Author: Molly Harper

The nighttime service was held three days later, after the police finally released the body. Mr. Wainwright had a hand in the planning, which definitely helped me cope with the grief. He was in attendance at the memorial, of course, though very few others were. It was just me, Dick, Andrea, Gabriel, Jettie, Jolene, and Zeb. Daddy came, though we neglected to tell him that we couldn’t speak ill of the dead, not out of respect but because the dead was standing right there.

Mr. Wainwright didn’t belong to a church, so there was no one to give a eulogy. In fact, he’d left specific instructions that he did not want to be buried. He wanted his ashes spread into the Ohio River, where they would “float downstream to the Gulf of Mexico and out into the oceans, circulating around the world.”

There was no visitation, no pimento cheese, no irritating relatives circling like vultures.

In other words, it was the best funeral I’d ever been to.

The riverfront in Half-Moon Hollow was a series of half-finished cement docks and inlets. The county commission had started dredging to build a channel for a riverboat in the 1970s, hedging against the chances that riverboat gambling would be legalized in Kentucky. When the state referendum failed and the outraged populace voted the commission out of their seats, the project was abandoned, leaving a gap in the Hollow’s watery smile. Which, in a way, was fitting.

The one project that was completed and used was the public restrooms. I tried not to think about that.

The water, smelling of old pennies and new fish, lapped gently against the cement embankment. The moon was only half-full and half-mast, lending a soft, kind light to the proceedings. Mr. Wainwright asked that we avoid the traditional black in favor of cheerful colors, forgetting, of course, that Gabriel didn’t own anything in cheerful colors. Dick’s plain white T-shirt, sans sarcasm, lent an appropriate sense of solemnity to the proceedings.

The earthly remains of Gilbert Wainwright were stored in a hollowed-out copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls that Dick had purchased from a novelty store. Mr. Wainwright thought it was hilariously funny. I held the book in my hands and stood at the edge of the dock, shaking a little from the wind and the nerves.

“We’re gathered here today to say good-bye to the mortal body of Gilbert Wainwright. He was a good man and a good friend. I didn’t know him until late in his life. But he became very special to me in that time. He was a man with an endless thirst for knowledge. He asked the questions that other people are afraid of and never doubted that the answers were out there, waiting to be discovered. I’m going to miss you, Mr. Wainwright. You were kind to me when you didn’t have to be. You gave me a place to belong when I was adrift. Thank you.”

“You will always have a place there, my dear,” he said, chucking my chin with his clammy invisible hand.

I handed the book to Dick. “It’s only right,” I said, smiling despite the surreality of the situation. “He was your family.”

“Quite right,” Mr. Wainwright told Dick. “I’d be honored.”

“This is the weirdest funeral I’ve ever been to,” Zeb whispered.

“Shh,” I said as Dick stepped forward.

Dick cleared his throat. “It’s not right for a man to bury his children, so to speak. But this is the path we chose. It’s a vampire’s lot in life to watch those around him age and die. Gilbert, I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other better.” In a low voice, out of my father’s earshot, he murmured, “But I hope you stick around for a while, so we can make up for that.”

Gabriel was looking at Dick with a strange expression. The whole “Dick reproduced” thing had definitely thrown him for a loop. I slipped my hand in his and gave him an encouraging nudge. Gabriel stepped beside Dick and with a stiff arm patted Dick’s back as he sprinkled the ashes into the churning water.

“Good-bye, cruel world,” Mr. Wainwright wailed in a fading mock cry.

Everyone but Andrea, Zeb, and Daddy turned to stare at him. He grinned. “Too melodramatic?”

“Why is everyone laughing?” Daddy asked.

“It’s a vampire thing. We laugh at death,” I told Daddy, who nodded sagely.

Mr. Wainwright insisted on a reading of his will right after the memorial. The funeral party, without Daddy, met Mr. Wainwright’s lawyer, Mr. Mayhew, the only male Hollow resident over seventy whom my grandmother had never dated, at the shop. He greeted us warmly and told us what nice things Mr. Wainwright had to say about us all.

“I’ve known Gilbert Wainwright for forty years. In that time, he spoke of two things ad nauseam: the supernatural and you. He enjoyed spending time with you, very much,” he assured me. “You made the last year of his life very comfortable and happy.”

“Is he here now?” Mr. Mayhew asked.

I looked from Mr. Wainwright’s apparition to Mr. Mayhew’s wry smile. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“He always said he would make appearances after death. I thought it was part of his wild ‘creatures of the night’ talk. Then, after the Coming Out, we found out that creatures of the night actually exist, so my mind opened a little bit.”

“Is it open enough to handle vampire wills?” I asked. “Because I’ve got some grabby relatives.”

He handed me his card. “Give me a call.”

“So, how do we go about this?” I asked. “I wasn’t allowed to attend any of my step-grandpas’ will readings.”

“Well, I need y’all to sit down and have a listen. I think you should know that Gilbert changed his will quite recently. When an elderly man changes his will to include a group of recently acquainted young people, it can be of some concern for someone in my profession. But Gilbert spoke very highly of you, and he wasn’t the type to gush.” He cleared his throat and used an official voice. “The will goes something like this. ‘I, Gilbert Richard Wainwright, being of sound mind and body as defined by the commonwealth of Kentucky’—a lot of legalese y’all are more than welcome to look over later, so we can skip to the good part—’do bequeath the following items to my loved ones:

“ ‘To Zeb Lavelle, I leave a copy of Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were, plus the entire stock of self-help guides related to inter-were-species marriage.’ “

“That was thoughtful,” Zeb said.

