Page 4 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
“No! Don’t say that. They were due to propose!” the sisters wailed and then lunged at me.
My heel caught on a headstone buried under some snow. Arms windmilling, I nearly went to my ass. One of the sisters, as they were similar enough to be twins, reached out to catch me. Kind of her, really, but her touch set off a sickening whirlwind of memories that flooded my head like a tsunami of remembrances. Flashes of childhood squabbles with her sister, dating, getting frisky with her boyfriend, a varsity jacket, a summer day at the lake…a stranger…sex on the shore…booze…pot…the warm kiss of water flowing over your face as you sank deeper and deeper…the face of a blue-skinned water ghost that pulls you down into the pondweed where your soul is swapped for the Shin Gui’s…bulging eyes leering at you and—
“Archie!” The vision snapped in two like a twig just as my ass met the ground. Phil gently looped an arm around my shoulders as I fought like mad to try to breathe. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”
I spun to bury my face in his thick neck, smashing my glasses into my nose, while my lungs filled to bursting with bitter cold air. Tears blurred my vision. Phil smelled of sweat and that sweet scent that was uniquely his. I coughed against his neck, trembling, as the brackish taste of pond water filled my mouth. I jerked back from my boyfriend to spit just a mouthful of earthy water into the snow. Someone snuffled my cheek, then licked my face. A memory of chasing a squirrel wheedled in to replace the horror of drowning. I sat back on my heels. I looked about through smudged lenses and found no trace of the sisters in their bikinis. The cemetery was deathly quiet aside from dog pants in my ear. Not even the crows were speaking.
“And here…I thought people were…only supposed to see…ghosts of Christmas past, present, and…future on Christmas morning,” I wheezed while Phil rubbed my back. Man, the life of a medium was loads of fun. Ho-ho-ho.
Chapter Two
Nowthiswas how Christmas was supposed to be.
Curled up on the sofa, belly filled with Yeye’s special spicy Indian pancakes, and my boyfriend passing out the gifts wearing a silly Santa hat while Monique handed out cups of her special blend of Cajun Darjeeling tea. It had a floral, fruity taste that felt lighter than most other black teas. Grandpa and I both loved it and had started mixing it into our day along with our green tea.
I’d recovered from my moment in the cemetery quickly with only a small headache lingering. Grandpa had insisted I drink down some chi restorative tea as soon as I told him about the incident. The dried ginseng added a bitter flavor that I wasn’t overly fond of, but my internal energy did feel as if my life force was restored. I’d not gone into details about the vision with my family. It was too jumbled up to make sense of it, almost as if two separate sights were merged into one knotted up past vision.Grandpa would just ramble on about my father and the water ghosts that had killed him and my mother. It was Christmas. Who wanted to hear about how their parents died but you survived all alone on a sailboat when we could be enjoying our gifts? Yes, I had been thinking of my parents a lot. That happened every major holiday. Seeing other students with their mom and dad or watching them leave the quad to be with their families always set off some sad moments. I was only human. But I didn’t want the day to be about my losses.
Phil needed something to lift him up as well since his parents were ignoring him. That pissed me off more and more as the day went on and we ventured out to take hot holiday meals to the elderly and infirm. Many of the old folk we visited were all alone. That broke my heart, it really did. Wearing the new Lions toque that Phil had given me as a present, I felt warm and loved, but these old people were sitting in their homes without even a grandkid to toddle on their knee. That wasn’t right. And so that was why, as well as just not wanting to dissect the whole encounter into tiny bits in front of Monique, I’d just made light of it all. Touched a ghost in a bikini. Saw her making out with a guy that looked like Bobby Darin on the front of Yeye’s old vinyls. Silly old Arch. Move on to more cheery things.
Which we had for the most part. At least we had brought some smiles to some wrinkled faces as well as a hot meal and a candy cane. That had to count for something. That evening was spent at home watching a new release movie Grandpa was keen on seeing. Phil and I were on the floor, backs to the sofa, buried under blankets with a huge bowl of popcorn while Grandpa and Monique were on the couch sipping tea and nibbling some of the beignets Monique had made for our holiday meal. The movie was a period romance horror, which seemed a terrible mix of genres to me, but the plot was good, even if the special effectswere so-so. Grandpa seemed to be enjoying the hell out of it, and that was all that mattered.
“You boys want something cold to drink?” Monique asked. Salty popcorn made us both nod, so I rose to help her fetch some chilled sweet tea. “You’re so sweet,” she said, then patted my cheek as we began to gather up glasses and ice. She glanced around me and leaned close. “Nothing from Phil’s family yet?”
Since the apartment was open design and even whispered conversations could be heard, I shook my head slightly while twisting ice cubes out of a blue plastic tray. One popped free and hit the floor. Sir Thomas did his best to catch it, but ghostly paws made it tricky.
“Poor child. I feel as if I should write to the congressman and give him a chunk of my mind. What district does he serve?” She sliced a lemon in half with some real gusto.
