“Argh, you bitch-cocksucker-shit-head!” Dylan shouted, thumping the sofa cushion. “It was partialfartberry420 again! I swear he is just hunting me this round. Where did he even come from?”

Dylan was playing first person shooters online with Blane who was in Las Vegas, making the most of Tyler being at the library all day. Apparently it had only really occurred to his roommate Tyler, that in order for him to pass the semester he was actually going to have to put some work in, hence he was putting in a few hard core cramming days in at the library distraction free. Supposedly.

Except for being woken up at 7 a.m on a Saturday morning as Tyler left the apartment loudly, Dylan couldn’t complain having the TV all to himself and so there he was, spending it in his pyjamas with a bag of chips and Blane’s company.

“Oh I bet he was camping behind the truck,” Blane responded through the headset. “Have you got someone nearby for a revive?”

“Nope, they’re all just running around. No one’s coming for me.”

“Oh maan, I’m on the other side of the map I’m afraid.”

“It’s cool, I’ll just spawn in on you.”

“Cool, yeah do that and we’ll take B together.”

Dylan’s phone began vibrating on the table.

“Ah crap, hang on man, I’ve got to take this call.” He muted his microphone and took the call. It was the prison his mom was at. He had to listen to the message asking if he wanted to accept a call from an inmate and when he agreed he waited to be put through.

“Mom? Hey, are you…. Woah, Mom, calm down a minute… Ok. Do you want me to come and see you? Will that take your mind off things?.... Mom, listen to me. You’re safe in there. They’re not real… Mom, no I am listening to you, but you need to-” And she hung up on him. He groaned and fell back into the sofa.

“Blaaaaane, I’m sorry my man but I think I have to go.”

“Girl trouble?”

“No, not quite. I wish. It’s Mom trouble.”

“Is she alright?”

Dylan sighed. “She is, but she doesn’t think she is. Every year, at this time, she loses it. Thinks she starts seeing… seeing the couple she killed. She just rang up now saying they were coming for her. The anniversary of the new bride and groom dying is about a week away and always in the run up to it, her anxieties and guilt all manifest I guess, and she starts seeing them, then the day after the anniversary, it’s like they disappear. It’s tough to deal with and not really be able to do anything about it.”

“That sucks. So what, you think you’ll go and see her then?” Blane asked.

“I don’t know. This happens every year though. It’s the same thing.”

“Well, you do what you gotta do. If you feel like you should go then do so. Or if you want to stay a bit longer, we can go and hunt down partialfartberry420.”

“I’m tempted… but I should go see if I can get an emergency visit in for today.”

“No worries man, we’ll play another day. Hope it goes well.”

“Thanks Blane, see ya.” Dylan left the party chat and the game, discarding the headset and controller to one side.

***

Having successfully arranged a last minute opportunity to visit his Mom, Dylan was now at the prison, but things had escalated somewhat since she rang him.

“Why is she in there?” he asked a doctor on the hospital wing.

“Your mother suffered a bit of a mental health crisis earlier. She had just had a phone call and was very distressed after, screaming and shouting at what she said was the ‘people she killed’. I’m new here but have seen from her notes that she does have episodes…?”

“Yes, that was me on the phone with her earlier. She was upset and it worried me so I wanted to come in and see her. But I didn’t think she was that bad to need all this. It happens every year at this time.” He explained everything that he had told Blane earlier, about the anniversary of the newlyweds she killed drunk driving.

“And how does this usually manifest with her?” the doctor asked.

“Hallucinations, claims of seeing ghosts. She doesn’t sleep and refuses food. Has that been happening again?”

“I’ve not heard anything about skipping meals,” the doctor said. She adjusted her fringe out of her eyes.

“It can happen. It has. I mean, the day of the anniversary is about five days away, so the signs won’t be as bad yet. They’ll build and build as the week goes on, I’m sure of it. Can I speak to her please?”

She pulled a face that looked like that wasn’t going to be possible. “Once inmates are in the hospital wing… for this sort of thing, we don’t usually allow visitors.”

“Oh c’mon Doc. Ten minutes. I’ll-” He was interrupted by the sound of an alarm coming from down the corridor.

“Wait here,” the doctor instructed as guards and nurses ran towards the room with jangling keys in their pockets.

He watched as the door was opened and it was then he could hear the screams.

His mom’s.

He ran down the corridor himself, just to get to her and reassure her.

“Mom! It’s me! You’re ok!” he shouted desperately.

