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

by DelSheree Gladden

  Echo.

  This can’t be good. It knows my name. How does it know my name?

  The icy feelings gets worse, the length of my back going numb. I don’t want to turn around, and close my eyes. I don’t want to see what’s probably about to kill me. I figure I’ve faced enough scary things in my life to have earned the chance to take the coward’s way out and not stare my own death in the face this time.

  Echo, it’s me.

  Me? That doesn’t sound threatening, but I’ve been tricked before. I sigh, irritated I’m going to have to look. Peeling one eye open, I force my stiffened muscles to turn my head just far enough to peek over my shoulder.

  “Timothy?” I ask, spinning around the rest of the way. “What are you doing here? Where is here?”

  The corner of his mouth tugs up. He only looks a little scared, which is oddly reassuring. Kind of. Cold is emanating from his body and he is noticeably unsettled. “It’s the Dreamside, where I go when I sleep.”

  “Dreamside?” I ask slowly.

  Timothy nods. “Yeah. That’s what I call it. Like inside, outside, Dreamside.”

  This sure doesn’t look like a kid’s dreams, but okay. “Is it always so…”

  “Colorless?” Timothy sighs. “No. It used to be real pretty. Sometimes I can still make colors appear, but not lately. I can’t waste energy on that.”

  “Why not?” I ask. I have a million other questions I want answers to, but this one seems most important. I’m not entirely sure why, though.

  Timothy frowns. “It’s hard to change things here. Even harder since things started turning grey. It took me a super long time to even be able to change the clothes I wear so I’m not always in pajamas. Hiding something is really, really hard. It takes all my dream energy.”

  Dream energy? I’m beginning to realize the poor kid has been on his own, no guidance, just figuring things out in this bizarre world on his own. I know how scary and dangerous that can be. It will have to wait for another time, though. “What do you have to hide?” I ask.

  Scooting closer to me, Timothy motions for me to lean down. “That’s why I brought you here. I wasn’t sure I could, but when I woke up here I felt something different. It felt like you, so I followed it and…” He shrugs. “I was scared and wanted you to come here…and you did.” I ponder that for a moment, but he’s already moving on to something else. “Your headband is keeping the monsters away better than anything I can do on my own, but I still don’t want to stay very long.”

  He reaches down to the buttons of his thick wool coat. When not next to Timothy, the temperature is strangely perfect. Before I can ask anything else, Timothy unbuttons the top button of his coat and a searing beam of light shoots out of it. It disappears a second later as my little friend pushes the fabric back against his chest and struggles with the big buttons. Quickly, I push his hands aside and close up the coat for him.

  “What was that?” I whisper, now kneeling at his side and scanning the surrounding forest for anything that might have seen the light.

  “I don’t know,” Timothy says in a quavering voice. “My dad gave it to me, after he died. It’s why I’m so cold all the time.”

  “How did he give it to you?”

  Timothy shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anyone here before except the souls that live here, but there was my dad, after he died. He said he loved me, then gave me a hug and said he was sorry he couldn’t stay. He said I had to keep it safe. I didn’t know what he meant. When he pulled away, the light was there, but small. It keeps getting bigger when the nice souls find me and make the light brighter. The monsters find me more easily the bigger the light gets. Making this coat is hard. I can’t keep it very long, and I can’t stop myself from coming here in my dreams yet.” He hesitates, then says, “Part of the souls stay in me, even when I leave here…I think. I’m cold when I wake up. All day. I get colder the more souls I hold.”

  There’s so much of that I don’t understand at all, so I focus on the one thing I think I can get an answer to. “What will happen if they get the light…the souls…from you?” I ask. A sound to my right makes me yank Timothy up against my chest. Our breathing picks up.

  Timothy is trembling, but he still manages to answer me. “I think it will kill me if the monsters take it.”

  Anger and frustration blossom in my chest. I want to be angry with his dad for putting him in this position, but I doubt he had any other choice. It’s clear to me that Timothy’s dad shared the same gift, dream traveling or soul collecting or whatever it is, and that his death didn’t absolved him of his responsibilities. He passed something on to his son, something important. Something that is going to get the little guy killed.