“That stock includes several illustrated antique marital guides which you will find in a locked box in the storeroom,” Mr. Wainwright whispered to me.

“Oh, ew.” I shuddered.

“He just made a joke, didn’t he?” Mr. Mayhew asked.

“Why don’t you just let him see you?” I asked Mr. Wainwright.

Mr. Wainwright chuckled. “It’s more fun this way.”

“ ‘To Jolene McClaine, I leave the rosewood box in my bedroom. It contains a collection of best-loved recipes I have collected from werewolf friends all over the world.’ “

“That’s very sweet.” Jolene sniffed.

“I thought you could put it to the best use,” Mr. Wainwright said.

“ ‘To Andrea Byrne, I leave my silver claddagh ring.’ “

“Oh, thank you,” Andrea whispered.

“It should have been included in my personal effects when my remains were collected,” Mr. Wainwright said.

“Actually”—I reached under the counter and grabbed the velvet pouch where I’d stashed the ring—”I didn’t think it was smart to send you to the funeral home wearing it.”

“This belonged to a lady who was very special to me,” Mr. Wainwright said as Andrea slipped it on. “Her name was Brigid, and she was special and beautiful, like you. And I loved her very much.”

Knowing that Andrea couldn’t hear him, I said, “That belonged to the love of his life.”

Andrea smiled.

“You’re going to want to be careful how you handle that around us,” Dick told her. “Might as well be wearing barbed wire around your finger.”

“Well, that has possibilities,” Andrea said, wiggling her finger at him. Not the rude one.

Dick muttered something I couldn’t quite make out.

“ ‘To Gabriel Nightengale, the selection of his choice from my personal literary collection. To Dick Cheney, my personal spirits collection, including the wine and brandy.’ “

Dick and Gabriel smiled.

“ ‘To Jane Jameson, I leave the Specialty Books shop located at 933 Braxton Avenue and all of its contents, including the apartment upstairs and my personal effects contained therein. I trust you to allow my nephew, Emery, to look over my personal effects and select what he would like to keep as mementos.’ “

My jaw dropped. I had expected a few books. Maybe a memento or Mr. Wainwright’s personal collection of Ouija boards. I had not expected him to leave me anything as important as the shop.

My eyes stung as I smiled shakily at Mr. Wainwright. I really didn’t want to start crying again. I’d just managed to stop. “This is too much. I didn’t do anything to deserve this. And I don’t know anything about running a store. Look, with your nephew coming soon, I think maybe we should consider—”

“No one will care about the shop the way you will,” Mr. Wainwright insisted. “No one will take care of the books, take care of the customers, such as they are.” He turned to Dick. “If I had known about you, I would have planned differently—”

“Not your fault,” Dick interrupted. “And you left me the booze, so it shows how well you knew me, even before you knew we were related.”

“And anything you want from the personal effects is yours,” I told Dick. “The store stock will be available at a twenty-percent bereaved-ancestor discount.”

Mr. Wainwright guffawed. “See, you’ve got the makings of a brilliant entrepreneur.”

I protested, “I don’t know anything about running a business.”

“Then sell it. Do whatever you think is best. I trust you.”

Those words, combined with Mr. Wainwright’s earnest, ghostly gaze, left a weird, heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

17

When an undesirable suitor is unwilling to accept a werewolf female’s refusal, her family is likely to step in to help communicate her feelings more clearly. It can take said suitor six to eight weeks to heal up from the clan’s communication skills.

—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were

We all adjusted to our grief in different ways.

On this particular Tuesday, Jolene and Zeb were doing a family thing with the McClaines. I think it involved wrestling Jolene’s father. Andrea had a standing appointment with a client who was not afraid of Dick. Gabriel was in London. I didn’t bother asking why. This left me with Dick.

No pun intended.

Dick seemed lonely, spending nights at the shop, talking to the ever-more-sprightly ghost of Mr. Wainwright, and helping me sort through boxes. We had a running bet about when Emery would show up. I had two weeks; Dick had six weeks and four days. Mr. Wainwright, who lovingly referred to his nephew as “a bit mealy-mouthed and milquetoast,” had twenty dollars on an even month, though how we were going to collect it from him, we had no idea.

I’d dropped my investigation into Wilbur’s background for the time being. I told myself that it would help me to step away, get a fresh perspective, but the truth was, I was getting nowhere. Instead, I worked from sunset to the wee hours of the morning cleaning areas that Mr. Wainwright had never let me touch: a rear storeroom, the area behind the counter, his office. For his part, Mr. Wainwright entertained himself by moving various objects around, walking through walls, and making videos float at the adult store next door, scaring several locals off porn forever.

Despite my recently developed fear of Realtors, I’d had one come by and appraise the shop. He suggested burning it to the ground and going for the insurance money. While my destructive urge was just as healthy as the next girl’s, I didn’t consider that a viable option. I was going to have to close.