Page 23 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Umm, actually, I rather think not, old boy.” Douglas raises his eyebrows. “Miss Bittersweet is the first living human I’ve spoken to since 1910, and let’s face it, she’s more charming than either of you two.” He pauses and looks my way with a conspiratorial twinkle in his eye, and I can’t stop the small answering smile from tugging at the corners of my lips. He’s callingmecharming? He’s so sweepingly charming that I cannot help but feel a little bewitched by him. “Introductions all round, at least? Whereareyour manners?” He shoots a derisive look at his brother then speaks again. “So tell me, Miss Bittersweet. Who is this delightful creature?”
He nods toward Marina, who right this second is concentrating on picking yellow paint off her thumbnail.
“This is Marina Malone, my oldest friend,” I say. In response, she looks up and waves her fingers.
“And Artie Elliott, my…” What is he, exactly? “My assistant,” I finish. Artie nods quickly, a nervous smile on his lips as he rotates his head as if he’s doing neck stretches, desperate to ensure he doesn’t miss anyone.
“I’m a trainee ghost hunter,” he says, earning himself a dig in the ribs from Marina. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Scarborough, Mr. Scarborough and, err…” He consults his notebook. “Mr. Scarborough.”
His explanation does nothing to improve the atmosphere in the room.
“Ghost hunter?” Lloyd looks down his nose at me, and Douglas emits a rumble of laughter. “Here we go again. Remember that priest they sent once, Isaac? All of that chanting gave me quite the headache.”
“Right,” I say, trying to get things back on track. “So now you know who we are and why we’re here. Maybe you could tell me why you’re all still here?”
“Oh, now this could get interesting.” Douglas grins, crossing his long legs. “You first, boys, I insist.”
He doesn’t seem especially respectful of his older brothers, and they, in turn, seem equally intolerant of each other.
I look toward Isaac, because Lloyd rubs me up the wrong way.
“I’m the eldest,” Isaac says, finally.
“And I’m the baby.” Douglas can’t seem to stop himself. “Forever twenty-one, thanks to one of these good fellows.”
I frown, shocked by his revelation. “Are you saying that one of your brothers caused your death when you were just twenty-one?”
“I never harmed him.” Isaac stands, angry all of a sudden.
I look at Lloyd for his response.
“Well, I certainly didn’t plunge the knife into his back. He was my twin brother, for God’s sake.”
I can’t hide my surprise, and I look from Douglas to Lloyd and back again. They’re obviously unalike now as Lloyd lived to be a fair age but, even so, I can’t imagine how they were similar even as young men. “You’re twins?”
“Fraternal,” Lloyd snarks, and his tone tells me that it was a question that must have been leveled at them often when they were alive.
“And therein lies the problem,” Douglas says, returning to his story. “I didn’t see which of them it was and neither will admit to it, so I’ve been hanging around here ever since.”
“What year did it happen?”
“1910.”
Douglas Scarborough has been stuck here for well over a century.
“It’s been more than well-documented that Isaac was responsible,” Lloyd sighs.
“Not that well-documented that I ever went to jail for it though, was it?” Isaac spits his words out. “I didn’t lay so much as a finger on that boy, but I paid for his death my whole life. Faced with the choice of having to blame one of us, our parents chose me, because the idea of one twin killing the other was so untenable. That fabled special twin bond suddenly became all too convenient for you, didn’t it, Lloyd? Those acting lessons came in useful, after all, there was even talk of him being institutionalized for his own safety. My mother fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I may not have been sent to jail, but I was punished, all right. I was unceremoniously cut from this family like a gangrenous limb.”
“Oh please.” Lloyd sighs, theatrical and dismissive. “Not the gangrenous limb line again, Isaac. Change the damn record, will you?”
The two older brothers stare each other down, and Douglas lifts his hands in the air in a gesture of defeat.
“So now you see what I’ve had to live with all these years, Miss Bittersweet.”
“Please, call me Melody.”
“And you must call us all by our Christian names too.” He shoots Artie a look so withering that I’m glad he’s oblivious. “All that ridiculous Mr. Scarborough nonsense.”
