by Kim Hornsby
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and began to speak. “Little girl, I brought back the bear. Do you like animals?”
Right away, I heard clicking from Carlos’s monitor and the air around me grew frigid. I assumed the bear’s lights were going off too. “I’m happy to meet you,” the bear said. “Let’s play something. Can you tell me your name?”
Carlos had programmed the bear to say this if the measurement reached a certain level. He also had the voice box turned up so loud, it almost drowned out the bear’s voice.
“If you want to come to me,” I said, “we can play with the bear.” I put my arms out and sensed something closing in. My heart rate sped up. I was asking the girl to inhabit me and was hoping it would work. “Come sit in my lap and we can hold the bear.” I reached for the teddy and felt something creep into my body, like a cold wave slowly washing over me. I hugged the bear to my chest and involuntarily swiveled from side to side.
Although the child was working my arms, I had no clue as to who she was. She hadn’t taken over my mind at all. This was highly unusual for inhabitations.
“I’m cold,” Boo Bear said. “Let’s play a game. Tell me your name.” The bear felt warm in my arms as the entity settled into me.
Then, it happened.
I spoke but it wasn’t my voice. “Amanda,” she said. “I’m lost.”
I heard Eve’s steps move closer and she slumped down to the floor nearby. “Amanda, we’re sorry you’re lost. Are you staying in this hotel?”
I shook my head, unable to do anything else. She’d taken over now. “My daddy is here but I can’t find him,” I said.
Eve reached to turn off the bear who was going on and on about being cold and wanting to play a game. We didn’t need him anymore, except to hold. With Amanda inside me, I was powerless to speak or act until she left, a mere observer on the sidelines.
“Do you think he’s behind a door down there, Amanda?” Eve asked. “Should we go inside a room?” Eve sounded much nicer than she usually was to children.
“He’s not there,” I said in Amanda’s voice, a profound loneliness overtaking me. I felt like I was alone in the world, no one to help me or care for me and I didn’t know what to do.
“Where is your Mommy?” Eve asked.
I clutched the bear to my face, feeling his soft fur against my cold cheek. “She went to heaven. I have a nanny.”
“Where is your nanny?”
“I ran away from her when I saw Daddy come here.”
I wanted Eve to ask her what her daddy’s name was.
“Did you die in this hotel, Amanda?” Eve whispered.
I started to cry. “I fell out the window.”
“That must have been very scary,” Eve said, resting her hand on my arm.
Eve was rockstar of the hour.
“Where was your Daddy when you fell?”
I was just thinking that her father committed suicide after his daughter’s death, when I had my answer. “Daddy had a gun and I was trying to throw it out the window.”
“And now you’re back to look for your Daddy, aren’t you?”
I wished I could talk to Amanda but all I could do was let her talk through me and clutch the bear. Eve had the reins on this one.
“Your Daddy isn’t here anymore, Sweetie. He’s gone to heaven with your Mommy and they’re waiting for you.” Eve said this with such lovely excitement, I felt joy to hear her words. “It’s time to leave here and go to them.” Eve let go of my hand. “They love you very much and are waiting for you.”
I felt a release from the little girl, like she had somewhere else to go now. The wave of her presence flowed out of my body swiftly until I was left with just me inside my body. I switched the bear back on, but nothing changed.
“She’s gone,” Eve said. “I feel it.”
“Holy cow on a stick.” I said, taking a deep breath.
“Are you OK, Moody?” Eve asked. “That, that was radical.”
“I’m fine.” I assumed the camera was still rolling and Eve wasn’t blocking the elevator doorway, so I continued. “Amanda was just a lost little soul who died trying to keep the gun away from her Daddy. She never knew that her father must’ve gained control of the gun and shot himself after she fell out the window.” Tears came to my eyes. I didn’t often cry after a summoning, but this one hit me where I lived. I liked children and when you get that close to one, like having it actually inside your body and mind, you couldn’t not be affected. I continued to talk, my head down, dabbing at my eyes. “I have to assume it was her father who shot himself in 714. Why didn’t we hear about a little girl who fell out of the window? Stay tuned, Mood Peeps for more information after I research this.” I didn’t even try to look at the camera. “That’s it for now everyone. Moody out.” I tipped my head back and heard it thump on the elevator wall.
