’s when Pete took me in. He liked strays. So, no, Grace, you’re not the only one who’s ever felt that way.”

Heat rose to Grace’s cheeks. Other people had problems—real, honest-to-earth problems—and she couldn’t stop worrying about how to jump-start her life. How small-minded. “Oh, Rosie, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, but all I’m trying to tell you is how lost I felt on my own and how right I feel here. It’s not what I imagined myself doing five years ago, but I never believed in fate until landed in a bizarre job in an even more bizarre place.” Rosie took a swig of beer. “You run and run and run, but I guess I just want to say that I couldn’t figure out where I belonged until I stopped for a breath.” She stood, stretched, and descended the steps. “You sure you don’t want to play?”

Rosie may have found a life here, but that couldn’t possibly be Grace’s fate, too. She wasn’t good at this stuff. Maybe if she had grown up around it she would have been. Maybe these two, whose idea of winding down was pizza and softball, could have been allies, friends.

She shook her head. “It’s getting late.”

“Suit yourself,” Rosie said, not unkindly, before walking away to rejoin Phee and Imhotep.

May you find a place . . .

A great rumbling emanated from the lake, the surface waters roiling. Rosie stopped mid-windup to face the pond. Imhotep whimpered and ran back to the porch.

“Nothing to be scared of, Imhotep!” Phee called as he walked closer to the bank.

Imhotep climbed the stairs and laid his head on Grace’s thigh. She scratched behind the dog’s ears. “So, you were a stray, too, huh?”

Phee screamed. “Get it off! Get it off! Get it off!”

“Grace!”

Grace sprung down the steps and across the yard. As sleepy as the beer had made her, she was wide awake now. Phee was on his back on the grass, thrashing as something dragged him toward the water. A tentacle encircled his ankle. Right, well, after the day they’d had, this really shouldn’t have surprised her. Rosie had hold of his shoulder. Grace grabbed the other. They tugged, but he was already submerged up to his knees.

“We’ll have you free in a minute, Phee,” Rosie said. “Just find your calm center.”

Phee kicked and twisted in an effort to escape the thing’s grasp. “This is my calm center! I’m as calm as I can be when an unidentified monster is trying to drag me down to the depths of our backyard pond!”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Rosie muttered.

He was up to his thighs now. They had to get him out and fast, but there was nothing close by to use and they weren’t strong enough to stave off a pond monster. Grace’s arms already burned with the effort of keeping her hold on Phee.

Rosie turned to her. “You think you can hold him if I make a run for the tool shed?”

Considering the other end of this particular game of tug of war was a tentacled monster, no, probably not. The thing’s movements agitated the water, causing a mini wave to crash over them. Grace didn’t dare take a hand off Phee to wipe the water from her glasses.

“You’re pulling me apart!” Phee shouted.

“What do you want us to do? Save your arms and let you go?” Rosie yelled back.

“No, don’t let me go!”

“That’s what I thought!”

Grace’s arms ached. She shifted to get a better grip. Damp and mud soaked the knees of her jeans as the thing beneath the water dragged them forward. People were supposed to die at the end of long, fulfilled lifetimes, peacefully in their beds, surrounded by beloved friends and relatives. People were not supposed to die in a fight with a pond creature trying to save someone they barely knew. “I don’t know about you two, but this is not how I want to go out!”

The pull from the water lifted. Grace and Rosie sprawled backward while Phee hit the bank and slid into the water. He scrambled onto the grass, shook the water from his hair, and collapsed. The thing—whatever it was—slipped under the surface with a guttural groan. Ripples danced in its wake.

Grace lay supine, breathing heavily. Her muscles—legs, arms, abs, all over—screamed from the exertion. “What . . . was that?” she panted.

Phee lifted his head. “I’m more curious about why it let go.”

“Maybe it got a whiff of your feet,” Rosie said. She shoved his shoulder. “I told you not to get too close!” Imhotep licked her face. “Thanks, Im. Thanks.”

Grace laughed. The past two days had been utterly ridiculous, and yet nothing had made her feel so alive in such a long time. “We didn’t die. We didn’t die.”

“No,” Phee said, “but I think I dropped the softball in the pond.”

The wet grass soaked through her clothes, and her whole body would be sore in the morning, but somehow she didn’t even care. She felt the tingle of the universe in her veins, that feeling of utter contentment that comes when stars align and things in your life fall into place.  

And all those good hopes she’d sent out into the void on the leg of a byangoma seemed to be on the whisper of the wind.

Find a voice, find yourself, find love . . .

