as I can.”
“Um, better?”
“Yes. Think of them like...good luck charms.” Beth patted his arm, then glanced around the pub.
“There’s still some unrest here. I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to cleanse the air. It’s a good
thing I caught you alone.”
“Um, Fizz is in the garden,” Ryan said quickly.
Beth shrugged. “Don’t worry.” She opened her handbag of brightly coloured, woven wool, and
brought out a small wad of stemmed herbs. “I’m going to burn sage and, when I’m done, it should feel
a lot better in here.”
“Um...” Ryan wasn’t sure what to say. Beth didn’t wait for him, however, and moved through the
bar. She flipped out a zippo lighter, and used it to light her herb bundle.
“Um,” Ryan said again, glancing up at the smoke alarms and sprinkler system on the ceiling. He
hoped nothing would go off.
Beth must have noticed him panicking. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Not a lot of smoke comes from
this, but it’s enough. This is blessed white sage.”
“Uh, oh-kay.” Ryan conceded to let Beth do whatever she needed to do. In a way, her presence
calmed him. He tried not to think about the last time he’d seen her, when Beth had burst into the
pigeon loft in the midst of that terrible night. The way her blonde hair had lit up all white was burned
into his memory. Sheila had explained to him and Matt about spirits and visions. So, was Beth able to
cast visions too?
Ryan wasn’t sure he wanted to know, not right now.
He watched Beth move around the bar, waving her bundle of lightly smoking sage. She hummed
under her breath, a soft tune Ryan didn’t recognise. The smell of sage reached his nose. Ryan knew
that if any of the others were here, they’d roll their eyes and make snide remarks.
Well, maybe not Matt, not now. As for himself, Ryan wasn’t sure what to believe.
Beth came behind the bar, wafting sage around. She approached the cellar door, and Ryan opened
his mouth to warn her not to go down there.
Beth smiled at him calmly. “Can you open the door for me?”
“I – I don’t think...”
“Ryan. It’s fine. Nothing down there will hurt me, or you.”
Flushing, his hands almost shaking, Ryan got his keys and unlocked the cellar door. Beth went in,
wisps of sage smoke trailing behind her. Ryan flipped on the light switch, and the lights blinked on,
illuminated the stairwell. Beth descended the stairs, rounded the corner, and disappeared out of sight.
Ryan hated that cellar. Should he go in? He didn’t want to leave Beth on her own. After a brief
hesitation, Ryan followed. Strange, but it didn’t feel as cold as it usually did. He looked around the
vast cellar, spotting Beth at the other end of the room, opposite the air vent. As Ryan crept up to her,
he caught the tail end of a few whispered words. Beth’s eyes were closed, and she held the sage out in
front of her.
“Um, are you okay?” Ryan whispered.
Beth looked at him, nodding. “She was more than willing to leave. It was only a little girl, poor
thing.”
“H-Huh?”
“The spirit that lived in here,” Beth explained. “She’s gone now.” Her eyes flicked to the small
window by the drop hatch. From the garden outside, Fizz’s voice filtered through to them. “Garden
next,” she said.
* * *
Ryan wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this. When he’d thought of spirits and exorcisms before,
he’d always thought it would be more...dramatic. The way Beth breezed through the pub, apparently
sending spirits along their way, all seemed very...relaxed.
Although, Ryan supposed this was a vast improvement on the dramas of last Saturday night. He’d
rather never have to go through that again. He let Beth wander through the rest of the bar on her own,
and she was outside in the garden. Strange, but he felt oddly calm. Instead of continuing his cleaning,
Ryan poured himself a soda, and spent a few minutes staring into nothing. Traffic whizzed by outside,
and a few pedestrians were about. The pub’s doors were still locked, and would remain so until Ryan
knew what his colleagues wanted to do. He’d wait until Pete or Ginger were awake, anyway. A glance
at the clock, reading quarter to eleven, suggested that wouldn’t be happening just yet.
Fizz bounded up to the bar, a smile on his face. “Ryan? I wouldn’t wake anyone up if I had a
shower, would I?”
“Huh?” Ryan blinked, trying to concentrate. “Um, no?”
“The toilet doesn’t seem to be making a noise now,” Fizz said. “That’s a relief. I always thought
those pipes were gonna break or something! Seem to be fine now.”
“Oh...yeah, that is good.”
“So, I can have a shower?” Fizz asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Okay. Thanks!” He shot Ryan a happy grin, squeezed past him, and disappeared through the staff
door. His light footsteps skipped upstairs. Ryan raised an eyebrow. Well, at least someone was happy.
Resentment clawed at Ryan’s insides, trying to turn his thoughts sour. Did this mean that he’d lose
one of his very best friends, Ash, to loved up coupledom? Bleh. Certainly seemed that way. But hadn’t
Ryan been the one to encourage it? All for his own gain, of course. Ryan wasn’t sure what he’d hoped
to gain. Things didn’t seem as clear as they had a few weeks ago.
“Ryan?” Beth’s voice startled him, and he jumped. “Sorry,” she said. She placed her hand on his
shoulder. Ryan almost wanted to snap at her, but managed to hold it in. It wasn’t Beth he was angry at,
after all. He wasn’t entirely sure who he was angry at.
Beth seemed to understand. After a gentle squeeze, she pulled back, and settled herself on a bar
stool. “Want to talk about it?”
“Hah.” A humourless laugh escaped. “Not really.”
“It might make you feel better?”
Ryan wasn’t so sure. Yet the images burned in his mind anyway; he couldn’t exactly ignore them. It
was like remembering the scenes of a particularly nasty horror movie. He sighed heavily.
“It...it sounds...kinda stupid.”
“Stupid?” Beth raised a blonde eyebrow, then smiled with understanding. “Ryan, this is me you’re
talking to. I promise, nothing will sound stupid. Just try me. Why don’t we have a drink? It might
help.”
“Hn.” Ryan nodded in agreement. At this rate, though, he may well end up being an alcoholic.
After choosing their drinks, a gin and tonic for Beth, a whiskey and Coke for Ryan, he sat on the
stool next to Beth, leaning his arms on the bar. He told Beth everything, from the weird noises when
they’d first opened the pigeon loft, to Fizz moving in, everyone acting out of character, up to last
Saturday night, when everything seemed to blow up his in face.
He gulped down his drink, then described what had happened in Fizz’s room, with the visions of
blood, the way he – or whatever had been in Fizz – had tried to take Ginger from him, and how Ryan
had reacted. The unexplained cuts on his face, the way that person had attacked him with visions.
Ryan told Beth that it had seemed like the spirit, or whatever he was, had been trying to justify his
actions and by showing Fizz, then Ryan, a vision, and hoped to gain sympathy.
Ryan wasn’t quite sure. “I think the guy was warped, but what they did to him was fucking
horrible,” he concluded, knocking back the last of his drink. “And now it’s all in my head, and I
can’t...I can’t not think about it.”
Beth nodded, placing her hand over Ryan’s. “I’m so sorry, Ryan. I wish I’d known of this earlier, I
truly do. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Hah. Yeah, I guess. And Sammy’s arm is broken. I mean, God. And Fizz almost died.... I can’t get