“Now, tell us what happened. Tell us how this trouble first started.” Joseph said. “And I mean only one of you tells us what happened. In fact, Mrs. Taylor, you tell us what happened. Mr. Taylor, you will wait your turn.”

“Why does she get to talk first?” Mr. Taylor snapped.

“Mr. Taylor, please wait your turn.” Joseph said.

“I just don’t see how it’s fair, Doc.” Mr. Taylor said. “I mean, she’s always talking. She’s always talking more than me…and over me…and about me…”

Joseph moved his hand a few inches to the crucifix.

“...But she talks so much that it doesn’t really make a difference if she talks first now, does it? It’s just like a drop of water in the ocean.”

Mrs. Taylor gave a victorious HMPH and then began. “Well, I suppose it all started when this husband of mine got the bright idea to go talk to Dr. Williams’ manesologists about connecting him with a psychopomp so that he could go up into the afterlives--and he didn’t tell me he was going to do it! I had to find out from Hillary who found out from Jackie who overheard it from Clementine who--”

“Uh, excuse me Mrs. Taylor, but when was this exactly?” Joseph asked.

“Oh, that was several months back.”

“I didn’t mean for you to go that far back.” Joseph said.

“She’s wrong regardless!” Mr. Taylor said. “That’s not when the trouble first started!”

“Mr. Taylor, please wait your turn to--”

“The trouble started when I caught her with a man! A living man!” Mr. Taylor said.

“And what was the harm of that?” Mrs. Taylor said. “I was dead at the time and you weren’t!”

“You knew I was going to follow soon after you! I had a heart condition!” Mr. Taylor exclaimed.

“But you didn’t follow soon after! And besides, didn’t the vows say “Til death do us part?””

“But I did too die soon after you! The neighbors even said I died of a broken heart, though we both know that couldn't have been the cause! I died of a congested heart!”

“No you didn’t die soon after me! You took a whole year to die!”

“So? What’s a year?” Mr. Taylor asked.

“12 months! 12 long months!” Mrs. Taylor answered. “And I know it wasn’t your damned heart that killed you in the first place, I bet it was the laudanum! I told you that stuff would kill you, but did you listen to me? No! You never listened to me! You still don’t listen to me, and one would think your present condition would be a constant reminder to you that you should listen to me!”

Mr. Taylor turned to Joseph, and the manesologist sighed, for he thought that he was about to finally be presented with a way to enter into this thorny bramble of a domestic argument, but then Mr. Taylor opened his mouth and dashed Joseph’s hopes to dust.

“Dr. Morton, I know you heard me when I said that I caught my wife with a living man!”

“What’s the fact that he was living have to do with anything?” Mrs.Taylor asked her husband.

“It means you committed sins of the flesh!”

“What flesh?” Mrs. Taylor pulled at her ectoplasmic skin until it stretched like wax.

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“His flesh!” Mr. Taylor answered.

“So what if he had flesh? What’s the cost to anyone? I’m barren as the grave! I can no more catch a social disease than a fog bank! Why the fuss?”

“It’s your honor that was the cost!” Mr. Taylor said. “And by extension, my honor!”

“And I suppose you would have been fine if I had slept with another ghost, eh?”

Mr. Taylor gasped. “Victoria!”

Martin blushed.

Joseph chuckled under his breath.

Matthew flinched.

“Slept with!” Such a vulgar term! The three manesologists had heard many things in their meeting room, many candid things, many shameful things. But “slept with?” Oh, it made their skins tingle with the inappropriateness of it all! Mr. Carter saying that Mrs. Carter was “with” another man was lewd enough, but “slept with” gave an entire image to go with the suggestion!

“Well? Would you have liked it if I slept with a man as intangible and irascible as yourself, Alvin?” Mrs. Taylor asked.

“It wouldn't have been a sin of the flesh, obviously, but it still would still have been a dishonor!” Mr. Taylor answered.

“Then what does it matter if he had a pulse or not if it was a dishonor either way? You’re just looking for things to argue about! You always are!””

“Because it is a greater dishonor!” Mr. Taylor shouted. “When you shame me, you have to go all the way for some reason! You can’t just settle for a lesser dishonor, can you? No! You have to gut me like a fish, and then you scream when I put hands on you to get you to stop!”

