If I Die Young, Can Someone Please Let Me Know?
October 13
“So, it’s a plan?” Dan asked. “We’ll drop off your library book, stop in the hardware store for some more nails, then head over to Lisgard House and take pictures of the journal pages?”
“After we pull off the boards Regan nailed up,” Mart muttered, not particularly relishing that task. “I can’t believe he covered it all up like that.”
“Eh. He had no reason not to. As far as he was concerned, Sarah’s journal pages were – what did he call them? The incomprehensible ravings of a lunatic? And from his perspective, only an insane person would glue a diary to the wall, anyway. He wouldn’t think there was a reason to save any of it. The point was to cover the hole in the wall with something secure enough that it couldn’t be easily knocked through from the outside. That required making sure the surrounding wall was reinforced, and that’s what he did.”
“Yeah. I know. Pay no attention to my whining. I do wish there was a way we could save the pages themselves, though. Not just take photos of them.”
“I don’t know how we could do that without seriously damaging them. I tried to peel just the corner of one and it started to tear.”
“Could we steam-“ Trixie started to ask, before cutting herself off.
“I’ll jump! You don’t believe me, but I’ll do it!”
She stopped walking and turned to look up. “All right. I can’t… Look. I’m going to go try with this guy one more time, okay? It’s too distracting. And creepy.”
Mart regarded her skeptically. “Aside from the fact that I think you’ll probably be wasting your time, Sis, how do you propose getting up to the roof while town hall is still open for the day?”
“He’s got a point, Freckles,” Dan said with a shrug. “You can’t exactly go sneaking up the stairs in the middle of the afternoon. Someone’ll see you.”
“Not if you two go in first and distract whoever’s working at the reception desk.”
“Distract them how, exactly?” Mart demanded. “It’s not like we have any particular business there.”
“I dunno! Tell ‘em you’re from the school newspaper and want to write an article about the ghost walks the council organized. Or you’re writing an essay on Horace Mundy for your history class. Or… tell ‘em you work at the Lisgard estate and the owner’s planning to demolish the house and there are a few items of, uh, historical value you thought maybe the town would like to keep and put on display. Or-“
“Whoa! Slow down,” Dan cut in, chuckling. “You know, for someone who has a hard time lying without blushing and stammering and giving herself away, you’re awfully good at thinking up the fact-free stories to lie about.”
“I’ll jump! I swear! I’ll do it!”
“Please?” Trixie pleaded in a pained voice. “It’s either this or I’m going to quit coming to town. Ever.”
They crossed the street and approached the front entrance of the building. A middle-aged man opened the door from the inside and strolled out, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a thick stack of papers in the other.
“Oh, hello, there!” he called cheerfully. “You’re right on time.”
Trixie regarded him uncertainly. “We… are?”
“Yep. Between us, we should be able to get these delivered in no time. Most of them go to storefronts on Main Street that have requested copies. There are a few other businesses on the adjoining blocks for the rest. Here. You kids take these and handle Main. I’ll get the side streets.”
“Sir?” Mart said politely. “I think you have us mistaken for someone else. We have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The man’s happy expression fell and he frowned slightly as his eyes tracked to the nearly empty sidewalk behind them. “You aren’t my volunteers from the high school?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, shoot. I was really hoping to get this done as quickly as possible.”
“You just need someone to deliver these… uh, flyers to local businesses?” Dan asked, turning his head slightly to read the top page.
“Yes. They’re to help advertise our fall and Halloween activities around town.”
“No problem, sir. We’d be happy to help you with that.”
Mart and Trixie both shot their friend incredulous looks. Are you nuts? Mart mouthed at him from behind the man’s back.
“Ah, but could we ask a small favor in return?” Dan continued with a broad smile.
“I’m afraid that depends on the favor, young man.”
“My friend here and I? We've had an ongoing disagreement, pretty much since I moved to town awhile back. I say that little tower thing on the roof up there is only for show. He says you can actually get up there and look around. Which one of us is right?”
“Ah. That would be your friend. There’s not much space, but there is a door that opens up to it.”
