Page 12 of Ghosted (The Ravenwood #1)

TEN

After my talk with Aunt Clarissa yesterday, I feel a pressing need to clear my head. I’ve been spiraling about it all day today. I need to come up with a plan quickly, or I might have to use my Gift.

Aunt Clarissa is right: I wouldn’t be ripping people off.

It’s not like I would charge them the full price if I couldn’t reach who they wanted.

I shake my head, sending my long braid over my shoulder.

I need to try to come up with something else first. I don’t want to be the next Long Island Medium.

I throw my old trench coat on and lock up behind me.

It’s chilly enough to need a jacket, but not so cold that I need a hat and gloves.

I decide to take a walk down to Beauhurst Park and around the manmade lake there.

It has a nice walking path that I like to use to get my thoughts together.

I’m not a huge fan of exercise in general, but taking a walk does wonders for my mental health.

It’s about two miles round trip from my apartment, so that gives me plenty of time to come up with a solution.

I resolve that if I haven’t come up with at least a couple of ideas by the time I make it back home, I’ll think about Aunt Clarissa’s option more seriously.

When I get to the park, there’s only a few people milling about. I guess most of the Ravenwoodians are at home eating dinner. I shove my hands into my coat pockets to protect them from the cool air and start on the looping path that goes around the small lake.

If I were artistic, the park would make for a fantastic painting, especially now.

The leaves on the trees are just starting to turn a rainbow of color.

Mostly green, but the edges of the trees are a riot of reds and yellows.

The low-hanging sun gilds everything it touches, and the only ripples on the calm surface of the lake are where the ducks drag small wakes behind them.

By the time I get to the halfway point around the lake, I still haven’t come up with a better solution.

I thought briefly of renting out the space for parties or something, but the witchy aesthetic of the interior would probably only attract people during the month of October.

Which is kind of the thing we’re trying to find a solution for.

We already sell a variety of supplies for anyone interested in spirituality or the occult, and even some basics for the average Joe who happens to wander into the store, so I don’t know what else we could add that fits our niche.

I think for a moment on the “potion” idea that the teen was asking after the other day, but that feels way too disingenuous for me.

I’m grumbling about retirement homes by the time I insert my key in the lock of my front door. I don’t actually resent Aunt C for wanting to go. It does seem like a good fit for her, but damn—when it rains it pours.

I hang my coat on the rack by the front door and kick off my boots. In my socked feet, I walk to the couch and sit down with a huff. I cross my arms and lean back.

I guess I can just… open up my senses and see what I can feel. If it gets to be too much, I can always pull back.

Satisfied with that plan, I begin the process of slowing my breath and closing my eyes.

I’ve done this in the past just to see if I could tug on someone I was already in contact with, but I’ve never just thrown out the net to see what I can catch.

I reach out with an ever-expanding web, scanning with my mind’s eye.

I’m a little scared of accidentally grabbing someone who would rather be left alone to really push myself. Like Dean. Apparently, he wants me to leave him alone. Well, lucky for him, I will. In fact, I’m so pissed off at the way he’s treated me, that if I never hear from him again?—

“Rae?” My eyes want to pop open at the intrusion, but I keep them screwed shut in disbelief.

I know that voice. Oh, God. I know that voice. That can only mean…

“Dean?” I ask, cracking my eyes open to see him standing in front of me.

He’s wearing a deep-navy suit with a crisp, white button-up shirt, undone at the collar.

He looks the way he did on our date, but he’s shimmering around the edges just so.

And he’s suddenly appeared in my living room.

Unless this is a “living in the walls” situation, I think I just discovered why he never texted me back.

“Oh, fuck. You didn’t ghost me! You’re… Well, a ghost!” I blurt, jumping up.

“Ha-ha. I didn’t ghost you, silly. Our date was literally yesterday.

You can’t miss me that much already, do you?

” He gives me that same charming smile that made my heart race on our date, and while it would have worked on me weeks ago, now it just makes me nauseous.

Because he doesn’t know. He thinks I’m playing some silly prank on him.

Oh, no. I’m going to be the one to have to tell him that he’s dead.

As he looks around my apartment, his smile melts off his face slowly, like an ice cream cone left in the sun for too long.

“Wait… Where are we? And how did I get here? I just left work, right?” He looks down at himself, brushing his hands along his suit jacket as if to confirm his outfit is indeed work appropriate.

“Where’s my phone?” he asks, patting his pockets.

I wince. Yeah, he won’t be finding that in the afterlife.

I gnaw on my lip, unsure of how to break the news to him. Of course, I’ve had to tell others that they were dead, but this is the first time I’ve had to do the same for someone I know. Someone I’ve kissed.

And wow, he’s dead. And I don’t even have time to process that information, let alone the surprising wave of grief. Because obviously, right after the one time I hit it off with someone, they have to give up the ghost. Really funny, Universe. Hilarious, actually.

But this isn’t about me. Poor guy is about to have a rude awakening.

He continues patting his pockets and looks at me suspiciously.

“Is this your place? Did you drug me? You know, you didn’t have to do that to get me to come to your apartment, right?

All you had to do was ask.” He gives up on the search for his phone and crosses his arms. I can tell he’s fighting to stay calm, but his mind is frantically trying to make sense of where he is and why.

