Chapter 27
The Magician is a card of manifestation. You have everything needed to make your dreams come true.
CAL
I’m watching Danny closely to see how he reacts to what Marci calls my “woo-woo” side. Laura jokes that I put the “psycho” in “psychologist” but I’m not paying her for her opinion. I’m paying her to keep me out of the electric chair.
I’m curious as to what Danny’s reaction will be. I decided to go all in. “I think the cottage is haunted.”
“Really?” is all Danny says. Not much for me to go on.
“Yes. Sometimes I feel a weird “other-worldly” presence in the house. Like someone is sitting right beside me on the sofa. Once, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a young woman dressed in the fashion of the 30s or 40sat the foot of my bed. As I reached to turn on the light, I heard her say, ‘Beware.’ And then she was gone.”
“‘Beware’? That’s weird.”
“It was the night before Juliet’s first session. Do you believe in the afterlife, Danny?”
“I honestly have to say I have never given ghosts or the afterlife much thought. Although I did have something strange happen once. When I was a rookie cop, my TO and I responded to a horrible single car accident near an old church cemetery.
“The driver had lost control of the car and hit a tree. He was hurt pretty badly, and we had to pry him out. As the EMTs were loading him into the ambulance he asked about the little girl.
“I panicked, thinking there was a child trapped in the car. But he said, ‘No, she wasn’t in the car.’ She had walked out from behind a tombstone, climbed into the car, and held his hand until we got there. She told him her name was Amelia. He said, ‘She told me I would be OK and that I had a lot of good things to do before I died.’”
“I went back to that cemetery later and looked around. Near where his car had crashed was a tombstone with the name, “Amelia Anderson. Born 1902. Died 1909.”
He smiled at me. “That’s my only ghost story.”
I’m curious. “What’s your explanation for that?”
Danny laughed. “Cal, I do my best to keep people safe and alive. I leave the dead people to….”
I interrupt. “Nut? Quacks? Charlatans?”
“I was going to say the coroner.”