Dan snapped his fingers and glanced at Mart. “Guess I owe you five bucks, dude. Sir? If my friends and I deliver all these flyers for you, is there any chance we could get a peek? I’ll bet the view is great.”
“Hmm. We don’t normally allow the public up on the roof.”
“Oh, please?” Trixie asked, widening her eyes beseechingly. “I’d love to see Sleepyside from Hoppy’s point-of-view.”
“We’ll deliver all the flyers,” Mart offered. “You could go straight home for the evening.”
“I can count on you?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely.”
“Our dad is the manager at Sleepyside First National Bank,” Trixie added helpfully. “If we don’t maintain our end of the bargain, you can go straight to him and rat us out. We’d be in big trouble then.”
“Oh! Are you Peter Belden’s kids?”
“Yes, sir. I’m Mart Belden and this is my sister, Trixie.”
“Well, then. That’s good. Very good. Come with me.”
He led them inside. A young woman sat behind the reception desk, looking distinctly bored. “Martha? These fine young people will be taking care of our flyers this afternoon.”
“Yes, Mr. Handy.”
“But I’ve promised them a treat first. They’re going upstairs to get the view from the roof.”
Martha nodded disinterestedly, not even sparing them a glance.
“All right then, kids. You can take the stairs at the end of the hall. There’s a separate staircase on the third floor that leads to the cupola. It’s perfectly safe as long as you don’t do anything stupid like climb out onto the roof itself.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mart said. “We promise we’ll be careful.”
“Then I’ll leave you with these and head out. Martha? I’ll be in early tomorrow morning for the meeting with the comptroller.”
“Yes, Councilman Handy.”
They took the stairs quickly, glad that they didn’t encounter anyone else on their way up. “How much of this building do you think actually gets used on a daily basis?” Trixie wondered as the made their way down the third floor hallway.
“Daily? Probably not a lot,” Mart guessed. “I think they built this place as big as it is to make Sleepyside seem more important and impressive. And probably with the hope that it would serve as the county seat.”
Dan pointed to the spiral staircase. “There you go, Freckles. I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish…”
“I want to send our jumper on his way, obviously. What else?” She grasped the handrail and began her climb.
“Yeah, well, good luck with that. Maybe try telling him you’re a Belden. That seems to go over well with the living and the dead.”
“Oh, ha. Ha.”
It was considerably easier this time to open the trap door now that she had the lights of the hallway below her to illuminate the narrow space. She pulled herself into the cupola in time to hear a strangled, “Ahhhh…” that faded quickly away as the jumper fell.
Moments later, he was back.
“Stop!” she commanded sharply, before he could speak. “Do. Not. Move.”
The ghost hesitated, turning to look down toward the ground.
“Don’t.”
“Who are you?” he demanded petulantly as his gaze returned to hers.
“Trixie? Remember? We… talked just a few days ago?”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life!”
“Uh, yeah, bub. We spent like half an hour on this comedy routine. You say you’re going to jump and I won’t believe it, then you do it. Over and over.”
“I will!”
“I know. You’ve definitely established that. But what I want to know is, why do you keep doing it?”
“I’ll jump!”
“Yes. I know,” Trixie ground out in frustration. “But the thing is, it kinda loses its… uh, meaning after the first time. You made your statement. Successfully. Point taken by all involved. You jumped. There’s no need to keep repeating it, so why do you?”
“You aren’t making any sense! If I already jumped, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
“Oh, you already did it, all right. The really gross, bloody mess that is the back of your head should be your first clue.” As soon as she said it, understanding clicked. “Holy Ding-dongs! You don’t know. You bashed your skull in and can’t remember.”
He lifted a hand to touch his head. “Wha – what?”
“Man, I really don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just gonna come out and say it, all right? You’re dead. You jumped just like you said you would and… the end. The Book of Life is over for you, my friend. It’s time to move on to… uh… the next story.”
“That can’t be… Really? I did it?”
“Yep.”
“I… I’m dead.”
“Uh, huh.”
