Linksshifter II

A Song For Collapsing Buildings

With the last of the triumphant Everton fans shooed out the door, still singing, scarves over their heads, as they stumbled out onto the Mass Ave sidewalk, it was like the bar had just taken a deep, deep breath: the games all over until the NBA started late in the evening, this was going to be as quiet as the Galway Arms ever got. Brenna stretched out, knitting her fingers as she extended her arms over her head, then pulled down, almost offhandedly tossing her rag onto the table where Kevin and Annette were still sitting. She blinked, mouth falling open in shock. "Oh my god – I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking –"

Annette shook her head, smiling, and folded the rag up on itself, pushing it back over. "No, it's fine – I know you must've had it hard this morning, with everybody in like this. Come on, sit down; you deserve a break, right?"

Brenna looked around, not sure whether to take the offer. "Yeah, we've emptied out, but I'm still on shift, so –"

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Cooper called back from the bar, where he was wiping down the drain under the taps. "Go ahead and sit down, we're fine for now, and I know you'll see anyone coming in that you'll have to pick up orders from." He leaned over again, reloading the shelf of pint glasses out of the dishwasher, and Brenna shrugged, sitting down across from Annette as Kevin pulled his hat and pint out of the way.

Annette pushed what was left of her fruit bowl across the table. "I know we can't get you a drink while you're on the clock, but sit down, hang out; we're celebrating." She was hunched over the table like she was on the edge of her chair, her eyes bright. "Kevin's back from Singapore for once in forever, and I made a big sale this week – Anthony from my agency even bet that nobody could clear it, but if you know the right people, and get it set up right, even a haunted house isn't hard to sell around here."

Brenna lifted her eyebrows. "Haunted?"

"I just wish I'd've been back here the last three months while she had it on the market," Kevin said, sipping at his Guinness. "She was telling me about it – an old Victorian in Somerville with a legend that there's some ghost of a maid or a cook or something that keeps everything dead frozen. And I'm still renting that third-floor sauna room in Medford while I'm in-country – I wouldn't mind the temperature, and if Ritchie doesn't change his mind and decide he wants to get together again, a roommate wouldn't be too bad either." He took a long pull on his beer and set it back down in his hat; Annette patted him on the arm.

"There, there; you'll be fine, Ritchie doesn't know what he's walking away from." She sipped from her mimosa. "But you shouldn't take ghosts so lightly either – if you aren't careful, you could get in real trouble."

Kevin arched an eyebrow. "I'll believe that when I see it – I've seen a lot of weird things from one end of the world to the other, but ghosts, people just lingering around after death? I don't have any kind of evidence of that." He shook his head, and took another drink.

Brenna was looking down at her folded hands. "I'm not so sure – I mean, I can't say that I did, but I can't say that I didn't, either."

Annette leaned forward across her drink. "Wait – so you've seen a ghost?"

Brenna leaned back, dropping her hands into her lap. "I don't know – I'm not sure – not exactly. Maybe I've been inside a ghost?"

Kevin flexed his eyebrows. "I don't have a lot of practical experience with chicks, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it usually works." Annette punched him in the arm.

"No, not a ghost of a person – like I said, I'm not sure, but if it was a ghost, it was more the ghost of a house if it was the ghost of anything. If it wasn't the ghost of something bigger – if it was even a ghost at all."