As is always the case when a ghost inhabits me, I was left exhausted, spent, empty and somewhat melancholy. In the excitement of contact, I’d completely forgotten about the camera in front of the mirror until Carlos reminded me.
“Our work here is done unless you want to leave the mirror cam up, Bryn.”
Eve’s hand in mine, I stood and wobbled a bit, partly from sitting so long, partly from being inhabited. “Eve, take me to the mirror.”
Eve took my arm under the elbow and as I passed Carlos, I felt a tug on the teddy bear from him. I let go and continued down the hall. “You did a great job with the questions, Evie. I think she’s gone now, having been tied to this life for decades, looking for her Daddy.”
“You’re probably right. Did you feel her leave?”
“I did. What held her here, was addressed.” We stopped just off to the side of the mirror. I knew this because I put my hands out to feel the cold smooth surface of the mirror, my fingers investigating the size of the thing. It was framed ornately, and I imagined the frame to be gold. After telling Eve what I was going to do, I followed the Shamanic custom of cleansing the mirror by passing my palms over the mirror’s entire surface, then stood off to one side so my reflection wasn’t in the mirror from where we stood. “Caspian? Can you come through this way?”
Eve was appropriately silent, watching from the other side of the framed mirror.
“Caspian, we saw you earlier. Was that you? I have to think you’re having trouble coming back to this world.” I sighed and touched the mirror. “I wish I could help you come through.”
“Nothing,” Eve whispered.
“Can you speak to him, just try a bit,” I implored. “Maybe it’s me.” I stepped aside.
“Captain Cortez, you are needed here. Please come back. Show yourself.” Eve would be positioned so she couldn’t see either of us in the mirror. “Where are you?”
I listened to the faint sound of traffic in the street below. I wondered if Eve saw anything. I’d never had any luck with scrying but now hoped something would come through. After a few minutes, Eve touched my arm, gently.
“How long should we wait?” she whispered.
“We’re done. Let’s review the tapes now.” I knew Carlos was in the hotel room rewinding and reviewing at command central. “We got amazing footage, of you and I, I’m pretty sure.”
“Maybe even Caspian,” Eve said. “I’ll make sure to examine the mirror footage uber carefully.” Eve led me to our room.
“We didn’t get anything in the mirror just now,” Eve called to Carlos.
“Bummer,” Carlos countered. “Maybe the camera did.”
Hodor would be waiting on his bed. “Here Boy.” I patted my thigh and felt for my dog as he crashed into me and almost knocked me over. “Good wait.” I said patting his side. I reached inside my backpack beside the bed and gave Hodor a dental bone from the Ziploc bag of yummies I carried around. “Did we get some good stuff?” I asked Carlos as Hodor leapt to the bed to eat his treat. I crawled up to the pillows and sat with my back against the headboard.
“Getting an inhabitation on tape is up there
with catching a ghost on camera. You look like a little girl took over your body.” Carlos said with enough wonder to make me believe the show would be an instant hit.
“How so?” I wanted to see what I looked like with an eight-year-old inside me. If Caspian ever showed up again, I intended to watch the tape.
“The expression on your face,” Eve said, sounding like she was hovering behind Carlos looking over his shoulder. “You look child-like. Pouting and smiling sadly. Definitely not like the hardened Moody.”
Hodor crunched his dental bone. “Is the blanket down, Eve?”
She assured me that my dog was not on the bedspread.
