AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But again, because this was Nana...
As the lovely Jasmine put it, A Whole New World was all about having a fantastic point of view, and thanks to Nana's revelation, my point of view now included more than one dimension. It just blew my mind, that this other world existed alongside ours, and ninety-nine percent of us would go on living their lives without ever being aware of it!
Nana and I talked nonstop that night, with the woman formerly known as Miss Constance Day giving me the 411 on all things paranormal. Ghosts, for instance, were just like humans in the sense that while there were mostly good ones among them, there were also a few rotten apples in between. There were smart ones and stupid ones, too, along with ghosts who could only scream and scream and ghosts who weren't even aware they were dead.
Although ghosts who had been "around" for some time were capable of discerning which humans could see them, Nana demonstrated a couple of tricks I could use, just in case I'd rather avoid drawing their attention.
"But the one ghost that you must steer clear of at all costs," Nana warned, "is the Man in Black."
"Like Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones?"
Nana was exasperated. "Seriously, child."
"I was joking." Actually I wasn't, but no point letting her know that, right?
"He's not the kind to joke about," Nana said admonishingly. "Truth be told, none of us are even sure he's a ghost."
I shifted in my bed uneasily. "Is he a poltergeist then?" In a scale of zero to Hitler, poltergeists were supposedly at the very top of the list (read: the worst kind of evil), right alongside ghosts suffering from demonic possession.
"No one knows, child. All we know is that he's one to be feared."
Demon then, I thought with a gulp. Nana was a bit of an agnostic, so demons weren't even "real" for her. But for someone like me who had gone the Catholic route from kindergarten to university? Demons were a whole different kind of scary, and I don't think I'd ever be able to handle them.
"How do I know if it's the Man in Black I'm seeing?" I asked worriedly. "Is he the only ghost in black?"
Nana shook her head. "He's a strange and powerful being. You don't really see him—-"
What does that even mean?
"But you can feel he's there, and once you do—-"
I held my breath.
"Hide," Nana said simply. "It's the only thing we can do when he's nearby, and it wouldn't hurt if you did the same thing, too."
Chapter Two
One month later
"You've got mail," sang the eight-year-old girl who liked to hang out on my window sill, legs dangling off the edge. Since we were thirteen stories above ground, it absolutely wasn't the definition of safe. But since the kid also happened to be a ghost (date of death circa 1969)...
"How many times do I have to tell you not to read my emails?" I swiped my iPhone from her hand before throwing myself on the couch. I've been home for a month now, and thanks to my newfound abilities, I had somehow ended up babysitting the prettiest little dead girl with a penchant for snooping around my private life.
Mary Priscilla rolled her eyes. "I just read the subject line, big deal."
"Still invasion of privacy."
"Well, sue me."
Horrible little brat. Why was I still putting up with this pint-sized smartass? If I had known she'd be this annoying, I would have pretended not to see anything amiss, the first time she showed up on my window sill.
I could still remember how she had freaked me out that day, with her bloodstained teeth and her neck bent at an odd angle. The memory was enough to make me shiver, but when I also thought about how someone could be so evil as to kill a little girl by pushing her out of the window...
Right.
Now I remembered why I was letting this girl have the run of my home, and I quickly tried to distract myself by clicking the unopened mail waiting in my inbox. There was nothing Mary Priscilla hated more than seeing me sad over her murder, which she kept insisting she had already gotten over.
I wasn't sure I believed her, though. I mean, she was still here, so finding her killer must be her unfinished business. Or at least that was how it seemed to me, but then again...what did I know?
Either way, it was best not to think much about bringing the girl's killer to justice, who was likely to be just as dead as Mary Priscilla.
"Have you read the email yet?"
I hastily pulled myself out of my thoughts before Mary Priscilla could guess what I had been thinking about. "Um...no, not yet." I snapped my gaze back to my email, skimming its contents—-
