Ghost Avenger

by Serena Akeroyd

  Charles glowers at me, proving my point, but otherwise remains silent. I have to say, he’s unusually quiet. Most of the ghosts around me are chatterboxes. But I guess Charles is used to having no one to talk to.

  Even though I’m used to such tales, it still saddens me. Being a ghost is horrible. It’s the worst thing you could wish on anyone. I hope to God when I pass, I just die. That I’m not exiled to this eternal half-life.

  My internal shudder is swept aside when Marla hisses, “You’re lying! That can’t be true! Charles is here because he wants vengeance. He wants me to avenge him, and he wants to protect me. The minute you told me he was a ghost, I knew that was why he was here.”

  Deciding to take the bull by the balls, I turn to the twenty-odd-year-old kid and ask, “Charles, is she right? Is that what you want?”

  He shrugs.

  “That’s no answer,” Kenna tries to chivvy. “What do you want? Do you want your mother to keep on in this half-life? Or do you want her to avenge you?”

  Charles’s top lip pulls up in a sneer. “The woman’s a fool,” he snarls. “She’ll self-destruct without my input.”

  Stinging on Marla’s behalf, I snap, “Now, listen up, you little shit. That woman has been mourning you since the day you died. The least you can do is give a fuck about what she does with the rest of her life.”

  When Marla gasps, I blush, but preferring to ignore her umbrage at my cursing at her little boy, I stare Charles down. He shrugs again though. And his disinterest is very, very annoying.

  “He doesn’t care about me?” Marla asks on a quiet exhalation, leaning forward, she reaches for my hands. I don’t like being touched, but I let her because I feel for her. “Did he want me to avenge his death? Because I know, deep in my bones, someone was to blame for that crash, and you said the lack of resolution to his passing is why he’s here, so my theory is right! I’ll get private investigators onto it if I have to.”

  “He doesn’t care, Marla.” I duck my head a little and confess, “I told you, Charles wouldn’t be here if his passing was an accident. But maybe my wording was wrong. When the people we love come back as ghosts, it’s not just because there was foul play. It could simply be the lack of warning jolts their system. Maybe that’s why he’s here.” I say the words because they could be true, but I feel like it’s unlikely.

  This house is a hotbed of volatile emotions. Marla seems to be at the root of it, but she could be shielding something else. Something that’s being inadvertently covered by the strength of her crazy ass-ness.

  She bites her bottom lip, gnaws at it a little, then whispers, “He’s really not protecting me?”

  I shake my head. “How can he, Marla? Humans can’t feel ghosts. You know when you get that weird feeling, and the hairs at the back of your neck stand up?”

  “Yes. My grandmother used to say that was someone walking over her grave.”

  “I’ve heard it explained as that before too.” I smile at her, but it’s lopsided. “When it happens, you might think it’s Charles. That it’s his presence you can feel.” I shake my head, pity and empathy flooding me because even that creepy feeling seems like a connection, and when you’re lost to your grief, any connection, good or bad, is important. “It isn’t. It’s just your mind and your body playing tricks on you. Nothing more, nothing less.

  “When he passed over, within about a year, if he’d tried to touch you, really tried, you’d have felt it. But after a year, that ability wears off. Their connection to this world drains with time until they can’t do it anymore. So, the one thing they could possibly do after they die, disappears after time. And that is it. That’s the power of their abilities. To touch a loved one, and then to watch.

  “He couldn’t guide you, protect you, or defend you. He’s a watchdog with no instinct to protect.” I’ve explained this so many times to so many different people, but I always hurt for them. More than that, I hurt for the ghosts.

  She pulls one hand away from her clasp with mine, and wipes at her eyes. Moisture had been gathering there throughout my short speech, and I feel her pain. I always do. Whenever I tell people this stuff, it hurts me as much as it hurts them.

  My job sucks sometimes.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Kenna comments. “What you do is very important.”

