11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

W aking up was hard to do.

I clawed my way through the murky haze of exhaustion to blink blindly at the sun streaming into my bedroom window. My eyes flew open as I sat up like a bolt, worry slamming into me about missing one of my morning classes, when the realization hit that it was Saturday. No classes. I flopped back down and let my breathing slow. The headache had eased during the night, thankfully. I had nothing to do today other than to read up on water spirits and try to avoid social media. It would be for the best. I'd take the weekend to chill, research, and go spend a night away in a seaside village. The Lions had a game tonight against the Barn Swallow Badgers way over by the ocean. The jersey girls, as I had started thinking of them, had booked rooms for themselves so they could linger on Sunday with their boos. They'd graciously added me to the group booking, so Phil and I would have a night and morning along the Atlantic Ocean to just be guys who were dating. Maybe even be boyfriends? That was a big word. Huge. And one that we'd not been able to discuss last night so perhaps tonight we'd cement our relationship terms.

A soft-footed feline appeared on the bed with a small mewl, his black-and-white tail up as he padded over the bed to lie beside my head.

"Morning, Sir Thomas," I said with a yawn. He curled into a ball and watched me with one sleepy eye as I kicked back the covers. I tossed them over him. They showed an outline of a cat for a mere second, then fell flat to the bed. "Sorry." Cats were so sensitive at times. I grabbed my phone, surprised to see that it wasn't as late as I had assumed. Just a little past eight. After a fast run to the bathroom, I washed my hands and ran my wet fingers through my hair. My reflection in the tiny round mirror over the sink wasn't easy to look at. I had dark bags under my eyes. Maybe one of the jersey girls could loan me some coverup for the post-game hotel stay. I'd like to look my best for Phil. He'd been so stalwart and loyal through some things that would drive another guy away. So yeah, some coverup and maybe even some lip gloss. In case I got my mouth near his dick. It might. I wouldn't mind at all.

"Archimedes, I'm making some chilaquiles for breakfast," Grandpa called through the door.

"Be right there," I replied, splashing some water on my face, then padding out to the kitchen in socks, wrinkled tee, and staticky sleep pants. I chucked my phone to the table, leaving it off. A few more hours of downtime away from social media sounded damn good. Grandpa was at the stove, the tea kettle steaming, in his robe and slippers. The kitchen smelled of onions and spices. My stomach rumbled.

"Can you get the tortillas from the other night out of the fridge?" I pulled them out as well as a jar of salsa. Grandpa smiled at me when I placed them next to him. "You look tired yet. Maybe you should nap today before you spend all night in Barn Swallow with the team?"

"I might," I conceded and opened the zipper bag we'd stored the extra tortillas in and placed them in a frying pan that Grandpa had already sprayed. We'd warm the tortillas, pour some salsa over them, then top that with some fried onion and over easy eggs.

"Good, you need to rest after a spiritual encounter," he said so matter-of-factly that I thought back on last night, the Schmidts, the odd night sounds of birds, and the smell of lotus in the middle of a frosty apple orchard in Massachusetts.

"Yeye," I opened with. His silver eyebrow darted up upon hearing the informal Mandarin term for grandfather. "Last night…" I placed a tortilla in the pan. "I smelled lotus in the air."

His smile was shaky, and his lower lip trembled. "Your mother was nearby. In some form. Perhaps she was a nightingale or one of the frogs upon the water. Perhaps a luna moth resting on a tree."

"Did Mom love lotus?" I had few memories of my parents. Most of what I knew of them, Grandpa had told me over the years.

"Oh yes, she loved them, as did your grandmother. Your mother was a good woman, kind and courteous, and a loving wife and mother." I nodded, for he bragged about her qualities often. "I was quite happy when your father chose her for his bride. It warms me to know that they keep an eye on you. Your father is surely proud of you for embracing your gift. He often wished he had a stronger inheritance." He patted my arm, then went back to sorting which eggs he would use. Egg choice was very important for some reason, but only Grandpa understood. They all looked the same to me. "Can you get the paper from the stoop, please?"

