A Wicked Whack: Mad River Series (Prequel)

  A Wicked Whack

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2015 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  "Good luck, Whitaker. You're going to need it."

  I jumped. The call of my name had matched the thud of a biblical-sized stack of papers hitting the desk in front of me by Matthew Sharp. Instead of reading the manual, I found myself distracted. I gazed up at the old sepia-stained photographs on the wall which faced me; men and women dressed in stark contrast to my co-workers' jeans and cardigans. I wondered if the person I heard call my name was staring back at me from one of them. The women looked exhausted, likely stifling from their knee length layered skirts. However, there was something about the strapping men in their uniforms that made me yearn for days past. Civil War staples had surrounded me for a year at Mad River Old Town, the reenactment village outside of Charleston WV, but this was the first time I ever thought such a thing. I internally laughed. You couldn't date a ghost, Shelby no matter how well tailored their pants looked.

  You heard me right. Since I was little, I have spoken with the dead face-to-face. It used to scare me, but the more I listened, the more insight I realized I could gain. Sometimes it was a "gift" that didn't stop giving. Peace and quiet was hard to come by when the dead never seemed to stay rested. My mother was good at making sure I'd be comfortable with the background chatter. She dealt with the same abilities all her life. Without her, I, Shelby Whitaker would have been worse off. I am still disappointed, even after she tragically departed four years ago, I still have not found her. As my mid-twenties approached, I realized I could still use her being here for a multitude of reasons. She died when I was twenty-one. It seemed like it happened forever ago, but I can still remember her being here like it was yesterday.

  I had a feeling that today was not going to be my day. Mad River Old Town's staff and the new battle reenactment recruits filed into the lounge buzzing with excitement. Having spent a year in a tiny little office of this place emailing and talking on the phone about it, I should have been as exuberant as they were, because I was going to be very much a part of the action this year. Now I was just anxious. A few of the spirits had stumbled into the administrative office occasionally. I met some when I occasionally ate lunch at the picnic tables near the stables, but I had a sneaky suspicion that I hadn't met all of them yet. That voice was the first indication.

  Matthew handed out the personalized job manuals as people grabbed seats at the tables. I reconsidered looking at mine.

  "Hey Shelby. How are you?"

  I looked up to see my friend Nick Simmons had sat down next to me at my table. He smiled widely at me, his piercing blue eyes locked with mine. Unlike the men in the photographs, Nick was very much alive. His sandy blonde hair tucked neatly behind his ears. His jeans were better tailored then most men of the present day. I hated to think this man who'd been my friend for so long could make me feel like a pile of jello. There was no time for this. He awaited a response.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  I'd been staring off into space again, for all the wrong reasons.

  "Great. Just, perfect." I lied.

  "Focus on the important tasks, Whitaker. You've got a lot still left to prove and a boy isn't going to help."

  The mysterious voice emerged again, this time paired with cheeky chuckling. It sounded male and older, but I wasn't sure. The voice was right. This job was going to be difficult to focus on. Between Nick sitting nearby and a ghost that was not going to make its presence readily known, I had no idea what I was going to do. I really wished my Mom were still around for times like these.

  I gazed around the room. Everyone seemed to be engrossed and perplexed by their own manuals. Where was that voice hiding? Good luck, Whitaker? Ha. I could do this. I could so do this! Weaving? Carding wool? No sweat. I was going to be the best head of textiles Mad River Old Town had ever seen. I'd left administration in the dust a year ago. I needed bigger things and now I had them with being the head of textiles for Mad River Old Town. I turned to see Eliana giving me funny looks.

  "Shelby, you listening?"

  That was a human voice and a stern one at that. I looked up to see Matthew standing across from me trying to get my attention. The room had settled and it seemed he had mentioned my name. Naturally, I happened to look like a total space case. This happened more often than not.

  "Textiles require focus, Shelby. We could use some of that from you right now as I talk about the weekend."

  Jenny Tuckerman leaned in to me for a whisper, "Don't worry about it, dear. Matthew's very...passionate...about the battle sequence."

  Jenny reassured me as usual. She was as sweet as the cookies she always baked for staff parties. She radiated positive vibrations wherever she went. I knew she would be back on cooking this year. Food was her passion. If I got stuck, unsure of how to prepare for this weekend, I knew she would be the first to step-up.

  I tried to follow Matthew giving the background on the battle and where the schedule would be going. His wife Calinda joined him in commiserating on history. Calinda was a passionate speaker. You could almost tell by looking at her that she was smart. It was only fitting that she played the town's librarian within the village. Though rather frail, she stood tall next to Matthew, who on appearance couldn't seem to match her information. She talked so fast that sometimes it was difficult to keep up. I understand what it's like to have your mind run at a hundred miles per hour.

