Page 29 of Potion Sickness

“Naturally the funeral wins. Death has enjoyed top billing since the medium was invented. Everything else is merely the supporting act.” His tail sweeps once across the cushion. “I knew he’d say yes. I selected him.”

“Addie closed the deal, really.”

“Clever girl.” He resettles his front feet. “Now. If you’re going to stand there, stand there silently. We are in the middle of the banquet.”

I look at Maude. Maude looks at nothing. His eyes are half-closed and his tail is hanging off the front of the armchair cushion and he seemingly has not registered my arrival in any detectable way.

“Englebert,” I say. “What is happening?”

“Casting. Gabriel will need a scene partner at tomorrow’s table work.” He tips his head at the armchair. “Banquo’s ghost has no lines. He does not move. He appears in Macbeth’s chair, uninvited, and stares at the man who murdered him until the man comes apart. I ask you, Marigold, have you ever, in your life, seen anyone stare blankly like Maude?”

Maude, hearing his name, blinks. Once. Slowly.

“There,” Englebert says. “There. Few actors can manufacture that. The vacancy. The patience. He seems as though he has already seen how you die and found it tedious. It cannot be taught. He simply has it.”

“He’s waiting for dinner.”

“Motivation is private. Results are public.” Englebert draws himself up on the couch. “Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold⁠—”

Maude does not avaunt, whatever that means. Instead, he stares through Englebert at some fixed point roughly four feet behind him, and begins, very quietly, to purr.

“He mocks me,” Englebert breathes. “The ghost mocks me. Do you see it? Macbeth commands and the dead man is amused.” He paces the length of the couch cushion and comes back. “Again. From the top of the speech. Maude — everything you just did, exactly the same.”

Maude yawns.

I sit down on the rug with my back against the couch to watch, because there is truly nothing else in Duskboro or, for that matter, on this entire earth that I would rather be doing.

Englebert runs the speech again at full volume while Maude radiates indifference. At the exact moment the ghost is meant to vanish, Maude stands, stretches each leg with ceremony, hops off the armchair, and exits toward the kitchen without a backward glance.

Englebert stops mid-line. His ears are at full alert.

“Did you see that?” he asks.

“I told you. He wants his dinner.”

“He vanished on the beat. Un-cued.” He stares after Maude. “Marigold. I have been sharing a house with a natural.”

“Englebert—”

“Feed him,” Englebert says. “One does not keep talent waiting. I expect⁠—”

“Englebert,” I repeat.

“What? What can possibly be worth this delay?”

“How did you move the furniture?”

“I have my ways.”

“You don’t have hands.”

“How astute.”

“Englebert…”

“If you must know,” he says, refusing to make eye contact, “Prudence stopped by to speak with Annabel, and she was delighted to help me. You should take a leaf out of her book, Marigold. Some Wardwells are eager supporters of the arts.”

I make a mental note to confront Pru about this later and turn toward the kitchen, where Maude has begun to pout, obviously displeased by my dawdling.