Uh-oh. Maybe not the best idea to bring up disloyal spirit guides when I was trying to get the guy’s help. “Yeah, she came to see me, but—”
He stalked forward until he was right in front of my chair. “What did she say? Did she claim you?” He leaned over me, suddenly much too close.
Whoa. He’d gone from zero to crazy intense in the space of a few seconds.
I shifted away from him. “Look, I didn’t say yes or anything.” Not that it had mattered. But whatever; Malachi didn’t need to know that. “She was just—”
“You said no?” he asked in disbelief. “Did that stop her?”
My head was spinning, trying to keep up with this conversation. “Uh, no. But it didn’t work. I think the bond with my spirit guide might somehow still be active, even though she’s not exactly here anymore.” That was the only explanation I’d come up with that made any kind of sense.
He laughed, too loud and long. “It didn’t work?” He straightened up and raked his hands through his hair. “Of course not. The first one strong enough to tempt her, and it didn’t work. Unbelievable.” He dropped to his knees, as though his legs wouldn’t support him further, and rubbed his forehead as if he were in pain.
“Are you okay?” I asked cautiously.
“I’m great. Can’t you tell?” he snapped, his face still in his hands.
Okaaay, then. He wouldn’t be the first ghost-talker to have lost possession of his marbles.
Fighting disappointment, I looked past him toward the door. I could make a run for it, no problem. But that would be the end of this conversation, and any future conversation with him, guaranteed. I wouldn’t get this opportunity again. And the answers I wanted might be here, just buried under a few layers of whack job.
“Did you want it to? Work, I mean?” I asked carefully, digging a little to piece together what was going on without making him completely flip out. If Erin was the source of his ability to control what he heard/saw, why would he want to get rid of her? Yeah, she seemed to have that same attitude problem Alona occasionally had, but it would be worth it for the kind of peace he appeared to have.
He looked up at me, dark circles under his eyes clearly visible for the first time. “For the last five years I’ve been haunted every single waking minute of every day,” he said, and laughed, but it sounded weak and sad. “Hell, for that matter, sometimes she wakes me up.”
“I don’t understand.” Which was a massive understatement.
He stood up abruptly, pulled out the chair next to mine, and sat in it, leaning toward me. “You want to know how I ignore all those other ghosts? The ones you said were in the waiting room?”
Given the strange, almost fevered expression on his face, I wasn’t so sure I did want to know anymore. But I was in it too deeply already.
I nodded.
“I don’t. I can’t see them.”
It took me a second to catch on. “You mean you can only hear them.” It wouldn’t be all that surprising, given what I’d learned from Mina. There were varying levels of ability among ghost-talkers. Even Mina herself had trouble tracking ghosts when they moved.
“No,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I mean, I can’t see them, hear them, or even tell they’re there.”
I frowned. “I don’t—”
“I can only see and hear one ghost.” He held up a finger to illustrate his point. “That is, if I’m not completely crazy, which is always a possibility.” He threw his hands up. “Maybe this is all part of one giant hallucination. Maybe I’m lying somewhere in a drug-induced coma, and this is all in my mind.” He sighed and then shook his head. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” he asked, more to himself than me.
I gaped at him.
Malachi noticed before I could recover myself. “Happy now?” he asked. “Got all the answers you want?”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“If it’s any consolation, that’s pretty much the reaction the other guy—your dad, I guess—had, too.”
“You’re talking about Erin?” I asked, to be sure.
“The one and only,” he said with a bitter smile.
That wasn’t possible. You either had the gift or you didn’t, with varying degrees in between. It wasn’t localized to specific ghosts. It couldn’t be. It would be like being able to smell only one scent or see one color. “Well, she’s not a hallucination,” I said. “I can tell you that much. I’ve seen her, too.”
He just looked at me. “Reassurance from someone else who might be a hallucination doesn’t really help.”
I opened my mouth and closed it before trying again. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.” I was starting to think he might not be crazy; crazy people don’t usually bother to question their own sanity. “Has it always been this way? When did you start seeing her?” Maybe he’d suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury or something. That might explain why he could see only one ghost…or why he thought he might be hallucinating.
“What’s the point?” He laughed. “You’re going to help me? You came to me for help.”
“Just…start talking,” I persisted. If there was ever anyone who could have been helped by the Order and their tactics, it would have been this guy. But he’d clearly been afraid of them tracking him down, even running from me when he’d thought I was one of them. So my curiosity was going to get the better of me on this one. And who knew, maybe I could help him. He looked like he needed it.
He sagged back in his chair. “I don’t…Everything was fine until Erin died.”
“You knew her before, then?”
He looked as if I’d asked the stupidest question possible. “She’s my sister. My twin?”
“Oh,” I said. I never would have guessed that. Maybe some resemblance around the eyes. Maybe. Her hair was a darker red and not nearly as wild as his. The features that made her look pretty and petite kind of gave him a happy-gnome appearance.
“My fraternal twin, obviously,” he said, sounding huffy.
