Chapter 6 Jack
Jack
“You could have been more subtle!” a woman’s voice says in a hushed chide.
“You could have warned me!”
“Windows exist! I figured your nosy ass would be watching from the front!” My arm aches, and my mind is hazy, and the two voices arguing are not helping.
“I trusted you would get things done on your own. I didn’t want to stress you out.”
“You know what stresses me out? Having my neighbor faint in my fucking living room.”
“He always was a bit of a scaredy cat,” the man’s voice says. I could be wrong—no, I know I’m wrong, since my grandfather died last year, but I could swear that was my grandfather’s voice.
But that’s impossible.
“You could have warned me of that,” Rosemary mumbles. “I would have prepared a better lie.”
“No, you wouldn’t—”
“Hush, I think he’s coming to,” she says, and when I open my eyes, blinking to clear my vision, I see her strawberry blonde ponytail draped over her shoulder and her bright smile pointed in my direction, leaning over me.
“Hey, buddy. There you are.” The words almost sound… gentle, like she’s concerned about me.
Now, why would my annoying neighbor be concerned about me? We’re not close or—
And then it all comes rushing back.
Rosemary breaking into my place.
To get my grandfather’s flask.
Because she is a witch who needs to break a family curse.
Walking to her house so she could prove herself.
Watching her ass up the stairs—no, no, that’s not vital to these memories.
Walking in and seeing… I look over Rosie’s shoulder.
“What the fuck is happening here?” I say, and even I can hear the clear panic in my voice. Rosie and my… grandfather give me pitying looks. I move quickly to stand then back away as if the vision before me is a threat, and I suppose it is, in a way. At the very least, it’s a threat to my sanity.
A perfect replica of my grandfather stands before me, the all-too-familiar smile across his face.
The hair on the back and sides of his head is a mess, just like it always was, the top thick and messy but neater, like he ran a hand over it in the mirror as I saw him do a million times.
His eyebrows are thick and chaotic, like uneven caterpillars.
His eyes used to be a green-blue color, but now they’re a monochromatic gray-white just like the rest of him.
A ghost.
My grandfather is a ghost.
“Well, so, you see, this is your grandfather—”
“He’s dead.” I say. “My grandfather is dead.”
“Still am,” Grandpa pipes in.
“And I brought you here to see him because you wouldn’t believe me. Do you believe me now?” Rosemary asks, and there’s a hint of annoyance in her tone, like I’m the one inconveniencing her. I look at her, then at my grandfather, then at my hands, assessing their own transparency.
“Am I dead?” That would explain this, at least. If I were dead, I could see the dead, just like in that old Bruce Willis movie.
Rosemary blinks a few times before shaking her head like I’m an idiot. “No. Why would you be dead?”
“Are you dead?” I ask, squinting at her. I feel around for my glasses, which must have fallen when I fainted, and slide them on. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the fact that my grandfather is hovering before me.
“No, I’m not dead,” Rosie says with the patience of a preschool teacher.
“Oh, this is a dream,” I say, and suddenly everything is so clear; a wave of relief washes through me.
“A really weird fucking dream, but a dream. Which explains everything. I went to bed, and then I woke up,” I put air quotes around woke up, and it makes my grandfather snort out a laugh.
“You’re in my dream because I was pissed at you today.
I don’t know why my grandpa is here, but I’m sure there must be a logical explanation.
And if there’s not, dreams aren’t always logical.
But life, life is logical. Life does not have warlocks or witches or ghosts or—” A sharp pain flashes across my face, and when I turn to the source of it, Rosie is shaking her hand.
I blink at her for a few moments, watching her flex her fingers and wince.
“Did you just slap me?” I ask after a moment.
“Did you feel it?” she asks, sitting back on her haunches.
“Well, yeah.” I lift a hand and rub the warm spot on my cheek.
“Then you’re not asleep. And you’re not dead. Your grandfather is, and he is a ghost, and I am a witch,” she sums up. Her entertained smile snaps something in me as I try and piece together what is happening.
“I thought you were out of your mind before, but this…” I glance around the room, my eyes catching on the shattered vase that must have fallen when I passed out, before shaking my head.
“This is too far.” The illusion she’s created of my grandfather shifts, and something in my chest twinges before I look away.
“This is cruel. I don’t know how you’re doing this,” I wave a hand toward the ghost. “But pretending my grandfather was some kind of warlock, recreating his appearance… This is fucked up.”
