It's okay my dear, this is a circular story.
Rose walked into a camera shop, looking for a new one after she... tragically lost her camera. She walked into the discreet shop, on the corner of a road she hadn't noticed before. Of course, she was at her wit's end anyway, so many things are probably escaping her.
A fragile, beautiful, and familiar woman was standing at the counter, smiling as if she expected Rose to walk in. She was wearing all white, with the exception of a gold wedding band around her finger. Her features made you want to treat her delicately, like if you talked too loud she may crumble. Yet her eyes showed the strength of someone who has been to hell and back.
"Excuse me?" Rose asked, approaching the counter.
"Can I help you?" The woman, Pearl, according to her name tag, asked politely.
"Well, I hope so. I... I lost my camera."
"Oh no. Did someone steal it?"
"No, no. It got smashed." Rose said, a little too quick.
"Maybe we can repair it?" Pearl pressed.
"It got smashed and lost. The pieces are lost." She answered with resolve.
"Oh. I'm sorry." Pause. Pearl reached under the counter and pulled out two glasses and a large glass bottle. "Here, have some whiskey. You look like you need it."
"Thank you." Rose hesitated before she took a sip.
"So it was a real camera? Not a phone?" Pearl asked after a moment of silence.
"Oh God no. Not a phone. I do not like phones."
"Me neither." Pearl's mouth formed a smile.
Rose pointed at the wall behind Pearl. "That is a beautiful fiddle. What is it made of?"
Pearl turned to the strikingly beautiful white fiddle. "It's made out of my great-grandmother's sister's breast bone."
"Creepy..." Rose said, having a hard time believing that. "So, anyways, I guess I'll get another camera." Pearl put her hand on Rose's arm to stop her, which in turn gave Rose a very unpleasant jolt.
"We'll get you set up with a new camera. Right now you need to relax." Pearl got an excited smile on her face. "I know! Let's go to this bar I know. My husband and his friend are there right now."
"I don't know..." Rose said, feeling oddly connected to this complete stranger.
"Oh, come on. It will be fun. Plus it's very close. I'll even buy you a glass of Lagavulin." She reached behind her to grab her coat, and started towards the door. Rose slowly followed.
"What's Lagavulin?" Rose asked sheepishly, as if she should already know this.
"What-" Pearl laughed. "Only the best Scottish whiskey! It's expensive, too."
"Oh, well, then I guess I can't refuse that offer."
"Of course you can't!" Pearl looked to Rose as they walked, searching for something Rose could distinguish. "So, are you traveling? You seemed a little lost."
"Yeah, sort of. From Portland."
"Nice!" Pearl stopped. "Well, here we are. The Honey Pot. Only the best place to drink whiskey."
The two girls walked in the bar, only to be greeted by a lot of noise from only a few people. In fact, the bar seemed relatively empty, with the exception of Pearl's husband and his friend. They called for her to come over, but quieted when they saw Rose. They were only silent for a few seconds, but it felt longer than it needed to be.
"This is my husband, David. Excuse him if he is a little too loud." She turned to the other man. "And this is Brent, my husband's best friend." There was something in the way Pearl said my, as if she was asserting that David was her husband.
They all sat down to drink, each of them starting with a glass of Evan Williams. Rose slowly started to ease up from the anxiety of the day. Once Pearl noticed this, she started to talk directly to Rose while David and Brent got into deep (possibly drunken) conversation.
"So Portland... I've been there once. That's where they have the cool library right?"
"That's Seattle."
"Oh, I get them mixed up." There was a pause as she took a drink of her whiskey. "Did you grow up there?"
"Yes, when I was a kid."
"That's nice." She smiled a small half-smile. "It's nice to have roots."
"What about you? Have you lived here long?"
"Why, yes. That camera shop has been in my family for four generations."
"Wow..."
"Yeah. You remember that fiddle?" Rose nodded. "It was my great-grandmother's. Her name was Rose."
"Oh. Weird. That's my name too."
"It's a beautiful name. Old-fashioned. You don't hear it much anymore."
"Thank you."
"Yes, and the fiddle made out of my great-grandmother's sister's bone..."
"Still pretty creepy."
"Her name was Pearl." Pearl downed her whiskey. "Let me tell you a story:
"Two sisters, Rose Red and Pearl White lived out their days gathering salt by the ocean. Rose was in deep love with a man who lived in a treehouse. She would go on and on to Pearl about her affection, begging her to hold her tightly enough to forget. Rose would spend night after night in this man's treehouse looking through his telescope at far away stars. She loved him, wanted to be his. So she wrote a poem declaring her love for him, for everything about him. She even signed it and sealed it away in a rice paper envelope, pasting a lily on for a stamp. The man gladly accepted her poem, he in turn published her poem in his prestigious astronomy journal and claimed he wrote it. Rose's feelings of love disappeared, and were replaced by a great hatred. It was then that he set his sights on the lovely Pearl."
"This is confusing me... And frightening me..." Rose interrupted, beginning to feel uncomfortable.
"It's okay, my dear. It will all make sense in the end.
"Rose, filled with a vile hatred not only for her lover's betrayal, but her sister's as well, sought out her revenge. She came across a bear, and begged him for a favor. She asked him to find the Astronomer and maul him to death. After that, the bear should find the sister and turn her into a crow, and lock the dead Astronomer's body and the newly-turned crow in a cave. The two would be locked in a cave until the crow found herself starved to the point of having to peck her dear Astronomer's eyes out for food. Only then would Rose feel complete." Pearl's voice had an edge when telling this part.
"I don't believe any of this." Rose said in utter disbelief, frightened of what she was going to say next.
"Don't you remember?" Pearl asked in a pushing voice. "The bear named his price to Pearl: one pot of honey, one piece of Stardust, one secret baptism, and photograph of a ghost. So Rose got these things. She stole a pot of honey from a soldier she pretended to love, stole the Stardust from an ancient that she pretended to care about, and for the baptism... She stole a baby from a frightened teenage mother, and rinsed it in the ocean so that the child was blessed..."
The room beginning to swirl, either from the shock or the whiskey, Rose couldn't take it any longer. She got up to leave, but before she could, she fell on the ground and blacked out.
YOU ARE READING
The Ghost Quartet
Mystery / ThrillerA tale about love, death, and whiskey. A camera breaks and four friends drink in an interwoven tale spanning seven centuries, with a murderous sister, a treehouse astronomer, a bear, a subway, and the ghost of Thelonious Monk. Too vague? Read to und...