A Little Bit Chilly

  Riddler’s Edge Book Eight

  by A.A. Albright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © A.A. Albright 2020

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

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  Website: https://aaalbright.com

  Table of Contents

  1. Familiarity Breeds … Something

  2. A Frosty Atmosphere

  3. A Tale of Two Kitties

  4. The Lowest of the Low

  5. Songs of Snow and Ice (AKA The Snow Queen: The Musical)

  6. The Best Man For the Job

  7. She’s a Silly Sausage

  8. Cold Feet

  9. Young and Son

  10. The Chimes, the Chimes are Calling

  11. Bespelled or Compelled

  12. Helpful Hilda

  13. She’s a Clinger

  14. Mister Nasty

  15. The Ice Man Done It?

  16. The Screaming Snowman

  17. The Museum of Never Again

  18. Please Say You’re the Cavalry

  19. Buzz Buzz Buzzing

  20. It’s Not the Time of Year for Snowdrops

  21. Like I Could Take on the World

  22. Vampire, Thief, Mother

  23. The Secret Life of Brooms

  24. The Mirror of Unreasonable Behaviour

  25. Live to See Another Silly Day

  26. Daddy Issues

  27. A Puzzling Result

  28. Faithful of Heart

  29. Two Weeks Later

  Also by A.A. Albright

  1. Familiarity Breeds … Something

  I woke up to the tossing and turning of a disgruntled cat – because the thing about my cat is that when he’s disgruntled, he makes darned sure I know about it. This time, I wasn’t playing along. It was early on a Sunday morning, and I hadn’t exactly had a restful night.

  He tossed and turned again, moving closer to me so that I could feel it even more. He then sighed a few times, just for extra effect.

  I held out until the ninth sigh before I said, ‘What? What’s wrong with you, Fuzz?’

  He sighed again and then stared at me with his yellow-green eyes. ‘You know what’s wrong with me. The same thing that’s wrong with you. I mean, why are they even back here? Why are we even back here?’

  I let that question go unanswered. There ought to be some mysteries between a woman and her cat, after all. ‘Just snuggle into the crook of my arm and I’ll pull the blanket up over my head. They’ll leave us alone until the alarm clock goes off.’

  Fuzz gave me a dubious stare. ‘If I had a penny for every time you said that …’

  ‘You’d have fourteen pennies. Which would be worth nothing in any currency that’s useful to us. Now just snuggle in – no scratching or kneading, mind you – and we’ll get another forty winks. It’ll be lovely. Just the two of us.’

  His little black shoulders went up and down with yet another sigh, but he snuggled in nonetheless, and I pulled the blanket over us. For a long time, this four-poster bed at the Vander Inn had been one of my favourite places to be. Now … now I felt hollow being here. But even if there was another bed I’d much rather be in, I was going to make the most of this one. After all, I was here with my familiar. If anyone could cheer me up, Fuzz could.

  Morning light penetrated the white pillow, and I could see his eyes glaring back at me. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t going to cheer me up, after all.

  ‘What’s worse is this time I can see them,’ Fuzz complained. ‘Properly see them, like they’re real people instead of ghosts. I have the horrible feeling that some of your sióga powers might be rubbing off on me. The whole lot of them are practically solid. Oh, and the broom scarpered about half an hour ago, before you ask. I should have gone with it.’

  It wasn’t worth peeking out from under the pillow to check, but I suspected Fuzz was right. The broom had been happy enough to tolerate ghosts in the bedroom, but when they tried to sweep with it on more than one occasion, well … some things are just unforgiveable.

  ‘Ah. You’re awake.’ The pillow was pulled from my head, and a smiling ghost stood above me. ‘Shall I run your bath, Aisling?’

  Fuzz hissed and scarpered from the bed, and I jerked up and smiled half-heartedly at the ghost, baulking a little when I noticed she was holding her two children on either hip.

  ‘Morning, Maude.’

