Haunted Honeymoon (8 page)

“Milagro, I am shocked that you think I planned this happenstance of success! My life’s work is to help others find their calling.”

“Speaking of calling, why did you?”

“I hoped you would want to collaborate with me again.”

I burst out laughing. “Are you out of your twisted corkscrew of a mind? Why would I ever,
ever
want to see you again, let alone work with you?”

“My publisher wants another book. It could be a quite enriching project for you, not only as an artist, but as a fellow soul who is responsive to our animistic nature.”

“Nothing you can offer me would ever convince me to help you with fauxoir
dos
, the sequel.”

“Are you sure?” he said, and then he named a significant sum, a sum that surprised me, and added, “Cash. I will be in London for a week, and I can fly you there to meet with me and explore our second adventure together, my little bat.”

A trip to London would get me away from Ian. I’d be able to meet Wilcox Spiggott and he would show me another way, a
better
way, to live with this condition. “Okay,
Don
Pedro, I’ll meet you to talk about the book, but you have to fly me out first-class.”

I called Mercedes before noon to tell her what I was doing.

She said, “I can’t believe anyone is paying you that much to write. You can pay off your assessment fee.”

“Exactly. It’s too bad my only success is with loony nonsense. It’s a sad comment on society and the literary world.”

“I can watch Rosemary for you.”

“Fabulous. Do you think you can dig up anything about that vamp I told you about, Wilcox Spiggott? I think I’ll drop in on him while I’m there.”

“Why don’t you ask Gabriel? He’ll have the inside scoop.”

“I don’t want the Vamp Council to hassle Gabriel because of me. Not that anything
will
happen, but you know the Council has a problem with me already.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and so I said, “And, no, I haven’t told Ian I’m going. I need to get away from him and clear my head. Sometimes I think that he could convince me to do anything.”

I heard Mercedes sigh and she said, “Seriously? Because the only time I’ve ever seen you make compromises was when you were with Oswald.”

“That time I was
too
compromising. Trying to please others made me vulnerable to their machinations. You’re the only one I really trust to look out for my best interests.”

“That’s not true. There are others who love you and want the best for you.”

“Do you mean Ian?”

There was a pause, and she said, “I meant your dog.”

People who said you couldn’t run from your problems had obviously never flown first-class to London seated in a private pod with their own movies, luxury gift bags, and a super-cute flight attendant who gave a great minimassage.

After a tasty Bloody Mary, I put on my complimentary terry slippers, eyeshade, and headphones, and tried to sleep.

four
An American, a Broad

I jauntily wheeled my chartreuse zebra-striped suitcase through the airport and to the stairs that led to the trains. Although I’d repaired one of the case’s broken wheels with a piece of wire coat hanger, it still looked very stylish.

I liked the hustle and bustle of big-city public transportation, and I liked grabbing a window seat on a train and seeing billboards and scenery flashing by.

Mercedes had recommended a hotel in Kensington that was close to the Tube. The hotel was a well-kept, renovated Victorian with moderately priced rooms, just the sort of comfortable, convenient place Mercedes would stay while checking out bands.

My junior suite was a medium-sized room with a love seat, a narrow desk, a view to the street, and an all-white bathroom with a deep tub.

I walked to a French café, bought a latte, and took a stroll to the park, trying to remember to look to my right when crossing streets. When I returned to my hotel, I called
Don
Pedro.

“
Don
Pedro, why don’t we meet at one of the local attractions so I can sightsee while you tell me whatever?”

“Alas, I have so many followers all over the world, those who come to me for guidance in the ways of the shapeshifter. I fear that we would be interrupted and I want to give you my undivided attention.”

“Gotcha, no witnesses.” I was tempted to tell
Don
Pedro that I actually knew a
real
shapeshifter—it had something to do with biology and optical illusions—but he’d insist that he was one himself.

“May I come to your room?” he asked.

“Only if you promise not to put the moves on me.” I was joking since he was a little bug of a fellow that I could crush between my fingers.

