Page 7 of Phantom’s Mate

Another eye-roll. He really couldn’t blame her. It seemed she’d been stuck in this one place longer than he’d been dead. “When was it?” he asked. He told her the year, adding, “And it’s December. Almost Christmas.”

She looked startled, and her face grew sad. “Over two years, then.”

He gestured down towards the accident site. “At least people still remember. They bring mementos.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I never see them, though. The people. Just the things they leave, all misty like they’re hardly real.”

That was interesting, that she couldn’t see passers-by in the real world. She really was stuck.

She was staring into the distance, her brow wrinkled as she thought. “Do you think I have some unfinished business? Like you?”

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “Except, if you do, it seems to be keeping you in this spot.”

“And there’s absolutely jack-shit going on here,” she said. “Trust me. So what’s there to finish?”

“You tell me.”

She said tartly, “If I knew, I would not still be here, believe me. All I have is that nagging feeling, like when you leave the house and you just know there’s something important you’re forgetting. Only times about fifty.”

She added softly, “Sometimes I go to sleep—and why the fuck would a dead person even have to?—and I wake up suddenly with that ‘oh, shit’ feeling stabbing me in the pit of the stomach. But I can’t remember.”

She sounded so frustrated, so sad. Without thinking, Nick put his hand on hers. She felt warm and soft, and it was like something opened up inside him. He helped his crew, he looked out for them, he played with them and warned them of danger.

But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d comforted someone.

Brittany said, “And then I think maybe I’m in purgatory, and I just have to suffer through this until I’ve atoned for all my sins. I guess there’s worse punishments than rain, mud and a Kraken costume.”

That made him smile. “I’m almost sure of it. But it probably doesn’t make it any easier for you.”

“Thanks.”

Nick sat there, wondering what the hell he could do for her. Although, she’d asked for information. At least he could give her that. “Anyway,” he said, “this isn’t purgatory. It’s the spirit world. There’s no moral judgement about being here—it just is. And as you already know, it can be manipulated with your mind.” He looked up at the sky. “Usually.”

“I know,” she said. “After I’d been here a few days, wishing desperately for somewhere to get out of the rain, I found a cabin in the woods where there wasn’t one before. Over there.” She pointed through the trees. “And then I learned I could change the things in it—furniture and stuff—by concentrating. And make margaritas. I can even change out of the Kraken. But…”

She sighed. “It always comes back. When I try to leave this area, or try too hard to remember. I get a weird brain glitch, a bright flash of light and this feeling of total panic, and then everything reverts back to how it was that night. Including me on the side of the road, being a Kraken. It’s very disheartening.”

So… she was literally unable to move on from her death, but there was a part of her that didn’t want to confront it, either.

Something she had to get past.

He said, “At least Krakens are badass. What if you were, like, a hot dog?” She gave him another death glare. He hurried on. “What I don’t get is, why don’t you just create something else to wear?”

“I do,” she said. “I have a closet full of clothes in the cabin. Only, they disappear when everything reverts, and somehow I can’t change what I’m wearing with my mind.”

That was odd. He wondered if it somehow related to her inability to move on—though he couldn’t imagine how.

“Thus the underwear,” he said. He let that hang in the air. Because who went out dressed as a Kraken with only that on underneath?

“Don’t diss on the underwear.”

“I would never.” Not with how hot she looked in it. He went on, “My foster mom always told me to wear decent underwear, in case I ended up dead on the side of the road. Although I’m not sure that’s quite what she had in mind.”

“If you must know—”

“I didn’t ask.”

“—I went to a Halloween party, to meet my boyfriend. We’d been having a few problems, and I wanted to make up with him, so I got some new lingerie. For when he Released the Kraken.”