Chapter 4 #2
“Nah. This should be quick and painless, and with any luck, they won’t bother you anymore. Ready to get started? I need to grind some herbs if you’ve got a table or counter space I can use. Works best if they’re fresh.”
A bolt of anxiety shot through his chest, but he ignored it – he was okay. He pushed open the door and spread his arm. “Be my guest. I won’t be going in with you, though.”
A smile tugged at her lips, and she gave him a onceover. “You scared?”
“Not of ghosts.”
She looked him up and down again, then pushed up her sunglasses. “What is this? Some kind of prank Darryl coerced you into? Or somebody is waiting behind the door to rob me as soon as I walk in?”
“No! Not at all.”
Her gaze narrowed, emphasized by her sharply painted-on eyebrows. “Then you’d better explain because I don’t like being messed with.”
A knot formed in his chest, the words tangling in his mouth, but he had to say something or Déjà was going to leave.
“I… was assaulted. And ever since then, I have to be alone in the studio. If someone is in there with me, I panic. Maybe not a family member – I don’t know, they live too far away – but acquaintances or strangers?
” He shook his head. Everett had flown in to bring Micah back from the hospital, and he’d come again a month later and stayed for a week, but Micah had been so out of it that he barely remembered.
Déjà’s expression changed to the same damn one Ximena always wore – pity.
“Sorry to hear that.” She pushed open the door and kicked off her pumps.
The heels were clear and liquid-filled, and little faux goldfish swirled around inside.
She sat on the rug and opened her backpack.
“Well, this won’t take long. Don’t want you standing on the step all day. ”
“It’s nice out right now,” he muttered. It was, but he would have said it even if there was a blizzard.
Déjà pulled out a small brass dish with a wire mesh top.
She dropped in a black object that looked like a charcoal briquette and lit it with a lighter.
It crackled, and a thread of smoke spiraled to the ceiling.
Setting it aside, she took out a mortar and poured in herbs.
She ground them with the pestle, and the scent of lavender floated through the doorway. “So, how do you know Darryl?”
“Oh. Uh.” Shit. What was he supposed to say to that?
He couldn’t say he was a work friend or that their kids went to the same school.
And he had no idea what kind of social life Darryl had.
“Fender bender. I was backing out of a parking lot and ran right into him. We exchanged information and…” Micah shrugged.
She raised her eyebrows. “And you invited him to your old white man country club or what?”
“Nah. Phobophobes Anonymous.”
“A fear of fear? Is that a thing?” Her expression shifted, eyes crinkling in a knowing smile.
“If Darryl’s Lexus got dented, you’d sooner be a stain on the pavement than friends with him.
You got a crush on him, huh? Call him on his hotline?
He’s got that smooth voice that makes everyone wanna spread their thighs. ”
Heat flared in Micah’s cheeks. “It’s not like that. I’m not–”
“You don’t need to justify it to me. Darryl’s got back problems and needs a sit-down job that pays well enough for him to provide for his family.” Déjà added more herbs and ground them with the pestle. “Far as I’m concerned, you’re providing for his kids.”
“Would you use that same argument if I was an alcoholic and showed up every night to the bar he tended?”
“No. Because calling his hotline isn’t harming you, unless it’s a sex addiction and you’re using your last dollar to do it. Is that the case?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Then I don’t see any reason for you to be embarrassed. Everyone gets lonely. It’s okay to need comfort.”
Micah’s throat constricted, and he hugged his arms to his chest. Maybe she did know how to reach the ghosts inside him. One of them, anyway. “You sure you want to serve paranormal eviction notices? Maybe you should be my therapist instead.”
She barked a laugh. “I doubt I have the bedside manner for something like that. And your face has turned into a cherry tomato, so I’m sure you want me to change the subject. But seriously. You shouldn’t feel ashamed.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Hopping up, Déjà poured the contents of the mortar onto the briquette in the brass jar.
The heady scent of lavender, sage, and something with a woodsy citrus bite filled the room.
Micah leaned his head against the doorjamb and drew in a lungful of the fragrant air.
A flush still throbbed in his cheeks, but some of the tension left his shoulders.
“Even when activity seems localized to a specific room or hallway, ghosts like dark, enclosed places that don’t have much activity – attics, closets, storage cabinets,” Déjà said. “So I like to get every corner. Is it cool if I walk through your place?”
