The Ghost Host: Episode 2 (The Ghost Host Series)

by DelSheree Gladden

  “Drink it,” I say again. Her knee won’t stop bouncing and she’s still holding the glass in a death grip. Tasting the drinks is distracting her enough to keep control, but her emotional strength is fading fast. She doesn’t weigh much and hasn’t had any food to balance out the alcohol. I’ll make her eat in a little while, but not until she starts to calm down. I don’t know if I can fix the kind of break that’s threatening her right now. So I have to stop it from happening.

  Echo sets the glass back down, empty, and hugs her arms around her body. “Do I have to try something else, or can I just have more of that?”

  The vodka sitting on the table is a last resort. Even the good stuff is hard to stomach for me, and this is not the good stuff. Mixing with something would be better, but I didn’t see any juice in the fridge. I reach for the margarita and pour her another half-full glass. She reaches for it as soon as I pull the bottle back and reach for the lid, but stops halfway there to stare at her fingers. Confusion and a little bit of panic creep to her mind, and I feel myself relax.

  “My fingers feel tingly and my head feels weird. Is that okay?”

  “It’s fine,” I tell her.

  She’s unsure of whether she thinks it’s fine, but the glass is back in her hands a moment later and she takes another drink. I pay careful attention to her with each drink she takes. The dullness spreads, but so does her panic. Expecting this reaction, I wait for her to confront it.

  “I don’t think I like this,” she says as she sets the glass back on the coffee table and glances around her warily. “It feels strange. It feels…”

  “Like you’re losing control?”

  She nods, her panic growing.

  “You are,” I tell her, “but that’s okay.”

  “No, no it’s not. I can’t lose control. It will all…I can’t lose control, Griffin.” Her voice rises in pitch, high and frightened at the end.

  “You can lose control, Echo. You can let your barriers down. I’ll teach you other ways to handle the shame and guilt later, but right now you need to give up control. I’ll help you, okay? The alcohol helps too, dulls everything so you can handle it more easily.” I hate saying that to her, because the last thing I want to do is turn her into an alcoholic, but the level of emotional abuse she’s heaping on herself right now…she can’t face it at full strength.

  “I can’t, not yet,” she pleads.

  I nod, knowing the effects of the alcohol haven’t fully hit her yet. I push the bottle of water back into her hands and make her drink the rest of it before giving into her request for another margarita. I only fill it a third of the way and tell her to sip it while I make her a sandwich. Even as I walk away, I keep monitoring her. I want her to talk before she inevitably ends up falling asleep, but with this being her first time drinking, I may have a pretty short window.

  I’m dragging ham and condiments out of the fridge when something changes with Echo. “Shit!” I shove it all back onto a shelf and sprint back to the living room. Echo has the abandoned Bloody Mary in her hands, gulping it down despite her revulsion. I grab it out of her hand and demand, “What are you doing? You’re going to make yourself sick!”

  “You told me to drink it,” she says with a frown.

  Her eyes flutter and she shakes her head. The movement unbalances her and she tries to steady herself with a hand on the armrest, but she misses and her hand slides off. She lurches sideways and I have to grab her to keep her from hurting herself. Setting the drink down, I step over the coffee table and sit on the couch next to her. She pushes me away and scowls.

  “This was a trick,” she says slowly.

  “A trick?”

  “This,” she says, waving at the various drinks, “doesn’t make it better. It’s worse.” Her face crumples as she’s consumed by sadness. “It’s worse, Griffin, it’s worse.”

  I reach out to her, but she slaps my hand away. “I know it feels that way, but you can’t hide from what happened tonight.”

  “Yes I can!” She tries to get the Bloody Mary again, but I grab her wrist. “Stop it! I want to make it go away again. If I drink enough…maybe…then I’ll just forget. Like my dad.”

  Confused, I ask, “What do you mean, like your dad?”