"Sure." I left him to the food prep and perhaps to his own memories of his daughter-in-law and beloved wife and shuffled to the front window. The paper lay on the frosty fire escape. My grandfather had moved the herbs inside before the first heavy frost a few nights ago. Good thing he was on the ball. I'd completely forgotten about them. What with everything else going on in my life. Phil. We can say it. What with Phil taking up all my brain space. I reached out to grab the daily and someone called out my name. Leaning out the window, the brisk fall air making the tips of my ears cold, I looked down. About twenty people bundled up in coats and knitted hats were on the sidewalk gawking up at me.

"Archimedes Kee!" an old lady in a pink pussy hat shouted. "I saw you last night talking to a ghost. My husband died two years ago. Can you summon him for me and ask him where the title to his Studebaker truck is so I can sell the piece of shit?"

I stared down at the line of people now calling out to me to speak to this dead person or that dead person in disbelief.

"Uhm…we don't open until ten on Saturdays!" I hollered down, drew my head in, and slammed the window closed. Then I saw the paper still lying on the escape, so I eased the window open a crack, snaked my hand out, and snapped up the paper like a chameleon ballista tongue-striking a bug. I hurried over to my grandfather, who was staring at me as if I'd lost what few marbles I had left. "There's a line of people out there."

"Are they here to buy books?"

"I think they're here to have me communicate with their dearly departed."

"Oh dear."

Yeah, oh dear was right.

***

An hour later, we'd sorted the book patrons from those seeking clairvoyant assistance. Phil, who'd stopped by after a morning run to surprise me with a bag of fresh donuts from the bakery a few blocks over, stood at my side. An imposing, sweaty, sexy sight in gray joggers—yum—and his Lions XXL sweatshirt. We'd taken the seven sight seekers to the horror section, lined them up, and then explained that while I did have a gift, I did not do seances of any kind.

A middle-aged portly man who wanted to talk to his brother to tell him off for dying after selling off his favorite handsaw got a little upset. A few names were called. Charlatan, creep, and a slur that started with a C that got him escorted from the shop by my beefy boyfriend. The others were more gracious, and while they were disappointed, they understood once I explained the perils of taking a specter into yourself. They left then, shoulders slumped, and I felt absolutely terrible.

"Maybe I should start doing sittings for the people who are so distraught," I muttered, nudging past a couple browsing Stephen King novels. One of the women who had just left, a slim lady of perhaps thirty who had lost her wife six months ago, had plucked at my heartstrings. She'd never been able to say goodbye, her spouse taken by a drunk driver as she was leaving Boston. She'd only wanted to say farewell and tell her that she loved her dearly.

"No, I don't think you should. Not right now, Arch." Phil led me to the register to help check out people while Grandpa was off looking for a copy of a famous children's book for a customer. Seeing people here waiting to come in was amazing. The livestream was surely helping as several of the patrons mentioned hearing about it and wanted to check it, and me, out in person. After I rang up a slim man with a fat mustache who had bought ten of the thirty-three Hercule Poirot books, I turned to look up at Phil. "I mean…I know you want to help everyone but you're new to all of this, yeah?"

"In ways, yeah, in other ways, no. I've been able to speak to the dead since I was little, but going out into the world to interact with nasty spirits is something new." I leaned my rump on the edge of the counter and crossed my arms. The low hum of the heater and people whispering filled the dusty shop. It was a good sound.

"Right, and until you get to know how to deal with…what do you call them?"

"Unfriendly Interactive Apparitions."

"Yeah, those. Until you have some experience with them, then I think we should just stick to doing the livestreams. I don't want to see you get possessed. I like the Arch that you are now."

I unfolded my arms and wrapped them around him. He pulled me close and rested his chin atop my head. "I don't want you to get hurt." He bussed my hair with a tender kiss then had to let go so I could ring out a LU student buying a well-worn copy of some Shakespeare sonnets for Intro to British Lit class. The transaction was less than two bucks, but she talked at high speed about how cool the show was last night and how she hoped we'd be heading to the lake next.

I hemmed and hawed about the lake. She left with a sigh of disappointment at my wavering.

"Speaking of the witch of the lake," I said after the morning rush had moved out. "I need to rummage. Want to dig around with me?"

