72 St. Margaret’s Way Chapter 1
James could breathe again. This was his first day back at work after three days off in a row, where he’d helped his parents move to their new place in Ohio. And just like any other rare occasion he missed work, his desk and email had been overflowing with tasks when he returned. He’d been trapped in his office for hours, working his way through a stack of reports, two Foundation meetings (one with McGovern, one with a stranger who asked some incredibly personal questions), and some follow-up information from that last meeting about health insurance coverage. And now all of those things were crossed off of his to-do list and he was in the living room, eating dinner with his friends.
Gabriella was telling them about the house she and Amelia had been at this morning in Lunenburg, a new building that already somehow had a ghost. Graham had been on comms with them and apparently picked up some whispering that the other two hadn’t heard. Neither of them had looked thrilled when he brought it up, and even less so when Madelyn went back into the video from the comms and played it.
“What the fuck?” Gabriella muttered as the last soft, moaning cry faded out. “I thought we were done.”
“I think it’ll be a quick trip back,” Amelia said. “I can take it the day after tomorrow.”
“I can do it,” Gabriella offered.
“Nah, I want to get to it when I’m doing other stuff,” Amelia said. “Don’t worry, it can wait another day.”
James thought Gabriella might argue, but she just smiled at Amelia. “Thanks,” she said. “I can do the final report.”
“That I will take you up on.”
“Dammit.”
They all laughed and Amelia looked over as James started eating his salad. “How was your afternoon?”
“Awful,” James admitted. “God, the health insurance rep they had on was grilling me about weirdly personal shit. Like, stuff about you guys that I shouldn’t even know.”
“But you do?”
“Obviously,” James said around a mouthful of food. “None of you can keep your secrets to save your lives. But seriously, this guy was asking about prescription meds that everyone takes. So I sent him to legal and after a few more attempts to get your medications out of me, he finally took the fucking hint.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, at least until he moved on to everyone’s sexual activity.”
Gabriella choked on her drink, as though she hadn’t been the one expertly trying to cover James’s embarrassing, long-lasting hickey a couple months ago. “Now those stories would ruin his day,” James said.
Madelyn laughed from where she was laying on the couch under a worn plaid blanket. James had wanted to send her home earlier when it became clear she was having trouble walking today, but he didn’t. She was struggling more than usual with the job, even after that intensive course had ended. They’d both hoped that was what was causing her worsening issues while she was at work, but apparently even if it was, ending the course hadn’t been enough to get her back on track.
And considering she’d made more than one comment about her career after the Foundation recently, James was going to avoid making her think she couldn’t do the job. So instead of taking her off the schedule, he kept his mouth shut.
But he had been relieved that there weren’t that many tasks out of headquarters today, and a whole lot of them inside. So he’d put her to work here while Graham was on comms with the other two. And now their branch ray of sunshine, Bradley, would be in shortly to take the overnight shift.
“All the Foundation medical services are getting shifted around,” James said as he fished a crouton out of his Tupperware. “Insurance shouldn’t change within the next year or so. But they’re closing some of the suites over at St. Hildegard’s Medical Center by the end of March.”
Madelyn looked at him in alarm. “I don’t know the details,” he said to her. “But I’m going to stay on top of them.”
“Thank you.”
“Just like you in all the stories I saved that guy from.”
Madelyn lobbed a pillow at him, but it went wide. “The silver lining there,” James said, “is that it looks like Dr. Oliver is going to be permanently out this way, since her suite is one of the closures. I imagine the idea is to either get her some space out here or make her work out of her car.”
“We’ve got the medbay space downstairs,” Gabriella said.
“And interrupt the spiders?” James asked. “No, but I thought of that too. I may offer it up once we have more details. We’d need some help with the work it needs though.”
That room would need concerning amounts of work, but it would free up a little more storage and workspace, even with any medical equipment Dr. Oliver had. It wouldn’t be that much equipment, the Foundation wouldn’t want her performing surgeries down there.
Probably.
“How was the trip?” Gabriella asked James.
“Good,” he replied. “It’s a nice town, just this peaceful little place out in Ohio. Which meant a shit ton of driving and I had the UHaul, so I was by myself for most of it.”
“That sounds awful.”
“Nah,” he said, stretching and attempting to release a knot in his upper back that had developed somewhere around Kent, Ohio the other morning. “It wasn’t bad. I got to choose the music. If I’m driving with Dad, it’s nothing but the Eagles for ten hours. Plus, I’d never been down that way, so it was kind of nice getting out of New England for a little while.”