  “After Archer,” she says, her eyes closing and her head shaking against the memory. It’s too close to the surface already and she can’t stop it from tumbling out. “Even before I remembered Archer, I remembered getting home. I just couldn’t remember from where. That night. He and Mom got in a bad fight. I knew it was my fault, but not why. She yelled and screamed at him. He yelled too. Then he left. I didn’t know if he would come back.” Echo breaks down sobbing and doesn’t stop me from putting my arm around her shoulders this time.

  “I stayed up, hiding in the living room. Mom slammed her bedroom door after he left and didn’t come out. The twins were already in bed. I had to know, though.” She turns her tear-streaked face up to look at me. “I had to know if he was coming back, so I hid in the corner by the TV stand and waited. When he came back. I knew he was drunk, even though I’d never seen him like that before. He went into the kitchen and got a glass, drank whatever it was he’d brought home with him, and passed out. I went to bed, because I was scared of him waking up and finding me there. The next morning, he acted like everything was fine, like he forgot. I want to forget, Griffin. I want to forget all of it.”

  She starts sobbing again and I pull her closer. “It doesn’t work like that, Echo. Sure, you can forget for a little while, but it always comes back, then you feel guilty for trying to forget, so you try to forget again, but it still doesn’t work and then you have more guilt and nothing ever gets fixed.”

  “How do you know?” she demands. “Maybe it will work. Maybe I can forget everything bad.”

  “I know because I’ve tried, Echo. My dad tried, for too long, when he was younger, before he married my mom. People try every day and it doesn’t work.”

  She pushes away from me, anger pouring off her. “Then why did you make me drink this stuff? Why make me think it might work and then take it away and tell me no?”

  “Because I’m not trying to make you forget, Echo. I’m trying to make you remember.”

  “I don’t want to remember!”

  “I know you don’t, but you have to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you won’t survive otherwise.”

  Her shoulders drop and she falls apart. “What if I don’t want to survive?”

  She’s limp as I drag her back into my lap and hold her. “I can’t make you want to survive, Echo. I can only tell you that it’s possible and that you don’t have to do it alone.”

  “But you don’t understand,” she sobs, “nobody can understand. Nobody else has sat back and let people die, forced a little boy to watch his father die, hurt their friends and caused their deaths, caused the deaths of innocent people and driven other people mad until they hurt people, too! Everything I do ends up hurting people. Even if I wanted to survive all of this, why would anyone else? Why would someone want my life to continue when all I do is cause death and destruction everywhere I go? Why, Griffin? Why?”

  “Because that’s not all you do,” I tell her softly. “You save more than you hurt, and those you hurt are never intentional. I know that doesn’t wipe out the guilt, but it can help you see things more clearly. You’re still beating yourself up over having sex with Malachi, but he’s forgiven you. He still loves you. Maybe your relationship is different now, but it’s more honest. Timothy will forgive you, too.”

  “No he won’t,” Echo wails as she buries her head against my chest. “He’ll never forgive me. He hates me. I let his dad die. I made him be there.”

  I run my hand gently down her hair. “You didn’t make anyone do anything. Robert Bridger intended to meet his final death in that way the moment he chose to end his physical life in order to protect the world he cared for and the souls who live there. You couldn't have stopped him. There was
no alternative and stopping him would have caused even more deaths. Possibly Timothy’s and Malachi’s. Robert Bridger sacrificed his life for the souls, and for his son’s. Don’t take that away from him by blaming yourself for not doing something to stop him.”

  “But I couldn’t stop him. I can’t do anything,” Echo argues tearfully. “I couldn’t help Malachi. I couldn’t protect the souls. I couldn’t spare Timothy from having to suck up all the souls. They’ll see him as soon as he steps back into that world. Maybe if I could have taken some of the souls too, or helped Malachi protect them, but I can’t do anything. Just like when Archer died and when we fought the Devourers. How am I supposed to save all the souls from the Devourers when I’m useless and just ruin everything?”

