Rolling in the Deep Grave
October 4
“Shhh!” Trixie suddenly hissed. “I think I heard something!”
Dan and Mart stilled, listening carefully. The air was damp and cold, with a hazy mist drifting along, alternately covering and then revealing the various objects and structures around them. It was both a blessing and a curse. It offered them the protection of hiding from curious eyes, but also prevented them from knowing immediately if anyone else was close by.
“I’m not hearing anything,” Mart whispered after a long moment of silence.
“That’s because your sister is imagining things.”
Trixie turned to glare at the speaker. “You know, Lawrence, since you can’t actively help us here, the least you could do is be a better lookout.”
Dan hesitated only a few seconds longer before shrugging and returning to his task. “Got it!” he announced softly as the large padlock clicked and opened. He carefully set it down on the ground next to him, before grabbing the door’s rusty handle and pulling upward. The sound of rolling metal was like an explosion in the quiet, a clanking, rattling noise that echoed off the other storage units around them.
“We are so gonna get busted,” Trixie groaned. “Do you think Moms and Dad will bail us out of jail or just leave us there to rot?”
“How ‘bout we don’t even find out? Let’s get what we need and get out.” Dan panned his flashlight around the cluttered space. It was filled with junk, scattered about in haphazard piles of boxes, bins, and old furniture.
With a drawn-out sigh, Mart surveyed the mess. “Getting what we need and getting out may be easier said than done. Larry? Any hints? It doesn’t look like these boxes are even labeled.”
“Check the back,” Larry suggested. “My kid dumped most of my stuff here years ago and has been adding to it ever since.”
“Fabulous.” Trixie switched on her own flashlight. “I’ll take the far right corner. Larry, stand in the door and let us know if anyone actually approaches. Okay?”
“You mean like that old guy with the shotgun headin’ our way?”
“What?” Trixie exclaimed as she spun around, ready to bolt. She frowned as she peered out into the night. The fog had thickened, but even so, as far as she could see, they were still alone.
“Gotcha!” Larry chortled. “This is even better than jumping out and yelling ‘Boo!’”
Trixie looked back at the portly ghost. “You, sir? Are an ass.”
“I’ve been called plenty worse in my time, little lady.”
“Yeah? Well, news flash. It's not your time any more. And 'little lady'? Seriously? Could you be any more sex-“
“Freckles!” Dan cut in. “Let it go. Ignore him. The faster we get done, the sooner we get rid of him permanently.”
Trixie swallowed the remainder of her retort and moved further into the room. She half-heartedly dug through a few open boxes, wondering why anyone had bothered to save the broken and useless bits of electronics and gadgets she found.
After fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, Mart turned to the others. “The longer we’re here, the more we run the risk of getting caught,” he told them. With a sharp grimace, he shifted a large abstract painting to one side to reveal the velvet Elvis behind it.
“Thanks for that update, Captain Obvious,” Trixie muttered as she lifted a tattered quilt out of an old trunk. “You wanna also tell us about how water is wet and the sun is hot?”
“Cute. No. What I want is a better plan. Dan, why don’t you start pulling the boxes we’ve already checked out onto the drive? I’ll move the larger furniture pieces over here, and Trix, you can keep sorting through the small stuff.”
“Ha!” Dan cried in triumph. “No need! I found it!”
Larry left his post at the door and hurried to Dan’s side. “Excellent! See? I told you it was here.”
Trixie let the trunk lid fall shut. She rose from her kneeling position, dusting her hands off on her jeans. “Well, that’s good, then. Phase one of ‘Operation Get Rid of Larry the Irritating Ghost’ is done. Of course, that means we now move on to phase two. Not so excited about this bit.”
Mart glanced at his watch. “Especially considering how late it is. This took much longer than I was hoping.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “And remember we still have to stop by the Manor House and collect the shovels from the stable.”
“Did you give Regan any sort of reason why we're borrowing them?” Trixie asked him. “Or did you even mention it to him at all?”
“Ah, no. If we do happen to run into him, I plan on telling him your dog buried something in your mom’s vegetable garden and we’re going to dig it up for her.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Eh. Thanks to all the wackiness that is knowing and being friends with you, Freckles? He’s kinda used to it now. He almost never questions anything I tell him anymore when you’re involved, no matter how strange it sounds.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, Lawrence Eli Patterson, do tell. What happened on June 4th, 1978 that resulted in your untimely demise?” As she spoke, Trixie bent down to tug aside a few weeds and expose the marking on the rather plain gravestone that indicated Larry’s final resting place.
