"Are you wearing it?" he asks softly, his voice dropping an octave.
I don't need to ask what he means. The cross. The grounding tool. The anchor. "The cross? We're currently having a trial separation. Turns out my skin's got a very specific, very loud theological disagreement with consecrated metal. It was a messy breakup. Lots of screaming. Some light blistering."
"It's for grounding, Aven. Not punishment," Ezra says, his voice taking on that managerial lilt he uses when he thinks I'm being difficult for the sake of it. He sounds like a therapist trying to convince a patient to take their meds. "The church provides these tools for a reason. You're more open than others. You're like a lightning rod in a storm. Without the metal to anchor you, to bleed off the excess pressure, you're just... drifting in the dark. It's dangerous."
"I like the dark," I snap, then immediately regret the sharpness. "It's quieter there. Usually."
He reaches out and finally covers my hand with his. His skin's warm, calloused slightly from his hobbies, woodworking and prayer, a classic combination. It's a familiar gesture. We spent a year in seminary navigating the space between friendship and something much more complicated, all late-night confessions and fumbled intimacy in narrow dorm beds that smelled of starch and guilt. His touch is human. It's safe. It represents the life I'm supposed to want, the life of the quiet acolyte, the protected vessel, the man who belongs to a structure.
But as his palm settles over my knuckles, I feel... nothing.
The grey, jawless ghost from class is currently standing by the espresso machine, watching the steam rise with a look of profound longing, and Ezra's touch doesn't make him fade. It doesn't dampen the whispering of the dozen other shades hovering in the periphery of the cafe. It's like trying to hold back a tidal wave with a paper straw.
I remember him telling me, months ago, that I just needed to communicate more.Stop shutting down, Aven. Tell me whatyou need. Let me in.He wasn't cruel then, and he isn't cruel now. But he was always managing me. He was always turning my inability to breathe into a problem of openness rather than a symptom of a world he simply can't see. He thinks if I just pray harder, wear the right metal, and talk about my feelings, the dead'll stop screaming. He thinks the problem's my heart, not my eyes.
"I'm fine, Ezra," I say, pulling my hand away with a practiced smoothness to reach for my sugar. I dump two packets in, stirring until the coffee's a muddy swirl. "Really. I just need more sleep and fewer disco-dancing ghosts in my bathroom. Gladys is a real stickler for the hustle."
"You're lying," he says, his voice flat but not unkind. "But I suppose I can't force you to be honest. You've always been a fortress, Aven. Just... promise me you'll try the cross again? Just for an hour tonight? It might help you sleep."
"I'll put it under my pillow," I mutter, standing up before he can try to touch me again. "Maybe we can negotiate a ceasefire through the upholstery. If I dream of hymns, I'll know it's working."
I leave the coffee shop ten minutes later, the bells on the door jingling with a mocking cheerfulness. I feel more alone than when I entered, which irritates me because loneliness after social interaction feels like a fundamental design flaw of the human condition. Ezra's a good man, at least, he's a man who believes he's doing good, but he's looking at a version of me that doesn't exist. He's looking at a puzzle he can solve. He doesn't realize the pieces are from five different sets and half of them are on fire.
I spend the afternoon wandering the city, trying to drown out the noise with the roar of traffic and the bustle of the crowds. It doesn't work. By the time I get to Gabriel's for my night shift, I'mscraped thin, my nerves feeling like exposed wires. Ezra's voice is still echoing in my head:Try the cross. You're drifting.
I step behind the mahogany counter of the bar, the familiar weight of the space settling around me. The air here’s thick with the scent of hops, wood polish, and the low, vibrational hum of the regulars, both the ones who pay for their drinks and the ones who just linger in the corners, waiting for someone to notice them.
Ellis is sitting in his usual booth near the back, looking more solid than usual tonight. He’s staring at the sugar bowl with an expression of profound, eternal boredom, dressed in the same dark jacket he always wears. I’ve never been able to place the decade on him. Some spirits arrive stamped with the year they died, all shoulder pads or bad denim or war medals. Ellis doesn’t. He smells faintly of ozone and something metallic tonight, sharp enough that it makes the back of my throat tighten.
