Page 37 of The Ghost and the Graveyard (Knight Games 1)
I moved on to my next fingernail. Why had I fallen so effortlessly into his arms? Every meeting with Rick was like being swept out to sea, like I couldn't control myself around him. Things were going too far, too fast. No matter how "kindred" our souls were, guys like that always had secrets. Oh God, what if he was married? Or in the witness protection program: that would explain why he lived out here in the boonies.
After rolling my aching limbs off the sofa, I poured myself another cup of coffee and decided choosing a name for my ghost would be a welcome distraction. Shit, I was meeting with an honest to God spectral presence in like four hours. My palms began to sweat. I poured my coffee down the sink and ran for the cellar. I needed a drink and not the caffeinated kind.
Moments later, I stood before the bookshelves in the family room, Shiraz in hand, inspecting Prudence Meriwether's sizable collection of classic literature. Seemed like as good a place as any to find a name. I perused the spines, yanked a leather volume from the shelf and read a random page. Somehow, Romeo seemed completely inappropriate. I moved on to the next volume. Heathcliff? Definitely not. Edward, Fitzwilliam, and Darcy? Too stuffy. He didn't look like a renaissance man. I needed something modern but not metrosexual, smart but not stuffy.
Hours later, from the center ring of a circle of open texts, the name popped out of my brain like candy from a Pez dispenser. Logan. I'd always liked the name Logan. But beyond that, something inside me thought Logan might be his real name. My scalp prickled slightly when I tested it on my tongue and warmth swelled behind my ribcage.
With a self-satisfied smile, I returned the books, two by two to the shelf. As I stacked the last one, a cold wind scuttled across the base of my neck. I spun around thinking my ghost had come down early.
"Ahhh!" I jumped backward pressing myself into the bookshelf.
Prudence's torso glowed at me above her smoky tendrils. "Find the key," the ghost demanded, waving me forward. "Find the key and bring the vessel. Claim your inheritance."
"I don't have any key. I'm not who you're looking for!"
Prudence's old lady face produced an animal like growl and her skin peeled back into a fang-filled mask of horror. Her ghoulish form raced toward me. I tucked into a ball circa 1980's elementary school tornado-drill. Icy wind coursed through my body. I hugged my head between my knees and held my breath as not to breathe any old lady molecules in. When I couldn't hold it any longer, I gasped and popped my head up. She was gone.
"Fuck me!" I patted my chest and arms to make sure I wasn't injured, then grabbed my bottom to check if I'd wet myself. Still wasn't wearing any underwear. I reached for my wine glass. Empty. Storming to the counter, I pulled the cork from the bottle and chugged. I took it with me as I climbed the stairs to my room for a hot shower. The thought of running out the door and never coming back did cross my mind. Why didn't I? Logan. I wanted to give him his name. I wanted to hear what he had to say. I wanted to know more about this house and the promised "sorter." You could say I had warring emotions and at that moment curiosity was winning...or else killing the cat.
After a long shower and a cold dinner that consisted of a slice of cheese, a scoop of peanut butter and a handful of radishes from the back of the fridge, I waited for midnight. I drummed my fingers on the kitchen counter, leaned against the dining room table, posed in the foyer as if I was casually leaning against the wall instead of panicking from the inside out.
My ghost arrived exactly at midnight, when I was leaning my butt against the island stool. The attic door creaked open above me, and then a green orb glowed at the top of the stairs. It expanded as it floated toward me, branching out like a star, burning brighter until my ghost stood in front of me. He looked as solid as I did.
"Wow. You are different at night," I said, feeling stupid for saying so when his expression soured. "I just mean, I can't see through you like I could this afternoon."
"Yeah, midnight is when I have the most control over my form. It takes some mental effort for me to hold myself together like this, but not nearly as much as during the day."
"I don't even know if I should ask you to sit down. Do ghosts sit?"
"I don't need to. Strictly speaking, I don't have a body, so I don't need to physically rest. But I think in this case it would be better if I did-more comfortable for the both of us."
I nodded and moved toward the dining room table. The weird thing about being followed by a ghost is the lack of sound. I watched him walk across the wood floor, looking as human as anyone I'd ever met, but there wasn't even a hint of a footstep. I sat down at the table, and he walked behind the chair next to me and stopped. I waited for him to sit, but he just looked at the back of the chair mournfully. I pushed it back with my foot. He floated into it, his body bending unnaturally before coming to rest on the wood. The action made it impossible for me to forget he was a ghost, no matter how alive he looked.
"You're scared of me," he said.
"A little." Did it show?
"I'm sorry, Grateful, for everything. I know I keep scaring you. I don't intend to. This is what I am now, and it's all I can be."
Even I, the relationship-impaired, know that when you meet a man who can admit his insecurities, you need to appreciate it while it lasts. I put on my big-girl panties and stopped thinking so much. "No, I'm sorry. You've been nothing but kind to me. Thank you for helping with Prudence and for making me coffee."
"It's the least I could do."
"Hey, wait a minute," I said. "If you can't pull out your own chair, how did you make the coffee this morning?"
"I can move things with my energy. But when I made the coffee I was in my other form. Right now, I'm concentrating on looking like my human self. There's nothing left over for moving the chair." Half of his mouth lifted, wrinkling the corners of his eyes and making the stubble on his chin remind me of a lover who'd spent the night and forgot a razor. I had to keep reminding myself that he was dead, that he didn't have a body.
"My turn to have my question answered," he said. "What is my name, Grateful?"
"Well, I don't know what your real name is, but would you mind if I called you Logan?"
"Yes. Logan. I am Logan." He said the words with relief. What must it be like to float around in someone's attic not knowing your own name?
I allowed myself to look at him, really look at him. The spiky blondish hair, the green eyes, sport coat, jeans, and loafers. Handsome would be an apt description but not in an obvious way. Not handsome in the way that Rick was handsome, for example. When you saw Rick, it was like watching a male model walk off the pages of a magazine. He was all heat and swagger. Sex oozed from his pores. Logan was attractive but in the way a neighbor might be or a best friend's brother. There was a realness about him. His smile made me feel warm, like coming home after a long day.
"What exactly did you do when you were alive?" I asked, pondering if what he was wearing was what he'd died in, or some universal version of himself.
"I told you, I don't remember," he said. "None of us ever knows."