“How is that possible? I don’t understand.”
“It’s possible because you did what you threatened to do. You jumped.”
“I don’t remember jumping.”
“Clearly. I can't believe it took me this long to figure that out.”
“So I jumped and I’m dead.”
“Summed up nicely in six words.”
His brow furrowed in thought. “Then… then I shouldn’t be here.”
“Bingo.”
“Oh.” He looked over at her one last time and was gone.
Trixie heaved a deep sigh and counted slowly to twenty. Satisfied that he wasn’t coming back, she glanced upward. “You’re welcome, Hoppy. No more crazy ghost to mess up your good luck mojo. Which? If I could make a wish? I’d really like to regain at least some control of my life. All right? Yeah. Thanks.”
Shaking her head slightly and reflecting that with everything that had occurred over the last two weeks talking to an antique weather vane was actually one of the less weird things she’d done, she turned and let herself back out of the cupola. “Good news,” she called down to her brother and Dan. “We can mark that one off our to-do list. It’s done.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Okay,” Dan said, leafing through the stack of flyers. “According to this list, we have… uh, deliveries to make to eighteen businesses. I guess that means we’re giving them four or five copies each.” He looked up at the large clock on the front of the town hall building. “And we’ve only got what? An hour and a half of daylight left? Maybe we should put off going back to Lisgard House until tomorrow. Mart, we can drop your book at the library when we pass that way, and Hank’s is on our list, so we can kill two birds with one stone and get our nails when we visit the store.”
“Hand ‘em over, Mangan.”
“Huh?” Dan turned around to find Ruthie Kettner and Lester Mundy standing directly behind him.
“No way we’re letting you steal our volunteer hours,” Lester said angrily. “I’ve still got almost twenty hours to finish before I can qualify for the Reedy Scholarship and I set this gig up to help with that. What gives with you horning in?”
“Chill, Les,” Trixie muttered. “You weren’t here when the councilman was expecting you, so we told him we’d take these as favor. No one’s trying to steal your hours.”
“Yeah, you can have ‘em,” Dan said. “Just make sure you get to every place on the list.” He held the flyers out for Lester to take. “We told the guy we’d handle this. Don’t make us liars.”
Lester’s lips turned up in a slight sneer. “Whatever.” He grabbed the papers and turned to walk away, Ruthie at his side.
Mart let out a low whistle as he watched them leave. “Sheesh. I guess he still hates your guts for taking Ruthie to the spring formal last year? Like it was your fault he didn’t ask her first. They weren’t even officially dating back then.”
Dan gave Trixie a warm smile. “I don’t know, and I really don’t care. I’m just glad you finally reached the age your parents will let you out of the house with boys, Freckles. I had to wait an awfully long time for it to happen.”
Trixie grinned back at him, her cheeks coloring up in a rosy blush.
“Ugh. Dude,” Mart said, shaking his head and visibly shuddering. “I accept that you want to go out with my sister. This is because I accept that there’s something innately wrong with you that no amount of counseling or electric shock therapy could fix. But when we’re all together? Let’s keep this strictly in friend mode. Okay?”
“Gosh, Mart. Would it be all right if I held her hand right now, or would that require the acquisition of a fainting couch to catch you if your delicate sensibilities are overcome?”
“Ha. Can we refocus, please? Now that Lester and Ruthie took those flyers off our hands, we could go back to our original plans if-“
“Excuse me? Um, do you have a few minutes?”
“Are you talking to us?” Dan asked, waving a hand to encompass himself and his friends.
“Yes.”
“Only, because we kinda got the impression you dead people don’t like us anymore,” he continued, “with possibly a few exceptions. So you can see why I wasn’t sure.”
The woman glanced away, then looked back at him warily. “We were warned,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
“Warned? Warned how?” Trixie demanded. “And by who?”
“By whom,” Mart corrected automatically, offering his sister an only somewhat apologetic half-nod at her narrow-eyed glare.