  Yes, mom, I snarl sarcastically in my head. When she just tuts, I shoot her a glare then turn my glance back to Marla.

  “What do I do, Jayce?” she asks, shoulders hunched, weeping freely now in front of me.

  The control this woman has... hell, I can’t even imagine the breakdown it’s taken for her to do this in front of me.

  Uneasy, I turn to Kenna, but she just shakes her head. It’s unusual for her to be at a loss, but this is an unusual situation. It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever come across a scenario like this with these particular and peculiar details.

  “Why did you want me to come, Marla? What did you think I could do for you?” I ask instead. I want to help but I don’t know if I can.

  She lifts a shaky hand and uses it to cover her eyes. “I don’t know, not really,” she whispers. “I tried to...” She gulped. “Two weeks ago, I tried to commit suicide.” It’s hard to contain my gasp, and when it escapes, Marla’s head rears back, pinpointing me with a look. “You can’t tell anyone anything that I say in this room.”

  “Marla, who would believe me?” I sigh. “My reputation isn’t all that sterling, you know.”

  “Not with the skeptics,” she dismisses. “But the true believers know you're the real deal.”

  “Those believers are few and far between. But, whether my rep was solid gold or not, whether I had the ear of the press or not, everything you say here is confidential. I have no desire to walk out of your house and sell my story.”

  She swallowed, heavily, then nodded. “Thank you.”

  “No need to thank me. Truth is, Marla, I want to help.”

  Her smile is shaky. The tremor in her lips makes me wish I could do something to take away her sorrow immediately, but that power isn’t in my arsenal.

  Every day, the question comes to me, and I wonder if this gift I have is a blessing, or just a curse.

  At this minute, it’s feeling very much like a curse.

  “What happened, Marla? Why did you try to take your own life?”

  “You look at this place, and the limo and the jet, and what I’m wearing, and you think, Christ, she’s lucky. How great a life she must have?” She sniffs. “My life is one big Non-Disclosure Agreement, Jayce. I can’t help with charities or foundations, because I have to live a quiet life. I have no job. I can do nothing with my days. Nothing positive. Nothing purposeful or useful.” She clenches her eyes. “I know I sound pathetic. I should love my life, but I don’t. I did when Charles was alive. I felt so fortunate to always be at home, always there to pick him up from school, and to wake him up on a morning. We did all his homework together, we went on field trips and just had fun together.

  “Then, he died. And I might as well have died with him. Two weeks ago, I just... I got tired of feeling like I should have passed on in that accident too. So I tried, and failed. Milo, the chauffeur who drove us to the house, found me. I didn’t choose my timing wisely.”

  Drake would probably say that made her attempt a cry for help. I’m not sure if I’d agree or not. Marla’s ready to die. At the back of her eyes, there’s a blankness. A lack of feeling. She doesn’t care whether she lives or dies, and ultimately, death, to her, will be a blessing.

  Pity fills me. This beautiful woman, so clever and talented, has been reduced to this.

  For what?

  Punishment?

  Why the fuck didn’t her husband just divorce her? Why put her through this?

  It’s cruel, so unbelievably cruel my heart aches for her, and my heart doesn’t do much aching on a regular basis.

  She clears her throat then carries on, “I knew I needed to do something, and I saw a piece on you in the local p
aper, of all things. It was this woman, discussing how hard it was to overcome her grief when she lost her daughter in a train wreck. Ever since her daughter had passed, the woman believed she’d come back as a ghost, and when she spoke to you, confirmed that, then things started to improve for her.”

  “But you must have believed Charles was a ghost too? I’m not a grief counselor. Like I said, I’m here for Charles more than you.”

  She clutches at my hands again. “You’ve said that twice now. That you’re here for him, not me. Can you set him free? Maybe I feel so trapped because I feel he’s trapped. Oh, I liked to think of him protecting me, but this world he’s in now, this one you’ve described... I don’t want that for him. What can you do for him? Can you help him?”

