Page 39 of Ghost in the Cupboard

“People do love to talk,” I said. “But since I run an online business, it’s not like it’s a secret.”

Ginny closed her eyes for a moment, as if steeling up courage.

“You really can talk to ghosts, right?” she blurted out. “You’re not a swindler?”

“Want me to summon one of your dead relatives?” I asked, blandly.

Ginny blinked at me.

“Would that make you feel better about me as a person?”

“I don’t think—”

“Everyone thinks it,” I said with a shrug. “I’m not hurt that you might think it, too.”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” Ginny said. “But even the best people aren’t perfect.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.” I chuckled.

Ginny cocked an eyebrow at me. With a sigh, I squeezed the doorhandle and considered my options.

“If you ever feel that you can’t trust me, and you really need proof,” I said slowly, “I will summon someone for you.”

“I—”

“Free of charge,” I said. “If that’s what you really need to trust me.”

Ginny’s cheeks grew red.

“If that’s what you need to keep working here,” I added.

“That’s not what I meant,” Ginny replied quickly. “I wasn’t trying to say—”

I waved her off.

“You’re not the first friend to doubt me,” I said. “I’m used to it. I’ll be back in an hour.”

With that, I pulled the door open and slipped out. With the door struggling to slide shut behind from the force of the wind, I pulled my coat more tightly around myself. Plowing into the force of the wind, I took off on my near daily walk to Rhonda’s house.

As I made my way down the block, though the walk was short, I realized I had an unfortunate amount of time to consider what had happened. Over the course of my life—at least the part where I’d learned I could see and talk to ghosts—I’d had plenty of similar interactions. Not only with strangers, but with the people closest to me. Many of those people were no longer close to me.

When someone who knows you finds out that you claim you can talk to ghosts, particular things happen. At first, everyone falls into one of two categories. They are excited, or they wonder what medication you should be on. Most people fall in the medication column.

Which isn’t an unreasonable place to go with your thoughts when someone mentions talking to ghosts. Certain antipsychotics, anxiolytics, and even some antidepressants can suppress whatever part of the brain it is that allows a medium to see and hear dead people. It doesn’t mean that we are schizophrenic, anxious, or depressed—though a lot of mediums have mental health problems, for obvious reasons—but they can partially work to turn off the ghosts.

Because the parts of the brain they affect that cause mental health issues also control one’s ability to be a medium. There have been near to nil studies about this. The reason for this is that modern science has no interest in believing that mediums are real. Believing us would be the very first step in getting actual, real scientific studies done on our brains.

Not that I’d volunteer for one.

In the other column—the excited people—are the ones who love ghost stories and horror and are often highly religious, spiritual, or into nature worship. Like Wiccans. Or vegans and people who love to take ten-mile nature hikes on the weekend instead of binging a streaming show.

You know, weirdos.

There can also be a third column—the outliers. Those who are skeptical, but are educated and intelligent enough to understand that without proof, they can neither believe or disbelieve something they haven’t experienced. They often treat mediums with polite distance or simply don’t mention the medium’s abilities when dealing with them on a personal level.

That’s fine by me. If you are skeptical and don’t want to talk about it, I’ll ignore your dead relative screaming in my ear to pass along a message to you. I never force belief or messages on anyone who doesn’t want them. Or isn’t ready to receive them. Because many people want messages, but if I know for certain it’s not the right time to be delivered, I will use my own judgment.

I don’t feel bad for reserving the right to pass along messages or summon someone. It’s not the ghost or the person they have a connection with that will suffer if things go south. The medium is the one who will be vilified, ridiculed, or even face violence. Beyond that, some messages, from my experience, can cause more problems than they solve.