“Yeah. Sure. The music always seems concentrated in the front room, and the message is still on the bathroom mirror.”
She paused. Smoke coiled from the brass jar in her hand.
“By the way… Not sure you want to hear this, but this won’t be an ‘eviction,’ per se.
Pretty much every building hosts dozens of ghosts.
They’re here all the time, everywhere. It’s just that they usually don’t make a fuss.
I can’t kick them out. I just calm down the rowdy ones. ”
“Oh.” That wasn’t exactly reassuring. “What a bunch of freeloaders. They could at least chip in for the electric bill or let me know when I’m running low on milk. Do these calm ones watch me shower? Laugh at me when I spill salsa down my shirt?”
“Hard to say. Not much we can do about it if they do, but I’ve always gotten the sense that they’re barely aware of our world anymore and couldn’t care less about our human affairs.”
This sparked a whole new tangent of thought about what most ghosts were aware of, and what purpose their post-death form served, but that seemed more like a question for a priest than the woman in his studio.
If the other ghosts weren’t bothering him, they could hide wherever they wanted. He hadn’t noticed their presence in the three years he’d lived here. He just needed the music and noises to stop. And no more shattered mirrors.
“There are mites that live on our eyelashes and in our oil glands,” Micah said, “and the idea is kind of gross, I guess, but they’re harmless. A handful of ghosts hiding inside the bathroom nook where I keep my toilet paper isn’t any more stressful.”
Déjà curled her lip, her nose wrinkled. “That’s great for you, but now I’m going to be thinking about bugs all over my face.”
She stopped by his art desk, wafting smoke toward his supply drawers and the narrow closet. After disappearing from view, she said, “You were right about the nook in the bathroom. Dark alcove with unfinished wood and a hard-to-open door. They’re definitely in there.”
Micah crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “I guess if they come out of there while I’m taking a shit, that’s a them problem.”
He hadn’t said it very loud, but Déjà snorted with laughter. “You’re real chill about this, y’know? A lot of people aren’t. You sure you want to stand outside? I’m not going to do anything to you.”
“I’m sure.” He retreated from the door and rested his elbows on the railing. Low clouds backlit by the sun hung over downtown, refracted in the windows of a nearby bank building. After a few minutes, footsteps and the heady scent of incense filled the doorway. Micah turned around.
Déjà tapped her nails against the brass jar, a furrow between her brows.
“Okay, so whenever I enter a place with calm ghosts – which is pretty much everywhere – it’s like…
a soft draft of air, or cool water on a hot day.
It gets stronger the closer I get to the source.
In your case, that’s the bathroom nook and your back closet.
But a rowdy ghost is like someone sitting on my chest. I don’t physically have a hard time breathing, I’m not in pain, but it feels constricting, suffocating. ”
She was going to tell him this ghost was strong, that his presence was crushing her, and that a simple cleansing wouldn’t do the job.
She was going to need to fumigate the place with weapons-grade sage, then she’d charge him a hundred dollars.
This was probably her go-to shtick. The process was free on the surface, but there would always be a roisterous ghost who “resisted” her normal methods.
This should have occurred to him much sooner.
“Let me guess–”
“There’s nothing here.” Her voice was flat, matter of fact, without any of the warmth it had contained before.
“What?”
“There’s no rowdy ghost. I checked every corner, every cabinet and closet. You don’t have one.”
He scratched his head. Did she think he was wasting her time? “Well… Could he have gone into one of the other apartments? Maybe he saw your incense and snuck out for a while.”
“That would be a first.”
“Maybe it’s easier to detect him at night?”
“It makes no difference for me… I’m going to be straight with you.
I don’t think you’ve ever had a rowdy ghost.” She tapped his chest. “You have a lot of murky red and black going on here – anger, anxiety, and grief – in what is otherwise a very sweet and creative electromagnetic field. The manifestations are likely coming from within you. Your trauma has turned into negative psychic energy.”
“I’m the ghost?” He huffed and balled his fists. “My anxiety is so bad that I’m shattering mirrors with my mind and writing cryptic messages to myself? And somehow, I’ve generated songs from an eighties band that I haven’t listened to in years? That’s preposterous.”
