Chapter 11
Chapter
I’m shaking as we walk up to Tita Wendy’s storefront the next day after work, the familiar neon sign glowing in the fading sun—a crystal ball in electric purple, the words Psychic Reader in yellow curving around it.
My stomach is clenched with dread as Greg rings the bell, but I relax slightly when he smiles at me. It’s a relief not to be alone in this, even though spending time with him again sets my nerves on edge.
His work clothes haven’t changed much in the past five years: white cotton button-up he probably bought on sale at the mall, brown belt, gray khakis. Steve Kornacki chic, I teased him once when he’d first started working at TKCORP and I was home for a visit.
Finally his mom opens the door and beckons us inside.
The parlor where Tita Wendy does readings is done up like a set from a movie—throw rugs, candles, lots of dark blue, all tinged purple from the sign in the window. I still remember going with her to Joann Fabrics to stock up on indigo cloth with gold stars.
We sit around the table in the center of the room, Tita Wendy perched over her crystal ball. “It’s the first time you’re coming to me for a reading. What brings you in?”
Greg nods at me to go on, and that gives me the courage to tell her the whole story.
The laugh lines by Tita Wendy’s eyes crinkle. “Typical Adela. She always had a hard time letting go.”
She’s taking it better than I expected. It’s surreal how quick she is to believe me—but then again, even skeptical, goal-oriented Mom, who never quite approved of Tita Wendy’s chosen profession, would talk a lot about ghosts when I was growing up.
I’m not sure what I expected. That she would be devastated. Or angry, maybe—because I feel ashamed, like I made this happen, somehow.
“D-do you know why the messages would disappear, at first?” I ask. “But now they stay there? Does that tell us anything?”
Tita Wendy considers this. “Adela must have been struggling to push through the veil from the afterlife, grappling with whatever pulled her back here,” she says. “But it sounds like she’s firmly lodged herself in there now.”
I start to sweat. Oh God—is she a ghost because she wanted to talk to me, specifically? Is it because I came back? Because I took the job she wanted, and I’m fucking it up?
“S-so what do we do?” I stammer.
Tita Wendy clears her throat. “This isn’t going to be the usual show I put on for clients. This is, uh—this is serious.”
She extends an open palm. “Give me your phone.”
I stare blankly at her.
“Normally I wouldn’t do this. Trying to contact—” She drums the fingers of her other hand on the table, acrylic nails almond-shaped and translucent violet. “But it seems like she’s the one initiating it. So. Let me talk to her.”
I unlock my phone with trembling fingers, open up Slack, and pass it her way.
She frowns at the screen and taps around before setting it back on the table. That jaunty little tune for initiating a huddle plays on speakerphone.
And then there’s a terrible staticky sound, like a broken AM radio combined with the howl of a Santa Ana wind. Greg just sits there stoic, but I flinch, and Tita Wendy cringes. “Ugh, horrible,” she says as she waves her hands around the orb, and it actually starts to glow.
The wind in the room picks up. The bells above the door jingle. My hair billows, lifting off from my neck and touching down again.
“Adela, where are you?” Tita Wendy shouts over the noise. “What do you see?”
“Wendy!” It’s Mom’s voice, unmistakable.
Hot tears prick the corners of my eyes. Greg reaches out over the table to squeeze my wrist, and without thinking, I jerk away in surprise.
“Wendy, is that you?” Mom cries. “How has your sister been since the surgery? Say hi to her for me!”
“Adela, focus!” Tita Wendy scolds, but she’s smiling and her eyes are moist, catching the light from the candles. This must be hard for her. “What do you see there?”
“I see—I see so many rooms in here. Hallways and hallways, tunnels, other doors. Some of them asked for a password.”
Tita Wendy clicks her teeth. “She’s not making sense,” she says, sotto voce.
And then, shouting again: “I’m here with Ruby!
We’re trying to—to figure out—” The howling gets louder, and the wind in the room speeds up.
Tita Wendy bats away a business card that’s flown across the room from the stack she keeps by the door, next to a jar of mints.
“Why are you lingering here, Adela? Why are you having trouble passing on?”
“We’re going to get you out of there, okay!” I shout before I can stop myself.
“Ruby!” Mom cries. “Ruby, listen to me! You have to—you have to—”
She said those words so much when she was alive. My shoulders tense, bracing to learn what I’ve failed to do this time.
But the howling stops. The wind dies.
Tita Wendy shakes her head. “The call dropped.”
She puts on the glasses dangling on a faux pearl chain around her neck and peers down at the phone with disdain.
“Server error,” she reads out. “Unable to connect at this time. Try again later.”
Tita Wendy takes off her cat-eye glasses. “It seems there will be no shortcuts, even with this”—she waves at the phone—“unique situation. You’ll have to go through a process of trial and error to figure out what your mom’s unfinished business is.”
It’s not like this is what I expected when I pictured having a daughter.
“You two were close. You don’t—” My voice is so thin, like watered-down soup. “You don’t know what it is?”
Tita Wendy sighs. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I don’t think that’s a good idea, now, to guess.”
But the realization is sinking in slowly, like a fresh stain working its way deeper into carpet: I know what the problem is. She basically told me, the last time we talked on the phone.
Mom’s still here because of me and what a disappointment I am. She couldn’t rest easy, seeing how my life was turning out.
I don’t want to have to face it. I don’t know if I can change it now. I get up quickly, fumbling because the chair legs snag on the rug.
“Thank you for your help! Sorry to bother you. I’ll have to think about what it could be.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Tita Wendy says with a click of her tongue, standing and putting a hand on my back as I head for the door.
“Keep me posted, all right? Tell me how I can help. Anything you need.” She widens her eyes at her son, who’s gone unusually quiet, and flaps a hand at him. “Greg, why don’t you walk Ruby home?”
“No!” I exclaim more forcefully than I intended.
Greg looks like he stepped on something sharp, but it passes quickly enough that I wonder if I imagined it.
“No, I—I need to think,” I say. “Be alone for a bit. Thanks, though, Greg. For—” I wave a hand vaguely around.
“Anytime, Ruby,” he says quietly.
My mind is spinning for the whole walk home. As soon as I get inside, I slump against the front door and frantically start googling again. And I land on one promising result:
Cruelty free exorcism. Banish ghosts the humane way! Quick fix for hauntings.
Great. Perfect.
As I fill out their contact form, I hum to calm myself down. It’s only after I hit submit that my mind catches up and I recognize the song: one of the eighties power ballads Mom loved so much, the kind she’d sing off-key while she made dinner.