There was a knock at Kat’s door.
It woke her up. Once again, she’d fallen asleep at her desk, drunk, trying not to dream the same nightmare. Successfully, this time. The knock at the door in the early morning, piercing her headache, was an entirely different kind of nightmare.
“Hold on,” Kat grumbled, straightening her coat and hair as much as she could. She dumped the whiskey glass and bottle into her desk drawer. Another quick look around – she still had her revolver and rapier on her hip, no other garbage or drinks in her office – and settled into her chair in some semblance of professionalism.
Her office looked… well, maybe not clean and tidy, but far from its worst. She could describe it as antique dark, if she was being generous. Switching on a lamp would show more of the scuffs and wear on the floor that badly needed refinishing, but clients should be able to see. Kat did turn on the lamp, which threw odd shadows onto the wall from her collection of case-related vaguely-magical trinkets.
Well, the place wasn’t getting any nicer in the next few seconds. “Come in,” Kat said.
A ghost glided straight through her door.
Kat blinked. She was awake, right? Yes – the headache proved it. “Uh, how can I help you?” she asked, as the ghost sat down in the chair across from her.
The ghost was that of an elderly woman, wearing an outdated flowery dress and thick glasses. Her shoes were the kind with the buckles, with compression socks clinging to too-thick calves. Despite the ghost’s monochrome, translucent grey appearance, Kat could tell that the woman’s hair had been pure white, and her skin had been spotty.
“I lost my keys,” said the ghost in a wavery, high-pitched tone. “I need help finding them.”
Kat frowned, rubbed her eyes, and tucked some loose hair behind her ear as she tried to decide what to say. She settled on a blunt: “You’re a ghost.”
“Yes,” said the ghost lady.
“And you want me to help you find your keys.”
“Yes,” replied the ghostly old lady.
Kat sighed. “Is this one of those, can’t move on until you’ve resolved your last wish things?”
“I believe so,” said the ghost.
“And your last wish,” Kat said, leaning forward, “Your dearest desire, the thing that’s binding your soul to this world and preventing you from moving on… is to find your keys.”
“Yes,” nodded the ghost with an incredibly patient smile.
“Were you murdered?” asked Kat, listing items on her fingers. “Were the keys stolen? Did someone cheat you out of your will? Did -“
“No, no,” interrupted the ghost, her wrinkles deepening. “I like to know where everything is, and I don’t know where my keys are.”
Kat squinted at the ghost. “I’m a private investigator for hire. Don’t mean to be rude, but I have bills to pay. Is there going to be some kind of compensation for helping you find your lost keys?”
“Of course,” scoffed the ghost with an offended scowl. “They should be with my wallet, inside my purse. You can keep all the cash you find in there. Should be about two thousand.”
Kat’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead. Despite her headache, she stood up. “Are you willing to sign an ectoplasm-imprint contract to that effect? Purely for legal and bookkeeping reasons, of course.”
The ghost lady smiled and repeated, “Of course.”
Kat shrugged. “Okay. Sure. I’ll help.” She pulled open a desk drawer, grabbed a bottle of painkillers, downed two for her headache, and fingered through her folders of standard contracts. She found the one for lost objects, filled in the space for the item(s) with client’s keys, and wrote under payment about two thousand, cash on completion. She looked up at the ghost. “Your name, please?”
“Eustace Charity Annabelle Von Bromowitz,” the ghost replied. With a chuckle, she added, “I’m sorry, it’s a lot to write, isn’t it?”
Kat’s lettering got smaller and smaller as her writing neared the edge of the available space on the form. “Yes, it is,” she mumbled, and managed to squeeze in the last name underneath the line. She retrieved a special blue wax from another drawer, melted some with a candle, and dropped it onto the contract. “A thumb print, please?”
Eustace clapped her translucent hands, gently, with no sound. “Oh, how exciting,” she grinned. “I haven’t been able to interact with the physical world since I died a week ago.” The little old ghost pressed her thumb into the special wax and cackled. “It worked! That’s my thumb print!”
“Sure is,” Kat replied offhand as she tucked the contract into her pocket. “The wax is enchanted to allow ectoplasmic beings, such as ghosts, phantoms, some types of spirits, and so on to be able to interact with it physically.”
