I shook my head, knocking off my raincoat hood. “No. I don’t want to play. I want to eat lunch. Finish up with British Guy and let’s get out of here before Madame Zoltar comes back from her lunch break and we get caught.”
“I was laughing at his name.”
My ears perked. “Which is?”
“Winterbottom.” And then Belfry laughed again, his munchkin-like chuckle spurring my own laughter.
A giggle escaped my lips. “Winterbottom? Was he a butler?”
“Mate? Give me one second. My mean friend is making fun of your name.”
I seesawed my hand, giving him a little shake. “Traitor,” I muttered under my breath.
“Shhhhhh! I’m trying to hear what the fudge he’s saying and he keeps fading in and out.”
I let my eyes fall to the floor, a cold slab of concrete painted gray. “Sorry.”
“Argh! Hold your palm up, Stevie, and your right leg. The signal’s weakening.”
“I will not.”
“Do it!”
I reluctantly held up my right leg, noting my galoshes had seen better days.
“Say that again?” Belfry requested, his tiny body rigid with the effort to hear British Guy. “Oh boy.”
Belfry’s tone sounded ominous. “What’s happening?”
“Just one more sec…” he trailed off as he strained forward, his wings at full mast.
My right leg began to wobble and cramp. “Can’t hold on much longer, Belfry!” I gritted out.
“Just a little longer, Stevie!”
The moment Belfry begged for reprieve was the moment I tipped backward, the burning in my calf finally getting the better of me. As I toppled, I tried to hold my hand up to keep Belfry from harm.
Which was when I completely lost it and crashed into the spinny rack, knocking it over and falling against the sharply pronged wire postcard holders. “Ow!”
Postcards exploded in every direction as I rolled away from the prongs poking into my skin, but in the process somehow managed to catch the unstable metal shelf full of candles.
There was a small rumble like distant thunder before everything just collapsed in a screech of metal. One candle after the other dropped in a domino effect, some knocking me in the head, others splitting into chunky fragments.
I howled a word I can’t use in polite company as the candle meant to bring your true love back to you whacked me on the noggin. Stumbling blindly from the sharp sting, I attempted to scramble upward, only to stand on a cylinder-shaped candle and, like some demented log roller, lose my footing once more.
“Stevie! Lookout!” Belfry shouted from somewhere above me.
The problem being, he shouted too late.
Head over heels, I plowed face first toward the rack housing crystals near the back room with a yelp of dismay. I managed to cover myself only in time to keep my face from smacking the edge of the shelving unit.
I lay in the pile of my rubble, a bit dazed as the dust settled, and Belfry swooped downward to land on my chest.
“Twinkle Toes?”
I began to sit up with a groan, my head aching. “Yes, Belfry?”
“If you can manage to do it without the effort resulting in an emergency brain transplant, turn around.”
I blew at a strand of hair stuck to my mouth. “If I do what you ask, what will happen? Will the store fall into a sinkhole?”
“No, no. It’s much, much worse.”
His somber tone had me—and obviously my better judgment—sitting up straight.
As I took in the room behind the purple gauze material, my gasp echoed, the noise flying from my mouth, making me cringe and press my fingers to my lips.
I closed my eyes and gulped as Belfry climbed up my jacket and settled on my shoulder. “Please,please,pleeease tell me that isn’t Madam Zoltar.”
“I’ve only been saying as much for nigh on three hours now. Blimey, you Americans are slow.”
Enter British Guy.
Jolly good show.
Chapter 3
“Belfry? Why can I hear but not see a British guy?”
“Winterbottom,” a smooth voice whispered against my ear, sending a cool chill along my spine. I knew that chill. Oh yes, I did. British Guy was a real live ghost. That much of Belfry’s story was true.
How could this be? I was a mortal now. No mortal I knew could truly talk to the dead. “Bottom who?”
I squinted and looked around the store, just as I did back in the good old days when a ghost made contact, hoping against hope I’d see him appear just the way ghosts always did in the past when they came to me for help. But there was nothing. No filmy, transparent glimmer of anything. Just a store trashed courtesy of yours truly.
What the heck was going on?
“I’m Winterbottom. The name’s Winterbottom,” the disembodied voice repeated.
I wasn’t sure where to begin. With what I saw in the room behind the purple curtain, or the fact that I was hearing the voice of a ghost even though I technically shouldn’t be able to hear anything from the afterlife.