A Gaggle of Ghastly Grandmamas: Wonky Inn Book 9 Read online

  “Apparently so.” I pulled a face and flopped down on the kitchen bench as Florence pushed a cup of tea my way. “Gwyn won’t be happy with me.”

  “It’s not your fault though.” Charity stirred her drink, steam floating in the space that separated us.

  When did that ever bother Gwyn? I grunted and pulled the sugar bowl over, absently spooning a couple of teaspoons’ full into the mug. I had started to feel jaded. In need of a nap.

  Florence slid a small empty plate in front of me. “Would you like a slice of cake, Miss Alf?”

  I perked up. “That would be lovely, Florence.” I craned my neck trying to see her latest work of art. She brought over a large three-layered cake covered in soft pink icing.

  “Strawberry?” I guessed.

  “Raspberry,” said Charity.

  “No, you’re both wrong,” Florence smirked, smoke drifting upwards from her fire-ruined clothes. “This is beetroot and white chocolate, with a lemon meringue buttercream.”

  “Beetroot?” I tried not to sound too disgusted. “In a cake?”

  “Try it,” Florence scolded me. “You’ll love it, Miss Alf.”

  “How come the icing is pink if the buttercream is lemon?” Charity asked, scooping a huge spoonful onto her fork.

  “It’s a … what does Ross Baines call things … an ‘arch ball’.”

  “An arch ball?” I cut into my huge wedge of cake. “Oh, you mean like a curveball?”

  “That’s the one, Miss!”

  “Clever,” I nodded at Charity. “She’s misdirecting our taste buds.”

  “Suggesting that something is one thing when really it’s something else?” Charity shovelled her forkful into her mouth and groaned. “Mmmm.”

  I tried to be a little more ladylike but failed. “Ommm,” I moaned, my mouth full. “Is good.”

  Florence nodded in satisfaction. “That’s what I like to hear. I hope it cheers the pair of you up.”

  “We’re not down in the dumps, are we?” I questioned Charity.

  “You are. You’re a right old misery,” she replied.

  Florence swept up a couple of cake crumbs from the table. “It’s because she’s missing her beau,” she declared.

  I pretended to look shocked. “It most certainly isn’t! My life does not revolve around the men in it.”

  Charity didn’t buy that. “I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, Florence.” She winked at me, “How long till you see Silvan again, Alf? How long till we can expect the return of sweet Alf?”

  “Soon, I suppose.” To be honest, I didn’t know. He’d been called away to who knows where. I hadn’t heard from him in nearly two weeks. That happened from time to time. He had to go where the money took him, and the money tended to take him to dark places that he didn’t want me to know about.

  “You must miss him,” Charity sympathised.

  “Nah.” I finished off my slice and stared at the remainder of the cake. Above the top layer of sponge, Florence met my gaze, her eyes knowing.

  “Have another slice, Miss Alf. You look a bit peaky, like you could do with a sugar uplift,” she said.

  I didn’t need telling twice.

  Meow.

  I rubbed my tired eyes and looked up from the computer screen, then down at the rug beneath my feet. The spirit cat curled around my legs and I reached down to pet it. There was nothing there to stroke, however. Meanwhile, the Jack Russell, doing a good impression of a doughnut, lay in front of the fire. I’d allowed the flames to die down now. It was nearly one in the morning and I really needed to turn in.

  Ting.

  I watched the lift ascend. It didn’t stop on my floor but disappeared through the ceiling.

  Ting.

  Footsteps overhead. A door opening and then closing. The rattling of pipes as one of my guests used the bathroom and then the inn lapsed into silence once more. With any luck, that was the last of the witches heading to bed.

  Silence, after a fashion at any rate. It seemed the animals in their cages, inhabiting one whole wall of my office, mostly came alive at night. The snake slithered around its large glass atrium, the spider jumped at its walls, the hamster ran on its squeaky wheel, endlessly trying to get somewhere it never could.

  I watched it for some time, until the fire guttered and died. I shivered.

  “Time for bed, boys and girls,” I sang softly. At least they had each other, even if they were separated by glass or bars for their own good. This was probably just as well when I thought about it, otherwise ‘having each other’ might take on a whole different context.

