Ghoul Friend

by Meredith Spies

  I rolled my eyes—or I dreamed I did, anyway. “I’ve missed you, Nana. No one is as snarky as you.”

  “Well, you do give it a good run,” she sniffed. “I noticed you’re ignoring what I said about being the one responsible for you finding a new man.”

  “I’m ignoring it because it’s not relevant.”

  “Take that back, Julian Xerxes Weems! That is the rudest thing you’ve ever said to me!”

  “Xerxes? I thought I was Fitzgibbon this time.” Nana loved giving us new and sometimes weird middle names. Another thing that had driven Mom nuts. “I haven’t had a dream about you in ages,” I said when she sniffed again, tipping her nose up haughtily and giving me what I knew from the collection of her romance novels I read one long summer laid up with a broken leg was the cut-direct, the Regency version of the cold shoulder where the young lady would turn her back on an offending fellow and make it clear he’d been a cad. Or, in my case, a bratty grandson.

  It was way more compelling in the Regency period, however. When Nana did it to me, in life or in dreams, it just made me want to snicker. Her plump little self looked exactly like a slightly miffed Hobbit, her bright, white hair twisted up into an old-fashioned droopy bun situation, her pince-nez glasses glittering on the bridge of her nose as she kicked her feet back and forth, drumming them so hard against the bedframe, the vibrations tickled my legs.

  “You wouldn’t have to miss me if you’d just return my calls, so to speak.” She slid from the bed to pad closer to me, her finger jabbing my chest and leaving shocks of cold in its wake. “Your young man has an entire stack of messages for you, if you’d just accept them.”

  “Nana,” I sighed. “I miss you, but you know I don’t believe any of this mess.” She scowled at me harder and I shook my head. “I’m arguing with myself in a dream. My brain manifested my dead grandma and now I’m arguing with my brain through the image of Nana.”

  Nana was quiet for a long moment. I half expected that to be the point where the dream took a turn for the weird and Nana turned into Pac Man or something. Instead, she moved to the head of the bed and brushed my hair from my face with the tips of her fingers before leaning in close and kissing my cheek. “I see you all the time,” she whispered, “but I miss you terribly. It’s not the same. I don’t know why I keep staying. Your Pops is waiting for me, I’m sure of it.”

  I frowned. “Grandpa Steve? Did he even believe in the afterlife? I can’t remember.”

  “No, your biological Pops. My first husband, Timothy.” She sighed. “I wish he’d lived long enough for you to know him. He’d have loved you to bits, Julian. To bits. You’re just like him.” She patted my leg. “He was a stubborn asshole, too.”

  My loud burst of laughter shattered the sadness that had been bubbling up in the dream, and Nana smiled.

  “You have his laugh,” she sighed. “Did I ever tell you that?”

  “You must have. Otherwise, how would I know for you to tell me now?”

  She made a funny face at that, part scowl and part mocking.

  “He died so long before you were born. Your mother was about… Let’s see, eleven. She was eleven. And I wasn’t prepared at all to say goodbye. He’d been so sick, though. He put on a brave face for the kids, but…” She shook her head. “Well. I knew. And I think he was ready, in the end.”

  “Oscar says no one is ever really ready,” I murmured. “At the very end, people are never truly ready to go. He thinks that’s why there’re ghosts, even happy ones.” I chuckled. “I guess that’s as good a reason as any. If they were real, not wanting to let go of their lives makes as much sense as any other reason.”

  She hummed thoughtfully under her breath. “Timmy was skeptical, too. Not just of ghosts, but pretty much everything. Spirits, religion, those buy one get one half off sales…”

  “Those are a sham. They mark up the regular price to make it seem like a good deal when they put the sale on.”

  She laughed again. “Yep, he’d have loved the stuffing out of you. Hell, he probably does, wherever he is now. When I married Steve…” she trailed off. “Well. I do love him, too. But not like I loved Timmy. Not like that at all.”

  “Grandpa Steve is a good man. I love him, too.”

  She nodded again. “Love isn’t pie. You can share it as many times as you want and still have some left over.” She took my hand, and I could feel it in mine, down to the cold metal of her rings. “Just because you gave Rey your love doesn’t mean you don’t have any left for Oscar, Julian.”