  For the first time, Charles appears interested in the conversation. He’d spent the past thirty minutes studying his thumbs, gnawing at his nails, and now, he’s looking at me. Staring a hole through me with the need to hear my answer.

  “It depends, Marla.” I hesitate, letting my gaze drift to the boy. “Sometimes, I can, sometimes, I can’t.” Blowing out a breath, I turn to my left. David’s still slumming it in the corner of the couch, and Casper has taken a seat on the armrest. “Can I share your story, Casper?”

  Marla gasps. “There are other ghosts here?”

  I nod. “Yes. Three of them. They live with me.”

  “They live with you?”

  “Yes. Some follow me around by choice, others are bound to me.” When I realize that stirs up more questions than it answers, I hold up a hand to stall them. “Let me explain,” I start, then take a quick sip of coffee to brace myself. “Ghosts don’t pass over fully because of unresolved issues. Kenna fell off a bridge when she was drunk. David was murdered. Casper fell on the battlefield. And Charles, well, he died in a car crash. Do you see the pattern?”

  She nods but does so slowly, consideringly. “They didn’t pass peacefully.”

  “No, they didn’t. Because of it, they can’t pass over to peace either.” I twiddle my earring a second, as I try to collect my thoughts. Trying to explain the unexplainable is never easy. “At the same time, people can die in similar ways, yet they do pass over. They can rest in peace.”

  “Why? Why can some do it but others can’t?”

  Her eagerness to understand has me smiling softly, but I can’t answer her question. “I don’t know, Marla.” I shake my head. “It’s very irritating that I don’t know, but I just have no answer for that.”

  “I guess that’s because you can’t speak to the people who do pass over. You have nothing to compare your ghosts to.”

  “Yeah. That’s it.” It’s wonderful that she understands that without accusing me of being a hoax. It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened. “I have no baseline. I just deal with the aftermath. Now, Casper’s one of my oldest ghosts. He was at the Alamo. When I found him, he was very mean. Now, he’s just mean. He hangs around my apartment in New York, and this is the first time he’s come with me on a case. All I can do for him is talk to him. How can I resolve his death? There’s nothing available to me that will help ‘set him free’ as it were.” Almost as soon as I say the words, a thought occurs to me, and I turn to the man, or ghost, himself. “Casper, do you know who was behind the killing blow?”

  He frowns. “No. You’ve asked me that before.”

  “Surely you know which regiment the soldier belonged to?”

  “I’d have told you if I knew,” he snaps, being his usual, churlish self.

  Letting out a sigh, I grumble, “Think about it. Think about the uniform, any distinguishing features. Something that might help us identify the soldier.”

  “Why? What use will it do?” he says in a snooty tone that really makes me not want to help him.

  I narrow my gaze at his gloomy face and snap, “Maybe an apology from a relative might let you find some peace.” Or give me some, I amend silently, and when I see Kenna smirk, I know she agrees.

  My suggestion isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it’s the first time I’ve ever really thought about it. Casper has always been so grumpy and very unforthcoming. I only know he was at the Alamo because that’s the one thing he boasts about. He has very little else to say about himself. And on the few occasions he talks about his death, he talks about his passing at a field camp hospital and a nurse with a pretty smile who held his hand as he crossed over. Then, for weeks after he reveals so little, he’s as miserable as sin and an absolute bastard to be around. It’s selfish, but because he’s so horrible, I don’t prod just to maintain peace at home.

  But who knows? Getting an apology, even from a descendant who has zero idea about what his great, great, great, great grandpappy did might get Casper out of my hair.

  On the other hand, it might not.

  With a gusting breath, I smile at Marla in apology. “Sorry about that.”

  “No, don’t be silly.” She’s genuinely interested in what’s going on. That lifeless spark in her eyes has dimmed a little. “Can Casper remember anything about the soldier who struck him?”

