Sole Possession

by Bryn Donovan

  He stopped himself. “Oh, yeah. But I wonder if it really matters. He’s not my dad. I’m not going to act like him.”

  Andi’s heart beat faster. “You remember what happened before.” She stood up and moved away from him.

  He ducked his head. “I know. I just…I feel like I don’t have to worry so much, now that I know.” He looked back up at her. “I was just really happy to hear about it.”

  “We only have to wait ’til Morty does his thing,” Andi said. “He said he’d be ready in a couple of days.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  He had seemed so happy when he first came in—happier than she’d seen him before. Now that was gone, and Andi regretted it. Besides, she didn’t like it either. She wanted to be able to touch him, to hold him, again.

  “We could just kiss,” she suggested softly.

  He drew nearer to her, his mouth just a little way from her own. “You think that would be all right?”

  It would be more than all right. She raised her mouth to his.

  His kiss was slow and undemanding but it filled her with liquid heat. His strong hand cupped the back of her head, his thumb stroking lightly across her jaw. It made her feel more than loved…treasured.

  Her lips parted under his. He shifted and kissed her more deeply, drawing her closer. She didn’t know how he did it, but he made everything else disappear. The messy apartment, the habitual worries dissolved and left her in a different world that was somehow both dark and luminous.

  His hand grazed the side of her breast. She thought, I don’t care. So what if we’re breaking our word? His body responded emphatically to hers, every inch of him hard against her. She ran her hands down the small of his back…

  David jerked away from her so abruptly she gasped. “We need to stop,” he said.

  “What?”

  He stared at her like a sinner looking at redemption.

  She coaxed him, “Just kiss me some more. We don’t have to do anything else—”

  “It’s going to happen again. I can—” He turned his face away from her. “I can feel it.”

  The tingling in Andi’s body turned into a numb chill. “Oh.” She backed away a couple of steps. Suddenly she felt very sad. “It’s going to go away, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” David’s conviction sounded just a little forced. “That’s what Morty said. I think he knows what he’s talking about.”

  Not two weeks ago, David had thought Morty was a ripoff artist. It gave Andi some comfort that David trusted him now. Maybe it meant David wouldn’t ever get too weirded out by her own abilities. Too bad her own family couldn’t be that way, but at least one person would always believe in her.

  Well, maybe not always. It wasn’t like they were getting married or anything.

  Thoughts of family and marriage made Andi remember what she was going to ask him. “Hey, you know what? Maybe this is bad timing, but I need to know…are you going to go to Lissa’s wedding with me or not?”

  He set his jaw and nodded. “Yeah. I can go.”

  She grinned. “And I can tell you’re so excited about it.”

  “Look, I don’t do very well with small talk.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just show up in a suit and make all my cousins jealous, okay?”

  “I can only guarantee the suit.”

  Andi reached over and hugged him, but quickly backed away. More physical contact was a bad idea. “Sorry, sorry.” Her parents would feel proud that their older daughter had a date, instead of worried that she was going to become a stereotypical crazy cat lady, except maybe with a dog instead of cats. “I’m just excited. My parents will get to meet you,” she said. This probably wasn’t the best thing to say. “They’ll like you. It’s fine that you don’t do a lot of small talk. My dad doesn’t either. He appreciates a guy who doesn’t bullshit.”

  “Yeah, your dad and I can just stand around in silence. That won’t be awkward.”

  “None of it’s going to be awkward!” she insisted. “Okay, maybe a little, but that’s how these things go, right?”

  “I imagine.”

  Andi remembered him saying he’d never had a serious girlfriend before. This was all new to him. When she considered that, the fact that he was willing to go with her meant even more.

  David got to his feet. “So I’ll call you later?”

  “Yeah. I—” Andi stopped herself cold. She realized, with horror, that she’d nearly said, I love you. It had almost just rolled off her tongue. As if they were an old married couple who said that every day, who didn’t even think about it.

  “What?” David asked.

  “Nothing. Yeah, call me later.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Morty’s venerable Lincoln Town Car already sat in the driveway when Andi pulled up. She got out of the truck and saw Morty slouched in the driver’s seat. When she came over to the car he opened the door.

  “You’re here early,” she said.

  “You too. Come wait here with me. We can talk about the job.”

  He reminded her of her dad when he wanted to discuss a project, a kitchen cabinet resurfacing or something. She got in and shut the door. “Your car smells lemony fresh.”

  “Vervain oil. You know about vervain?” She shook her head. “Also called devil’s bane. It’s protection.” He flipped open the ashtray and took out a little vial. After removing the lid, he tilted the oil against the pad of his right thumb then startled Andi by tracing a fluid cross on her forehead while saying something in another language.

  “So that’s supposed to protect me?”

  “That’s the idea. From your man in the black suit. But just to be safe, don’t use a chainsaw if you can help it.”

  Andi touched her forehead then drew her hand away so she wouldn’t wipe the oil off. “Was that Latin?”

  “Actually, that was Aramaic.”

  “Whoa.” How did he know all this stuff? “Are you going to do that to David, too?”

  “You’d better believe it, babe.”

