The Bride Wore Black (6 page)

T
he organ music
swelled throughout the downstairs rooms, signaling the beginning of the ceremony. The artfully realistic LED faux-torches flickered in their wall sconces, casting an eerie red light throughout the open space of the Blanchard House.

“We’re go for mother of the groom,” Stacy said into her headset microphone, consulting her clipboard and checking off the item with a pen which she retrieved from the pocket of her custom-fitted black hooded robe. “Cue the lightning.”

At her command, a technician activated the flash of lightning outside the windows and the immediate crash of thunder that followed it. The sound of howling wind blew through the carefully concealed speakers throughout the house.

“And we’re now go for mother of the bride. Cue the screams.” As part of their inside joke, it had been decided that the soundtrack to a torture would echo through the mansion when the woman appeared, despite having proven to a grand jury that she had nothing to do with Lady Persephone’s unfortunate death. The raccoons that occupied the attic of the estate had done that when they chewed through her safety line.

Mrs. Davenport pressed her lips together into a thin line when the photographer from the magazine snapped a picture of her entrance on the arm of her son. While he looked perfectly dashing in his leather pants and matching vest with complimentary gossamer gargoyle wings and cosplay latex ears, she looked uncomfortably out of place in her wedding standard of a mauve dress with a chiffon skirt and beaded bodice. Clearing her of all charges in the recent case had been a breeze compared to getting her to cooperate with the wedding theme as some things about the woman had been impossible to negotiate.

Jeremiah glared at his kidnapper from his position on the other side of the doorway. “Hag,” he whispered under his breath.

“Flower boy,” she hissed back before walking down the aisle.

“That didn’t even make sense!” he hissed at her retreating back.

The music shifted into an even more ominous key and the organist began to play the minor chords with a loud flourish. The bridesmaid torch bearers walked down the aisle, followed by the hooded executioners serving as groomsmen. Last to arrive was Cat, who looked stunning in her elegant yet eccentric dress, on the arm of the most doting, understanding governor the world had ever known.

“You sure about this, kiddo?” Stacy asked, jerking her head towards the door. “We’ve got a car with plenty of proven trunk space just outside. We can get you outta here before anyone even figures out you’re gone!”

Governor Davenport looked put out at the suggestion, but Cat laughed. “Actually, I am sure. This feels right, now that I’ve gotten used to the idea. And now that I know just how far my parents were willing to go to put this all together… well, my dad anyway. My mom still hasn’t realized it’s actually happening.”

Stacy laughed quietly and pressed the mic button on her headset.

“And we’re go for the bride. Cue the bats.”

Dozens of very authentic-looking fake bats dropped out of a hidden net on the ceiling, their solar panels causing their wings to flap due to the light from the sconces. They fluttered around overhead while the guests looked on in impressed but skeptical awe. Cat beamed at the way her dream wedding was taking place, and for his part, Dog looked as enraptured as any groom ever had at the sight of his bride approaching the altar. The fact that it was a faux-stone altar meant for a human sacrifice only detracted from the romance of the moment by a little bit. The real ick factor took place when the bride and groom skipped the traditional unity candle and instead held a wooden stake together and drove it straight through an actual heart, acquired earlier that day from the butcher shop by one unlucky intern.

“I gotta hand it to you, Stace, this has been one of our better moments,” Tori said, coming up beside her now that the bride and groom were facing the applauding gathering of undead guests, complete with costumes and makeup.

“Are you high?” Stacy repeated, throwing Tori’s own words back at her. “This has been a nightmare, complete with creatures from actual nightmares! Look at this place!”

“Yeah, but it’s been wild! Sure, the Southern belles and their stuffy traditions are our bread and butter, but this… this is about really getting married the way you want to, without all those fancy trappings. All dead people and ghosts aside, this is what love is all about.”

“I’ll go so far as to plant a maybe on that one,” Stacy agreed. “They sure do look happy. And far be it from us to judge, but I bet they really will enjoy telling people about this someday.”

On the stroke of midnight, the bride and groom descended the stairs to make their getaway. Cat threw her bouquet of dead roses, which no one dared to catch due to a fear of being poked by the prominent thorns. They drove off in their chauffeured hearse, and the remaining guests who’d managed to last until twelve dispersed to their cars.

“Okay, where do we go get a drink in this hick town?” Jeremiah asked after the last guest had left. “I need my customary shot of forget-it-all sauce.”

“Hey! This isn’t a hick town,” Corey piped up, feigning offense, “even if the only place to get a bite to eat or drink is at my grandfather’s restaurant, Chicken Lips.”

“You’re Jebbie’s grandson?” Jeremiah demanded.

“Sure! How do you think I knew to keep an eye on y’all? Grandpa called me up and told me you were asking after Miss Agnes, so I knew there’d be trouble. There’s always a little bit of trouble where she’s concerned.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to let this golden opportunity go to waste,” Stacy said, gesturing to the foyer where the wait staff had set up a bar. “How often do we get to party with the undead?”

