Page 11 of The Mare Rider of Cornwall Cove
He disapparated in a sulk I was well familiar with. Caleb and Eloise exchanged worried looks.
“It’s fine. He does this. Give him an hour to chill out, and he’ll have moved past it and onto something else,” I explained to the concerned ghosts.
“No, I shall not! I am most aggrieved, Archimedes!” a British voice announced from the children’s section. The slam of a book onto the floor followed. Eloise made a hasty exit since the timid teen disliked drama of any kind. How she was friends with Reggie, the Duke of Drama, was beyond me.
“Sorry for stepping into it with Reginald,” Caleb said softly. I waved it off. “He’s such a pretty thing. Sure has a temper at times, though.”
“Yes, he does.” I could only agree.
“I’ll leave him to rest his spirit a bit. I have to finish my deliveries. Thank you for letting us have a party here in the shop.” He reached up to tip his white hat only to recall that he no longer had it. The death blow from his horse had knocked his hat clean off, and so he was now hatless. I suspected he would have liked to have his spiffy white cap back to help hide the hoof-shaped dent in his head. “Good day, Mr. Archie.”
With that, he floated through the front store window. I heaved a sigh, went to pick up the copy of a popular kids bookabout a large purple chicken, and turned the CLOSED sign to OPEN. Perhaps it would do me good to spend a few hours recommending reads to the stray customer who meandered in rather than going upstairs to get into it with Grandpa about the way I was using my gifts. I’d let everyone cool off. Phil would be back in a few hours, filled with energy and bounce enough for five people, and I could soak him in before facing down upset octogenarians and tiffy apparitions.
Chapter Four
By the time dinnerhour was here, things at home were oddly settled. Mostly. Sort of…
Reg was still hiding somewhere in a snit. Grandpa was being gracious as always to Roxie, Tray, and Phil as we sat down to eat pizza and discuss the plans for tomorrow night. Monique had rushed home a few hours ago, leaving a note to let us know she would be over tomorrow before we left for the sanitarium.
There were a lot of details to work out, mostly related to the cold and the delicate equipment, but Phil was confident that things would be okay. We’d only be there streaming for four hours. He’d found extra batteries in the film department’s equipment closet. Roxie and Tray had somehow managed to bring in boxes and boxes of decorations for the glow party. UV lights, tees, socks, body paint, glowsticks, neon balloons, streamers, and even a bottle of champagne that glowed an eeriegreen under the UV lights. It was all really gaudy. When I pointed out that we were there to do a serious stream about the horrors that people who had been confined in the asylums had been exposed to, Roxie sighed as she did and gave me that look. The look that said I was a nerdy newbie with zero experience in things that people our age liked made me feel older than Grandpa. She wasn’t totally wrong, though. I wasn’t up on the cool party themes like she was, nor was I really worried about being a dork. I’d been called worse.
“Arch, we get it.” She looked at Tray, who was chowing down his fourth slice of hot pepper and mushroom with extra cheese. He nodded with cheeks filled like a chipmunk. Grandpa sat beside Phil sipping his tea, his umber eyes locked on me. “We’re not trying to lessen the spooky factor at all, but it is New Year’s and your subscribers are wild for new content. Look here.” She pulled her tablet from her backpack hanging on the back of her chair and fired it up. Phil was chewing thoughtfully, his usually bright blue eyes weary. Practice had been rough, he’d said, and we’d not been sleeping well, so both of us were drowsy. “As soon as I got you locked down for the stream, I whipped up a few graphics and posted them on social media as well as our website. People are so amped. Read the comments under the post from today.”
She spun the tablet to face me. Nibbling on some crust, I scanned the replies to a post that went up this morning. Over two hundred comments. Two hundred! And five thousand views. Holy shit. That was amazing. Guess people did like to see other people being scared shitless, nearly drowned, and possessed by a restless spirit.
OMG I AM LIT!—LittlePippy78
GYAT!! MY GHOST BOYS ARE BACK!—JennieLlama
YEET!! WILL THEY KISS?!—WombatBabe06
BRING ON THAT BL BABY!!—ChatSnatch69
PHARCH NOW AND FOREVER!!—PinkRingKaze
I glanced up from the comments. “Pharch?”
Roxie smiled widely. “Yep, you have a ship name. People are loving you two. So just do what you do, you know, be nerdy cute boyfriends, cuddle up at the end of the stream, pop the cork, kiss, and we’ll fade away. The fans will all be anime nose bleeding all over themselves, and we’ll have some great content. I’ll take that last slice.”
Grandpa slid his spatula under the final piece and placed it delicately on Roxie’s paper plate. I went back to reading the comments. Not going to lie. They made me feel pretty good. So many people thought I was cute and smart. I wasn’t sure if I was either of those, but it was nice to hear. Phil leaned over to place his chin on my shoulder.
“There, that kind of shit right there is what the subs want. Cute gay boy romance!” Roxie shouted around her bite of pizza.
“I’m bi,” Phil slid in as I blushed. My man yawned in my ear. I glanced at my grandfather sitting quietly and taking it all in. “What’s great about this one is that it’s a safe site.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Not sure that’s wholly true.” She didn’t really grasp how overwhelming unhappy spirits could be to a seer. And given that many who died there had probably been misused, they’d be even more driven to be heard. I could feel a twinge of a headache starting right behind my left eye just thinking about the influx of negative parapsychological energy into my occipital lobe.
Roxie swallowed. Tray sat back, his unease about the ghostly side of our production always evident on his handsome face now that we were deep in the nitty and gritty.
“We know what to do and not to do. Do not allow anyone to take you over for one thing,” she stated with a wag of her slice at me. “Actually, that’s the biggest thing. If you run into a spirit, then talk to it. The live feed comments from the last stream wereinsane. People were so into that. Oh, and make sure to mention the sponsors. We’re still in negotiations with Tray’s uncle.”
“Yeah, he’s sort of a dick about gay stuff,” Tray mumbled.
“Then we don’t want his support. Either he’s cool with queer content or he’s not. Sorry, not sorry. I know he’s your family and all, Tray, but I’m not having bigots fund this stream,” I firmly said and got a nod from Tray. “We’ll find some other funds somewhere.”
Everyone seemed onboard with that, so we finished our pizza and had some fresh sesame balls Grandpa had made earlier. I took that to mean he wasn’t as mad at me as he had been as he knew sesame balls were one of my favorite desserts. At least I hoped he wasn’t. He’d been my rock since my parents had died. Him being shamed by my behavior hurt badly.
When the planning party broke up, Grandpa went to his room, and Phil and I went to my room. We lounged around on my bed for an hour or so, talking about football and classes, normal stuff. Anything other than what was coming in less than twenty-four hours. Curled up with Phil under the covers, his strong heart thumping under my cheek, I could almost forget the rest of the world. This was my favorite place to be. His arms were harbors from the crazy storms that were Archimedes Kee’s life, and I never wanted to leave the dock. But that was unrealistic. A person couldn’t spend his or her life in bed. School and work and life demands pulled us out from under the blanket every morning. Also, hungry boyfriends did that.