He tittered and said, “I shall treat you with the utmost respect even though you are certainly a most enticing young woman and if I were younger—”

“Stop or you’ll give me brain cooties. I’ll see you at noon.”

There was a knock on my door exactly at noon. I opened it to see
Don
Pedro Nascimento, officially the author of
Spiritual Transformation: Adventures of a Shapeshifter.

He was a tiny brown man with enormous chocolate eyes behind oversized black-framed glasses. He wore khaki pants, a white shirt with colorful yarn embroidery of birds and flowers, and a brown and white woven jacket with a llama motif and fringe. He carried the same worn leather satchel he’d had when I’d first met him.

“¡Mi Milagro!”
he said, and reached out to hug me.

I moved away and said, “Come in,
Don
Pedro.”

He walked into the room and sat down on the love seat. He smelled of coconut oil, and I had a sudden craving for a piña colada, a sunny beach, and a Rupert Holmes tune playing on
a boom box. I turned the desk chair to face
Don
Pedro and sat down.

“Your aura is even more brilliant than when we last met!” he said. “I hope that your journey is astonishing.”

“Yes, first-class is definitely the way to go.”

“I meant your journey
on this astral plane
, Milagro, exploring and discovering your spirit self. Your power glows from you like the sun rising over the red rocks of Sedona, where I once met a shaman in the form of a javelina—”

“That’s utterly enthralling. Let’s talk business.”

He crossed one toothpick leg over the other and said, “I have watched you in my dreams, and I am both enraptured and fretful.”

“That’s kind of you. Do you mind saving the
caca
for people who pay for your seminars and private consultations?”

“There are different truths, Milagro. There is the truth that you think you know about me, and there also exists the truth of your book as I lived it.”

“How could you live something that I fabricated?”

“It could only happen through the magical meeting of our minds, my Milagro!” he said ecstatically. “This is why you and only you can help write my second book. It explores life in different realms.”

“Like the earth realm and space realm? Aliens?” I said, suddenly interested. “I’d love to subvert the clichés of aliens as long-armed, big-headed pixies. What about swarms of nanorobots that can cluster together to mimic any other life-form? I could tie that into your shapeshifter mythology.”

Don
Pedro held up his weathered hand. “I was speaking of the realms of life and afterlife and most especially the Middle World. Life after life and before deathly death. I traveled to an island in the azure Caribbean, and a tribe gathered to make a feast for me and …”

I dazed off at this point, because all of
Don
Pedro’s stories followed the same plot: he was treated as a wise elder by indigenous people who had a feast in his honor. They invited him to a ceremony, injested magical potions, had visions, shapeshifted, et cetera. However, the word “undead” caught my attention.

“
Don
Pedro, what exactly do you mean by
undead
?”

“The tribe,” he said, and then whistled. “That is how they say their name, the whistle of a bird, because they are as birds, neither of earth nor heaven. Their name means the Caretakers. They showed me how they raise up the dead with their astonishing juju.”

“If it isn’t astonishing, it isn’t juju,” I commented.

“I sat with one of these living-dead creatures, and we smoked a bowl of an herb that only grows there in the volcanic soil. He told me of returning to life from the misty swamp of eternity.”
Don
Pedro stared at me and said solemnly, “This being was an oracle, and he asked me to give you this gift.”

“That’s really not necessary …” I began, worried that he’d pull a mummified foot or, worse, a dried man-handle from his satchel.

Instead,
Don
Pedro brought out a large clear plastic bag with a folded cloth inside. “The oracle said that you would know how to use it to help those who wish to come back and to guide them to the island.”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” I took the bag and saw that the material was handwoven of fine yarn. It was white with an intricate border of suns, moons, mountains, and waves. “It’s beautiful.” I would have to show this to my friends in the Stitching & Bitching group. “The colors are so pretty.”

“It is imbued with magical powders that will preserve and revive the dead and was woven by a blind
bruja
whose third-eye guides her. The color is taken from the spring flowers that grow in the soil by a spring of freshwater.”

