With Spirit (Paranormal America #1)

1. LO

LO

I ’m not saying that my house is haunted, but sometimes, it really feels that way. Enough to make me believe it actually is, at least.

My inability to figure out what’s really going on has been terrorizing me from the first day I got the keys to my new place.

Safe to say, I’ve become obsessed—for weeks, it’s been the only thing on my mind.

Every conversation loops back around to the ghost that is sometimes a ghost and other times bad wiring or creaky floors, depending on my mood.

But after a long enough time, it becomes difficult to believe that every weird thing that happens is purely coincidence.

“I love you, but you’re starting to get a little early-season Carrie Bradshaw about this,” my best friend, Annalise, tells me over drinks two months after I moved in.

We’re out in Silver Lake, sipping on entirely average twenty-five-dollar (with tip) cocktails.

It’s a perfect mid-October evening. We’re surrounded by exes and friends and coworkers and people we say hi to at every party, despite not remembering their names, because Los Angeles feels like a small town sometimes.

“The ghost kind of is my Mr. Big,” I admit with a sigh. The signs are there—I’ve been talking to every single person I know about it, obsessing over it. I’ve been successfully making an absolute fool of myself in the process, too. I’m sure word is spreading that I’ve gone a little nuts.

“So you’ve finally settled on it being a ghost?

” She takes a sip of the whiskey sour she got for free because she slept with the bartender once.

It’s not her fault that he thinks there’s a chance that there will be a second time.

There won’t be. Annalise is a budding superhero franchise actress, and when those paychecks start rolling in from her most recent job, she’ll be able to afford all of the drinks she could ever want.

“I don’t know what it is,” I say, because my research has left me still unsure. There are too many factors at play. I keep waiting for the big reveal to be something Scooby-Doo style, like the nice couple who sold me my cute, family-style home is trying to force me out.

I know that there has to be a logical answer. It’s like they’d always say in the medical show that I was on for far too long—don’t immediately think it’s something extraordinary. Do everything in your power to stick to the facts and to the obvious.

But then again, the whole reason people like my ex-show so much is because things happen all the time that are extraordinary.

And the episodes are often based on things that actually happened, too, which means unbelievable things can happen and do happen.

So it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that’s what is happening to me.

Logic is the only thing preventing me from fully believing my house is haunted.

It had started off slowly. I had that feeling—the one at the nape of my neck, an animal instinct that told me someone was watching me.

But I chalked it up to moving into a new place and not being familiar with it yet.

It still hasn’t really started to feel like home, even two months later.

It would make sense that I’d feel a little on edge.

Then, the lights started flickering in ways that couldn’t possibly be attributed to faulty wiring. And things around the house began going missing.

When I first started talking about my ghost, people enthusiastically believed me. We’d bond over drinks, exchanging stories about the times they were certain they’d seen a ghost that one time.

But after talking about it for long enough and with just enough distress in my voice, people at parties began to realize how deeply serious it is to me. I’d see the hot girl at a party go from vaguely interested in me to saying Oh, I think I see my friend over there. It was nice to meet you .

“Everyone who’s been inside my house and seen it also believes something is going on,” I say, almost like I’m convincing myself more so than Annalise.

Annalise has never judged me, never questioned me.

We met what felt like a thousand years ago—three—and lived together in an apartment that was pushed up against Elysian Park up until I bought my place.

As soon as we locked eyes, we both agreed it was like we’d already known each other for a lifetime.

It’s the closest to a genuine love story I’ve experienced anywhere off-screen. While the character I played for most of my twenties always seemed to find love and could always put her pieces back together, real life me is the girl who accidentally moves into a haunted house.

“Not everyone,” Annalise clarifies. “I’ve been over more than anyone, and I haven’t experienced anything weird.” She twirls her blonde hair around her pointer finger in thought. “Actually, wait. It’s only been one other person who’s seen something weird. And we’re not even sure that was true.”

My haunted house had seeped into all aspects of my life, including my ability to flirt and to get laid.

To celebrate having my own place with no roommate to risk overhearing, I’d enthusiastically brought someone home—a friend of a friend of a friend who was in town from Germany.

Rather unsexily, I spent most of the night talking about how I didn’t have any proof, but I was sure there was a ghost. She’d been intrigued rather than scared—both of me and the ghost—and still agreed to come home with me despite listening to me rant for far too long.

Things had been totally fine until the ghost—or whatever—started acting up: a fan randomly began rapidly spinning in my room, and a door slammed down the hall.

She’d left quickly after that, which was somewhat of a disappointment because the sex had been good and we’d only gotten a round and a half in before she practically ran screaming to her Uber.

I’d been so annoyed that, after I watched her car drive off, I turned to my dark, still mostly unfurnished home and said, “Can you not ?” And when nothing else happened, I followed that up with, “Oh, so now you don’t want to do anything?”

Like I said, I have been absolutely losing my mind over this.

“We know for sure it was true,” I say, almost a little offended. “You didn’t believe me when I told you?” Annalise is making me rethink my stance on whether she’s doubted me or not—maybe she’s just done a good job at making me think she believes me this whole time.

“I’d like the record to show that this is the only time I’ve questioned you about your ghost, and it’s because we don’t know this girl.

She can’t back it up. We’ve only heard about it through you, which means you’re still technically the only person who has talked about seeing the ghost. You can’t be your own source in this. ”

I groan, knowing she’s right. “This is something nobody tells you about with home ownership. I can’t believe I finally do something grown up, and I’m rewarded with the house from The Conjuring .”

“The first one in the series? I don’t know if it’s comparable. Your ghost seems kind of chill.”

“Until I try to get laid, I guess.” I lean back in my barstool, sighing. Grunge music plays over the speakers, filling the silence between us and adding to the ambiance of the pseudo-dive bar we’re sitting in.

“All I’m hearing is you just have to go to other people’s places instead,” she replies with a shrug. “I see no issue with that.”

“I really do like the house,” I say, but the argument feels silly considering I’ve gone certifiably nuts since moving in. If the previous owners or the spirits haunting the place or whatever want me out, I’m tempted to admit defeat.

But it’s not like it’s a rental. I bought the house. I put down an absurd amount of money for it. I spent what felt like hundreds of hours touring and negotiating and hiring inspectors, plural. I had people scheduled to renovate the guest bathroom in a few months.

It’s my house. And a particularly puritan ghost isn’t going to take that from me.

“Do you think I need a priest?” I ask.

“Maybe we should start with figuring out if you actually have a ghost in the house,” Annalise says and then sits up straighter. “And I think I might have just the solution, actually.”