It had been two days of driving and one day of setup at the house, but also two days of roadside diners, snow-covered forest roads, flat farmland going on forever, and no ghosts. Or, at least any ghosts that were around were not his problem. Except any that might have been in his parents’ house, but he’d brought some equipment with him and checked the place over the first night they were there. And there had been silence.
“And they basically bought a farm?”
“Yeah,” James said. “Dad’s retirement dream. Now that Mom’s retired too, she agreed, especially since there’s a whole room devoted to her record collection. It’s beautiful, maybe I’ll buy one someday.”
“You’re never retiring,” Amelia said as she pulled her newly cherry-red hair into a messy bun on top of her head. “None of us are.”
“Don’t I know it.”
It was weird having his parents so far away, but they were so excited about the move. And while James was close to them, it wasn’t like they spent a lot of time together. Not like Gabriella and Auntie Carrie. Honestly, he’d probably talk to them the same amount he did now. But it’d be nice to go back and see them on their new farm once they were settled. Maybe he’d even hear the rooster at sunrise, that didn’t happen often in Leominster.
“But yeah,” he continued. “Two days of minimal ghosts. I listened to podcasts about outer space for six hours straight in the UHaul back and didn’t hear anything about a single fucking alien.”
“Look at you, with interests outside of work,” Amelia teased.
“Spaceships, moon rocks, and the moon landing in detail,” James said, stretching his arms awkwardly to try to fix the ache between his shoulder blades. “And now I’m back.”
“Are you done with meetings for the day?” Gabriella asked.
James looked out the window at the setting sun. “Hopefully,” he said. “I have other stuff to do, but I’m staying out of my office for a bit. The walls were closing in on me while I was sitting in there.”
“No, you just have enormous piles of clutter everywhere,” Amelia said.
“It’s the same at home,” Graham added.
“I didn’t ask anyone for suggestions,” James said.
“Good, because you’re not getting any.”
“No, I have one,” Amelia said. “Just burn it down.”
“God, don’t tempt me,” James muttered, spearing a chunk of cucumber on his fork.
He had a few hours left of his shift. Part of it would be setting up for tomorrow, where there were a few more cases that would need some field investigation. A couple had come in earlier, including a collection of strange reports that seemed connected to a wellness market and a pretty standard looking haunted house in Townsend.
The run of quick slam dunks from December had dried up midway through January and the past month since then had been mostly back to cases requiring at least a day or two of investigation, sometimes more. Not that they got any praise or appreciation for wrapping up those quick ones. No, last week McGovern had relayed a request to get back up to their standard pace, which James had immediately disregarded. Even though the spike in his blood pressure lingered for a day afterward.
“Oh, James, are you talking to Ricky at all this week?” Gabriella asked.
James looked at her. “You mean, like, our cousin Ricky?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I have his paintball stuff in my car because he left it up at Mom’s. But he’s not answering my texts because Angie got mad at him and I think he thinks I’m going to yell at him.”
“And we don’t think Angie’s perfectly capable of yelling on her own?”
“I know, right?” Gabriella said. “He wouldn’t answer my calls, so I texted him that. But he won’t text me back and now his stupid paintball stuff is in my car. And the pistol is a little too lifelike, I’m going to get arrested if I get pulled over.”
“Leave it here,” James said. “Tell him we’re going to sell it if it’s here longer than another week and keep the money as a storage fee.”
She pulled out her phone immediately. “Done,” she said.
For all of Gabriella’s fears and hesitations, all of which he noticed seemed to be fading as she approached the end of two years working at the Foundation, she’d never seemed afraid of telling off the cousins. Except maybe Angie, who intimidated everyone.
“Have any of you guys ever been to a wellness market?” James asked, reaching awkwardly for that knot in his back again and barely brushing it with his fingertips.
“Like a health food store?” Amelia asked. “Yeah, sure. Why?”
“No, not like that. Like a farmers market,” James said. “But with, like, I don’t know, wellness stuff.”
“No, but I know there’s something like that going at the Orson Center,” Gabriella said.
“Yeah,” James said. “That’s why I’m asking. There’s a case connected with it. It’s ongoing, but I guess it really kicks off this week?”
“Yeah, the wellness fair. I’ve been to similar things,” Madelyn said, adjusting her heating pad with a wince. “They’re fine, I guess. Some really helpful things, some total bullshit. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”
The front door opened as James nodded. “Yeah, that’s kind of what this place seems like. There’s supplement companies and treatments and things like that. Like massages and herbs and stuff. Oh, hey, bud.”