“Organic dyes, then. I thought so.”

“By the spring, I saw a monkey, a
mono araña
, with a face as white as a ghost, and a bat flew overhead. The monkey said to me, ‘The little bat above must spread her wings or she will fall into the chasm. Her strength and her …’”
Don
Pedro paused and wrinkled his brow. “‘Her strength and her
fun
are gifts to be used.’”

My strength and fun? As usual,
Don
Pedro made no sense. I held up the powdery cloth and said, “I’m not going to have any problems getting this through customs, am I?”

“Laws of mortal man do not govern the dead.”

“That goes without saying. Now, about the writing fee …” I lobbied for twice the amount he had initially offered. Fifteen minutes later I agreed to a sum that would pay for my loft repairs and keep me gainfully underemployed for another year.

Don
Pedro agreed to transfer a third of the funds into my bank account, pay another third upon delivery of the manuscript, and pay the balance when it was accepted by the publisher.

I felt somewhat regretful as I signed the release that gave
Don
Pedro all rights to the sequel. But he was the reason for the first book’s success: people wanted to read about
his
life and they adored his loony interviews and seminars.

“One more thing,”
Don
Pedro said.

“What?”

“It would please me to have the story written by hand,” he said, and brought out five standard composition books. He unfolded a sheet of paper from one. “Here is a sample of my writing and you have such a discerning eye, I know you can copy it.”

No electronic evidence, I thought. “You’re in luck,
Don
Pedro. I happen to be an accomplished forger.”

“Oh, no, this is not forgery,” he said, shocked. “It is transcribing from my spiritual transmission.”

“You say potato, I say fauxtato. Whatever.”

As
Don
Pedro left, he said, “You will know how to use the magic of the cloth.”

“I don’t believe in magic.”

“You
are
magic.” He put his fine-boned hand on my wrist. “You are Milagro de Los Santos, the Miracle of the Saints. You must trust in yourself, in the role that destiny has written for you. Even though others would put you in a cage, the one who watches you recognizes your true self and loves you still.”

I was surprised at the shiver that went through me. “I know you’re full of it, but damn if I don’t want to believe you.”

“Then do,” he said, and winked one of his big bug eyes.

After
Don
Pedro left I decided to call Wilcox Spiggott.

Mercedes had been able to find only a few public records on Wilcox and, most interesting, that he participated in surfing competitions. I called the number listed for Crimson Leasing Agents & Real Estate. A receptionist answered with a crisp voice, and I said, “May I please speak to Wilcox Spiggott.”

“Might I say who is calling?”

I didn’t know if my reputation had traveled here, but I didn’t want to scare Wilcox off. “My name is Milly. I’m a journalist writing a story on surfing in the UK.”

In a moment he was on. “Wil Spiggott here.”

“Aloha, dude,” I said in surferese. “I’m doing some research on the best of Brit surfing and I’m looking for someone who’s hip to things oceanic and—”

“Who gave you my name?”

“Ahhh, well, I was at Hermosa Beach and this dude, awesome surfer, what was his name? Bitchin’ technique, really knew how to drop in late.”

“Bodhi?”

“Yeah, I think that was it,” I said, wondering where I’d heard that name before.

“Long streaked hair, killer smile, liked to skydive? That Bodhi?”

Wow, that sounded so familiar. “I’m pretty sure he’s the one. We were downing some brewskis at a bonfire and I was like, dude, do you know anyone I can interview, and he was like, dude, you totally gotta talk to Wil Spiggott.” I wondered if I could expand this narrative as a short piece with a mutated shark that would represent the offshore oil industry.

“Bodhi gave you
this
number?” Wilcox said.

“Uh-huh. Any chance I could buy you a drink today?”

“What do you look like?”

“No one’s complained,” I said, which wasn’t entirely true, since some people didn’t appreciate my physical and sartorial extravagance.

Wilcox said he could meet me at a pub after work. That gave me time to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral. I cried as I read the memorial to American soldiers who died in World War II, young men long gone but not forgotten.