  “Wow. This dream took a turn.”

  “Stop being so defensive,” she chided. “If I can’t harangue my grandson while he’s laid up in backend of nowhere, Texas, after getting bitten by a zombie, when can I do it?”

  “Weird flex but okay.”

  “Seriously? A smart ass just like Timmy, goddamnit.” She smacked my arm lightly, and I laughed. “You gotta get your head out of your ass, baby boy. Sooner rather than later. I know it’s terrifying after you’ve been hurt, whether it’s by someone being a raging bag of dicks or because they… they left you before you were ready.” Her fingers squeezed mine hard enough to hurt a little.

  “Raging bag of dicks? Seriously, Nana?”

  She giggled. “I wasn’t always a sweet, old lady, you know.”

  “Why start now? Ow! That hurt!” I rubbed the spot where she smacked me, dimly remembering it was near the IV port they’d put in earlier. There we go, my brain reasoned. Just a dream, interpreting painful sensations.

  She frowned at me as that thought crossed my mind. “Well. I can’t tell you what to do or think, obviously. But I can tell you this—I love you, baby, and I can’t stand by and watch you throw away something wonderful because you’re afraid of things you don’t understand.”

  “Nana, seriously? My dead grandmother is telling me I need to believe in ghosts now?” I laughed. “I hope they let me take the rest of this IV home in a doggy bag.”

  She huffed, her grasp on my fingers fading even as she grew less distinct. “No, I’m telling you to stop roadblocking yourself. Stop letting fear of getting hurt, fear of the unknown, keep you from being happy.” She leaned in close, almost gone, and whispered, “In this case, Oscar is the unknown.”

  I opened my eyes to a nurse checking my vitals. “Oh…”

  “Must’ve been a nice dream,” she smiled. “You were laughing in your sleep.”

  I nodded. “Very nice. Dreamed of my grandmother.”

  She patted my hand. “Well. You know what they say. When we dream of a loved one who’s passed, that’s them visiting. Even if it’s bull, it’s a nice thought, isn’t it?”

  I nodded politely, closing my eyes as she bustled from the room to her next patient. I didn’t believe for a minute that’s what it meant, but I did have to commend my subconscious for picking a form I’d actually listen to a little.

  When I woke up again, Oscar was beside the bed, dozing in the chair. “Hey,” I murmured. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Not really,” he admitted. “You?”

  “Better than you are, I think.”

  “Let’s call it even,” he said, reaching out for my fingers. “Ezra’s awake. Feels like shit, says he doesn’t remember a thing, but he’s lying. He’s never been able to lie to me. They want to send him on to Austin for some tests, but CeCe had Harrison pull some strings, and they arranged for the tests to be done in Denver tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I sat up. “We can’t drive there by tomorrow!”

  “No, we’re not getting there till Thursday. Harrison and Ezra, however, will be there tomorrow courtesy of the miracle of air travel.” A tiny smirk curled his lips and I wanted to pull him down and kiss him. After a moment’s hesitation, I did. Carefully, because everything hurt, though it was more from exhaustion than any actual injury. Oscar smiled into the kiss and, after a long and breathless moment, he pulled back, though he kept his fingers tangled with mine. “Ezra’s going to have a panic attack over that. His cr
ush on Harrison Temple isn’t as secret as he thinks it is.”

  “And you think that’s funny?” I teased, knowing full well he didn’t mean it literally.

  “Mmm. I think it might be nice to see him being the one head over heels for a change.”

  “Oh?” My stomach gave a funny flutter, and I squeezed his fingers a bit tighter.

  “Oh, did you think I meant me? That I’m the one head over heels? Oh, I meant—”

  I gave in and pulled him into another laughing kiss. It had a bite of anxiety to it, of desperation as we nipped and nibbled, tongues darting just right to tease lips before finally pulling apart. “We need to talk,” I breathed. “I mean, that sounded wrong. But I want to talk about us. About how we’re going to go forward.”

