Chapter 13 Yes. #2
Inside, I took found myself in the moonlight pouring through the glass ceiling and walls of the hexagonal room.
A couple of ghosts were floating lazily, listlessly, through the room, their dull eyes focused on nothing.
The atrium was the only room of the house that ghosts could enter—and for good reason.
It was where I did all of my internet requests for help contacting dead loved ones.
The atrium was a space to do my spirit work in a more controlled, more comfortable environment, safe from too many prying eyes. It also gave me a way to work in my house while also keeping any of the ghosts I summoned from actually entering the spaces where I lived my day-to-day life.
Vines from ivy plants climbed the trellises in the corners, winding their way up the windows.
Potted spider plants reached towards the ceiling with their spiky leaves.
A four-foot diameter round table sat in the center of the terra cotta tiled floor.
Two chairs, across from each other, were pushed under the table.
My laptop, its charging cord strung from the charging port in the side of the computer to the plug ten feet away in the wall, was closed, waiting on me.
Only moonlight pouring through the glass illuminated the room, casting it in a midnight blue color.
With a sigh, I set my plate of food on the table next to the laptop and pulled the chair out.
The feet of the chair scratched against the rough tile before I finally fell into the seat.
Simultaneously shoving a handful of chips into my mouth and opening the laptop, it was time to work.
Once the laptop was open and I’d typed in my passcode, I went about lighting the single pillar candle that sat at the center of the table.
About as big around as my thigh and nearly eight inches tall, the white candle had six wicks to light.
Though too much light made me feel exposed, since anyone who walked onto my property would be able to see inside the room, lighting all of the candle’s wicks was necessary.
So large was the candle that if all of the wicks didn’t burn at once, the candle would burn unevenly.
So, once I was cast in the warm golden glow of, virtually, six candles burning a mere foot away, I opened the email app on my professional website.
In the blue glow of the laptop screen and the yellow glow of the candle, I sorted through the emails waiting on me.
There were plenty of requests for help, but I always focused on prepaid requests.
Money gets any request put to the front of the line.
Potential clients wanting to ask questions first would have to wait until I’d done the jobs for which I’d already been paid.
Fortunately, a little programming from a tech buddy had helped me create a system that sorted my email by paid and unpaid.
I opened the first one that was tagged as paid.
Hello, Mr. Erie. My father passed away fifteen days ago, and—
Another person who had a deceased relative with a missing will. I clicked on another email indicated as paid.
Hi, Silas! I wanted to know if you could contact my cousin and ask her what her favorite animal was. I ask because—
I don’t need your explanation, I thought to myself. You are testing if I’m for real before you hire me for another job. I rolled my eyes and opened yet another email.
Mr. Erie. I’m writing to you because my mother’s dying words were—
Someone who wanted clarification about a dying family member’s last thought. Easy enough.
At least a dozen other emails were listed in the paid folder. It was a great day for requests. I easily had a thousand dollars of prepaid requests sitting in my email folder.
Time to get to work. I reached out for another chip, finding that side of the plate was empty.
I’d scarfed them all down while checking out emails.
So, I grabbed the sandwich and sat back in the chair.
Taking a healthy bite of the corner of the ham and cheese, I stared at the candle on the table for a moment, trying to clear my mind of other worries.
The two ghosts that had been in the atrium when I’d entered were now in different corners, bobbing above the ground lazily, staring with blank eyes at me.
I opened the first email I’d looked at for a second time. I cleared my throat and spoke loudly and clearly.
“Scooter Dubois!”
I rolled my eyes at the name, hoping the client had provided the man’s government name instead of a nickname.
“I’m Silas Erie, medium, lifeline to the dead, communicator with souls. I have a question from your son. Unfinished business you have on this earth. I summon you!”
I took another large bite of my sandwich and chewed quietly as I stared at the candle on the table.
A minute ticked by. Then another. The floating ghosts in the corners continued to mind their business.
As I was taking another bite of my sandwich, a third ghosts suddenly burst through the glass wall of the atrium, headed directly for the open door into the house.
When it hit the invisible wall created by the pieces of silver in the corners of the door, it bounced back and spun, twirling violently in the air.
I waited patiently, gnawing at my sandwich as the ghost finished twirling. When it came to a stop, facing away from me, I put the leftover half of my sandwich on the plate. I wiped my hands on the knees of my jeans and sat up.