“You’re twins and your parents named you Malachi and Erin?” I asked in disbelief. He’d definitely gotten the short end of the stick there.
“My real name is Edmund,” he said stiffly.
I grimaced. Not much better than Malachi. I thought about apologizing but figured it would only make things worse, so I stayed quiet and waited for him to continue.
“Erin had an accident at school. When we were freshmen in college.” He looked down at his hands. “When they called me to the hospital after she fell, she was already…gone. I was standing there, staring at this empty body that used to be my sister, trying to figure out how I was going to do this. You know, life. How I was going to be alone, you know? For the first time ever.” He rubbed his eyes as if the image was burned onto the back of his eyelids and he wanted to remove it.
He forced a laugh and opened his eyes. “When I was seven and joined the Cub Scouts, Erin would scream and cry until she made herself sick while I was gone at meetings. Eventually, it was easier not to go.”
That sounded a little unhealthy, actually.
“In the summers, our grandparents wanted us to visit for a week separately, part of that whole giving-twins-individual-attention thing.” He lifted his shoulders in a defeated manner. “She pulled the same crap, carrying on and screaming until they brought her home. After that, we always went together.”
Scratch that. A lot unhealthy.
“Erin was always the one who decided everything. What clubs we should join, who we should take to the prom, where we should sit at lunch. It was just easier that way. She’s three minutes older than me. She always knew what we wanted. Or,” he said with heavy sigh, “what she wanted and what I’d go along with.”
He looked up at me. “It was my fault, too. She was pushy and controlling, but I let her. She was the one who faced the world, and all I had to do was follow along in her wake. I didn’t have to stand up for myself, didn’t have to fight.”
I shift
ed uncomfortably in my chair. That sounded a little too familiar, maybe.
“I didn’t know what to do when she died,” he said. “It was like losing part of me, an arm or a leg or something.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know how to function without her. I needed her, so I wished for her to come back. Harder than I’ve ever wished for anything. I was desperate.”
I leaned forward in my chair, suddenly aware of where this story was headed.
He sighed heavily. “And then she just showed up…and started talking. Yelling, actually,” he amended. “Even after my parents got to the hospital, I was still the only one who could hear her. It freaked me out at first. I tried to ignore it—her—but she saw me, knew I was looking at her.” He shrugged helplessly. “After that, she never left. The doctors said it was grief or shock or depression. Then my parents got involved and tried to have me committed.”
Oh, I knew that feeling. I thought I’d had it hard, but to live an otherwise normal life for eighteen years and then to start seeing your dead sister everywhere…that was worse. What I could do was difficult, but at least it had the potential to be beneficial. What Malachi/Edmund had going on was torture.
Although I’d never heard of anyone developing ghost-talker abilities overnight like that. That was odd.
“Erin warned me about what my parents were planning, and we left in the middle of the night.” He lifted his shoulders heavily. “Haven’t been back home since.”
“What does she want?” I was ashamed to realize I hadn’t even bothered to ask her that myself, when she’d shown up at my house. Then again, she’d shown up at my house.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, ghosts usually have unresolved issues, unfinished business keeping them from moving into the light,” I said.
He stared at me blankly.
“You’ve never seen the light.” Of course not. If he could only see one ghost, and she was still here, he’d have had no opportunity to do so. “Well, look, it’s there. It works, trust me. There’s a system. All you have to do is figure out what she wants, what issues are holding her here and—”
He shook his head with a harsh laugh. “You’re not getting it. Her unresolved business? She wants to be alive again. Isn’t that what they all want?”
I didn’t know what to say. If that was the case, there wasn’t much hope for Erin. She must have been holding on to her in-between state with sheer strength.
“As long as she’s with me, someone can hear and see her,” Edmund said wearily. “She can have indirect contact with the living world. I’ve tried to leave, but she always finds me.”
Erin was using her brother as a lifeline. I was beginning to see why he was stuck and why my dad hadn’t called the Order down on him. She was wrong to be taking advantage the way she was, but how could you ask him to turn on his sister?
“And from what your dad told me about his gift—and yours, too, I guess—with someone like you, she’d have the ability to touch stuff again, pick things up.” He sighed. “That’s one step closer.”
“That doesn’t happen with you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Your dad didn’t understand it either.”
I was beginning to wonder if he was even a ghost-talker at all. The ability didn’t develop overnight, at least not that I’d ever heard of. He could see and hear only one ghost, and he didn’t have to deal with the added effect of giving her physicality, probably the most common (and dangerous) effect of our gift. It sounded more like he was being haunted by someone he was specially connected to. The twin thing, operating even postlife, perhaps? Like he’d pulled her spirit to him, and the bond between them allowed them to communicate still.
“Don’t worry. Now that she’s tried it with you once, and it didn’t work, she probably won’t try again,” he said, trying to be reassuring. “Besides, we need to be moving on anyway. We’ve stayed in one place for too long as it is.” He stood up and shoved his chair back in place at the table.