  She giggled. “He’s going to love that.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled about the whole evening.” He screwed the bottle tightly shut again and thrust it into an inside coat pocket. “Here’s how it’s going to go down. I do my thing with holy water, I light three white candles for each of our friends and then we scatter herbs at the farthest corners of the house on every floor.”

  “What are the herbs?”

  “It’s a blend. Mostly fresh-cut St. John’s Wort.”

  Andi knew her nervousness was making her a little silly, but she couldn’t help giggling again, thinking how her friend Vinita took the herb to combat moodiness. “Is that going to keep the ghosts from being depressed?”

  “No, it’s going to keep us from being depressed, because it will help them go away. I’ve also got more of the vervain, but this is dried. Angelica. And salt.” He shrugged. “I guess that last one isn’t strictly an herb.”

  “Okay. Then what?”

  “Then we meet by the candles, I have a little more to say and, hopefully, our guests move on.”

  “It doesn’t sound too hard.”

  “Nah, not really.” He looked down the drive. “Here’s Mr. Girard.”

  As David came up to them, Andi and Morty got out of the car. “Hey, there,” Andi said.

  “Hey,” David said to both of them, and then added to Andi, “How are you? Okay?”

  “Yeah.” She explained to Morty, “I got kind of freaked out earlier about the black suit guy. But I’m okay now. Just a little jittery.”

  “Jittery’s understandable.” The psychic walked around to the back of his car and took his suitcase out of the trunk. “Mr. Girard, you want to come over here a second?”

  “Sure.” David walked over.

  Morty’s hand rose to David’s forehead and he recited the same words as before.

  David jumped back. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Protecti
on. Against your bad-ass ghost.”

  “You could ask me first.”

  “Well, that would mean you could say no.” Morty slammed the trunk shut and began walking toward the house. As they followed him, he said, “So, speaking of jitters. I need both of you to keep your minds as positive as possible. You get scared, you get worried, it makes it a lot easier for our man in the black suit to do some damage.”

  “Got it,” Andi said.

  They went in and Morty set down his suitcase by the mantel. “You guys just hang out here for a minute.” He took out a large metal travel bottle and went to the front door, which still stood open. He splashed his fingers with the water then drew a large cross on the door, letting the water fly off his fingertips in both directions, saying, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” Then he crossed parlor to do the same to the back door.

  Andi said, “So the holy water, the Latin…does that mean Catholicism’s right?”

  “What? Oh.” The psychic frowned. “Well, Greek Orthodox, they have holy water, too. So do Muslims.”

  “Seriously?” David asked.

  “Oh, sure. And Hindus and Buddhists have their ways of asking ghosts to leave. I just don’t know them.”

  “They can’t all be right,” Andi said.

  Morty chuckled as he came back to the fireplace. “What can I tell you, babe? God speaks a lot of languages. Now these herbs, they’re an older technique. At least a few hundred years BC.” He hunkered down in front of his suitcase again, replacing the water bottle and taking out three brown paper bags. As he handed one to David, he said, “I was just telling Ms. Petrowski here that these get sprinkled in the four farthest corners of the house. How about Andi takes the top floor, I’ll take the second floor and you stay down here, Slappy.”

  “Okay, stop calling me that.”

  “Sure thing, Chuckles.”

  David shook his head. “Whatever.”

  Andi took her bag from Morty. Switching on her flashlight, she said, “Back in a few.”

  David reached out as if to grab her wrist as she walked by, but hesitated, just brushing her hand with his fingers. “Hey, be careful,” he said.

  “It’ll be fine.”

  As she climbed two darkened flights of stairs, she wondered why Morty had given her the top floor. Then she supposed he’d wanted to take the middle, so that just in case anything bad did happen on any of the levels, it wouldn’t take him too long to get there.

  But she needed to keep her thoughts positive. As she got to the top floor, she consciously told herself, We are helping these spirits on their way. They are going to move on to the next world, and everything will be fine again.

  She kept repeating variations of this in her head as she headed down the hallway to the bathroom, where David’s mother had been murdered. Focused on these thoughts, she didn’t realize until she stood in front of the bathroom that there was nothing wrong with it anymore.

  It felt clear. No terrible vision in the tub, and not even that mist of horror that had seethed from it before like steam. It seemed completely ordinary, no more ominous than her bathroom at home with the rubber duckie shower curtain.

  “Huh,” she said aloud.

  It took a little time to locate the furthermost corners of the house. She sprinkled a handful of the herbs in each one, still thinking the good thoughts she’d come up with. Okay, she thought as she straightened up at the last corner. Done. Good deal.

  She joined David and Morty back in the parlor.

  “Any activity?” the psychic asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Pretty quiet everywhere so far,” Morty noted. He took white candles out of the suitcase, the kind of plain cheap tapers one could buy in a drugstore. After taking off their shrink-wrap plastic, he set them aside, lined up three simple silver candleholders on the mantel and took out a lighter.

  Holding the flame against the bottom of a taper, he let drops of hot wax fall into the well of the candleholder then wedged the candle in. He began to do the same with the second candle.

  “Any way we can hurry this up?” David asked.

  “Need to make sure these are standing up good and straight,” the psychic said, unperturbed.