You could see the stars out here. Grace liked that.

~~~~

His idea had been flamethrowers, which he insisted didn’t come from heartless cruelty but rather from a simple boyish desire to use flamethrowers. But she’d been insistent that they try not to kill the things. She didn’t need that karma out in the world. The book hadn’t held any information beyond the creatures’ name—byangoma. Even armed with that knowledge, they hadn’t found anything on the internet about how to get rid of them.

So this was a wish upon the wind, the furthest thing from a sure thing. The aim was to counteract the power of the birds’ fortunes by writing their own. Instead of predicting their own lives, they’d written prophecies of positivity for the larger community.

Yeah, I like it, Rosie had said. Spread some love in this world.

Then they would tie them on like messages on passenger pigeons and hope the burden of carrying the future would force them back to their origin.

How they were actually going to capture the birds and tie on the messages was another matter. It’d been Grace’s plan, and if it were to fail, that would belong to her, too. 

Phee bumped her in the arm. “I thought you said they were loud.”

“You can’t hear that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“You can’t hear the singing?” Rosie asked.

Grace did a double take. “Singing? You mean the screeching?”

Phee and Rosie turned back. So the fortunes manifested differently. The internet hadn’t mentioned that. According to what, though? What separated Grace and Rosie from each other and from Phee?

An unspoken agreement passed among them. On to the living room, where it soon became clear that Phee could understand the fortunes, only he saw rather than heard them. One bird still circled the room; the other perched on the window seat.

Rosie, locking in on the latter, brandished a net. “This guy’s mine.”

“Then I’ll take the flying one,” Phee said.

“I’ll find the last, then,” Grace said.

Phee nodded solemnly. “Good hunting, team.”

The origin of the third byangoma’s screeching was easy to locate—the kitchen. It sat atop the refrigerator, one beady eye fixed on Grace. That wasn’t creepy at all. She had no approach, really, beyond get the fortune tied to the stupid bird. Rosie’s enticing approach and Phee’s aggressive one wouldn’t work for her. That bird’s screeches were for her, and she had to combat it with her own methods. How would she like to be approached?

“The unlovable belong nowhere, belong to no one,” the bird said.

Breaking the gaze, she sank to the tile floor, cool even through her jeans, and crossed her legs. Calm. That’s what would entice her. No reason it wouldn’t work on a supernatural fortune-telling creature.

It was hard to quiet a mind full of worry and regret and fear. Hard to box all that up and tuck it away in the attic. Hard to pretend she was a pillar of tranquility when a tempest raged in her heart. Still, she closed her eyes and took long, deep breaths. Peace was not always about the utter lack of negativity. Sometimes it could be a tiny spot of light in the midst of overwhelming darkness. Sometimes it was a new friend or two.

Team, Phee had called them.

When she opened her eyes again, the byangoma stood right in front of her, peering up patiently.

She held out a hand. “Hey, little thing.”

The bird hopped into her palm. “Out of place. Out of place. Where is yours?” it said, but it was quieter, less emphatic.

She ran her fingers over the soft coal-black feathers. The byangoma was beautiful, really, and gentle, for it allowed her to tie the fortune to its leg without fuss. When the message was secured, it hopped along her arm, pecked almost tenderly at her cheek, and then flew out the window.

So, simple as that, then.

Her shoulders slumped as she released a breath and sat in warm autumn sunlight on the kitchen floor of a stranger’s home. On the fortune, Grace had written:

may you find a place

find a voice

find yourself

find love

and when the darkness surrounds you

may the light inside you chase it away

~~~~

“See?” Rosie said with a smile. “There he is.”

“Are you playing chess against yourself?” asked Grace.

“Pete taught me. Phee’s an awful player. I trounced him a handful of times, and now he won’t come near a board.”

Grace leaned over the table and moved a knight, a Union cavalryman.

Phee walked in, a half-eaten yellow apple in his hand. “Sorry I’m late.”

“‘Course you are,” Rosie said.

“Oh, big mistake,” he said as he pulled out a chair next to her and plopped down. He jerked his chin toward the caretaker. “Now that she’s got you as a chess partner, she’ll never let you leave. So, what’s up?”

“Yeah, what’s up?”

On the opposite side of the table, Grace crossed her arms to let them know she meant business. “I need you guys to be straight with me. What’s really going on here? Is this some elaborate joke that Pete put the entire town up to? Maybe to get back at me for never knowing him?”

“Oh, boy,” said Phee.

“No, it’s not a joke, not at all,” Rosie said, vehemently shaking her head. She sighed. “Look, everything’s got energy—you, me, Phee, this house, this town. But the thing about Witch Wood’s energy is . . . well, it’s excessive. And it’s abnormal.”

“Witch Wood’s energy is abnormal?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, it attracts things. The name ‘Witch Wood’ isn’t an accident.”

“Weird things,” Phee clarified, “like fairies and jinni and gnomes. Do you know how vicious gnomes are? We even had a sasquatch roll through town once.”

