by Page Turner
Not that she was exactly sure about any of this. Nor did she have a way to be. Penny had grown up without a living person handy who could take her by the hand, teach her about ghosts. Most of what she’d learned about them over the years had observation and a lot of trial and error.
When she was younger, she couldn’t differentiate between the dead and the living. They looked pretty much identical to her.
Over time she’d gotten better at distinguishing between the two, but even now, she wasn’t always sure when she saw someone if they were a spirit or a human being.
Spirits for the most part acted more erratically, although some human beings rivaled ghosts in their callousness and emotional disorganization. Most of the time that she first saw a particular spirit, she was near one or more dead bodies, or a place where one had been within the past few weeks. In her line of work as a detective, this was typically the crime scene where the victim had been discovered.
But as a young woman, she’d also found hospitals to be particularly easy places to find spirits, and if she wanted peace and quiet, it was essential to give the graveyard and retirement homes a wide berth.
After the first introduction to a ghost, however, Penny found that she could incidentally run into a given spirit at random locations, which told her that they weren’t bound to any one place. Not the place they once lived or the place they died. Not the place they first had their heart broken or their fortune squandered.
But any one of these places and usually multiple.
It was what led her to believe that she wasn’t finding the ghosts but that they were coming to her. After an initial introduction, they’d somehow learn her frequency and seek her out when the mood struck them. A few times maybe. But not often. Never the same place.
And always on their terms, initiated by them. Forget about Penny ever seeking them out for a reunion.
Except for Kip.
Kip had been different from the very beginning. Kipper Dante, he called himself when they’d met, but as Penny fumbled to say this, he’d amended it to “Kip.” That little Penny could say.
Penny’s foster family liked to call him “Mr. Nobody” and as a group considered him Penny’s imaginary friend.
It was hard to be sure about him, about what exactly he was, since she couldn’t distinguish between the living and the dead when she was very young, but Penny suspected Kip was the first ghost she’d ever met. He’d been there from the very beginning, from her earliest years.
He inevitably sat beneath desert willows, waiting for her, ready to discuss whatever she had on her mind.
The first tree was at an early foster home. When she was moved to another residence, she expected to never see Kip again, but there he was, under a different tree.
A desert willow again. Always under a tree. And always under the same kind of tree. Only under desert willows. But it didn’t seem to matter which one. Kip lived, or perhaps dwelled is a better word, under all of them.
Kip had a lot in common with the tree. A desert willow generally prefers full sun. Kip similarly was a fan of transparency and total illumination. No matter what question Penny asked, no matter how strange, Kip would do his best to answer it.
Nothing was off limits.
It was through Kip that Penny first learned that she was a medium. It did take a while, however, since Kip didn’t exactly volunteer information and instead had to be asked about a subject before he could educate her on it.
Because of this, it took several years for Penny to suspect that she had a special relationship with the dead. All of them.
But especially Kip.
After the Whisper Street Affair, and especially after Gretchen dropped Kip’s name, Penny knew she had to talk to him. She didn’t know exactly what questions she was going to ask. But she was tired of being in the dark.
Karen felt Penny’s absence viscerally. It woke her from sleep, the sudden flooding of emotions slapping her in the chest like a screen door hits a house when someone leaves it in a hurry.
It was mostly dark in their bedroom, although a bit of street lamplight filtered in through a set of blinds that wasn’t completely shut. Karen felt the bed beside her. Penny normally slept in the middle spot, partly because she had always been the strongest link between Karen and Viv and partly because Penny had an iron bladder and rarely had to get up to use the bathroom in the night, a more difficult task when you’re flanked by sleepers on both sides.
Karen felt only sheets and blankets beneath her hand. No Penny. She was gone. And not just gone from the bed, but likely gone from the house. Far enough away anyway that Karen’s empathy wasn’t dampened anymore.
From the atmospheric sense of anxiety she got, Karen knew at once that Viv was having some kind of bad dream.
Karen rolled over towards Viv, putting her arms around her, holding her. With the drastic differences in her heights, Karen and Viv looked less like a set of nesting spoons and more like Karen was strapped to Viv’s back like a small jet pack.
Viv began to stir. “Karen?” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Penny’s gone,” Karen said.
Viv sat up. “What do you mean she’s gone?”
“She’s not here. I can feel your emotions,” Karen said.
“Well, don’t be a jerk about it, okay?” Viv said.
“I won’t,” Karen said, although she wasn’t quite sure what Viv meant by that and didn’t like the sound of it.
“I didn’t mean that,” Viv said. “I mean, sometimes I end up feeling really dissected. Like it’s unfair. That you can feel what I’m feeling, that I get no privacy, and I can’t do it back to you.”
“It’s okay, Viv,” Karen said.
“You know how you said it’s like watching people play cards, reading their emotions?” Viv asked.
“Mmhmm,” Karen said.
“It’s hard sometimes, being on the other side of it, when you know,” Viv said. “It’s like I’m trying to play cards with you, and my hand is face up and yours is face down.”
