Page 19 of Marked By Shadows

I watched other ghost hunters, or paranormal enthusiasts as they called themselves, do something called ‘provoking the spirits.’ This often entailed a Ouija board or some sort of angry verbal attack. I thought of it mainly as an American thing. Though I’d seen a few European ghost groups do the same.

The idea that attacking the dead, if that was what they were, was a good idea, stunned me. In my culture, the dead were respected, and only called upon to offer protection. They were ancestors, those who had come before, and treated with respect, not terror or even loathing.

There were legends of the dead coming back more as demons than ghosts. Pulled from their graves to right a wrong, but transformed into something greater than simply the departed spirit of a loved one. In fact, a lot of Japanese and Chinese legends feature spirits transformed into something else by ill intent. We didn’t call those or demand their presence. We didn’t agitate those.

There was a difference between the yurei, the departed, and the yokai, demons or higher beings. I’d always thought of the yurei as memories more than physical things. In America they were thought of as repeaters, little more than a cluster of energy going about the same actions over and over. It was a bit like a stain on the fabric of reality rather than a person. No conscious thought, only a simple repetition of emotion or activity. That’s why people smelled perfume of their grandmother, or the pipe smoke of their grandfather. The yokai were more like what had taken Alex. Tricksters. Monsters. Demons. Things that manipulated the living to gain power, energy, or control.

I had thought the cat might have been a yurei, energy of a cat once loved and worshipped, imprinting itself in the bones of Freya’s home. But the change, that wasn’t the act of a yurei. Had it been the Ouija board that had manipulated the spirit of the yurei? I hoped it hadn’t been changed into a yokai by the group’s interference. It would be sad to learn that Freya’s beloved cat, who had engraved her delicate and loving memory into the house, had suddenly been shifted into something dark and dangerous.

Funny how it didn’t occur to me to question Alex on the validity of what he saw. He could have still been dreaming, hallucinating, or a thousand other things. All I had seen was a shadow. It meant little in scientific terms. But I didn’t doubt Alex’s word. He hated admitting he saw things the rest of us didn’t. Being with me, he didn’t hide it as much. He trusted me not to judge him. And I didn’t.

I bit my lip, staring up at the ceiling as a thousand scenarios rolled through my brain. Every option from full on exorcist horror stories to every ghost hunter in the world descending on Freya’s B&B to catch a glimpse of the terrifying ghost cat turned monster.

“Hey,” Alex said, which made me jump a little as I’d been so lost in thought. “You okay?”

No. I needed to work on something. Clear my mind, or even interrupt the thought process. But I hadn’t brought any major uncompleted projects with, only small things to keep my hands busy.

Alex reached up to turn my face toward his, his eyes dark and half lidded. “Micah?”

“I…” didn’t know how to articulate what I needed. There was panic, deep within my soul. The idea that we’d gone on holiday and come face-to-face with a nightmare kept rolling to the front of my brain. “I need a distraction,” I whispered.

Alex shifted around in the blanket, pulling me from being the big spoon in our snuggle to him being wrapped around me, blocking everything but him from my vision. I let out a long sigh as his weight on me began to ease the panic and slow my thoughts a little. He stroked my face and hair, let me feel his heat and strength around me. It was grounding being in his arms. Alex wasn’t some sort of over-muscled hero, but he was solid, and for that I was grateful.

“Tell me what you’re most excited to see at the convention later this week,” Alex said.

I blinked, trying to process his request through the tide of busy thoughts. They slowed like a production line caught with a broken cog, stuttered and jerking. “The convention?”

“Yeah, this textile thing? Reason we’re here? We’re moving forward right? Tell me what you’re most excited to see. I’ve been looking at the class schedule and hope to catch a few myself.”

“There are a few lines of fabric,” I began having to reroute my thoughts. Some of the lines I thought he might like, with dragons and mythical creatures.

“Tell me about them. What sorts of patterns do you like best?”

And that was a loaded question. Because I liked so much, and yet had strong opinions about certain prints. I sucked in a deep breath and began to walk through my thoughts on some of the most popular lines. It didn’t matter that Alex fell asleep in the middle of my explanation because I did too, somewhere in defining the political intensity of Alexander Henry prints to the wildly overhyped Kaffe Fassett florals. We both needed sleep, and who knew categorizing fabrics could be better than counting sheep.

Chapter 7

When we arrived at the breakfast table the next morning, both a little bleary-eyed and in desperate need of coffee, I was surprised to find only Freya and Grace wandering back and forth from the kitchen to the dining area. I didn’t do mornings well, but Alex had woken me with sweet kisses and a mutual hand job, before dragging me to the shower and then demanding coffee. Which was why we were in the house right at eight and marching to the coffee pot.

“Hope it’s like your coffee,” Alex grumbled as he reached for the pot. “I’ll still drink it if it’s some Folgers crap, but yours is what I crave.” It was, as Freya had been the one to introduce it to me. She had regular big brand boring coffee too, but the good stuff was there and ready to go. I waited for Alex to fill his cup, then took the pot to do the same. A bit of doctoring with almond milk and stevia, and I took a sip, enjoying the familiar taste and warmth running through my bones.

Alex took a drink, sighed almost pornographically, then downed half the cup before refilling it. “Heaven.”

“I have those waffles you like,” Grace told me. “Dairy free, and the chicken sausages. Always real maple syrup of course.”

“Hmm,” I said into my cup, not awake enough to form real words, but let her direct me toward the hotplate put aside for my special diet.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Alex said to her. He followed me, and we loaded up our plates full of almond flour, dairy free waffles, and chicken apple sausages, all covered in syrup. I didn’t normally eat this much in the morning, but we’d be out running around, with only a short lunch break in the middle of the day, and I wanted Alex to eat.

We sat down at the table, opposite the doorway where the ghost cat had been last night. I watched Alex’s expression, but if there was something here, he gave no acknowledgment to it. None of the shadows looked out of place, even as I studied the spot for a minute or so.

We ate in our comfortable morning silence for a few minutes as the rest of the group began to trickle in. Chad first, with a plate loaded full of pancakes and bacon. Then Julie and Nicole, MaryAnn, and finally Jonah. No sign of Byrony and Melissa. But since they weren’t going on the trip into the city, I assumed they were sleeping in.

Freya joined us, sitting beside me with her own stack of waffles and sausages. Since I’d had almost an entire cup of coffee, my brain was starting to come back online so I looked at her and asked, “Were you filming in the middle cabin last night?”

She took a sip of what looked like very milky coffee and nodded. “Tutorial. It’s easier to film at night when everyone is in bed, and I have full control over the lighting.”

“Sounds like a good way to lose out on sleep,” Alex said.