“It doesn’t matter who at this point. We were told that The Three were using entrapment spells to lock spirits in between worlds. That we needed to stay away from you if we didn’t want to be banished. If you’ll pardon the pun? Banishment is a fate far worse than death.” The smile she gave them was a humorless grimace. “But now the word is that you let someone go yesterday…”
“We aren’t using entrapment spells,” Dan told her. “We’re, uh, exploring options if we need them. In case we get the kind of ghost who isn’t simply looking for help and actually wants to do us or anyone else harm.”
The woman’s relief at his words was highly evident. “So the warning was false,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Mart said. “Apparently. I sure would like to know who gave it. And why.”
“Vernon?” Trixie hazarded. “Like we thought? Maybe this was his way of trying to do what we asked?”
Dan shook his head after considering it for a moment. “Office hours, you mean? That doesn’t seem likely, does it? Why would he warn them off us completely?”
“I don’t know. None of this makes sense to me.” Trixie looked back at the ghost. “Who told you we were banishing spirits?”
“I – I don’t know for sure. Honest! It was just one of those things everyone was suddenly saying.” She hesitated before continuing. “So, you will help us? If someone asks?”
“Within reason and ability. A lot of it depends on what you want,” Dan explained. “And when you want it.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
“And is there something we can do for you?”
“No. Not right now, anyway.” She offered them a tentative wave before vanishing from sight.
“How long do you think it will take before the new word on Dead People Street is that we are open for business?” Trixie asked, wondering if they’d made a mistake by confirming that they weren’t, in fact, on some type of mission to rid the world of ghosts.
“Probably not long,” Dan guessed. “Maybe we should get out of here while we have the chance. I vote we skip Lisgard House tonight and go back to my place. We can hang out. Order a pizza. See what’s on television.”
Trixie nodded her agreement. “Works for me. Mart?”
“Yeah. That sounds like the smart thing to do. Let’s go while the goin’s good.”
“So, what do you guys think of the name the spirits gave us?” Dan asked as they started across the town square. “The Three,” he intoned ominously. “Simple. To the point and yet somehow a little mysterious. I think I like it.”
“So, it’s a plan?” Dan asked. “We’ll drop off your library book, stop in the hardware store for some more nails, then head over to Lisgard House and take pictures of the journal pages?”
“After we pull off the boards Regan nailed up,” Mart muttered, not particularly relishing that task. “I can’t believe he covered it all up like that.”
“Eh. He had no reason not to. As far as he was concerned, Sarah’s journal pages were – what did he call them? The incomprehensible ravings of a lunatic? And from his perspective, only an insane person would glue a diary to the wall, anyway. He wouldn’t think there was a reason to save any of it. The point was to cover the hole in the wall with something secure enough that it couldn’t be easily knocked through from the outside. That required making sure the surrounding wall was reinforced, and that’s what he did.”
“Yeah. I know. Pay no attention to my whining. I do wish there was a way we could save the pages themselves, though. Not just take photos of them.”
“I don’t know how we could do that without seriously damaging them. I tried to peel just the corner of one and it started to tear.”
“Could we steam-“ Trixie started to ask, before cutting herself off.
“I’ll jump! You don’t believe me, but I’ll do it!”
She stopped walking and turned to look up. “All right. I can’t… Look. I’m going to go try with this guy one more time, okay? It’s too distracting. And creepy.”
Mart regarded her skeptically. “Aside from the fact that I think you’ll probably be wasting your time, Sis, how do you propose getting up to the roof while town hall is still open for the day?”
“He’s got a point, Freckles,” Dan said with a shrug. “You can’t exactly go sneaking up the stairs in the middle of the afternoon. Someone’ll see you.”
“Not if you two go in first and distract whoever’s working at the reception desk.”
“Distract them how, exactly?” Mart demanded. “It’s not like we have any particular business there.”
“I dunno! Tell ‘em you’re from the school newspaper and want to write an article about the ghost walks the council organized. Or you’re writing an essay on Horace Mundy for your history class. Or… tell ‘em you work at the Lisgard estate and the owner’s planning to demolish the house and there are a few items of, uh, historical value you thought maybe the town would like to keep and put on display. Or-“
“Whoa! Slow down,” Dan cut in, chuckling. “You know, for someone who has a hard time lying without blushing and stammering and giving herself away, you’re awfully good at thinking up the fact-free stories to lie about.”