They moved several tables and chairs into the parlor and set about toasting the event, raising their glasses to everything from the near crime of kidnapping Jeremiah and Corey to the look on Mrs. Davenport’s face when her picture was taken with a gargoyle that she’d given birth to.

“And I’d like to offer a piece of toast… to Miss Agnes,” Tori said, raising her glass to the ceiling and causing eyebrows to go up around room.

“Wait a minute, I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts,” Stacy said, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

“I’ve changed my mind. Agnes and I are tight.” Tori threw back her shot of bourbon and pounded her chest once with her fist in a gesture of solidarity with the dead woman. The lights flickered overhead and went out for a moment as she did so, causing everyone to hold their breath until an electrician called from outside that he’d unplugged the wrong rigging box.

“Oh, why the long face, Jeremiah?” Stacy asked. “Aren’t you having fun?”

“It’s still not fair! That old bat—pardon me, actual bats overhead—held me at gunpoint and kidnapped me, and they didn’t do anything to her. Talk about your privileged class getting away with murder!”

“Now, now, she was cleared of the murder. Lady Persephone didn’t mean to hang herself, it was staged to try to make this place off limits so Cat couldn’t get married here. The raccoons chewed through her safety rope and she ended up actually hanging herself. Mrs. Davenport couldn’t have known that would happen.”

“And the frogs? And the screaming? And the
kidnapping
of your favorite
flower boy
?” he demanded, frowning into his drink.

“Well, those were unfortunate. She staged them to give the reporter plenty to write about in order to keep her daughter from doing this. But look on the bright side… Cat got to have the wedding she wanted and she still got to have her mom at her wedding—or force her mom to attend her wedding, if you want to get technical, which in my book makes it all worth it—while you got to spend quality time in close quarters with Corey getting to know each other better.”

“I’d let a momzilla lock me in the trunk of a car with Corey,” Mandy said, letting her whiskey do the talking for her. She looked up in alarm when she realized she’d said that out loud, but grinned sheepishly when Corey smiled at her.

“So if this was all a dumb trick, why’d she come back to the house that night?” he asked, his tired and somewhat alcohol saturated brain trying to make sense of it all.

“She called that reporter with another anonymous tip. Turns out, she was the one telling him all these things in the first place. He called me after learning that the ‘ghost’ had been sighted at the house again, and I filled him in. He was supposed to document everything and get us the proof we needed that the old mom was in on it, but when you called Rod, there was no need for the reporter’s help anymore. He invested in a much better camera that doesn’t require a flash, so he still got enough pictures to go with the ghost story he originally planned. By the way, Tori, you’re gonna look fabulous in his article!”

“Oh really? Well, speaking of looking fabulous…” She got up and crossed the room with far more stable direction than she should have been capable of. She reached out both hands to Stacy and pulled her to her feet, then led her to the side room where the wraps had been stored for the evening. Tori pushed aside a few leftover coats until she found a garment bag, then handed it to her boss. “Get in there, and put that on.”

“Why?”

“Just do it,” she answered with a smile.

W
hen Stacy stepped
out of the closet, everyone had vanished. She stood in the middle of the parlor surveying the remnants of a Goth wedding, but couldn’t find any of her friends or co-workers. A ringing bell outside caught her attention, and she followed a path of black rose petals to the back doors of the house.

She opened the doors to the veranda and gasped. While Stacy and company had been toasting to another successful event, an unknown number of helpers had been whisking away the blood wedding and replacing it with a modest garden party theme. An aisle of white rose petals led in a meandering path through the gardens to a festooned arch where Nathan waited in a white suit.

“What is this?” Stacy asked, looking around at her friends’ beaming faces and gesturing to the simple peach dress she wore.

“I told you I was gonna get back at you for that whole hanging bit,” Tori said sweetly, wearing an adoring smile for her best friend. “So here it is—your wedding day. Er, night. Whatever.”

Music began to play and everyone took their seats. Tori pressed a small nosegay into Stacy’s hands and gave her a gentle push forward before coming around to walk ahead of her. Mandy joined her, and for the first time Stacy noticed the similar style and coloring of their outfits. Jeremiah approached in a grey suit and offered her his arm.

“May I give away the bride?” he asked in a completely serious voice. Stacy looked at him and nodded through the mist of tears that blurred everything.

“I don’t understand, what is all this?” she finally asked, her voice catching in her throat.

“You make this moment possible for so many people, but you couldn’t find the time or energy to make it happen for yourself. So we stepped in.”

“Wait just a minute… you’re not even the least bit drunk, are you?” she demanded, sounding almost outraged. Jeremiah burst out laughing.

“Not in the slightest! You had a little bit too much, I think, but the rest of us were toasting with shot glasses of sweet tea! After all, there’s no drinking on the job, remember?” he chided in a sing-song voice.