  I know what you’re thinking. Is this the same Maude we met before, the ghost who haunted the Vander Inn and did quite a bit of housework while she was at it? Surely she didn’t have children that time, did she? And didn’t she go off to sea with the love of her life to sail on a ghost ship for the rest of all time?

  Well, yes, no, and yes.

  Yes, it was the same Maude. No, she did not have children the last time we met. And yes, she did go off to sail the seas on a ghost ship with the love of her life. But then, you see, the children came along. Maude didn’t actually give birth to them, of course. She and Billy (the aforementioned love of her life) found the children on their travels. They were two chubby little white-blonde twins, a boy and a girl, who had a bit of a resemblance to the kids from Village of the Damned.

  When the children were alive, they’d been waiting for their nanny on the beach, when a wave came and swept them into the sea, where they quickly drowned. Tragic, of course. The kids didn’t pass on to the afterlife, though. Instead, their ghosts returned to the shore, waiting for their nanny year after year. Maude and Billy spied them from the deck of the Lilting Lass, and decided to rescue them. But as the other ghosts on the ship were mainly pirates, it didn’t really have the ghostchild-friendly atmosphere that a new mother like Maude craved. Hence the return to her old haunt (accidental pun, I do apologise). Maude thought to herself: what better place to raise these ghost children than Riddler’s Edge?

  She could be right. It was a lovely little town. Sure, there were rather a lot of unusual murders here, but if you were already dead, that probably didn’t matter.

  I liked Maude so much. I’d helped her and Billy get together, after all. She was a sweet, helpful woman. But now she was here all the time, with Billy and the kids. I wouldn’t say that familiarity was breeding contempt, exactly – but it sure was breeding something.

  ‘I like to run my bath myself. You know that. Anyway, you’ve got your hands full with those … children?’ My question was pertinent, because right now blond twin number one was spinning its head three hundred and sixty degrees, while blond twin number two’s face seemed to be turning green. How evil would I have to be to wonder if their nanny kept them waiting on purpose?

  I gave the children a nervous smile and then focused my attention firmly on Maude. ‘Anyway, there’s a whole guest house at your disposal. And you worked long enough while you were alive. Now that you’re dead, you should be enjoying yourself. Why don’t you and the kids go and relax in the dining room?’ And while they did that, I could go and have breakfast somewhere else.

  Her teeth pulled at her wobbling lower lip. ‘Well … you see … the thing is … I’m a lot more solid up here. This having been my bedroom before I died. I’m not annoying you, am I, Aisling? I mean … I suppose I can try and find somewhere else to bring up my children.’

  Oh dear. She was pulling out all the guilt-inducing stops. As well as the wobbling lip, her eyes were bigger than ever. I climbed out of bed and pulled on my robe. ‘Of course you’re not annoying me, Maude. Not at all. But I do still like to draw my own bath. Oh, and please – tell your husband to keep his parrot out of the bathroom, will you? He perched on my head last time I was in there.’

  ≈

  The parrot didn’t follow me to the bathroom, but when I arrived in the dining room for breakfast, it was there, poking its ghostly parrot beak into the croissants and squawking, ‘Pieces of cake! Pieces of cake!’

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only thing squawking that morning. Nollaig’s two new (and very much human) guests, Perry and Paula Rua, were also squawking. But, being a terrible crow myself, I was able to discern that their particular kind of squawking was actually an attempt to sing.

  Perry began with the, ‘La, la, la, la, la, la, la,’ portion of the music, while his sister Paula was working on the, ‘Fa dil di da dil di da!’

  There could have been a song somewhere in there, I supposed – or perhaps they were merely working up to it – but I was far more interested in the fact that, while the ghost parrot tried and failed to eat the croissants, another ghost – Maude’s husband, Billy – was sweeping the floor below the buffet table.

  There were two things wrong with that – Perry and Paula would not be able to see Billy’s ghost, and would therefore be incredibly confused about the fact that a broom seemed to have taken it upon itself to sweep.

