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The four of them had always been close. She and her sister were good kids. They were both introverts who had always cared more about their grades than being the popular kids in school. Cassie’s father was the king of dad jokes and he always trusted them to make decisions for themselves, despite his protective nature. Her mom was the kindest person Cassie knew. A woman who would do anything for her kids.
That’s why it hurt so much when Cassie phased them out of her life.
These days, she texted her sister every few months, but they were not as close as they had been as kids. She spoke with her parents around the holidays and on birthdays, but the conversations were brief. Her father would regale her with harrowing fishing tales or ask how her house was holding up. Her mom was there, just listening. When she spoke, the conversation ended in tears on both sides.
Cassie hadn’t found a way to explain her abilities to her family. Her parents lived in Charlotte but still had friends in Savannah, so they probably had heard the rumors about Cassie. Savannah was a smaller city, with residents who enjoyed a good gossip. Cassie’s name had been in the papers enough times that folks would have something to talk about.
If her parents had heard anything, they hadn’t mentioned it.
She hadn’t told them about the latest incident with Novak. Not everything, at least. The national news had caught wind of the story, so her parents were aware of his escape, his recapture, and his sentence to death. The phone call had started with tears that time, and Cassie spent an hour or two reassuring her parents she was fine and didn’t need any help. She made things worse by telling them she didn’t need anything, but old habits die hard.
Her cautious optimism about her fading powers led her to thoughts of reconciliation. If she could lead a normal life, maybe they could be a normal family again, or at least try without her worrying about something happening.
Then Detective Harris showed up.
Cassie cursed and closed out of the tabs she had opened about the murders. That life was behind her. She had a chance to start over, to start fresh. Maybe she would be able to go on dates and hang out with friends and talk with her family without worrying that a ghost would appear out of nowhere and derail her entire life.
It wasn’t like she was asking for the moon. She wanted to be like everyone else. Was that too much?
With thoughts of a mundane life swirling around inside her mind, Cassie kept her head down for the rest of the day and concentrated on her work. She stayed late, both to make up for lost time and avoid any questions Jason might have for her, and to prolong her trip home to her waiting guest.
If Cassie wanted to lead a normal life, she’d have to figure out what the boy in her house wanted from her. He hadn’t left her room in months so she assumed he would stick around until she solved his case. With nothing to go on except his appearance, solving his case was a long shot, but there was a familiar thrill of having a mystery to solve. She tried to squash the feeling, but it refused to be ignored.
Maybe this would be her one last hurrah.
She felt a stab of guilt as she thought of Detective Harris and the case with the dead women, but at some point, Cassie would have to move on with her life. She thought back to that morning when she felt the sense of a new dawn approaching her. Today might not have been the day Jason asked her out, but it could be the day she decided to move forward.
Cassie packed up her bag and left the museum. The nightshift security officer inclined his head in her direction, and she offered a small smile in return. He wasn’t as warm and amiable as Jason, which was why he had been relegated to evenings when there were no visitors to interact with. But she had to admit it was a lot easier for her to offer him a meek goodbye than it was trying to not look like an idiot in front of Jason.
The trip home wasn’t long enough for Cassie to build up the confidence to charge into her room and demand the ghost give her some sign of what he wanted. Instead, she went about her routine of staring up at the starless sky, doing a slow march toward her front door, relaying her entire day to Apollo, and cleaning an already immaculate house.
In the past, it hadn’t taken much for Cassie to get a ghost to point her in the right direction. Most of them wanted their cases solved. They craved peace of mind which allowed them to move on with whatever afterlife existed for them. Sometimes it would take a day or two for them to figure out how to communicate. But once they did, there was a whirlwind of activity until they faded from view. But this little boy had been different from the beginning.
He had shown up in her room one night and was there, like clockwork, every single night since. It didn’t matter what day of the week it was or at what time she decided to crawl into bed.
He never spoke to her and he never moved around. She never saw him outside of her bedroom. At first, it had been a relief that he hadn’t followed her wherever she went, but it became maddening. Why did he remain in the corner? Why didn’t he try to communicate? Was something wrong with him, other than the obvious? Was something wrong with her?
She had tried talking to him in the beginning. But he never responded. He blinked and stared. He never so much as shifted his weight from one foot to the other. She wasn’t sure he could hear her, and if it hadn’t been for his gaze following her every move, she wouldn’t have been sure he could see her either.
Now, she had the proper motivation. When he had first appeared, she was reluctant to interact with him, and though she had tried, she’d given up after a few days of zero communication. In the days that followed, they fell into an uncomfortable routine. He stood there and she ignored him, except for those few moments every night where she opened a narrow window of possible communication.
He had never taken it before, so she wasn’t sure why she thought he would now, but if she wanted to reclaim her life, she had to try.
So, she replaced her usual level of dread with faux confidence and marched toward her room, ready to begin the process of solving his case, one way or another.
When she found Apollo curled up in the middle of her bed, she knew something was off. Over the last few months, he would enter her room on occasion. But most of the time, he stood guard at the threshold. He hadn’t felt comfortable enough to sleep in there for some time.
Cassie’s eyes darted to the corner of her room to see that it stood empty. Her gaze flickered to each corner, thinking she might’ve just forgotten which one he haunted. But they were all empty.
With her entire plan thrown out the window, Cassie pulled on her pajamas, crawled into bed, and stared at the corner of her room, attempting to will him to appear one more time.
She couldn’t help but feel disappointed when he didn’t.
Seven
Cassie was startled awake when a strange noise infiltrated her dreamless slumber. It hadn’t been all that loud, but its cadence was strange enough to be out of the ordinary. It had risen above the normal hum that persisted. At first, she tried to ignore it, clinging to what little rest she was able to get that night. She hated to admit it, but the little boy’s absence threw her off more than his constant staring.
What if she had missed her opportunity to help him? Plenty of ghosts had faded in and out of her life over the years, and though she always hated the idea that she might not ha