Stacy looked frightened for a moment, more frightened than she’d been of ghost stories or plagues of frogs or accidental suicides. She felt a stab of cold fear in her chest at the thought of getting married right that moment.

“Wait! I can’t get married, I don’t have a marriage license!” she protested, grasping at straws as she fought to stall for time.

“I took care of that too,” Tori said, turning around and giving her an evil grin. “I look a lot like you with these highlights, don’t you think?”

“That’s against the law, you know!” Stacy hissed, still walking towards the altar. “I could have you arrested for identity theft! And for impersonating an event planner! And for wrongful elopement with intent to commit matrimony!”

“Those aren’t even real things!” Tori shot back, still beaming as she and Mandy escorted her up the aisle.

“Can I be of any assistance?” Rod asked, wide-eyed. Stacy nodded and grabbed his arm.

“Yes! These people are trying to force me into marriage! They broke the law and everything! Arrest them!”

“I have a better idea.” Rod stepped in front of Jeremiah, who nodded and stepped aside. Rod laced Stacy’s hand through his arm and continued their slow walk to the altar. He reached into his back pocket and retrieved his handcuffs, clasping them on her wrist and fastening the other end to his.

“What are you doing?” she cried, trying to figure out what her brain and her heart wanted at that moment and coming up empty.

“I’m doing what you wanted. You’ve wanted this ever since you first laid eyes on Nathan, but you’ve been too focused on making other people happy to get around to it. Look at what you put yourself through just for tonight. You wore a black robe to an undertaker’s workshop in a wedding that was held twenty feet from where a woman died only days ago, for crying out loud, just because it’s what the bride wanted. Now it’s time to have what you want, and he’s waiting for you right there.”

Stacy’s gaze followed to where Rod pointed until her eyes settled on Nathan. He wore a look she’d seen hundreds of times in her career, the look of a man whose every dream was about to come true thanks to one woman and her willingness to say yes. In that moment, her own longing for fulfillment flooded her heart with love and desire.

Stacy couldn’t take her eyes off him. They reached the altar where the justice of the peace waited in what was thankfully the only black robe present at this affair. She barely registered Rod taking the handcuffs off her arm and passing her hand to Nathan after giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Hi,” Nathan said softly, a simple greeting for a moment that didn’t need any further explanation.

“Hi” she replied, still unable to look away from him. “So, we’re really doing this?”

“Of course not, not if it isn’t what you want. But it’s the grandest gesture I could come up with. If you don’t want to get married tonight, we won’t, and there won’t be any hard feelings. I’ll still love you and chase you and bother you, but we don’t have to do this. I just couldn’t think of any other way to make you understand how serious I am about wanting you to be my wife.”

Stacy finally looked away from him and saw the faces of the people who were dearest to her in the world, saw their joyful, grateful expressions at getting to share in this moment. She looked around the garden, seeing the fountain pond reflecting both the tiny white lights and the stars overhead.

“I want to marry you, Nathan. Right now.”

“Because if this isn’t the wedding of your dreams, we can—”

“It’s perfect,” she said, cutting him off before he could offer her another way. “It’s exactly the wedding I would have thrown for myself if I’d been the one to plan it, which is probably why I couldn’t slow down long enough to do it.”

He smiled at her, then nodded to the judge who opened his book and began the ceremony. Words swirled around them, words of loving devotion and promises of faithfulness. When it was time for their rings, Mandy jumped forward and placed Nathan’s ring in Stacy’s hand, grinning triumphantly at her boss. A cheer went up from the group when the judge pronounced them husband and wife and invited them to kiss.

At the moment their lips met, the entire property was plunged into darkness. There was a collective groan at the power failure until the electrician called out that he had nothing to do with it. Using his cell phone screen and the full moon for light, he made his way around to the side of the house and declared that all the breakers were on.

"Look!” one of the newer employees cried, pointing towards the house. Everyone turned to look back at the mansion whose black silhouette shone faintly against the moonlit charcoal sky. A light moved from room to room, hovering at what had to be several feet above the floor. The light traveled from one window to the next, pausing in each space as though looking out at the happy gathering below. Finally, the light moved away from the windows altogether for only a moment, then flew out of the chimney and illuminated the garden below. It hung over them like a glowing beacon for only a matter of seconds, then faded as it rose in the sky.

Excited mumbling and whispered questions worked their way through the small crowd of guests. In the near darkness Stacy saw Tori take Rod’s hand in fear, and smiled in spite of the circumstances when he put a protective arm around her shoulders.

Just as suddenly as the power had gone off, the strings of twinkling lights came back on over the patio.

“Was that… Agnes?” Stacy asked softly, a reverent tone in her voice as she hoped for the ghost to move on. Nathan pulled her close and nuzzled her ear, then spoke softly.

“I can’t speak to everything that’s gone on here, but I paid a guy to do that bit just to mess with Tori!” he laughed. Stacy stepped back and looked at him in shock, but then couldn’t help but laugh out loud.