“If I did all this to trick you, I’d agree. Unfortunately, your grandfather is real and I can’t get rid of him until I break this curse.”
I open my mouth to argue, but the ghostly figure moves in front of me, blocking my vision of her.
“It seems far-fetched, I’m sure, but I’m really here,” the grandfather-thing says.
“I should have been more honest with you about who and what I was. If I had, this might make more sense to you.” This vision sounds and looks so much like my grandfather, and a part of me that has deeply missed him aches.
“I’m a warlock and always was. I hid it because it was safer that way, and I wanted to live a normal life.
My parents both had magic, but my wife did not, so our children did not. ”
Despite this being fantastical nonsense, I can’t help but blurt out my next question. “Do I have magic?”
Rosemary pats my shoulder, and when I turn to her, she gives me a sad face like she feels bad for me. “No, bud. Sorry.”
“You don’t have magic because I married a nonmagical woman. Magic is most easily passed through the woman’s genetic line,” the apparition who is possibly my grandfather explains.
“And magic is real, whether you want to admit it or not,” Rosie says.
I turn to face her, and we lock gazes. “Prove it.”
She lets out a laugh that fills the room before flinging out an arm to the specter. “Prove it? Is your dead-as-a-doornail grandfather floating in my living room not proof enough?”
“Hey! Would a little bit of respect be too much to ask for?” my grandfather says, but we ignore him.
“Ghosts are not magic.” Even if I can accept that the apparition in this room actually is my grandfather, that doesn’t mean magic and witches and curses exist. Hell, ghost-hunter shows have been around forever.
I can believe that ghosts are real: energy needs somewhere to go, and who’s to say some of it doesn’t occasionally linger?
But magic is scientifically impossible. “You said you have magic? Prove it.”
Rosemary stares at me for a long moment before she sighs and turns to the vase I broke. “My dear magic, prove you’re not fake, fix the vase the idiot did break,” she mumbles in a bored tone.
“That’s not—” I start to roll my eyes, but the words catch in my throat as the broken pieces start to move off the ground.
I look around the room, trying to find anything that could reasonably explain what I’m seeing.
I shift hesitantly toward the pieces, sliding my hand in the air above the mess to break some kind of connection, but meet nothing.
The shards lift into the air, one grazing along my finger and sending a zap of energy through me, and I pull my hand back, inspecting the digit quickly before looking back.
Slowly, the vase pieces itself together—the satisfying sounds of ceramic on ceramic as even tiny pieces and nearly invisible dust lift and slide into place.
It takes less than a minute, but soon there’s an unbroken vase lying on the ground.
“Proof enough?” she asks, bored.
“No fucking way,” I whisper. The vase was in a dozen pieces and now… it’s not. Reaching over, I grab for the vase, lift it, and feel the weight in my hands, inspecting it for hairline fractures. I press on the sides, waiting for the vase to crumble in my hands, but it’s as solid as can be.
Rosie takes it from my hands and places the fixed vase back on the table it was sitting on.
“It’s fixed, Jack. My magic is good. You’re not going to find a defect that wasn’t already there.
” She waves a hand at it, like some kind of game show host. “Do you believe me now? Can we move on to the task at hand?”
I shake my head, and she lets out an exasperated sigh.
“That doesn’t prove anything. It’s some trick, something you taught yourself.
” I look at the vase again and shake my head.
“A good one, but a trick.” I look to my floating grandfather.
“And I don’t know why you made some kind of CGI ghost of my grandfather, Rosemary, but I wouldn’t have pinned you as the type to exploit someone’s grief like that. I’m out of here.”
“Jack, don’t—” Rosemary starts, a mix of panic and dismay in her words, but it’s another voice that makes my steps falter.
“When you were five, you broke your mother’s figurine of a clown by throwing a ball in the house while I was watching you. It shattered into three, four pieces, and I fixed it. Told you it was a magic trick, but it didn’t look too much different from Rosemary spelling that vase, did it?”
I remember that moment. It was the most magical thing I’d ever seen, and what started my obsession with magical worlds. When I’d bring it up to my grandfather, he’d give me a smile and a wink.
“When you were nine, your mom found you hiding in your room with a flashlight you smuggled beneath the sheets, reading a book about the history of dragons. You thought it was fake, but it wasn’t. You stole it from my personal library, little troublemaker.”