A moment later he was seated beside her, his own bowl of cereal in his hands. He kissed her cheek. “I love you,” he reminded her, and she smiled. There was no need to respond in kind. He knew.
He took a few bites and then spoke again.
“So, Jules, if you can see ghosts too, why do you call yourself a skeptic?”
She’d been anticipating the question and had prepared an answer.
“There are a number of reasons. First of all, I always look for a rational explanation first. I don’t want to be the kind of person who sees ghosts under every bush. I truly believe that most hauntings are either publicity stunts or simple errors. I never assume the supernatural.”
“But why...”
She held up her hand, asking him to wait. He nodded and shoveled a spoonful of mushy corn flakes and milk into his mouth.
“The other reason is my mother. I love her, Theo, but she’s a wild hippie. Like, the long skirted kind. Crunchy granola. Imagine little science nerdy me, back in high school, at parent-teacher conferences and science club events. Here are all these black suited professionals telling her about scholarships and career opportunities, and here she is with a rainbow scarf on her frizzy hair, babbling about her third eye and herbalism. It was embarrassing. I tried to distance myself from her beliefs, to preserve my own identity. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t affect me. Yes, I know spirits exist. I just don’t want to acknowledge them.”
Theo nodded. He seemed to be considering something. “I think this guy in the brown suit is enraged about something, Julie.” He started tentatively, like he was explaining something he had been ridiculed for in the past. “I believe that when a person dies they can be trapped here, clinging to something about the life they just lost. The important thing here, though… I don’t think he is truly evil. It feels like a good young spirit who has been wronged somehow, and he’s flipped out.”
“Young spirit?” Jules asked with interest. “Is it like a student or something?”
“No, I don’t mean young in terms of his age when he died. I mean this is probably only his first or second life. He’s not experienced enough to… well, this is kind of out there and complicated… I think he’s just lost and can’t come to terms with something that happened in his life. An older spirit, one with greater wisdom, would be able to draw from the experience, deal with the hurt or whatever, and simply move on.”
“Move on where?” This guy had some big ideas. Jules wasn’t sure how much she was willing to believe, but… “Where do spirits move on to, Theo?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know… their next life, I reckon.”
“Reincarnation?” Jules looked at him incredulously.
“Yeah,” he replied, a hint of apology in his expression.
“My mother’s going to love you,” Jules sighed.
“Well good,” Theo replied. They had finished their breakfast and rinsed their bowls in the little sink.
“So what’s on your docket today?” he asked. “Do you have an early class?”
“Nope. Nothing until 10:45. But I have philosophy tomorrow, and we’re having a test, so I need to study. Before that, though. I’d like to analyze our readings from last night.”
“Where is a good place to do that?”
“For the camera and stuff, I think the audio visual lab on campus would be best.”
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
***
Jules clung to Theo’s back. In the slightly warmer sun of mid-morning, with no heavy oppressive shadows, happy and wildly in love, Jules felt as secure and steady on the back of Theo’s bike as she did on her own two feet.
He parked and chained his scooter to the bike rack outside Jules’s dorm. She ran up briefly to grab the camera and AMF/GPR from her room. Keller had returned in the night and was deeply asleep in her little bed. Shaking her head at her roommate’s shenanigans, Jules scooped up her equipment and headed back down to the lobby where Theo was waiting. They strolled across campus to the technology building, where lab after lab awaited students typing up essays and research projects. At the far end of the first floor, along a hallway tiled in red and white, three little rooms had been set aside from the rest with white plastic letters on the door. A/V Labs.
In the middle one, Theo signed in at the desk while Jules headed down the first of three rows of heavy-duty computers with extra USB ports. She selected a seat in the corner of the two exterior cinder block walls, which had been painted a sickly shade of yellow, and removed the camera from its bag, connecting it to the tower with a slender white cord. While she waited for the machine to wake up and connect to its new hardware, she checked the memory of the ground penetrating radar. It struck her suddenly that not having a memory function for the EMF detector had been a significant oversight. She recalled that there had been a major spike, but had not recorded it. She had no idea what time that had been. Drat. Fortunately, the radar had a memory, and she scrolled backwards through it.
“Aw, man,” she groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Theo asked softly as he approached, pulling a rolling chair with stained, tan flecked blue upholstery over to Jules.
“My ground water theory is D.O.A. Look.” She held out the machine, indicating the little digital screen.
“Julie, I have no idea how to understand what I’m seeing,” Theo said.
“It shows densities and depths of various objects. There’s no indication whatsoever of water at any visible depth. See, there’s the bedrock. Nothing between but sandy soil and a few little bits of whatever. There’s nothing below the auditorium that can account for hallucinations.”
Jules felt like crying. She had so hoped that all of it, especially the part she’d experienced last night, could be explained away rationally. No such luck. There was nothing significant under the ground.
“Hey,” Theo said softly, “it’s okay. You can’t be right every time. Sometimes a ghost really is a ghost.” He took her free hand and squeezed it gently. “What does the video show?”
Jules shook off her mood. “I had it set to infrared. Let’s see if it picked up anything.”
She turned on the computer’s media player and began playing back the images from the previous night.
