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“How do you know the heads were female?” Nana Pratt asked. “Did they have long eyelashes?”
I stared at her.
Nana Pratt blinked in response. “What? That’s how they differentiate in cartoons.”
“I felt feminine energy.”
“Perfect.” Ray turned back to the ancient computer. “That gives me more to go on.”
An odd sensation washed over me as I observed the ghost hunched over the keyboard. It had to take all his energy and focus to make contact with each key. He could’ve opted to float aimlessly around the cemetery and simply wait for his daughter and granddaughter to make the occasional appearance; instead, he chose to help me. Ray was one of the good ones. Nana Pratt, too.
I cleared my throat awkwardly. The words wouldn’t come easily, but I felt they were too important to keep inside. “Can I just take a second to say how amazing you both are?”
Ray glanced at Nana Pratt. “Did you put something extra in the tea?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t even know what to add.”
“As much as I appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me, though,” I continued, “I’m starting to feel like you work for me, and that makes me very uncomfortable.”
“That would make us your minions,” Ray remarked.
“Minions are for villains,” Nana Pratt interjected. “Lorelei isn’t a baddie.”
“I guess it depends on your definition,” I replied. I certainly wasn’t as pure as a Disney princess.
“Either way, as I told you before,” Nana Pratt said with a hint of indignation, “I’m doing it because I want to, not out of a sense of obligation.”
“I enjoy it,” Ray added. “I feel like I still have a life, even though it takes a different form from the one I had before.”
“Therein lies the problem,” I insisted. “You shouldn’t have lives. This is your afterlife. You should be frolicking in the Elysium Fields, or whatever spirits do once they cross over to the next plane. Instead, you’re attached to my property, doomscrolling on the internet like everybody else.” I waved a hand at the computer that, to be fair, only sporadically managed to connect to the internet.
Ray sucked in an imaginary breath. “I am not doomscrolling. It’s called research.”
“I don’t know what doomscrolling is,” Nana Pratt said.
“I only know from Alicia,” Ray said.
I rapped my knuckles on the table. “Can we please stay on topic?”
“There is no topic,” Nana Pratt said. “You’re overthinking it.” With those words, she dissipated. If only I had the luxury of exiting an uncomfortable conversation so easily.
“I’m going to keep researching, if you don’t mind,” Ray said. “And maybe you could stop at the library and see if you can find any books to bring home. Even if they don’t have the details, sometimes they’ll give enough information that allows me to find more online.”
“I can do that.” I paused. “I mean it, Ray. I never want you to feel like you owe me anything.”
He wore a tender smile. “Is that your way of saying you’re not the boss of me?”
I could so easily become the boss of him. I had to exercise caution when it came to my two houseguests, or they’d end up the Renfield to my Count Dracula. None of us wanted that outcome. I’d sooner ship them off to the afterlife.
“I’m going to have a snack and then head to the library.”
At the mention of food, Nana Pratt reentered the chat.
“Don’t forget you have dinner at your vampire friend’s house tonight,” she said with a hint of disapproval.
“His name is Otto,” I reminded her for what seemed like the fiftieth time.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea to go over there if you’re dripping blood.” She angled her head toward my wounded leg.