“Heart attack,” Larry responded morosely. “I was only 45 years old! Can you believe that?”
“Let me guess. You were a smoker? Didn’t exercise much? Really fond of beer and red meat?”
“Eh. What’s the point of livin’ if ya can’t enjoy yourself?”
“Oh, I dunno… but I’m guessing the point of living doesn’t have a lot to do with dying young,” Trixie replied pointedly. She stepped back and tapped her shovel against one of the bricks that lined the gravesite. “Is it really true that people are buried six feet under? I mean, are we really looking at digging that deep?”
Mart shook his head. “Not any more. That was something that came about because of the plague in Europe during the 1600’s. The mayor of London decreed it in an effort to contain the disease. We still use the phrase, but now generally caskets only have to have a foot and a half to two feet of soil on top of them.”
Dan grinned at him. “You know, it doesn’t even remotely surprise me that you know this. Who needs Google when you have Mart Belden around?”
“When Mart finally outgrew eating dictionaries for supper? He moved on to encyclopedias," Trixie said with mock seriousness. "He suffers from a painful medical condition related to the permanent indigestion he gave himself by devouring whole volumes in one sitting."
“Feelin’ the love here, Sis. Feelin’ the love.”
“Oh, I love you, Bro. Like a cold sore.”
“A cold sore with encyclopedic knowledge,” Mart fired back. “No one’s ever gonna compare you to Google. At least not favorably, anyway.”
Dan waved a finger at his friends and chuckled. “Now, now, children. Stop your squabbling. Don’t make me turn this car around.”
Trixie wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at both boys.
“Ugh,” Larry grunted. “You kids remind me of my own. Pains in the ass. Both of ‘em. Couldn’t stand either one of the little buggers when they were young, and once they grew up they were nothing but useless lumps you couldn’t rely on for anything.”
“Well, that’s a refreshing twist,” Dan remarked as he used his boot to push his shovel into the ground. “Instead of hating on his spouse, now we have one who loathes his children.”
Despite the relative shallowness of the grave, it still took them over an hour to clear away enough dirt and grass to reach Larry’s casket. They had to stop frequently to hack at the encroaching tree roots in their way, as well as make enough room for the lid to be lifted open on its hinges.
“So?” Dan asked, wiping the sweat from his brow and leaving a streak of grime in its wake. “Who gets the honors?”
Trixie rubbed her tired fingers and groaned. “Don’t look at me! I’m betting this is a job for one of you two strong manly men.”
“Cop-out,” Mart muttered.
Dan propped his shovel against the towering Oak next to Larry’s grave and held up both hands. “Rock, scissors, paper?” he suggested, regarding Mart with a raised brow.
“Eh. Just move. I’ll do it.”
Dan stepped out of the way and Mart bent down, bracing himself with his left hand. He reached out and tugged on the coffin. The lid came up much easier than he’d expected, and he almost toppled over as he struggled to regain his balance.
“Oh! That is… not right,” Dan declared as they looked down on Larry’s shriveled corpse.
“And there are some things you just cannot unsee,” Trixie added, shaking her head. “We should’ve taken some stuff from the storage unit to sell as payment for services rendered. Yeesh!”
Mart turned and grabbed his backpack. He reached inside and pulled out an old 8-track tape then tossed it into the casket. “There. Congratulations, Larry. You and your beloved copy of the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack have been reunited.”
“Yeah. Thanks, kid. If my son had done as he was told and followed the instructions in my will, you never woulda needed to go to all this effort. I told ‘im specifically to bury me with it. And little lady? I got no problem with your idea. You can go right back and take-“
Larry was unable to finish his sentence. He vanished completely, leaving the friends alone.
“Okay,” Mart said, exhaling hard. “Let’s seal him up and rebury him. Though, first, I think we should take a moment and appreciate the irony of a man insisting he go to the grave with an album that includes as what is arguably its most famous track, a little ditty called ‘Stayin’ Alive.’”
Trixie laughed as she pulled a bottle of water from her bag and handed it to her brother. “You know I really do love you, right?”
“Yeah, Sis. I know,” he responded with a half-smile. “Right back at ya.”
She grabbed her shovel, ready to start tossing the soil back into place and frowned slightly. “Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you guys that we’re in a cemetery and we haven’t encountered a single spirit outside of the one we brought along with us?”