Keys lost one week ago? thought Kat. That’s not too bad. Not bad at all. A death so recent meant that Eustace’s lost things may not have moved around that much.
Eustace mimed digging with a hand trowel. “I was gardening when I died of a heart attack. There is a chance that, in the confusion, my purse was kicked into and buried in the hole I was digging for a new black rose bush. All I want is for my granddaughter to have my keys.”
“You had your purse with you while gardening?” Kat asked, now with only one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, yes. All my medical information is there. I always kept it with me, just in case.” Eustace smiled faintly. “I’m afraid it didn’t help this time.”
“Okay, sure,” Kat said. She stood and motioned to the door. “I’ll help you check in your garden. After you.”
Eustace smiled and took the lead, her feet drifting just off the floor. She likely moved much more quickly than she had in life, Kat thought.
“Ghosts are weird,” said the ghost in Kat’s gun.
“Shut up, Frank,” Kat replied.
“I beg your pardon?” scoffed Eustace, turning to place her hands on her hips. Even as a ghost floating above the floor, she looked not at all intimidating or spooky.
Kat shook her head. “Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you.”
“I know,” said Eustace, and wagged her finger at Kat’s hip. “I’m addressing the rude man.”
“You could hear that?” asked both Kat and Frank after a moment of silence.
Eustace returned her free hand to her hip. “Well he wasn’t very quiet, was he?”
Kat looked down at the revolver in its holster. “Well, Frank? Got anything to say for yourself?” She waited, and received no reply. “I’m sorry, he’s not used to being heard by anyone but me.”
“Apology accepted, but he owes me one himself,” scowled Eustace.
“Sorry,” mumbled Frank.
Eustace held a hand to her ear.
“Sorry for insulting you,” Frank mumbled louder. Then, quietly, to Kat: “You’re getting a kick out of this, aren’t you?”
The headache hadn’t faded yet, but Kat managed a smile. “It’s not often you get put in your place.”
“My place is currently in this stupid gun, and I’d really like that to change one day,” said Frank, with altogether too much sarcasm for Kat’s taste.
“And if you want that to change, you’d better -”
“Ahem,” coughed Eustace.
“Right,” said Kat. “Sorry. Let’s go.”
She locked up her door, thinking about its permeability to ghosts. Maybe she’d have to deal with that, if she was going to keep dealing with lost souls. Not all of them were as… normal… as Eustace.
The ghost led Kat on a walk through the streets of the old city. This early in the morning, Ravenshore’s fog hugged the streets and buildings, thick enough to make crossing the street a bit risky in the morning traffic. Kat kept her coat zipped up as high as she could. She was always cold, no matter the season, and especially around ghosts.
Eustace led Kat to the Park neighbourhood, the nicer end of middle class living in the old half of the city. The houses on these cobblestone streets were two-storey blackstones, many as old as the city itself – a few hundred years. Cramped for families, but picturesque, the avenue lined with Ravenshore’s distinctive blackwood trees.
“Er,” said Kat in front of Park Row #22. She looked up at the house – curtains drawn, but lights on. “The garden is in the back? How do I get in? You know – without getting arrested for breaking and entering or trespassing.”
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry, I’m so used to walking in the front door that I – you know, it’s -” Eustace wrung her hands. If a ghost could cry, she might have been right on the edge.
Kat held out her hands. “It’s all right, it’s okay. Don’t worry. Do you…” There was one light on in an upstairs window. “Is there any chance you might know who’s in the house now?”
“Well,” wavered Eustace, recovering somewhat from her distress. “I willed the house to my granddaughter…”
“Name?” asked Kat.
“Ellen.”
“Okay.” Kat hopped up the five steps to the front door. It was old, heavy blackwood, painted a deep jungle green with brass hardware. A nice contrast to the black stone of the houses and the street. Kat slapped the brass knocker and shoved her hands into her jacket pockets.
“It’s early,” hissed Frank in a singsong. “You’re gonna get yelled at.”
A young blonde woman in a nightgown opened the door, rubbing her eye. “What?” she moaned.
