Ghost Mortem

“That wasn’t a very nice thing to say about my mother. Come on, Ev, give a guy a break.”

When Hudson’s voice came out of the empty space two feet behind me, several things happened all at once. My knee slammed against the underside of the table when I nearly jumped out of my own skin, my heart tried to crawl up my throat while my stomach headed south, and I couldn’t decide if I needed to scream or pee.

Hey, if you’ve never seen or heard a ghost, don’t judge my response. And if you have, then you already know what I was feeling. I don’t remember moving, but I ended up with my back against the door, staring at the nothing where I thought I’d heard him speak. My brain told my fingers to turn the knob and open the door, but the message didn’t get through.

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you know the boogieman is right behind you, baring his jagged, ugly teeth, but you can’t move? Every cell of your body is screaming “run,” and you are paralyzed.

Yeah, that can happen in real life, too.

“Okay. Everly, you’re okay.” My voice sounded louder than it should, and I didn’t even feel weird that I was talking to myself. “It was just your imagination. Breathe.” Which is good advice if you’re not so steeped in adrenaline, breathing goes from a basic bodily function to a chore. It was humiliating to realize I probably wasn’t ever going to be the best person to have around in a crisis.

“Yeah, go ahead and breathe. That’ll help.”

This time I did shriek. Just a little. Because this time, I could see the faint, hazy outline of Hudson, like I was looking at him through a shower door.

“You can’t be here.” The paralysis lifted enough for me to point a shaking finger at him. “You’re dead.”

“No kidding. I hadn’t noticed. Thanks for stating the obvious.”

With a nauseating waver, my vision of him began to clear. Oddly enough, the look on his face—equal parts frustration and fear—calmed me down.

“I don’t … I can’t … this is …”

He shot me a grin. “Do that for another hour, and you might catch up to me.”

The burning question of the day popped out. “Why me?” Okay, the burning question of the week, or the new theme of my life. I hoped not, because seeing ghosts on top of everything else? Not cool. “Why?”

“You’re the only one who can see me.”

Of course, I was. Why wouldn’t I be? Because wasn’t that just the toy surprise at the bottom of the box? A flare of hot fury burned off the rest of the adrenaline, and I advanced on him as if getting all up in his face would do any good.

“Get out of my room. In fact, get out of my life.” I don’t know why I thought it would work, but I aimed forked fingers at him.

Hudson only laughed. “Come on, Ev. I’m not the devil.”

Next, I tried waving my grandmother’s cross necklace in his face.

“Or a vampire. Geez, Everly. What is your damage?”

As a last-ditch effort, I grabbed the last of the salt packets Jacy had thoughtfully included with my meal, ripped off the top, and with a flourish, sprinkled it in his general direction.

He tossed me a raised eyebrow, which, when I think back, was an indication of how far off the rails I’d gone.

“Are you done?” Hudson sort of hovered himself into a prone position on my bed and crossed his arms behind his head. “I’m not leaving until you agree to help me, so you might as well calm down.”

Never, in the history of ever, has telling someone to calm down resulted in the desired effect. This time was no exception. Sending a glowering look his way, I picked up my phone and typed in: what gets rid of ghosts? Just my luck, the first thing on the list was smudging the area with sage.

“It won’t work. You can try it, but I’m not leaving. I’ll just wait outside and follow you everywhere.” He’d left the bed to look over my shoulder. As threats went, his was fairly effective because I couldn’t stop him without surrounding myself in a perpetual haze of sage fog, and I wasn’t doing that.

“Please, Ev. I need your help.”

Sighing, I gave in to the inevitable. A new pattern in my life. “If I help you, you’ll go away afterward? I mean, you’ll like … I don’t know … move on or rest in peace or whatever?”

“I hope so, but if you help me figure out who killed me, I’ll leave you alone even if I'm stuck like this forever. Deal?” He held out a hand, and like an idiot, I reached out to seal the bargain. Instead of warm flesh, I thrust my fingers into shivery cold.

I shuddered. “Deal, but don’t touch me again. Or it’s off. You hear me?” Bargaining with the ghost of my dead high school boyfriend. Yeah, that’s totally normal—if the word has lost all meaning.