Chapter 4
SPIRITS IN THE MATERIAL WORLD
Micah - Present Day
The shower curtain ring sat on the drafting table, and Micah kept expecting it to disappear, to be absorbed back across the veil into the afterlife. But every time he picked it up, which was frequently, it was still as solid and unimpressive as a curtain ring should be.
Photos of it and the marker message on the bathroom mirror didn’t look like much evidence.
Maybe he needed to install cameras. But who was he going to show?
Everett? Between keyboard clacks and high-definition views of his brother’s sinuses, Everett would tell him the shadow he’d caught on film was simply that, a shadow.
Some play of light from a passing car and Micah really was paranoid and did he call any of those therapists yet?
Scrolling through his contacts, Micah pressed the number for the hotline and wedged in his earpiece.
“Thanks for calling, lover. Our operators are aching to talk to you. What gender are you interested in?”
“Surprise me.”
“Hang tight while I find your perfect match.”
Sultry music piped through the earpiece. Micah twirled the curtain ring between his fingers.
A deep baritone rippled in his ear. “Hey there. I’m–”
“Don’t tell me your name. Anonymous is better. But pronouns are okay... How are you tonight?”
There was a pause. “Can’t get enough of me, huh?”
“Mr Satin Voice, we meet again.”
“Looks that way. I’m glad, actually. The stuff you said last night about how everyone’s body is beautiful, and how I probably have nice hands and what not... That made me feel really good about myself, man. You don’t even know.”
Micah smiled. “Good. I meant it.”
The operator purred into the earpiece. “Now, you tell me what I can do for you tonight.”
“If I want to talk about something other than your body, will you hang up on me?”
“Nah. If you wanna beat it while we talk about football or something, I’m not going to judge.”
“I don’t ever touch myself during these calls. But the topic on my mind is rather unusual.”
“It’s your dime, baby. Try me.”
“I think my apartment is haunted.”
He expected the operator to laugh or adopt an “I’m humoring you” voice, but his tone was sincere. “What makes you say that?”
“The same eighties songs have been playing out of nowhere in the middle of the night for three weeks, and yelling at the neighbors has done nothing. There are loud noises, things falling down, and a weird message appeared on my bathroom mirror.”
The operator would be amused now. He’d tell Micah they were unrelated events, that ghosts weren’t real, that someone had to have written that message when Micah wasn’t looking – the same things Micah had been telling himself.
“The last house I lived in was haunted,” the operator said.
“We heard footsteps up and down the hallways at night, and we thought it was one of the kids. It sounded like a kid running. But when we checked their rooms, they were fast asleep. And once the bedroom door opened and then slammed shut again.”
Micah glanced over his shoulder at the dark room. “So what did you do?”
“We moved the hell out of there. That house had bad vibes.”
“I can’t move. My lease isn’t up, and I like this place besides. It’s a steal for what it is. Anywhere else would be twice as expensive for half the amenities.”
“You got bad vibes being in there?”
Micah pursed his lips. Maintenance had shampooed the carpets while he was in the hospital – after the police got the evidence they needed, not that it amounted to anything – but it hadn’t removed the bloodstains. Ximena had given him a rug to cover them up.
“The worst thing that could happen to me already did, and it wasn’t caused by a ghost,” Micah said. “My life is already bad vibes.”
“Don’t say that. It can always get worse.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“Not supposed to be. But I’ve got this friend who does house cleansings. She’s real in tune with otherworldly stuff. She could probably help.”
“Will she burn some sage in my living room then charge me fifty bucks?”
“Nah, she mostly does this stuff for free. Aside from cleansings, she has EMF meters, EVP recorders, and all kinds of tools for detecting and communicating with ghosts. I moved out of my last place before I knew her, but her clients swear by her. Lemme give you her website.”
Micah wrote down the address as the operator gave it. The ghost hadn’t done anything threatening, but he couldn’t sleep, and his mind registered every unusual noise or shadow as an intruder. Cosmo had to go.
Sitting on the rug with a strange woman, a crystal ball between them, was out of the question, but if she had any investigative tricks or suggestions of things he could do to fix this, that would be useful.
“Her name is Déjà Solano. Tell her Darryl referred you.”