“Can you review the mirror when you have time? See if something is in there while we were busy with Amanda.” My mind was half on our job and half with Caspian. Until Eve thought the dark apparition in the mirror might be Caspian, I was all in for Amanda. Now, I was desperate to know if Caspian had been trying to find me. I slinked down the bed and landed beside Hodor, curling in and spooning him from behind, wrapping my top arm across him. “Where is he, Boy?” I whispered this into Hodor’s fur, low enough that Eve and Carlos wouldn’t hear how desperate I was. “Is he cognizant that I’m looking?” I knew Hodor didn’t know the word cognizant but his wagging tail thumping the bed told me he got the general impression. Mom was talking to him, including him in my emotions.
I listened to Eve and Carlos review the tapes for another few minutes. Then, I felt around on the bedside table for TapTap, flicked the cane open and started for the door. “I’m going to hang out in the hall for a while. Can you give Hodor a treat when the door closes, Eve?”
The door hit me on the backside on the way out, something I was pretty sure hotel doors were not supposed to do. The hall was silent, not even the sound of an elevator dinged. I assumed it was lit as I walked the length of the hall, tapping my cane in an arc in front of me.
No song came to mind. Even if it had, I was too upset to sing. The melancholy that had led me to walk the hall had now turned to frustration. If that was Caspian in the mirror, why hadn’t he said something? Or why couldn’t I see in his presence? Twenty minutes of walking the hall and I realized that Caspian was not going to come to me tonight. He’d done all he could.
I retired to the room and inquired about the mirror.
“Nada,” Carlos said. “Eve’s going over it in slow-mo again, just in case we missed something.”
I got ready for bed, then slid between the crisp hotel sheets. We weren’t sure we’d use the beds, but I was beyond exhausted and had to lose consciousness. “I’m getting some zzz’s now!” I called to Carlos and Eve who were in the next room working. I left the connecting door open, just in case they got something I needed to hear about.
I usually dreamed as if I was sighted, but I soon fell into a dream where I woke in the darkness and heard Eve talking to me from the foot of my bed. “Turn on the light, if you need it,” I said to her.
“It’s on.”
“I didn’t hear what you said,” I murmured into my pillow.
“I said I’m sleeping in Carlos’s room in the other bed. He’s editing the awesome footage of the kid and I’m trying to help him.”
“And you’re telling me this because…?”
“Because if you need me, I’ll be in the next room. I’m just being a considerate roommate.”
“Wake me at seven, please.”
“If I can break through all your snoring,” Eve joked.
In the dream Hodor rolled over on top of my legs and for a moment I thought it was Harry. “I don’t snore,” I whispered and pushed Hodor off one leg with the other leg.
“Tell that to the people on the sixth floor who just complained,” Eve countered. This was a standing joke with us. I actually had no idea if I snored. Harry had never said anything when we slept together. I grabbed a pillow from beside me and whipped it in the direction of Eve.
“Missed,” she said and softly closed the door between our two rooms.
My next dream seemed to be hours later. In some regards it was more like a dream because I woke to the illuminated room, in full vision. Hodor was not on the bed. I looked to see he was also not on his dog bed on the floor. I sat up and was just about to leave the bed to go to Carlos’s room when I noticed a shadow in the corner of the room near the window. I blinked to see someone sitting in the chair by the window. I believed it was Harry. “Hello,” I said.
The man stood and stepped from the shadows. It was not my husband. It was Caspian. Then I remembered. Harry had been gone for a long time and I’d healed from the horrible grief I’d lived with for months. Caspian hadn’t taken Harry’s place in my heart, but I now had very deep feelings for Caspian. Was he still a ghost? ”I missed you.”
He spoke. “I’m sure if I knew I’d been gone, I would have missed you too.” He took several steps towards me. “Have I been gone long?”
The lamp on the nightstand was set on low, but I could see his gorgeous face in the yellow glow. “Too long. Eight days.” I reached for him and as he sat on the bed beside me, I took his hand and kissed it. “They saw you in the mirror tonight.”
