Page 69 of Walk on the Wilder Side

“At least the dress covered your hairy legs.” Alice pulled a face.

Marge grabbed the bottom of her kilt and started inching it up her thigh. “You like?”

“Ugh! Cover those things back up! Yuck!” Alice smacked her hand and Marge laughed as she tugged her kilt back down.

“It’s fine, Marge,” Sylvie said. “As long as you’re in something traditional, we’ll call it good.”

“I like the kilt. This is working for me. Now, who wants Alice’s other biscuit? I can only fit one in here. The kilt is more forgiving, but it ain’t elastic.”

“I’ll take the extra!” I grinned as I scooped the biscuit off her plate and put it on mine.

“Good morning!” Sarah said as she, David, Chris, and Mary came up behind us.

“Good morning!” we answered back.

“Wasn’t that amazing?” Mary said. “We slept like babies in that bed, didn’t we, Chris?”

“Best sleep of my life,” he said with a lazy stretch. “Didn’t want to get up.”

“Same,” David agreed. “Sarah and I were thinking about skipping breakfast to stay in bed longer, but we didn’t want to miss this.”

“Oh, it’s a good thing you didn’t,” I said. “It’s delicious!”

“Yeah, that looks amazing.” Mary looked at my plate. “Okay, I’m glad we didn’t sleep in now seeing that. Let’s go get some breakfast.”

They started off toward the display of food, giving us a little wave as they left.

“I slept like the dead last night too,” Sylvie said.

“Same.” Marge ripped off a piece of biscuit and popped it in her mouth.

Alice agreed. “I’ll admit, the beds were extremely comfortable. I was worried they wouldn’t be up to my standards, but they had high quality sheets, and the firmness was just right.”

“What about you, Doris?” Sylvie asked, her eyes lighting up. “How was it? Your first night sleeping in a castle. Did you sleep like a queen?”

I wanted to lie and tell them I also had the best sleep of my life, but the truth was, I’d stayed up half the night terrified about the voices I’d heard. Knowing it was wrong to lie, I admitted the truth. “Actually, I barely slept.”

“What?” they echoed.

“Was there something wrong with your room?” Sylvie asked. “We can switch rooms if you’d like. Mine was wonderful.”

“No, no.” I waved a hand. “It wasn’t the room. The room was perfect.”

“Then what was it?” Marge asked.

I looked at them, then glanced around to make sure no other guests were close enough to hear. “I heard voices.”

Three sets of eyes bulged at me.

“In your head? You’re hearing voices?” Alice asked, shooting a look to Marge.

“No, not in my head. Outside. I heard voices outside in the gardens, and it scared me.”

Sylvie sat forward. “Did you go look? Maybe it was just some guests out for a night walk.”

I nodded. “I did. I looked. Five times! Every time I heard them, I would get up and run to the window then look at the garden where it sounded like they were coming from, but nothing! No one was there. It was eerie.”

“Ghosts!” Marge lifted a fist. “It’s a haunted castle! Staying at a haunted house was going to be one of my wishes, so this is awesome! I get my wish without wasting one. Hell yeah!”

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