“They’re here!!” He could just make out her screaming.

“They’re not real for Christ’s sake! You’re safe! Mom!” He was bundled out of the way by another guard who moved him from the door just as his mom was plundered with a syringe of some sedative.

***

“Hey man! How are you doing?” Tyler asked cheerfully as Dylan entered the apartment. “Oh, you don’t look great. Everything alright?” He was sat on the sofa with a paused film on the TV.

“Not really,” Dylan replied.

“Why, what’s up? Tell me.”

Dylan sighed. He felt himself just going over it all again. “My Mom. She’s having a rough time. She was hospitalised on the medical wing due to the ‘ghosts’ she was seeing.”

“Aaaah, crap. It’s that time isn’t it? The anniversary’s soon right?”

“Yup, at the end of the week. I went to see her today because she called me all on edge and then whilst talking to the doctor on the hospital wing she just deteriorated. She reckoned the bride and groom were there apparently but all I could do was try and shout to her that they weren’t real and she was safe, before I got bundled away.”

A toilet flushed in the bathroom down the hall.

“Oh, I didn’t realise you had company, sorry Ty.”

“S’alright. I met her at the library,” he whispered, winking. Dylan laughed and rolled his eyes. “But it’s ok. Is there anything I can do?”

The bathroom door opened and a girl with artificially gray hair came through. She had a few ear piercings and was wearing a tie die hoodie. He recognised her from the ice cream parlour near campus.

“Hey,” she said warmly, not at all phased by seeing Dylan.

“Hey,” Dylan responded. “Sorry I didn’t know Tyler had company,” he apologised awkwardly.

“It’s no problem,” she said.

“Dylan, this is Katrina. Katrina, Dylan,” Tyler said politely doing the introductions.

“Hey Katrina, it’s nice to meet you. Look, I’ll head to my room and leave you to it,” Dylan said making his escape.

“Sorry,” the girl said. “But I couldn’t help but over hear whilst on the loo. Your mom sees ghosts, but only at the same time every year?”

Dylan blushed a little. He didn’t like strangers knowing his affairs. Had he have known she was there, he wouldn’t have said anything at all. “Yeah, but only just because it’s on her mind more. I think it’s just the guilt of what happened,” he explained, playing it down for self-preservation purposes.

“Well, I know you just know me as the girl who just flushed your loo, but I just wouldn’t be so dismissive of what your mom is going through, if I were you. There’s some dark magick out there. Magick that can release the spirits of the dead. I went through a phase of being really into researching it and even trying a little bit. I was quite good at it, but I’ve kinda grown out of it now but it does still interest me. But anyway, ghosts don’t just appear on special occasions. They’re an all the time thing, if they’re authentic.”

No one said anything for a few seconds.

“Magick?” Dylan said first with a non-believing tone.

“Yeah. Magic. With a ‘k’ on the end,” she repeated. “There’s a particular spell that…” she stopped, seeing the faces on the boys. “… but anyway. I can see you’re not interested, I’ll stop.”

“No, no, it’s just that… magick’s not real right?” Tyler said.

“Well, some people think that, sure,” she said. “But like I said, some cultures do believe. Can I just suggest you go and check the graves of the couple? If they’re still there then it won’t be magick.”

“And if they’re not there?” Dylan asked, curious to know the answer.

“Then someone has used dark magick,” she warned. Katrina turned to Tyler. “Look, I should probably go. Your friend needs you and I have some work to do. Call me, yeah?”

“O-of course,” Tyler said. “Ok, thanks for coming round.” The boys loitered awkwardly as Katrina showed herself out.

“Well she’s smart. What’s she doing with you?” Dylan laughed when the door closed.

“Oi. I’m even more attractive when I’m surrounded by piles of books,” he said. “What did you think of what she said? All a bit of crap, right?”

“I guess, yeah. I mean, we do live in a world where Blane, Mindy and Holt exist, and Boy Beaver is literally a boy with a beaver's tail. Maybe spells aren’t completely beyond all possibility. I reckon I’ll check the graves out though. Just to be certain,” Dylan reckoned.

***

The next day, Dylan and the cemetery director trudged through the rain towards the location of the newlywed’s grave sites, according to the records.

“What is it that you are looking for, may I ask?” the director asked Dylan.

“I just want to make sure that the couple are there where they should be,” he replied.

“Well I can assure you that grave sites are not something we misplace or lose.”

“I believe that, but I just need to check.”

