Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

“Do you guys feel that?” I whispered.

Scott glanced around, but Twyla just fluffed the teased side of her hair.

“Feel what?” she asked.

Maybe I had ghost nerves because of tonight’s activities. Maybe the dark spirit from earlier had shaken me more than I’d admitted before. Or maybe it had come back… ?

Paranoia, the destroyer.

“It’s nothing,” I said, focusing on the pool house below again. The creepy sensation was gone, anyway, and I wasn’t going to torture myself with oh-my-Gods and what-ifs. “You guys do know that the pool house is surrounded by a salt circle, too, right? I already checked when we flew by it earlier.”

Scott and Twyla glanced at each other, laughed, then darted up and coasted off the roof at the same time, down to the blue-lit lagoon pool.

I took one last look around the roof area, finding nothing out of the ordinary. No more chills for me. So I joined Scott in front of a shuttered villa window that had salt sprinkled on the sill, as well as around the rest of the pool house.

Behind us, Twyla had taken the scenic route, screwing around, and she zinged by us so fast that she caused some wind. A sill-bound potted plant toppled to the ground, shattering, spreading dirt and daisies over the concrete.

I was just about to yell at her when Scott whispered, “All part of the plan, baby.”

Twyla landed in front of the ornate wooden door. “A guy like Gavin will come out to check a noise like that, if he heard it. We can always graduate to something, like, more attention-worthy if we need to. Let’s see if this gets anyone out here first.”

“We don’t want to make any threatening noises,” Scott said. “No exploding pool houses or anything.” He looked sidelong at Twyla. “Got it, troublemaker?”

“Ha-ha. Your confidence in me touches my tender heart.”

“It’s just that you get a little excited sometimes, that’s all.” Scott slicked back his greased dark hair, totally in no hurry.

She merely bent to the foot of the door, then pursed her dark-shaded mouth, giving a great exhalation that disturbed the line of salt at the threshold, creating a slim opening. Without further ado, she zoomed through the lane and under the door.

“Hey… ,” I began.

Scott was having the time of his life, laughing at my surprise. “First of all, she got in because she’s not the one who was being banished from the dwellings here. You and the dark spirit were the focus of the cleaner’s energies.” He went back to his hair. “As far as the salt goes… see, humans have their nifty tricks that make them feel safe, so they use stuff like salt to keep us away. Basically, though, it works on ghosts who just fell off the turnip truck and don’t know to pucker up and blow. And it works way better on demons than us.”

This really was a game to these two. Luckily, they were good players. “Don’t cleaners know how easy it is for experienced ghosts to bypass salt?”

“Jen.” Scott made a clicking noise with his tongue. “It’s pretty obvious this cleaner is sparky, but untried. She’ll learn, though.”

I put my hands on my hips. “You think you could’ve told me about this earlier? You know, before I was bounced out of the chimney?”

Scott offered a smile that told me that he was a fan of practical jokes in any form. “Twyla and me knew about the salt when we saw it around the mansion earlier, but you wouldn’t have brought us if you didn’t think you needed us.”

Then he got back to haunting. “We’ll go into this little house here after Twyla finishes frying any silent alarms inside. She’s quick about it, too, so nothing should’ve gone off at all. We don’t want anyone to think anything spooky is happening out here.”

“We just want to attract mild attention.”

“You’ve got it.”

I was about to ask him how he and Twyla had become experts at break-ins, but what was the point? They could probably take over the War Games computers or whatever the government used nowadays for national defense, if they wanted to.

When a sharp series of knocks sounded on the door— bump, bump-ba-bump-bump… bump-bump —Scott went to it and swept his arm out.

“After you, milady,” he said, bowing.

Cute. “The salt’s gone, but what if I can’t get in because of the cleaner’s incantations or whatever?”

“If you’re susceptible to them, we’ll find out right away. But you gotta get in there to find out.”

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

I went for it, slimming myself to a pencillike proportion and streaming under the door, into the pool house, filling out to my regular shape once I was in.

I waited, but nothing happened to make me explode or wither away or fly off to ghosty Never Never Land. Rad.

As I felt Scott entering through the same route, I took in my surroundings. It’d be dark in here for a human with the windows shuttered and the lights off, but I could see just fine. And I could surely say that, for a pool house, this was gnarly. But what else did I expect from the Edgetts? It wasn’t marble and palatial like the mansion, but it had a big old leather couch in front of a huge, flat TV, a kitchen, a bar, and a hallway that seemed to lead to a bedroom.

Scott was surveying me. “Looks like either someone has an immunity to cleaner tactics or the Edgetts didn’t bother safeguarding the pool house all the way.”

“No one lives here,” Twyla said, stepping out of nowhere in front of me. “So, like, why not just salt the outside and spend incantation time on the big house instead?”

The sound of a door opening and then shutting outside made us all look at each other. Through the barely gaped slats of the shutters, the security lights came on, creating minuscule lines on the far wall.

“A human,” Scott said, flying to the window and attempting to peer through the slats. “From what I can see, it isn’t Gavin, either. It’s one of the girls.”

Farah or Wendy. But Farah was a chicken compared to the younger Edgett. She wouldn’t be out here inspecting anything.

“Can you see what she’s doing?” I asked.

“She’s looking at the pot Twyla destroyed earlier. And take a listen to what she’s saying… .”

I definitely heard Farah’s voice outside.

“Tugger? Is that you? Come here, little boy. Mama’s missed you.”

Well, well. “When she heard the pot go down, she thought her kitty did it, but she probably waited to see that everything was clear out here,” I said. After all, Eileen Perez had told the family that their pet might come home, now that the house was clean.

The Edgetts were feeling really safe, weren’t they?

Scott and Twyla exchanged a smug glance. They’d been there to hear the cleaner talking about Rum Tum Tugger, and I had the feeling they were going to run with that.

Twyla had slimmed the front part of herself, slipping through a shutter slat. It gave her the appearance of a gray ghost with no head. “She must’ve been up, drinking coffee in the kitchen. It’s all over the front of her nightgown, like she spilled it when she heard the crash here.” She pulled out of the slat and grew back her head, talking excitedly to Scott. “You ready?”

“For what?” I asked.

“Ready to get Gavin out here instead of this useless skank.”

Something told me to slow all this down. I’d never been able to go into Farah’s mind. Why not now? Why not get more than just Gavin’s puzzle pieces?

“Wait,” I said. “Let’s bring her in here first. Then we’ll go for Gavin.”

Without questioning, Scott gave me the okay sign, then flew to the door and under it. But Twyla sent me a daredevil glance, then got real close to the door. Even though she didn’t open her mouth, she threw out some sound.