Page 17 of Sky’s Guide To Getting His Man & Banishing Ghosts (The Dreamwalkers #1)

Chapter

Fourteen

Kingston

Pops smiled at me lovingly, if not a touch warily. “I guess you have questions.”

I glanced down at Skylar where he sat next to me on the log, nodding his head reassuringly. Then I looked back to the man who’d always been larger than life in my mind.

Not because I really remembered him all that well—I’d been too young when he passed—but because Gran had candid family shots in cheap thrift store frames displayed all over the house.

It wasn’t uncommon for her to stop next to one, pick it up, and smile off into the distance as she told me the story of the day it was taken. It was only now that I realized that maybe when she seemed unfocused or lost in thought, she’d really been speaking to him, looking at him.

There were so many things I didn’t understand that I almost wasn’t sure where to begin. But…there was one thing that I wondered more than anything else.

My pops sat back, watchful, letting me collect my thoughts. Understanding at a base level that this was more than I’d ever have expected—to still have my grandfather after all these years. My flesh and blood, the Black side of my heritage.

After clearing my throat, I asked, “Did my mom…did you, uh…”

Pops leaned forward, clasping his hands between his long legs. “Are you wondering if she passed on to the other side?”

I gave one jerky nod of my head, and Skylar’s small hand landed on my knee, squeezing reassuringly.

“She did,” he said somberly. “With your father by her side.”

I blew out a stuttered breath. “Did you see them? Get to say goodbye?”

He smiled softly. “I did. She sought me out as soon as her spirit realized what happened. She brought your dad with her.” He chuckled.

“That poor man. He felt so guilty for all the insults he’d hurled our direction once he saw me still by my Rosie’s side.

Saw with his own two eyes that she could see us.

After that, he was mighty happy to leave you with your gran. ”

“He was?”

“With death, and your mom still by his side, he was able to allow his mind to expand past all those self-imposed limitations. You have to understand, King. His family were small thinkers and racist, on top of that, so they were only willing to accept your mama if she abandoned her own family.”

He growled in the back of his throat. “They had the nerve to tell her they thought they could pass her off as her family originally being from Italy as long as she kept up with her hair and no one met us.”

His lips pulled into a grimace. “Your daddy cut them off so fast…I guess that’s why your mom stopped practicing her own skills and kept some distance from us. He loved her fiercely, but he’d loved his family, too. And he missed them, but he wouldn’t bend, and they never did, either.”

“So Mom didn’t want to risk it becoming all or nothing with you two since he thought Gran’s magic was crap?”

He nodded. “Exactly. Unfortunately, we didn’t know all of that at the time. Most of that came to light after they were gone, and he realized how wrong he’d been and explained himself. It gave your gran some peace. Or as much as you can have after losing your husband and daughter so close together.”

“Why didn’t Gran ever tell me that you were still with us? She just offered to do a spell for Chance so we could see all the ghosts wandering around here. Why didn’t she do that in our home?”

He sighed. “It’s complicated. Life wasn’t easy for my Rosie. Choosing me…made things hard for her. Her own family abandoned her, you know?”

Skylar’s hand flew to his mouth. “Oh no.”

A corner of Pops’ mouth lifted. “It was different back in the day. Anyway, your gran wanted you to have an easier life than our Cecily did. Even after talking to them, she thought maybe one of the reasons your mom made some of her decisions was because not only were her parents a biracial couple, but we were known for being a tad eccentric.”

An involuntary guffaw escaped me. “So Gran thought we somehow appeared normal?” I thought back to when she still left the house willingly, to all the walks through the woods, sitting out here next to this very pond, and how she’d been known to walk up to people and deliver strange messages.

Pops joined in my laughter, cackling so hard his body rose in the air and fell backward, which set off Skylar next to me.

When Pops sat up and floated back down to the log to resume a normal seated position of us heartbeaters, he wiped moisture at the corner of his eye.

“She realized eventually that she’d gotten a little more…

eccentric with my passing instead of less. ”

I grinned. “All that mumbling to herself, she was talking to you, wasn’t she?”

He smiled softly. “I used to tell her to knock it off, but my Rosie…”

I turned to Skylar. “You don’t know it yet, but Gran is a yapper. Don’t give her your phone number unless you want her chatting your ear off.”

