The first four pages after his summoning remained stuck together in a glutinous blue mass.
“One more week should do it,” Claire sniffed at Dean, peeling another three onions and dropping them into fresh brine.
“Great,” Dean gasped. He snuck a look at the card.
Aunt Claire, Keeper
Your Accident is my Opportunity
(face it, life stinks)
Later, he threw out the fork.
“This is the sixth morning in a row she’s come out of that wardrobe looking wiped. Two days ago, she fell asleep in that old armchair up in room six, and yesterday she didn’t have enough energy to take the chains off the furnace room door.”
Austin lifted his head off his paws and gazed across the dining room at Claire, who’d fallen asleep with her cheek on an egg salad sandwich. “Did you take them off for her?”
“No. I figured if she was too tired to open the door, she was too tired to face Hell.”
“I’ve said all along you’re more than just a pretty face. What did Claire say?”
Dean grinned. “That I was an interfering, idiotic bystander.”
“That’s all?” The cat snorted. “She must’ve been tired.”
“What’s happening in that wardrobe, Austin?”
“From the steely-eyed determination on her face when she goes in, I’d say she’s trying too hard. The other side has kind of zen thing going, you can’t force it.”
“So she’s doing it to herself, then?”
“Well, I don’t think she’d have chosen to fight her way through those pre-Christmas sales this morning but, yeah, essentially.”
“If there’s anything I can do, will you let me know?”
“Sure.”
As Austin laid his head back down, Dean’s concern evolved into full-blown worry. Any other morning, that question would’ve brought a suggestion that he feed the cat.
“What have you done, that Claire suddenly try so hard to find this Historian?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Dean told him, getting a can of oven cleaner out from under the sink. “I’m not the one exposing myself to Mrs. Abrams.”
“I do not expose myself. She has no business to be in the parking lot to peer through the windows while you attach the blinds. I vanish the moment I see her.”
“But did she see you?”
“She did not scream and run. She waves to you, puts two thumbs up in the air, and leaves quietly.” Jacques pressed his back up against the wall between the two windows, the one place in the dining room where he couldn’t be seen from outside when the new vertical blinds were open. “It is not my fault she is always looking in.”
Dean might have believed him had he not sounded so defensive. “You’re careless. You don’t care how much trouble you cause.”
“I am causing trouble?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So, you say it is my fault that Claire tries so much harder to leave us?”
Shrugging, Dean dropped to his knees in front of the stove. “If the shroud fits.”
“And what does that mean, if the shroud fits?”
“It means you’re always all over her. Give me flesh, give me flesh.” His accent was a passable imitation of the ghost’s. “You’re too pushy.”
Jacques disappeared and reappeared sitting on the floor behind the peninsula. “I am too pushy? You are too…too…too nice!”
“Too nice?”
“Oui. You are like mushy white bread and mayonnaise. And…” He folded his arms triumphantly. “…you are always cleaning things. If I could, I would leave also.”
“Then leave. Claire said she could send you on.”
“And leave her with you? She would be too bored in a week.”
“Lecher.”
“Monk.”
“Bottom feeder.”
“Betty Crocker.”
“Stereotype!”
Before Jacques, reeling under a direct hit, could come up with a response, the ka-thud, ka-thud of a galloping animal filled the house, growing overwhelmingly louder the closer it came. The glasses in the cupboard began to chime as the vibrations brought their edges together. “Something is out of the pit,” he moaned as Austin threw himself around the corner and into the kitchen.
The noise stopped.
He glared down at the cat “That was you? But you weigh only what, two kilos?”
“Can we discuss my weight another time,” Austin snapped. “Claire’s in trouble!”
TROUBLE IS GOOD.
BUT WE DIDNT CAUSE IT.
SO?
Hell sounded sulky. IT’S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING.
WE DON’T HAVE PRINCIPLES!
OH, YEAH.
EIGHT
JACQUES SLAMMED INTO AN INVISIBLE BARRIER at the door to Claire’s room. The impact flung him backward into the sitting room, past Dean, past Austin, right through the bust of Elvis.
“Thang you, thang you vera much.”
“Nobody asked you,” he snarled at the plaster head. “Anglais! I cannot follow you without an anchor.”
Just on the far side of the threshold, Dean rocked to a halt and spun around. “An anchor?”
“Oui. Come and get la coussin, the cushion.” His fingers swept through the horsehair stuffing. “Take it with you to Claire’s room.”
“You don’t have an anchor in here?”
“Did I not just say that? And wipe that stupide grin off your face! You think I would not allow Claire her privacy?”
Actually, he did. But he was too nice a guy to say so. And the stupid grin seemed to want to stay where it was. Three long strides and he snatched up the cushion. Three more and he was back in Claire’s room, Jacques by his side.
“About time you goons got here,” Austin growled, pacing back and forth in front of the wardrobe.
Except for the cat and the furniture, the room was empty.
“Where’s the boss?” Dean demanded, throwing the cushion down on the bed.
“Where do you think?”
Three heads, one living, one dead, one feline, turned toward the wardrobe.
“How do you know she is in trouble?” Jacques asked. “She goes every morning to search for the Historian. Why is this morning different?”
“She’s been gone too long,” Austin told them. “No matter how long she’s in there, she’s never gone more than half an hour out here.”
Dean checked his watch. It was almost nine-fifteen. Which didn’t tell him