“Were you Scooter Dubois in life?” I asked.
The ghost, startled since it hadn’t noticed me yet, spun around to face me.
Hazy and diaphanous, the floating ghost looked down at me, the door behind it clearly visible through its body.
When it merely stared at me, unspeaking, I began to worry that Scooter Dubois was Screamer—a lost cause.
A client that would be refunded, no matter how much it bothered me.
“Can you speak?” I asked. “Were you Scooter Dubois?”
The ghost, suddenly finding its voice, was offended.
“I am Scooter Dubois!”
“Were,” I said, glancing at my laptop. “You died fifteen days ago in your bed at home. Are you aware of that yet?”
Scooter Dubois didn’t answer, but he didn’t look shocked.
Which was good. Walking ghosts through the whole alive-dead thing was always a chore.
I wasn’t a trained therapist, simply a medium.
I never enjoyed having to walk ghosts through the grief process, simply because it took so much out of me emotionally as well.
Time was also an issue. I had too many ghosts to summon before bed would get my attention.
“Yeeeeeeees,” Scooter moaned. “I am aware. I was Scooter Dubois.”
Good, I thought. A ghost who catches on quickly.
“Okay,” I replied with a nod before looking at the email details once more. “Your son, uh, Darrell, wants to know where you put your will. Apparently, your arrangements with it and its placement elude him.”
Before I could blink, the ghost was towering over the table, growling in my face.
My hair blew back as the anger radiated off Scooter Dubois’s now terrifying glowing form.
His mouth snapped open like a gator’s maw, an impossible number of teeth shining in his mouth, the back of his throat like a tunnel into an abyss.
Fortunately, this was not my first rodeo.
I didn’t so much as blink at the sudden development.
“Darrell is no son of mine! Greedy! Vile! Wicked, wicked boy! He will not receive one penny from me! I should have drowned him at birth! I should have—”
“Great,” I said, blandly. “Will any of what you just said be a surprise to him, or will he be expecting it?”
Scooter Dubois, startled back into his former ghostly form, was floating across the table from me once again. I started to type, waiting for a response. When Scooter remained silent, I looked over at him.
“I’m on the clock, Scooter,” I said. “I need to know what to tell him. Do you want me to tell him you refuse to say where your will is? Do you want to send a specific message to prove you have been summoned? I don’t do curse words or insults or relay information involving crimes committed or you want committed, and I won’t tell him anything that will ruin his life unless it has to do with the will—but I can give him the gist of an abusive message if you like since he did ask about the will. ”
Not knowing what to make of me, Scooter looked down at the ground for a moment. Finally, as my fingertips hovered over the laptop, he lifted his head and looked me in the face.
“Tell him he was never and is not now or ever a son of mine,” Scooter’s ghostly wail echoed in my ears as I began to type.
“Tell him his brother, Cecil, is my sole benefactor. It is outlined in my will—which my lawyer possesses. He will contact Cecil in the timeframe I have provided to my lawyer. On Cecil’s eighteenth birthday. ”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I can do that. Will he feel that this message is truly from you, or would you like to include a response that lets him know I have truly contacted you?”
Scooter thought on this.
“Tell him that mohawk he had in eighth grade was a dumbass decision.”
I looked up at him to grin.
“Is that why he’s cut out of the will?” I asked, mostly joking.
“He had an affair with his stepmother.”
Blinking, I stared at Scooter for several moments. Finally, I breathed in deeply through my nose.
“Mr. Dubois, if this was any other night, I’d grab a beer and invite you to have a seat,” I chuckled. “However, I have a busy night ahead of me. Unless there is anything else you would care to say to Darrell, I have to move along to other ghosts.”
Saying nothing, Scooter Dubois’s ghostly form nodded its head, then slowly drifted through the table, through me, and back out of the atrium once more, its head held high.
I always hated the icy cold hand of death from ghosts as they passed through me, but there was no way to stop ghosts from doing it if they so wished.
Instead, I turned back to my laptop, typed out an abridged version of events to Darrell, and sent off the email.
Of course, I always include a message to clients that I’m always available for future services, but I felt I’d never hear from Darrell Dubois ever again.
Unless it was to request a refund. Which he wouldn’t get.
I grabbed my sandwich and moved on to the next email. It was going to be a long night.