“Hi Ellen, I’m a P.I. and I’m here with your grandmother,” Kat said. She gestured hesitantly down the steps. “I’m not sure if you can see her, but Eustace is looking for her keys.”
“What?” repeated the young woman, her tone and posture now angry instead of tired. “Is this some kind of scam? What do you think -”
“Ellen Eustace Von Bromowitz,” called Eustace helpfully from the bottom of the steps as the young woman yelled at Kat. “She had a pet stag beetle named Droopy when she was five years old. She has him mounted in her office.” Kat had a hard time hearing it over Ellen’s angry complaints, but she managed.
“Ellen Eustace Von Bromowitz,” Kat interrupted, “How’s Droopy doing in your office?”
Ellen stopped mid-sentence, her mouth hanging open. “How did you…”
“All I want,” said Kat, holding her hands out and turning away her hip with the rapier and revolver, “Is to take a look in the back garden. Your grandma lost her keys and asked me to find them and get them to you so she can move on.”
Ellen put a hand on her chest near her collarbone. “Is… is she here now?”
“Yes,” Kat said, suppressing a roll of her eyes. She wasn’t in the mood to play messenger-in-the-middle, but if it made that two thousand faster and easier…
“Have fun,” chuckled Frank from his home in her revolver.
“What do you want to say or confirm?” Kat asked, pointedly looking at her watch, except she wasn’t wearing one so it probably looked very condescending.
Ellen didn’t seem to notice or care. “Before I let you inside I need to… Can you ask her what I’m holding behind the door?”
Kat waited and listened as Eustace checked it out. “It’s a postcard… not stamped yet… you had a boy and his name is -” Kat grimaced and paused until Eustace’s excited shrieking and cooing stopped. “His name is Terrence, and Eustace is very excited.”
Ellen took Kat’s hand, flinched a bit at how cold it was. “Would you please tell her that I’m so sorry she didn’t get to see him? I wish she’d been able to meet him before she passed, I wish -”
“She can hear you,” Kat grumbled. She yanked her hand away and stuffed it back into her coat pocket. “You can tell her anything you want while I check the garden for her keys.”
“Of course! Come in, I’ll show you to the back,” said Ellen, gesturing down a long straight hallway to a back door with a small window. Eustace gushed over how excited she was to see the baby, and how Ellen would make such a great mother, and how delightful it was to have a new baby in the old family home.
“I can check the garden on my own,” Kat suggested loudly, “If you’d like to take Eustace up to see the baby. She can’t talk to you directly, but she can see and hear everything.”
Ellen clapped her hands together. “Oh, come upstairs, please! I’d love for you to see him!”
Kat rolled her shoulders and stalked down the hall, not bothering to take off her boots. She popped the back door open and stepped into a small but lovely yard, still shrouded in the morning fog so that it felt exceptionally private. The yard was neat, the patio stones painted in worn and chipped earthy gray-brown, with a few small chairs and a tiny table squeezed in. Most of the space was occupied by a garden that would have been delightful if Kat cared about that kind of thing. Yellow flowers, red flowers, more colours, a bush or two, some kind of pointy things, a cactus maybe, and – ah, the black roses.
The earth was still bare around the bush, disturbed and spread across the pave stones of the patio. Unlike a lot of people, Kat didn’t bother to step gingerly around the place where Eustace had keeled over face-first into the dirt. Her ghost was just upstairs, no point in being delicate.
She knelt down in the dirt and began digging with her hands. It wasn’t long before she touched something firm – leather and a metal clasp. She dug, and she found the purse. It was a fancy thing, once, before it had sat a week under loose earth which had run in the rain a few days ago. Kat couldn’t tell or care which brand.
She popped open the magnetic clasp. Inside, along with bits of dirt and mostly-dry mud, were a wallet, a pack of tissues, travel-size pill bottles, a few charms and trinkets… and a ring of a few dozen keys. Kat wasn’t sure how Eustace had kept track of all of those different keys for so many locks, or how she dealt with such an enormous keychain charm of a plush beetle, but that didn’t matter. Kat had the keys – that was the job.