  I don’t answer her right away. The storm of her emotions is still attacking her relentlessly. The alcohol is confusing everything, but it’s keeping her from putting walls back up as well. I wait until they are in ruins and she’s beyond being able to reconstruct them before speaking. Even then, I choose my words very carefully.

  “Did you know you could physically interact with spirits before you saved that one in the Field of Reeds?”

  “No,” she snaps, the sting muffled by her face squashed against my chest.

  “Did you know you could command Malachi before you did it?”

  She shrinks in on herself and her answer is more of a whimper than words. “No.”

  “Did you know you could travel to and from the spiritual realm before you did it?”

  “No,” Echo says slowly, trying to figure out why I’m asking her these questions but too foggy to actually understand.

  “Did you know that you could talk to ghosts in your sleep before you started having conversations with them?”

  Echo rolls her tear-filled eyes, kind of. “You know I didn’t.” She tries to push away from me, but has neither the strength for it nor the accuracy to get her hand on my chest in a spot that doesn’t keep slipping off the second she applies pressure. She gives up, annoyed, and slumps against my chest again. “Is there…a point?”

  “The point is, you have no idea what you can or can’t do. Nobody does. You’re coming into this blind. Yes, that means you’ll screw things up occasionally. It also means you shouldn’t doubt yourself, because I have the feeling that whatever skills or abilities you need to be whatever you are…you’ll figure them out eventually.”

  “In time to do any good?” she pleads.

  “Yes,” I say firmly.

  She shakes her head. “You don’t know that.”

  “But I believe it,” I say, “and this kind of business, belief has power.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she says, anger making her words clipped.

  I shrug. “That’s okay. I’ll believe enough for both of us. And so will Malachi and Kyran and Holden and Zara and my Dad and Cerise, and whoever else is smart enough to see your potential.”

  For a long moment, Echo doesn’t say anything. I’d think she’s fallen asleep if I didn’t know better. But I do, so I wait for her tears to slowly dry and her sluggish mind to piece together a response.

  “Do you really think Timothy will forgive me?” she finally asks.

  I press my lips together to keep them from trembling. She doesn’t see herself clearly. Her past mistakes keep whispering that she’s a bad person, a mistake. She doesn’t see that when her biggest concern after facing what she did tonight is the forgiveness of a little boy, she can’t possibly be the horrible person she thinks she is. “Of course he will, Echo,” I tell her before kissing her forehead.

  She reminds me so much of my sisters. I could never stand by when they were sad or hurt, and I’m even less capable of abandoning Echo. Dad only asked me to come here for two weeks to get her back on track, but I knew from that first day that I wouldn’t be able to walk away easily. She needs me, yes, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain to her why I need her as well.

  “Am I going to forget all of this in the morning?” Echo asks, halfway to sleep already.

  I snort. “No. You really didn’t drink that much. You’re just a lightweight.”

  She grumbles something incomprehensible and snuggles against me more tightly.

  31: An Invitation

  (Echo)

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” someone demands. The voice is whispering, but not quietly enough to not disturb my alcohol induced sleep. Who is being so loud? I’m too exhausted to lift my head and see, or open my eyes even.

  “Dad…”

  Ah, it must be Morton.

  “You said you were going to handle this!”

  “I did!”

  “By getting her drunk? Are you kidding me? How is turning her into an alcoholic going to solve anything? She’s underage, for god’s sake!” Morton whisper-shouts.

  I can hear the exasperation in Griffin’s voice when he answers. “She’s not going to become an alcoholic because I let her drink once to get through a potentially devastating confrontation with her darkest demons. You’re being overdramatic.”

  “What right do you have to tell me I’m being overdramatic?” Morton hisses.

  Griffin scoffs. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?”

  What on earth does that mean?

  “I am responsible for her,” Morton growls.

  Sighing, Griffin says, “Yeah, well so am I. You made me responsible for her, remember? You’re the one who asked me to come here, to keep her from falling apart. You’re the one who said you’d give me free rein to do whatever it took to keep her from either going insane or jumping off a building. Remember that? Remember why you asked me to come here?”

