“My dead Rottweiler—he’s still with me in spirit, though I can’t figure why he won’t hit the endless Milk-Bone highway in the sky. We’re a work in progress even in death. But that does mean he’s with you, too—wherever you are. And I hear his bark is definitely as bad as his bite. So scurry along now before I give him a ghostly ring-a-ling, and he eats your rude, interfering, money-stealing ass.”
Five and a half pairs of eyes looked woefully in the direction of the voice, then back at her. Dinner—they wanted some. Delaney sank to her haunches on the floor, digging in her cabinets to find the last of the dry dog food she had.
“So what are the dogs’ names?”
Delaney sighed and lifted the half-empty dog food bag to the counter, ignoring the fact that this entity was at least trying to sound interested in her life—the one he’d interrupted so pompously. “Would you get the hell outta my head? You’ve long surpassed eager, and you’re well on your way to bordering obnoxious. I really, really need to lay down some ground rules for you bunch. And it’s not that I don’t understand that most times you can’t control how you pop in and out of my life, but you don’t seem to have that particular problem. In fact, you don’t seem disoriented at all. And as much as I’d like to delve right into that ghostly oddity of yours, I’m all out of patience. Now, for the love of Casper, go do ghostlike things and come back tomorrow.”
“I was just curious.”
“I know, and you know what they say about curious.”
“I’m already dead. That theory no longer applies,” he offered with another chuckle—one that wasn’t terribly unpleasant.
She threw her head back, exhaling with a ragged, put-upon sigh. “Dog.”
“What?”
“Dog. The dogs’ names are Dog.”
“All of them?”
Delaney nodded. “Uh-huh. And stop moving around so much, you’ll scare dog number three in my adoption lineup.” She pointed to her Lhasa Apso-Beagle, who was making continual, frantic circles at what Delaney suspected were the feet of her overbearing entity, attempting to nab and capture her tail. “She has anxiety issues—abandonment—food phobias out the wazoo, et cetera. As neurotic as a dieter around a plate of french fries, my baby is. In essence, your unearthly presence is making her crazy, and if you make her crazy, she’ll chew up my carpet. I don’t have the money to pay my rent because of you. Do you want me to have to pay for new carpet, too?”
“Why haven’t you given them all names? You gave Darwin one.”
“Why does that interest you so much?”
“I’m not sure I know.”
Delaney pinched the bridge of her nose—tonight was definitely a night for some chamomile tea and a healthy dose of white willow bark. “Okay, Q and A is almost over. This is your last answer. I named Darwin because at the time, I only had one dog’s name to remember. I don’t know where you come from, or if you come from a family with a lot of siblings, but it’s flippin’ hard to remember names when a bunch of kids are getting into something and you catch them all at once. My mother used to say she wished she’d named my brother and me Bob, and I understand why now. Anyway, it’s harder still to remember the names of six dogs that’re all yapping because some rude ghost’s entry into your life created chaos. Dog is easy to remember. It gets everyone’s attention in an instant, and I didn’t have to come up with anything clever like Rutabaga or Petunia. Besides, who could name a dog that wears a diaper BeDazzled in faux rhinestones? There’s a lot of pressure involved in that. If I go one name too far south, I’d trash his self-esteem. He’s already scarred—I figured I’d leave his dignity intact by not naming him something ludicrous like Fifi. And now”—she glanced at her microwave’s clock—“your time is up and my show’s almost on. Go. Away.”
Blessed silence greeted her.
Score.
Delaney cocked her head but once after she’d finished pouring out six bowls of food, and heard nothing but the sounds of anticipatory, mealtime doggy breathing. She let out a sigh of relief. He’d come back, and when he did, she’d be happy to help. She had to admit, she was curious about his story.
She’d never encountered a ghost who was as oriented on this plane as this one was. She’d only met one other supernatural entity who was as coherent as this one, and that entity, she’d just as soon forget entirely.
Closing her eyes, Delaney trembled while trying to stave off the dark memory that never failed to leave her weak in the knees with a dry mouth full of cotton balls.
Dog number one, a blind, diabetic, partially deaf, fourteen-year-old surmised mixed breed no one could positively identify—but one which her vet said reminded him of a Chinese Crested disaster waiting to happen—scratched impatiently at her leg. She stooped low, letting him smell her hand before she ran her fingers through the tufts of spiky hair along the top of his scalp. “I know, punkin—you’re hungry. Tell me something—do you find it as funny as I do that you can’t hear me yell shut up, but you can totally hear me open a bag of dog food from a million miles away? Uncanny, no?”