“Of course. I’m happy to oblige. They’re just up here.” The director led them across the grass to the headstones according the map he had.

Dylan studied the area. “Are you sure? These should be Sindy and Nathaniel. But there’s no one here.”

“Huh, well we are in the right place. I don’t understand it.” He opened out his paper map on his clipboard to make sure. “This should be where they have been laid to rest.”

“So there are no bodies here?” Dylan asked.

“This has never happened before. I… I really don’t know what to say, Mr Petersly.”

“You’ve got a lot of work to do then. Call me if you work out what happened.” And with that, Dylan turned on his heels and walked back to his car.

***

Dylan padded to the kitchen barefoot and sorted himself out with a glass of milk. What with his mom’s anxieties and the missing graves, he couldn’t sleep.

He stood in the living space, having poured a cold one, the heavy rain continuing to come down hard and subsequently drawing his attention towards the window, where he stood and gazed out.

A chill came over him, he was in his boxers and a vest after all. But this chill grew and spread very quickly, the hairs on every inch of his body stood up and as soon as it had arrived, it left again.

He glanced down at his feet and felt the window as if looking for a draught coming through. He took another sip from his glass but it suddenly shattered as he drank from it, the glass exploding within his hand. He jumped back, falling over the arm chair and dropping the remains of the glass on the floor. Shit! What the hell was that?!

He tasted a metallic twang in his saliva. Touching his lips and tracing the bottom lip to the middle, he realised he’d cut himself. Blood was dripping down his front and his lip was sore to move.

He sat in the chair properly and lifted his vest over his head and pressed it against his injury and shaking his head in dismay.

Shit, how tight was I holding that glass? he wondered as he kicked it across the floor.

He stood up but as he did, the furthest end of the coffee table in front of him flipped up. Even with the lightning reactions Dylan possessed, he was not prepared for the flat wooden surface to smash full frontal into him, again sending him to fall violently into the arm chair, swearing and shouting incoherently in surprise and pain. The table dropped back down and Dylan took to the floor.

Tyler wearily charged out of his bedroom, swinging a baseball bat.

“What the fu-?” he began to shout, but he had to react to a flying footstool coming his way. He ducked and dodged it, moving out of the way just in time and hitting the floor. Tyler and Dylan lay where they were, in opposite ends of the living space, panting and wondering what other piece of furniture was heading their way. Nothing else happened for thirty seconds so Tyler got up.

“Dylan, are you alright?”

A topless, bloodied Dylan picked himself up gingerly and grabbed his makeshift bandage, reapplying it to his face. “Mhmm,” came a non-committed muffled response.

“What happened? Why is there so much blood?”

“My glass just shattered in my hand as I drunk from it.”

“What were you drinking? Spinach?”

“Just milk, but I'm not going to cry over it.”

Tyler surveyed the space. “And then…” he trailed off so Dylan had a go at finishing his sentence.

“And then I got in a fight with the furniture.”

“I don’t think it was the furniture bud. I think it was the bride and groom.”

“Pffft,” Dylan scoffed initially, then stopped to consider the validity of what his friend said. “Do you think?”

“I can give you Katrina’s number,” Tyler said, grabbing the dust pan and brush out of the cupboard. “Give her a call in the morning. See if she can tell you more.”

***

Katrina slid into their booth and their local coffee shop the next morning.

“You boys look rough. Have a falling out with each other? It wasn’t over me was it?” she joked, taking off her floppy sage coloured beret.

“No, we got zero sleep last night,” Tyler said.

“But why do you have a fat lip?”

“A glass of milk shattered at my mouth. Spontaneously.”

“And then the coffee table flipped over and whacked him,” Tyler said.

“There’s a chance you could be right about the bride and groom,” Dylan admitted. “I checked out the grave site for the couple, and they weren’t there. Nothing was there. So I’m starting to believe something more sinister could be at play here, and I need to do something about it for my mom.”

“I just don’t get why they came for Dylan,” Tyler said at the end.

“You said that you were there at the hospital wing when she said the newlyweds were there? And you tried to reassure her that they weren’t real?”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Yeah to try and calm her down,” said Dylan.

“It probably pissed them off,” Katrina offered bluntly.

“So they came to scare him, or prove to him that they were real?” Tyler said, starting to understand it better. Katrina shrugged in agreement.

“What do these cultures believe in then? You said something about a spell,” Dylan asked.

