Page 70 of Possessed By Shadows

We stayed another minute before I turned back toward the road and almost ran into a girl. “Sorry,” I told her.

“Mama still brings flowers,” she said.

Micah was frozen beside me. Could he feel her or see her like I could? Fuck, she looked real. If not for the faded pictures we’d just been staring at, I’d have no idea she wasn’t a regular person. Was she webs, ants or real looking?

“My brother was bringing you stuff. The little plushies?” I pointed to the faded remains of a few.

“Kids take them sometimes. That’s okay.”

It was surreal. She wasn’t wrapped in shadows, or see-through. She saw me, responded like we were having a real conversation. I gave me a tiny nudge of hope. “My brother is missing. I’m trying to find him.”

She looked away, staring into the distance for a minute before finally saying. “He’s not on the other side.”

Did that mean he wasn’t dead? “Do you know how to find him?”

“Not on this side.”

I deflated.

“My ties aren’t as strong here anymore. Can’t follow.”

Like the guy under the bridge, she had probably been gone close to a decade. Was the time a factor? “If I can find someone with a stronger tie to this side? Could they help me find him?”

“Maybe?” She appeared thoughtful and began to fade. “We aren’t always very clear in the beginning. Scattered, confused.” She smiled, and that was creepy as hell as the rest of her vanished around it. A bit like the Cheshire cat of Alice in Wonderland. “We don’t know we’re dead.”

Then she was gone. I shivered. “Holy…”

Micah rubbed his arms.

“Did you see her?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Feel ants?”

“Not until the end.”

“The whole time I was talking to her, you didn’t feel anything? Not even webs?”

He sighed. “I’m totally useless at this.”

I hugged him. “You’re not. I could have done without the last bit.” That smile was going to give me nightmares.

“What did she say?”

“Walk with me, and I’ll fill you in.” I needed out of that area, and there was a lot to process. How did I find someone newly dead that Lukas may have encountered? Maybe the man he’d shot? But it sounded like that guy was haunting him? Would we find him at Lukas’s place? I’d been there a hundred times and even lived there, never once seen anything dark or spooky inside. “Does this mean I’m some sort of medium or something?”

“You’ve always been more of a large,” Micah laughed, tugging my shirt.

“Brat,” I said and kissed him. I’d talked to a ghost and hadn’t become possessed by it. That had to be a step in the right direction.