“Oh, I scream? How about you, you little shrimp of a man? You don’t scream when I scratch you? Then I’ll have to scratch harder!”

Joseph cradled his head. He could feel the blood pounding in his temple. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “Neither of you can hurt the other! The two of you fighting is more pathetic than two clouds slapping each other!”

Esmee Walker, the ghostly helper of Ernst, Morton, and Glass, walked through the walls into the meeting room.

“I have good news, everyone!” Esmee materialized blue and vibrant and smiling. “I went down to Gaskell’s Occult Books and they have the new edition of the abridged King in Yellow!”

The Taylors looked at Esmee.

“Who’s this walking lamp post?” Mrs. Taylor asked snootily.

“Um…excuse me, I see that I’ve come at a bad time. A very bad time…” Esmee turned to leave. “I’ll be in the book room!”

“No!” Joseph said. “Take me with you!”

But all Joseph could see was the hem of Esmee’s sirt as she exited through the wall.

“I saw how you were looking at that lissome glow worm, Alvin Taylor!” Mrs. Taylor said. “I know what you’re thinking! You want to get with a ghost now to spite me, is that it?”

“Don’t assume I have your lack of self control!” Mr. Taylor said.

“Who’s assuming? You lack the willpower to say no to a thin bottle of laudanum, there’s no way you’d say no to a thin woman!”

“Well, if we’re going to be assuming things about each other then how about this? I’ve always assumed that you had your eye on other men--while we were both alive!”

“Oh really? You think I’m some common strumpet, is that it? Well, I’ve always assumed that you had me murdered!”

“What?”

“Yes, murdered!”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but do you know any couples besides us where the woman died before the man?”

Mr. and Mrs Taylor continued to fight, and scream, and accuse, and carry on inside their own little bubble of loud, obnoxious activity. Then they started hitting each other and getting their ectoplasm tangled up.

Joseph stood up once again, and Matthew touched his shoulder, but Joseph tapped the gaeite candle at his side to indicate he wasn’t about to walk out of the room.

Matthew nodded and withdrew his hand.

The Dyeus knight held out his hand and blasted his opponent with silvery-white light. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for his enemy as his sword harmlessly cut through his body without so much as drawing blood. Enemy though he was, he truly believed he was alive until that moment.

The Perkunos Operation

Mr. and Mrs. Taylor didn’t notice that their manifestations were fading away. They continued to slap and scratch at each until they evaporated like a mirage.

“Oh, sweetest silence!” Martin exclaimed. “Thank you, Joseph.”

Joseph grabbed the crucifix. “Now you two listen here and you listen good! The world is more than your squabbing little drama! You talk about hating her and hating him and hurting her and hurting him and leaving her and leaving him, well, where exactly do you think you’ll go? You think the world wants to hear your bickering? It doesn’t! Say you fly off into the afterlife, any afterlife, do you think the poor psychopomp assigned by the powers-that-be to guide you will listen to you when you raise your voice? Hermes will drop you off in Hades, specifically the part of Hades known for wailing lemures, because wailing is apparently what you like, and John-a-Doors will place you among the ever-wailing banshees for the same reason. Maybe you’ll learn something from the banshees--they don’t cry for themselves, they cry for the misfortunes of other people! But you know what? I doubt that they would even want you. The lemures and the banshees would kick you out, just like Asphodel Street did. There’s only one place that’ll tolerate your wailing, one place in all the world--and that’s at the side of the person you married.”

Joseph placed the crucifix down on the table.

“You two sit there and think about what you’ve done. You sit there and think about how uncomfortable you’ve made the other ghosts on Asphodel Street. Maybe my words will reach you, maybe they won’t, but in the end, you two will find your way back to the only person that can stand you. That’s inevitable, like water flowing downhill and rivers flowing into the ocean.”

Joseph massaged his temple. “Good God, I could use a bit of laudanum and brandy. Matthew, Martin, do you want anything?”

“Just water.” Matthew said.

‘I’ll have a few drops with whiskey.” Martin said. He looked down at the crucifix. “I knew it was a vain hope, but I still hoped that we could have resolved their haunting.”

“Some hauntings don’t get resolved, Martin.” Joseph said. “They just get quiet, for a time.”