“Darryl.” Micah never wanted to know their names. Anonymity kept a safe distance between them. They could chat and he’d draw and then they’d go their separate ways. But now he felt compelled to introduce himself. “Thanks. I’ll send her a message. I’m Micah, by the way.”
“It’s been a pleasure, Micah. You wanna keep chatting, or you have your fill for tonight?”
He wasn’t sure what was worse – drawing in silence at his desk, or lying wide awake in bed to a ghost playing eighties synth.
“I’d like to, but I think I need to address this ghost problem.”
“Gotcha.” Darryl’s voice lilted. “Talk to you tomorrow maybe, huh?”
Micah smiled. “You never know.”
He ended the call, then opened his laptop and navigated to Déjà’s website.
He’d expected something with casual fonts and horrid color combinations, coupled with a cheesy headshot, simply because “freelance ghost evictions” didn’t sound like something that came with an air of professionalism.
But a soothing scheme of navy and smoky gray splashed across the screen.
A pop-up greeting directed him to the navigation bar. It listed options with various prices:
Paranormal Investigation – buy me a coffee
House Cleansing – cost of materials ($5-10)
Séance – $50
Automatic Writing – $200
What in the world was automatic writing and why was it so much more expensive than an investigation?
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, suddenly incredibly weary. Even the thought of reading a paragraph on a website was exhausting.
An investigation seemed unnecessary since he already had evidence of ghostly activity.
And a séance was out because didn’t you have to hold hands at a dining table for that?
They couldn’t both be in the studio at the same time.
Maybe he could just email the woman and see what she recommended.
He found her contact form and listed all his evidence, along with pictures.
Hesitating, he mentioned that Darryl had talked highly of her, then hit submit on the form.
After climbing into bed, he propped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. Déjà would show up with her sage and magic charms, letting psychic energy guide her to the source of Cosmo the Ghost. She’d wave a quartz pendulum and tell him it was okay to let go, to stop suffering.
If that’s all it took, it almost seemed unfairly easy. Micah’s bottom lip pushed up, a sudden and unexpected ache in his chest. Crystals and kind words didn’t work on the ghosts inside of him.
He pressed a pillow over his face, hoping it would absorb the tears in the corners of his eyes so he could pretend they were never there.
His phone vibrated with an email notification.
Darryl!! I haven’t talked to him in months. He’s got a birthday coming up. I’d better get him something.
Sounds like you need a cleansing. Happy to help you out. Shoot me your address and I can be there tomorrow morning.
–Déjà
Micah sniffled. He wasn’t sure how much faith to put into a…
well, whatever Déjà called herself. The idea of a ghost haunting his studio was strange enough, and how a person would know what to do to get the spirit to leave was beyond him.
But it was a problem with the promise of a solution, and that was at least something to focus on.
He supposed Déjà knowing how to banish ghosts wasn’t any different than knowing the particulars of his own profession.
Muscle memory and years of practice meant he didn’t need head count theory to get the proportions of his figures right.
Knowing where shadows would fall on a face – beneath the brow bone, at the join of the chin and lower lip, in the intertragal notch – was instinctive.
Exhaustion pulled him back down into the sheets. After sending a reply to Déjà, he shut his eyes and tried not to think about the idea of the ghost standing over him while he slept.
In the morning, when he was on his second cup of coffee, a knock came at the door.
He forced his heart back into his chest and answered.
Déjà was a curvy Latina woman in leopard-print pants and oversized sunglasses who looked like she stepped off the set of Crybaby.
She stood on the welcome mat in black platform pumps, a backpack slung over one shoulder.
Micah joined her on the step. He shielded his left eye from the light and held out his other hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
She shook it. “Likewise. The artist world here is so small, isn’t it? My ex lives in this complex.” Her smile sagged. “An old friend lived here too.”
“Oh really?” He thought of commenting that the artist world was too small in that case, but the look on her face made him change his mind. “Are you an artist too?”
“Yeah. I paint ghosts.”
“Of course you do.”
Peeking through the gap in the open door, she said, “The music going on right now?”
“No. Thank god.” It had taken him a while to fall asleep, but once he did, it had been so deep and restful that he didn’t wake up until nearly ten. “I can’t believe this ghost doesn’t own anything other than Soft Cell. Do you think I should buy him some Dead or Alive?”