Spiritus, a Paranormal Romance (Spiritus Series Book#1)

by Dana Michelle Burnett

  Part of me wanted to give myself over to him, but I needed to use the bathroom badly, which brought up another concern. If he could read minds, what else could he do?

  “Can you always see me?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Always?”

  A soft echo of laughter, like distant thunder, washed over me.

  “I am always a perfect gentleman and give you your privacy when needed,” he finally answered.

  “Oh,” I said with an embarrassed blush hot in my cheeks. I crept along the wall to my bathroom door, “Then excuse me for a moment.”

  Once inside with the door closed, I clutched at the edge of the sink. I still couldn’t believe any of this was happening. Looking into the mirror, I half expected to see that other version of myself from the visions, but it was only me with overly bright eyes and a tangle of hair. I took a shower and did what I had to do in the bathroom and rushed back out into my bedroom.

  As soon as I stepped back out into my bedroom, Alastor surrounded me again. The nearness of him made my heartbeat wildly, pounding in my ears as he moved around me.

  I felt him trying to come together around me and caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he twisted and turned in the air. He was exactly the same as the night before.

  “Were you here all night?” I asked while turning in a circle. I was trying to pinpoint his exact location.

  “Of course, where else would I go?”

  I had no idea where ghosts went when they weren’t scaring people half to death. That juicy little tidbit was always left out of the campfire stories.

  “Are you always here?” I asked, still trying to place the exact spot where he was, but it seemed the entire room was alive and pulsating with his presence.

  “I am always near you.” He whispered on the air, “I could let you be, but I find it impossible.”

  A secret smile spread across my lips as I turned in another slow circle. “You do?”

  “Yes. You are my life. You are my death. You are my fate.”

  How could I say anything after that? What else was there to say? I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sensation of Alastor surrounding me. I felt the room growing brighter, but I waited, savoring the closeness of him.

  I waited as long as I dared before pulling away and going downstairs, surprised to feel him still with me on the staircase. In the back of my mind, I half expected him to stay behind in my room. Instead, he remained by my side as I moved through the house.

  The kitchen was empty and bathed in misty light. Dad left a box of cereal next to the empty bowl and spoon that he set out for me. I went to the refrigerator to get the milk and when I turned back to the table, there sat Alastor. Before I could stop myself, I let out a scream.

  “Are you alright?” He asked with a teasing smile.

  He was very solid, so much so that he was even casting a faint shadow on the table. The sun coming through the window behind him created a pale copper halo around his head as it shone through his phantom hair. More impressive was the way his blue eyes caught the light and followed me as I moved back to the table. He seemed so real. I could even hear a slight noise as he drummed his fingers.

  “You just startled me.” I replied with a shaky laugh, trying not to let on how badly he frightened me.

  “I do apologize,” He said as I sat down across from him. He watched my every move, making me shift in my chair nervously.

  “What?” I demanded, squirming under his gaze.

  “It is nothing. I simply enjoy watching you.”

  I ate my cereal, but hated how loud my chewing sounded. He kept gazing at me, the amused smile never leaving his lips.

  “What?” I finally asked, feeling the hot blood in my cheeks.

  Alastor narrowed his eyes, “I was just curious why you would worry about making noise while you eat?”

  I was a little taken back. It was one thing to have him reading my dad’s thoughts; it was something else to have him inside my head. “You know, that’s really annoying.”

  “What is?”

  “The way that you can read my mind and I have no say in it.”

  He smiled wider, “Why should that bother you?”

  “It’s really not fair,” I complained.

  He shrugged and began to fade away, “I never meant to offend you.”

  “Well don’t go,” I whined.

  “I am always here.” He whispered within the walls of my head, “And now you best hurry or you will be late for school.”

  It was uncommonly cooler outside. There was no trace of the miserable heat of the weekend. I walked along, feeling Alastor swirling around me. I had to smile at the idea of having a real invisible friend right there with me as I walked down the sidewalk.

  “Do you mind if I stay with you?” He asked in a soft murmur as if he was speaking directly in my ear.

  I stopped in my tracks, grateful the sidewalks were empty. Alastor was really asking me what I wanted—I could send him away, as if I would.

  “I’d like it if you’d stay,” I mumbled, moving my lips as little as possible. The last thing that I wanted was for someone to see me and think that I was talking to myself. Something like that would make the incident at the quarry seem insignificant.

  “Then I shall stay.”

  I began walking again, sensing him spreading out around me. He stayed close to my side as I stepped up to the front entrance of the school. I felt like I should say something else to him, but it was too late, we were too close to other people.

  “Your friend Ally is waiting for you,” Alastor said in a secret whisper inside my head.

  Sure enough, up ahead, Ally stood by the door waiting. She stretched her neck from side to side as she searched through the sea of approaching students for me.

  What does she want? I asked in my own hidden voice, more to myself than to him.