Katrina pulled a hefty hardbacked book out of her backpack she had next to her and flicked to a relevant page, book marked by a dog eared corner. “Um… here. The Naundo people. They say a spell can temporarily release the spirits of the dead with the purpose of haunting those who did wrong to them before they return to the vessel.”

Dylan looked at Tyler with wide, concerned eyes.

“Were Sindy and Nathaniel Naundo people?” Tyler asked.

“I don’t know, I’d never heard of Naundo people before.”

“You do realise you don’t have to be a Naundoin to do the spell though, in the same way you don’t have to be French to speak it,” Katrina said slowly, as if that much was obvious. “This stuff is easily accessible in books and the internet. If you wanted to do something like this then you could find a way easily.”

“If you were hit with so much grief, a person could do anything,” Dylan muttered.

“Exactly.”

“And does it have a shopping list of things you need to do this?”

“Yeah, herbs, spices, toxins, ground insects and animal bits, the standard stuff,” Katrina read off as Dylan and Tyler looked at each other. “But, this is the main thing,” she added looking at Dylan, who leaned in closer. “The bodies of the dead. Which is why I suggested you look in the cemetery, see if they’re still there. For someone to do this, they’ve got to be keeping the bodies somewhere. And as long as they have them, they can keep doing this spell.” She shut the book, mostly for dramatic effect and the boys jumped a little.

“And is there a spell to stop this?” Dylan asked eagerly.

“Nah, it’s much simpler than that. You just have to destroy the bodies. Burn them, I’d say. But you just need to find their dead bodies.”

“God, that’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Tyler huffed in resignation.

Dylan scratched an itch on his head and looked out of the window. “I think I might know a guy…”

***

Tyler and Dylan stood in Clestin Park awaiting their potential saviour. Katrina had bid an adieu to the pair, with a shift at the ice cream parlour meaning she couldn’t stick around any longer.

“You think this will work?” Tyler asked Dylan.

“If anyone can help, it’s him.”

A flutter of wings behind them turned their attention around, and just on time, the crow squawked, announcing his arrival.

Nova shifted into his human spirit form, only being able to talk whilst in it. “Hello, the best of evenings to you both.”

“Hey Nova, thank you for coming,” Dylan said, visibly relieved. “It’s a strange request I’m afraid.”

“Death is the least strange thing to me. But I should be able to do what you need.”

“Do you need anything?” Dylan asked.

“Just a pile of seeds for when I return.”

“Thanks Nova,” he said as the spirit transformed back to bird form and flew off, leaving the two friends stood around.

“He doesn’t hang around,” Tyler said, digging his hands into his denim jacket pockets.

“When you’re as old as he is, you just get on with shit, I suppose,” Dylan assumed.

What Nova was now airborne doing was flying around Clestin and the surrounding areas to detect traces of lingering death left by improperly laid to rest bodies, and even better, looking for the spirits of the dead newlyweds, Sindy and Nathaniel. If he could find them then they would be able to lead him to where the bodies were.

2 hours later.

Nova came swooping through the park’s tree line, straight for the patch of grass in front of the bench Dylan and Tyler were sat on, scrolling through their phones in silence. The light from the screens was the only real light in the park as it had gone properly night time while Nova was up and about.

Nova switched forms again, his human spirit form casting it’s own, soft shimmer. “I’m back.”

“Nova, hello!” Dylan said excitedly, stuffing his phone into his jean pocket. “Did you find anything.”

“Is your car gassed up?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go. I know where the bodies are being stored.”

“Tyler, I think you should wait here. Nova and I will go,” Dylan said.

“No way, I’ve come this far. I’m with you all the way. Plus I’m just as effective as you are... against ghosts.”

“You both will need to locate and destroy the bodies. The spirits are in there, and I’m going to have to take care of them until you can get the job done,” Nova said. “We go now.”

The two and the bird walked up to the padlocked gate of the abandoned looking abattoir. Nova phased right through and waited on the other side. Dylan offered his friend a boost, linking his hands together and squatting down for Tyler to step into. With a bit more force than he was expecting, Tyler was tossed in the air and almost over the fence without touching it. With Tyler on the other side, Dylan effortlessly jumped from standing, landing next to the others.

Dylan then approached the main door. “It can’t be this-” he said giving it a push. It opened very easily. “Ah, it is that easy. Stay behind me,” he said to Tyler as they stepped through.

“It’s so cold in here,” Tyler said with a slight chatter of his teeth.

“Then we’re in the right place,” Dylan said.

