Page 20 of Ghost of a Chance

“H ow’d the ghost hunt go while we were gone?” Gia asked as they all settled into the living room eating their lunch.

“We had another incident with the TV, but we didn’t capture anything,” Jasper said.

Dan was eating a sandwich in between rigging up his newly purchased infrared camera. “Bri’s not going to love the quality of this camera,” he said, his words muffled by the food in his mouth, “But if we can catch a glimpse of something on it I think she’ll let it slide.”

Kirsty hoped so. Not that she thought that Paul was taking a corporeal form but footage proving that it wasn’t human intervention would still help. She’d done more research on ghosts like Paul. Supposedly poltergeists resisted being caught on film. Made sense to her.

“We are going to try to talk to Paul’s professor tomorrow and find out more about the day he died. Maybe he had a paper or project he didn’t finish, something important enough to keep him tethered here.”

“Are you going to finish it for him?” Gia asked Kirsty with a cheeky grin.

“Uh, no. Science and me don’t mix. What about you, Jasper?”

“I get the fundamentals. I think I could eke out a C if that’s the only way to get Paul to move on,” Jasper said around a bite. Something told her it was more than just a science paper or project, but at this point Kirsty was open to anything. “How’d you make out on the schedule?”

“Well…they didn’t want to give it to me, but I sweet-talked someone in the records office,” Gia said, winking at Jasper.

“Not surprising. I set up a shared Google drive for us all to use,” Kirsty said. “Figured we can drop stuff in there. Updates and whatnot.”

“I’ll put it in there. Also, we totally can film in the library, which is pretty nice. I’d like to get a few photos of you working in there, Kirst, so we can use them for promo.”

Glancing up at Gia, she nodded. Might be nice to work in a college library. She hadn’t done that in years. The atmosphere would probably help give her new ideas.

“What’s up for this afternoon?” Dan asked.

“I’d like to see the house where you lived and maybe Dan can film it,” Kirsty said to Jasper.

“Sure. Since it’s rainy it would probably be a good idea to take the car,” Jasper said. He glanced at Gia. “We can leave after lunch. You coming?”

Gia shook her head. “I have to do some work this afternoon. If anything happens at the house what should I do?”

Dan gave her a wide grin. “I’m going to just run the infrared camera 24/7. I have a SLR that I’m going to set up and let run in here as well. The battery will last a few hours. Could you set an alarm and switch it out?”

Kirsty let her mind drift while they were talking. As much as she hadn’t enjoyed being a medium at first, this was fun. She liked making a list of possibilities and then ruling them out. Playing detective .

They cleaned up after lunch and she realized she’d never called the local mediums despite the alarms she’d set. Jasper had distracted her and she’d just muted her phone. “Give me a few minutes. I need to make a couple of calls.”

“Want to leave in thirty minutes?” Jasper suggested. “Chewie needs a walk and some playtime.”

“That works for me.”

Heading upstairs to her room she put in her AirPods and dialed her cousin Liberty.

“Hiya, famous author.”

“Hi, Lib. Um…do you know anything about talking to the dead?”

“Not really. I can ask Mom but that’s not our area of expertise. Why?”

“You know how I sort of let people think I’m clairvoyant; well, I’m stuck trying to exorcise a poltergeist from a physics book.”

Liberty laughed so hard that Kirsty could hear her redheaded cousin’s entire body shaking as her bracelets jingled.

“Nice. Let me know how that works out. You should try to reach out to some mediums.”

“Yeah, they are my next call. Wanted to check with you first.”

“Wish I could help. Since I have you… I’m doing Yule this year. You and your mom should totally come.”

“We’ll see.”

It would be nice to be with family in December.

Normally it was just her and her mom. They had their traditions but sometimes it felt a little small and lonely.

She texted her mom about Yule before calling the first medium.

The call went to a voicemail that didn’t have a message. She hung up without leaving one.

The second got picked up on the first ring.

“Aza Preeti, psychic medium.”

“Hello. Uh, I’m Kirsty.”

“Hi there. What can I do for you?” Her voice was surprisingly mundane, sounding a lot like the librarian at her elementary school. But Mrs. Parson hadn’t been a clairvoyant.

“I’m doing research for a book I’m writing. Would you mind answering some questions?”

“I don’t mind, but I have an appointment in ten minutes.”

