Page 10 of Stalked By Shadows
“Don’t let those freaks stir you up. Did you see that woman’s shoes? Walmart special, right?”
Sky laughed. “Oh my God, yes. And those horrid pants? High waisters need to never come back into style. They didn’t work in the eighties and they sure don’t work now.”
I nodded. “Now how about you go dab your eyes and I’ll watch the front. If you need to take a break, I’m fine. I hear there are some really good donuts a few blocks away.”
“Heathen,” she teased. “They are called beignets.”
“I speak French,” I informed her. “French donut.”
“You’ve obviously not eaten them yet. Shame on your brother for not giving you a proper tour of the Quarter.”
“He’s kind of a big deal. Homicide detective and all. Busy guy. More important things to do than drag his little brother around town for food. I promise to try them soon. Go take a break.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
She leapt at me, giving me a tight hug before racing toward the bathroom to fix her face. I returned to the store, greeted a couple who walked in and went to straighten the wall of T-shirts, which Micah had told me seemed in perpetual disarray. Sky left, dashing out the main door, down the stairs and into the hot air of the early October day. The weather would turn soon, or so Lukas had informed me. One day it would be hot and sticky, and the next it’d be rainy and freezing. No snow. Or at least next to never, but tons of rain. I liked the rain. The white noise soothing.
The couple waved me down to ask questions. I hoped I didn’t sound too much like an idiot when I tried to answer them.
“We read about the tours online,” the woman said.
“He has great reviews on Yelp,” the man said.
“One of only four certified tour guides in the city,” I boasted, though I still wasn’t quite sure what that meant other than he had more training and official authorization from the city.
“I’m Sarah,” the woman said. “This is my boyfriend, Jared. We’re from Washington State. You don’t sound like you’re from here either.”
“I just moved here,” I told them. “Was in the army. Living with my brother now.”
“Thank you for your service,” Jared said.
“You’re welcome,” I said automatically. The whole thing felt a lot like the old Catholic recitation of prayers thing. Said and copied without meaning, though it could have been my cynicism. “Micah has been a guide in the city for a while,” I turned the conversation back to the shop and away from me.
“We looked at some other tours, the swamp tour, a voodoo thing, but the history on these sound really great,” Sarah said. “Watched a few videos on YouTube. Snippets of his tour.”
“There is also a Facebook group dedicated to pictures posted from his tours, of ghosts,” Jared said.
I had no idea. “Really? People catch that many ghosts on his tours?”
“There are hundreds of photos in the group. And some crazy videos from his paranormal investigations, but he only does those a couple times a year,” Jared said. “It’s too bad we won’t be here for Halloween since he does one every year on Halloween night.”
“Crazy,” I said. “Doesn’t it scare you guys?”
“Nah,” Sarah said. “I don’t believe in any of that, but the photos are interesting.”
“I’ve seen some stuff,” Jared said, “that doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t mean I think the whole ghost thing is legit, but there’s something out there. Maybe science hasn’t measured it yet. They’ve barely figured out how the human brain works, and are still trying to map all the processes of what amounts to the jellyfish inside our heads.”
Sarah laughed. “He’s a med student. Aiming for neuroscience.”
“I have two family members with major mental illnesses,” Jared said. “I think it’s all about wiring and hoping to someday, maybe, help fix it. It’s hard to see them in pain. Science has theories. Entire lines of pharmaceuticals that the theories are based on, but I think there’s more to it. Same with people who see paranormal stuff. They can’t all be seeing things. They can’t all be crazy. Whether it’s a different set of neurons that open people up to see different things, or pathways that are built up over time, it’s fascinating, and so much has yet to be discovered. Some people want to explore space. I want to explore the human mind.”
My heart flipped over thinking about his idea. “You think some people have different neurons? Maybe those neurons make them hallucinate.”
“Maybe. There is a myth that humans only use ten percent of their brain, however, we have over one hundred billion neurons. We wouldn’t have them if we didn’t need them. We don’t know what they all do yet or all the pathways that can be routed, but we do know that neural pathways can be rerouted purposely. Maybe some of those things can help us see into places we didn’t know were there and haven’t found a way to measure yet. Other dimensions or ghosts, or even thermal signatures.”
“You’re such a nerd,” Sarah teased him.