  Tonight I felt lonely. I’d sat for a while with Gwyn and her sorority, enjoying the laughter as the witches played their games and relishing in their competitiveness. I’d even had a go at Buckaroo, and been knocked out first in two out of three attempts, a reminder of just how heavy-handed I could be.

  As the wine flowed and the music was turned up—with plenty of guests bickering about which decade everyone wanted to listen to—I retired upstairs for the interim, intent on catching up on my paperwork. From eleven onwards there had been a flurry of elevator use. At first I’d watched the wooden capsule shoot up and down, but quickly I’d grown inured to the disruption.

  I slid open my desk drawer and drew out a ring of keys. Any Tudor housekeeper would have been proud to sport such a heavy collection of ironwork. These were the keys for the front and back doors of the inn, the cold store and the kitchen, the pantry, the boiler room, The Snug and The Hug, my office and bedroom, the attic rooms and the door between the bar and the back passage. Guest room keys were kept behind the reception desk.

  Feeling weary, I almost considered calling the lift, but deciding against it made my way downstairs on foot to check all the doors and windows before calling it a night. Zephaniah and Ned had been busy clearing up, and only a couple of stray wine glasses remained. I picked them up and carried them to the bar. I’d wash them up in the morning.

  Making my way back through the bar, I came to the heavy front door and reached up to slide the top bolt into place. A light tapping came from the other side, just a few inches from my ear. I screeched and fell backwards, heart hammering in my chest.

  The tapping came again, a little heavier this time.

  Who could be out there at this time of night?

  I pressed my ear against the wood. I couldn’t hear anything.

  “By all that’s green, Alfie, open the door!” A muffled voice. “It’s freezing out here!”

  I stared at the door as though the wood itself had spoken to me and was, in fact, a some kind of alien. “Silvan?”

  “Open the door!”

  I fumbled with the lock and pulled the heavy door inwards.

  “Oh, at last!” He stepped inside and dropped his bag. You must be getting hard of hearing. I’ve been knocking for ages.”

  Dressed head to toe in black as always, he had donned thick black robes and had a black woollen scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, covering his mouth and nose. His witch’s hat had been pulled tightly down over his brow. Only his dark eyes were visible, and they sparkled down at me.

  We stared at each other for a good long time before finally he opened his arms and I flew into them. I wrapped him tightly in a hug, inhaling the scent of bonfires and tallow, lavender and warm musk.

  “Urgh,” he laughed. “I can hardly breathe.”

  I loosened my grip on him and reached up to pull down his scarf. He had faint bruising under one eye. Someone had given him a good wallop. There was a deep scratch on his cheek too.

  I stroked the dried-up scratch gently with my finger. “What happened to you?”

  He shrugged and winked at me. “It’s nothing. Just adds to my boyish good looks.” He caught hold of my hand. “Any chance of a drink?”

  “A hot one or—”

  “No,” he shot me a stricken glance. “I’ve been teetotal for weeks. Something long and strong would be good.”

  I pulled him into the ba
r, sidestepping all the tables and chairs. He stared at the elevator as we passed it.

  “Don’t ask.”

  I poured him a double whisky and a bit more, and added a few cubes of ice. He unwrapped his scarf and dropped it over the bar, then tipped his head back to neck the liquid in one, closing his eyes to savour the last dribble in the glass. “Oh, that’s better.” He tilted his head forward and back and rotated it a few times. “I’m so stiff.”

  “Would you like another?” I lifted the bottle.

  He considered it. “No,” he said reluctantly. “I haven’t eaten much today, and I’m shattered. I think it would go straight to my head.”

  “Fair enough,” I smiled. “Let’s go upstairs. You can tell me a little about what you’ve been doing before we drift off to sleep.”

  “I can’t,” Silvan said.

  “You can’t? You can’t talk to me what you’ve been doing?”

  “I, well, you know I can’t talk to you about what I’ve been doing anyway. But, er, I can’t go upstairs with you either.”

