“How about this, Baldy. When I’m done cleaning, we can resume this chat on a call,” I say. “All right? Off you go. On to a new lawyering adventure.”
I make shooing movements with the broom. Once he realizes I’m putting him to best use as a human dustpan, Baldy sighs with resignation and shuffles toward the door.
“Very well,” he says as he comports himself. “I will find you when you do not call, since you don’t answer your phone.”
At last, the world’s lumpiest lawyer dips out of the shop. Good riddance to him, to his resistance to oil-cleansing scalp products, and to his allegedly magical contract that I’m not buying a word of.
As loath as I am to admit it, watching Baldy drive away, I feel a pang of longing for my mom. I wish she were here. Or more accurately, I wish she had the presence of mind to be here in Salem, performing the role of executrix and alleged spirit guardian instead of me. The way a daughter should. Grandma was a lost cause, but sometimes I wonder what Mom would’ve been like if she hadn’t surrendered to the paranormal life.
When I was a kid, she cycled through a zillion crunchy jobs she could do from home: reading tarot cards, selling MLM leggings and mouthwash, filling our living room with homemade soaps that she claimed were cupcake-scented, but mostly smelled like yeast and toe lint. She was weird even by Portland, Oregon, standards. I learned to hide my friends’ existence so Mom wouldn’t besiege their parents with invitations to join pyramid schemes. Still, we got along pretty well, the two of us, with the help of my mostly AWOL dad’s child-support checks.
Until Mom discovered plants. Supernatural, succulent ones. This led to another quick packing of bags and the purchase of a one-way ticket, and suddenly, I was living alone in our apartment, dodging child services while Mom pursued her paranormal dreams in Mexico. After she stopped paying rent—having apparently forgotten that parents are supposed to house and feed their children—I sold everything I could and finished my senior year of high school while crashing on pullout sofas at random friends’ houses. I swore to myself I’d never go through houselessness again. Or insecurity in general. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Nothing can be certain except death and taxes.” It’s what inspired me to become an auditor.
The weird thing is, Mom’s been staying in a Baja California hotel ever since. She hasn’t come home for my graduations or birthdays. She didn’t come to Grandma’s funeral. At this point, it’s kind of unclear if she can even leave.
All the more reason to complain to the room, with Grandma’s knobby broom in hand.
“Who knew that dying could be so damn complicated?” I ask the air.
“That’s why I declined,” says a voice behind me.
I nearly die right then.
But instead I turn around and bop what I find—the stupid head from Grandma’s house—with the end of my broom.
“What thehell!” I say. Then I bop it again, twice, for good measure. “How did you get here? How did you get away from me last night? I figured an owl got you. Or a raccoon.”
“I asked some crows to drop me off,” Bulan the head replies buoyantly. He seems relatively unharmed, considering he’s missing most of his organs. Which is unbelievable. Possibly less believable than his existence.
“Some crows,” I repeat.
“They’re quite friendly.”
I stare at him until he laughs. “Don’t look so angry, Sabby.”
“I’m going to drown you in a sink.”
“I like baths,” he replies.
“Then how am I supposed to get rid of you?”
“I’m not going to give yousuggestions,” the head whines. “I came back because… Well…”
Because what? Is his gluttonous masochism the reason he’s dead, or undead, or whatever? And why would he come find me after narrowly escaping being buried against his will? He better not think I’m going to keep him as my pet. A body-impaired, lighthearted curiositycannotreplace a golden retriever.
Our conversation, stilted as it is, gets cut off by the door opening. Two strangers stride into the apothecary clutching huge black parasols. They distress me in a way I can’t identify. It’s probably the outfits.
The woman has a long neck, like a giraffe’s, wrapped tightly in about a half foot of fluffy, purple-feathered boa. She has bound the rest of herself in a black dress that might actually be a spray-painted roll of Bubble Wrap. Her nails are bright red, but not with polish.
She’s stillkindof pretty beneath the mess. I give her face an 8/10.
Meanwhile, the man is dressed in a blazer with joggers and hiking boots. His handlebar mustache seems to be twitching. Did a very slender mouse crawl onto his face? Or is it a fake mustache that’s losing its stickiness and about to fall off? I think about the one and only time I tried wearing sticky boobs. No idea why you would do that to yourself.
All in all, I don’t know why they’re giving me weird vibes. A good half of the pedestrians in downtown Salem are parading around in absurd outfits right now.
Maybe that’s my salvation. The spirit of the season might keep these weirdos from thinking my whole head-pet situation is too abnormal.
“He’s a Roomba,” I explain. “The head. Happy Halloween.”
