Sip, Swallow & Scream

Part 4 | Revelations in Darkness

Welcome back to Sip, Swallow & Scream, where a fun little Halloween weekend for the girls is ruined by murder, one amateur sleuth, Sesame Swallow, can’t help herself but try to solve.

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The dream came at me again in a rush, and I was falling falling falling, and thud. I woke to my ass hitting the floor, my arms and legs tangled in the blankets, my head pounding like I’d spent the better part of the day doing kickboxing with Regan. I knew better. The room was dark, and there was no Regan around. It was just the bourbon, and damn, but our day ended early. I took a deep breath and stretched out, letting the hardwood beneath me carry me for a moment, and tried to let go of the urge to call out, to get up and run.

It was okay. I was okay. I was still in the room, the bed and breakfast. We were there, all of us, and the girls were just a door knock away. Not in the tavern with Old Man Blackwood. Not there watching Victor Hughes get murdered. But it had seemed so real, the thing that moved like a shadow over Victor’s bourbon smash. I’d watched it, and then looked up and saw it watching me. Two eyes, but not like real eyes, just mist, just some kind of smoke or fog or something that had a shape, the shape of a man. It stared back, then turned and whispered away, fading into nothing, and I just stood there and watched Victor raise his glass to his lips.

I tried to scream, to run to him, to keep him from taking a sip. It was poison! Victor! But I was frozen to the spot, the rest of the room spinning around full of people in costume, drinks poured, the wait staff waiting, the loofah and soap. A macabre dance with nothing but the singsong of dozens of voices while Victor began to choke, his eyes squeezing shut as he dropped the glass and clawed at his throat. It was over so fast no one even noticed; no one, that is, except me, still rooted to the spot, still staring, still unable to take even a single step.

Then came the words. And now I had to wonder what kind of bourbon Regan had bought, or if the apple cider had been bad.

My dream was so vivid. Words that tasted like smoke as they drifted by. A poem maybe or a song, something I’d never seen or heard before. Each letter twisting into some kind of — I couldn’t even say what — as it passed across in front of me. It’s like, they were still letters, only letters that were numbers or symbols. Words flowing across the room as the darkness grew, dancing around people as they came and went, no one’s eyes finding the now dead Poe actor on the couch. Then they dove down, swirling around the overturned glass and slammed into the table, searing into the wood. A faint glow as each hit home, and then gone.

The room spun faster, whirling until colors began to blend and the shadow and light twisted around into itself. And I was falling, falling, falling into nothing.

I swallowed, took a deep breath, and banged on the door across the hall, and two bleary-eyed girls stared back at me. Then, words just flew out like vomit, and they pulled me inside and sat me down.

“Sorry, I woke you up for a bad dream.”

“Poisoned? By the ghost of a long-dead man?” Regan was her usual self, even at whatever o’clock in the morning it was. I glanced up at the clock over the door and frowned. Okay, midnight. God, I’m never going to bed that early again — clearly not healthy.

“What did the words say, Ses?” Lindsay shifted, scooting closer on the bed. She’d spent the entire evening talking about ciphers and codes with a nerd, and her nerd light was still on. I could see it go on when I mentioned the words dancing across the room, as stupid as it sounded now.

“I don’t know. Not like an alphabet I’ve seen before.”

“Numbers and symbols?” Linds’ eyes were wide. “A cipher,” she said, “but you can’t reproduce it, can you? Remember enough to write it down?” I could hear the air go out of the room as I shook my head.

Of course, I couldn’t write it down, but it felt like something. “Not even. But,” and the idea came out of nowhere, and I had no business even saying it out loud, but the words filled my head and raced for my mouth, “I think…I dunno, but I think if we went to the tavern, to the upstairs bar, where we last saw Victor Hughes, I might be able to remember something there.” I couldn’t explain it. It just was. It was crazy idea that rang true as each word spilled out.

“Oh, now I know you fell and hit your head, not your ass, Sesame Swallow.” Regan reached over and touched my head. “Let me check you for a knot or something. I’m thinking concussion.”

She was half-joking, and let out a little snort, and then she reached out her other hand, and I ducked away. “Don’t even. I fell on my ass. I can still feel my tailbone. Don’t laugh at me. I’m gonna have a bruise for a week.”

Regan was laughing, but Linds — girl was straight as an arrow.

