Page 33 of Backpacking through Bedlam

It was comfortable, and oddly domestic. Everything about it was ordinary, the sort of night I could easily imagine us having a thousand times over, one meal after another, one quiet recovery from the previous day at a time. I could get used to this.

The doorbell rang.

All of us turned to look toward the door. Sally’s hands tensed, as if she had just realized she wasn’t carrying her spear. “Is it that Cynthia lady again?” she asked, voice low. “She rang the bell last time.”

“Unlikely.” I put my plate aside. “It’s not as late as it feels. She’s probably still at the bar. The dinner rush won’t even have hit yet.” Not that the Angel ever had anything as optimistic as a “rush.” Mostly it had a dinner trickle, as befit an establishment that intentionally didn’t court the business of the dominant species.

“Should we go to the kitchen while you answer that, since the locals are accustomed to you?” asked Thomas.

“No,” I said. “They’ll need to get used to both of you eventually.”

The bell rang again.

“I’m coming,” I snapped, and stood, heading for the door. I paused when I got there, looking back at the two of them. Something about this felt wrong, like it should have been impossible for anyone to interrupt our evening uninvited.

But then, how often does trouble wait for an invite?

I reached for the doorknob. I opened the door.

The girl on the porch had her hands shoved into the pockets of a denim jacket two sizes too large for her, swamping her relatively delicate frame. The rest of her clothes fit better—a white shirt under a buttoned red plaid flannel, denim jeans, and battered sneakers that looked like they’d seen a few hundred miles of road. Her hair was short, dark blonde and windswept, the kind of careless cut I’d seen on more than a few girls my granddaughter’s age. She looked modern and timeless all at once, a gawky Tinkerbell who had never left Neverland behind.

I blinked. Then, slowly, I smiled. “Took you long enough.”

“Had to find a ride,” she said, rolling her shoulders in a denim-clad shrug. “Also wasn’t completely sure what the message I got meant, so it took me a while to get a straight answer out of the boss.”

“Since when is anyone the boss of you?”

“Oh, a lot has changed around here, starting with the management.” She took her hands out of her pockets and spread her arms. “But you finally look like you’re older than I am, which I appreciate, and I can tell you haven’t called the babysitter. So can I claim my hug, as first dead girl on the scene?”

“Always,” I said, and stepped forward, wrapping my arms around her.

Hugging Rose Marshall is an experience. For one thing, even though Mary has always been a solid and predictable presence in my life, I knew Rose when she was alive, and so I know she’s dead in a way that doesn’t apply to most other ghosts. Part of me expects her to be insubstantial in some way. Which she never is, because she doesn’t instigate a hug unless she’s wearing a coat borrowed from one of the living; the rules of her specific kind of haunting mean that when she’s got a coat, she’s effectively alive until she takes it off or the sun comes up, whichever happens first. So she gives good, firm, lasting hugs.

She was wearing some sort of perfume that smelled like baby powder and lavender. I inhaled it as I let her go. “It’s good to see you, Rose. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Oh, see, your granddaughter went and slaughtered the crossroads—sort of, it’s complicated and it kind of gives me a headache if I think about it for too long, but ‘killed’ is less confusing than ‘bent time so they never existed, even though we’re still dealing with the aftershocks of all their bullshit power plays’—and I got sucked into the power struggle that followed. Bobby’s gone, there’s a new boss running the twilight, and I’m not strictly a road ghost anymore, even though I can slum it when I want to.” She spread her arms again, displaying the coat. “I wanted to be off-duty tonight, so I did this the old-fashioned way. Cocked my thumb, flagged down a passing routewitch, talked them out of a coat and a ride, and now I’m here until dawn or the boss calls, whichever happens first. I’m hoping for dawn. It’s been a while since I had a night off, and I could use the break. Hey, do I smell ribs?”

“You do.” I stepped aside so she could go into the house. “Cynthia dropped off dinner, and we have a hamper of baked goods from Ithaca. Cyn’ll be by in a few hours with dessert. She always brings enough for the mice to eat, too, so you should be fine.”

“Cool.” Rose slipped past me into the living room, and I turned to watch her greet the others.

Sally was staring, a rib lifted halfway to her mouth. Seeing a teenage girl strolling in like she owned the place had to be disconcerting, and it was about to get worse.

Rose grinned, showing what felt like every tooth in her head. “Ey, Mr. Tommy in the house! I thought I felt more than one of you shoving your way through. Who’s the kid?”

Sally blinked, lowering her rib back to the plate. “I’m older than you.”

“That’d be a neat trick, since from where I’m standing you’re human, twilight all the way, not midnight or starlight or anything else, and that means you can’t be older than I am. Even Alice has cobwebs of things she was never meant to know clinging to her. Nothing wrong with being young. You only get the shot once, no matter what you look like.”

“Hello, Rose,” said Thomas, with a mild smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Like I told the lady, I came the old-fashioned way, one cocked thumb at a time. But I did have a little bit of an ulterior motive, I’ll admit that much. Alice, where’s the ribs?”

“Kitchen,” I said. “You want me to prep you a plate?” As a hitchhiking ghost, Rose could only taste food when one of the living gave it to her.

To my surprise, she waved her hand, brushing me off. “No, I’m good,” she said. “You can ritually give it to me when I get back. Bring the kid up to speed, and then I’ll get you the rest of the way once I have pig on a plate.”

She walked out of the living room, vanishing into the kitchen, where I heard her cheerfully greet the tailypo.