“This is probably the last place they want to hang out,” Dan speculated. “It’s an unhappy reminder. You know? That they’re dead. Besides, it’s not like there’s really anything to do here outside sitting around and watching the weeds grow.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The International House of Pancakes off Exit 12 was deserted except for a few long-haul truckers digging into their meals. “Just pick any table you want,” the waitress told the trio as they walked in the door, “and I’ll be right with you. Or you can sit at the counter.”
“Uh, we’ll take a booth,” Dan replied, looking at Mart and Trixie for confirmation. “Thanks.”
Trixie winced as she studied her hands in the bright, overhead light. “I’m going to the ladies’ room first to wash up. Get me the stuffed French toast, will ya?”
“You can order it yourself,” Mart told her. “We all need to wash up first.”
Five minutes later, they were at their table, slouched in their seats and waiting for their food.
“Is there a term that means the opposite of grave robbing?” Trixie wondered out loud.
Mart snorted softly. “I don’t think digging up a corpse to add something to his casket is common enough to warrant it. At least, I would hope not.”
“These are the things we are pondering now. Last weekend? My biggest worry was whether or not I could get my English essay finished in time. Now, I’m sitting here sore and tired from grave-not-robbing.” She paused in her musings to look over at a young man standing a few feet away, holding a cowboy hat in one hand. “Sorry, dude. We’re closed for business for the night. You’ll hafta find us tomorrow or sometime next week… or sometime never would be good.”
“I’m on my way to Nashville,” he said. “I’m going to perform at the Grand Old Opry. My momma says I’ve got the voice of an angel.”
“Yeah? Good luck with that. I’m sure you’ll knock ‘em dead.”
Mart frowned at his sister. “Trix. Be nice.”
“What?” she asked, one hand out, palm-up. “I totally meant that in a non-sarcastic way.”
“Problem is, I ran outta bus money and got myself stranded. Could you folks kindly spare a few bucks?”
Dan slowly pulled out his wallet. “Yeah. Sure.” He removed a five dollar bill and held it out.
The young man flashed a smile that lit up his entire face. He reached out for the proffered money and disappeared.
“Humph.” Dan returned the bill and his wallet to his pocket. “You know, Freckles. That’s really not a bad idea you’ve got.”
“Huh?” Trixie regarded him blankly. “What idea?”
“We are not raiding Larry’s storage unit,” Mart said firmly. “Technically all that stuff belongs to his son, now, not Larry. Anything we take would be out-right stealing.”
“You mean like the tape we stole tonight?”
“That was… extenuating circumstances, Sis. And it’s unlikely it will ever be missed. But we shouldn’t go back to take anything else. We shouldn’t even risk going anywhere near the place. I’m still not sure we weren’t caught on security camera somewhere on the property.”
“That’s not what I was referring to, anyway,” Dan told them. “I was talking about office hours. We can’t keep running around doing this day and night. We should set up shop. Let it be known that we’ll see any unhappy spirits at set times and then we’re closed for business for the rest of the day.”
Mart considered this for a moment. “Not that I’m entirely opposed to the idea, but how would we actually go about letting the unhappy spirits know? It’s not like we can take out an ad in the Sleepyside Sun.”
“Why not? Think about it. We could definitely take out an ad. And print up flyers we hang around town. ‘Need assistance crossing over? Stuck here on this earthly plane with unfinished business? The Keepers of the Amulet can help. Available Monday through Saturday, 3:00 – 8:00 pm.’ You can bet Di would love it. Heck, she’d probably insist on making business cards for us. I’m just sayin’, if we want to preserve some shred of sanity, we outta set some boundaries.”
Trixie dropped her head into her hands. “Di wouldn’t just make us business cards. She’d probably purchase radio ads and hire a skywriter, too. If we learned anything at that meeting this afternoon, we learned that ‘too over-the-top’ is not part of the Diana Lynch vernacular.”
“So?” Dan prompted, looking back and forth between his two friends. “Whadd’ya say? Are we open for business or what?”
Trixie lifted her eyes to her brother’s. “What do you think?”
“I guess it makes as much sense as anything else,” he replied tiredly. “He does have a point. Right now, we’re pretty much killing ourselves for a bunch of dead people. We may have to rethink the hours, though. We certainly couldn’t have conducted tonight’s operation in broad daylight. And also? If we’re gonna do this? We’ll need a much better name. Keepers of the Amulet? Seriously, dude? The overall idea is all right, but that part? Really not so much.”