I shook my head. “If you stay, maybe we can find a way to—”
“Someone’s going to run the numbers soon, like the Order did when they sent your dad to investigate. Too many hauntings, too close together. It raises a red flag with the statistics they track, I guess. He covered for us last time, but it’ll happen again, and I’m betting we won’t be as lucky with whoever they send to investigate.”
Actually, given what I knew about the Order and the dwindling number of those qualified enough to be considered full members, he and Erin might be safer than they thought just from the Order’s sheer lack of manpower to investigate things like wonky statistics. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. “Too many hauntings? Why would you have any control over that?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I thought you understood. She’s the only one I can see.”
I still wasn’t getting it.
“I can’t go out and find business on my own,” he said with exaggerated patience. “She passes messages along from those she finds, but sometimes making a connection between a ghost and someone who lives locally and is willing to come in…It’s a bit iffy.”
In other words, Erin didn’t feel like doing the work, and without her eyes and ears, he couldn’t do it for himself.
“So, sometimes we have to help things along,” he said, studying the carpet with more intensity than it deserved.
Wait. I sat up straight in my chair. “Are you saying she haunts people to drive business?”
“Only when we need the money,” he said defensively. “And it keeps her busy.”
Jesus. Pieces of this began to fall into place. Misty thinking Alona was haunting her. The letter/coupon that his testimonials had mentioned. “You send Erin out to haunt someone if they know someone who died recently?”
“Depends on what the newspaper says,” he mumbled.
And Misty had probably been featured prominently in the articles about Alona’s tragic, untimely death, as her distraught best friend.
“What, like, if they have money?” Misty didn’t have money, but it wouldn’t take much research to figure out her parents were probably doing okay.
He didn’t respond, just shifted his weight awkwardly.
“And then once you’ve scared them, you send them that stupid letter and coupon, bringing them right to your door.” It was brilliant. And utterly creepy.
“Do you think this is fun for me?” he demanded. “I’d have a regular job if I could, but she won’t let me! Besides, it’s not your problem anymore,” he said pointedly. “As soon as Erin gets back, we’re leaving, remember?”
So they could inflict this scam on innocent people in some other town? No way. Not if I could stop it. “Where is Erin, anyway?” If she couldn’t stand to go a minute without being heard or seen by a living person, as he claimed, then she’d been gone for a while now.
He grimaced. “I couldn’t tell her we were leaving. It…it would upset her. She’s out visiting clients.”
“You mean, she’s haunting people.” I shook my head in disgust. “I can’t believe I was feeling sorry for you, and you’re—” I stopped, struck by a horrible, awful thought.
“Who is she ‘visiting’ today?” I asked, forcing the words out, caught in the inescapable conclusion that I could see barreling toward me.
He appeared taken aback by the intensity in my voice. “I…I don’t know.”
I stood up and shoved him against the shelving. “Think!”
“We don’t have that many on the line right now,” he said, his voice shaking. “Just Mrs. Baxter, the guy who owns the dry cleaner’s, and the girl.”
Misty. Which was exactly where Alona happened to be at this particular moment. Damn it. If Erin tried to claim “Ally,” that would be bad. I didn’t know what would happen. It would be worse, though—much worse—if Erin figured out what made Ally so different. A powerful ghost who wanted nothing more than to be alive again in the presence of a body she knew was currently occupied by a spirit?
Not good.
I let go of Malachi/Edmund and ran for the back door. “You stay here,” I called to him over my shoulder. “We’re not done yet.”
I just hoped the same could be said for Alona and Lily.
“I figured you wouldn’t be able to stay away,” the blurry spot continued. It took a second for the full implication of her words to sink into my brain. She recognized me. She knew.
My breath caught in my throat.
Up until now, I’d been assuming whoever was pretending to be me to haunt Misty was someone who’d decided to take advantage of “Alona’s” absence to have a little fun at “her” expense, maybe a ghost from the list who’d gotten pissed at something I had (or had not) done for them.
But this…this was not that. This spirit, whoever she was, obviously knew exactly who I was. She’d been waiting for me. Me, as in Alona Dare.
Crap.
“Took you long enough, though,” the ghost said. “Listening to those two jabber on all night was almost enough to make me want to kill myself again.”
Movement at the top of the blurry spot gave the suggestion of someone tossing her hair in disgust. In fact, if I squinted hard enough, I could almost make out a face in the haze before me. God, this would be so much easier if I could see her.
“Not that I killed myself in the first place,” she added. “Whatever. You know what I mean.” She waved dismissively. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. A smaller piece of the blurry area moved in a half arc.
I shook my head, my brain whirling with possibilities. Will was the only one who knew what had happened with Lily’s body. So who was she? Someone who’d eavesdropped on Will and me and heard too much? Her voice didn’t sound at all familiar, so she couldn’t be someone I’d talked to on a regular basis.
But more important, what did she want? I was afraid I didn’t want to know. You don’t go to this much trouble to set up a power play without a really good reason.
I swallowed hard against the rapidly developing pit of dread in my stomach.
“What is it?” Misty whispered. “You see something, don’t you?”