Rosie glanced at him. “We don’t know for sure, but we have this theory—and we’re sorry for meddling in your affairs, but when you spend enough time with a guy and he clearly hates that his family’s not in his life, you start to wonder—we have this theory that whatever made your dad and Pete fall out had to do with exactly this.”

News to Grace. She’d always assumed it had to do with her mother.

The only reason Rosie and Phee would be lying was if they thought a haunted bed and breakfast would coax more money out of a developer. Even better if the town was! If that were the case, though, she wasn’t even the one in need of convincing, and it meant Rosie and Phee had gone to considerable lengths to convince her—the trunk of weapons, the birds, the ghost. That ghost would have been crazy hard to fake. Besides, it made sense that her completely ordinary, run-of-the-mill, normal-loving father would have been overcompensating for an excessively strange childhood.

And for whatever reason . . .

“I believe you,” she said, sinking into a chair. It was wooden, the back intricately carved, but comfortable.

Phee grinned. “Great! Now that that’s cleared up, let’s take care of the monster in the pond. We’re going to need that Pembleton instinct.”

“Wait,” said Rosie. “You weren’t here when I got back. Where were you?”

“Emily McCready hired the PSA. She’s got fortune-telling birds flying around her house. I told her I’d consult with you guys and be back.”

“So, you’re staying,”Phee said. His smile lightened his typically serious face. He really was quite handsome.

Rosie elbowed him in the side.

“What? If she’s taking cases, it was a logical jump.”

“I only took it,” Grace said, “because no one else was here to answer the phone and the poor woman sounded hysterical.”

“But now that we have the job . . .” Phee said.

Grace closed her eyes, anticipating the end of that sentence.

It was Rosie who finished it. “Will you help us with it?”

~~~~

The house in question was a three-level gray Federation period with a wide front porch and lots of windows. Grace walked up and rang the bell. The beige front door featured an autumn wreath. Even with it shut, the squawking was audible.

The door opened, and a woman carrying a baby rushed out. 

“December 14th! Slip on the ice! Broken tailbone! Lots of Jell-O!”

She slammed the door behind her and swiped a hand through her loose brown hair. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, and the kid was maybe six months old. It might have been a boy. Babies all pretty much looked the same to Grace.

Eyes wide, the woman sighed and said, “Thank you so much for coming. You must be Pete’s granddaughter.”

The whole town had known about Grace probably since her birth, and she’d just found out about Witch Wood last week.

The woman switched the baby to her left arm and extended her free hand. “Emily McCready, and this is Noah.”

So it was a boy.

Grace shook Emily’s hand. “Grace Pembleton.”

“You don’t have any of your tools.”

“Uh, I’m the advance guard. Need to find out what we’re dealing with before bringing in the big guns, you know?”

“That makes sense. I’m going to stay here for Noah’s sake. If you need anything, just holler!”

“Thanks.”

Emily grasped the doorknob. “Brace yourself. It’s rather loud.”

An understatement, considering that even through the closed door, the screeching was clear enough to make out most of the words.

Grace rolled her neck and tensed her shoulders. “I’m . . . braced.”

As soon as Emily opened the door, Grace darted inside. God, this house was gorgeous—lots of light, polished hardwood floors, decorative crown molding. In the living room off to the left was a giant window seat. Must be an awesome reading nook in the afternoons.

“Valedictorian! Carnegie Mellon! Engineering!”

“Flat tire! Three weeks!”

“Early frost this year! Cover your plants!”

She followed the voices down the main hallway and into a family room with a ginormous-screen television and a comfy-looking tan couch. The birds—three of them, big and black—were flying in circles close to the twelve-foot-high ceiling.

When her Converse crossed the threshold, the fortunes changed.

“Wasted potential! Unsatisfactory career!”

“Quixotic! Best life is in the imagination!”

“Black sheep! Disappointment! When are you going to get it together?!”

“You’ll never belong, never belong!”

Lovely. Even the birds knew Grace would never amount to much. She forced a deep breath into her lungs. Out again. It was harder to pass these off as another joke. If they weren’t, though, what in Avalon was she supposed to do about them?

Her head pounded. The birds, uninterested in her presence, circled overhead. Since she accomplished what she came here for—to assess the situation, to see for herself if this was real life—she left, the birds’ cries of misfortune dogging her steps. Once on the porch again, she slammed the door to shut out the cacophony.

“So,” Emily said, bouncing the baby in her arms, “what’s the verdict?” 

“I’ll have to consult with Rosie and Phee. We’ll figure it out and be back. Is there someplace you and Noah can go in the meantime?”

Whatever happened to Don’t make promises you can’t keep?

Emily nodded. “Sure. I’ve got errands to run anyway.”

“Great. I do have one question before I leave. Where’d the birds come from?”

“Darned if I know. They must have flown in through an open window.”

“Okay, thanks,” Grace said. “We’ll give you a call when it’s safe to come back.”

As she traipsed down the porch steps, she shot off a text to Rosie and Phee:

This is Grace. We need to have a meeting. B&B in ten minutes.

