Page 79 of The Legend of Lovers Hollow
He doesn’t wait for my response, he simply strides off across the floor the same way he brother did, just in the opposite direction.
I chuckle and scan the floor again.Oh shit, I mutter to myself as I see Bertie across the room. She’s dressed to the nines in her own tux, her wild grey hair ruthlessly side-parted and tamed into submission with some kind of gel. But it’s not her outfit that has me hurrying towards her. It’s whatever she seems to be emptying into the punch bowl.
I edge around Edwina waltzing around the dance floor with Skid, who I barely recognise in a suit with a thin tie and skinny drainpipe trousers, his usually vibrant green hair toned down to black and lying flat like a horse’s mane. Edwina has ditched her huge hat andVotes for Womensash and is wearing a beautiful Edwardian gown in deep purple, with elbow-length white gloves and strings of pearls accompanied by a pearl choker.
Leona is also on the dance floor, twirling around and doing the Charleston on her own, which, to be fair, I’ve never seen done in time to George Michael’s song,Faster Love. Still, they all seem to be having fun. John the Maid’s playlist just seems to be a compilation of songs with the word love in it, in honour of Valentine’s day, and I’m not going to complain.
Ignoring all the other house ghosts milling around the ballroom, I head towards Bertie.
“What are you doing?” I hiss when I reach her.
“What?” she says innocently. “I just thought, you know, in the event that we have a supernatural crisis, it might be a bit easier to explain it away to the guests if… you know… they’re a bit in their cups, so to speak.”
“Just what are you spiking the punch with?”
“Oh, you know, a little of Dilys’ moonshine. It’s got quite the kick, I well remember from my days as a fleshie.”
“Dilys was here while you were alive?” I say in surprise.
“Of course she was. Old girl’s been here forever,” Bertie says jovially. “Don’t think she’s leaving when she dies, either. She’ll probably still be manning the bar when the end of the world rolls around.”
“We’re getting off topic here.” I frown. “Bertie, you can’t just get everyone drunk so we don’t have to explain a potential haunting gone awry.”
“Pfft, why not? Dilys has been doing it for days. You do know the cocoa’s spiked too, don’t you?”
I sigh. “I was beginning to suspect. I’ll have to have a word with her. She can’t just go giving people alcohol without their knowledge.” I look at Bertie sharply. “It is just alcohol she’s putting in the cocoa, isn’t it?”
“What do you think she’s doing, dropping a dose of laudanum in?”
“Do they still even make that?” I blink. “I thought that went out with the Victorian era.”
“So did Dilys.” Bertie snorts. “Besides, I wouldn’t put it past her to be brewing up a batch with all of her distillery equipment in the cellar. She used to be a chemist, you know. It’s probably why she’s such a damn fine bartender.”
“Has she actually got a distillery in the cellar?” I frown. “Wait a minute, do we even have a cellar?”
Bertie winks cheekily. “Best-kept secret in the house.”
“Not anymore, it’s not,” I mumble.”
I’m just about to open my mouth to say something else when I suddenly feel the tiny hairs on my arms begin to rise, making my skin tingle. I breathe in and once again get that strange scent of burning in my nostrils. The lights above us begin to flicker and the air becomes charged with static electricity.
“Oh no.”
20
“We need to find Morgan,” I say to Bertie. I cross the Ballroom as calmly as I can, smiling at all the guests as I pass. All the ghosts start drifting closer to me.
“Can you smell that?” Skid says as he joins us, holding Edwina’s hand. She looks close to hyperventilating.
“Smell it?” Admiral Hilary says gruffly. “Can you feel it?”
“What’s going on?” Artie appears by my side. “Are the bad ghosts coming?”
“I don’t know, Artie,” I tell him, knowing no-one can hear me over the music.
“I ain’t gonna let them hurt my sister,” he says bravely.
“Oh, sweet boy,” Bertie says to Artie. “You have the heart of a lion, don’t you.”