  “It’s hard to remember things when I wake up. That’s why I couldn’t tell you more at the hospital,” Timothy says. “You’ll help me, right? You’ll save me?”

  I don’t know if I can. I have no clue what’s going on with this boy and his dad. Making a promise like that is cruel when I’m not sure I can back it up. I don’t want to lie, but as he grips my hand as bravely as he can in the face of another noise, a closer one, I can’t abandon him.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “I’ll find a way. I promise.”

  Timothy squeezes my hand once more. “Thank you.” His eyes close against the approaching sounds, but before it reaches us…everything disappears.

  ***

  I jolt awake, instantly confused and completely freaked out. Hands grab at me and I lash out. A split second later, I’m pinned to the forest floor with Griffin on top of me. Concern rather than anger fills his expression. A pink-tinged sky is partially hid by the branches and leaves above us.

  “What just happened?” Griffin asks.

  Blinking in the hazy dawn light, my thoughts feel unusually scrambled. “Did we fall asleep out here?”

  “Yes,” Griffin says, exasperated. “What happened?”

  He spent all night out here with me? That seems rather unsafe, but at the same time…I actually feel rested. Most mornings I wake up feeling worse off than when I went to bed. Granted, I’m a little stiff from sleeping in Griffin’s lap all night…

  “Echo,” he snaps, “what the hell is going on?”

  Frowning, I have to focus, very hard, to get my mind back in order. The grey image of the forest swims in my thoughts, illusive, and I have to fight to make it solidify, to drag the memories back before they can slip away. “Timothy, he was there.”

  “There?”

  “In the…Dreamside.”

  Griffin eases his grip on me, but doesn’t let me up quite yet. “Dreamside? That’s where the monsters attack him? Did the headband work?”

  “Can you get off me?” I ask when taking a deep breath to clear my head a little more proves difficult.

  Looking back down at me, Griffin gives me an apologetic look. “Sorry.” He falls back to sitting and offers his hand to help me up.

  Leaves and sticks are tangled in my hair, but that’s a problem for later. “It was a replica of this forest, but all grey with this weird light everywhere. The monsters were there, but they stayed away for now. They’re trying to get this bizarre light in Timothy’s chest that his dad gave him after he died. It keeps getting bigger and harder to hide, which has something to do with the souls he says hang out in the forest, and Timothy’s convinced he’ll die if they get it from him. His dad was a dream traveler or whatever too, I’m pretty sure, but doesn’t seem to have taught Timothy anything.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know the boy also had his gift, or had activated it yet. Timothy probably thought they were just dreams and never mentioned them. The monsters didn’t show up until after his dad died,” Griffin reminds me.

  Agreeing that he’s probably right takes away some of the frustration I had leveled at the boy’s father while in the Dreamside world. Morton hadn’t been familiar with the concept when Griffin mentioned the shadow world theory to him, but maybe he can find someone capable of training Timothy so the poor kid
doesn’t end up going crazy or getting killed in his weird world.

  “Why didn’t Timothy tell you about the light at the hospital?”

  “When you wake up, things that happened there start slipping away,” I say. “Talking about it helps keep the memories.” I frown, considering that. “Maybe I should have Timothy start keeping a journal.”

  Pushing myself up from the ground, I gesture for Griffin to hurry up and follow me. My first class isn’t until ten. Plenty of time to talk to Timothy and get cleaned up. I notice Griffin isn’t following me and turn back to tell him to hurry it up only to find him staring at his phone with a longsuffering look.

  “What now?” I demand. “I need to talk to Timothy before class.”

  Griffin tosses me his phone, and stalks past me with a command to call his dad. Confused, I glance down at the screen and skim the handful of texts from my mentor. I start laughing about halfway through, which earns me a glare from Griffin. I might have teased him about it if not for the fact that he allowed me to get some real sleep last night for the first time in months. I call his dad instead.

