Page 33 of Chasing Your Ghost

“I guess not.” Still, something wasn’t sitting quite right with Riley, so she did something her dad had told her never to do. “But there’s still time. You don’t have to leave just yet. Maybe we should try to figure out where you’ve been going and why it’s happening to you.”

“But you said that would stop when I move on,” he replied, his eyes narrowing on her.

“I know, but I’d like to try and find out more. This is all new to me, and I think it’s best we understand what’s going on before you do anything.”

Asher considered her words for a long time, his green eyes searing into her hazel ones, before nodding his agreement. “Okay.”

Riley stood from the bed and chewed on her lip in thought. “My dad told me everything he knew about ghosts, and he never mentioned anything about this kind of thing. I guess I can start by looking online, but we’ll probably have to sift through loads of phony information before we find anything useful.”

“Are there other people like you we could talk to?”

Riley shook her head. “My dad and grandmother were the only people I knew who could see ghosts, and they’re both gone.”

Asher’s eyes softened. “I overheard Edith and Hugh talking about what happened to your dad. I’m really sorry.”

She smiled sadly. “Like I said last time, I have a pretty good idea of how hard it will be for you to let go.” She cleared her throat. “How often do you get dragged to wherever it is that you go?”

He shrugged. “It’s happened three times now, and it seems to be random. The first time was a week after I showed up in my house, the next time five or six days after that, and then this last time was, I don’t know, maybe four days later.”

“And are you always trapped there for so long? You were gone for three days this time.”

“No, I think the other times were only for a few hours.”

Riley sighed in frustration. “There doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern there. You mentioned you feel pain. Can you describe it for me?”

“I’m not sure. It feels like I’ve got cuts all over my body, I suppose.”

“And it’s always the same?”

“Every time I go back, the pain feels worse than before.”

“And you can’t see or hear?”

“I can’t even move or speak. I’m just…stuck.”

Riley started gnawing on her bottom lip again. She wished her dad was there to offer some advice. He always seemed to know exactly what to do, and whenever she’d found a ghost who she couldn’t reason with, he’d always stepped in and made it seem so easy.

“Okay, I guess I better start looking,” she said, feeling exceptionally underqualified for the job as she pulled her laptop out of her backpack.

“Riley,” Asher said quietly after she’d sat back down on the bed.

“Yeah?” she murmured, preoccupied with turning on her laptop and logging in.

“Thank you.”

The words grabbed Riley’s attention. Her eyes left her screen to focus on the ghost sitting next to her. She’d noted his attractiveness the first time she’d seen him, but sitting so close to him, it was impossible to ignore.

Her cheeks warmed with a blush when she realized she was staring, and she turned her attention back to her laptop, horrified at herself for getting pulled into his green eyes when she was supposed to be helping him.

“You don’t have to thank me. Helping people like you is what I do.” And rule number one has always been not to get attached, she reminded herself sternly. Her dad had drilled it into her from a young age that getting too close to ghosts was a serious no-no, and she needed to remember that.

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful,” Asher replied, and his words had Riley looking at him again. “You have no idea how good it is to talk to someone after being invisible for so long.”

Riley’s lips tipped up. “You know, you’re the first ghost to thank me for just talking to them,” she told him.

She hadn’t realized it until then, but whenever she’d gotten a thank you from the ghosts she’d helped, it had always been right before they’d faded and usually only after she’d done something rather drastic to help them move on.

“It’s hard to believe that,” he said as he lowered his back down to her bed. “I think, given another week or two, I would have gone insane if you weren’t here to see me.”

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