  Oscar nibbled his lower lip for a moment, and I wanted to pull him down again, tug him into another kiss, but instead I just brushed my lips over his knuckles. “Okay,” he said finally. “We can definitely do that.”

  “Knock knock.” Yancy stuck his head in the door, looking like he’d been through hell and back. He probably had, all things considered, and was kind of a miracle for standing upright after the two days he’d just had. “I wanted to check in with y’all before we headed out.” He smiled tightly, slipping into the room as if expecting to get shooed out at any second. “Are you doing okay?”

  Oscar nodded. “We’re just waiting to get released. Ezra’s doing alright, this one’s healing up, I’m exhausted,” he said carefully. “Are you okay? I mean—”

  Yancy laughed mirthlessly. “I’m not even close to okay. Enoch’s pretty bad himself. We’re, um. We’re going back to the ranch for now, but we’re going to see about moving into town for a bit. We’re gonna lose the farm, I think, cause it’s gonna be expensive when they go to court. Turns out Gerald’s related to the guy who used to own it, Mason Albright. The guy we called the ghoul?” He nodded to himself. “He’s known for a long while but was gonna wait and make an offer to Pops to buy the place from us after he’d saved up some more. Well. And I don’t understand what happened to Mom, how…”

  “Yancy,” Oscar sighed. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you must feel, having her back for just a moment only for her to be gone again.”

  Yancy shook his head. “I think… God, this sounds terrible. I think she wasn’t really here, anyway. It was her body, but she wasn’t there inside, you know? Her eyes…” He shook his head. “Enoch’s not doing well. I’m gonna be getting him some help. Maybe this place in Austin Doctor Durning mentioned. They help out kids who have, ah, emotional issues? Is that the word I want?”

  “Close enough,” I said kindly. “I truly am sorry,” I added. “I wish this hadn’t happened to your family.”

  “I’m not proud of what my ancestor did, but I could’ve gotten over that, you know? But my Pops… He. He… God, I can’t even say it! And Mom…” The tears started to fall then, his jaw tight as he fought them and lost. “I’ve mourned her for a long while now, and knowing she was just right there this whole time? Maybe we could’ve helped her. The doc said you mentioned something she might’ve had? Something delusional?”

  “Er, Cotard’s Delusion. Did they diagnose her with that?”

  Yancy shook his head. “It went too fast. She… she was there and then was just gone. But I can’t help thinking maybe if we’d known she had that delusion thing, maybe…” He sniffed hard, turning his face away so we couldn’t see him cry. “Maybe we could’ve done something. Maybe if I’d listened to Enoch when he kept swearing she wasn’t dead. I just thought he was in denial, you know? No one wants to believe the person they love more than anything is gone.” He darted a glance between the two of us, then looked away again, studying the nurse call button intently. “No matter who it is.”

  “All you can do now is go forward,” Oscar murmured. “Remember her and love her, but go forward. Make sure Enoch gets the help he needs and knows he’s loved. And it might not be a bad idea for you to talk to someone too.”

  Yancy grimaced. “Yeah. Doctor Durning mentioned that, too.” He dusted his hands against his thighs and forced a tight smile. “I hear y’all are off to Denver then?”

  “Tomorrow, if all goes well.” I hesitated before adding in kind of a rush, “Feel free to drop us a line, let us know how y’all are doing.”

  He nodded once, curtly, and muttered something like goodbye, letting himself out of the room and leaving us in the quiet. Oscar, after a few minutes, scooted closer and laid his head on my shoulder. “Do you think she had that then?” he asked quietly.

  “It’s a possibility,” I murmured. “Not the only one. But it’s possible. There’s all sorts of weird wiring in the brain and that’s not my field of study so I can only guess, but it’s certainly an acceptable possibility.”

  He hummed. “And Ezra? What happened with him?”

  I shook my head. “A previously undiagnosed seizure disorder, maybe?”

  “And what he said to Carstairs? To us? What about that?” He hesitated, then added, “What about what happened to you? I—” Oscar shook his head. “Julian, what I saw happen to you, what you went through…”

  His voice was soft, but there was challenge in the words. I pulled him as close as possible, not wanting to break this fragile shell around us, so I said, “I’m not ready to pull that apart yet.”

