“That expression annoys me.”
“You mean it pisses you off?”
“No, I mean it annoys me.”
Morgaine dropped her pencil. “You heard him, Gwyneth?”
Gwyneth stood up straight. “I did! Jeezum crow, I heard the ghost.”
Her cousin jumped up and hugged her. “I knew you could do it. All you needed was to awaken the psychic within.”
“Oh, great. Now I have to watch my language in front of Ms. Southern Belle?”Chad grumbled.
“If y’all don’t mind,” Gwyneth said, politely.
“Give me a break, Belle. I’m dead and I’m pissed off about it. What are you going to do if I curse? Slap me across the face?”
She crossed her arms and pouted.
Morgaine patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to him. I did.”
“I suppose.”
“Now, where were we?”
“We were about to write everyone’s name—at least everyone you knew in the sixties—on this list.” Morgaine picked up the pencil again and said, “So, go ahead. Name everyone you knew.”
“Fuck that. Look, I’ll give you a couple of ex-girlfriends and everyone I owed money to. I can’t remember the names of every cabbie and waitress I stiffed.”
“Fire away.”
“Arlene Lynch, Madam Kowalski…”
“Madam?”
“Not that kind of Madam. A psychic, like yourself.”
“How did you piss… I mean,annoya psychic?”
“Easy. I told her she was a fraud. That no one could talk to the dead and her whole psychic act was bunk.”
Gwyneth and Morgaine looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.
“Okay, okay. I made a mistake. One of us had to be wrong. Just like people who believe in heaven and hell. The believers are gonna feel so faked out if they end up like me.”
A knock at the door interrupted the task at hand.
Gwyneth answered it.
Merry stood there with damp hair, wearing exactly what she was wearing last night.
“Ah, the good ol’ walk of shame,”Chad smirked and floated toward the ceiling.
“Merry. Nice to see you. Would y’all like to come in and set a spell?”
“Yup. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Just a friend coming by to say ‘Howdy.’ Southern manners…”
Gwyneth looked up. “What about Southern manners?”