  My heart skipped a beat. What was he saying? Had he come here to tell me he had found someone else? He was finishing with me? I stared at him in sudden fear. “Why can’t you?”

  “Don’t look like that.” He reached out to caress my cheek, his voice soft. “Darling Alfie, it’s nothing to worry about.”

  Did he have some awful disease? Should he be in quarantine?

  “Then—?”

  He slouched on his stool and pulled a face. “It’s my grandmother.”

  “Your grandmother?” I hadn’t even known he had a grandmother. In fact, he’d never mentioned a family at all.

  “She’s here.”

  “Your grandmother’s here in the inn?” My brain raced through all the women staying with me, a kind of ‘Guess Who?’ game of witches. Who met the criteria to be Silvan’s granny? Sudden realisation dawned on me and I grimaced in horror. “Oh my word. Phyllis Bliss is your grandmother!”

  With Florence’s help, I—rather tetchily if the truth be known—made up a bed in front of the fire in the bar. Florence stoked it to give extra warmth, and Silvan settled down for the night.

  “I don’t really see what difference it will make if I’m honest,” I told him. “It’s not like Phyllis is going to see you in my bedroom, is she.”

  “Trust me,” Silvan said. “She sees all and senses all and knows all. I love her to death, but she’s a liability for my social life.”

  Oh-ho. I widened my eyes and giggled. Silvan had been caught in flagrante previously, by the sound of it. His eyes lit up and he reached to pull me down next to him.

  I resisted the urge to snuggle up next to him, pulling away instead.

  “No, no. You made your bed, now you have to lie in it,” I told him, and with a saucy wiggle headed for the stairs. I paused and turned back to wink at him, flicked the lights off and plunged the ground floor into darkness.

  He laughed softly. “Goodnight, Alfhild.”

  “Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” I sang, and climbed the stairs.

  A few minutes later I was sitting on the edge of my bed, my window open to allow Mr Hoo to come and go as he needed. A freezing fog had settled over the landscape beyond and I shivered in the draught.

  It would have been nice to have some extra warmth in the bed. I left the daytime throw on top of my duvet, pulled my teddy bear from his corner and wrapped myself around him. Out in the woods I heard Mr Hoo hunting. Downstairs, Silvan was probably already snoring.

  I smiled. My man was home.

  Everything would be alright.

  “Would you like more toast, Mr Silvan?” Florence queried as I entered the kitchen the next morning, just after six.

  “That would be wonderful, thank you,” Silvan enthused. “And more of Monsieur Emietter’s fine poached eggs, if he doesn’t mind?”

  Monsieur Emietter, hearing his name, turned around from the stove where he had been busy crisping bacon. He beamed at Silvan and piled his plate high with another spoonful of beans, a couple of extra sausages and half a dozen strips of bacon.

  “That looks good!” My mouth watered.

  Monsieur Emietter studied me for a second, muttered something in French, the tone of which sounded less than complimentary, and nodded at Florence. She handed me a plate with two slices of toast on it.

  “Hey!” I complained, and Monsieur Emietter and Silvan laughed together.

  “Oh, ho ho ho,” I grumbled and slid onto the bench beside Silvan. He bumped shoulders with me and turned to kiss my nose.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked.

  “Like a log. Did you?”

  “Not a wink,” he replied cheerfully. “I think I must have a case of jet lag.” I raised my eyebrows in a query, wondering whether his jet lag had been caused by being occidental or oriental. I knew he wouldn’t tell me.

  “And the tinging of that rotten elevator—”

  Monsieur Emietter piled some bacon and an egg onto my toast. “Ah, thank you!” I cried, and he nodded happily, obviously in a good mood because Silvan had turned up and sweet-talked him somehow.

  “Are you hungry, Alf?” Charity joined us, and Florence slipped a pot of coffee onto the table for us to share. “Hey, Silvan! So good to see you!”

  “What a coincidence, isn’t it?” Florence said. “We were only talking about Mr Silvan yesterday.”

  Charity grinned. “That’s right. It’s like magick.”

  “Is that so? Was Alf missing me?”

  “I most certainly was not,” I mumbled between mouthfuls of smoky bacon. Salt and the sweetness of maple-cured pork exploded on my tongue. “I’ve been far too busy to miss you.”

