He was stunned when he felt a tear trickle down onto his cheek. He brushed it away, not able to look at Mei as he did so. “You’re awfully strange.”
He heard the smile in her voice. “Thank you. That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. You’re awfully strange too, Wallace Price.”
* * *
Hugo was in front of the fireplace when Wallace left the kitchen, putting logs in under the direct supervision of Nelson. Apollo sat on his haunches, looking between the two of them, tongue hanging out of his mouth as he panted. “Higher,” Nelson said. “Make it a big one. I’ve got a chill in my bones. Gonna be a cold night. Spring often lies with hints of green and sun.”
“Of course it does,” Hugo said. “Don’t want you to be cold.”
“Absolutely,” Nelson agreed. “I could catch my death, and then where would you be?”
Hugo shook his head. “I don’t even want to imagine.”
“Good man. Ah, there it is.” The fire grew, the flames bright. “Always said that having a good fire and good company is all a person needs.”
“Funny,” Hugo said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before.”
Nelson sniffed. “Then you weren’t listening. I say it all the time. I’m your elder, Hugo, which means you should be hanging on to my every word and believing everything I say.”
“I do,” Hugo assured him as he stood. “I couldn’t ignore you if I tried.”
“Damn right,” Nelson said. He tapped his cane on the floor, and he was back in his pajamas, bunny slippers and all. “That’s better. Wallace, don’t stand there gawking. It’s unbecoming. Get your butt over here and let me look at you.”
Wallace went.
“All right?” Hugo asked as Wallace stopped awkwardly next to Nelson’s chair.
“I have no idea,” Wallace said.
Hugo beamed at him as if Wallace had said something profound. “That’s wonderful.”
Wallace blinked. “It is?”
“Very. Not knowing is better than pretending to know.”
“If you say so,” Wallace muttered.
Hugo grinned. “I do. Hang out here with Grandad for me, okay? I’ll be back in a little bit.”
He headed for the kitchen before Wallace could ask where he was going.
Nelson craned his neck around the chair, waiting for the kitchen doors to swing shut before he looked at Wallace. “They’re eating,” he whispered as if revealing a great secret.
Wallace looked down at him. “What?” But now that Nelson had mentioned it, he could smell it, the scents filling his nose. Meatloaf? Yes, meatloaf. Roasted broccoli on the side.
“Supper,” Nelson said. “They don’t eat in front of us. It’s rude.”
“It is?” He grimaced. “Do they talk with their mouths full of food?”
Nelson rolled his eyes. “They don’t eat in front of us because we can’t eat. Hugo thinks it’s like dangling a bone in front of a dog but then taking it away.”
Apollo’s ears quirked at the word bone. He stood and began to nose Nelson’s knees as if he thought Nelson had a treat to offer him. Nelson scratched between his ears instead.
“We can’t … eat?” Wallace said.
Nelson glanced at him. “Are you hungry?”
No, he wasn’t. He hadn’t even thought about eating, even when the scones had come out of the oven that morning. They’d smelled delicious, and he knew they’d be light and fluffy, melting on his tongue, but it was almost an afterthought. “We can’t eat,” he said.
“Nope.”
“We can’t sleep.”
“Nope.”
Wallace groaned. “Then what the hell can we do?”
“Rock a bikini, I guess. You’ve got that down pat.”
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Never,” Nelson said. “It was enlightening to see that you were a proponent of manscaping when you were alive. I’d hate to think you’d neglect it only to spend your time here with a topiary garden in your pants.”
Wallace gaped at him.
Nelson tapped his cane on the floor. “Sit down. I don’t like it when people hover.”
“I’m not sitting on the floor.”
“Okay,” Nelson said. “Then pull up a chair.”
Wallace turned to do just that, stopping halfway to the nearest table before he remembered he couldn’t. He frowned as he turned back to Nelson. “That’s not funny.”
Nelson squinted at him. “It wasn’t supposed to be. I wasn’t telling a joke. Would you like me to tell you a joke?”
No, he really wouldn’t. “That’s fine, you don’t need to—”
“What is a ghost’s favorite fruit?”
This was definitely Hell. He didn’t care what Mei or Hugo said. “I really don’t—”
“Booberries.”
Wallace felt his eye twitch. “I can just sit on the floor.”
“What kind of a street does a ghost live on?”
“I don’t care.”
“A dead end.”
Silence.
“Huh,” Nelson said. “Nothing? Really? That was one of my better ones.” He frowned. “I suppose I can pull out the big guns, if you think it’d help. What does a ghost do to stay safe in a car? He puts on his sheet belt.”
Wallace sank down to the floor. Apollo was delighted by this, lying down next to Wallace and rolling onto his back, staring at Wallace pointedly. “No more. Please. I’ll do anything.” He reached over absentmindedly and scratched Apollo’s belly.
“Anything?” Nelson said, sounding rather gleeful. “I’ll have to keep that in mind.”
“That wasn’t an offer.”
“Sounded like one. Don’t write checks your butt can’t cash is what I always say.”
Wallace doubted that. He looked at the fire. He could feel the heat from it, though he didn’t understand how that was possible. “How can you stand it?”
“What?” Nelson asked, settling back in his chair.
“Staying here.”
“It’s not a bad place,” Nelson said sharply. “It’s quite nice, if you ask me. There are worse places I could be.”
“No, I’m—that’s not what I meant.”
“Then say what you mean. Seems easy enough, right?”
“And that’s another thing,” Wallace said without thinking. “You can change your clothes.”
“It’s not that hard. You just need to have focus.”
Wallace shook his head. “Why are you the way you are?”
“Like … physically? Or philosophically? If it’s the latter, I hope you’re ready for a long story. It all started when I was—”
“Physically,” Wallace said. “Why are you still old?”
Nelson cocked his head. “Because I am old. Eighty-seven, to be exact. Or, rather, that’s how old I was when I bit the big one.”
“Why don’t you make yourself younger?” Wallace asked. “Are you—” we, though that went unsaid—“stuck like this forever?”