Chapter 4
FOUR
Ghost
Under my hair was an egg-shaped lump. When I’d first arrived, my head was hurting behind my left eye, and the lumpy spot was tender to my touch, making me flinch. Before Christopher, it had been the only other thing that felt real. The pain disappeared, though, the lump was the same size. With dread, I waited for it to shrink.
It was so weird being without memory. Although there was an advantage: no pain or recollection of dying.
If I’d encountered toxic assholes—and who hadn’t? I had no clue. If I’d had an unhappy period, where I’d struggled or been a sad teen, it didn’t haunt me.
And I still seemed to have wants. Desires. Like I’d love to eat a fresh mango right this minute. Any fruit dipped in chocolate sounded perfect. Except when I said as much, Christopher warned me not to do it.
“You can get one, but I wouldn’t swallow. The taste is off-putting when you’re a ghost.”
“Okay.” I held back a stream of jokes about not swallowing. Whoever I used to be, whatever my life had been, I must’ve had a dirty mind.
“Do you want the mango?” he asked. “Simply imagine it in your hand.”
“What?” I blinked, forgetting about my raunchiness. “I can do that?”
“If you give it a chance. You can control how things look and are in this realm. Whether it’s a mango or an entire world. If it’s all a white blank, it’s because you’re imagining it this way. I’ve located ghosts in all types of settings. They create them. Concentrate on images. I’ll say a word, and you try and picture it. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Mountain.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them. Nothing.
“Maybe I should start with something simple like that mango.”
“You can do this. And when you do, you’ll see. The spirit world is fucking fun for ghosts. Let’s try again.” He steepled his hands under his chin. “All right, how about a deep woods, a forest of trees?”
I thought hard about trees.
“Evergreens, trunks of trees, think of trees,” Christopher coached.
A palm tree emerged to my right.
“Fuck!” I jumped.
A whole cluster of palms emerged.
“Keep looking at it,” Christopher instructed.
As I did, a beach formed nearby. White sand. A turquoise ocean with a light chop of waves. I could taste the salt. Smell the tanning oil. Feel a light breeze, the warm sun that was the color of a butterscotch. Overhead, a seagull squawked.
“Holy fuck,” I murmured, stunned. “Is it real?”
“It’s as real as anything our brains dream in the human world.”
“Oh, God! I know this somehow, somewhere.” I searched my mind for a name, a specific memory. “Why can’t I figure this out?”
“Don’t push so hard. This is good.” Christopher’s hand rested on my shoulder.
The weight of him calmed me.
“I made a beach,” I declared.
“Hell yes, you did.” He gave a crooked smile.
I liked when this big, surly man smiled at me. He looked younger when he smiled.
“Let’s keep trying words. Okay. How about whales? Wizards? Playgrounds? Pizza.”
“This is stupid—” I stopped as a wooden swing set appeared in front of us, with two swings hovering in the air near my knees. “What the hell?”
“I said playground—maybe you had one as a kid.”
Suddenly, butterflies were in my stomach at the thought of swinging.
“Come on.” I tugged at Christopher’s hand. I had to climb on. Sandals off, I pulled myself onto a swing and tilted my face to the bright, warm sun.
Christopher, the grump, hung back.
“Get on,” I commanded, impatiently.
“Yes, boss,” Christopher sniped.
Was I bossy? The idea did feel right.
“Get your grumpy ass on this swing.”
Shaking his head, he removed his shoes and rolled his jeans to his knees.
As soon as Christopher hoisted onto the swing beside me, the entire wooden structure began to move. I gripped the chains in my hands as we swung over the ocean.
“Holy shit!” I pumped my legs. The greens and blues of the water were at our toes.
I kicked some toward him, and he splashed some at me. A white froth splattered my clothes. I was dead, but I felt…alive. So much stress left me then that I laughed, swinging higher. We swung like children, as fast and high as possible. And all around us was the sea and sky. Crazy.
