Chapter 14 #4
After a long kiss, his arms were aching, but he didn’t care; she pulled back and rested her forehead against his. “I love how you kiss me, Sheffield.”
He couldn’t help wondering if she called Benji, Sheffield. The thought of sharing his nickname with his brother made him feel a little off-balance. He dropped her to her feet, and Poppy, because she was always in tune with him, placed her hand on his arm and frowned. “Hey, where did you go?”
He looked up at the tree, where her tag about not marrying Benji hung and wondered if he should ask her about his brother, whether she’d been seriously into him that summer she was seventeen, about how she felt about him cheating, and why she never spoke about it.
It bugged the shit out of him, because it wasn’t how she operated.
Poppy talked, it was how she processed. If she wasn’t processing, then she was bottling.
And bottles under pressure tended to blow.
But it was a lovely night, and someone was playing a haunting melody on a saxophone. Around him, people were laughing, and the smell of cider and popcorn permeated the air. This was one of Poppy’s favorite events, and he didn’t want to spoil the evening for her by pushing.
He took her hand and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I’m good. Let’s go spike some hot chocolate.”
Poppy grinned and danced on the spot. “Let’s do it.” Then she looked up at the tree. “Ghosts, do your thing. I’ll be back in the morning.”
And judging by the challenging look she gave him, so would he.
Ruby
At three the next morning, the time when all good ghosts got to work, Ruby, Lila, and Naomi drifted across the square to the Gratitude Tree.
Ruby was surprised at the number of ghosts darting in and out of the branches, sitting on the grass beneath the tree, or on the branches.
The H-Town ghosts were having their own Tag & Thanks event.
It was a pity it didn’t come with alcohol and food. She missed drinking and dancing going home with someone after you were a bit buzzed.
“Do you know who also loved this event?” Lila asked, dressed in her favorite outfit, a very short, very red dress with tassels falling to her ankles. Her lipstick mirrored the dress, and Ruby rather liked that shade. “Captain Blackwood.”
Ruby was surprised at how much she missed the pedantic captain.
A Civil War doctor, the captain had moved on at the end of summer, and they all missed his sensible, solid, and precise presence.
In many ways, big and small, he’d kept their ghostly feet on the ground.
The Reverend, his old, brimstony cohort, headed into the light not long after Silas left them, and they didn’t miss him half as much as they missed the captain.
“He was also really good at moving tags,” Lila added.
Ruby pulled a face. She’d tried last year but hadn’t added much to the communal effort.
Humans thought it funny how the tags were moved and scribbled on, but the ghosts expended a lot of energy to make it happen.
It took up to twenty ghosts working in shifts to move tags, more still to write on the tags.
The ones who contributed the most energy were lauded as heroes for continuing the town tradition and fulfilling the unwritten and unspoken contract with the humans of H-Town.
Like their forebears, the current residents of H-Town provided a safe (ish), accepting place for ghosts to live, and the ghosts contributed to keeping the “spooky” atmosphere alive.
Nearly everybody was happy, and the ghosts knew that was as good as you could get.
Ruby, Lila, and Naomi openly admitted they were too lazy to move or write on tags, but were enthusiastic cheerleaders.
“Dear Captain Blackwood,” Lila said, fondly. “He was so easy to tease.”
This year’s crop of teenagers who’d decided to take on the challenge of “outing” the ghosts—why did they bother, they never managed it—were either asleep in their camp chairs, blankets pulled up to their noses, or were too busy making out to think about ghosts.
“And he loved messing with the teenagers,” Ruby commented, hands on her hips.
Naomi saw a phone on a tripod, camera attached, drifted over to it, and wrapped her hand around it. When the red light blinked off and the screen went black—she’d drained it of its battery—she smiled.
“That’s my contribution to the cause,” she said, dusting off her hands.
Ruby, seeing a couple on a blanket, hands under clothing, grinned at her friends.
“In honor of our friend, Captain Blackwood,” she murmured, drifting over to the couple.
Looking away from their enthusiastic, tongues-down-throats kissing, she pushed her fingers beneath their collars and tapped her fingers against their necks.
Instantly, they sprang apart, eyes wide.
“Did you touch my neck?” the girl demanded.
“No, my hand was in your pants.” Ruby grimaced. Ew. “You touched my neck!”
The girl pulled her hands out from his pants—Ruby hadn’t noticed the down-below action, double ew—and lifted them “They weren’t. So who touched me with cold fingers?”
“Who touched me with cold hands?” the boy demanded, utterly confused and more than a little freaked out.
They both sprang to their feet and looked around, their eyes wild. Ruby grinned and gripped their necks, and they both shivered. Then, without further discussion, they grabbed the blanket and their backpacks, and the boy whipped the phone off the tripod. “Shit, it’s dead.”
The girl wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked on her heels. “I am so spooked, Tad.”
“It’s fine, Gina, let’s just go.”
Tad? Gina? Weren’t they Wren’s dance kids from the summer? Huh, so they were still together. Ruby wanted to remind them to use protection, but they were too freaked out to hear her. Oh, well, scaring them was also an effective method of contraception.
Dusting off her hands, she drifted back to her friends. “Good job, Ruby,” Naomi said. “It was time for them to get their butts home.”
Ruby linked, as much as she could, her arms with Lila’s and Naomi’s. “Let’s find a seat to watch the tree shenanigans. And I’ll update you about Cedric … the poor boy is losing his ever-lovin’ mind.”