Karen felt Viv’s vulnerability but decided not to say anything about it and instead to act on it. Karen held Viv tighter.
“Did Penny tell you she was going anywhere?” Karen asked her.
“No,” Viv said. “I was hoping you’d have some idea.”
“Nope,” Karen said. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Viv said. She rolled over to face her. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
Karen nodded. “Penny always is.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Viv said. “We’re overdue to spend some time together alone, just you and me.”
Karen smiled. She liked the sound of that.
The Public Gardens had long been a crown jewel of Skinner. Like many things in the Psychic City, it had changed considerably after the emergence of the Psychic Phenomenon. But unlike many other areas, everyone agreed that the changes to the Public Garden were squarely for the better.
It had always been a healthy gathering of plants, to be sure, but fairly standard among city botanical gardens, limited by what the regional climate could support.
The recruitment of psychic plant tenders had transformed it into lush sprawling oasis. The plants grew bigger and faster. Not only that, but now they could grow anything, whether or not it was native to the region or would normally thrive, or even survive, there.
This collection included a giant desert willow that shouldn’t be growing in Skinner, especially not to its exceptional size, but absolutely was.
Penny had visited it many times in the past. She knew right where it was. She also knew that the western gate was usually unlocked, even after hours. Penny suspected that the staff didn’t realize it was even there. Either that, or they forgot about it when it came time to close the park for the evening. In any event, the western gate was smaller than the others, and its
tarnished metal blended it well with the bark of the trees that happened to surround it. It was difficult to see from any distance away from it and required a longer walk than any of the other entrances to use it, elements that when combined sufficiently deterred the public from sneaking in that way, arguably more than locking it would.
If you wanted to keep people away, making entry slightly more difficult usually did the trick, as most people stuck to pursuing the lowest-hanging fruit. A lock could provide that difficulty, for sure, but what most people didn’t realize was that a slightly longer walk could just as easily.
The public was shockingly lazy. Most of the time anyway.
I’m not the public, Penny thought.
As she rounded the corner and slid behind the tree that mostly obscured the western gate, she noted the expected lack of a lock. She pushed on the gate, and it swung open easily.
From there, it was an easy walk to the desert willow. Kip was waiting for her as always, sitting beneath the tree. He was dressed in a pinstripe suit complete with a matching pocket square, as he always was, regardless of the weather. This time the suit was a deep charcoal gray and the pinstripes and square were violet. Penny hadn’t seen Kip wear this particular suit in a long while, perhaps since childhood. The tree he sat beneath was in full bloom with the branches projecting blossoms that looked like fairies in the strange light of the garden, a haze of indirect streetlamps and moonlight.
He was reading a book, as he always was whenever she found him. He looked deeply engrossed.
“Hi Kip,” Penny said.
“Ah there you are, little one,” Kip replied. He shut his book.
It was curious. As captivated as he seemed by his reading, he never marked his place when she interrupted him. Penny didn’t know if he had the kind of memory that made it so that simply remembered where he was or if he was reading the same book over and over again so it didn’t matter.
She’d never asked. She considered asking tonight, as she had on many occasions that she’d seen him, but as usual, she had more pressing questions on her mind.
“I need to talk to you,” Penny said.
Kip nodded. “You have more questions,” he said.
“I do,” Penny replied.
“If you didn’t have questions, little one, I would worry. I wouldn’t know if it were really you. I’d think I were dealing with a shapeshifter, an imposter.” Kip smiled. He patted the ground next to him.
Penny walked over, sat down at the base of the tree. “It’s funny you should say that,” she said. She pulled out the card that the interloper to her kitchen had dropped when it beat its hasty retreat.
She handed Kip the card that advertised shapeshifting services.
“Change Patterson,” Kip said. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a very long time.”
“But you’ve heard it before?” Penny asked.
Kip nodded. “He’s older than I am. I knew him when I was alive.”
Penny pondered asking Kip how old he was but like the other times she’d gotten close to asking just that thing, she decided she didn’t really want to know the answer.
Instead, she looked up to see the light of the full moon shining through the branches. The tree blooms looked even hazier from this angle. In direct moonlight, their edges were rendered even fuzzier. The effect was otherworldly, as though the desert willow were growing at the connection between dimensions.
Maybe it is, Penny thought.
“What’s on your mind, little one?” Kip asked her, and his face was so innocent and unguarded that she wanted to spill everything. She wanted to tell him about the entire sorry mess. The troubling signs, none of which were making any sense to her, but made her feel like there was some private joke being played on her. Something everyone else was in on – the ghost impersonator slash shapeshifter, the madam at the Warrens of Persephone.
She wanted to open up to Kip and spill it all. The whole thing. If she could have simply handed him her mind to review, she would have done so.
But that wasn’t how she worked, or how Kip seemed to work. Instead, all she had were words. And wanting to tell him was making it really hard for her to do so.