  The second thing that was wrong was that it wasn’t just any broom. It was my broom. A broom which, just a moment ago, Fuzz was telling me had escaped the bedroom. And now it was here, out of Maude’s clutches and firmly in Billy’s. Oh, my poor, poor, broom. While it might have bristles and the other attributes you might require for sweeping, it didn’t actual
ly like to sweep. Its hobbies included flying, snoozing, and whacking those it didn’t like on the behind. But sweeping up crumbs? Oh no. That was not in its repertoire.

  Paula trailed off in the middle of her singing to wonder: ‘Is that broom moving by itself?’

  Before Perry could agree with her, I darted across the room and grabbed the broom from Billy. ‘Oh look,’ I said loudly. ‘Someone left the broom sitting out and a gust of wind has moved it to and fro, almost like it’s sweeping. Isn’t that funny?’

  I said a silent prayer of thanks to the magic of Riddler’s Edge, because I knew it was only that, and not my ridiculous explanation, which caused Paula to shrug disinterestedly and return to her singing. While she was busy, I pushed Billy from the room. Once we were safely in the kitchen, I said, ‘You can’t use this broom in the dining room. Well, not anywhere, actually, but especially not in front of humans like Paula and Perry.’

  ‘But Maude always said Nollaig hardly ever had human guests,’ argued the ghost.

  ‘That’s true. But right now she does. The Ruas have bees in their house and they’ve had to get a specialist out. They’ll be gone as soon as the hive has been removed.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Nollaig muttered. She was working at the cooker, transferring sausages and pudding from the grill and onto a tray. ‘I take it you’re talking to Billy.’ Nollaig couldn’t see her houseghosts, but she was perfectly aware they were there.

  ‘Talking to, arguing with, pulling my hair out because of … take your pick.’ I shook my head as Billy’s parrot headed straight for Nollaig’s kitchen counter, where she had some muffins cooling.

  ‘Pieces of cake!’ the parrot squawked again. As you can probably tell, Chatty Patty had a sweet beak.

  Billy adjusted his eyepatch and gave Nollaig a cheeky smile. ‘The beautiful vampire lady knows we’re always here, us ghosts, even when she can’t see us. Everyone should know that, matter of fact. Ghosts are all around, at folks’ most intimate moments.’ He let out a rasping laugh. ‘Even when they spend their alone time stabbing portraits of their ex-husband.’

  My gaze drifted to the ground, and I prayed Nollaig wouldn’t ask me what Billy had just said. I knew perfectly well how deeply she’d been hurt by the actions of Ron, her ex-husband – he’d had multiple affairs, and been the founder of some of the worst vampire supremacy groups ever known. Of course, in the past few decades he’d tried to distance himself from all that. The worst he’d done recently was lie, cheat, withhold valuable information, steal my cat’s tuna, and almost get his own son seriously hurt because he always put his own interests first. Nice guy.

  If I were Nollaig I’d be stabbing his portraits, too.

  ‘I thought that once we said we only had a twin room left and they had to share it, they’d turn it down,’ Nollaig continued, thankfully oblivious to what Billy was saying. ‘I mean, Perry and Paula are brother and sister. And they have to be in their forties at least, right? My own two would never share a room once they weren’t little kids anymore. Maybe I’ll tell them that the room’s not available anymore. They must have some friends they can stay with until they get rid of the beehive in their house, right?’

  I began to help her with the food. ‘They’ve got plenty of friends around town,’ I said. ‘But no one offered them a place to stay. Everyone came up with an excuse – and now that I’ve had to live with them and their constant singing and running lines, I understand why.’

  Nollaig put down the tongs and picked up the loaded plate of sausages and pudding. ‘So do I. Dear Dracula, I’ve never met two more annoying people in my life. Look, I can’t put you through this any longer. It wasn’t fair for me to ask you to lie about still renting your room. I mean, I didn’t even expect you to go the whole hog and actually physically move back in, in order to fool them into thinking we were busier than we are.’ She sighed. ‘Either way, it’s pointless. They’re not going anywhere, no matter how much I wish they were. So I might as well put you out of your misery.’