Pops snickered. “He’s not wrong.”

Skylar beamed. “Perfect. I’m always down for a good gab sesh myself. Plus, I have like, a million and one questions to ask her.” To my pops, he said, “I’m not sure if you know this, but like, I found out ghosts exist and magic is real like ten minutes ago.”

Pops nodded slowly. “That’s what Harry said, but my girl will get you up to speed before you know it. Especially with Elyse’s guidance.” He cocked his head. “Guess that means you haven’t met any cool supernaturals yet, then?”

Skylar’s eyes widened, his hand clenching my knee reflexively. Not gonna lie, but my own pulse sped up. “Cooler than spirits? Like what?”

“One thing at a time. You’ll find out soon enough.” Pops merely gave him a silly grin.

“Really?” Skylar spun to me. “Kingston Porter, you better tell me,” he screeched.

I shrugged. “I wish I knew. Hell, I’d never even heard of a Dreamwalker.”

Pop’s face went serious. “We should talk about that. It comes down through my bloodline, and it’s no small task.”

“Oh, good,” Gran said, strolling up the path arm-in-arm with Chance’s mom, Elyse. “We got here right in time for the good stuff.”

Elyse settled in on the other side of Skylar, and Gran snuggled into Pops’ side. I’d seen Harry and Buck get close and personal on several occasions, but I hadn’t realized that a spirit and a live person could…you know…snuggle like that.

Gran must’ve read my mind because she smirked. “We’re special. Our soul mate connection, plus all the times we linked to walk in the veil between wakefulness and death, has afforded us a little more.”

Skylar’s head turned toward Elyse, but I still heard him whisper harshly, “Soul mates?”

Elyse grinned at me over the top of his head while shushing him, and when I looked back to Gran, she had a cat—a black cat with streaks of gold , of all things—curled in her lap. “Uh.”

She stroked her gnarled hand over its back, drawing a large rumbling purr. “Meet my sweet Duchess. Of course, she knows you well, honey. She’s very protective of you.”

The large cat turned her head toward me, opened one eye, and regarded me, well, regally, then closed it and put her nose in the air. Gran swatted her large rump lightly. “Duchess, be nice. You didn’t even greet Skylar or Elyse.”

“Hey there, sweet kitty,” Skylar said, getting down on one knee in the dirt and holding his fingers out their direction.

Duchess stood up, walked in a circle, and plopped back down with her back toward Skylar. Gran giggled. “Sorry, dear. She hates being mistaken for a cat.” She stroked her…animal again. “It’s okay, sweet girl.”

Skylar and I exchanged a confused glance as he sat back down between me and Elyse. It was then that I realized that Pops and Elyse were smirking like Gran had.

“What are we missing?” I asked.

Pops pointed at Duchess. “Not a cat.”

My gaze slid to Elyse, who shook her head.

“Then what is she?” Skylar asked, exasperated.

“Psychopomp,” all three of them said at once.

“Do what now?” Skylar asked.

Brain.

Explode.

Skylar grasped my arm, looking up at me with excitement. “What is that, King?” He turned back to my gran. “Do I get one?” He pointed at Duchess.

Gran smiled. “I’m sure you will, dear. You’ll need a baby like this to help those lost souls torturing their victims in their sleep.”

His hold on me tightened painfully, head whipping back my direction. “Do what now?”

Elyse hummed from his other side. “Rosie and I had a nice little chat while you were out here. We’re both a little concerned with your lack of knowledge.

You’ll be an instrumental part in keeping Kingston linked back to this world, as he will keep you linked back to the natural plane, but what you do while the victimized sleep will save them. ”

Skylar’s whole body pushed into me like he wanted to climb into my lap. “I’m lost.” I kinda wanted him to. This was heavy stuff.

“Tell him about your dream last night, King,” Pops said.

Even as I said, “Do I have to?” I knew that I did. Gran kept going off on rabbit trails on our drive over, so she’d said enough for me to realize that my job as a Dreamwalker served the same type of purpose that Chance did here on his property and with other spirits he ran across.

The main difference being that, for the most part, he helped souls cross over as they were ready. Here and there, he’d have to vanquish evil like he’d done to the old owner of his home and the girl in the pond.