“I’ll jump! I swear! I’ll do it!”
“Please?” Trixie pleaded in a pained voice. “It’s either this or I’m going to quit coming to town. Ever.”
They crossed the street and approached the front entrance of the building. A middle-aged man opened the door from the inside and strolled out, carrying a briefcase in one hand and a thick stack of papers in the other.
“Oh, hello, there!” he called cheerfully. “You’re right on time.”
Trixie regarded him uncertainly. “We… are?”
“Yep. Between us, we should be able to get these delivered in no time. Most of them go to storefronts on Main Street that have requested copies. There are a few other businesses on the adjoining blocks for the rest. Here. You kids take these and handle Main. I’ll get the side streets.”
“Sir?” Mart said politely. “I think you have us mistaken for someone else. We have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The man’s happy expression fell and he frowned slightly as his eyes tracked to the nearly empty sidewalk behind them. “You aren’t my volunteers from the high school?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, shoot. I was really hoping to get this done as quickly as possible.”
“You just need someone to deliver these… uh, flyers to local businesses?” Dan asked, turning his head slightly to read the top page.
“Yes. They’re to help advertise our fall and Halloween activities around town.”
“No problem, sir. We’d be happy to help you with that.”
Mart and Trixie both shot their friend incredulous looks. Are you nuts? Mart mouthed at him from behind the man’s back.
“Ah, but could we ask a small favor in return?” Dan continued with a broad smile.
“I’m afraid that depends on the favor, young man.”
“My friend here and I? We've had an ongoing disagreement, pretty much since I moved to town awhile back. I say that little tower thing on the roof up there is only for show. He says you can actually get up there and look around. Which one of us is right?”
“Ah. That would be your friend. There’s not much space, but there is a door that opens up to it.”
Dan snapped his fingers and glanced at Mart. “Guess I owe you five bucks, dude. Sir? If my friends and I deliver all these flyers for you, is there any chance we could get a peek? I’ll bet the view is great.”
“Hmm. We don’t normally allow the public up on the roof.”
“Oh, please?” Trixie asked, widening her eyes beseechingly. “I’d love to see Sleepyside from Hoppy’s point-of-view.”
“We’ll deliver all the flyers,” Mart offered. “You could go straight home for the evening.”
“I can count on you?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely.”
“Our dad is the manager at Sleepyside First National Bank,” Trixie added helpfully. “If we don’t maintain our end of the bargain, you can go straight to him and rat us out. We’d be in big trouble then.”
“Oh! Are you Peter Belden’s kids?”
“Yes, sir. I’m Mart Belden and this is my sister, Trixie.”
“Well, then. That’s good. Very good. Come with me.”
He led them inside. A young woman sat behind the reception desk, looking distinctly bored. “Martha? These fine young people will be taking care of our flyers this afternoon.”
“Yes, Mr. Handy.”
“But I’ve promised them a treat first. They’re going upstairs to get the view from the roof.”
Martha nodded disinterestedly, not even sparing them a glance.
“All right then, kids. You can take the stairs at the end of the hall. There’s a separate staircase on the third floor that leads to the cupola. It’s perfectly safe as long as you don’t do anything stupid like climb out onto the roof itself.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mart said. “We promise we’ll be careful.”
“Then I’ll leave you with these and head out. Martha? I’ll be in early tomorrow morning for the meeting with the comptroller.”
“Yes, Councilman Handy.”
They took the stairs quickly, glad that they didn’t encounter anyone else on their way up. “How much of this building do you think actually gets used on a daily basis?” Trixie wondered as the made their way down the third floor hallway.
“Daily? Probably not a lot,” Mart guessed. “I think they built this place as big as it is to make Sleepyside seem more important and impressive. And probably with the hope that it would serve as the county seat.”