  Once he’d arranged the candles, Morty took a scrap of paper out of his front pocket—a grocery store receipt. Or, knowing Morty, maybe a receipt from a liquor store. He scanned the names he’d scrawled on the back.

  Lighting the first candle, he said, “This light represents the spirit of Irene Pennington Girard. May her spirit join the greater light.” He moved on to the second one, saying, “This light represents the spirit of Katherine Girard—”

  “Um,” Andi interrupted. “I don’t think she’s around here anymore.”

  Morty looked up from the receipt. “What?”

  “I think she’s already back in…in Heaven.” She knew she sounded like a second grader.

  “Are you sure?” Morty asked.

  She shook her head.

  “All right. Well, we’re going to do this just to make sure,” Morty said. He lit the candle. “This light represents the spirit of Katherine Girard—”

  The candle flame blew out.

  Andi looked around her. “There’s no breeze,” David said, irritated.

  “Okay, good enough,” the psychic said. “Good for you, Katherine.”

  “Wait,” David said. “So she’s…moved on?”

  “Looks like.” Morty continued with the third candle. “This light represents the spirit of Clarence Boyd. May his spirit move on to its rightful place.” Andi noticed he didn’t say, to the greater light, as he had for Irene. He bowed his head and said, “Domine Iesu, perduc in caelum omnes animas, praesertim eas, quae misericordiae tuae maxime indigent. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Andi echoed and was startled to hear David do the same. When she darted a glance at him, he shrugged.

  Morty looked at the mantel again, his lower lip jutting out the way it did whenever he considered something. “We’ll start with Clarence.” He raised his head and addressed the empty room. “Clarence Boyd, we’re here as friends. We know you were murdered in this house.”

  Andi felt like someone was watching her. As she looked over her shoulder, she was aware that Morty had gone silent again, gazing in the same direction.

  The man in the black suit stood in the doorway to the dining room. He held his hat in his hand, and his head tilted to one side as he looked at them. In the dim light, his eyes were only dark sockets. Andi’s throat tightened.

  “What are you guys looking at?” David asked.

  “Can you see him?” Morty asked Andi. “I can only feel him.”

  Andi nodded, looking away. “The man in the black suit.” She remembered what the psychic had said about remaining calm and not giving in to fear. “I can see him more clearly than I could before…it’s just like a regular person, almost.”

  Maybe just talking about him would make him invisible. She made herself look again. He still stood there.

  He was definitely the man she’d seen coming up the stairs. Her eyes went to the tributaries of dried blood along the side of his face and neck, the matted hair on the whole left side of his head, the grayish pulp that, she realized with a sickening lurch, must be brain tissue.

  She shuddered and covered her face for a moment.

  “What’s wrong?” Morty asked. “I’m not feeling anything angry here.”

  “No. It’s just that his head is all bashed in,” Andi said. “Oh my God, it’s awful.”

  The man looked regretful. He put on his hat, covering the wound, if not all of the dried blood.

  In a sudden flash, she understood that the reason he’d taken off his hat in the first place was so she could see the wound. So she would know.

  “The only thing I’m getting is sadness,” Morty said.

  The dead man’s thoughts played out in Andi’s mind like a video montage. She felt his feelings in herself.

  “He had no idea his frie
nd would kill him,” she said. “Edgar Girard raised an axe in the air and he didn’t even defend himself. He was too shocked…and he couldn’t believe he actually did it.”

  Was this murdered ghost really the same spirit who had attacked Mr. Willingham? She could hardly believe it.

  “Jesus,” David murmured under his breath. He felt his arm go around her shoulders, a strong, protective warmth. His eyes never left her face, which wasn’t so surprising, she knew, since he couldn’t see the apparition.

  “We know what happened now,” she told Clarence. “It was terrible.”

  “We buried your body with respect,” Morty chimed in. “You don’t need to stay here any longer, Clarence Boyd. There’s a better place for you.”

  The man walked closer to Andi. Although she didn’t fear him anymore, she didn’t know what he wanted. They stared at one another.

  “Andi, what’s going on?” the psychic asked her.

  “I’m not sure.”

  The spirit opened his mouth and seemed to be trying to talk. It almost looked as though he would vomit out the words. But there was nothing. Finally, the man in the black suit shook his head. He turned away and walked over to the front door. Then he walked through it and disappeared.

  Andi couldn’t resist running over to the front door and opening it. Of course, there was nothing there.

  “Is he wandering out there somewhere?” David asked.

  “No,” she said. “He’s fine. He’s gone.” Slowly, she closed the door again and turned back to them.

  The psychic leaned close to the mantel, cupped his hand around the flame of the candle on the left and blew it out. He straightened up again.

  “Well, he was the one I was worried about,” Morty said. “The rest of this should be a piece of cake.”

  “If he was the one you were worried about,” David asked, “then why didn’t you leave him ’til last?”

  “I didn’t know if he would launch another attack. Doing this takes a lot of psychic energy. If I’m facing a pissed-off spirit, I like to do it while I’m still fresh.”

  “Right,” David muttered.

  Morty looked at Andi. “All set for the next one?”

  She nodded.