  “Julian,” he said softly, “you can’t ignore it. You can’t write it off as a weird headache or some sort of new, mild version of ergotism never before seen in Texas or—”

  I huffed something close to a laugh. “That doesn’t sound like something I’d say.”

  “It really does.” His fingers tangled in my hair just above my right ear and he worried a lock between his thumb and forefinger in a childlike gesture. “Julian, look, I know you’re afraid and that’s definitely to be expected, but you can’t tamp this down and pretend it didn’t happen.”

  He wasn’t wrong. I was afraid. And I could tell a half-truth and admit my fear, tell him I was afraid it was something wrong in my brain, or maybe I’d been poisoned or… Okay, I had thought it could possibly be ergotism for like a second or two. But I couldn’t make myself say the whole truth: I was afraid of what happened because all of those reasons, all of the things I could excuse it as… Those reasons wouldn’t fit. There were too many loose threads, too many jagged edges.

  Too many gaps that let uncomfortable light in around my safe pieces.

  “I promise,” I said finally, “that when I’m ready, I’ll talk to you about what happened. Okay?”

  He was quiet for a long time, so long I thought he’d dozed off. Finally, he said, “Okay.”

  Epilogue

  Oscar

  “The vlogs are doing amazing numbers,” CeCe crowed, doing a little happy dance in the airport. “Sylvester—have y’all met him in person yet? He’s the one in charge of social media for the show—he says he’s never seen such a good response to something like this. And I’m giving you all the cookies for that mini-sode y’all filmed. I honestly didn’t think anything Ezra shot could be used but the editing team did their magic and so good!” She preened and did an exaggerated hair toss and self back-pat. “My plan was so awesome. See? I told you it’d be amazing. We have four major media outlets clamoring for interviews from all three of y’all, and two of the late-night talk shows want to set up appearances in the next few weeks. Ooooh, wait, one of them is Macy Parr. Ugh, hate her. She’s such a bitch.” CeCe scrolled through her phone, typing so fast her nails clacked against the screen, audible over the thrum of Bergstrom Airport’s departure zone.

  “Hey, want to come up for air so you can say bye?” Julian chided. “You know, show actual interest in the humans behind the numbers?”

  CeCe glared at him briefly, but tucked her phone away and offered first Ezra, then Harrison, quick hugs. “I wasn’t ignoring y’all. The emails are just flying right now, and I hate leaving them sit. I need to get better about compartmentalizing work to stay at work.” />
  “Speaking as your twin, I will officially call bullshit on that. We shared the same uterus for almost eight whole months. We’re too much alike for me to believe for one second you won’t live and breathe these numbers and whatever the hell else is going on.”

  CeCe flashed him a grin and shouldered him gently. “It’s called taking care of what’s mine, brother dear. And that includes all three of y’all. Capiche?”

  “Did you know we’re not Italian, Cec?”

  “Shut up. Let me be bad ass boss lady for two minutes, okay?” She nudged him again, hard enough to make him stumble, before turning to Ezra. “I checked your reservation at the clinic. They’re ready for you when you get there. No rush. The check in time is whenever, so long as you’re in before ten tonight.” She nodded at Harrison. “And your reservation at the Airbnb is set, too. I sent the gate code for the property to your private phone, not your work phone, and I’ve organized for the kitchen to be stocked before you get there. Even made sure they put in those gross organic gummy candies you like.”

  Harrison’s smile was tired but pleased. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” CeCe admitted. “But remember this when I steal you away from your firm and convince you to work for me only.” Harrison rolled his eyes but laughed. I don’t think he believed she was serious, but the gleam in CeCe’s eyes said differently.

  “I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” Ezra muttered. He looked like a shell of himself, dark circles so deep they were purple, his hair a wild mass of waves and spikes from constantly running his fingers through it. His clothes hanging wrinkled and limp. Next to Julian, who was wearing what I’d come to call Professor Casual—a light cardigan over an oxford button-down, loafers (I swear to God that man had more pairs of loafers than I’ve had hot dinners), and khaki slacks—Ezra looked like the poster boy for exhaustion. And possibly a laundry service’s ‘before’ picture.