"Sure!" Phil and I set off to dig around in the mythology section, a shadowy part of the shop where spiders liked to set up shop and the sun rarely touched the spines of the many tomes resting on secondhand shelves. "Okay, so we need to find anything about water spirits, ghosts, or feminine specters."

"You know we could just do this online," he said as he pulled a hardcover book from the top shelf and blew on it. Dust flew into the air, clouding the area and making me sneeze. "Sorry."

"We could, and I will, but there are books here that my grandfather has collected over the years that we might not be able to find online. We'll just spend an hour. I know you have to get ready for the game and all that."

"Yeah, I want to get some resistance work in and maybe a nap after lunch."

I gave him a soft kiss on the lips. "Then let's get reading."

We plunked ourselves down in the musty mythos section, knee resting against knee, and began skimming books. I could hear music flowing from Phil's earbuds dangling around his thick neck. Something very 80s about some guys just not getting enough. Enough of what I had no clue. The bells over the door chimed pretty steadily, but my grandfather was sitting at the register so we could delve into old tomes.

We found a few references. Mostly sirens and selkies, Celtic myths, and a vague mention of something called a nursery bogie in the UK by the name of Jenny Greenteeth.

"Why are so many evil entities women?" Phil asked after passing over a book that smelled of wet basement to me. He tapped a section about banshees.

"The death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world Poe said, and I think there's a lot of truth to that. Also, being an independent woman in ye olden days was frowned on, so any chance to take out a free-thinking female was acted on, with the blessing of many churches, with speed. Aradia is a perfect example of a strong woman being wiped off the planet just for being fierce."

"That sucks." He sighed and I could only agree. It did suck. Big time. His phone alarm went off. "Shit, I have to go." He stole a kiss, rose, and helped me to my feet. " I'm looking forward to having this night alone together. Just me and you."

"Me too. Thanks for being you." I pressed my mouth to his, hoping for a long wet smooch, but the cough of my grandfather nearby ended the spit-swapping quickly. Grandpa winked and placed a thin book in Pinyan atop the piles of other tomes we'd pulled down and scattered.

"This is from our village, a learned man, telling about water monkeys," Grandpa said and backed off, cane tapping on the hardwood floor, to let us finish our goodbye.

"Water monkeys? Didn't they used to advertise them in the back of comic books?" Phil asked while pulling me in for a nice hug. I smiled into his sweatshirt.

"I think those were sea monkeys." I pulled back to gaze into his smiling eyes. "Water monkeys are water ghosts. It's a Chinese term."

"Gotcha. I was wondering why they'd sell terrifying ghosts to kids."

I rose to my toes for one final kiss, then walked him to the front door. He jogged off after a wave, his earbuds in, and I got one fine look at his tight ass as he ran down the sidewalk.

"Do stop gawping at your beau's fanny and come back inside. You've got reading to do," Reggie called, his head sticking through the front window.

"This coming from you?" I asked as I turned to face him.

"Can you even imagine ?! I take my uncle role quite seriously. Now do come inside and read. I shall not suffer you being turned to dust by some harridan!"

His head slid back through the glass. "I'm not sure the term harridan is a fitting one!" I yelled at the window. Our mail carrier cleared her throat. My cheeks blossomed hot and red instantly. "I'm talking to my grandfather. He's old and hard of hearing."

"Uh-huh." She shoved a stack of bills and junk mail into my arms and went back to her route.

I slunk inside to read, with my face flaming.

***

A roar spread through our little Lions booster section. I looked up to see Phil standing over the Barn Swallow's quarterback lying flat on the grass.

"Yay!!" I shouted, grinned at the other jersey girls, and then refocused on the book resting on my thighs. Reading had taken over my life. The more info I could garner, the better I could possibly handle the siren of Lake Killikee. Hmmm, I wasn't settled on that term either, but for now, with my limited info on the entity, siren fit as well as any other word. I skimmed another few paragraphs in the weathered book, thin as a pencil, that I'd found shoved between a novel about Sumerian mythos and a fat picture book about Greek gods. Obviously, someone was in a hurry the last time they stocked shelves after trade-in day. That someone was me. I'd crammed the kids book in beside the Sumerians. I had not been the one to slip this skinny little leather-bound journal in there, though.