The trio walked down the corridor into the heart of the abattoir. It had long been abandoned, or at least stopped being used for the purposes of meat processing a long time ago.

It was dark, and dingy but the infrastructure was still intact. The ceiling had its rails still installed and from them, the long bars with hooks on the end hung at an accessible height for reaching the carcasses that would have been on them. One or two rotten animal remains had been left of their hooks.

The walls were dirty and mouldy and at the furthest end, there was a hole in the wall where the hooked meat carcasses would’ve come through from another room into this one.

There were a couple of wide, shallow trenches that ran the length of the floor that in its more operational days, would have once allowed liquids and fluids to run down into the drains.

“The smell is enough to make me want to be a vegetarian,” Tyler muttered as they walked towards the area through the wall at the other end.

A metallic scraping sound made everyone jump and spin round, looking for where it came from. A lone bar hanging from the tracks was swinging back and forth.

“Those things don’t just start moving by themselves do they?” Tyler asked, knowing the answer.

“Shit, it’s starting,” Dylan warned.

“They’re here,” Nova stated. “You’ve got to find the bodies.”

“Are you going to be ok?” Dylan hastily asked, but it didn’t matter what the answer was, there wasn’t anything he could do to help.

The boys ran the way they were heading for anyway and left Nova to it.

“We need to look for smaller refrigerators. Somewhere keeping them… fresh,” Dylan said.

“Do you want to split up?”

Dylan didn’t take long to think of the answer. “No, stick with me bro. I can’t have anything happen to you.”

“Awh, that’s sweet,” Tyler whispered, completely dead pan.

There weren’t many doors to check behind and very quickly they found the one. Slumped in the corner of a small cell sized cold room were a very stiff and frosty looking pair. The bride and groom. They’d been buried in their wedding clothes and who ever had dug them up had kept them like that.

“Gasoline?” Dylan asked.

“Errr… still on the other side of the fence before we came in. I might have put it down to get boosted by you,” Tyler admitted.

“Oh fuck me, we’re here to burn the bodies and you leave behind the one thing we need to do that?”

“I’m sorry man, the adrenaline was getting through me, I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ll go and get it.”

“No, no I will! I’m quicker and can vault the fence easily. Keep an eye on them.” Dylan tossed him the lighter they'd bought earlier at a hardware shop.

“I don’t think they’re going anywhere,” Tyler said as he watched Dylan make a quick exit.

He ran back the way they came and appeared at the door of the hook room Nova was in.

“I need to come through!”

Nova’s spirit form was dashing around the room. “Be quick!”

Dylan did so, rushing through the room, through to the entrance and to the chain link fence. There was the jerry can, where Tyler had left it. And next to it was a man who was very surprised to see Dylan stood opposite him.

“Oh,” the man said. “It’s you.” He spoke with a New Zealand accent. Nathaniel, the deceased groom, was also from New Zealand.

“Can you just pass that can over please?” Dylan asked. “It would really help me out.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Cut the crap! You’ve done a spell on some corpses to haunt my Mom! I'm putting a stop to it!” Dylan ran and cartwheeled into a leap, making the jump over the fence to join the man on his side.

“Your Mom killed my brother!” he spat in anger. “It’s the least she deserves!”

“She’s in prison doing her time, jerkoff!” Dylan reached for the jerry can but the brother, who was just a bit closer, kicked it over.

Dylan panicked, but Tyler had left it closed and so it didn’t leak. Taking his chance, he ducked low, taking his weight in his hands and spinning his legs, kicking out at the spell casting brother, sending him flying back onto the dirt.

Dylan got back to his feet, and remained low just in case he had to react to a retaliation. But he had quickly decided he was going to go on easy on him. He looked just like a normal man, who was only guilty of not processing his grief appropriately. Beating him unconscious would have been easy, but not enjoyable and not helpful.

“I don’t want to hurt you man, I’m just here to end this. You can even go on your way. Maybe seek some help. Grieve properly.”

The man remained on the ground and wiped at the blood dripping from his new eyebrow cut. “Screw you telling me about grief. You know nothing!”

“I know hoarding corpses and casting a spell to have them haunt the person who killed them is not your standard practice in grief management. Learn to talk about it, man.” Dylan grabbed for the jerry can and leapt the fence again, running back in the building. By the time the groom’s brother was up and at the fence, Dylan was already running back through the corridors.

