She Smells the Dead (2 page)

Was he worried about me?
Nah
. Calvin just liked to goad me and he knew how much my newfound paranormal power bothered me. “Oh yeah, in full Technosmellor,” I quipped, only to inwardly groan.
Technosmellor
? What was up with me today? There was something seriously wrong with my head.

“If you don’t help me before I have to skip another meal,
I’ll
be the ghost and I’ll come back to haunt
you
,” I said with one hand on my hip and the other pointing at his chest.

Calvin leaned in inches from my face, with my finger now pressing against his chest, wearing a lazy grin. “I could only wish for that kind of haunting. You smell like strawberries Yuki. Who wouldn’t want to be haunted by you?”

His eyes were so blue.
Wait, what
? Was he teasing me or was he serious? Then with those gorgeous blue eyes,
had they always been that shade of blue
, he winked at me and pulled away. What the heck did that mean? Was Calvin Miller
flirting
with me? No way. He was just a friend, an
annoying
friend who liked to tease me. That’s all it was. Cal was just teasing me. No big.
Right
.

“It doesn’t work like that,” I claimed. At least I didn’t think it did. God, I was such a mess! I couldn’t think straight. I jumped up off the bed and starting pacing my bedroom floor. I just needed to stretch my legs, right?
Sure
. “This is what I have so far,” I said pushing my laptop towards him and accidentally knocking the beetle plushie to the floor behind the bed. “It’s a weird coincidence, isn’t it?” I asked as I resumed my pacing. “This vinegar smell impression and a dead guy with some big vinegar empire inheritance scandal?” O.k. I was probably exaggerating a bit, but the pieces did all seem to fall together. Peeking at Calvin out of the corner of my eye I nearly tripped over my own feet.
Slick Yuki, real slick
. Fortunately he seemed too focused on reading the obituary to notice.

“Yuki, you have plans after school tomorrow?” Calvin turned to me and asked
.

How does he raise one brow like that
?
Does he practice in the mirror
?

“Nope, no plans yet,” I said flipping my hair as I looked at him over my shoulder.
I can use cool poses too Calvin Miller
.

“Good we can take my truck and head out to this farm after school,” he said as he stood up and stretched showing a bit of tanned washboard abs.

Not that I was looking
.

“I’ll check the online maps when I get home and sketch out some directions. Don’t forget to eat. You’re looking even more pale than usual,” he said as he grabbed his backpack and sauntered out the door.

At a loss for what to say, I nearly thanked him for the beetle plushie.
I was so not doing that
. “Uhm, sure. See you tomorrow,” I said to his receding back.
Son of a dung beetle
. He had made me feel like an idiot,
again
.

Chapter 3

Senior year day two.
Only a gazillion more days to go
.

“Witch,” Jay Freeman sniped at me as he pushed past me in the hall, nearly dumping the contents of my backpack. He said it like he was spitting out something foul tasting.

Whatever
.

Some of the J-team jocks and cheerleader bimbettes started calling me that Freshman year. It was lame then and it was beyond lame now.
If they only knew
. I had never practiced witchcraft, though what I knew of Wicca and herb lore from Calvin was pretty cool, but try explaining that to the J-team.

Freshman year I bought this silver evil eye pendant. Calvin was with me at the time, shopping in this little import store in Portland, and he said it was for good luck. I thought it looked kind of creepy with my all black ensemble, so I bought it and put it on right there in the store.
Plus, who couldn’t use some good luck
?

I was still wearing it when Jared Zempter fell on his face in front of me while playing basketball in gym class. I’ve always been uncomfortable in the gym. It was like a pedestal for jocks to strut their stuff.
Gag me
. So I was fidgeting with my necklace while sitting on the bench wearing my faded Depeche Mode t-shirt and ripped skull tights. I wasn’t even paying attention to the class, which just made the situation worse. Jared and his friends claimed that I was in a trance, how embarrassing, and using my evil eye pendant to channel my dark powers.
Great
.

By the time I changed out of my gym clothes and ran to the cafeteria for lunch, the J-team had spread rumors to the entire school.

“So Yuki, I hear you killed a cat for a blood sacrifice and called upon the powers of Satan to make Jared Zempter trip in gym class,” Calvin said as I set my lunch tray on the table.