For a long moment, there was nothing to see but the heat signatures in the ceiling and floor. Radiator vents. Just at the edge of the camera’s range of vision, Theo’s arm showed up red and yellow. Then a little white streak floated by.
“Cool!” A voice behind them shouted. They turned to see Bill, Keller’s boyfriend and Theo’s former roommate. “You’ve got an orb. That proves there’s a ghost in the auditorium.”
“Orbs?” Jules scoffed. “There’s no such things as orbs. That was nothing but dust.”
“But didn’t you see how it flew?” Bill asked, raking his hand through his thick sandy hair.
“Bill, the heaters were on. Anything lightweight would have been bounced around that room in random directions. Orbs don’t prove anything. Especially that one.”
Bill gave Jules a sour look before turning to Theo. “C’mon man, you believe in ghosts. Tell her.”
“I do believe in ghosts,” Theo said slowly, “but that so-called orb doesn’t impress me much either.”
“You two... argh!” Bill snarled. “Freaks!” he said loudly then turned and stalked away. Jules and Theo looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Freaks?!” Jules chuckled. “No one is freaky like those two.”
Theo couldn’t stop laughing long enough to reply. Tears streamed down his cheeks. The sight of him set Jules off again. Then she glanced at the computer screen and gasped.
“Theo, look!” She pointed at the monitor. There, plain as day, sat a man-shaped figure. He was on the first row of the balcony, hunched over, his elbow on his knee, fist on his chin, staring at the camera... at Jules. Though the shape was little more than a red silhouette formed of his heat signature, his eyes were visible, black pits like coals. Jules could feel his
rage right through the camera. It brought the previous night back in a rush of terror.
Before she could even react, Theo had his arms around her. “Remember, Julie, that he can’t hurt you. No matter how angry he is, he cannot cause you harm. If he ever comes around, you tell him that.”
“I’m scared, Theo. We can’t just let him wander the campus. He can still cause harm to people who don’t know how to stop him.”
“I know that, Julie. That’s why I’m trying to contact him. That’s why I was talking to him the night we met. He needs to move on. It will be so much better for him if he does.”
Jules glanced at the clock. 10:37. “Oh! I have to go. My class meets in a few minutes. Um, babe, do you have time to turn in this camera to the Biology Department chair?”
As she spoke, Jules was disconnecting the cords and packing away the equipment.
“Sure,” Theo replied. “And then I have class this afternoon from 1:00-2:30. Let’s get together after that, okay?”
“Just for a little while,” Jules said, “I have a test to study for, remember?”
“Any time at all will do,” he told her. They kissed briefly and headed to the hallway where they hurried away in opposite directions.
***Chapter 10***
Outside the dorm, Jules snuggled in Theo’s arms.
“Do you really have to go up?” he asked.
She nodded. “I have a big test in that stupid philosophy class tomorrow. I have to study. I don’t want to get a bad grade.”
“You can study at my place. I mean, Julie, you could just stay, you know?”
Jules raised her eyebrows. “Stay? You mean like move in with you?”
“Yeah.” Theo kicked a bit of gravel with the tip of his sneaker. “Stupid idea, right?”
“Theo.” She placed her hand on his cheek. “Theo, look at me. It’s not a stupid idea. It’s a good idea. Such a good one that I need to think about it for a bit before I do it, okay?”
“Is that a yes, Julie?”
“It’s a yes, soon.”
He nodded. “I can live with that. Don’t think too long, okay?”
“Not too long. A few days”
He kissed her, his lips warm and appealing on this chilly afternoon. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Theo. See you at breakfast?”
“Sure. And if you need me, call, okay?”
“Right. You’re sure he can’t hurt me, if he comes back?”
“Not unless you let him,” Theo reminded her. “Now come here, sweet girl, and give me one more taste before I go.”
He kissed her again. She let him, kissed him back, nipped his lower lip. He growled, pressing his pelvis against her belly. He was already nearly erect.
“You sure I can’t come up for a while?” he asked.
“Sorry, babe. I’m still sore. But soon, okay?”
“Okay, Julie. Bye.”
“Goodbye, Theo. Call me later?”
“Sure.”
One last kiss and he headed over to his scooter and hopped on, waving as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. Jules waved back and headed into the dorm. She drifted up the stairs in a state of love-sick distraction. The next thing she realized, she was in her room, alone. The creepy atmosphere of the night had dissipated and Jules felt quite comfortable. She flopped on her bed and pulled a thick book out of her backpack. Existentialism. What a concept. She didn’t care about it in the slightest, or who had thought it up, or who had written about it. But she needed to pass this test, so she pulled out her notes over Immanuel Kant and Jean-Paul Sartre and tried to make sense of their complicated theories.
After an hour, just as her beleaguered brain was starting to untangle the puzzle, Nickelback began blasting from her cell phone.
She pressed the button without looking at the screen.
“Yello,” she said.
“Julie?” The familiar voice broke through her philosophy stupor.
“Mom?”
“Yes. Is everything alright?”
Jules lowered her eyebrows. Had she missed their regularly scheduled conversation? No, she hadn’t. “I’m fine, Mom. It’s Tuesday. I normally call on Saturdays. What’s up?”