  “Griffin!” Morton blusters the second the call is picked up. “I was not joking when I—”

  “Calm down,” I say in a bored tone. “We didn’t have sex, and never will. For crying out loud, Morton, give me a little credit. You have better things to worry about, like why Timothy is wandering around a parallel world with a ball of light in his chest.”

  Silence. I let it continue as I hustle to catch up to Griffin. After what seems like forever, Morton finally asks, “What?”

  “What to which part?” I drawl. “Do you really need me to spell out the fact that Griffin’s not trying to seduce me and I’m not interested in your son like that, at all, and no we didn’t have sex or anything even remotely close to that?” I try not to laugh at the uncomfortable choking sound he makes after that. “Or, would you like to hear more about the creepy world Timothy spends his nighttime hours in?”

  Morton clears his throat. “The, uh, second one. Timothy’s dream world. How do you know anything about that?”

  “Because I went there.”

  “How?”

  Griffin unlocks the car doors and we climb in and take our seats.

  “How is a good question. Timothy said he brought me there, but couldn’t fully explain. I don’t know if he would have been able to pull me in if I hadn’t been with Griffin.”

  And the hostility returns. “What is that supposed to mean?” he growls.

  Huffing, I stare at Griffin and point at the phone, annoyed at his dad. Griffin shakes his head and backs out of the parking space.

  “It means,” I say, “that your son is very good at calming me down. He helped me clear my head enough that I could sleep peacefully, for once.”

  “No nightmares?” Morton asks.

  “Aside from my little trip to the Dreamside, no.”

  Morton is quiet for a moment. “You two were together all night? Where?”

  For once, his question isn’t accusatory. Mostly. “We went for a walk to some giant poplar tree, did some…meditation of sorts, and I fell asleep. I guess we both did.”

  “He took you to the Gennet Poplar?”

  I honestly can’t remember the name of the tree, but I’m assuming that’s the right one. How many big, special trees can there be around here. The name isn’t important, however. The tone of Morton’s voice is. “Why does it matter?” I ask.

  Morton hesitates. “It doesn’t, I guess.” Again, his tone makes me think that’s not entirely truthful. “I need you to come into the office before class.”

  “Can it be after? I need to talk to Timothy first.”

  “I’ll go,” he says, in boss mode now. “I need you and Griffin here to speak to the foster mother.”

  My first instinct is to argue, to check on Timothy and see what other information I can get from him. The guard on Timothy’s room, Morton’s muttered comment that no one believed the foster mother’s account of what happened, prod me to do as he asks.

  “Tell Timothy he needs to write down everything he can remember after he wakes up from the Dreamside. It helps the memories not slip away so fast. Ask him if he remembers seeing me last night, okay?”

  “I will,” he confirms. “I’ll be back at the office as soon as I can. Griffin will be there to help you. Let him lead the questioning. You do what you do best, figure out what’s not quite right about her.”

  Not really sure what he’s expecting from me, I hesitate responding too confidently. “Uh, I’ll do my best.”

  He must think that will be good enough, because he ends the call. I let the phone drop to my lap with a sigh. This case is getting weirder by the second.

  “Where are we headed?” Griffin asks.

  “Home, then to the office. I need to get the leaves out of my hair if I’m going to help you question the foster mom.”

  Griffin, surprisingly, doesn’t bat an eye at that. At least one of us thinks this is a good idea.

  ***

  De-leafed, I stay close to Griffin as we approach the interview room. “You’ve done this before, right?” I ask. Nervous energy makes me twitchy. I adjust my security badge for the millionth time, convinced not even its presence will make this lady believe I’m supposed to be here.

  “Many times,” Griffin says calmly.

  “I have no idea what to do in there.”

  A quick look of annoyance flashes across his features. “What has Dad been teaching you this whole time?” He shakes his head. “When we go in, just pretend you’ve done this a thousand times with living people, rather than ghosts, and let me take the lead. If you have a question for her, ask it. If something feels off, follow the trail. You have good instincts, Echo. Trust them.”