  As both of them spoke I looked to see Jessamine Cartwright, one of the younger ghosts at an eternal age of 19, had taken a seat on the rickety desk and was somewhat listening as well. She was so close to Matthew, she could have played with the very hair on his head and it would have only felt like an out of place breeze to him. She looked like she could laugh with that sly smirk across her face. No one would hear her but me.

  "Matthew needs to lighten up. It's not like he actually experienced that battle!" I laughed, only this time out loud.

  Matthew shot me another look of disapproval, "Something funny?" I shook my head.

  "I'll make that out of place breeze happen if you want," Jessamine said to me. I forgot ghosts could hear inside my head sometimes. She kicked her legs up and down, her petticoat and stocking covered legs brushing the inside of the desk.

  "Eliana is such a snob. She thinks she's too good for this simply because she was in one episode of Days of Our Lives."

  I looked over to Eliana Sharp, who appeared far too glamorous among the small town folk. She was attentive to every word Matthew, her father, spoke. Everyone knew she wanted to be a serious actress, but a failed marriage to a big time producer made it difficult to continue. I felt bad for her.

  "Don't feel bad for her, Shelby. You're going to do great and that's what counts. You've got great support from the people around you."

  Phineas Cartwright, Jessamine's young dead husband, strolled into the middle of the room. He looked directly at me, while he danced around Matthew, light on his feet like a feather. He stopped, deep in thought and scratched his scruffy beard.

  "I think your friend Nick really likes you," he told me. A cheeky smirk had spread across this face. "Stick with him, Shelby. He has a good head on his shoulders. An officer of the law is a good man to have around here."

  I gulped hard at the thought. Ghosts were prone to tricks. Earth bound spirits were prone to sporadic boredom. Why else would Phineas tell me such a thing? I knew I needed to focus though.

  "Phineas, ease up. You're going to start trouble," Jessamin
e called out to him. "Listen, Shelby, you follow your heart when it comes to what you want. I did and still to this very day I don't regret it at all. We'll leave you alone if that's what you need."

  "I thought it was important need to know information. It's the equivalent to Tobias telling your sister Marie I liked you."

  I watched Phineas and Jessamine bicker over the trivial thought they brought to light. I turned to see Nick, who'd been paying attention more than I had. He was cute if you liked that classically handsome type. Could Phineas have been right? For a moment, I rather wanted him to be.

  "Alright, I think that's mostly everything we needed to immediately start with. Let the battle reenactment prep begin!" Matthew called out to the room.

  Everyone congregated in small groups. I missed so much of Matthew's explanation I had no idea where to begin. Jessamine and Phineas had already vanished. The mysterious voice was gone. I was stuck.

  I turned to Jenny, hoping she would help. She was already gathering her things ready to move tables.

  "Jenny, what are we doing? I didn't catch a word."

  "Really?" She couldn't understand why. "Oh...well, we're about to get into our designated groups and revise over some activities we can cover with each of the volunteers assigned to us. You going to be okay to do so?"

  I wasn't sure. This was going to be a long day. I'd been distracted by the ghosts of Mad River Old Town for a year now. Not that it was a bad thing. I felt like they were also part of my family. The buildings within the village were the actual homes and businesses these ghosts had inhabited during the years they walked on this earth in human form. Some of them had crossed over, but other's remained. Many of them killed on the Civil War battlefield that we were about to reenact in a few weeks. Jessamine tended the wounded on the battlefield and killed for her generosity. Phineas, her young husband, was also killed during the same battle.

  Matthew Sharp's great, great, so on and so forth grandfather, Matthias Sharp, also hangs around. Killed in the same battle as Phineas and Jessamine, he sticks around to ensure his descendants don't muck up Old Town. The way Matthew guides with an iron hand, I didn't think he needed to worry.

  Chapter Two

  I trudged in the front door and shut it gently behind me. Harriet, my sister, had been cooking in the kitchen. It smelled like Thanksgiving. I kicked off my boots against the old radiator and hung my coat in the front hall closet. I hadn't thought much about food today, but my stomach grumbled in anticipation. I needed to sit down and escape from chaos. Home was much quieter than the outside world, physically and spiritually. I was grateful for that.

  Despite it being old, I could not bear to part with my Victorian house on Bluebird Lane. Its roof needed serious repair and the creaking floors were always an annoyance, but it was good to remain for Harriet's sake. She needed a change, but the house was not it yet. I liked its character. It would've been hard to find something better. It was the last place where our mother was happy and alive. Harriet was not ready to move on from that. I wasn't either.

  "So you got your assignment today?" Harriet called out.

  "Yeah, I am in textiles now, you know, laundry carding wool. No more boiling water as a kitchen assistant and of course I don't have to look at those hundreds of emails."

  "That sounds great," she replied. "That's what you wanted."