  “She’s worried. You never telephoned her after the accident.” His silent voice answered in an odd cadence.

  It struck me as odd that a ghost from the time of the civil War was aware of things such as a telephone. How could he know of such things? When I asked, what he said was more of a riddle than an answer.

  “It was in her mind and then I knew of it,” he said, telling me nothing.

  I called out to Ally once I was only a few feet from her. “Hey Ally, what’s up?”

  “There you are!” Ally replied with her usual exuberance, “You didn’t call me back.”

  “Sorry.”

  She danced around me, “It’s okay. I was just worried. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Seriously,” she said as she stepped in front of me and put her hands on my shoulders. “You almost died. Did you see a white light or anything?”

  How could I explain to her what had happened? I barely understood what happened myself.

  Unfortunately, Ally wasn’t the only one curious about my accident. It seemed I was the center of attention for most of the day. Everyone wanted to know the details and exactly what it was like to almost die.

  Billie and Ally, of course, focused on the fact it was Jonah that pulled me from the water. At lunch, it was all the two of them could talk about. They just kept going on and on about how romantic it was.

  I tried to give them what they wanted, but it was Alastor that I remembered, not Jonah. It was Alastor’s face that shone in the murky darkness, but I couldn’t tell them that. So, I smiled and claimed I recalled very little about that night.

  “Why are you lying to your friends?” Alastor whispered in my head.

  They wouldn’t understand.

  “Why not? Everyone is curious. You are like Lazarus,” He teased.

  You’re not funny.

  “That boy that just passed wants to know if you heard angels singing.”

  I don’t care.

  I watched Ashley Richardson walk past, I heard her whispering to her friends and saw all of them glance my way at the same time.

&n
bsp; What is she saying about me?

  Alastor was silent, refusing to answer me. I asked him again in my thoughts, begging him to tell me.

  “She doesn’t like you,” he hissed. I could feel the anger radiating from him as he surrounded me. “She told her friends that almost drowning was the only way that you could get any attention.”

  I tried to keep my thoughts calm and nonchalant, but something betrayed me because Alastor seemed to grow angrier. He went back to reading the minds of every person that walked by.

  It was difficult to carry on a conversation with anyone with Alastor speaking to me in that secret voice at the same time. I caught myself wanting to answer him aloud which made my friends look at me oddly while it made Alastor chuckle inside my brain. By the time lunch was over I had a splitting headache.

  “What is wrong my love?” Alastor asked as I walked down the hall to my History class.

  I’m just ready for this day to be over.

  I felt awful. Was Jonah being pestered for his own version of what happened at the quarry? If people were asking me, the unknown new kid, they must be bugging him to no end. He must hate me for putting him through this.

  As usual, I was the first person in the classroom. I took my seat, counted the hours left in the day, and went back to doodling on the cover of my notebook. All day I had been drawing a great swirling pattern over and over, one way that I looked down at it I thought it appeared like the dark water when I was sinking, but then another glance and it seemed to be how I imagined Alastor to look as he was floating around me.

  I was keenly aware of Jonah when he entered the room. Looking down, I hoped he would just take his seat and ignore me, but I wasn’t that lucky.

  “How are you?” Jonah asked.

  I looked up slowly, knowing how embarrassed I was going to feel about the whole situation as soon as I looked into his handsome face. To make matters worse, Alastor was voicing his opinion at every opportunity.

  “I do not like this boy,” Alastor complained inside my head.

  I did my best to ignore him. I gave Jonah an anxious smile, “I’m fine.”

  Jonah smiled back, confident and sure. “You really gave me quite a scare.”

  “Send this boy away,” Alastor demanded.

  Hush.

  I opened and closed my eyes slowly, concentrating on tuning Alastor out. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  Jonah smiled wider, showing off his beautiful whiter than white teeth. “I’m just glad to see that you’re okay.”

  Alastor grumbled in my ear, mostly incoherent, but every now and then I would catch an oath or two.

  I looked at Jonah again, shocked as always by his all American good looks. He was such a delicious cliché.

  “I guess I have you to thank,” I admitted. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t jumped in after me.”

  Alastor was irate inside my head, his voice so loud I winced uncontrollably.

  “I would NEVER let anything happen to you,” He complained.

  I’m just being polite.

  If Jonah noticed anything peculiar, he was kind enough not to mention it. Other people came in, staring at us as if we were celebrities. Jonah looked nervously at them. He actually seemed embarrassed by my gratitude, looking grateful when the teacher began class.

  I tried to focus on the teacher, but Alastor kept a constant lament inside my head.

  “He is just a boy,” He said. “His intensions are not honorable.”

  Please, be quiet.

  “You are still my wife.”

  Well, I don’t remember any of that.

  “Deep down you know you remember.”

  Just be quiet.

  “I will not be silent,” he argued.

  Go away and give me some peace.

  “As you wish.”

  With that, the lights overhead flickered, the chatter in my head stopped, and there was silence.