  As pep talks go, I think that one is pretty good. I still want to throw up, but I feel slightly less incompetent. When Griffin looks over at me to see if I’m ready, I nod. Here we go.

  The woman is younger than I expected. Mid-thirties, she sits up in her chair as soon as the door begins to open. Her gaze goes to Griffin first, then to me, surprise registering in her expression as well. Her fingers twist together as she shifts in her seat. She watches us intently as we approach the table.

  “Mrs. Wilkins, I’m Special Agent Griffin Morton, and this is Echo Simmons, a consultant working with us on this case.”

  “Consultant?” Mrs. Wilkins asks. “What kind of consultant?” She eyes me more shrewdly now, as if I’m somehow more dangerous to her as a third party than as an agent. That’s when I know my suspicions were correct.

  Stepping forward, I say, “The kind of consultant who understands you saw something you don’t know how to explain and aren’t even sure you believe was real.”

  She freezes, her breathing rate spiking. “Things were happening to him before he ever came to my home.”

  “I know that.”

  “They told me he had some emotional problems,” she says. “I can deal with that. I know how to work with troubled kids, but…that’s not…he…”

  I nod, feeling bad she had all of this dumped on her without a clue. “This isn’t an issue of self-harm, right?”

  Her eyes widen and she shakes her head quickly. “There’s something wrong with him.” She says it almost as a whisper, as though afraid of someone overhearing her.

  Deciding me standing over her probably isn’t helping. I pull back one of the chairs across the table from her and sit down. Griffin does the same. I realize then that I kind of stepped all over him taking the lead, but when I glance over at him he gestures for me to continue. Swallowing my self-doubt, I focus on Mrs. Wilkins again.

  “There’s something happening to Timothy,” I say, “not something wrong with him.”

  She shakes her head. “You didn’t see…”

  “What did you see?” I ask.

  Her lips press together, blanching under the pressure. “They’ll think I’m crazy,” she says. “They’ll take my other kids away from
me.”

  “The case is in our hands now,” Griffin says.

  Clearly, she doesn’t believe him, or doesn’t believe it will matter. Timothy being sent away to another foster home will make it much harder for me to figure out what’s going on with him. I don’t know much about this woman, but even though she’s scared there’s still care in her eyes. What she saw terrified her, but she still called the police and social worker to make sure Timothy got help for his injuries. She had to know the implications of that, the accusations that were likely to come against her. She called anyway. It was a big risk for her. I decide to take a risk myself.

  When I left California, I owned one pair of slacks and only a handful of tops that could be considered dressy. Morton insisted I upgrade my wardrobe for exactly this reason. I chose a nice pair of grey slacks and light blue blouse for the interview today. Thankfully, I realize the blouse was partially see-through before leaving the apartment and added a white camisole beneath it. Now the camisole is going to come in handy for another reason entirely.

  Griffin glances over at me when I begin unbuttoning my blouse, but doesn’t move to stop me. Mrs. Wilkins’ mouth opens then snaps shut. I’m sure this is not at all a standard procedure during an interview, but I need this woman to trust me. I need her to know I’ll believe whatever she tells me.

  As I work on the buttons, I say, “I know a lot of people will hear what you have to say and think you’ve lost it. I’m not asking you to tell everyone. Just me. Someone who knows what it means to have things happening to you that you can’t explain.”

  I slip the blouse down over my shoulders and stand. Mrs. Wilkins’ eyes go wide at the array of scars marring my skin. I see Griffin flinch when I reach for the hem of my camisole but, again, he doesn’t stop me. I turn away from them both and lift the hem just far enough that one of my worst scars is revealed. Various smaller ones dot the skin around the puckered four-inch scar, and I hear more than one sharp inhalation.

  Not rushing, I lower my shirt and reach for my blouse. I’m doing up the last of the buttons when I sit back in my chair. Griffin’s hand squeezes my knee briefly. The touch calms me, and I realize how much his reaction worried me. He’ll have questions later, but for now it’s Mrs. Wilkins who needs to provide answers.