Chapter 26
For a moment my chest caught as panic seized me. I closed my eyes, and forced myself to calm down. I remembered now. Last night, I had almost been killed. My mother, along with her King James Bible, had saved me.
My mother. I thought of her immediately. I practically jumped out of the bed and ran for the door. After a quick detour to the bathroom, I made my way into the kitchen. The clock on the stove told me in bold green numbers that it wasn’t yet ten.
Ernie was leaning against the countertop.
“Coffee,” I said, pouring myself a large mug. “I must get coffee, and fast. I slept in. My mom.”
“I heard your boyfriend wants to put his pet sheep here,” Ernie said with a snicker.
“He’s not my boyfriend, Ernie,” I said crossly. “He’s just the accountant.”
Ernie shrugged. “Whatever. But then you’ll be able to do a ewelogy.”
I nearly coughed up my mouthful of coffee. “That’s not even funny,” I scolded him. “Your puns are getting worse.”
“I can tell you’re cross by the look on your face,” he said. “It’s a dead give away.”
I shook my head, left my coffee, and sprinted for the funeral home. I hesitated for a moment, thinking there was a possibility that Mom was at church. After what had happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if she lived there for a month. Yet when I reached the funeral home, the front door was open. I knew that I had made the right decision.
I sprinted for my office. I might be safe—it was five to ten. To my dismay, there were voices inside. With my heart in my mouth, I pushed the door open.
Just as I had expected, my mother sat in my chair behind my desk. Across from her were two people. One was a woman, crying into a tissue. The other was Ian.
“Oh, this is my daughter, Laurel. She helps me here,” my mother said dismissively.
I was amazed at how quickly the gratitude I had felt toward my mother the previous day had been replaced with a desire for her to move across the country forever. “Mom, can I speak with you?”
“One second,” she said shrilly, holding up a finger at me. “We were just wrapping up. Mrs. Benson has lost her mother. We were looking into some packages.”
I nodded and stepped outside, allowing my mother to finish. I thought it best, to avoid a scene in front of a customer. After Mrs. Benson had been escorted out the door and was safely out of earshot, I glared at Mom. “What were you doing?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Someone needed to be here for the meeting. Did you forget about it?”
“No,” I said. “Of course not. Mrs. Benson was early. I arrived here with minutes to spare, to find you in my office conducting the meeting.”
Mom stood up, and so did Ian. “You slept in,” she said in an accusing tone.
“So what if I did?” I said. “I was still here in time. Anyway, I was almost killed yesterday. That was a frightening experience.”
“Fear is not of God,” Ian said, butting in. “I’m sure you feel closer to God now, dear.”
“Why are you here?” I said loudly, turning on the man so quickly he flinched and stepped backward.
“Perhaps I should be going,” he said.
“Perhaps you should.” I tried to glare a hole into the back of his head as he left.
“Laurel, I have no idea why you’re always so rude,” my mother said. “Is this the gratitude I get for saving your life?”
I ignored that. I knew that fact was going to be thrown at me forever. “Why was Ian here?”
“He was helping me. It’s always nice to have someone lending a hand.”
I rolled my eyes. “Lending a hand for what? Helping you tell people how many types of wood we can make coffins out of?”
“Don’t be so smart, Laurel. You know we don’t make the coffins,” my mother said in a scolding tone.
It was all I could do not to scream. “Mom, please don’t meet with clients with Ian. In fact, I would prefer you not to do it all.”
Mom frowned. “I’m going to go to church.” She left in a huff.
I went to the office and sat in my chair. I didn’t even notice that Ernie had come in until he spoke.
“How you holding up, kid?” he asked.
“Fine thanks, Ernie.”
“Tiffany was looking for you,” he said. “She wants to say goodbye.”
“She’s, um, going on?”
The ghost nodded.
“Good. Where is she?”
“Out at her headstone, she said. She wants to meet you there. She said she was going to wait a bit.”
I jumped up, not wanting to miss her. “Thanks, Ernie,” I said as I ran for my car. For someone who was caffeine deprived, I sure was doing a lot of running.
I jumped into my car and sped off toward the graveyard. Tiffany was there, standing in front of her headstone. She must have heard me coming, or felt me, because she spoke to me without turning. “The police went to my house this morning. They told my mom everything about Louise.”
“It must be nice to know,” I said. “To have closure.”
Tiffany turned to me. “For my mom, or for me?”
I shrugged. “Both.”
