But that was for tomorrow. They couldn’t discuss any of that as long as his father kept giving him headaches that threatened to split his head in two. But how to end this?
He looked to Giselle, trying to sort through the possibilities.
“Giselle—”
“I know,” she said. “We have to figure this out. We have to take the next step.”
“What?”
She grimaced. “I have to let him possess me.”
Chapter Twelve
Giselle saw panicon Jonathan’s face but didn’t take the time to reassure him. Especially since she felt nearly as terrified as he obviously did. Allowing a spirit’s possession was exactly like allowing another person into your soul. The ghost would see everything in her, just as she would see everything in him.
It wasn’t immediate. With concentration, she could hold parts of her separate, but that took focus. And eventually—if the possession lasted long enough—she and the old viscount would become one being.
She had no intention of letting it last that long. She wanted to get this ghost crossed over and out of everyone’s life. Now.
But possession was not so easy a thing. It required acceptance on both parties. And she feared the crotchety viscount would draw her energy without sharing any more of himself than he already had.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t another option. So she boldly stepped into the whirling, seething black spirit who stood at the end of the bed. She felt its cold and its anger. Usually anger was like hot spikes into the skin. And when the fury was strong enough, she would feel bees stinging her. But this ghost had a dark anger. A seething fury that still stabbed, but with icicles of pain.
She endured.
“You want something, you old bastard,” Giselle cried. “This is the only way you can get it! Come talk to me!”
And then something shocking happened. Something that took her completely by surprise, though it shouldn’t have.
Jonathan joined her.
He’d been calling her name, but she had ignored him. She was too focused on the ghost. But the moment Jonathan touched her, she felt his presence as strongly as the old viscount’s. And he didn’t just touch her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, pressed his forehead to hers, and said the sweetest words she’d ever heard.
“We do this together.”
She didn’t know if it was possible. Her mother had counseled her that possession was incredibly dangerous for both ghost and possessed. But she’d never suggested that a spirit could possess two people. And yet here she was—with Jonathan—feeling the cold bite of the old viscount get stronger inside her.
Like the slide of a frozen oil slick in her veins. And from Jonathan’s sudden gasp of horror, she knew he felt it, too.
And then suddenly, everything changed.
The world around them darkened to pitch, as if they stood in nothingness. Not black, not gray, just nothingness. And it was three of them, she realized. Her, Jonathan, and the old viscount. They each stood there, clear as day. No longer a shadowy form, the old viscount appeared solid, though slumped with thinning hair and sagging skin.
That must have been how he looked when he died.
“Father,” Jonathan breathed.
So he could see too.
“Are you…in my head?” he asked.
“Are you in mine?” the ghost echoed.
She thought they were both in hers, but it didn’t matter. She squared off with the old viscount. “What do you want? Why are you haunting them?”
“What?”
Oh dear. Many ghosts were unaware that they were dead. Many were confused as to their actions, haunting people on instinct or as some unconscious way to lash out. It appeared that the old viscount was one of those. He was haunting his family without reason, merely because they were the ones closest to him.