From what Gran said, I’d be facing down those who sounded like they’d been damned from the start and somehow maintained a connection to the living through an in-between in others’ sleep while not being able to haunt us like Buck or Harry or even my Pops.

Turning on the log, I skipped over the scary lady completely and told him some guy I didn't know was dreaming about him last night.

His face went through such a complicated range of emotions that I couldn’t decide if he was happy or mad, freaked out or excited, or maybe a little bit of all of them.

He waited patiently until I was done. “So you’re telling me that you’ve evolved from seeing things from the past to walking in real, live people’s thoughts as they’re dreaming?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, son,” Pops said, causing a faint pink to dust Skylar’s cheeks. We all watched him fight to squash a small grin before Pops continued.

“There are levels of sleep, and it’s easy for someone to achieve goals, desires, or even hidden fantasies when they’re in a certain area of their mind when they fall asleep.

That’s when a person’s guard comes down the most, and their spirit is the most open, so their actions in their dreams are actually what they want in their natural body, enacted in the spirit realm. ”

Skylar’s jaw dropped. “That sounds scary. So you’re saying, we like, low-key die when we’re dreaming?”

Pops shook his head slowly, and a little unconvincingly, in my opinion. “No. Not really. But it’s like a place where your soul goes to work out its connection to the greater good…the goddess, the Universe, God, or whatever it is you believe.”

“Oh. Okay, did you know that?” Sky asked Elyse. She put her finger to her lip to silence him, then nodded at Pops to continue.

“It’s a place where your mind can recover, recalculate, escape reality, or begin weaving new ones. Hope happens in that place and, if you’re connected enough to your beliefs, can begin to manifest on this plane.”

“Okay, this is wild. Isn’t this wild?” Sky asked, looking up at me with wide eyes. “That’s not in any of the books Elyse bought me.”

She and Gran snickered, but Pops continued. “When a person encounters an entity stuck somewhere between death and accepting it, when they’re trapped in that realm where the living go during their rest, they’re a nightmare.”

This time, I gasped. Nightmare was an understatement. That lady spooked me out more than any horror movie ever had.

Pops frowned at me sadly. “From what we gathered over the years, it’s like, they’ve lost all sense of their humanity, so they’re angry and torture those they encounter who still have a chance at the life they’ve lost.”

Sklyar waved his hands around, like he needed the world to stop so he could catch up. Boy, did I get that . Then his lips curved down in disgust as his nose scrunched like he’d smelled something foul.

“So are you saying some yahoo we don’t even know was dreaming about me last night? That’s why I was there, right? Because whoever’s dream you were in had me there with him?”

I’d been shoving that unpleasant thought aside, but him asking point-blank brought me back face-to-face with the truth. Someone, a man, had been dreaming about redoing their home with Skylar— my Skylar. Nodding, I said, “That seems to be the case if we believe my grandparents.”

“ Ew . I don’t like that at all. Not even a little bit.”

Elyse snickered, but Gran shot him a sympathetic look. “You’re going to encounter many things in others’ sleep that you’d rather not see. It’s not just the aberrations that will give you pause.”

Pops enclosed her inside the safety of his arms again, and I wondered what that was about. I sighed. “I’m going to need time to wrap my head around this.”

Now Pops’ face went sympathetic. “Unfortunately, this won’t really be your choice, King.”

Gran shook her head. “I’m sorry, my little prince.

I’m all out of remedies in my bag of tricks.

You’ve met your”—she exchanged a quick glance with Pops—“tether.” She dipped her head toward Skylar.

“The other half for your dreamwalking journey. If you don’t plan and take him with you, then you’ll end up there alone, which is dangerous. You could get trapped.”

“Well, I’m not letting that happen,” Skylar said, conviction in his tone. He leaned into me. “You’re stuck with me, partner. I’ll learn everything I need to know and keep you safe.”

My grandmother’s gaze met mine triumphantly, and I finally understood why she’d shared the fullness of my gift in front of him. I’d known people were wrong, that my gran wasn’t as crazy as many of the town’s people thought, but now I saw something in her I’d never known before.

Rosie Porter was a crafty ol’ gal.