“Senator. And I don’t really know. He never talks about them much. I think ever since the webcast started, and they found out we’re dating, they’ve turned away from him,” I whispered as a young gentleman on-screen was being chased down by an alien in Regency evening wear.
“Hmm, well, fuck them then,” she spat as her knife went to town on that poor lemon. I snickered. I loved Monique so much. She was so feisty. And she really loved Grandpa a lot. Not always an easy thing because he could be pretty feisty as well. “I’ll writetwoletters to his office then. See if I don’t.” Oh, I knew she would. That made it even better. Senator Kestrel was about to get an inbox ass reaming. “Okay, right, so I need to take a deep breath. You go snuggle with that man of yours while I squeeze this lemon while pretending it’s the neck of a certain uncaring father and mother.”
I toted the tray with the ice-filled glasses back to the living area, stepped over Sir Thomas sprawled right where we walked, and sat down next to Phil, who was typing on his phone. They’dpaused the movie I saw. Grandpa was napping, chin on his chest, hands resting on his tiny, podded belly as he snored softly. Phil glanced up at me with a smile. My belly did a flip-flop as I wiggled in close to his side and stole a kiss.
“Mm salty,” he said softly, then showed me his phone. “I’m talking to Tray and Roxie. They’re having fun at his house today and then heading to hers tomorrow. They said after the game, everyone is going to head to the chem house on campus.”
“Really? Aren’t the frat houses all closed?”
“Nah, lots of kids don’t go home for lots of reasons. Also, I think the chem house executive board is required to stay or something. I don’t really know that much about it.” I thought it was kind of strange that a son of a senator wouldn’t have been recruited by several of the upper-class frat houses. But, as I was beginning to know Phil, I suspected he may not have been into all that pomp and circumstance. He was a down-to-earth man. “So yeah, after we win and move on to the semifinals, we can celebrate with the guys at Sigma Oxys or whatever it translates to into English. I can only work on learning Mandarin and not Greek.”
“Oh wow, a party with the football team. Yeah, sounds really great,” I fibbed through teeth filled with popcorn hulls. Most generally, I did my best to avoid team things. I liked a couple of the players well enough, and a few of the girlfriends, but on the whole, the jock set disliked me for a number of reasons. I was not a jock as evidenced by my run this morning. I was Asian (aka geek in their eyes), and I was gay. Phil had said over and over that the team was fine with him dating a guy, but were they really? It was easy enough to say one thing, but I’d seen the looks a few of the team threw my way on campus. They loved Phil. Who didn’t? It would be like not loving fluffy kittens or rolling a lip at a beagle pup. Phil was a big, huggable quokka.
I, on the other hand, had led their buddy skipping down the rainbow path. Also, I wore glasses. And worked at a bookstore. Total nerd, even if my GPA was 3.0 with a leaning trend downward, thanks to what I suspected to be a low grade in my chemistry class. Damn thermodynamics. Although if we were going to the chem house, maybe I could talk to one of the real brainiacs and set up a study date or something for when classes started again. I did not want to flunk out. It was important to me to graduate to make my family proud.
“You sure? You look like you have popcorn stuck in your throat.”
I brushed that off with a short, snorty laugh. “Nah, I’m good. Just trying to work out in my head if I can fit another party into my packed social schedule.” He looked crushed. “I was just kidding. Honestly, I have no other parties. You’re my ticket into the wild party scene at Liverswell College.”
“I’ll teach you how to do beer pong.” He kissed me soundly on the lips and began typing, sending a “Hell yeah, bro!” to Tray in reply to the invite I assumed. “It’ll be fun. The guys need to get to see what a super cool cutie you are.” He flashed me a smile and looked to the side. “Hey, the tea is here! Oh wow, lemons. I love lemons! Did you know that lemon trees can produce up to six hundred pounds of lemons in a year? I know, right?! I learned that in high school ag class. I loved that class. We got to grow plants. I grew a lemon tree from a seed, but it died when no one watered it.”
I smiled softly at my man. How could you not love him? He was the perfect boyfriend. I hoped I could get through one college frat party without making him regret his romantic life choices. For Phil, I would be the super cool cutie he deserved.
***
“Are you sure this looks okay?” I asked Reggie after pulling on the final clean shirt in my closet. He glanced up from the book he was reading, his gaze flitting over me.
“Well, it’s considerably better than the last one. At least this shirt has no stains on it, but surely you must have something more presentable for a festive gathering to celebrate the advancement of our Philip in his football league sport.”
“I’m not wearing a tie to a frat party,” I firmly stated and got a hefty sigh from the ghost reading a gay pirate romance. He was quite fond of the notion of being swept up by a robust scalawag of the high seas, it seemed. I ran my hands through my hair, wet my lips, and turned when the door to my room opened. Phil entered wearing a Lions jersey and jeans.