Dolphins emerged from the ocean to leap and dive by our legs. They raced our swing set. Their slick gray bodies flew through the water. One flipped over to expose his belly. The dolphin righted himself and arched high into the air, hitting the water with a satisfying smack. We pumped on the swings, legs aiming at the sky, heads flung back. I swore my entire body thrummed as if I still had blood.
The wind blew Christopher’s dark hair, exposing the surprisingly delicate shape of his ear. His striking blue eyes met mine. “See, the spirit world can be fucking fun.” His voice was rough.
A shimmer of something passed through me, and I managed a shy nod. I stared at his sturdy chest, slightly rounded belly, strong jaw, powerful thighs.
Having swung enough, we climbed off. I lay back on the sandy beach. A sandpiper darted near me, poking its thin beak into the tiny grains.
My fingers searched for the knot under my hair. The lump was still there while I’d swung across the sea, reminding me sharply that my whole world was forgotten. I wanted to believe. Have faith. But the absence of memory left doubt. Who was I without connection? Adrift in this strange place.
Green and purple shot like fireworks across the clouds; only these had heart shapes that gave off loud crackles as they burst.
Christopher nudged my leg with his foot. “Can’t do that in the human realm, right?” He admired the colorful sky before shaking some water droplets from his head. “Pretty cool, Ghost.”
“Can you give me a name?” I complained. “Or even a nickname? Like Scout or Buddy or something? A basic name is fine, too. Like Mike or Sam.”
“Nope.” He folded his arms. “I’m calling you Ghost. That’s what you are, and the sooner you accept it, the better.”
“And you call me bossy.”
“Technically, you’re my boss while I’ve agreed to work for you. But for now, I need to return to my paying job.” Christopher brushed some sand off his jeans. Hesitating, he said, “I do promise to look into your situation along with my client looking for her father.”
“Why look for this ghost-father at all?” I asked. “If he won’t remember his daughter or his life, except for fragments. Why would he want to seek his daughter out?” I was frustrated at how Christopher kept trying to leave me.
Unfair, maybe. Was I some spoiled brat?
“He doesn’t want to seek her out. It’s all her. Humans think ghosts want to haunt them, but it’s the other way around. Most of my clients settle for a glimmer, not an appearance of the ghost. Occasionally, I do channel them and connect with both realms at once.”
“But I want to find my people. I’m hiring you.”
“Payment is yet to be seen,” he replied dryly. “And once you acclimate to this realm, we’ll see if that remains true.”
“What’s your ex-wife like?” I rolled onto my side.
“Way to change the subject from payment,” he griped.
I grinned at him.
He sighed. “She’s nice. She’s a schoolteacher, a good one, and she’s nice to the kids she teaches, even the difficult ones.”
“She sounds nice,” I said, using his same vague wording.
“She is.” His tone became defensive.
“Sorry I brought her up. I wish you could ask me stuff. I’d tell you all about me if I could, even the awkward parts.”
“If you remember anything, I’ll keep you to that promise.”
“How about pets?” I tried to engage him in conversation again so he wouldn’t leave me. I was sure Christopher understood this was my end goal. He looked off at some passing ghosts before rubbing the side of his jaw and slowly sinking into the sand beside me.
He began to talk. He talked about a cat he fed in an alley. His favorite movies. It was like music to me, comforting me. The subject didn’t matter. Everything he said made being here less painful. And he knew it. Christopher stayed and talked because he saw I was so freaked out. So, I asked questions and he answered each one. As he talked, Christopher became my friend.
Yeah, this was instant. Too fast. I got that I craved connection. Something human.
But who’d made those rules? What authority? They didn’t apply here.
“Do you believe in destiny?” I asked, cupping some sand in my hands and letting it fall. “Like no matter what we choose, our life is not in our control? We’re waiting?”
“I think we should go after what we want. Nobody hands us a damn thing.”
I stared at him for a long moment. “You’re right.”
“I know.” He swallowed visibly.
Slowly, giving him a chance to pull back, I leaned forward.
Christopher didn’t move away. His eyes got big, and he licked his lip, but he made no move.
So, I kissed him.