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Marge lifted her hand, and we all slid to a stop. After a random assortment of strange hand gestures none of us understood, she pointed to the bushes behind her.
“What? We don’t know military hand signals,” Sylvie whispered.
“Shhh!” Marge mouthed back, then repeated the gestures at us.
“What are you trying to say? We have no idea.” Alice started tossing strange gestures back at Marge.
Marge tossed her hands in the air and whispered, “Geez. Amateurs! I said, let’s all get low and crawl through the opening there, then hide behind those bushes, two on each side. They look like great coverage with a good visual of the gardens and the fountain.”
“With those strange hand signals? That’s what you said?” Alice asked.
Marge rolled her eyes. “Just get in the damn bushes.”
She turned and got low, crawling under some foliage and disappearing inside. After sharing a look, the other Widows and I followed suit, grumbling about our creaky joints as we got down on our hands and knees and went after her.
“It’s hard crawling in this dress,” Sylvie grumbled, but Marge shushed her with a stern look over her shoulder.
When we got through the bushes to the other side, Marge lifted her finger to her lips then whispered quietly, “Doris, with me here. Alice and Sylvie. Right on my other side behind that bush. Then we stay low and quiet. T minus forty-two minutes until ghost time. We want to be well established and silent before they arrive.”
“Roger that,” Sylvie said with a wink and a salute.
“Are you drunk?” Marge asked.
She lifted her fingers and gestured for “a little.”
“Me too. I think I’m a little drunk too,” I admitted.
Marge gave us a scolding stare. “Behave, you booze hounds. Don’t blow this for us. No more talking. No more moving. Nothing. Ninja Widows.”
“Ninja Widows. Got it,” I whispered, giving her a salute like Sylvie had.
We all went quiet and still, and I was surprised by how calm I felt while we sat in wait. Most certainly it was the vodka doing its job, but even still, I’d been paralyzed with fear before, and now I felt ... well, sleepy.
After we’d waited for what had to be twenty or thirty minutes, my blinking got slower, and my breathing deeper. As I lay on my stomach in the bushes, I started to drift off into a much-needed sleep. I hadn’t slept much since arriving at the castle, and each blink took me closer and closer to going out completely. Just before I slipped off into a happy slumber, I felt a tapping on my shoulder.
I went to speak and ask what was going on, but Marge slid a hand across my mouth, using her other hand to press a finger to her lips. The way her eyes pleaded with mine, I knew it meant it was time.
My heart jumped into my throat as the fear I’d thought was gone came crashing back like a tidal wave.
The ghosts.
The ghosts were here.
I slowly turned my head to look through the foliage, and my eyes widened when I saw movement toward the fountain. I couldn’t make out any definitive shapes as the full moon had dipped behind a cloud, leaving us in the pitch black, but I knew they were there. My fear rose to unbearable levels as we sat in the darkness, and I nearly jumped up and took off screaming. Instead, I flattened closer to the ground, frozen in place by fear of the ghosts ... and of the tongue-lashing I’d get from Marge if I spooked them off.
Please keep me safe, Lord. Please, please, please protect me and my friends from the ghosts.
As I remained frozen and praying for my safety and the safety of my friends, Marge slipped her hand off my mouth, giving me one last gesture to remain silent. I glanced at Sylvie and Alice, and when they looked away from the fountain toward me, I saw the whites of their wide eyes that shared my shock.
“You made it,” a woman’s voice said, and I recognized it instantly as the one I’d heard outside my window.
“Of course, my love. I hope you weren’t waiting long,” a man’s voice said.
“I’d wait for you forever,” she responded.
Agnes and Duncan.
Marge was right!
