“We don’t need to talk about me. This is the time to focus on you. Zelda, someone plunged a knife into your heart.”
“How rude of them.” She fluffed her hair. “You know, there are lots of things that I would never do, and plunging a knife into someone is one of them. But oh well, you can’t have everything.”
I wanted to shake some sense into her. “Zelda, before you go into the light, did you see who did it?”
“You know,” she said, eyeing me up and down, “I’m not sure that I like the purple hair.”
I nearly screamed that she’d been murdered and could we please focus on what was important, but I bit my tongue and decided that perhaps it would be best to play along.
“Oh? You don’t like my hair?”
“No, I think you should go back to your natural brunette.”
I paused, surprised that she knew I had been a brunette. “Is it so obvious that was my natural color?”
“To me it is.” She leaned close and said conspiratorially, “But then again, I’m a brunette, too. I pegged you in an instant. It must be a brown-haired thing. We can pick each other out in a crowd.”
Well, considering most people on the planet had brown hair (not sure if that was true, but seemed close enough), it couldn’t be that far off of a guess to assume that was my natural color.
“Zelda, if we’re finished talking about me, I’m wondering if we can focus on you for a bit.”
“Why should we focus on me? I’m dead. And did I leave a horrible situation downstairs. Oh my goodness, they are going to fight over my money, or what little of it there is left.” She splayed a hand over her heart. “I wanted to leave them more, and if I’d had my way tonight, there would have been more, but it didn’t work out.”
She sighed and stared at the floor for a moment before glancing back up at me, her eyes glassy with tears. “And I worked so hard on the decorations.”
“Oh yes, the elves. They’re, um…” Tacky as Hades? The worst Christmas decorations ever? “Quite charming. So many elves. It’s like a winter wonderland. But anyway, you know, someonekilledyou.”
She flicked her hand at me dismissively. “Yes, yes, but you know the elves are important. They can see.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course they can.”
Zelda suddenly brightened, lasering her focus on me. “Let’s talk about your father.”
“Let’s don’t and say we did.”
“Now, now,” she said with a pout, “that’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“Get used to disappointment. The world, even the other side, I’m sure is still full of it.”
“Not the attitude I expected.” She clasped her hands behind her and paced. “I got into this business to make money, yes, but to also bring people together. There is so much that we want to know about our loved ones, or to tell them because we didn’t get the chance to do so when they were alive. Let your loved ones know how you feel, I always say. Well,said,seeing as I’m now dead.”
“And awfully talkative,” I added.
“Yes, well, you need to speak to your father.”
“I need to get Lucky Strike’s soul from him.”
She gasped. “Your father stole a soul?”
I nodded. I didn’t even like admitting it out loud. Stealing souls wasn’t exactly something a nice person would do. It wasn’t even somethingmostpeople would do.
“I’m afraid he did, yes. I don’t know why.”
Zelda stroked her chin. “Perhaps for the extra power.”
“Why would he need it?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Why does anyone need anything? Perhaps he thought the power would make him stronger so he could do something on earth, with the living.”