“Let’s go,” she said, and she was up off the bed, silk robe swirling, her tanned toes peeking out from under the floor-length nightgown. “I wanna see a ghost. I wanna see the crytograms. I wanna do a thing, solve something. I never get to help.” She was practically giddy, and I would have laughed, but my head was throbbing.

“Hell, no,” said Regan, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed. “It’s midnight. Concussion protocol over here needs a sleep aid and a couple Advil. And you, Lindsay Code Switcher, you need to simmer down. That bar is off limits by the local police, and if it was a murder, us being caught there is going to go poorly.” Always the downer. Why did we have to have an adult in our friends group?

“Two against one, isn’t that right, Ses? Them’s the girl pact rules. We go,” said Linds, and she was off to the bathroom. She stopped at the door. “Ninja gear up. We’re on a stealth mission to secure the codes.”

And then she was gone, and Regan and I could only stare at each other and shake our heads.

“Shhh!” I shushed them. Jesus fuck.

First, I had to get Lindsay to stop darting from shadow to shadow on the walk over. It was the middle of the night in a sleepy old Pennsylvania town, everything was closed, and the nearest soul was resting in peace in the cemetery at the foot of the Ravenwood Estate. She didn’t need to ninja during the entire two-block stroll down the alley that connected the back of our B&B to the Ravenwood Tavern & Inn. Regan and I were strolling right down the middle of the lane, arm in arm, trying to keep the giggles and snorts to a minimum. Linds was decked out in all black, including a black sort of hood/bonnet/hijab thing that hid her golden locks. Regan and I were also both in black, but that’s just because black was Regan’s color du jour every jour, and the color of he first long sleeve top and pair of leggings I found in the overnight bag matched the moment.

Lindsay scuttled up beside the back door of the tavern ahead of us and gave the knob a test squeeze, her hands likewise gloved in black. I shook my head, as much to indicate how silly I thought she was — although she was dead serious — and also because I’d pulled a hairpin out of my hair and was shaking it out. At this time of the night, everything was doing double duty. I didn’t have the energy for less.

Ravenwood was a sleepy little village built around its shared history and the sense that it was a safe, fun, little out of the way part of the world, where doors went unlocked and everyone knew the name of the coffee shop girl’s dog. It was Harold, and he was a pitbull and as sweet as they come. That was part of the charm of Ravenwood, and it said as much on the village website. Plus, that rustic charm came with a desire, even a commitment, to maintain the integrity of old buildings, a resistance to modernize, and an acceptance of creaks in the floors and drafty rooms.

And that’s why my hairpin slid right into the ancient lock of the tavern’s ancient back door, and with a little pressure and twist, and a turn of the ancient knob, the door popped open.

“Oh em gee, Ses. How do you do it!” Even Lindsay’s whispers were like high school cheers, and I just beamed a smile back at her, eyed the alley from one end to the other, and we slipped in.

“Who’s keeping watch,” said Regan, her eyes scanning the semi-darkness.

“Not me. I’m the code breaker. Sesame is the ghost caller, um, what’s the person called that communes with ghosts? Not ghostbuster. Necromancer?”

“Regan, you got the lookout here at the bottom of the stairs. Linds, with me.” Regan nodded, knowing well that her job was always to be the guard or muscle, and Linds clapped silently, as if she’d just won a prize. “And it’s ‘medium’. That’s who talks to ghosts, and I’m not a medium, Linds. I just had a weird dream that…” And then I didn’t know what to say.

“That was a ghost trying to talk to you,” she finished for me and followed me up the stairs to the bar above, the scene of the crime, if what I’d dreamt was true. But how could it be a crime if a ghost murdered a ghost tour guide? Was that even possible? I’d watched like every episode of Scooby Doo, and at the end of each one, Fred and Velma always captured the thing trying to scare off the townsfolk, or whoever, and it was always a person under a mask. There was no way a ghost had killed Victor, was there? And we didn’t even know if he had been killed? Dude could have just had a bad ticker.

Now what, I thought as we got to the top of the stairs and navigated the single line of police tape that sadly tried to cordon off the upper bar from the rest of the establishment. The yellow line sagged like an afterthought, and I stepped right over it and found myself literally feet from the couch I’d flopped on and found Victor dead and gone.

“Now what?” Linds’ words echoed my thoughts. She stood there, her eyes scanning the darkness, and then a bright light flashed from her outstretched hand.