~~~~

Though Phee had cooked her breakfast—blueberry pancakes, bacon, and fresh fruit—and Rosie had kept her company through the meal, Grace didn’t belong here. She was an outsider, the one who liked normal and listened to their stories only to humor them. Because seriously? A hundred-fifty-year-old ghost hanging out at the bed and breakfast? A water monster chilling in the back pond? Even if she was going to sell this place, which she was, she deserved better than such an absurd joke.

She was exercising her right as owner by looking over the finances, which seemed remarkably good for a small-town historic B&B, when Rosie appeared in the doorway.

“Hey,” the blonde said. If Rosie had been disappointed earlier, she didn’t show it now. ”Finding everything you need?”

“Yeah, everything looks great so far.”

“Cool. In that case, I’m taking Imhotep and heading out on some errands. Phee’s around here somewhere, but our numbers are on the fridge if you need anything while I’m gone.”

Grace smiled. “Great. Thanks.”

“See you later,” Rosie said before departing.

Grace turned back to her work. Someone had attached graphics to the spreadsheet records of the finances. Average occupancy was eighty-five percent, although it spiked around the equinoxes and solstices. Still, eighty-five percent pulled in a decent profit. These sorts of numbers would convince any potential buyer to take a chance.

Grace shivered and raised her head. A see-through woman dressed in a late-19th-century dress with a high collar and a wide-brimmed hat hovered on the opposite side of the desk. This must be the resident ghost. Honoria.

“Uh . . .” Grace said. “Hello.” 

The ghost smiled at her but didn’t speak.

“Phee?” she called, hesitant.

Honoria drifted closer, her expression unchanging when her torso transected the desk.

Okay. Okay. This was no big deal. This was just an illusion, although why Rosie and Phee felt the need to scare her away was baffling. Wouldn’t they rather have her stick around and not sell the place?

Honoria lifted a hand to her heart and then raised it, palm-up, toward her.

“What? Oh, you want me to—oh, okay.” Grace reached out trembling fingers. When she held her hand up to the specter’s, it passed straight through. A tingling cold wracked her body.

So it wasn’t a stupid illusion. That certainly changed things. Was she supposed to ask it questions? Her? Did ghosts still recognize gender? 

All told, the sensation was unsettling but not altogether unpleasant.

Honoria jerked her hand away, and warmth flooded back into Grace’s body. Grace closed her eyes and shook away the tingling. When she opened them again, Honoria was gone.

So was the laptop.

“Can you do that? Can she even do that?”

The phone rang.

“Holy Hogwarts!” Grace jumped, a hand flung over her chest to calm her racing heartbeat. ”Phee? Phee, are you there?” she called.

No response.

“Phee!” After the fourth ring, she picked up the phone. ”Pembleton Bed and Breakfast, Grace speaking. How may I help you?”

It was a woman on the other end. Even if she hadn’t been speaking so quickly, too quickly to be understood, the squawking in the background was doing a fine job.

“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “I don’t understand. Can you say that again?”

“I want to hire PSA,” the woman said.

“PSA?”

“Pembleton Supernatural Agency.”

“Oh, right.” Because apparently the entire town believed in impossible things. Then again, a ghost had just stolen her laptop, so maybe things around here weren’t as impossible as they seemed.

“Birds,” said the woman. “There are birds flying around my house spouting fortunes. They won’t stop! I need you to get rid of them.”

“Fortunes?”

“I don’t know how to get rid of them! Can you please just get here as soon as you can? My address is 124 Newland.”

Click and dial tone. Awesomesauce.

Grace held the receiver away from her ear. “Uh . . . Okay, then.” She hung up, folded her arms on the desk, and rested her head. “There must be something in the water in this town.”

~~~~

Cautiously, she slid out of bed, got onto her hands and knees, and groped about. This was not happening. She couldn’t be blind in this eerie, unfamiliar room. What if she tripped over a battleax or something equally ridiculous?

She sat back on her haunches. As her glasses definitely weren’t where they were supposed to be, having no way of locating them left her with one recourse. She tiptoed to the door, taking care not to accidentally smash her spectacles.

“Rosie?” she called. ”Phee?”

After some pots banging around downstairs, a blurry figure appeared at the bottom of the staircase.

“Good morning.” Rosie said. “What’s up?”

Grace stubbed a toe into the floorboard. “This is embarrassing.” 

The second stair creaked as Rosie walked up. “I guarantee you I’ve dealt with worse.”

Grace wasn’t a very good adult on the best of days, but losing her sense of sight exacerbated it, left her vulnerable. Maybe growing up visiting her grandparents on holidays and during summers would have tempered that feeling, tamped it down in the soil before it could grow. “I can’t find my glasses, and since I don’t know the room that well, I’m afraid of stepping on them.”

Rosie laughed. “That’s understandable and definitely nothing to be embarrassed about. You probably knocked them under the bed by accident or something. Let me take a look.” She stepped past Grace and into the bedroom. “Oh, they’re hanging from the ceiling-fan chain.”

“They’re what?”

Rosie knelt on the mattress to untangle the glasses. “Here.” She placed them in Grace’s outstretched palm.

As Grace slipped them on, the world became clearer. So much better. ”Thank you.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t do that,” said Rosie, hands on her hips.

Grace shook her head.

“I thought not. Honoria! No messing with Grace!” The taller woman smiled. “She’s just getting used to you is all."

Right. The resident ghost. Having still not decided whether this was all an elaborate prank on her grandfather’s part, she stayed quiet. Besides, she had a plan now. She’d spend the day going over the B&B’s books to prepare for the meeting with Mr. Davis. Once that was done, she could sell it and forget all about this place, with its ghosts and monsters and delicious tea.

Rosie shifted her weight to one long leg, cocked her hip. “How’d you sleep last night? After the talk we had, I mean. I know it’s a lot to take in, and—” 

“It’s fine,” Grace said, crossing her arms. “I’m fine. No sense in worrying about it. I’ll be gone in a few days.”

“Sure,” Rosie said.

Strange how one word—one syllable—could call a blush to Grace’s cheeks. Despite what was written in the will, this wasn’t her business. This wasn’t her life. Staying here like they wanted her to would put her on the path to loserdom—crappy job, crappy friends, crappy life—an even faster path than her current one. She needed all the help available to pull her hot-mess self together, and she most certainly wasn’t going to get it in Witch Wood, Kentucky.

“Well,” Rosie said, turning to descend the stairs, “Phee made some breakfast. Come down whenever you’re ready.”

“Great. Thanks.” They weren’t friends, not really, so why did it feel like she’d let her down?

~~~~

Her mouth was dry. She plucked the sticky fabric of her shirt away from her sweaty skin. 2:14 a.m., according to her watch. Rosie would be asleep by now. The house wasn’t that big. Grace could certainly find her way to the kitchen for a glass of water.

The bedroom door creaked. Rosie had left a nightlight on her for in the hallway, a little black cat with glowing yellow eyes. She must have picked it out to go with the poster on her door. Cute.

Grace managed the steep stairs with minimal tripping and the mildest of curses. The Persian runner was frayed and soft beneath her bare feet. At the bottom, in the darkness of the living room, she stopped. Voices drifted out from the kitchen.

“She’s not staying.” It was Rosie’s, the low pitch sweetening her drawl.

Grace tightened her jaw. Eavesdropping was not something a grown, independent woman felt the need to do.

“What? Why not?” A man’s voice this time, which must belong to the enigmatic Phee.

“She and Pete didn’t have a relationship. There’s no real reason for her to stay. This place doesn’t have any nostalgia for her, not like it does for us.”

Grace silently thanked Rosie for being the obvious voice of reason in this relationship.

“But she’s a Pembleton,” Phee said. “Did you show her the book, the trunk?”

“Yeah, but she stayed in her room and went to sleep. If she were interested in carrying on the family legacy, I’m sure she would have come down to talk about it, especially after the trunk. I mean, who could really see that and not care why their grandfather had an assortment of unusual weapons?”

Maybe because her grandfather had never cared enough to even meet her. They couldn’t guilt her into having an obligation to this strange, creaky old house.

“Maybe she thought he was a collector of weird,” said Phee.

There was some clattering now, followed by the sink running and the click-click-click of a gas burner igniting. She should move. Instead, she was, as usual, paralyzed by indecision.

“What are we going to do about the pond?” Phee asked.

“We’ll have to rely on the book. I think we should wait until she’s gone, though.”

“Why? We’ve apparently already scared her off. If you want to scare her off faster, we can just tell her about the monster in the pond.”

Rosie chuckled but offered no protest.

A monster in the pond? This was getting ridiculous. Grace cleared her throat. “Hello? Rosie?” 

The caretaker popped her head out of the doorway. ”Oh, hey. Come and join us. Phee’s here.”

Lights under the cabinets illuminated faces without dispelling the general gloom of night. The man, who must be Phee, had messy dark hair and a neat beard. A tad shorter than Rosie, he wore worn jeans and a red flannel button-up thrown over a Star Wars tee.

Grace stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Grace.” 

He shook it. ”Phee. Sorry I wasn’t here earlier to welcome you. I own the bar across the street and just got out for the night.”

Rosie gestured to the teapot on the stove. “We’re just making tea. Want some?”

Which would she rather have—sleep her body craved or the missing puzzle pieces her mind did? “Sure,” Grace said, sliding onto a stool at the island.

Phee leaned against the counter and asked, “Finding it hard to sleep? The atmosphere here takes some getting used to.”

Grace gathered her hair into a messy bun. “I’ve noticed. I woke up shivering, and I thought there was some sort of mist hovering above me,” she said, tone questioning. ”The price of being blind without glasses.”

“That was probably Honoria,” Phee said.

“Honoria?”

The kettle whistled, and Rosie plucked it off the burner. “She was one of the first guests here over a hundred thirty years ago.” She retrieved a third mug from the cabinet and poured. “She jumped off the balcony to save herself from an arranged marriage.”

A chill ran through Grace. Ghosts. Yep. So plausible. Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

Rosie offered a warm smile and a mug of tea. “Don’t worry. She’s mischievous, but relatively harmless. She’s not going to set fire to anyone’s bed or try to drown you in the shower.”

“You’ve got ghosts,” Grace said. She wrapped her hands around the mug and welcomed the heat that spread through her.

Phee held up his forefinger. ”Ghost. Singular. Nothing to worry about.”

It was official. They both had lost their brains. Grace sipped her tea—peppermint and cloves. The warmth was spreading now, from her throat to her fingers and into her heart. She’d have to get the name of it before she left. ”What’s with this place and tea?”

“It’s a family recipe,” Rosie said as she slid onto the stool opposite Grace. ”It induces calm, an essential trait for the family business.”

Grace blew the steam from her mug. “You keep talking about that, and it doesn’t sound like you’re talking about the bed and breakfast.”

Phee laughed. ”Yeah, not exactly. Things tend to get pretty odd around here. Your grandfather was the sheriff, of sorts, kept things … balanced.”

“The sheriff?”

“What Phee means is he kept the town safe,” Rosie said. ”From monsters.”