She looked over her shoulder at the house. The ghost and the granddaughter weren’t in sight, so Kat took a peek into the wallet. A big, well-organized stack of coupons and membership cards. Medical information cards and documents. A collection of family photos – Kat didn’t want to look at those. And a thick wad of cash, as promised. Kat stuffed it into her back pocket.
Kat stood and brushed dirt off her hands and knees and kicked it off her boots. She went inside to find Eustace and Ellen – upstairs, the younger had said. The house was painted in warm colours, mostly sunny yellows, collections of books and trinkets and knick knacks, and filled with photos and paintings and portraits of generations of family. Clearly still Eustace’s space; only a week after her death, granddaughter Ellen hadn’t changed much despite occupying the house.
She felt out of place in a home that was so lived-in and surrounded by signs of family and friends. The feeling was amplified when she found Eustace and Ellen upstairs in a guest room that had been quickly converted to a nursery, a guest bed with messy sheets and covers shoved up against the wall to leave just enough room for a crib beside it. Eustace cooed over the baby that Ellen held up against her neck. The young woman rambled on about how he already had such a personality, she could just tell he was going to be smart and athletic and whatever. Kat was feeling out of place enough already that she didn’t want to listen in.
A little too loud, she announced “Found the keys. Purse was buried in the garden, just like you said, Eustace.” She dangled the bag from her fingertips, held out in front of her.
Eustace sighed and appeared to age and tire in an instant. She whispered “Tell Ellen the green key is for the attic,” and faded away into oblivion.
“She’s gone,” Kat told Ellen, and hooked the purse on the doorknob. “Said to tell you the green key is for the attic, whatever that means.”
Ellen smiled and brushed back a tear. “Thank you. Really. It means so much that grandma got to see her great-grandson. Is there anything I can -”
“Payment’s already been dealt with,” Kat said, waving Eustace’s contract at Ellen. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get out of your way. If you want to lock the door behind me -”
“Of course,” said Ellen.
Kat hurried out of the house and halfheartedly returned Ellen’s wave. She jammed her still-dirty hands into her pockets and hurried back out of the neighbourhood, heading home. The tap of her boots on cobblestone didn’t echo, deadened by the fog.
“Rough morning?” asked Frank.
Kat’s eyes darted to the revolver on her hip. She shook her head, getting a few hairs in her eyes. “You’ve been quiet. No sarcasm or insults.”
“That ghost could hear me,” Frank complained. He hesitated, and then quietly added: “This case got me thinking about family.”
Kat blew a long breath out of her nose and turned right, down an alley. The longer route would take her through the park. Less likely to run into any early risers who might hear her talking to the ghost in her gun. Or, from their perspective, to nobody.
She waited a moment, expecting Frank to get all bitter and angry about the family he’d left behind when Kat killed him. To her surprise, he didn’t. “What about family?” she asked.
“How I didn’t leave anything for them,” he replied. Another pause. “Your folks leave you anything?”
Kat took a long breath. The air was fresher here in the falls park, the heart of the city. Cooler, wetter with the mist of the falls churning in the fog. Fresh-trimmed grass and pollen. Long winding paths where she’d be alone in the beginnings of morning light.
“They tried to leave me the house and everything, but it was a rental and it went wrong somehow. I don’t know, I was a kid, I had no income. All the lawyers let me keep were my mom’s coat and my dad’s rapier.” She tugged at the bottom of her bomber jacket, brushed her palm across the hilt of the sword. Then she tapped the butt of her revolver with two fingers. “And this.”
“What about aunts? Uncles? Grandparents?” Frank asked. “Anyone?”
Kat shrugged. “Never met them. Whenever I asked my parents, they’d get all cagey and tell me they moved here from far away, I could meet them when I’m older. Dad’s best friend lives here, I go to his shop for supplies. He helped when he could, but…”
She expected a retort, for Frank to rub it in. Something like so that’s why you live and work in a cheap apartment in a run-down building in the lower end of old town. But it didn’t come. “I’m used to it, I guess,” she shrugged. “It’s been years.”
“Sorry,” was all Frank said.
Kat wanted to ask him what was going on, why he wasn’t being hostile to her like he always was, trapped in her gun with no way out, resenting her for killing him.
But she didn’t want to ruin the moment.
She thought about her parents and walked home through the fog.
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