“That should be plenty of time.” Kirsty took a deep breath. Telling all of this to a stranger was unexpectedly awkward. “So let’s say someone was pretending to be psychic and set up a séance for their friends.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that. My profession gets a lot of crap,” Aza said immediately, irritation in her voice.

“I know… I’m an author. I’m writing a book where my heroine can actually talk to the dead and uses them to solve crimes.

But there’s this secondary character that’s going to get into trouble for this and come to her,” Kirsty said, realizing just how convoluted this sounded.

“The thing is, in my story the character hears a loud voice during a séance that no one else does. Is that possible for someone who isn’t a medium?

Or do you believe it could just be in her head? ”

“Your character is going to go to the real medium about this?” Aza queried.

“She is.” The same way that Kirsty was in real life.

“Well I’d say that the character probably has some raw talent that they might not realize,” Aza said. “Does that play a part in your story?”

Holy shit. Talent? Her? “Yes. So how would the character contact the voice again?”

“I’d suggest going back to where she heard it the first time. Have her do some meditation and reach out asking for more answers. The spirits require patience just like us,” Aza said. “I’ve got to go. Hope that helped.”

“Thanks, it did. Can I make an appointment to come and talk to you? I’ll pay for your time,” Kirsty asked. Aza had the knowledge she needed. She might have insight about Paul…and about the latent talents she mentioned.

“I have some time on Thursday at two. Would that work?”

Kirsty confirmed it would. After hanging up she flopped back on her bed.

Real psychic powers…was that possible? Or was this all just in her imagination?

Did that mean going forward she’d get more ghosts trying to contact her?

God, she really hoped not. This thing with Paul was pushing her outside her comfort zone.

And that voice…it was going to be a long time until she didn’t hear it echoing in her head.

Her mom texted a midday smiley face along with a message that she’d contacted Aunt Lourdes and was making plans for Yule.

Kirsty hearted it. Her mom might have some extra insight but that was not a conversation she was ready to have.

So instead, she pocketed her phone, grabbed her peacoat, and headed downstairs to meet the guys.

Jasper sat on the bottom of the stairs putting on his tennis shoes. Glancing back over his shoulder he smiled at her with so much happiness. Her heart skipped a beat. You’d think she’d be used to seeing him, but it seemed each time they were together she noticed something else she liked about him.

Which didn’t help her not-letting-him-mean-anything-to-her plan.

* * *

It was one of those quintessential dark, rainy autumn afternoons, and Jasper was about to revisit the last place he saw Paul alive.

Dan left in his own car because he had to go home for a few days after they visited Jasper’s old apartment.

He had all of the cameras in the Airbnb rigged to go off on timers once they were set up, and Jasper was going to manage keeping the batteries charged and downloading anything captured from the SIM cards.

He’d called ahead and the current tenants had agreed to let them take a look at the place and to film inside. Dan was going to get them to sign the necessary forms when they got there.

Kirsty sat quietly next to him, her fingers moving on the keyboard of her phone making more notes. He debated for a minute after he started the car, then finally put on the Dead Boys mix he had on his phone.

A look of pure joy on her face. “Figured you like their music.”

“You know I do.”

The driving beat and electronic riffs of the melody from “Hunting in a Killer Moon” filled the car, and some of the tension he felt about going back to that apartment eased.

Not all of it. After all, he hadn’t been back in years.

He moved out right after Paul died. Had in fact crashed at the frat house, sleeping on the sofa for the rest of the semester.

Their eyes met as they both started singing.

In the shadows, we move through the night. Soft whispers, cut like a knife. Your kiss like poison, your eyes on fire, dancing on graves we never tire.

“Crank it up for the chorus.”

Our eyes meet, promising that soon, we’ll go hunting in this killer moon. Facing our fears, chasing away doom. We go hunting in a killer moon.

“I needed this,” he said to her as the song ended.

He’d been so uncomfortable in the apartment by himself. Waiting for Paul to come out of his room. His mom had offered to come and stay, but that would have been worse.

Kirsty sang along to “Find Joy,” slightly off tune but he smiled and joined in, equally out of tune. For a minute they were back to that first night, two strangers who simply enjoyed the same band and were starting to like each other.

It was too easy to blame Paul for everything that happened next in his life. He never thought things through. Like with how he tried and failed to keep his distance from Kirsty since that night.

“How did you and Paul meet?”