  I shake my head. “No, but at least it gives him something to think about. The thing is though, helping a ghost find their peace doesn’t always do what we want. We outed David’s murderer, as best we could because he’s the son of an important man, but he hasn’t crossed over even though his murder is as resolved as it will ever be.”

  “That’s because the fool boy is sticking around for that crush of his,” Kenna grouses, huffing her displeasure at her words.

  David stays silent, just mimics Charles’s earlier pose of staring at his thumbs. Which actually makes me wonder if what Kenna says is true.

  “David? Is Kenna right?”

  Marla whispers, “What did Kenna say?”

  I grimace. “Sorry, it’s awkward having one-way conversations. Kenna said that David is sticking around because he has a crush on someone. I held a séance to out David’s killer, and there was a girl there, a girl I had to speak to on David’s behalf...” To the boy in question, I ask, “Is she why you haven’t let go?”

  His jaw tightens. “It just didn’t happen for me. That’s all.”

  “Bullshit,” I snap. “Yours is one of the few instances where it should have worked. Nate isn’t behind bars, but this rumor about you is going to destroy his reputation. It’s not a just punishment, but it’s fitting. It should have provided you with some form of peace. Enough to maybe feel less bitterness.” To Marla, I say, “It’s easier to help ghosts when they’re newly passed. I don’t often get to them, then, though. David’s uncle came to me, we managed to help David, but apparently he isn’t willing to help himself.”

  Kenna snaps, “When the girl dies, what are you going to do then? Jayce might be long gone, and she might not be able to help you anymore. You’ll be stuck here. Still. Forever.”

  “I’ll have you.”

  “That’s not enough, you fool. Take your chance at freedom, David. For God’s sake. It might be too late, but it might not.”

  Truth is, I haven’t thought about why David was still with me. It’s never cut and dry. I can do all I can to help a ghost, yet they could still be hanging around me for years to come. I just figured David was like that; I didn’t reckon on him actively trying to avoid crossing over.

  Idiot.

  Rubbing at my temples, I grumble, “You guys give me a headache.”

  Marla leans toward me and asks, “Do you need some painkillers or something?”

  “No. I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking though.” I sigh. “Sorry. Again. Look, I can only say I’ll try to help Charles. But I make no promises about him finding peace.”

  Her nod is eager. “Trying is good enough for me.”

  “I have a condition though.”

  A little fire sparks in her eyes. It’s a nice change from the blankness that was there before when she spoke about her suicide attempt. “As you can see, I can afford whatever you charge.” She waves a hand around the suite, showing me
how deep her purse can go.

  I don’t take offense though, my wording was never going to inspire confidence in my charitable nature. “No, you mistake me. My boyfriend is a psychologist. I want you to talk to him.”

  She blinks, sits back in surprise. “That’s your condition?”

  I nod. “Look, I don’t take payment. I don’t do cash. People thank me in different ways.”

  That has her frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “One of my clients gave me a coffeemaker. A blinged out one. I’m trying to sell it on Craigslist, but so far, no takers.”

  A snicker escapes her. “Whatever I imagined you’d say, it wasn’t that, Jayce Ventura. You are an unusual one, aren’t you?”

  My laughter merges with hers. “You don’t get much stranger. So, do we have a deal? Will you speak to my boyfriend?”

  “I have a psychiatrist of my own.”

  I sniff at her words. “And he’s done a really great job so far, hasn’t he?”

  She flinches at my callous remark, but I refuse to feel guilty for speaking the truth. She lets out a shaky breath. “What makes you think this man can help me?”

  “Because he’s David’s uncle. He came to me for help too. If there’s anyone who can understand what you’re going through, it’s him.”

  Apparently, that was enough to make her agree, because instead of arguing, she nods then asks me, “Where’s Charles?”

  “Right beside you.”

  She places her hand on the cushion next to her and whispers, “Let’s set you free, son.”

  Charles blinks at her in surprise, but for the first time since I’ve met him, he smiles.