Grace groaned. ”Monsters. Of course.”

~~~~ 

Grace sighed and approached the front door. The steps were slightly uneven, but the porch planks were good and sturdy. At least her inheritance wasn’t a dilapidated, condemned wreck. A sign hung to the side of the door that said:  

Pembleton Bed and Breakfast 

Family Owned Since 1878 

Home of Pembleton Family Supernatural Agency 

It seemed her grandfather had had a sense of humor. As she fished in her jeans pocket for the key, the door swung open and out bounded a giant blonde in a navy and white baseball tee. A brown and black mutt raced around her to jump on Grace and lick her face. 

She turned her face away. “Oh, hey, there. Not the glasses!”  

“Imhotep, down! Sorry, he’s excitable. Imhotep!” 

The dog returned to all fours.  

 “So sorry! You must be Grace,” the blonde woman said, her southern accent foreign and yet hospitable. She pulled Grace into a strong hug. “Welcome!” 

“Uh … thanks.” 

“Oh, I’m Rosie, and this naughty guy is Imhotep. Pleasure,” the woman said. She wore no makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail.  

“Nice to meet you.”

Rosie held the door for her. “Come inside. Let me give you a tour.”

“I didn’t realize anyone would be here to meet me.”

“They didn’t tell you much, did they? I take care of things around here. Anything you need done—updates, small fixes, big fixes, whatever whatevs, that’s me. And I live in one of the back rooms, too.” 

“Oh.” The house came with its own caretaker. It didn’t need many surface repairs, but Rosie’s presence would come in handy if Grace decided to stay. ”Great. Thanks.”

The foyer was high-ceilinged, the walls freshly painted white. A Victorian-era couch sat in the left corner, and another longer one sat below mounted bookshelves nestled beneath the staircase. 

“Have you been here long?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, a while now,” Rosie said. “I worked here in the summers during college, and Pete brought me on as full-time caretaker once I graduated. Do you have bags in the car you want brought in? Or do you want a tour first? Or lunch? Phee’s working right now, but I can whip up a mean grilled cheese and bacon sandwich.” 

Grace wiped her shoes on a doormat depicting a sepia-toned map of the world. She probably should have sold this place without a second thought, but she was three years out of college and had nothing to show for her lit degree except for some stellar crit papers and some less-than-stellar short stories she couldn’t sell. 

The ceiling boards creaked. 

Grace looked up. “Is someone upstairs?” 

“Oh, no. There are no guests right now.” Rosie crossed her arms and scrutinized her. “Do you want me to show you to your room? You must be tired after your trip. You can look over the place later.” 

Grace peeked into the room to her right, painted a deep red. A king bed with a gold and crimson coverlet took up most of the room, but a door along the opposite wall revealed a spacious bathroom. Rosie had lived in this place, taken care of this place for years now. She had known her grandfather for much longer than Grace had even known of him. 

Grace retreated into the entranceway. “Were you with him when he died?” 

Rosie brushed her bangs to the side. “He died in his sleep, actually. Phee was the one who found him.” She took Grace by the hand. ”Look, let me take you to your room. There’s something he wanted me to pass on to you.” 

Grace followed her through the Victoriana dining room and through a door marked “Private.” This must be the back part of the house, the addition, where the family lived. They walked through an updated kitchen into a cozy living area. 

“That’s my room.” Rosie pointed to a closed door on the right side of the room featuring a movie poster of Lugosi and Karloff’s The Black Cat. ”What? I’m a big fan of old horror movies. Just wait until Wednesday night rolls around.” She led the way up the steps, covered with a Persian runner. ”Phee sleeps upstairs, but if you’re uncomfortable with that, he and I can switch rooms.” 

Considering she knew neither Phee nor Rosie and had no basis to formulate an opinion, Grace shrugged. When they reached the top floor, something flickered across the end of the hallway in the gathering gloom. Exhausted, she shook her head to clear it. 

The mysterious Phee’s room was the first on the left, hers the first on the right. Rosie switched on the bedside lamp. It was a regular old bedroom, with a king-sized four-poster bed, a wardrobe and closet, and a desk beneath the eastern window. In the corner sat an old-fashioned black trunk, the edges worn. The space smelled dusty, like an old library, though the only book in sight was a leather-bound tome on the desk. 

“We, uh, changed the sheets for you,” Rosie said, ”but I’d be happy to give you directions to the nearest Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It’s almost twenty miles away, but hey, they have a movie theater over there, too.” 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Grace said, wandering into the room. She ran a hand over a bedpost. It looked like an antique, but the wood was still smooth beneath her fingers. 

Rosie, arms crossed, leaned against the doorframe. “I know.” 

In addition to the book, the desk was home to a handful of picture frames, all featuring black-and-white photos of what Grace guessed were family members. She picked up one that showed a man and a woman embracing in front of a tree. 

“That’s Pete and Irene.” 

Her grandparents, the ones she never knew, and the only answer she ever got about them was 'it’s a delicate situation'. 

“Did you know her, too?” 

Rosie shook her head. “She died a long time ago.”  

Before Grace was born or after? Had she known of her only granddaughter, fought to put her in the will? “What was he like?”  

“He was a good man. He liked to help people. He helped this town more than anyone.” Rosie sighed. 

“Oh,” Grace said. She set the frame down only to pick up a very familiar photo beside it. Her at her college graduation a few years ago. Black gown, red diploma, big grin. Maybe her mother had sent it. Or he’d gotten it off Facebook. She sank onto the mattress. 

“Look, I’ll go make you some tea,” Rosie said. 

“No, that’s all right. It’s getting late anyway, and I’m tired.” 

“Sure. Let me at least bring your bags up.” 

Grace wasn’t a guest here, and if she was the boss, she wouldn’t be for long. Tired, she silently handed her car keys over. Once Rosie had gone, she set the frame back in place, yawned, and stretched. It wasn’t late by any standards, but the nine-hour drive had wiped her out. 

Rosie returned a few minutes later with a quiet, “Back.” She set Grace’s duffel on the floor, placed the car keys on the end table, and held out a steaming mug shaped like a TARDIS. ”Made you some tea just in case. Bathroom’s next room on this side of the hall. Do you need anything else?” 

“No,” Grace said. She accepted the mug and stuffed her free hand into her jeans pocket. “But thanks for the welcome.” 

“Sure. Before I go, Pete wanted us to make sure you read that book on the desk. And he wanted us to give you this.” She withdrew a brass key from her pocket. “It’s for the trunk. Maybe you should take a glance before you turn in.” 

“I will.” 

“Okay, goodnight, then. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.” 

“Goodnight.” 

Rosie closed the door on her way out. The room was nice, but the atmosphere was … eerie, like her grandparents’ souls still lingered here and wouldn’t let go of the place, like they were afraid of entrusting it to her. Which was smart. She had no ties to this house, no qualms about selling it to a tourism developer. Her plan was only to stick around for a few days to smooth the transition. 

She turned. The curtains were drawn open, and the moon, already visible, was a silvery crescent low in the sky. 

She tugged on the lamp chain, flooding the desk with light. The book, which bore no title, was probably one of those old bibles people liked to pass down to their children. Inside, on the first page was a list of names and years, from William A. Pembleton—634 to Peter Pembleton—1949. Fantastic. A family heirloom. Exactly what she needed. 

She turned the page. 

A Bestiary of Legend:  A Guide to Protecting the Balance of the World 

Not a bible, then.  

The first entry was titled ’abaasy’ and accompanied by a pen drawing of a dragon-like beast. 

She slid the tip of her finger along the handwritten line as she muttered to herself, “‘A spirit, dwells near their own grave. Devours man and their souls, infects the living with disease.’ Gee, thanks, Grandpa. That’s not terrifying at all.” 

Below the description, the book gave instructions on how to vanquish such a creature. She flipped through the remaining pages, stopping occasionally. The entire book was full of similar entries, all for otherworldly beings. Though some were marked as ‘friendly’ or ‘friendly once trust is earned,’ most posed threats to humans. 

What the hell? Either her ancestors had an eccentric sense of humor or madness ran in her family.

Grace closed the book. Practicality was the force that needed to rule her life right now, not fantasy. Even so, the trunk was worth a look if only to keep from worrying about it in the morning. Despite the trunk’s obvious age, the lock was shiny and new and the key slid in easily. She hefted the lid up and groaned. 

Weapons. Weapons filled the trunk, including an axe and a sword on the underside of the lid that shimmered in the lamplight. Unmarked jars, hand blades, boxes of stones and powders and amulets—none of it made sense. 

“Damn it.” Nowhere in the will did it mention her grandfather was a nutcase.