“Yeah, it couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with his sneaker laces being untied,” I grumbled. I pushed food around on my plate making little food sculptures wondering if anyone would even remember all this by the next day.
Apparently they had
.

Could this day get much worse? Wait. I should never tempt fate by asking that question. Things can always get worse. I must have lousy karma. What could I have been in my last life that would cause such horrible luck for me now?
Probably a dung beetle
. I started to laugh, but then realized I didn’t need to give the J-team more fodder for making fun of me. With my luck they’d snap a picture of me laughing to myself in the hall and it would end up in the school paper. I can see the headline now, “Evil Witch Yuki laughs maniacally while communing with her spirit minions.” I guess it wouldn’t be that far from the truth. I may not be able to speak to spirits
but I could smell the dead
.

“Hey! Yuki-sama,” Gordan Avery said as he ran up to me. Gordy was in the anime club with me and thought I was some kind of hero for changing my name to Yuki.

“Cal gave me another dung beetle plushie last night,” I said gravely.

“Want me to take him out for you?” Gordy asked in his hit-man gruff voice.

“Nah, I was thinking of bringing him to anime club next week though,” I said and laughed. I couldn’t keep a straight face for long while talking to Gordy.

“Oh o.k., I’ll make sure to queue up some yaoi. Loveless made him squirm last time you were mad at him,” Gordy said laughingly.

“Ah Gordy, you’re the best. Thanks! See you there.” I had to run to get to physics class before the bell rang.

Chapter 4

I stared at the clock as it tick-ticked its way through the last period of the day. When the last bell rang I already had my bag slung over my shoulder and was half-way up the row of desks. The vinegar smell was getting worse and I couldn’t wait to get on the road with Calvin and solve the case of Mr. Smelly so I could be back to normal life. It had nothing to do with seeing Calvin.
Nothing at all
.

He was waiting for me by his truck with his head tilted up like he was sunning himself.

“Hey skin cancer! You ready to go?” I shouted over at him. I had hoped to startle him and break his calm, cool façade but he just slowly opened his eyes and stretched.

“Sure Dung Beetle Princess, ready when you are,” he said as he jingled his keys.

Oh boy, this was going to be a pleasure trip
. I just rolled my eyes and jumped up on the running board so I could climb up into the passenger seat. “Ew, it smells like wet dog in here,” I complained.

Calvin just swung up into the driver seat and grinned his toothy smile at me. “Well my spirit animal
is
a wolf,” he said as he started the engine and backed the truck out of the parking space. “It could be worse. It could smell like your spirit animal Yuki,” he said and coughed a little to cover his chuckle.

Oh yeah, laugh it up big guy
.

“Well, it smells gross. You should think about hosing it out or something,” I said while wondering why it smelled like wet dog in here when I knew Calvin’s family didn’t have any pets.

He just shrugged and waited for the traffic light to change and then turned his truck,
his
smelly truck
, onto the highway that would take us close to the Green family farm. He was doing me a favor driving me out to the farm, so I tried not to complain anymore about his truck hygiene. But just for the record?
Wet dog and vinegar just don’t mix
.

Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to take the sensory overload we turned onto a gravel drive and Calvin pulled to the side of the road. I rolled down the window to try to catch my breath and settle my stomach. The wet dog smell did seem to fade a little, but the vinegar smell just became stronger. “I guess this is the place,” I said wincing at the headache beginning in my temples. Now that we were here I had no idea what to do next.
It’s not like I had time to come up with a plan or anything
.

Calvin, however, must have spent the entire school day scheming. “O.k. you’re name is Cindy and you’re doing a school report on organic farms in the area,” he said, “I learned on the Internet that the Green family was clever and when organic farming became popular they played on their name and became a ‘green’ farm.”

So apparently he had worked on this plan through the night as well.
Yup, I’m a slacker
.
Thanks Calvin Miller for making me look bad
.

I grabbed a notebook and pen from my school bag preparing for the part I was about to play.
Stalling for time
. I’m not good at acting. In school I leave the drama to the cheerleader bimbettes. If I were really honest with myself I’d have to admit that I was scared. How was I going to lie to a grieving widow and figure out what this ghost needed so he could move on?