“In a mirror? How unique of me. I saw you sitting on the floor with a child’s toy.”
I scooted closer to Caspian, our thighs resting against each other. “I was working.”
He nodded knowingly. “Where are we? Surely this isn’t Cove House with the bed linens looking so.” He lifted up the blanket and dropped it.
I scooted closer and looked deep into those gorgeous eyes that made me want to sail away with him immediately. “We are in a hotel, an inn.”
Caspian’s hand came up to cup my face.
“You knew you were leaving and said, ‘remember me’. Why did you say that? Have you crossed over?” His hand was warm in mine and it felt rough, like the hand of a man used to handling ropes on a ship.
“No, but I thought I might.”
This dream was my doing, a secret story between me and myself. This was not Caspian but my memory of him. As much as I wished it was him, it wasn’t, and the thought left me feeling despondent. “Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to find your bones because then you’ll be gone.”
He smiled gently and kissed my lips.
“I have feelings for you,” I said, wondering if I was talking out loud in the bedroom and if Hodor was sitting up in bed staring at the sleeping version of me. “And I believe you have feelings for me.”
Caspian’s gaze raked down my face to my chest and below. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, he pinned me with a look of such sexual interest, I shivered. “Yes, I have feelings for you, Bryndle.”
I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted one of those dreams where you rip each other’s clothes off and make love, but he stayed still as if he’d disappear again if he moved. “I wish this dream was you.” I leaned in to take his shoulders in my hands and pull him halfway to me, intending to kiss him, to satisfy my want. To initiate what we both knew needed to finish.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him fiercely. Our kiss was rough, needy and I felt like a starving person at the most deliciously decadent dinner. Caspian smelled of the ocean, adventures and sailboats and as his hand slipped down my side and up under my shirt, I gasped against his warm mouth. “Yes,” I whispered. I shifted to sit on his lap but just as his hand found my ribs, a slamming sounded across the room and I woke to darkness.
“What just happened?” I said, not meaning my sexy altercation with Caspian, but referring to the slamming. The connecting door to Carlo’s room squeaked open.
“Did you slam the door because we were making too much noise?” Eve said. “Because we were whispering.”
Hodor jumped on the bed.
“No, I was sleeping. Did the door just slam on its own?” I immediately thought Jacqueline, then remembered we were in a hotel room in Portland and I didn’t think the evil ghost could follow us.
“Think it was a ghost?” Eve asked.
“He was in here, sleeping. Sorry Bryn,” Eve said. “We had the door almost closed, but he kept scratching on it. Carlos took him out a while ago, then he wanted to settle in with us.”
That was very strange. Hodor was a one-woman dog. “Why didn’t he come back to my bed?”
Carlos chimed in. “When I opened the door to see what his problem was, he rushed in here, like he was afraid.”
“I was dreaming you woke me, Eve. Maybe I was talking out loud.”
“I did wake you and you were talking out loud. That wasn’t a dream. It was right after that, Hodor started scratching at the door.”
I felt a pillow land on the bed.
“You threw that at me,” Eve said.
I felt around for Hodor until my hand connected to his furry body. “I guess that wasn’t a dream where you said the people downstairs complained I was snoring.”
“Nope, but you were pretty groggy,” Eve said. “Are you OK, Bryn?”
“I guess so. I had a dream where Caspian was in the room. In that one I could see.”
“It was a big night with the inhabitation.”
“Yes, it was.” I sat on the bed beside Hodor who was now licking my hand in apology for deserting me. “What time is it? Time to get up?”
“Four thirty,” Carlos said.
“You’ve only been asleep about an hour.” Eve’s voice was soft, placating, like I was a child asking if I could get out of bed from my nap.
“It seemed like more. You guys doing OK? Getting some good stuff?” I stood.
“Amazeballs,” Eve said. “Wait until Caspian shows up and you can see what we got.”
Had Caspian shown up or was that a dream? “I’m going to get more sleep then. See you at seven.”