First of all, much of it was faded beyond understanding. It was Cantonese, that much I had figured out with a great deal of squinting, but some of it was a written language older than Cantonese, which is saying something. Cantonese is about two thousand years old, give or take, but the few lines of this other writing were rubbings of what I had worked out could be oracle bone script. An incredibly ancient writing system mostly found on tortoise shells or flat animal bones. Once I'd made that discovery, I'd fallen into a rabbit hole of research and translations that, I prayed, I'd done correctly. I'd show my grandfather when I got home, but overall, this thin compilation of old, old text was a how-to guide for the followers of Zhong Kui. Zhong Kui was a Taoist god cited as being THE vanquisher of ghosts and evil spirits. I couldn't prove it, but I strongly suspected that my ancestor Kee Houng had been a follower of Zhong Kui.

The shouts of fans surrounded me, but I was too engrossed in reading to pay much attention. This compendium of otherworld baddies wasn't just limited to China. It had additions from around the world, in detail, in languages that were not Chinese. So this book, or those that followed the ways of Zhong Kui, had traveled the world to fill this ancient tome. Upon discovering it, I'd run to find my grandfather to ask him where the book had come from. "Perhaps the gods have placed it in your hands now that you are on your chosen path," he'd said with a pinch of my cheek.

While I wasn't buying that—I suspected Grandpa had been hiding it for years, just hoping I'd stop being such a bratty brat about my gift—I did get a strange tingle every time my skin touched the dry leather binding.

Toward the back of the book, in a chapter simply titled Europe, was where I found a section about banshees. That was where I was now, reading over the sometimes indecipherable characters that some devotee of a Taoist god had scribbled onto vellum hundreds of years ago. Popcorn rained down over me, a few greasy kernels falling on the pages. I shot to my feet, spun, and glowered at the raging Barn Swallow backer.

"You need to be more careful! This is an old book!" I shouted. The guy, roughly the size of King Kong, who also possessed some awful ape-like breath, glowered down at me.

"Fuck your team and fuck your book! Nerd!" he roared in my face. "Who reads at a football game?!"

I opened my mouth to reply. Several jersey girls intervened, giggling and batting lashes, while Roxie pulled me back into my seat with a firm hand.

"Are you trying to get your ass kicked in the stands?" she shouted to be heard over the marching band now taking the field. Oh okay, halftime. Two quarters just flew by. I checked the scoreboard. Nice. The Lions were winning by fourteen points. Roar.

"No, but that ape spilled popcorn all over the place." I shot the popcorn spiller a dark look that he didn't see because he was ogling one of the jersey girls. "This book is important. I just found a section about banshees that might give us insight into—" Roxie plucked the book from my hand and slid it into the backpack between my feet. "Hey!"

"No, stop. I know this is important, but so is Phil. He's playing his heart out for you and your nose is in that book."

I snapped my mouth closed. She was right. "I'm a bad date."

"No, you're not a bad date. You just need a break. And as your promotional advisor and head of mental health for the show—"

"When were those titles handed out?"

"The minute you told us that you talk to ghosts for reals. Someone had to take charge of ensuring that our stars were taking time out for their mental well-being."

"Ah. Well, thanks. I'll watch the game from here on out."

"Good man. After the game, I want you to take Phil to that hotel room and bang him like a kettledrum." My cheeks got so hot that sweat popped up on my upper lip. "Life is all about balance. Now, I'm going to the bathroom. Hold my backpack."

She rose and seventeen other young women in Lions jerseys also stood. They all piled their unwanted backpacks on me and left in a pack to hit the ladies' room. I'd just have to wait to use the men's room when the gals came back. I felt sort of silly sitting there guarding floral or bumblebee backpacks, but also I felt a part of something I'd never been part of before. A friendship circle. And a dating circle partner. Ugh, no, that sounded dumb. We'd have to discuss the big ‘B' word soon. Maybe tonight. After someone was banged like a drum.