“Give me that,” I said, and I reached over and grabbed it out of her hand. She groaned in response, but I batted her hand away. “You’re the code breaker. As soon as I find a code, I’ll call you over. Now, stand here and don’t go wandering around. Can you do that?” She frowned. “Two very important things. Don’t mess up the crime scene by moving anything around or introducing any additional evidence that might mislead the investigator. Like a hair or a footprint. And don’t get in the way of the lead investigator who’s trained to find the clues in the first place. Got it?” She nodded, and I got a glimpse of that famous Lindsay pout.

I knew it was coming before she even said it. “I never get to find any clues.”

‘I never get to find any clues.’ ‘I never get to sit next to the dead guy.’ ‘I never get poisoned.’ ‘I never get thrown from a boat into a river.’ Girl never got to do anything cool. And it was always me just trying to survive. I giggled to myself and made my way over to the couch. Whatever I’d seen that first night. Whatever I’d seen in that dream. It all revolved around a worn leather sofa that had seen better days and was probably on its way out the door. No one keeps a couch after someone dies on it, do they?

But there was nothing. A whole lot of nada. I tiptoed around, my flashlight beam taking in every crevice, every crack in the leather, every dust mote and crumb. Between the cushions there was nothing but forty-seven cents and what looked like some corn chips. There were so many stains on the leather that there was no way to tell if any of it was blood, wine or, well, you know. Bodily fluids. Hey, this was a party town, and fucking on a couch in a haunted pub had to be a thing, right?

But nothing. Whatever evidence there had been was gone now with the local cops. And all I was left with was this idea of my dream, those few frightening moments burned into my brain, and a bunch of symbols and weird letters dancing across the room like living spirits seeking an audience. Or a seance, and that wasn’t something I knew how to do. Commune with the dead? ‘I never get to commune with the dead.’ I could hear Lindsay saying it now, and bless her, neither did I, and we were gonna keep it that way. Because there was nothing here. Nothing except disappointment. Not a peep, a ghastly wind, an eerie creek or a even a shrieking ghost of Christmas past kind of thing with chains and warnings.

It was a bust, and I steadied myself on the arm of the couch, feeling the yawns coming, the night pulling at me. Sorry, girls, there was no mystery to be solved here. We were going to just have to wait and see what happened with the autopsy and the book of codes, or whatever it was.

I sighed, let the breath out in a rush, and turned, the light of my torch whispering through the cloud of frost billowing from my mouth.

So cold suddenly, colder than I’d remembered. The light played over the floor, then found Lindsay, standing stock still like I’d asked, hoping beyond hope she wouldn’t do something stupid and leave a bunch of evidence behind the cops would find — we were always finding her hair everywhere. And then I froze, blinking into the beam as it played over Lindsay, her eyes wide, mouth open, her arms raised in a shrug like she’d done something and was forming an apology.

Jesus fuck.

Yellow eyes peered at me from over her shoulder. Deathly hands creeped out from behind her, and she screamed as it blasted forward, coming at me in a flurry. I stumbled back, crashing onto the couch, my mouth working but silent as the apparition swooped in and hovered inches from my face. A shadowy figure, its face drawn and pale, a heavy black brow over sunken eyes. It growled through rotting teeth, its breath the thing of dental nightmares, a gravelly voice clawing out of its mouth as ghostly figures and symbols dropped like sparks onto the wooden table, searing themselves into the wood.

Author’s Notes: “The game is afoot,” as Sherlock would say.

I’m not sure when I decided that Victor’s ghost would help Sesame solve the mystery. But, of course, she can’t solve it herself. In all the novels I’m writing, which you’ll be hear more about over the next several months while I get the final rewrite of her debut novel finished, Sesame leans on one or the other of her friends, and often both. As I like to say, she’s six parts adult Nancy Drew, three parts Charlie’s Angels, and one part Californication. Sometimes, the Angels and Californication parts are mixed up because I’ve written two erotic mysteries starring Sesame already.

In the future, I plan on dropping a Valentine’s Day mini-mystery like this one about a theft on a train, and there’s already a Christmas-themed mini-mystery in which Sesame and friends, of course, save Christmas. Why not? And I’ve love to write a modern Sherlock Holmes-Sesame crossover mystery because Holmes is in the public domain now, and Sesame will think he’s totally brilliant and also totally hot.

I haven’t really put that much into the site lately because I’ve gotten so distracted working here on Substack, but my website has some information about Sesame’s debut novel, and Sesame even has her own website — NoMystery, Inc. It’s so hard to keep up with everything.

Go on to Episode 5 below: