Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete First Season (Coffee and Ghosts: The Complete Seasons Book 1) by Charity Tahmaseb Page B
Authors: Charity Tahmaseb
Tags: Fiction
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because of this, she comes for me. Where Malcolm is, I don’t know, and I don’t open my eyes to find out. Mrs. Greeley cries out. Mr. Carlotta calls, “Hang on! She’s broken through.”
I hold still. I’ve reached the common area. From the television comes the muted hum of a morning news program. The crying has all but ceased. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I think I detect snoring. My grandmother swirls around me like this alone will protect me. I feel her against my eyes, as if she’s trying to remind me not to open them. Then the other presence enters the room.
“You think you know him,” Mistress Armand croaks. Without everyone’s shame, she is a weak thing. “That will be your undoing.”
It’s nearly enough to tempt me, nearly enough that I open my eyes. But I don’t. I clench my fists against the urge. My grandmother whips around me like a cyclone. I think we might stand like this forever—Mistress Armand too weak to attack with anything but taunts, me not daring to open my eyes.
Then a thump echoes in the common area and her presence vanishes.
“You can open your eyes, Katy.” Malcolm’s voice is calm and welcoming, and with my eyes closed, its rhythm is startling. I think I could listen to him like this for a long while. But instead, I open my eyes. When I do, his are the first thing I see. He glances downward.
There, on the floor, his foot secures a Tupperware bowl. Inside the bowl, the misty and shrunken image of Mistress Armand floats.
“Nice work,” I say.
“You too.”
We don’t lift the container. Instead, the night manager brings us a thin cookie sheet from the facility’s kitchen. We slide it beneath the bowl, and now our trap is mobile.
Malcolm drives. I clutch the two pieces—bowl and cookie sheet—until my hands ache. We drive past our usual release point, the windbreak with a little creek. We drive past the nature preserve and state park where we release the meaner ghosts.
We drive for another full hour after that. The wind chases my hair around my head, into my eyes and mouth. I still clutch the bowl and cookie sheet. Malcolm leaves the freeway, navigates back roads until he finds a deserted gravel road that’s barely more than a path. Next to a plowed-under cornfield, he stops the convertible.
He holds up a hand. “Hang on,” he says and rounds the car to open my door.
I step out, Malcolm’s hands joining mine. Together, we stumble through the ruts and rows of the cornfield. We stand in the center of what must be the most desolate spot on earth—or would be if Malcolm weren’t next to me. Then we set the container on the ground. We don’t bother to remove the cookie sheet. The wind or an animal will knock it off soon enough. In the meantime, Mistress Armand can stew in her own mist.
We return to the convertible without looking back. Halfway across the field, Malcolm takes my hand.
* * *
“Things are changing,” I say to Malcolm right before we enter Springside Township. It’s the first words we’ve spoken since leaving the cornfield. “I used to know what to do, how to capture ghosts. But ghost eating? Mistress Armand? None of this makes sense. I can’t believe my grandmother wouldn’t tell me about such things.”
Malcolm is silent, jaw tense. In front of us, the stop light for Main and Fifth turns red.
“What do you think she was?” I ask. “You said before you thought she was human.”
“I did,” he says. “I think at one time, she must have been. I think the addiction ate away at her. I mean, look at Nigel compared to me. He’s only two years older.”
But looks at least twenty.
“I wonder if my grandmother ever knew of such things?” I think she must have. Maybe she died too soon to tell me.
“About what Mistress Armand said—” Malcolm begins.
I cut him off. “I doubt you have any shameful secrets. And if you do? So what? That’s in the past.”
I want to reach over, pat his knee or something. I don’t.
I hold still. I’ve reached the common area. From the television comes the muted hum of a morning news program. The crying has all but ceased. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I think I detect snoring. My grandmother swirls around me like this alone will protect me. I feel her against my eyes, as if she’s trying to remind me not to open them. Then the other presence enters the room.
“You think you know him,” Mistress Armand croaks. Without everyone’s shame, she is a weak thing. “That will be your undoing.”
It’s nearly enough to tempt me, nearly enough that I open my eyes. But I don’t. I clench my fists against the urge. My grandmother whips around me like a cyclone. I think we might stand like this forever—Mistress Armand too weak to attack with anything but taunts, me not daring to open my eyes.
Then a thump echoes in the common area and her presence vanishes.
“You can open your eyes, Katy.” Malcolm’s voice is calm and welcoming, and with my eyes closed, its rhythm is startling. I think I could listen to him like this for a long while. But instead, I open my eyes. When I do, his are the first thing I see. He glances downward.
There, on the floor, his foot secures a Tupperware bowl. Inside the bowl, the misty and shrunken image of Mistress Armand floats.
“Nice work,” I say.
“You too.”
We don’t lift the container. Instead, the night manager brings us a thin cookie sheet from the facility’s kitchen. We slide it beneath the bowl, and now our trap is mobile.
Malcolm drives. I clutch the two pieces—bowl and cookie sheet—until my hands ache. We drive past our usual release point, the windbreak with a little creek. We drive past the nature preserve and state park where we release the meaner ghosts.
We drive for another full hour after that. The wind chases my hair around my head, into my eyes and mouth. I still clutch the bowl and cookie sheet. Malcolm leaves the freeway, navigates back roads until he finds a deserted gravel road that’s barely more than a path. Next to a plowed-under cornfield, he stops the convertible.
He holds up a hand. “Hang on,” he says and rounds the car to open my door.
I step out, Malcolm’s hands joining mine. Together, we stumble through the ruts and rows of the cornfield. We stand in the center of what must be the most desolate spot on earth—or would be if Malcolm weren’t next to me. Then we set the container on the ground. We don’t bother to remove the cookie sheet. The wind or an animal will knock it off soon enough. In the meantime, Mistress Armand can stew in her own mist.
We return to the convertible without looking back. Halfway across the field, Malcolm takes my hand.
* * *
“Things are changing,” I say to Malcolm right before we enter Springside Township. It’s the first words we’ve spoken since leaving the cornfield. “I used to know what to do, how to capture ghosts. But ghost eating? Mistress Armand? None of this makes sense. I can’t believe my grandmother wouldn’t tell me about such things.”
Malcolm is silent, jaw tense. In front of us, the stop light for Main and Fifth turns red.
“What do you think she was?” I ask. “You said before you thought she was human.”
“I did,” he says. “I think at one time, she must have been. I think the addiction ate away at her. I mean, look at Nigel compared to me. He’s only two years older.”
But looks at least twenty.
“I wonder if my grandmother ever knew of such things?” I think she must have. Maybe she died too soon to tell me.
“About what Mistress Armand said—” Malcolm begins.
I cut him off. “I doubt you have any shameful secrets. And if you do? So what? That’s in the past.”
I want to reach over, pat his knee or something. I don’t.
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