Page 91 of Ghostly

How was he supposed to explain his statements?Boo-hoo, bad reporter wasthreatening my friends?His bosses were going tolovethat.

All moot, anyway. “I’m not leaving. The ritual is tonight!”

“And Perry and I can do it. We have all we need.”

“Yeah, we’ll figure it out.” Perry turned to Gabriel. “You said you weren’t needed for the ritual, anyway.”

Oh, thanks.Just what he needed on top of everything else: a teenager sassing him.

“I’m not leaving.” Gabriel fixed Ida with a determined stare. “Perry can’t see you. If other forms of communication fail, everything could go wrong. If something happens during the ritual, you need me there—it can’t be repeated or restarted.I’m not leaving.”

Ida’s lips trembled. “Y-you stupid, overconfident, self-sabotaging… buffoon!” And she flicked out.

“Oh, no,” Perry said in a pretend crying voice. “Mom and Dad, please don’t fight!”

“Shut up,” Gabriel retorted (he supposed he used all the good stuff on Natalie) and went to his room.

Hours passed slowly, minutes slower. Gabriel and Perry dined on TV dinners and put on a feel-good movie so Ida could haunt the TV. Gabriel paced the hallway upstairs, downstairs, and went around the house sixtimes, making an excuse about wanting to check everything was set. Perry kept rereading the Resurrection Contract and its instructions. Ida froze a windowpane and tried drawing a puppy on it.

After Gabriel helped Perry prepare the spot for the ritual, the nerves got the better of him (for the eleventh time today) and he retreated into the kitchen, where he attempted to draw together a decent email for Ernest and Clifford, explaining what catastrophe might hit them soon.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ll fix the circle. There you go, ghostie. All good?” Perry’s voice drifted from outside.

Through the window, Gabriel caught him walking around in the dark, waving with his phone. Ida appeared out of it, inspected the ground, and popped back in.

Perry laughed. “It does look like a creepy eye, doesn’t it?”

Gabriel rubbed his forehead and refocused his attention on the screen. His pathetic words from the email he was drafting blinked out at him.

I’m very sorry for any issues this might cause not only to you, but yourconnections…

I can like Ida, but I’ll never build the same connection to her you have.

I assume we will not have to wait much longer for the news to spread…

She’s already dead. How much longer are you gonna wait to tell her how youfeel?

The point is, everything happening is my fault.

Point is, you’re freaking in love with her.

Gabriel pounded his head on the keyboard.

Don’t overthink it now.Perry was blood, Perry liked Ida, Perry would save her. Gabriel was just a soon-to-be-ex lawyer who measured affectionin cups of coffee. He glanced at the antique wall clock. Twelve minutes to go.

Perry has this.

Gabriel repeated the thought, but the more he did so, the more it became like one of those words you only realize are strange once you taste them on your tongue.

Off record: what if Perry was right?

He’d spent weeks with Ida; Gabriel had spent months. And those months had been the wildest, craziest, but also some of the most fun in his life. So he’d had some trouble reining in his physical attraction to Ida; but underneath it was something stronger, more solid, more powerful, longer lasting. And it hadn’t been created after—it was born long before Ida had put on her perfume. Built, piece by piece, by every smile she’d given him, every antic he’d caught her doing, every secret they’d shared.

She imprinted herself in his soul without a single physical touch.

Ten minutes.

Family isn’t about blood.