“I don’t know. I just felt like I needed to call you. The sensations I’m getting from your cord are... confusing.”
Jules rolled her eyes. She was in no way convinced of cords, quantum entanglement notwithstanding.
“Well, there’s some weird stuff going on right now,” she admitted cautiously.
“Does it involve a ghost?” her mother asked, freaking Jules out. She really shouldn’t be surprised. Her mother had been “reading” her moods and situations as long as she could remember.
“Yes, mom. But I know it can’t hurt me.”
“Good girl. If you get a chance, encourage him to move on. It doesn’t do him any good hanging around.”
“Okay.”
“Now then, what’s this I’m feeling... Julie Masterson, are you in love?”
Jules blushed madly. That stupid imaginary cord was giving away too much. “Um, yeah. I guess,” she admitted cautiously. “He’s right up your alley, Mom. You’d love him. I... um... I think we might move in together.”
“Hmmm,” her mother said consideringly. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I’m sure it’s better than the alternative. I’ve never felt this right about anything in my life.”
“Not even machines?”
“Not even.” It felt strange to admit it, but it was true. She did love Theo a whole lot.
“Well, Julie, you have good instincts. I think you can trust them... about ghosts and boys.”
They chatted for a few minutes before Julie signed off to return to her studying. She stopped another hour after that for a brief and unpalatable dinner in the cafeteria before putting in a last thorough effort and shutting off the lights. At this point, there would be no further cramming of material into her brain, and she would be better off getting a good night’s sleep.
She was soon deep in a dream of being pinned down under Theo’s delicious body as he caressed and kissed her. He groaned low and deep and then a higher pitched sound echoed. Was that her? No. But who else would be squealing in her dream?
Startled, Jules woke. The sounds were real. Keller and Bill were at it again. The clock on the bedside table read 11:45.
Jules had heard enough. “Keller, stop it,” she said, throwing her skull pillow at the other bed. Bill cursed.
“What, Jules?” Keller said.
“I said stop it. I have a test tomorrow and I need to sleep. Can’t you go somewhere else?”
“It’s my room too,” Keller reminded her.
“I know, but honestly, this ‘no need for privacy’ thing is grossing me out.”
“That’s because you don’t know what you’re missing. Go back to sleep, virgin girl. Someday you’ll find a man. Then you’ll understand.”
Jules turned on the light. Keller shrieked and ducked under the blanket. Will groaned and threw his arm over his eyes.
“You know something,” Jules said, “I have a man, I’m not a virgin, and I still don’t understand it. But never mind. Have the room. Go at it. I’m out of here. I’ll come back tomorrow for my stuff.”
“Jules, what?” Keller sounded bewildered. “Who?”
Jules was dialing the phone. “My boyfriend,” she said. Then she turned her attention entirely to the call.
“’Lo?” he sounded sleepy.
“Theo, does your offer still stand?”
“Huh? What offer?” Now he was starting to wake up.
“About moving in with you.”
Silence. And then, “Yeah. Did something happen?”
“No. I just can’t stand it here anymore. I hate to get you out of bed, but could you...”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes, babe. Be ready.” Theo disconnected the phone.
Ignoring her roommate’s open-mouthed stare, Jules began pull
ing clean clothes into her backpack and prepared to leave dorm living behind for good.
Ten minutes later she was again clinging to Theo’s back as his scooter zipped across town. She was getting used to the exposed sensation of riding on this thing. Maybe it would never be her favorite means of getting around, but she could tolerate it.
At the motor home, Jules, already washed and brushed, just dropped her backpack on the table and flopped into bed. Theo quickly joined her, snuggling her close and kissing the side of her neck. She grinned and nestled into his embrace. This was much nicer than sleeping alone while her roommate got busy in the bed next to her.
“Are you still sore?” Theo asked, nudging a partial erection against her hip.
“Yes,” she replied. “Sorry. And I really need to get some sleep. Soon, Theo, okay?”
“Okay,” he replied, sounding crestfallen. She kissed him but didn’t relent. They had time to make love, but philosophy exams did not wait.
***Chapter 11***
The Existentialism exam had been brutal. Every bit as hard as she’d expected. It had taxed her brain to the limit dredging up details for the hour-long essay she’d been asked to write. And Jules wasn’t sure of the quality of her finished project. While she could write a good essay—her work with machines had helped her think of everything in terms of mechanics—the concepts were too far out for her to embrace. She could only attempt to explain them. At least the idea of unintended consequences worked for her. She’d focused on that aspect and hoped for the best.
Sighing, she shouldered her backpack, handed the paper to the professor—a white-haired, stoop-shouldered man with a pronounced lisp—and trudged into the hallway.
Theo was going to get a cab and meet her in the parking lot in an hour. She didn’t have much stuff, but what she had would need to be packed by the time he arrived.
She crossed campus quickly and entered the dorm, knocking on the door of the resident assistant’s room.
“Jules?” Leslie asked, poking her curly-haired head out. “What’s up?”
“I’m moving out,” she replied without preamble. “What do I need to do?”
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