  “She pines, you know,” Florence said.

  “I don’t!”

  “Wastes away,” Charity nodded.

  Silvan snorted and I dug him in the ribs with my elbow before he risked life and limb and said anything else.

  I polished off my toast and glugged half a mug of coffee in double-quick time. “That’s set me up for the day. I’d better get started with laying the tables for breakfast.” I squeezed out from under the table.

  “I’ll be right out,” Charity said.

  “No rush,” I nodded.

  “Ooh, she is in a good mood,” Charity laughed. “You should come to stay more often, Silvan.”

  Silvan held up a fork, waving a piece of sausage at me. “Would you mind if I used your bathroom, Alf? I’d like to clean up.”

  Charity looked from me to him. “Eh?”

  “He slept on the floor of the bar last night,” I confessed. “He was worried his grandmother would find us together because she’s staying here too.”

  “No?” Charity’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Who?”

  “Only Phyllis Bliss,” I told her. Her chortle of amusement followed me down the passage to the bar.

  I spent the next two hours serving breakfast and refilling mugs, wiping up spillages, locating baby rusks—don’t ask—and ordering more and more toast. Zephaniah kept the coffee pots filled while Florence wafted backwards and forwards with our colourful china teapots.

  I’d given up hope of seeing Silvan again when he didn’t reappear—how long does it take a man to shower and shave after all—but I assumed he’d taken a nap on my bed. A sudden disturbance among the witches on the table by the big bay window alerted me to his arrival.

  Smiling, I turned about, happy to witness Phyliss’s face when she caught sight of him. Instead, I reeled in surprise.

  The Silvan that greeted his granny was not the Silvan I had come to know and love, the hard man, the wily magician, the dark witch. My Silvan was a rogue with dangerous eyes, wild hair and clothes he’d been living in for weeks on end. My Silvan disappeared for lengthy periods on dangerous missions to do who-knows-what to earn his living.

  Phyliss’s Silvan was a choir boy. Neatly shaven, in a white button-down shirt over expensive trousers. Even his normally curly ha
ir had been smoothed down and neatly tied back in a low ponytail.

  I snorted.

  I definitely preferred my version.

  “Horace!” Phyllis had jumped to her feet and locked him in a tight embrace, and now she was showing him off to all of her friends. Onnalee, pink of face, was gushing in her praises, exclaiming several times how handsome he was. Silvan graciously accepted this, nodding his head, smiling, kissing her hand.

  Phyllis drew him down on to the chair next to her, forcing Sybil to move up one. “You must have breakfast,” she was saying, and raised her hand to summon me.

  Forcing myself to keep a straight face, I hurried over to the table. Silvan avoided my eye by engaging Sybil in conversation.

  “Alfhild, as you can see my grandson, Horace, has arrived. If you could bring him some breakfast—”

  I opened my mouth to tell her he’d already eaten half a pig at my kitchen table, but Silvan cleared his throat and scratched his head, and I took that as a sign that he wanted me to stay mute.

  “And, when the detectives get here, tell them he’ll see them when he’s had a chance to recover from his long journey.”

  I’d forgotten. The detectives wanted to speak to her grandson. That would explain why George had given me such a knowing look the previous afternoon.

  “Of course.” I offered her my brightest smile.

  “Horace has been in Kuala Lumpur, you know,” Phyllis told Sybil, “but it’s all top secret so he can’t say any more.”

  Silvan looked up at me, his eyes glittering with unspoken merriment.

  “Hmpf,” I grunted. Phyllis regarded me with suspicion.

  “I do have a few adventures I can tell you about, Gran,” Silvan said, distracting her before she could have a go at me.

  I retreated and located Florence. “Silvan’s grandmama wants him to have breakfast.”

  “But he’s already eaten breakfast, Miss Alf,” Florence frowned.

  “I know. And rather a lot of it,” I smiled. “But what Phyllis Bliss wants, Phyllis Bliss gets, remember?”

  “Alright, Miss. I’ll ask Monsieur Emietter to plate up another breakfast.”