It was a paradox that had dogged her for her entire life: It was easy to kid around. Make throwaway statements. It was easy for her to say things that didn’t really matter, that she didn’t care about. Particularly easy for her to say things that she didn’t really believe or that she expected no one to take seriously. To make dumb jokes.
But when it came to things that really mattered to her, she wanted to get that right. And the pressure inevitably caused her to clam up.
Kip nodded as though he could hear and feel all of this with her. “That bad, huh?” To be fair, he’d known her for her entire life, and when you’ve known someone for a while, you pick up on things like that. You get to know when they’re about to fall apart, even if they don’t say a single word about what’s actually going on.
Penny nodded. She began to cry.
Kip draped one arm around her. Like normal, Penny felt only a slight chill from his touch instead of body heat. Still, the effect was comforting because it was so familiar.
“Why don’t we sit and enjoy the garden for a while?” Kip suggested.
Penny nodded again. She cried harder.
“So what’s the deal with you and Roscoe anyway?” Viv asked Karen.
Karen winced. “Ryan Roscoe?” she asked. It was a pitiful attempt to stall for more time to figure out how to answer the question, but it was the best that she could do, especially in the middle of the night. It didn’t help that the topic change caught her completely off guard. Nor that she’d been feeling so emotionally vulnerable prior to Viv bringing it up.
“Of course Ryan Roscoe,” Viv said. “Who else?”
Karen sighed. “It goes back a long way. Back to the ranch.”
“You with that ranch all the time,” Viv said. “You’re like one of those old cowboy shows. Meanwhile back at the ranch…”
Karen frowned. “Forget it. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Hey,” Viv said. “I’m sorry.”
Karen could feel that she meant that. That was one of the upsides to being an empath. You could tell when someone meant an apology and when someone was giving one defensively, as a way of saying, “Don’t be mad at me. I didn’t mean any harm. I’m a good person, honest!”
But that wasn’t the feeling pattern Viv was exhibiting. Instead, there was a sincere remorse. And concern?
Yeah, concern, Karen decided. Concern was a vibe that could be very fuzzy, often resembled other internal states. Detecting concern always felt like a guess.
It was a genuine apology anyway.
“I know,” Karen said.
Viv laughed. There was no cruelty in her laugh. And Karen felt no judgement coming from her, so Karen relaxed.
“Why don’t you like to talk about the ranch anyway?” Viv asked. “It seems like any time I bring it up, you immediately shut down.”
“It’s complicated,” Karen said weakly. Even as the words escaped her lips, she knew it was a pathetic answer. Far less than Viv deserved. And yet, she wasn’t sure what else to say. The answers to that question in fact were obscured behind a corner she didn’t feel comfortable looking around.
But she tried again, this time addressing Viv’s original question. “Roscoe looks a lot like another kid there. One who played a trick on me.”
“Must have been a bad one,” Viv said. “Kids were always playing tricks on one another at the ranch, weren’t they? But this one was worse.”
“It was,” Karen said. “And they did. Lots of pranks. Dirty deeds. It was a madhouse in general, the ranch.” She paused. “And I would know, having also been in my share of literal madhouses.”
Viv laughed, surprised at the self-deprecating joke.
“None of the locked wards I was on ever compared to the ranch,” Karen said. “There’s something about being locked up with a bunch of teenagers that’s unbearable. Especially ones who have been exiled from the rest of the world. And who are desperate to prove who they are.”
“Is that how it happened?” Viv said.
“Hm?”
“Was the little shit trying to prove who he was?”
Karen nodded. “Of course.” Then added, “We all were.”
Viv nodded.
“I’m not sure I ever stopped,” Karen said.
“You know,” Viv said. “It was a really shitty thing for me to second guess you back there.”
“When?” Karen asked.
“When we were interviewing Bronson Eck. When I called in Ryan Roscoe for the telepathic consult,” Viv said.
“Ah,” Karen said. What she didn’t say aloud was that the reason she had to ask Viv “when” was because this was far from the first time Viv had second guessed her. If anything, it had gotten better in recent months. Viv had been especially bad about calling in consults to check Karen’s work when she’d first joined PsyOps.
It had been bad enough that Martin had called Viv in to his office to make sure that he actually wanted Karen on their investigative team.
Karen was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to know that, but Penny had screwed up. Buoyed by several glasses of chardonnay, Penny had let the whole incident slip.
It had been humiliating for Karen. Not just to find out that Viv didn’t trust her empathic powers, but also to learn that Martin had given Viv an out, an excuse to cut her loose.
Karen had trusted Martin, respected him. And she felt foolish in that moment to find that the trust hadn’t run both ways. At least not in the way she’d expected.
The icing on the cake was finding out that no one had bothered to tell her about the incident, any of it. That she had to learn from her drunken girlfriend, when Penny drank most of a Wine of the Month package destined for someone else that had been misdelivered, unreturnable due to a missing address label. It was also humiliating that Penny presumed that Karen had been told already.