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Another muted chuckle from behind him reverberated as a low, heavy southern drawl filtered through his failing hearing.
“Still breathin’. Gotta admire a determined soul too stubborn to die.”
Another blast.
Lastnightwasanythingbut decent. Restlessness tossed and turned her through the night as sweat poured down her back. Short huffs of breath filled her room as she struggled to get air. It was nothing but blind panic and pain. Visions of death plagued her dreams, fear twisting her guts as she tried to figure out if the nightmare belonged to her. Something loud blew in her head, like a firework trapped inside her skull, launching her body up, yanking all hopes of sleeping away from her. The same sickening hybrid laughter echoed in her head hours after she woke from the night terror, just like it had in the alley.
City Park was busy again, which was good. Unless she wanted an onion bagel so stale she could use it as a coaster for the curdled milk chilling in her fridge door, she had no choice but to venture out for sustenance. If there were enough people around the open space, spirits never caught on when she saw them among the living people she watched. She didn’t have to worry about being heavily vigilant about another takeover since she was still recovering from the energy drain the soul gave her the day prior. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if she could resist another one so quickly.
The quartz crystal she carried sat in the direct sunlight on the table. Smiling at the tiny, fragmented rainbows it created across the tabletop, she sipped a cup of strong tea and continued her breathing exercises. They weren’t quite meditation; that would have to wait until she was safely tucked at home, but it was enough to keep her heart from racing.
A deep breath filled her lungs. She held it and then let it go along with most of the tension in her shoulders and neck. Rolling her neck, she smiled softly at the release of the muscles, before she went back to her journal and notes.
According to many of the books she read, most mediums had a specific spirit with them to help them in times of need, a protector and adviser who showed them the right paths or helped them on their way. She never had something or someone protecting her other than herself. Well, she should not saynever. There was one, but she forced herself to forget it.
As her mother once said, "All spirits are just passing through. No need to get attached."
She found herself envious of the mediums who had spirit guides. A part of her wondered if they all made them up and followed a trend to seem more legitimate. After all, she was proof not every medium had one.
Her left hand reached out and spun the quartz as she wrote notes down. There were new avenues to explore here when it came to her gift. Voodoo was something she dared to dabble with in thought only. She hadn’t found the courage to approach any practitioners of the religion since stepping foot in Louisiana. Past experiences with other religions made her overly cautious, especially with the woven connections with the Catholic Church. If she wanted to have some kind of control, she would have to explore her discomfort. A tight beat of her heart tore at the thought of getting rid of her gift altogether. A part of her was ready to help those lost, but she was so tired of running from those who didn’t want help.
A prickle of goosebumps spread up her arms and across her back. The sensation crawled up her neck to settle at the back of her skull. It tickled at the part of her mind that let her know she had been spotted by something not of the living realm. She fought against the pure desire to run, pushing the fear down as if she never felt it.
Her eyes peered through her lashes, her head stilled to not give herself away. Maybe this time it would pass her by. Just this once. From her right, a familiar figure walked down the path. The annoying man who gave her his beignets.
“It looks like he lost his friend,” she mumbled, frowning at his clothing. “It's a little warm to be wearing a jacket out here.”
His eyes connected with hers. An unrecognizable tension built in her stomach as he jogged toward her.
“Here we go,” she muttered and turned back to her journal as if she had never seen him.
He stopped at the table, standing to the side, much like he had the day before. Anastacia spun the crystal faster to help distract her from unwanted attention, from both the living and the dead.
“I don’t need any beignets today. Thank you.” The words were blunt even to her ears, but he had been standing there wordlessly for a solid minute. There was something about the man that wore on her nerves.
“Youcansee me.” Relief flooded his words and he plopped into the empty chair next to her at the table. He ran his hands through his hair, and a manic chuckle blurted out. “I was hoping you could see me. No one else does.”
Her hand instantly froze in the middle of writing and the crystal stopped spinning. She raised her eyes from the page, connecting to his ocean blues. Hope sparked in the color. The reflection of her eyes in his glowed gold momentarily before she sighed and groaned.
“Shit.”
“You said you could see people who passed on. I wasn’t sure if you could— I mean, I didn’t know if I should believe you. Still, I was hoping you’d be here again, just in case you weren’t lying to get rid of me,” Mel explained.
“I was trying to get rid of you.” She packed up some of her things in a side satchel and downed her drink.
His voice bounced between confusion and frenzy, “Uh, no one I ran into, or through, on the street can see me, or even hear me. A jarring experience, let me tell you.”
Not wanting to be caught talking to herself she pulled out her phone’s earphones and plugged them into her ears. She threw the cup away and walked down a path away from other people who would overhear her.
“I’m not a ‘for hire’ type of medium.” Anastacia turned down a foot trail nearby, which had less traffic. “Not that you could really pay me in your state, anyway.”
“Look, I need some help here. I don’t know what to do,” he implored frantically. “Despite movies telling me otherwise, there is no guidebook to the afterlife. I’m lost and out of my head, and frankly, fucking confused about why I was killed.”
“You were killed?” She glanced over at him. Murders were always touchy. Most were undeserved. He didn’t show any signs of darkness; no black forms on him and his features were all sharp and defined, if not paler than the day before. There was no malice. He obviously wasn't there to take over her life. He just wanted the answers to the end of his own.
She rounded him again. “It was fast?”
“Didn’t see the first shot coming.” He shrugged and opened his jacket to show her the small bullet hole in his shirt. “Truth be told, I didn’t see the second one either. Bastard shot me in the back.”
