They buried Corporal Douglas “Captain” Arkwright in the May family cemetery, just a few steps away from Sofie’s empty grave. All of Woodley turned out to see him off, and quite a lot of people managed to find their way from all over the country, as well. After the formalities, in true Scottish tradition, Ian May invited everyone into the house for a drink. Fortunately, many people also brought food, so Katarina and Bethany were only run ragged trying to find plates and glasses and little tables on which to set everything. Cally did her best to find lodgings within Vale House for the out-of-town mourners, but some people who knew each other very well had to double up. This even though Bethany felt well enough by then to vacate the Daffodil room and resume commuting from her cottage on Bells Road. There was No Vacancy at Vale House that day. Even the Preacher’s ghost put in a brief appearance in the Hall, but all the coming and going through the house seemed to discourage him, and he faded away after a short time.
“Well, that is how I want to go.”
It was the most common topic of conversation in the parlor. This time it was being raised by Ian May, seated next to the fireplace with a glass of brandy in his hand. “Quietly, in my sleep, in my favorite chair with a drink in my hand.”
“By the looks of it, Ian,” someone said, “I’d say there’s a very good chance that is exactly how you’ll go!” Everyone laughed and Ian raised his glass and proposed yet another toast to the Captain.
Joan hobbled quietly up beside Cally and cleared her throat. A taxi driver stood behind her, laden with bags and luggage. “Well,” she said, “I just wanted to say thank you and slip off quietly now.” She raised her chin and made her way over to Ian with as much dignity as she could muster on crutches, and he stood at her approach. “It’s been a pleasure working for you,” she told him. Balancing on one crutch, she put out a hand, but he did not shake it.
“You really don’t have to go,” he said.
“No, I think it’s better this way.” She glanced to where the taxi driver waited, struggling with bags that kept slipping from under his arms. “I never was any good at this Country Living thing anyway. I’ll be much better off back in Charlotte.”
“Well, then.” Ian kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for everything you have done for us. Drop a line, now and then.”
She did not promise to do so, but turned and followed the driver out of Vale House. Cally felt genuinely bad for her.
“She held out hope for so long.” It was Nell who said this quietly at Cally’s side. “Well at least she’ll have a pleasant surprise one day when she finds out how much money Dad is leaving to her!”
Cally asked, “How is your mom doing now?”
“She’s staying in her room. I mean, you know, Dad’s room. It’s their room, now. She’s enjoying tidying everything up and making the bed and lining up the pens on the desk. It makes her feel calmer. All these people make her nervous.”
All these people didn’t seem to make Nell nervous. Cally marveled at the change in her. She wondered if it was due to the absence of Foster in her life, or just due to him not meddling with her medication anymore.
“Cally, you should come work for us!” Apparently this new Nell had adopted the entire bed-and-breakfast business as her concern. “You know, now that Joan is gone.”
“No, I think Kat and Bethany can more than handle everything around here. Once things calm down after today, anyway. You know your dad never really needed Joan’s help. He was just being nice to her.”
The atmosphere in the parlor was growing more and more jovial as more toasts were conducted, and scandalized expressions were appearing on the faces of everyone present who was not of Celtic descent. Cally looked around and smiled. “The Captain would have loved this. I wish he could be here to see it.” Then it occurred to her to wonder if maybe he might actually be there, at that. She would have to ask George about this later.
Ian had returned to his seat by the fire, and he beckoned with his glass for Cally to come and join him. As she sat in the chair opposite him, he picked up a glass of wine from a nearby side table and pressed it into her hand. “Nell is right, you now,” he said. “You should come and work for us. Will you consider it?”
His expression was so earnest, fresh tears started to spring into Cally’s eyes. She shook her head. “But you don’t really need me,” she said. “And I don’t need charity.” Not yet, anyway, she added silently to herself.
“It’s not charity,” he said. “We really do need you. Now, I know you do not want to be fated to be a receptionist for the rest of your life. I am talking about the other skills you have. Ones I don’t have, and that someone around here really should have.”
Cally tried to take a nonchalant sip from her wine glass and ended up gulping it a little too quickly. “Which skills are those?” she asked, not looking at him.
He grinned at her until she met his eyes. “You know exactly what I mean,” he said. “You can see them. All of them. And you can talk to them. I can’t. I know about them, and I am charged with protecting them. But it’s only because I inherited this house. I am usually at sea when it comes to knowing exactly how to discharge my responsibilities. Nell is a little help. She can tell me what’s going on, sometimes. I realize she is doing very well lately, but she... well, she lives in her own little world. She doesn’t really understand what’s at stake here.”
“I don’t understand what’s at stake here, either,” Cally pointed out.
“This is a very special place,” Ian said.
“So I’ve been told.” Cally glanced up to where Ben Dawes stood behind his sister’s chair, sharing stories about the Captain’s life with Luke and Sheriff Mahon.
“And I’m not going to live forever,” Ian said, drawing her attention back to him.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Ian, is everything okay?” She reached over and took his hands.
“Everything is fine.” He laughed and placed her hands together palm to palm between his own. “But I need to retire soon, and when I do, Nell will become the Armadeur. You can be... her assistant. How does that sound? We’ll think of a good title for you.”
Cally didn’t know what an Armadeur was, but the prospect of a steady income was tempting. She took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know what to say, Ian. I gave up writing for a ‘real job’ once before, and I lived to regret it.”
“You don’t have to give up writing,” he said, releasing her hands and patting her knee. “And you don’t have to decide right away. Just please tell me you will think about it.”
“I promise I will think about it.”
Bethany approached them, her arms laden with dirty plates. “More guests arriving in the Hall!” she said, out of breath. “I don’t recognize them from the funeral. Their car has out-of-state plates.”
