Chapter 28
“I’m Silas Erie,” I continued. “Medium, lifeline to the dead, communicator with souls. I have a question from your friend. Unfinished business you have on this earth. I summon you!”
Typically, summoning a ghost, if you’re an adept or expert medium, everything except the ghost’s name is theater.
However, even though I’ve been summoning ghosts for nearly fifteen years—since right before puberty got its fangs in me—I find the theater helpful.
It compels the ghosts, it seems. Makes them feel as though they are dealing with an authority they should not refuse.
Ghosts who do not spend much time around other ghosts have no idea that there is no authority in the afterlife.
At least none that I’ve witnessed. No one is going to arrest a ghost, take it to ghost court, and put it on ghost trial.
Death is final. There are no further repercussions for the dead.
If they refuse to answer a medium, well, what’s the worst that could happen to them?
Super death?
No such thing.
I stood in the living room, waiting for the ghost to show itself. If it was Marcella, she should be compelled to slither out of whatever hidey-hole she’d found and materialize for me. If I was wrong, then I’d wasted all of my time.
I was about to open my mouth to summon the ghost once more when I felt a coolness emanating from the hallway.
Lowering myself to the sofa, I sat back, waiting for the ghost to make up its mind.
Five minutes ticked by like hours as the cool breeze silently spread through the living room.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the blueish-gray glow of a materializing ghost trickled from the hallway.
It was just a slight shimmer in the air at first, the ghost, but as I waited and stared at the hallway opening, the image became clearer. Feet, a few inches off the ground, transparent and glowing, began to materialize, then jeans covered legs, hips, abdomen, torso, arms, and then a head.
The ghost shimmering in the door to the hallway was a thin woman who had seen her share of hunger.
Beautiful, even in her gauntness, with a long mane of dark hair, gangly limbs, and impossibly small waist. Wracking my brain, I plucked a few memories out.
Marcella Washington, one of the folks from the camp, who I had seen a handful of times was standing before me. I was certain of it.
I’d only seen her a few times. At the Gas didn’t move.
“Please don’t make me be a bad person,” I said, pleading. “Let me trap you. Prove to you that you are a ghost. And then I will set you free. I will not keep you trapped for a long time like you were in the cupboard.”
She looked back to me.
“I promise.”
It seemed like forever before Marcella reacted.
Two moans emanated from that gaping mouth.