Tiffany nodded. “Yes, it is. I know I feel better. I feel lighter, which is a strange thing to say considering I can float.”
“Please don’t float,” I said. “I’m glad you feel better. I’m only sorry it took so long.”
Tiffany smiled at me and shook her head. “Don’t be silly. Thank you so much for helping. No one else would.”
I smiled, too. A man walked past and looked in my direction, but for once I didn’t receive a strange look for talking to thin air. A cemetery was the one place where it was socially acceptable for people to speak to the unseen. “Well, you didn’t exactly have a lot of people to ask.”
“True,” Tiffany said. The sun was in my eyes, and it made her a little hard to see, even for me. She was shimmering.
“So where do you go now?” I asked.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Tiffany shrugged. “I don’t belong here.” She shook her head softly.
“I know,” I said. “Are you scared?”
“No,” Tiffany answered. “I’m not. I think I should be, but I’m not. I know it will be okay. I can’t explain it, but it feels really good—over there. I’m going to go now.”
I nodded, sad that she was going, but pleased at the same time. Tiffany took another look at her headstone, and then the air around her grew brighter. All at once she took a step forward and then vanished. I knew I wouldn’t speak with her again, as long as I was in this world. The thought of that made me sad, but I was happy for her. She had found closure, and she wasn’t tied to this world any longer.
I turned and walked slowly back to my car, and then I drove home. My mother was still at church, so I walked out and looked at the five acre paddock where Basil was probably going to put his two pet sheep. The grass was already getting long again, and it had only been mown a week ago.
I thought about the people I cared about. There were people who were still in my life, like Tara, my mother, and Basil. I had no idea whether Basil would ever be any more to me than an accountant, but at least I could rely on him. If nothing else, he could be a friend, although truth be told, I wanted more than that. And there were people who were no longer in my life, like Tiffany and my father. Just because I couldn’t speak to them anymore, it didn’t mean I didn’t care about them, and it didn’t mean they didn’t care about me. I knew that, but it was still a bitter pill to swallow.
I stood at the fence, thinking about Tiffany, and about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. I wondered if I would be able to go so willingly to the other side when it was my turn. The idea scared me. What if after this world there was nothing?
Of course, that didn’t make sense. If there were ghosts, it didn’t make sense that we went nowhere, and I knew for a fact there were ghosts, because I spoke to them.
I sighed and walked along the fence line. I didn’t need to keep thinking about things I couldn’t answer. I was back here in Witch Woods and I was happy. I couldn’t believe I was thinking that being back in my hometown, running my father’s business, actually made me happy. It had been a big change, but it had turned out to be a welcome one. I was running a business, and so far, and no thanks to my mother, I hadn’t run it into the ground. I helped people daily. I helped people mourn and cope, and move on.
I supposed moving on wasn’t the right term. We never really moved on. You didn’t lose someone you loved and then just go on with life. There was always a part of them that went with you, and there was always a part of you that died with them. But that was okay, because I knew that the people, good or bad, who help make your life what it is are the most important people you’ll ever know. I thought of Tiffany. I would miss her. I was glad she had crossed over, and I knew I would never forget her.
I wiped a tear from my eye, and made my way to the funeral home. I turned back when I heard someone call my name. Basil was waving and smiling as he walked down the fence line toward me, a sheep on a leash on either side of him.
* * * * The End * * * *
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Nothing to Ghost About
Laurel Bay is conducting a funeral, when someone is strangled in the bathroom. Now that there have been two deaths in the funeral home, business is as dead as a doornail. As Laurel sifts through the clues, she is faced with too many suspects, a wisecracking ghost, and a woman journalist who appears to be after more than Basil’s files.
Laurel thought that inheriting the funeral home was an opportunity to die for, but it seems to be quite an undertaking.
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About Morgana Best
#1 Best-selling Cozy Mystery author, Morgana Best, lives in a small, historic, former gold mining town in the middle of nowhere in Australia. She is owned by one highly demanding, rescued cat who is half Chinchilla, and two less demanding dogs, a chocolate Labrador and a rescued Dingo, as well as two rescued Dorper sheep, the ram, Herbert, and his wether friend, Bertie.
Morgana is a former college professor who now writes full time. Her subject was grammar. Morgana was a published author of dry academic books under a pen name, but abandoned academia to write cozy mysteries.
In her spare time, Morgana loves to read cozy mysteries, repurpose furniture, and renovate her old house. She is vegan.