Cally stood. “I’ll handle it, Bethany.” She ran to the Hall, hoping whoever it was didn’t need overnight accommodations. “We need a No Vacancy sign!” she said, a little too loudly as she ran behind the desk. She remained standing, because George was sitting in the chair.
“Oh, Mom, we didn’t come to stay overnight.” It was her daughter, waiting in front of the desk. “We just came to check on you and make sure you’re alright.”
“Kelleigh!” Cally ran around the desk and hugged her daughter, then her son in law, and then her daughter again. “As you can see, I’m fine.” She was thankful Kelleigh hadn’t shown up three days ago.
“Well you never answer your phone. Or your email.”
Cally did not argue, but quietly smiled at the younger, prettier, much more sensible version of herself. “It’s just a little crazy around here right now,” she explained.
“So I see.” Kelleigh turned her head at a sudden cheer going up in the parlor. Someone had toasted the Captain again. “Not at all what I pictured when you described this Quiet Country Life.”
“She’s cute!” It was George. “Is she the one who put Jonathan Coulton on your MP3 player?” Cally ignored him.
Gordon shifted uncomfortably. “Well, also, we um... we thought maybe if you want to come back with us, we could caravan, and stop at Cracker Barrel on the way. You always enjoy Cracker Barrel.
“And our regional manager has an opening for a production editor,” he continued as Kelleigh nudged him in the ribs. “We showed her your rant... your essay, about Linguistic Drift, and she says she thinks you’d be perfect for the job.”
Cally smiled and shook her head. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I don’t feel quite ready to... It’s just that I don’t want to...” She had tried many times to explain all this to them. She didn’t have the heart to try again. There was also the fact that she wouldn’t have been able to leave with them that day anyway, even if she had wanted to. Her car keys had gone missing the night Foster had been arrested, and nobody had been able to find them since; she had a strong feeling this was directly connected to the fact that George’s zemi had mysteriously reappeared in its proper place in the butler’s desk.
As she groped for words, Brigit and Ben Dawes emerged from the parlor. “I’m just going to give Bree a ride home,” Ben called across the Hall to her. “I promise I’ll be back in a little while.”
“I know you will,” said Cally, smiling as he turned away.
“Ohhhh...” Kelleigh turned and looked at Ben as he helped his sister out the door. “I get it . Now I see why you don’t want to leave this place!” She winked at her mother, and Gordon nodded, grinning.
“No! That’s not it!” Cally blustered. “He’s not... He’s just...”
But Kelleigh was having none of it. “Seriously, I could literally see little hearts floating around your heads when you looked at each other.”
“Figuratively,” Cally corrected.
“My mama didn’t raise no fool,” Kelleigh countered.
Cally took a deep breath. “No. Honestly. It’s just that I have already accepted a position, here at Vale House.” She couldn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth, but as she said them, she knew them to be true.
She heard a whoop behind her and turned to see Katarina applauding. George was jumping around the Hall, high-fiving someone Cally couldn’t see. “You can take over Joan’s old office!” Bethany said excitedly. “I can decorate it in a dogwood theme!”
“Oh, thank you, Bethany but I don’t think...” Bethany had run up to hug her, even though doing so made her wince. “You know what?” Cally said. “Dogwood would be lovely.”
---
Much later that evening, Cally sat at the desk in the Rose Room and typed “Sometimes, at the end of the story, the character you started with is not the same one you end with.” She paused, pondering different ways to make the sentence flow more smoothly by switching the phrasing around. Doctor Boojums lounged on the desk, directly atop a sheaf of notes she was trying to use. Cyndi Lauper sat a few inches away from him, slowly pushing paper clips off the desk one by one. Cally started a blank file and typed, “It’s funny how ghost cats are essentially exactly the same as living cats. What’s even funnier is how living cats are essentially exactly the same as ghost cats.” She liked it, but she had no idea yet what she wanted to do with it, so she saved it under “cats.txt.”
A knock came at her door, so soft she barely heard it. She called for whoever it was to come in, but they only knocked again. Standing with a sigh, she wove her way around all the boxes Ignacio had helped her move from her car to the Rose Room (Ignacio was, of course, also an expert at getting into locked cars) and opened the door.
“Georgie!” she exclaimed in sincere surprise.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“No, it’s just that... You knocked!”
“I did.” He smiled with false modesty, very pleased she had noticed.
“I thought you couldn’t touch things?”
“I’ve been practicing.” He made a knocking motion where the door would have been, had it been shut. Again, Cally heard the soft knocking sound. It was a little unnerving to hear it coming from empty air, and she said “You should keep practicing.”
He thrust his hands deep into the pockets of tattered gray trousers. His shirt was, if possible, even more threadbare than the trousers. “Who are you supposed to be dressed as now?” Cally asked him.
“I am dressed as myself,” he said. “I came to tell you my story. I want you to make it into an e-book, so I can read it. If you have time,” he added thoughtfully.
“Georgie.” She smiled. “I have nothing but time.” Standing back from the door, she said, “Come on in.”
“Are you sure?”
“Only when I invite you,” she clarified. “And I am inviting you now.”
She shut the door behind him and he sat on the bed as she went to the desk to get her notepad. “I was born in a place far, far from here,” he began, “in a land we called The Mother of All Lands, but after I left there I heard it was called Hispaniola by others, out in the world.” Cally scribbled quickly to keep up with him. “I was named after an ancestor of mine, a famous prophet, a great prophet, some said, whose name was Guacanagarix. But after I left there, my boss could not pronounce my name, so he just called me George. And George I have been ever since.”
Cally held up her pen. “Wait a second,” she said. “Can you spell that for me, please? Gwaka... what was it?”
He grinned patiently. “Cally, I wanted to tell you one other thing, too.”
“And what is that, George?”
“Welcome home,” he said.