Page 87 of Hot Ghost Summer

My understanding might be limited, and delivered through bursts of fractured memories, but I’ve figured out enough to guess his intention.

I fight for control with everything I have.

Mr Bowen is dragging me toward what he wants the most—vengeance—and the Clawson & Stoker office is his destination.

I can’t let him get there. He’s a Level Four entity with lethal capabilities, and he’s wearing my skin.

There’s only one person who can help me stop him now. Hollis.

I need to get home.

But walking like this reminds me of that time I drank too much booze at a party. My feet betray my brain’s commands, and every staggered step costs me precious equilibrium. Unmoored, the erratic changes in momentum reflect our differences in motivation, and the result tears at my body as it struggles to compensate.

I crash into a brick wall, glance off a lamppost, and trip down the kerb into the cycle lane. The frantic ding of an angry bell does nothing to encourage me out of the way of the cycle courier, who yells out, “This isn’t Paris, and that’s not a fucking catwalk. Get off the road, arsehole.”

I cling to railings that now separate me from the road, and haul myself along, listing dangerously from side to side the whole time.

Getting home to Hollis is like fighting gravity, but nothing has ever been more important.

twenty-seven

Consequences, Theo

Hollis

That kiss was a mistake.

I touch my fingers to my lips for the hundredth time since it happened. It’d been impulsive. Reckless. Uncharacteristic.

Watching Theo’s heart break as he uncovered the fate of the Bowen’s Farm dairy herd loosened something deep inside me. It doesn’t seem to matter to him whether an injustice is against a human, an animal, or… a ghost; their suffering hurts him all the same. That level of unbiased empathy is rare in my world.

I shouldn’t have kissed him.

This past week, I’ve observed the full range of Theo’s emotions: his grief, fear, surprise, anger, joy, and desire. Sometimes he requires space to express them and at others to be steered down a safer path, but they’re all easily managed with strong boundaries and clear consequences for disobedience.

Theo had been skirting the edge of emotional overwhelm earlier, and I’d been monitoring him. Careful with my answers, I’d avoided emotive language, and hadn’t sought to control his anger but help funnel it into something more productive. In the end, he’d been the one to discover the identities of the ghosts who haunt Plot 47, and that had ebbed his rage like the moon does the tide.

Unapologetically bold and confidently rebellious, Theo requires authority because without structure and guidance he can’t shine. But those rules and boundaries need to be tailored to him, need to match his energy, need to anchor him so he can fly safely—which is what I’d been doing when Gerald called.

With only a few words, he’d not only usurped my influence over Theo but abused that position to manipulate him. By the time their call was through, Theo’s emotions were so turbulent they threatened to drown him, and mine were…

The flat fills with the heavy buzz of static electricity.

I’d needed to do something to cut through the noise that had built between us—something that would bring him back to me. Theo needs my brand of discipline, and after all, I’m his poltergeist.

I touch my fingers to my lips.

His rich and vibrant northern accent floods my ears when the recording he made at the worksite loops back to the beginning. Smiling broadly, his chocolate-brown eyes shine more caramel when the sunlight hits them, but he cuts off my view of his freckled face when he pans the camera around.

“Currently there’s only one wall, a few support pillars, and all this open space. But out back ’ere… is a big pit,” he continues, playing pretend at being the worst estate agent in the world as he sways his way over to the open foundations at the rear of Plot 47.

This must be the hundredth time I’ve watched this footage as well. Research, I tell myself.

The camera switches back to his face while he tugs the brassy, bleached tips of his hair through the gap in his cap. A smile lifts the corners of my mouth. He does this to provoke a reaction, to make sure I’m engaged, but he doesn’t need to worry. Even though I know better, I look. Every time. There’s just something about Theo that calls to me. Always has been.

A heavy thud batters the flat door. I pause the replay of the video and amplify all audio detection circuits.

The handle jiggles, then something slams into the frame.