“Can I just use my real name?” I asked Calvin, “I’m not good at lying. I think I’ll do a better job if I only have to exaggerate the truth about the school report.”

He looked at me a bit weird, maybe a little disappointed, but then shrugged, “Sure. Yuki it is then.” and pulled back out onto the gravel road.

We didn’t have far to go, but Cal drove slowly, giving us a chance to scope out the place. It was a gorgeous farm. I was no expert, but there were apple orchards on one side of the road and rows of grape vines on the other. At the top of the hill there was an old farmhouse and in the opposite field were a tower of white boxes I recognized as bee hives. I laughed at the thought of my friend Emma’s mortification at what she called “bee oppression.”

Emma and I had discussed bee oppression last semester after I had used a different shoe polish on my boots. She had run up admiring my boots and asked what color polish I had used.

“Oxblood,” I replied, immediately wishing I could take it back.

Emma blanched. Emma had pale skin and long pale blond hair so when she went an even lighter shade of pale she nearly disappeared against the ivory wall behind her.

“Um, there’s no real blood in it though,” I said lamely hoping she wasn’t going to cry or throw up.

Emma was really sensitive, especially when it came to animal cruelty. I was vegetarian but Emma was vegan. I waited for the tears, but instead she started to laugh. It started as a nervous giggle, but grew so that we were nearly falling over with laughter when Cal walked by. He did that eyebrow thing of his and we just started laughing harder. He kept walking by, but I could have sworn his shoulders were shaking as he turned the corner down the hall.

“Oh Yuki, I’m more grossed out by the cow that had to die for those boots,” she sighed wiping tears from her eyes.

That was when she had told me about bee oppression and how as a vegan she didn’t eat honey. It was actually kind of interesting and after her calling it bee puke for over an hour I couldn’t eat honey either.

Coming back to the current situation I thought dreamily that maybe I could get a school paper out of this gig after all. Apparently the Green Farm used bee slave labor to pollinate their crops. I’m sure Emma would help me write an outraged paper on the topic.

“Hey freak, what are
you
doing here?” a disgusted voice griped behind me.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned around and realized I must have died and been sent straight to Hell because standing there in front of me was Jared Zempter, the devil himself, holding a pitchfork. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at him.

Jared was wearing tall rubber boots with muddy jeans and I realized belatedly, I know the pitchfork should have clued me in, that he must be working here at the farm.
Just my luck
. Normally a kid from my school working here would have been a break for me.
Yeah, if he were human
. Instead this was rapidly turning into a major disaster.

“Bee oppression,” I said hoping to throw him off guard.
Where the heck was Cal
? I could really use some backup. The smell of vinegar was getting so strong I felt like I was going to pass out.
Patience Ghost Dude, I’m working on it
.

“Hey Jared, maybe you could help me,” Calvin said with a fake grin on his face.

We had been friends since second grade, I could tell when he was faking his outward passivity. Jared just looked back and forth from me to Calvin with a bewildered look on his face.
Jocks and bullies are not known for their high intelligence
.

“Hey man,” Calvin said trying to draw Jared’s attention, “I heard they might be hiring here now that old man Green is gone. Yuki just came along for the ride,” he said somewhat dismissively turning attention away from me.

They started talking somewhat civilly about jobs and farm stuff and I tried to concentrate on my smell impression.
Come
on Spidey sense don’t fail me now
.

I slowly turned 360 degrees while trying to look like I was just bored and taking in the scenery. The vinegar smell was strongest when I faced the house on the hill and what I realized was probably a barn out behind it. Sighing inwardly I started walking casually up the hill. I stopped a few times to admire things growing on the ground.

When it became apparent that Jared was too busy talking to Calvin to pay attention to the freak,
moi
, I hustled up to the front of the house. It was a typical white colonial farmhouse, though in better shape than most I had seen. The paint wasn’t peeling and the porch wasn’t sagging. I wondered again at how this family could lose the inheritance that Mr. Green was said to have left behind. They obviously had, or recently had possessed, a fair amount of money. It would take a large amount of money to keep the farm going and the buildings and road in such good repair. Even the fencing around the orchards and vineyards looked to be picture perfect.
So what is wrong with this picture
?