Dan pointed to the spiral staircase. “There you go, Freckles. I don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish…”
“I want to send our jumper on his way, obviously. What else?” She grasped the handrail and began her climb.
“Yeah, well, good luck with that. Maybe try telling him you’re a Belden. That seems to go over well with the living and the dead.”
“Oh, ha. Ha.”
It was considerably easier this time to open the trap door now that she had the lights of the hallway below her to illuminate the narrow space. She pulled herself into the cupola in time to hear a strangled, “Ahhhh…” that faded quickly away as the jumper fell.
Moments later, he was back.
“Stop!” she commanded sharply, before he could speak. “Do. Not. Move.”
The ghost hesitated, turning to look down toward the ground.
“Don’t.”
“Who are you?” he demanded petulantly as his gaze returned to hers.
“Trixie? Remember? We… talked just a few days ago?”
“I’ve never seen you before in my life!”
“Uh, yeah, bub. We spent like half an hour on this comedy routine. You say you’re going to jump and I won’t believe it, then you do it. Over and over.”
“I will!”
“I know. You’ve definitely established that. But what I want to know is, why do you keep doing it?”
“I’ll jump!”
“Yes. I know,” Trixie ground out in frustration. “But the thing is, it kinda loses its… uh, meaning after the first time. You made your statement. Successfully. Point taken by all involved. You jumped. There’s no need to keep repeating it, so why do you?”
“You aren’t making any sense! If I already jumped, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”
“Oh, you already did it, all right. The really gross, bloody mess that is the back of your head should be your first clue.” As soon as she said it, understanding clicked. “Holy Ding-dongs! You don’t know. You bashed your skull in and can’t remember.”
He lifted a hand to touch his head. “Wha – what?”
“Man, I really don’t know how to tell you this, so I’m just gonna come out and say it, all right? You’re dead. You jumped just like you said you would and… the end. The Book of Life is over for you, my friend. It’s time to move on to… uh… the next story.”
“That can’t be… Really? I did it?”
“Yep.”
“I… I’m dead.”
“Uh, huh.”
“How is that possible? I don’t understand.”
“It’s possible because you did what you threatened to do. You jumped.”
“I don’t remember jumping.”
“Clearly. I can't believe it took me this long to figure that out.”
“So I jumped and I’m dead.”
“Summed up nicely in six words.”
His brow furrowed in thought. “Then… then I shouldn’t be here.”
“Bingo.”
“Oh.” He looked over at her one last time and was gone.
Trixie heaved a deep sigh and counted slowly to twenty. Satisfied that he wasn’t coming back, she glanced upward. “You’re welcome, Hoppy. No more crazy ghost to mess up your good luck mojo. Which? If I could make a wish? I’d really like to regain at least some control of my life. All right? Yeah. Thanks.”
Shaking her head slightly and reflecting that with everything that had occurred over the last two weeks talking to an antique weather vane was actually one of the less weird things she’d done, she turned and let herself back out of the cupola. “Good news,” she called down to her brother and Dan. “We can mark that one off our to-do list. It’s done.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Okay,” Dan said, leafing through the stack of flyers. “According to this list, we have… uh, deliveries to make to eighteen businesses. I guess that means we’re giving them four or five copies each.” He looked up at the large clock on the front of the town hall building. “And we’ve only got what? An hour and a half of daylight left? Maybe we should put off going back to Lisgard House until tomorrow. Mart, we can drop your book at the library when we pass that way, and Hank’s is on our list, so we can kill two birds with one stone and get our nails when we visit the store.”
“Hand ‘em over, Mangan.”
“Huh?” Dan turned around to find Ruthie Kettner and Lester Mundy standing directly behind him.
“No way we’re letting you steal our volunteer hours,” Lester said angrily. “I’ve still got almost twenty hours to finish before I can qualify for the Reedy Scholarship and I set this gig up to help with that. What gives with you horning in?”
“Chill, Les,” Trixie muttered. “You weren’t here when the councilman was expecting you, so we told him we’d take these as favor. No one’s trying to steal your hours.”