  What the hell? I know I’m half asleep and partially hungover—maybe, I’m not sure what that feels like, exactly—but I can’t figure out what they’re talking about. Why would Morton make Griffin come here to keep me in line? Why would Griffin be able to do that more than anyone else? I mean, sure, we bonded immediately, in a way I didn’t question because I desperately needed him, but how could Morton have known that was going to happen?

  “I asked you to come here to help her!” Morton says.

  “I am helping her, Dad. If you’d just listen for five seconds,” he says, frustration bleeding into his voice.

  “Listen to what?” Morton snarls. “You gave her all of this? Are you insane?”

  Griffin sighs, again. “She barely tasted most of these. I was trying to find something she could stomach, being that it was her first time drinking.”

  “One more reason you shouldn’t have done this!”

  There is a long moment of silence, and I worry they’ll figure out I’m awake. I stay as still as possible. Whatever they’re arguing about, I want to figure it out. I am sick to death of being the last person to know things, especially things about me.

  “Dad,” Griffin says patiently, “you don’t need me to tell you how close she was to breaking last night.”

  Why not? Damn it, what is Morton’s ability?

  “You know she needed something to dull everything she was feeling. What you don’t know is where she was going when she left her apartment last night. I don’t think she even realizes what she was planning, but there’s a good chance she would have carried through on her subconscious desires the moment she figured out what they were.”

  More silence. Morton scoffs, but it’s weak. “No. She wasn’t…”

  “Wasn’t going to plough her car into a tree?” Griffin challenges.

  Cold blossoms in the pit of my stomach.

  “You have no idea how far down her guilt and shame and self-hatred are buried, Dad. I do. I can feel it every second I’m near her. I can feel it poisoning her, telling her she’s not good enough, not strong enough, not brave enough, not God damn enough period! You dragged me down here to do a job, and I’m trying to do it, damn it!” Griffin growls in frustration.

  That cold pit in my stomach spreads. Dragged down here? A job? Was that what he really thought? Wha
t does he mean he can feel all that stuff when he’s around me?

  As if in answer to my questions, Griffin starts talking again. “It was a job when you called me. I knew of Echo from our conversations, but I didn’t know her. I thought it would be like what I’ve done a thousand times before. Calm the emotional storm, even things out, get her back on the level ground. Two weeks. Go back to my normal cases. Move on to the next problem.”

  “You never would have done something like this if she were just another job.”

  “I know!” Griffin hisses. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Dad. She’s not like anyone else. She’s special.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Morton barks.

  “Special to me, Dad. Not to your cases. Not to whatever the hell is going on with these ghosts and Devourers. To me. She is too important to me, too connected, for me to have done anything but what I absolutely had to do to keep her from hurting herself last night. Was getting her drunk ideal?” Griffin snaps. “Hell no. Was it the best I could come up with at the moment? Yes. So I did it. I got a teenage girl drunk and talked her through the hurricane of emotions ripping her apart last night. I did everything I could to convince her none of this is her damn fault and no matter what mistakes she’s made or will make, none of them are too big to come back from or be forgiven for.”

  “Couldn’t you have just…?”

  “Calmed her?” Griffin demands. “Is that what you were going to ask me? Couldn’t I have just calmed her? I can only manipulate emotions so much, Dad. You damn well know that part of my gift has limits. She was beyond calming way before I ever got her. The best I could do was take the edge off. So I had to go to Plan B, tapping into her emotions more deeply than I ever had before and attempting to understand her, to really figure out what the hell she needs to survive this. Not what anyone else needs from her! Do you get that? Do you have any idea what she has been dealing with?”

  Morton doesn’t respond for a very long time. I’ve never heard Griffin yell. I’ve never heard or seen him get upset. He and his dad are so close, I never would have imagined him shouting and swearing at his father like this. That, on it’s own, is startling enough that it takes me a minute to even attempt processing the rest of what he just said.