“Shhh!” Trixie suddenly hissed. “I think I heard something!”
Dan and Mart stilled, listening carefully. The air was damp and cold, with a hazy mist drifting along, alternately covering and then revealing the various objects and structures around them. It was both a blessing and a curse. It offered them the protection of hiding from curious eyes, but also prevented them from knowing immediately if anyone else was close by.
“I’m not hearing anything,” Mart whispered after a long moment of silence.
“That’s because your sister is imagining things.”
Trixie turned to glare at the speaker. “You know, Lawrence, since you can’t actively help us here, the least you could do is be a better lookout.”
Dan hesitated only a few seconds longer before shrugging and returning to his task. “Got it!” he announced softly as the large padlock clicked and opened. He carefully set it down on the ground next to him, before grabbing the door’s rusty handle and pulling upward. The sound of rolling metal was like an explosion in the quiet, a clanking, rattling noise that echoed off the other storage units around them.
“We are so gonna get busted,” Trixie groaned. “Do you think Moms and Dad will bail us out of jail or just leave us there to rot?”
“How ‘bout we don’t even find out? Let’s get what we need and get out.” Dan panned his flashlight around the cluttered space. It was filled with junk, scattered about in haphazard piles of boxes, bins, and old furniture.
With a drawn-out sigh, Mart surveyed the mess. “Getting what we need and getting out may be easier said than done. Larry? Any hints? It doesn’t look like these boxes are even labeled.”
“Check the back,” Larry suggested. “My kid dumped most of my stuff here years ago and has been adding to it ever since.”
“Fabulous.” Trixie switched on her own flashlight. “I’ll take the far right corner. Larry, stand in the door and let us know if anyone actually approaches. Okay?”
“You mean like that old guy with the shotgun headin’ our way?”
“What?” Trixie exclaimed as she spun around, ready to bolt. She frowned as she peered out into the night. The fog had thickened, but even so, as far as she could see, they were still alone.
“Gotcha!” Larry chortled. “This is even better than jumping out and yelling ‘Boo!’”
Trixie looked back at the portly ghost. “You, sir? Are an ass.”
“I’ve been called plenty worse in my time, little lady.”
“Yeah? Well, news flash. It's not your time any more. And 'little lady'? Seriously? Could you be any more sex-“
“Freckles!” Dan cut in. “Let it go. Ignore him. The faster we get done, the sooner we get rid of him permanently.”
Trixie swallowed the remainder of her retort and moved further into the room. She half-heartedly dug through a few open boxes, wondering why anyone had bothered to save the broken and useless bits of electronics and gadgets she found.
After fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, Mart turned to the others. “The longer we’re here, the more we run the risk of getting caught,” he told them. With a sharp grimace, he shifted a large abstract painting to one side to reveal the velvet Elvis behind it.
“Thanks for that update, Captain Obvious,” Trixie muttered as she lifted a tattered quilt out of an old trunk. “You wanna also tell us about how water is wet and the sun is hot?”
“Cute. No. What I want is a better plan. Dan, why don’t you start pulling the boxes we’ve already checked out onto the drive? I’ll move the larger furniture pieces over here, and Trix, you can keep sorting through the small stuff.”
“Ha!” Dan cried in triumph. “No need! I found it!”
Larry left his post at the door and hurried to Dan’s side. “Excellent! See? I told you it was here.”
Trixie let the trunk lid fall shut. She rose from her kneeling position, dusting her hands off on her jeans. “Well, that’s good, then. Phase one of ‘Operation Get Rid of Larry the Irritating Ghost’ is done. Of course, that means we now move on to phase two. Not so excited about this bit.”
Mart glanced at his watch. “Especially considering how late it is. This took much longer than I was hoping.”
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “And remember we still have to stop by the Manor House and collect the shovels from the stable.”
“Did you give Regan any sort of reason why we're borrowing them?” Trixie asked him. “Or did you even mention it to him at all?”
“Ah, no. If we do happen to run into him, I plan on telling him your dog buried something in your mom’s vegetable garden and we’re going to dig it up for her.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Eh. Thanks to all the wackiness that is knowing and being friends with you, Freckles? He’s kinda used to it now. He almost never questions anything I tell him anymore when you’re involved, no matter how strange it sounds.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So, Lawrence Eli Patterson, do tell. What happened on June 4th, 1978 that resulted in your untimely demise?” As she spoke, Trixie bent down to tug aside a few weeds and expose the marking on the rather plain gravestone that indicated Larry’s final resting place.