“Yeah, you can have ‘em,” Dan said. “Just make sure you get to every place on the list.” He held the flyers out for Lester to take. “We told the guy we’d handle this. Don’t make us liars.”
Lester’s lips turned up in a slight sneer. “Whatever.” He grabbed the papers and turned to walk away, Ruthie at his side.
Mart let out a low whistle as he watched them leave. “Sheesh. I guess he still hates your guts for taking Ruthie to the spring formal last year? Like it was your fault he didn’t ask her first. They weren’t even officially dating back then.”
Dan gave Trixie a warm smile. “I don’t know, and I really don’t care. I’m just glad you finally reached the age your parents will let you out of the house with boys, Freckles. I had to wait an awfully long time for it to happen.”
Trixie grinned back at him, her cheeks coloring up in a rosy blush.
“Ugh. Dude,” Mart said, shaking his head and visibly shuddering. “I accept that you want to go out with my sister. This is because I accept that there’s something innately wrong with you that no amount of counseling or electric shock therapy could fix. But when we’re all together? Let’s keep this strictly in friend mode. Okay?”
“Gosh, Mart. Would it be all right if I held her hand right now, or would that require the acquisition of a fainting couch to catch you if your delicate sensibilities are overcome?”
“Ha. Can we refocus, please? Now that Lester and Ruthie took those flyers off our hands, we could go back to our original plans if-“
“Excuse me? Um, do you have a few minutes?”
“Are you talking to us?” Dan asked, waving a hand to encompass himself and his friends.
“Yes.”
“Only, because we kinda got the impression you dead people don’t like us anymore,” he continued, “with possibly a few exceptions. So you can see why I wasn’t sure.”
The woman glanced away, then looked back at him warily. “We were warned,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.
“Warned? Warned how?” Trixie demanded. “And by who?”
“By whom,” Mart corrected automatically, offering his sister an only somewhat apologetic half-nod at her narrow-eyed glare.
“It doesn’t matter who at this point. We were told that The Three were using entrapment spells to lock spirits in between worlds. That we needed to stay away from you if we didn’t want to be banished. If you’ll pardon the pun? Banishment is a fate far worse than death.” The smile she gave them was a humorless grimace. “But now the word is that you let someone go yesterday…”
“We aren’t using entrapment spells,” Dan told her. “We’re, uh, exploring options if we need them. In case we get the kind of ghost who isn’t simply looking for help and actually wants to do us or anyone else harm.”
The woman’s relief at his words was highly evident. “So the warning was false,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Mart said. “Apparently. I sure would like to know who gave it. And why.”
“Vernon?” Trixie hazarded. “Like we thought? Maybe this was his way of trying to do what we asked?”
Dan shook his head after considering it for a moment. “Office hours, you mean? That doesn’t seem likely, does it? Why would he warn them off us completely?”
“I don’t know. None of this makes sense to me.” Trixie looked back at the ghost. “Who told you we were banishing spirits?”
“I – I don’t know for sure. Honest! It was just one of those things everyone was suddenly saying.” She hesitated before continuing. “So, you will help us? If someone asks?”
“Within reason and ability. A lot of it depends on what you want,” Dan explained. “And when you want it.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
“And is there something we can do for you?”
“No. Not right now, anyway.” She offered them a tentative wave before vanishing from sight.
“How long do you think it will take before the new word on Dead People Street is that we are open for business?” Trixie asked, wondering if they’d made a mistake by confirming that they weren’t, in fact, on some type of mission to rid the world of ghosts.
“Probably not long,” Dan guessed. “Maybe we should get out of here while we have the chance. I vote we skip Lisgard House tonight and go back to my place. We can hang out. Order a pizza. See what’s on television.”
Trixie nodded her agreement. “Works for me. Mart?”
“Yeah. That sounds like the smart thing to do. Let’s go while the goin’s good.”
“So, what do you guys think of the name the spirits gave us?” Dan asked as they started across the town square. “The Three,” he intoned ominously. “Simple. To the point and yet somehow a little mysterious. I think I like it.”