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She’d never had anything better. There was the slightest floral taste, and the color was very delicate, too. Since getting a jar of her own, she’d been having some daily. Now, she had to wait on the other concoctions that they were putting together. Georgie promised to be their taste tester for whatever they made. It was the most fun she’d been having in a while, she thought. After having her treat and a slice of toast, she knew that she’d be able to hang on until breakfast, which would be in about an hour. It was going to be another one of those long days.
Chapter 6
Finny didn’t let too much upset him anymore. He did. There were times he’d lose his temper, and people would pay, especially him, for that, but here, in the last few years, at least a decade, he’d been better at controlling things for himself.
As he watched the woman struggle with pulling boxes out of the large cargo van, he had a thought that she needed a good, strong man to help her. Then, he dismissed that idea right away. Young or old, women would not appreciate him thinking that old man thought. The more he watched her, the more he thought that she didn’t ever need a man in her life. She was doing just fine on her own. But she was a pretty little thing. Finny wouldn’t say that to her either. He liked his balls right where they were.
When she pulled out one of those old-fashioned luggage carts that used to be in old-timey hotels, he sat up and watched her load all the boxes she’d already pulled out and a great deal more that seemed to be in endless supply coming out of the van. He’d not heard that someone was going to be living here but then, most people kept their ideas to themselves. Finny did, too, but he was just bored enough to keep watching her move boxes around until they were as near perfect as she seemed to need them to be.
He’d seen this particular woman coming and going for a week or so now, not with boxes nor a big loading van. She had a fancy car that she was in and didn’t seem to care that others, mostly men, envied her when she was getting in and out of it. He loved the fire engine red color of it, too.
There were usually two or three people with her, but today she was alone. Just like he was, he supposed. After she was able to get the luggage cart up the two stairs and into the front hall, he watched her closely to see what part of the house she was going to be using.
About a hundred years or so ago, the big old place used to house one of the richest families in town. Then, little by little, the town started to fall down around everyone’s ears until there wasn’t nothing but a big old mansion that nobody came to anymore. After that, people started moving away and not returning. He thought this place, his old place actually, was going to be around with nary a person filling the walls with fun and laughter until a couple of weeks ago. Just when he’d noticed the pretty young woman coming around.
Finny made his way to the upper floors. It was his spot that he’d made his own a long time ago. He was able to see the town below him and would make up stories about the people going about their business. He was a silly old man, he knew that, but again, he told himself since he’d been looking out the window that they were just his stories that he had made up on his own when he didn’t know who the people were. There was a time when he knew everyone about. But he’d lost interest in people a very long time ago.
There was an old elevator that still worked in the middle of the house, but like the sofa and fainting chair in the gathering room, there wasn’t anyone around to go and enjoy it. He sat on the window sill, just watching over the town until he heard someone else talking on the first level.
She’d been sorting through boxes and bringing in more since she’d pulled up the first thing today. That was about as boring as watching people in town, so he gave up on her and made up stories about her, too.
The woman, he didn’t yet know her name, was talking to a big fella that seemed to be pissed off about something. It wasn’t her, the man assured her, but the fact that she’d stolen the house right out from under him. Finny didn’t know what that meant. He’d never been privy to how the young woman had ended up moving her things into the house, so he stayed out of sight. Finny had had plans for the old mansion, too. The other man was saying that he wanted her to move out of his home and get on with her life. Intrigued, he moved into the doorway and hid while the two of them talked.
“How about I double what you paid for it? That’ll make it so that you could get whatever you want someplace else to live.” The girl, she said something but her voice didn’t carry like the man’s did so he didn’t hear what she said. “This place has been sitting empty without a buyer for twenty-some years, and you had to buy it now? Christ woman, of all the times that it’s been sitting here, I could have just moved in and taken over. No one would have bothered with me. Just…I tell you what, lets share the house. That way, we can both have the place to ourselves.”
“No, I have no desire to share anything with you. And I’ve tried to tell you three times now that I didn’t have to buy it at all. It’s mine through family. My great, too many to count, built this house about a hundred and fifty years ago, and I’m just now getting all the paperwork finished up to prove that it belongs to me. Now, I have asked you four times now to get out of my way, or I will call the police. You’re trespassing.” She looked out the front window, one of the more beautiful pieces of art in the house with stained glass there, and saw what he did. The police were here. “Good. Now, we can get you moving on. You’re starting to get on my last nerve and I was having fun until you showed up.
The officer, he thought his name was Joe, asked the young woman if she was all right. Finny was hoping that he’d call her by name, but all he called her was ma’am. She didn’t look like any ma’am that he’d encountered, but kept his mouth shut. That was another touchy subject with women. They didn’t like to be called ma’am and never madame. That would get the crap slapped right out of you.