“Heart attack,” Larry responded morosely. “I was only 45 years old! Can you believe that?”
“Let me guess. You were a smoker? Didn’t exercise much? Really fond of beer and red meat?”
“Eh. What’s the point of livin’ if ya can’t enjoy yourself?”
“Oh, I dunno… but I’m guessing the point of living doesn’t have a lot to do with dying young,” Trixie replied pointedly. She stepped back and tapped her shovel against one of the bricks that lined the gravesite. “Is it really true that people are buried six feet under? I mean, are we really looking at digging that deep?”
Mart shook his head. “Not any more. That was something that came about because of the plague in Europe during the 1600’s. The mayor of London decreed it in an effort to contain the disease. We still use the phrase, but now generally caskets only have to have a foot and a half to two feet of soil on top of them.”
Dan grinned at him. “You know, it doesn’t even remotely surprise me that you know this. Who needs Google when you have Mart Belden around?”
“When Mart finally outgrew eating dictionaries for supper? He moved on to encyclopedias," Trixie said with mock seriousness. "He suffers from a painful medical condition related to the permanent indigestion he gave himself by devouring whole volumes in one sitting."
“Feelin’ the love here, Sis. Feelin’ the love.”
“Oh, I love you, Bro. Like a cold sore.”
“A cold sore with encyclopedic knowledge,” Mart fired back. “No one’s ever gonna compare you to Google. At least not favorably, anyway.”
Dan waved a finger at his friends and chuckled. “Now, now, children. Stop your squabbling. Don’t make me turn this car around.”
Trixie wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at both boys.
“Ugh,” Larry grunted. “You kids remind me of my own. Pains in the ass. Both of ‘em. Couldn’t stand either one of the little buggers when they were young, and once they grew up they were nothing but useless lumps you couldn’t rely on for anything.”
“Well, that’s a refreshing twist,” Dan remarked as he used his boot to push his shovel into the ground. “Instead of hating on his spouse, now we have one who loathes his children.”
Despite the relative shallowness of the grave, it still took them over an hour to clear away enough dirt and grass to reach Larry’s casket. They had to stop frequently to hack at the encroaching tree roots in their way, as well as make enough room for the lid to be lifted open on its hinges.
“So?” Dan asked, wiping the sweat from his brow and leaving a streak of grime in its wake. “Who gets the honors?”
Trixie rubbed her tired fingers and groaned. “Don’t look at me! I’m betting this is a job for one of you two strong manly men.”
“Cop-out,” Mart muttered.
Dan propped his shovel against the towering Oak next to Larry’s grave and held up both hands. “Rock, scissors, paper?” he suggested, regarding Mart with a raised brow.
“Eh. Just move. I’ll do it.”
Dan stepped out of the way and Mart bent down, bracing himself with his left hand. He reached out and tugged on the coffin. The lid came up much easier than he’d expected, and he almost toppled over as he struggled to regain his balance.
“Oh! That is… not right,” Dan declared as they looked down on Larry’s shriveled corpse.
“And there are some things you just cannot unsee,” Trixie added, shaking her head. “We should’ve taken some stuff from the storage unit to sell as payment for services rendered. Yeesh!”
Mart turned and grabbed his backpack. He reached inside and pulled out an old 8-track tape then tossed it into the casket. “There. Congratulations, Larry. You and your beloved copy of the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack have been reunited.”
“Yeah. Thanks, kid. If my son had done as he was told and followed the instructions in my will, you never woulda needed to go to all this effort. I told ‘im specifically to bury me with it. And little lady? I got no problem with your idea. You can go right back and take-“
Larry was unable to finish his sentence. He vanished completely, leaving the friends alone.
“Okay,” Mart said, exhaling hard. “Let’s seal him up and rebury him. Though, first, I think we should take a moment and appreciate the irony of a man insisting he go to the grave with an album that includes as what is arguably its most famous track, a little ditty called ‘Stayin’ Alive.’”
Trixie laughed as she pulled a bottle of water from her bag and handed it to her brother. “You know I really do love you, right?”
“Yeah, Sis. I know,” he responded with a half-smile. “Right back at ya.”
She grabbed her shovel, ready to start tossing the soil back into place and frowned slightly. “Doesn’t it seem a little odd to you guys that we’re in a cemetery and we haven’t encountered a single spirit outside of the one we brought along with us?”
