the ghosts that once sat there Who: Bess & Lizbeth (& NPC!ghosts) Where: The Golden Dragon When: Late morning
“That’s her, isn’t it? The strange child, the one who sees the dead.”
“Hey now, don’t be callin’ her that. What did I say?”
“I can hear you.” Bess turned away from the television to fix Angelo with a look that said he should have known better before moving on to glance over the ghost she didn’t recognise. Physically, she could only have been in her forties when she died, but her voice was soft and paper-thin. The kind of voice you’d expect all ghosts to have, but Angelo sounded like a loud, enthusiastic pizza commercial. “You said you weren’t going to bring anyone else back here,” she reminded him with a frown. Because the last time Angelo brought a ‘friend’ back, the furniture all ended up on the ceiling.
“Eh, I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress,” Angelo shrugged, wheeling out of the room.
He was probably after Bess’ playing cards. The young psychic really hated that he’d left her alone with a ghost she didn’t know. If she got throttled it’d be his fault if her dad got him exorcised. “I only need a- a very small favour,” the deceased woman put in. “Very, very small.”
Her name was Annie Johnston and she died six months ago, but she wouldn’t ‘fess up to the circumstances. Which was weird. Bess found most ghosts actually liked telling that part. They wanted the reaction, often so they felt justified in their own feelings on the matter. This was a conclusion the medium had drawn for herself a while back. When she originally voiced it to Angelo he fell about laughing, finally declaring that it was funny because it was true. Annie had a son, or a nephew -- she was being purposefully vague, which bugged Bess -- who worked at the Golden Dragon. All Annie wanted was to see him. Bess didn’t understand why she had to be there; ghosts could just walk in and out of there without anyone really bugging them. But it seemed harmless enough, so she had grabbed her cardigan and fingerless gloves, slipped her feet into her shoes, and quickly written her dad a note: ‘Be back soon. Ghost needed a favour. If not back soon, should be at the Golden Dragon. Love, Bess xxx’ Rolling her sleeves back so her gloves were visible, making her look less like Wednesday Addams, she grabbed her bag (just in case of stuff) and practically speed-walked all the way to the restaurant, both Annie and Angelo flanking her. Apparently the Italian no longer wanted to leave her on her own with a maybe-crazy lady.
Stood outside the place, Bess wrinkled her nose. “Are you gonna go in?”
“Only if you come with me,” Annie insisted. Which meant Angelo was going too. Did this mean they were emotional support?
Blinking at the entrance, Bess pulled herself up as tall as she could go -- then dodged through the doors behind another couple. That would make it easier to hide in a corner someplace, right? Well, in theory. If you didn’t freeze once you suddenly realised you’d walked all the way to wherever on your own at a dead person’s request. If her dad had gotten her note already he’d been freaking. She didn’t want to worry him more. She really didn’t want Annie to be sitting at the family dinner tables. Why was she doing that? She needed to be looking for her son-nephew-whoever.
“Um…” That was the only word that Bess could really say out loud, with one variation, which was, “Uh.” The couple she had been hiding behind had moved on. Her cover was blown. She had no place to hide. Why did she agree to this? At least Angelo and Annie were invisible.