~~~~

At the end of the lane, the neon sign of the roadside motel blinked a blue message. “No Vacancy”. The warning should have been red, but it was Saturday night, and on Amelia’s Saturday nights, everything was blue.

Though there were no rooms left for the weary travelers along the state highway, there was always a room for Amelia. The last door on the last building waited unlocked, waited for her.

He was already there.

Upon crossing the threshold, she felt the world shift beneath her. The wounded wedding lace healed itself, and the stains reverted back to eggshell white. The dress was once again as pristine as it was on that glass-entombed mannequin where Amelia had found it, on the dressmaker's dummy readied for matrimonial bliss that never arrived.

“I missed you,” the man said, and they embraced, automatic at first like two long departed friends who can’t quite remember where they last left off.

“Is it time for the first dance?” she asked, and he nodded. 

In the lounge by the pool, life returned to the rundown motel. Under an ethereal spotlight of sapphire, people materialized—faces that had visited half a century before or perhaps were never there at all. The rhythm of their soft voices made for a lovely soundtrack as the man led Amelia down the stairs and into the pool.

The water never touched them. It couldn’t permeate their clothes or drench their skin. Under six feet of caustic chlorine, there was no need to breathe. Instead, they smiled at each other and commenced a waltz that neither had ever learned. 

Finished with the would-be swim, they drifted toward the bar, and without missing a step, Amelia grabbed a waiting cocktail—a Blue Hawaiian, complete with a matching paper umbrella. She sipped the saccharine potion while she turned again and again. The train of her dress should have gotten caught under foot, but just like Amelia and her dance partner, the lace and satin floated through every obstacle, untouched by the gossamer world. 

“Was all this real once?” She stared deep into the man’s face. “Did we come here together?"

“I like to think we did,” he said.

They danced rings around the pool. Twirling and twisting, the graceful circles made her seasick, but she didn't mind.

Other couples joined them, and even without a proper tune, every step was in sync. 

Amelia wondered if theirs were blue dreams too. 

At last, the lights dimmed, and one by one, the others departed. Amelia and the man were the final two to go. With an emphatic pirouette, they glided through the door to their room. 

Adorned in rose petals, the mattress was already warm. 

“Maybe we’ll get to stay this time,” the man whispered as if he believed it. But he was always the first to leave.

Arms and legs wrapped together until they didn’t know whose limb was whose, they fell asleep.

But for once, she stirred before him. With nothing else to do, Amelia watched the man for a long time. Sneaking in through the venetian blinds, the waning moonlight cast slats across his body and arrayed him in stripes like an incarcerated fool. 

Her lips pressed into his forehead, and she silently bid him goodbye. 

The next morning, in her apartment, Amelia awoke in the torn and sullied dress. Like the now-forgotten dance, her head spun, and something small and sharp pressed into her palm.

Crushed between her fingers was a paper umbrella. She ran the stem beneath her nose. The sharp bouquet of rum and coconut overcame her senses, and for a moment, she could almost make out the elegant cacophony of poolside murmurs. 

Smiling, she tossed the trinket in the trash and reclined in her own bed, the cool and empty mattress welcoming her beneath a yellow fluorescent light. 

~~~~