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A silhouette with a pale aura drifts in front of me, wavering like lace upon the wind. “Not be here. Should not be here,” a unisex whisper echoes.
I pause. Goosebumps clutter my skin while the hairs on the back of my neck prickle like fine needle ice.
While I respect ghosts, they are quite unreliable. And prone to changing their minds. Something to do with all the drifting. And the random flashbacks. You should not be here could be some reference to a child caught in their parents’ bedroom.
But I didn’t drive six hours to go back to the stuffy motel with no pool and the only ghost around is the one in the vending machine that steals my change and keeps my candy bar for its hoard.
Besides, the monarch must be a good sign—at least when I’m not picturing butterfly corpses.
Picking a cobweb from my knit cap, I turn the corner into an enclosed passage beneath a crumbling arch, but I can’t tell if the dip in temperature is from the ghosts or the shade. Dank air curls into my nostrils while dark melancholic whispers thicken around me.
Just a little deeper, Aradia. You have done far more extreme experiences.
Like the time I encountered a ghost boy with no eyes at an old coal mine before I stumbled upon his skeleton still swinging in a boarded-up room. My anonymous tip closed a cold case.
Or the time I stumbled upon a field of bones behind some abandoned houses, only to be met by a pack of rabid ghost dogs. The field was used as a dumping site for a dog fighting ring. That was a bad day.
Hot tears scorch my throat, and my skin grows cold at the memories flashing like an old, decrepit horror film reel. Probably why I love wearing pink and watching classic comedies and sparkly chick flicks.
Shards of light from broken stained glass windows twinkle like multi-colored stars in the darkness. When a large tree root growing through the stones is rude enough to trip me, I catch myself on the nearest wall. Pain bursts in my index finger.
“Ow!” I gasp and pull my hand back, wincing from how I’ve just sliced open my finger on a broken window pane. Blood oozes down my knuckle. Hopefully, it’s not too deep.
A wave of emotions swells over me. Not a massive wave. The undertow is relatively tame compared to some of my other clairvoyant experiences. Technically, I’m not clairvoyant since I do more than simply speak to the ghosts. Ifeelmore. Clairsentient is more appropriate when I perceive their emotions and energy.
I keep going. Not that I have much of a choice. It’s like an itch you need to scratch. Or a scab you must pick. I guess I’ve picked it so much, it’s left a scar. A scar I love, even if it means I bleed now and then. Not that I had planned to bleed today.
The blood drips from beneath my thumb since the pressure doesn’t seem to work. Deeper than I thought, I guess.
I open my canvas bag when a thick shadowy mass drifts toward me and distorts my vision. Too many colors to isolate, and their auras have all blended.
“Come to us, pretty flower. We won’t bite,” one ghost says from the mass—others echo.
“Go now. You shouldn’t be here. Not be here…” the earlier one protests.
I hesitate. Gray light peeks in tatters from beyond that mass, so I imagine I must be getting closer to the sanctuary. The stained glass windows seem darker—like the moonlight struggles to find its way through them.
My breath puffs in the air growing colder. As if the spectral fingers of the cathedral’s tragic history of an unhinged priest and a slaughter fest reach for me. They brush my skin, unleashing a winter storm in my veins.
The passage walls on each side of me seem to narrow. Eager to escape the tight space, I dismiss the protests and plunge through the shadowy mass. Icy mist weeps across my skin, clouding my vision, but I press onward. The sound of my boots cracking on broken stained glass and thudding on weathered stones fades.
The mist thickens to a blinding fog, and panic tears up my spine as I lose the feeling of gravity.
I’mweightless.
Something catches onto my jacket. And tears at my knit cap, robbing me of it and spilling my light rosy curls to wisp in the air. Then, the silence comes.
I freeze because I’ve never heard silence like this. It’sunnaturalsilence. The kind that paralyzes and shreds the nerves, stopping my pulse.
I turn around, but it’s nothing but mist on all sides. That attempt cost me since I don’t know my sense of direction.Sucking a few deep breaths and trying to still my quaking heart, I reach into my bag and take out my emergency compass.
It spins wildly. My eyes widen at the needle twirling like a child’s top toy. It breaks. The glass bursts, shattering into a thousand pieces, and I yelp from a few shards embedded in my hand. More blood drips down my palm to trickle along my arm.
My other fingers scramble for the first aid kit in my bag until a growl freezes my blood. A thousand shivers snake down my spine. My instant thought is a wolf.
“Look at the pretty little flower plucked so far from her home…” The ghost’s words are so close, but they come from every direction—and feel like a winter storm rushing ice crystals across my body. “No flowers here. Shall we pluck her petals, too?”
More growls rumble all around me, and I don’t know whether I am more relieved or scared to know it’s the ghosts making those bone-chilling sounds. Not wolves.