  ‘You … you’re saying you want me to move back out?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Don’t you want to? You must be dying to get back to the lighthouse.’

  ‘Oh yeah, of course,’ I said, wondering if I sounded as panicked as I felt. ‘But let’s not be hasty. I mean, I think we just need to wait out Perry and Paula. A couple more days and they’ll either be sick of each other, or their beehive will be gone, and then I’ll move back to the lighthouse. It’s like you say – who wants to share a room with their sibling?’

  She paused in the dining room doorway. ‘Aisling … is everything all right with you and Dylan? Because if it’s not, you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need, you know that. I’d never kick you out.’

  I rushed to the table to set my bread down (and also so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye). ‘What? Of course everything’s okay with me and Dylan. It’s all fine. Dandy. Matter of fact it’s fine and dandy. And look, my phone’s ringing. That’ll be my darling Dylan now.’

  While I would have happily invented a fake phone call to get out of that conversation, my phone really was ringing, and it was Dylan’s name flashing on the screen. I scurried away from Nollaig and answered the call.

  ‘Dylan,’ I said quickly. ‘I thought you’d never call. We need to get together and talk about what’s going on with us, because–’

  There was a cough on the other end of the line, and once that cough had done its job and cut me off mid-sentence, Dylan seized his stolen opportunity, and spoke. ‘I’m calling about something official, actually. There’s been a murder. I need you and Greg on the scene.’

  2. A Frosty Atmosphere

  As Greg and I drove out of town, past Loughnane Farm and towards Obair Lane, I used the time to do my hair, fix my makeup, and stare in horror at my reflection. I wasn’t looking good this morning. Not that it particularly mattered, but … it did matter. So much.

  While I preened, Greg used the time to eat a doughnut and drink a coffee (important safety announcement: eating, hairstyling, texting and even reading a novel is perfectly fine to do whilst driving, as long as you happen to be driving a magical vehicle like Greg’s Wizardly Wagon).

  ‘Bit chilly, isn’t it?’ he said, popping his mug into a cup holder and fiddling with the dials.

  ‘Is it?’ I continued to preen, prodding at my dark circles and wondering if I should try my hand at a glamour spell. Hmm, maybe a dab of concealer would be safer.

  ‘So … you were still at the Vander Inn when you called me?’ Greg asked. ‘With the ghosts? And the director and his sister who run their lines and sing while they eat breakfast? And … did I already mention the ghosts?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ I dabbed on the concealer carefully, and then added some lip gloss. Usually I was a minimalist when it came to makeup during the day, but when I saw Dylan in a few minutes, I didn’t want to look like I’d been tossing and turning every night for two weeks now. I needed to look like I hadn’t a care in the world.

  ‘That’s … I mean … wasn’t it just supposed to be temporary, so Nollaig could say there was only one room available for the Ruas and they’d find somewhere else to stay?’

  I added a touch of mascara, then wished I hadn’t, because it made my lashes look like spider legs. Criminy! I tried to undo it with magic, but I wasn’t sure that it was working. ‘Yes. But they’re still there, so I’m going to stay.’

  ‘Oh.’ Greg looked bemused. ‘I mean, don’t you miss arguing with Dylan every morning and night? You were in the middle of wedding plans, too. By the way, have you settled on a date yet? I only ask because the last wedding I went to was kind of terrifying, and I want a good long while to psych myself up for this one.’

  I turned around and lowered the window, feeling a bitter breeze on my face. I immediately put it back up. Greg was right – it was definitely chilly today. ‘Yes, we did talk about setting a wedding date. But I just … we em …’

  He drank the remainder of his coffee before saying, ‘Never mind. No need to explain yourself. You’re just not ready yet. To be honest, we were all surprised when you said yes to his proposal in the first place. A woman as stubborn as you is gonna take a while to walk down the aisle. And that’s okay, y’know. There’s no rush.’