She put up her hands. “No need to get defensive. Now that you know the source, you can take steps to stop it. I have some items that can help, but the best thing you can do is talk to a therapist–”
“Thank you for your time,” he snapped. “What do I owe you for the materials?”
Déjà blinked. “Nothing.” She picked up her backpack and slipped on her heels, then walked through the door.
Micah pulled a slow breath through his nose and worked the tightness from his throat. Therapy had been useless. He wasn’t going to give up art so he could become a dog walker or some other damn thing he didn’t want to be.
And something about this wasn’t adding up. Maybe Déjà just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible because his apartment reminded her of her ex. No matter the reason, he never had guests, and he didn’t want this one leaving on a sour note.
“Hey, wait a second.” He slipped inside and retrieved a twenty-dollar bill and the sketch in the top drawer of the drafting table.
Déjà stood on the stairs, her fist tight around the strap of her backpack.
Holding out the money, he said, “Please. For your materials and gas.”
“I walked.”
“Get an expensive coffee with the rest of it then. There’s a great shop down the block.”
She reluctantly plucked the twenty from his grip. “I hate to leave you without a solution, but you don’t want to hear my advice.”
The music could still be a neighbor, the mirror a random occurrence. But the message and the curtain ring… “Do you think your cleansing would have gotten rid of the ghost, even though you couldn’t detect him?”
“If they were in there, the cleansing should have taken care of them, yeah.”
“Okay.” He waited a beat, expecting her to say something like, If it doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to contact me again, and I’ll attack this from another angle. But of course she wasn’t going to say that, because she thought the ghost was him.
She nodded to the sketch in his hand. “What’s that?”
“It’s Darryl. That’s what I do when I call the hotline. Did I get him right?”
A small smile appeared on her face. “I’ve never seen him naked, but yeah, it looks like him. This is beautiful. You have a lot of skill.”
“Will you give it to him for me if you happen to see him? Stick it in with his birthday present or something.”
“You do have a crush on him, huh?”
“No, but I’ve never had the chance to give the drawings to anyone I’ve called.”
She opened her backpack and carefully slid the drawing inside. “I’ll be sure to give it to him. He’ll love it.”
“Thank you.”
Déjà pulled out an herb sachet tied with a string of gemstone beads and brass charms. “I want you to have this, but you have to promise to use it. Don’t you dare toss it in the trash.”
“Is there a dried finger inside?”
She snorted. “No. But I put a lot of intention into making them. The charms are buried in cleansed dirt during the new moon and dug up after thirty days. Amber beads for comfort, howlite to relieve stress, and” – she plucked out a dark stone with subtle striations and pressed it into his palm – “rainbow obsidian. It’ll help cleanse the negative energy and fill your darkness with radiance. ”
A soft sheen rippled off the stone as he tilted it. “Did you walk over here with a backpack full of rocks?”
“Yes.” She handed him the sachet. “Promise to use it.”
A bag of potpourri and a chunk of volcanic glass seemed like silly trifles to pit against his wall of bad vibes, but the sincerity in Déjà’s voice made him squeeze them tight. “What do I do with these things?”
“Do you have a localized point of your pain in the studio? A certain spot or object?”
He swallowed, thinking of the box buried deep in his closet. “Yeah.”
“Place the sachet and the obsidian there.”
“Alright.”
She nodded, then clanked down the stairs in her platform fish tank shoes. He couldn’t imagine her walking very far in those things. The one time he’d done drag, he’d nearly broken his ankles.
The potent scent of incense still hung in the air as he walked back inside.
He let it fill his lungs and bathe his insides as he headed to the closet and dug out the box.
His stomach clenched as he pulled out a ceramic replica of Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian.
Just looking at it summoned up memories he’d tried to bury much deeper than a closet was capable of.
The sculpture of Comedian he’d had before was probably still in some police evidence locker downtown.
For some godforsaken reason, Everett thought buying Micah a replacement was a perfectly appropriate birthday gift.
Micah had wanted to hurl the fucking banana across the room.
Instead, he’d thanked Everett, insisted it would put his studio back the way it was supposed to be, then shoved it in a box.
After finding a screwdriver, he screwed the sculpture to the closet’s back wall – a spot where he wouldn’t have to look at the horrible thing – then draped the sachet over the top and slid the door closed.