“This is probably the last place they want to hang out,” Dan speculated. “It’s an unhappy reminder. You know? That they’re dead. Besides, it’s not like there’s really anything to do here outside sitting around and watching the weeds grow.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The International House of Pancakes off Exit 12 was deserted except for a few long-haul truckers digging into their meals. “Just pick any table you want,” the waitress told the trio as they walked in the door, “and I’ll be right with you. Or you can sit at the counter.”
“Uh, we’ll take a booth,” Dan replied, looking at Mart and Trixie for confirmation. “Thanks.”
Trixie winced as she studied her hands in the bright, overhead light. “I’m going to the ladies’ room first to wash up. Get me the stuffed French toast, will ya?”
“You can order it yourself,” Mart told her. “We all need to wash up first.”
Five minutes later, they were at their table, slouched in their seats and waiting for their food.
“Is there a term that means the opposite of grave robbing?” Trixie wondered out loud.
Mart snorted softly. “I don’t think digging up a corpse to add something to his casket is common enough to warrant it. At least, I would hope not.”
“These are the things we are pondering now. Last weekend? My biggest worry was whether or not I could get my English essay finished in time. Now, I’m sitting here sore and tired from grave-not-robbing.” She paused in her musings to look over at a young man standing a few feet away, holding a cowboy hat in one hand. “Sorry, dude. We’re closed for business for the night. You’ll hafta find us tomorrow or sometime next week… or sometime never would be good.”
“I’m on my way to Nashville,” he said. “I’m going to perform at the Grand Old Opry. My momma says I’ve got the voice of an angel.”
“Yeah? Good luck with that. I’m sure you’ll knock ‘em dead.”
Mart frowned at his sister. “Trix. Be nice.”
“What?” she asked, one hand out, palm-up. “I totally meant that in a non-sarcastic way.”
“Problem is, I ran outta bus money and got myself stranded. Could you folks kindly spare a few bucks?”
Dan slowly pulled out his wallet. “Yeah. Sure.” He removed a five dollar bill and held it out.
The young man flashed a smile that lit up his entire face. He reached out for the proffered money and disappeared.
“Humph.” Dan returned the bill and his wallet to his pocket. “You know, Freckles. That’s really not a bad idea you’ve got.”
“Huh?” Trixie regarded him blankly. “What idea?”
“We are not raiding Larry’s storage unit,” Mart said firmly. “Technically all that stuff belongs to his son, now, not Larry. Anything we take would be out-right stealing.”
“You mean like the tape we stole tonight?”
“That was… extenuating circumstances, Sis. And it’s unlikely it will ever be missed. But we shouldn’t go back to take anything else. We shouldn’t even risk going anywhere near the place. I’m still not sure we weren’t caught on security camera somewhere on the property.”
“That’s not what I was referring to, anyway,” Dan told them. “I was talking about office hours. We can’t keep running around doing this day and night. We should set up shop. Let it be known that we’ll see any unhappy spirits at set times and then we’re closed for business for the rest of the day.”
Mart considered this for a moment. “Not that I’m entirely opposed to the idea, but how would we actually go about letting the unhappy spirits know? It’s not like we can take out an ad in the Sleepyside Sun.”
“Why not? Think about it. We could definitely take out an ad. And print up flyers we hang around town. ‘Need assistance crossing over? Stuck here on this earthly plane with unfinished business? The Keepers of the Amulet can help. Available Monday through Saturday, 3:00 – 8:00 pm.’ You can bet Di would love it. Heck, she’d probably insist on making business cards for us. I’m just sayin’, if we want to preserve some shred of sanity, we outta set some boundaries.”
Trixie dropped her head into her hands. “Di wouldn’t just make us business cards. She’d probably purchase radio ads and hire a skywriter, too. If we learned anything at that meeting this afternoon, we learned that ‘too over-the-top’ is not part of the Diana Lynch vernacular.”
“So?” Dan prompted, looking back and forth between his two friends. “Whadd’ya say? Are we open for business or what?”
Trixie lifted her eyes to her brother’s. “What do you think?”
“I guess it makes as much sense as anything else,” he replied tiredly. “He does have a point. Right now, we’re pretty much killing ourselves for a bunch of dead people. We may have to rethink the hours, though. We certainly couldn’t have conducted tonight’s operation in broad daylight. And also? If we’re gonna do this? We’ll need a much better name. Keepers of the Amulet? Seriously, dude? The overall idea is all right, but that part? Really not so much.”