He frowns at me. “Actually, after this little stunt, the answer will probably be no,” he says, backing away from me a step.

He must be very disoriented right now, and I would wager he hasn’t been sentient since he died.

Most people who die take a while to “come to” in this form.

It’s a traumatic thing for the soul to separate from the body.

And I just yanked Dean to me without intending to.

I wince, hoping I didn’t disturb some vital part of the process that I’m not aware of.

“I didn’t drug you, Dean. Our date was over three weeks ago now,” I say slowly.

He shakes his head adamantly. “No, I swear. I just saw you, and then—Didn’t I go home?” he asks himself, looking up at my ceiling as if to find some reasonable explanation among the cracking plaster.

“Look, it’s September 27th and our date was on the 5th.” I hold out my phone to show him the date on the lock screen.

His brows scrunch together violently. I consider blurting out the truth, but he’s so confused, I think that would just freak him out more. I’m trying to slowly lead him to his new reality.

“That can’t be right,” he says, intending to grab my phone and pull it closer to him.

Only, he hasn’t mastered anything about being a ghost yet, so his hand goes right through.

He doesn’t know he has to concentrate on the object and his hand to make contact.

He’s still operating like a live person who assumes that if they reach for an object, they’ll be able to touch it.

He shakes his head as if to clear it and reaches for my phone again, sending goosebumps along my arm as his hand passes through mine for a second time.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” he asks, sounding close to panic.

Well, so much for easing him in. I sit down and gesture for Dean to do the same. When he tries to sit, though, he passes straight through the couch and lands with an “Oomph” on the ground. Guess I should have seen that coming. Man, I’m really screwing this up.

Don’t ask me why he didn’t go straight through the floor.

I know very little about ghost physics, but I can only assume it’s something to do with his unconscious ability to control where he is.

And while he definitely doesn’t think he should go through couches, he really doesn’t believe he can go through the floor.

“No, but actually what the fuck?!” he yells from his rumpled position on my floor.

The air drops in temperature until I lock my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.

He sits up and scrambles away from my couch to the middle of my living area, passing through my coffee table while he does so. He stares up at me, panting hard.

“Okay, um… I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this, and I’m clearly messing it up. But you’ve, um… passed on,” I fumble out.

“What?”

“Like, you’ve gone over the rainbow bridge.” I make a rainbow motion with my hands to punctuate.

“Isn’t that for dogs?”

“Dead ones,” I say, nodding.

“Are you calling me a dog?”

“What? No! I swear I’m usually better at this. I’m so sorry, but you’re dead, Dean. You passed away sometime within the last three weeks,” I say, biting my lip against the urge to make more euphemisms.

He shakes his head in disbelief. “No, that can’t be right. I’m not dead. I’m right here,” he says, pointing his thumb at his chest emphatically.

“ You are, but your body’s not,” I try to explain, feeling once again like I’m royally screwing this all up.

He runs his long fingers through his hair and even slaps himself on the cheek a little, then raises an eyebrow at me.

“Okay well, explain why you couldn’t grab my phone or sit on my couch then,” I say, exasperated at his stubbornness.

He opens his mouth to argue, but snaps it shut and works his jaw a few times. “I… I don’t know,” he says finally.

“Look, I know this must be hard to come to terms with. I’m sorry you’re learning this right now, and that I haven’t done a better job at breaking the news to you. I swear I’m not usually so bad at this,” I say quietly.

We sit in silence for a while, and I do my best to let him process.

Hell, I’m trying to process that he’s dead.

I feel like an ass because I’ve been so mad at him for not messaging me back, but he’s obviously had other things going on.

I try not to let the wave of grief overtake me.

I only knew him for a short period before he passed, but he was truly such a cool and special person.

It feels like a punch in the gut to know that none of his family or friends will ever get to see him again.

A light snuffed out before the candle was even halfway burned.

He looks at his hands, turning them this way and that, and for the first time, I wonder if ghosts see the shimmering too. “I’m really dead, aren’t I?” he asks quietly. His gaze shifts to mine, and I can see the anguish and confusion written in his expression.

“You are,” I say, matching his tone. Pure honesty is usually the best protocol in these situations.

His form flickers in and out rapidly, and I feel the room drop a few degrees.

Goosebumps texture my skin, and I rub my arms to keep warm.

It takes a lot of energy to stay in a corporeal form, and he’s what I’ve previously deemed as a baby ghost—new to the world of haunts and existential dread.

So his battery is fairly small right now.

I’ll be surprised if he can stick around for more than a few more minutes.

With that in mind, I say, “Look, you’re probably feeling drained, so it’s okay to let yourself go.

You need to rest. I promise we can keep chatting when you’re feeling up to it. ”

He stands and comes over to me. “How will I find you again?” he asks when I look up at him. He reaches out a hand as if to touch my cheek but stops at the last second. I feel the barest hint of energy crackling over my skin where his hand hovers. He drops it and flexes his hand by his side.

“You will,” I say simply.

I’ve noticed that once a ghost finds me, it’s easier to do so again.

The hardest part is finding me for the first time.

It’s like stumbling upon a dinghy in the vast ocean.

But once you’ve gotten to it, you can hook a safety line and wander as far as you want.

You’ll always be able to find your way back.

With that reassurance, he flickers out, and I’m left reeling in the silence.