“Mr. Fairaday, it’s time you got moving along. I told you yesterday when you came into the office to tell me someone was trespassing on your land that it didn’t belong to you. This woman right here owns it lock, stock, and barrel. She is one of the last Shamus Farleys that could claim it, so she’s been working on this for nearly six months. It’s hers, and there isn’t anything you can—” Mr. Fairaday seemed to not care for the officer’s conclusion that the young lady owned the house. “Be that as it may, she not only owns the house but the land surrounding it as well as the money that was left in the bank when Mr. Farley passed. I agree, it’s been a good long time, but she’s been through a great deal in order to prove that she’s the rightful owner. I would think that you’d be happy that it’s off the market. I’ve never seen a man so hyped up about a piece of property that’s been just sitting there empty in all my life. Move along before I have to arrest you. You’ve bothered this woman enough as it is.”
“I didn’t think that they’d done anything about trying to find—” He waved at the young lady like she was meaningless to him. “This person after all this time. Where was she hiding out? Prison, no doubt. That’s why it took this long for you to hunt her down. And it is too my place. I’ve been trying to buy it for the last five years. Damn it all to hell and back, Officer, this isn’t fair. I want this place for myself.”
“Can we get this moved out of my house, Officer Joey? I have a lot of work to do before my furniture comes here in the morning.” Officer Joey nodded, tipped his hat to the woman, and half pulled, and the other half dragged, the man out of the house. The door was closed firmly behind them both.
The house had been cleaned up yesterday. There had been a crew of people, more than fifty, he’d bet, that went from floor to floor scrubbing the place from ceiling to floor. The windows were new, no more of that wobbly kind that was in here when he lived here, but shiny new ones that looked beautifully clean. Even the fireplaces, all six of them, had gotten a good cleaning, and the whole house smelled great. Following the young woman into the kitchen, he watched her put things in the cabinets where they belonged.
Each box was labeled with what was inside it and said, other than which room it went into, that it either went in the top cabinet or the bottom ones or even in the panty. He’d loved that old pantry. The best thing that he’d had installed after he’d gotten here. It was sad, really, that—
“Are we going to have a problem, you and I?” He thought that the man had returned and looked around. “If you want something done around here, ask me before you do something, or I’ll have you banished. I know just how to do it, too. I’m assuming that you’re Findley Farley, who goes by Finny. Is that right?”
He stared at her for a full minute before he realized that she was speaking directly to him. “You can see me?” She not only told him that she could but she described what he was wearing as well. All the way down to his single shoe and the hole in his shoeless sock. “How is that possible? Nobody has seen me since I passed on being laid out right there in the parlor. There wasn’t much in the way of visitors by the time I died, but nobody in all that time ever spoke to me before. Good lord, miss, it’s been a very long time since I’ve spoken a word or two since I passed on.”
“I’m different. Something about how I was born with some kind of shawl or something over my face. Old time legend says that I would have the gift of sight.” He asked her if she could see other things. “Just ghosts. Spirits, I guess you could call them. They told me when I was filling out the paperwork that people said that this house was haunted. I saw you the first day I was here and realized that we were related. I don’t want any trouble, Finny, and it will behoove you to remember that. If you don’t bother me, I figured that we’d be all right. Will we be?”
“Yes.” He asked her who she was related to in order to have inherited the house. “I heard you telling that man, whoever he is, that you were tested. I don’t know what that means, but I’m surely glad that it was you and not him.”
“Shawn. Shawn Farley’s is my name. I’ve been called Shawnie for most of my life. My father was your great-grandson. And since he passed on, they figured that there wasn’t anyone else. I’m a product of the affair that he had with one of the housemaids. My mother used to tell me that there was money to be had here in this house. I didn’t care about that, and I still don’t, but I’m going to live here and put up electrical fences all the way around the house so no one bothers me. I won’t want to leave here until I need something.”
She rolled up her sleeve after taking off her sweater. Right there on her arm was the prettiest faerie that he’d ever seen. The detail was better than anything that he’d ever seen. Rolling up his own sleeve, he showed her his. Neither in life or death had he ever seen anyone marked like he was. No wonder, he thought that she was so confident in being the rightful heir to this place.
“Ain’t as much detail as yours, but it’s something…how did you know that I had one?” She touched her fingers to the one on his arm, and it changed. The wings on his skin felt like they fluttered a bit before he realized that it was a female faerie, unlike the obvious male on her arm.
With greater detail than it ever had, he watched as she touched her fingers to the little person’s head. His faerie pulled from his arm, not the least bit painful, and he stood on his palm. He was speechless. Which was something for him on account he never shut up.
“Mine protects me. I would imagine that yours would have, too, had someone woke her for you. Her name is Blue Bonnet. It’s a kind of flower. Mine’s name is Todd. He’s been with me since birth, moving around on my body to keep others from seeing him.” He didn’t say a word yet, still looking at the beautiful little creature like he’d never seen her before. “Finny? If you don’t speak soon, I’m going to have to figure out how to slap you out of your stupor.”
“What do you mean nobody woke her up? I don’t remember how I got this, but I woke up one day with this here thing on me. I figured that somebody played a trick on me and put her there for other women to see. Not that I had much trouble in the woman…hey now, girly, you never explained to me much about how you come to be my…let me count. Never mind, my granddaughter.” Shawnie told him that her grandfather was a womanizer, thinking that he could have whomever he wanted. That was how she’d come to be. “I don’t guess there are any more of my family around but you. Not that I mind. I do surely love you being here. But to think that my line of family name will be gone when you are.”