He waved over at Bradley, who was coming up the stairs. Bradley had been off the crutches completely for a little over a month now. James didn’t know if it was spite or actual recovery, but he barely showed any signs of his injury from December. He came in and hung his coat up on the hook instead of tossing it over the chair the way James’s coat currently was.
“Have you ever been to a wellness fair?” James asked him.
“No?”
“Want to?”
“No?”
“Well, guess where we’re going tomorrow morning? Come on, you can get a massage while we’re there.”
Bradley just looked at him, then went into the kitchen. He and James hadn’t done more than snipe at each other lately, not since they’d had the worst fight of their lives, during which Bradley had gotten hit by a car and then spent two and a half weeks living on James’s couch until he could drive again. He was still probably the person who could most use a massage that James had ever met, and they still argued, but maybe that fight had actually been too much for both of them. Either way, James would take it.
“God, maybe I’ll get one,” he said, reaching up to rub at another knot on his shoulder. “Between the road and those meetings…”
“Come here,” Amelia said, motioning for him to sit down on the floor in front of her.
He did so, displacing Fang, who had walked by to see what was going on. Amelia reached down and started kneading his shoulders. “Jesus Christ, James,” she muttered.
He wanted to protest, but she was working out knots he hadn’t even known existed and any argument he had died instantly as he let his head fall forward so she could reach his neck. She kept going as she talked to the others and he let himself drift a little. Not too much, because he could far too easily fall asleep here and he still had a lot to do. But this was almost painful in a way that meant it was helping.
“Better?” Amelia asked after a few minutes.
“Just keep going until I die,” James murmured. “It won’t be long.”
Amelia laughed, pressing her thumbs into his shoulder blades. “God, you should see a professional, this is horrific,” she said.
“I will at some point.”
James still had a lot to do, and he hadn’t finished eating dinner. But he gave himself a few minutes to not feel bad about resting.
Finally, he shook his head. “I know your shift is almost over,” he said.
Amelia sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “And I’m off in the morning so I’m going to Rhode Island for the night.”
“Oh?”
“Riley’s off tonight too. We’re going out in Providence.”
“Anything fun?”
“There’s a queer dance night she wants to bring me to.”
“That sounds fun.”
“I’ve never been.”
“Bradley goes to those, right?”
James opened his eyes and looked up toward Bradley, who was at the computer. “Bradley does what?” Bradley asked reluctantly.
“Riley’s bringing Amelia to her first queer dance night.”
“Test your drugs,” Bradley said.
James blinked at him, then looked up at Amelia, who had gone still. “I don’t…” she started.
“You don’t have to do anything,” James said quickly, standing up and rolling out his shoulders. So much better.
He looked around. Apparently Gabriella, Madelyn, and Graham had left the room at some point, but he heard their voices at the bottom of the stairs leading toward their little gym. Beside him, Amelia laughed, but there was a brittle edge to it. “I know.”
“You alright?” James asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “I just don’t get out much, I don’t know.”
The laugh was more self-deprecating now. James was surprised. He (vaguely) remembered her twenty-first birthday and she’d seemed pretty confident when they were out at the nightclubs in the area. And she’d definitely drank underage. And they all smoked weed sometimes, he knew that.
Except maybe Gabs, come to think of it. But Amelia was far from a wide-eyed newcomer to the world.
“Is it the one you go to?” James asked Bradley.
“Boston?”
“No, Providence.”
“No. Who’s the DJ?”
This was not the conversation he ever expected to have with Bradley, but Amelia was pulling up the information now. The name she gave was something that felt like it was part of a world far outside of James’s lived experience. Not intimidating, exactly, but unknown.
“He’s good,” Bradley said.
“Yeah.”
“I just remembered a thing I need your help with,” James said to Amelia, motioning toward his office. “Come check this with me?”
He could have been more subtle, given a little time to think about what to do. Not that anyone but Bradley was in the living room and he wouldn’t give a shit anyway. But Amelia followed him in and he closed the door most of the way. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Amelia sighed. “It’s stupid.”
“Try me.”
“Riley…she’s got more experience with this kind of stuff than me.”
That wasn’t what he’d expected, but he rarely saw Amelia anything short of completely confident in whatever she was doing. Which was usually work-related, but still.
“Do you mean…” James trailed off, trying to think of the right way to ask. “Like, sex?”
Amelia just looked at him. “No, I have that under control.”
“I just mean-”
“I know,” she said, and despite his teasing earlier, he was relieved when she laughed. “I mean, like, going out. Partying. Clubs. I can’t dance, you’ve seen me.”
“You dance fine.”