“You’re late,” Ellis rasps, his voice vibrating uncomfortably in my jawbone. He doesn’t move his lips; the sound just manifests in the air between us. “The guy in the corner booth’s been dead since the Carter administration, and he’s starting to complain about the quality of the service. Says the atmosphere’s too modern.”
I grab a damp rag and start swiping a puddle of spilled stout toward the edge of the bar, the repetitive motion a small comfort. I look over at the corner booth. A man in a brown suit, his face a pale blur, is indeed tapping a spectral finger on the table.
“If the dead have unionized while I was at seminary, Ellis, I’m giving my two weeks’ notice,” I mutter, my voice tight and brittle. “I’m currently at capacity for theological disagreements, managerial coffee dates, and spectral labor disputes.”
At the far end, near the jukebox, a woman in a tattered housecoat is weeping without making a sound. Her tears disappear before they hit the floor, flickering like dying lightbulbs. She’s been there for two hours, her eyes fixed on a spot three inches above the Budweiser sign, and the grief coming off her has become a physical ache in my teeth.
“Can we not with the waterworks, darling?” I mutter, leaning over a dirty pint glass so the living customers don’t think I’ve finally lost the last of my marbles. “You’re depressing the paying guests. Try haunting the parking lot. It’s got better acoustics for existential crises.”
She doesn’t even flicker. She just keeps leaking translucent grief onto my clean mahogany, because the dead are remarkably selfish when they’re in a mood.
A prickle crawls up the back of my neck, and I glance toward Ellis. He isn’t watching the sugar bowl anymore. He’s staring at the entrance with a focus that makes my stomach do a slow, nauseous turn.
“Ellis?” I whisper-snap as I pass him to grab a fresh basket of fries. “You’re being weirdly professional, and I find that both suspicious and personally offensive. Are we expecting a spectral health inspector, or did you finally find a hobby that isn’t ruining my tips?”
He doesn’t look at me. His translucent jaw stays tight, and he adjusts his dark jacket with a jerk of his shoulder. “Someone’s coming, kid. Someone with a lot of weight behind them. You might want to look busy. Hell, you might want to look invisible.”
I ignore the shiver that tries to climb my spine and shoulder past him, because if I start making life choices based on ominous warnings from dead men, I’m going to have to admit that seminary wasn’t the worst decision I ever made. “I’m always busy. I’m a bastion of service industry excellence. Now moveyour ghostly ass. You’re blocking the path to the ketchup, and the living are getting cranky.”
I weave through the crowd, delivering the fries to a table of college students who look at me with the glazed, heavy-lidded hunger that only exists at 11:00 PM on a Tuesday. I can feel their attention crawling over my skin. It isn’t just the makeup or the sheer black shirt Gabriel hates. It’s the charge in the air around me, a live-wire pressure I can’t hear but everyone else seems to lean toward. People linger when I give them their change. Fingers brush mine for a second too long. Eyes drag across my face and throat like I’ve got something they want and no idea how to hide it.
By midnight, I feel like I’ve been touched by too many people who never laid a hand on me.
Gabriel watches from the other end of the bar while polishing the same glass he’s been holding for ten minutes. His eyebrows are knit together in a way that suggests he’s doing the mental math on my sanity again. He’s built like a wall and about as subtle, but he knows how to step in without making a scene. When a guy at the rail reaches for my wrist to get my attention, Gabriel slides a coaster over with a hard thud and looks at him until the man remembers he’s got other fingers available for signaling.
I duck behind the service station and pull a flask from my back pocket. It’s medicinal. That’s the lie I tell Ezra, and it’s the lie I tell myself. If the disease is being a metaphysical magnet for every sad soul within a ten-mile radius, then Jameson’s the only antibiotic I’ve got. The whiskey burns all the way down, a sharp golden heat that doesn’t make the ghosts go away so much as make them feel like they’re happening to someone else.
Ellis opens his mouth like he’s got something else to say, but the bell over the door rings before he can say it. The sound cuts through the jukebox, the low bar chatter, and the dead all atonce. Every spirit in the room goes still. Even Ellis turns toward the door.
