AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“In Rome, if we didn’t have a house with pipes, we’d throw our business out a window into the street.”
“Yes, that was the custom in London, too, even if one’s homedidhave pipes,” Ambrose says wistfully. “There was even an unofficial points system. I once got a perfect score for hitting the king’s footman in the face. A complete fluke, you understand. But I relieved myself after dinner, so a bed is the most pressing matter—”
“A soldier is used to sleeping anywhere he lays his head,” I say as I lean up against the piano. Ow. It wasn’t exactly comfortable compared to the linen sheets and memory foam mattress I’d been sleeping on since I arrived in the Land of the Living.
“Well, I’m most pleased for you.” Ambrose unfolds the stack of blankets he’s brought upstairs into what looks like a surprisingly comfortable bed. I debate asking if he’ll let me snuggle up with him, but realize it’s pointless. I won’t sleep tonight, not while I’m here in the attic with…
…Ozzy.
He’s up here somewhere, I know he is…
There.Hanging from that rafter, pretending to be asleep but watching us out of one half-closed beady eye.
I suppress a shudder.
I watch Ambrose doze off, my eyes never leaving the little furry Druid-butt, poised for the moment he decides to strike. Opposite the piano is a small, grimy window that looks down onto Grimwood Crescent. The porch light flickers on, and I hear voices raised with laughter as Sylvie and Mike arrive home. Then the light flickers off and I’m plunged into darkness once more, the only sound Ambrose’s laboured breathing, the only light the pale moon reflecting in Ozzy’s beady eyes.
I think about Edward, sound asleep in Bree’s bed, or perhaps not even sound asleep but busy with amorous congress, oblivious to our toils because he’s still a ghost—
Something horrible hits me.
“Psst, Ambrose.”
“Pax?”
“Are you awake?”
“I am now. What is the matter?”
“If the real estate agent is coming, then we don’t have much time.”
“Time for…”
“Time to figure out Edward’s unfinished business.”
“What does that have to do with the real estate agent?”
“If Mike and Sylvie sell Grimwood Manor, we’ll all have to leave. And then we can’t go poking around into Edward’s business, especially since he won’t be able to leave with us.”
Ambrose sits up. The moonlight casts his face in long shadows. “You’re right. There’s a very good chance that Edward’s unfinished business has to do with this house. But if Mike and Sylvie sell, we won’t be able to solve it without access to the houseorEdward. He’ll be stuck as a ghost forever.”
“And we don’t want that?”
“No,” Ambrose says firmly. “We don’t want that.”
“But think how annoying he will be as a human.”
“Bree wants him,” Ambrose says simply.
He’s right. If Bree wants Edward, then I will do anything in my power to give her what she wants. Even if I do sometimes secretly wish I could braid his muscles into a long cord and play jump rope with it.
“Perhaps we can solve this before the sale. You’ve known Edward the longest – you have no ideas?” Ambrose sits up, folding his feet under himself and wrapping the blanket around his shoulders. I settle back against the piano and wrap my hands around my knees.
“I have already exhausted my ideas.” I unsheath my sword and turn it under the beam of moonlight, admiring the way that the pale light throws rainbow prisms against the steel surface. “All the years when it was just the two of us, when he mocked my sandals, and claimed that English cooking is better than Italian cuisine, I have thought nothing more of solving his unfinished business so we could get a little peace. The number of times I’ve pushed him out of windows just to see if that made the gods realise they’d made a mistake keeping him as a ghost, but I could never come to an answer.”
Ambrose’s mouth makes a grim line. “Edward’s business is the most difficult of all. With me and you, we both had things in our lives that were important to us – I had to tell my story, and you had to know your men respected you enough to give you a proper burial. But nothing was important to Edward except for drinking andamorous congressand his terrible poetry, and I can’t think how any of those things could be unfinished business, since he literally finished every bottle—”
A small, dark shape drops from the ceiling in front of my eyes. I shriek and dive for the safety of Ambrose’s blankets, sending a stack of boxes crashing to the floor.
