The seventh day of Christmas
I wake up on the morning of New Year’s Eve with an odd feeling that someone is watching me.
But when I open my eyes, I discover I’m wrong about that.
There’s not only one person watching me, but several people gathered around my bed.
Ghosts. Several of them are guests I recognize from the always busy downstairs dining room. And the one standing the closest is the woman I thought might be Rodge’s mother. They’re all leaning forward with a keen look of anticipation. Like they’ve been here a while, eagerly waiting for me to wake up.
I soon find out that’s precisely what they’ve been doing when the woman I found in the room yesterday says, “About time you opened those eyes. We’ve been waiting all night for you to wake up already!”
“He’s a billionaire you say?” the older man with the handlebar mustache asks. He raises his monocle to peer at me. “It must not take much to achieve this feat these days. If I had spent as much time in bed as he does when I was alive, I never would have become a captain of industry!”
“I heard Declan telling Maeve he inherited most of his wealth,” the blonde with the Farrah Fawcett hair answers. “His family started Toyota…no, that’s not right. Nakamura. That’s where most of his money comes from, not real work.”
“Toyota? Nakamura? What’s that?” the man in the sailing suit ask.
“Cheap little cars. From Japan,” the blonde answers. “They weren’t over here yet when you died in the fifties, but in the seventies, they became all the rage. So now his family’s rich.”
“Ah, I see,” the man with the monocle says. “Well good on you, old chap. Wish I had thought of that! That Henry Ford was so pompous. I would have loved to have given him some competition.”
“Shut it, all of you! Who cares how he made his money?” The ghost we think might be Rodge’s mother glares at the other spirits standing around the bed.
Then her cranky gaze comes back to me. “The point is you said last night you were going to help me get a message to my son, Rodge, before you and your girlfriend got distracted and started making the beasts with two backs. So are you going to keep your promise are what?”
Her tone is so aggressive that I don’t give my ban on acknowledging ghosts any consideration before breaking it. “You were eavesdropping on us? And you watched us have sex?”
I sit up in bed to find it’s much worse than I thought. More ghosts are standing behind the ones I could see while lying down. And even more ghosts behind them. From what I can tell, every ghost in the hotel has piled into my room.
They all still at my accusation…before they burst out laughing.
“Oh no, you were eavesdropping on us! And you watched us have sex outside of marriage! Oh, dear! Oh my!” one ghost says, slapping his hands over his cheeks. I presume this is supposed to be an impression of me.
“Did you hear how surprised he sounded?” the man with the monocle asks. “As if ghosts would do anything else!”
“It’s not funny,” I tell all the laughing ghosts.
“What’s not funny?” Kristal’s murmurs beside me, her voice soft with sleep. “And why is it so cold…?”
At her own words, she suddenly comes fully awake. Then she jerks up into a seated position, and pulls the blanket over her chest before asking, “Are there ghosts in here?”
“Yes, thanks to Rodge’s mother spying on us and telling all her friends about me. Every single spirit currently in residence at the inn is in this room,” I answer through clenched teeth.
Kristal’s mouth drops open with an O of surprise, but then she resets, “That’s a good thing, though, right? Now we can help them all.”
So, so much kinder than me. So I add, “And they’ve been watching us have sex every night since we arrived.”
“And sometimes during the day, too,” the ghost in the sailing suit says, waggling his bushy eyebrows.
“Afternoon delight, indeed!” one of the unseen ghosts calls out from the crowd’s back.
Only the bikini-clad ghost has the grace to look remotely apologetic. “Sorry, we were all so excited when Nancy said you could see us. Also, there’s not much else here for us to do.”
“What are they saying?” Kristal asks beside me.
“One of them is apologizing for watching us,” I answer, deciding to go with the least creepy version of the truth.
But then I have to ask the ghosts, “How did I not see you?”
“Oh, when watching carnal activity, most ghosts prefer to view it from inside the walls. I’m not sure why,” the bikini blonde answers.
“Maybe it makes us feel more alive to hide. That way, we can pretend we’re still people who can be seen and that we’re truly spying,” the man in the sailing suit posits. “What a pity I had to die to find out about spirits. I could have written papers upon papers about the things we do.”
“Again, can we all stay on track?” Rodge’s mom shouts at the rest of them. “I’m beginning to wish I never told the rest of you about him.”
As am I.
“I have reservations about trying to help them,” I say to Kristal. “Many, many reservations.”
“See, now he doesn’t want to help us anymore,” Rodge’s mom says to the rest of the ghosts. “I told you worthless sheets you should have let me come in here alone.”
“Come, dear girl, you’re not exactly known for your diplomacy,” the man with the monocle replies. “If not for us, he probably would have had second thoughts even sooner.”
“Sheets?” I ask Rodge’s mom.
Kristal gasps, “That’s a very, very derogatory term for ghosts. Marian won’t even let us use that term when we’re making our beds!”
“I did not know,” I answer. “I’m only repeating what Rodge’s mother told me.”
“Oh, wow. She sounds like…something else. I can see why you’re having second thoughts.”
“You can’t back out now,” Nancy says, her face going from hard to desperate. “I’ve got to get this message to Rodge, and you’re my only chance.”
“What’s she saying?” Kristal asks.
I think of lying or perhaps omitting the most desperate part of her plea. But after last night’s conversation with Kristal, I find myself unwilling to do that. “She says she needs to get a message to Rodge. And that we’re her only chance.”
“We’re her only chance?”
I feel no surprise whatsoever when Kristal’s expression softens from wariness to empathy. “Then we have to help her, right?”
Rodge’s mother clasps her hands together, and she and Kristal both hit me with pleading looks.