“This was not the speed I had in mind when I said be quick!” Nova called out, as his shimmering spirit form danced around the room. He was actually trying to fight the spirits of the bride and groom who were invisible to Dylan because he was not the cause of their death and therefore not the object of their haunting.

“There was a problem!”

“Bigger than the one we have here?” Nova asked, annoyed. Dylan ignored him and continued running through the room, heading for Tyler and the bride and groom corpses. “Watch out!” Nova cried, a bit too late.

A bar swung out at Dylan, clobbering him in the side of the head and sending him falling hard, and also dropping the gasoline can. This time, the cap on it did not survive the height it was dropped from and the liquid glugged out onto the floor.

That hit really hurt, but Dylan had remained conscious. Sprawled out on his stomach, he reached up for his pounding head.

“Dylan, watch out!” Tyler called from the doorway. Behind Dylan, and in clear view of Tyler, the brother had appeared and he was going to do what ever he could to stop Dylan from destroying his hard work. The crowbar he was wielding was probably going to do the stopping. “Slide me the gas!”

With all his strength, Dylan pushed the can along the floor, mindful not to push it into the drainage trench. As it slid, the gas continued to pour out, streaking behind it’s path.

Dylan rolled onto his back just as the brother came to loom over him, crowbar raised. Knowing Tyler had the gasoline completing the final part of the plan, Dylan did his best to fend Nathaniel’s brother off. He kicked up and out with both feet into the brother’s gut, causing him to double over a bit. Dylan rolled again more times just to get more distance, and got up on one knee.

“Ruuuuuuuuuunnn!” Tyler yelled, emerging from the back where the corpses were. Behind him, a huge orange glow built up as the fire intensified.

“Get out now!” Nova instructed. “It’s working!” An intensely loud banshee like screeching sound rang out in the room, signifying the undignified return of the spirits back to their corpses for the last time.

The fire chased Tyler out, licking up the walls and along the ceiling. The brother turned to the way out, but instead of running through, he shut the doors, blocking their only way out.

“No, just get out! It’s over now!” Dylan shouted. “Open the fricking door!”

“No chance!” the brother snapped.

Tyler looked desperately back at the approaching fire and then at Dylan. Nova had flipped into crow form and squawked twice. He grew to an enormous size.

“Grab his leg Tyler.” Dylan turned to the brother. “Take my hand, we’ll get out of here and sort this out.”

“No chance, I can’t now.”

“Of course you can. Your brother and his wife died years ago. This doesn’t mean you need to die now.”

The brother swung again with the crowbar, leaving Dylan no choice but to jump back and grab onto Nova’s other leg. The bird beat his large wings, pushing up and out through the already structurally weak roof, finding their escape.

Dylan watched as the fire spread through the rest of the abattoir, swallowing up what little was left in it’s wake. Including that of the groom’s brother. Thick black smoke billowed out of the hole, chasing them up.

“What a fucking waste. He didn’t need to die,” Dylan shouted in frustration over the noise of the beating wings. “Can you take us back to the car, Nova?”

The bird complied, banking right and descending.

***

“Do you have pistachio ice cream?” Dylan asked.

Katrina looked at him with a slight disdain. “Ew, no. We don’t do that here. No one likes pistachio ice cream.”

Dylan feigned offense. “I do,” he mumbled. “The other shop in Little Italy does it.”

“Then go there,” Katrina replied. “Or choose another flavor. Chocolate chip is normal.”

“Fine, I’ll have a scoop of that please.”

Katrina obliged and took to scooping a spoonful into a mini tub. “So how’s your Ma?” she asked.

“She’s great thanks now. She stopped seeing the newlywed ghosts almost instantly after we did what we did at the abattoir. It was the actual anniversary yesterday and zilch! She didn’t have any issues. I can’t thank you enough.”

She handed him the tub which had a mini wooden spoon stuck in it. “I’m really pleased. And you can thank me enough. With tips,” she whispered, nodding her head towards the jar on the counter.

Dylan chuckled. “I can do that for you. Will I see you again?”

“If you come here for ice cream you will.”

“Not at the apartment, with Tyler? I feel like I really pooped the party the other day.”

Katrina cringed awkwardly. “No, I’m afraid not. I mean, he looked really hot surrounded by those books, and had you not come back maybe we might have hooked up, but we’re not really… compatible. I mean, the light's on, but no one is home. No offense.”

Dylan did his best at looking offended on behalf of his friend. “Maybe not. But he is hella brave, Katrina.”