  "You should see the manual. It's practically a phone book!"

  I walked into the kitchen. Harriet bounced between the sink and the stove, dumping water in the sink while stirring what was in a pot. There was a lot of green; asparagus, broccoli and celery.

  "Are you making-"

  "Multiple meals. George is filling up the week with a ton of work and there's a possibility of overtime and I don't want to think about having to make food when there's probably hundreds of nail boxes I'll have to do inventory counts on," she replied.

  George Foster, owner of the hardware store where Harriet worked, was an interesting old senior, and I understood Harriet's need not to get on his bad side. He was going to be a blacksmith this year at Old Town after a lot of time spent on the battlefield. George was not everyone's favorite person, but easily tolerable as I saw it.

  I sat at the table and placed my bag down next to me on the floor. Whenever Harriet spoke of Edgewater Hardware, it never sounded positive. It was a long time, well-respected local business in Mad River, but Harriet was always destined for better things.

  I took out my job manual and placed it in front of me, hoping Harriet would take notice of it. I knew what it was like to need a change. Harriet and I were young when a drunk driver shockingly killed our mom, but it was as if Harriet stayed stuck at nineteen. She'd been in the same job, with the same friends, with the same education, and ignored the dreams I knew she had. Moving on is important, but Harriet couldn't and it showed.

  "Did you ever think about taking a break from that place? We're doing okay even with mom's inheritance. You could go and see what else is out there?"

  "I don't wish to rely on that money. You never know what happens in life right?"

  "Which is why you should want to consider other things. There's so much for you to do."

  Harriet was silent as she continued attending to all her various dishes at the stove. I needed to ask her that question again, the one she never liked. I tossed my anxiety aside and opened my mouth.

  "Why not try joining the reenactment?" I asked. "I would love to experience it with you."

  Harriet opened the oven; a blast of heat filled the kitchen. The dish she had in her hands clanged on top of the stove. She scooped out a couple servings of it before smacking it on a plate. Lasagna. It had to have been our mom's recipe. She moved the manual away from me with the plate she had and handed me a fork with her other hand.

  "We've been over this. It's just not my thing," Harriet said. "Besides, George is going to be there and clearly he left his smartest employee in charge. Finn is on vacation then and Patricia has joined as well. He likely wouldn't let a third employee bail from the store."

  "Thanks for making dinner," I took a bite of the warm lasagna. "What is your thing anyway?"

  "I have many things," she added. "Like, cooking. I love cooking, when I am not totally exhausted by it."

  Harriet fixed herself a plate of food before joining me at the table. We ate on and off in silence, the occasional ting of a fork against the chinaware breaking through. I wondered what else we could talk about.

  A soft meow emanated from the hall. I was not sure if maybe I was hearing things, until it came out again crystal clear.

  "Did you hear-"

  I stopped myself. Harriet had not answered. I turned to the door of the kitchen. A fluffy grey tabby sat there content as only a ghost cat could be. It watched me from afar, minding its own business.

  "Another ghost cat?" she asked me.

  "Yeah. It just wanted to say 'hi' I guess."

  "So bizarre that dead cats just wander in here," Harriet said as she took a bite of her lasagna. "I mean, you can't even talk to Mom or ask her to come by, but random cats aren't a problem."

  "It's not like calling someone on the telephone, Harriet. They just appear when they want to," I said. "Plus it's a cat. There are plenty of them in existence and you can't really tell an animal spirit what to do."

  Harriet looked up at me, frustration in her stare. She wanted to know Mom was all right just as much as me. I understood, but she was asking something of me I just could not provide. It wasn't as if I didn't want to give her an answer. I needed to change the subject.

  "Do you think Nick Simmons likes me?" I asked.

  Harriet choked on her pasta and started giggling. The tension had been eased thankfully. She stopped and starred at me with a smile, unsure of what to say.

  "Where in the world would you get an idea like that?"

  "It was...." I couldn't tell her it was a ghost who said something about it. That would only go back into a conversation she didn't want to have. "I just had a sneaky
suspicion. He's joined the battle reenactment so it looks like we will be spending a lot of time together now."

  "Do you like him?" Harriet asked me. She still appeared on the brink of laughter as she did. As much as I hated being in the hot seat, it was nice to see Harriet smiling

  "I...I don't know. It's strange how seeing one thing differently can affect your entire outlook on something when you least expect it to."

  "Nick Simmons though? We've known him forever. I don't think I recall you ever looking at him like you....liked him." Harriet put down her fork and looked me square in the eye. "He pulled your dress up at the fourth grade Christmas pageant."

  "We were eight, Harriet!" I replied. "Surely he's gotten that out of his system.”

  “Umm...he's a man isn't he?” Harriet took another bite of her delicious home-cooked dinner and looked me square in the eye.