“You say that because you can’t dance.”
“I’m great at it.”
He wasn’t. She shrugged, looking so young. “She’s just so cool,” Amelia said. “And I worry that I’ll seem boring to her. Like, I live in a boring suburb, I work, and that’s pretty much it. And maybe she’s going to realize that I’m not cool enough. And that there’s a bunch of much cooler city lesbians at this club that she could be with.”
Alright, his instinct had been correct. And considering he had the same feelings sometimes, he could understand. Even if she was wrong.
“First,” James said. “You’re the coolest lesbian I know.”
“That’s not true,” Amelia said. “Ruby is.”
“Ruby?” James repeated. “Like, Creature Containment Ruby? A hundred and five years old, surrounded by her boys?”
“Yeah. She’s been with her wife for fifty years.”
“How do you…huh. Alright, you’re tied then. But don’t you think Riley knows by now if you’re cool or not? Which you are.”
“But I don’t go out dancing,” Amelia said. “And it’s going to be, I don’t know. Like, maybe I’m boring.”
“Look,” James said. “Give it a try. Maybe you’ll love it. Apparently the only reason we’re all still alive is because Bradley goes out in Boston. But give yourself some credit, alright?”
She nodded, a slight smile forming on her face. “Alright.”
“Alright. Hey, is that why you dyed your hair again?”
Amelia shrugged, but she was fully smiling now. “You like it?” she asked, toying with a lock that was framing her face. “I’ve been wanting to do this color for years and it seemed like a good excuse.”
“I love it,” James said. “Now go shower, put on your sexiest outfit, and have fun.”
She left and James took a moment to look over his to-do list before going back out. She had nothing on him when it came to being a boring workaholic. James’s ex-girlfriend Meredith had moved to Australia a couple months back, and he hadn’t gone out with anyone since. Which wasn’t surprising, since he hadn’t dated anyone for about a decade before he met her.
He glanced at the schedule he’d half-finished for next month. God, they were tight. He’d given himself about fifty hours a week, but he’d be here more than that. Madelyn was going to Brazil for a week midway through the month and even though she’d offered more than once to postpone (they were all terrible about this), James had it in big red letters on his calendar. She’d promised to pick him up some candies you could apparently only get in Brazil while she was there, so they both benefited from this trip.
There was a knock at his door. “Come in!”
Bradley pushed the door the rest of the way open. “Hey, come sit down,” James said, motioning toward the kitchen chairs scattered in front of his desk. “What’s up?”
“We’ve got a case tonight,” Bradley said, taking the chair closest to the desk.
“Fun,” James said, images of his in-house plans going up in flames. “I should have seen it coming. What’s up?”
“It’s a house out in the woods up in Ashburnham,” Bradley said.
“Tell me it’s not the fucking Delinskys,” James said, reaching for an old coffee cup on his desk, then thinking better of it.
“Not this time,” Bradley replied. “It’s a summer cabin this family’s airing out. It’s been empty all winter and there’s signs that it’s been used for…” He grimaced as he looked down at the printout. “Nefarious purposes?”
James laughed, even though part of him wanted to cry. “Has Vincent Price been summoning demons while they’ve been in Boston for the winter?”
“Whoever it was, it’s our problem now. They want us to go check it out tonight.”
“Seriously? It can’t wait until, I don’t know, fucking sunrise?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, am I the captain now?” Bradley asked. “Do I make those decisions?”
“It never stopped you before,” James snapped. “Alright, fine. Madelyn is here until nine, so let’s you and me go in the field and keep her on comms.”
Bradley glanced toward the open door and James could tell he was thinking along the same lines James was. “Yeah, sounds good,” he said. “When are you out?”
“Nine also,” James said. “But call me if anything comes up. Graham will be in at six tomorrow and I’ll be back around eight.”
“You’re back that early?”
Amelia he expected that lecture from. Gabriella and Madelyn too. Even Graham. But Bradley was more likely to just tell him he looked like hell. “It’s how it fell,” James said.
Bradley glanced at the schedule on the desk. “What the fuck is that?”
“None of your goddamn business until it’s finished.”
Bradley didn’t say anything else about it, but his eyes narrowed as he read James’s messy notes. “Maybe I’ll cash in my sick days and take the whole month off,” James said. “Though I know you’d miss me too much.”
“No, go for it. The past three days when you were in Fuck Off, Ohio were peaceful.”
“Shut up, no they weren’t. I read the reports.”
Bradley stood up. “I’ll get prepped,” he said. “When do you want to go?”
Never. “Fifteen minutes?”
