Page 9 of My Blind Date is a Ghost

"Cora... It can't be...Cora...Barnes?"

"Yes, I say. It's me. It's her. It's... I'm here. I'm alive."

She reaches toward me, her hand shaking. She cups my cheek. "By the goddess," she whispers. "I can't believe what I'm seeing. Cora Barnes."

I can't speak. I break down into tears and fall into her, wrapping my arms around her waist and crying into her shoulder. She knows me. Someone knows me!

"Well, come in. Come in, my girl."

Detective Dawson clears his throat. "So, everything is okay here, Beverly? You know her?"

"Yes, of course I do," Beverly says, wrapping her arms around me protectively. "A long-lost relative has returned."

"Alright," he says, a little uneasily. "Well, I'm going to head on out. But I'll need to come back tomorrow to get a statement from you both."

"Yes, yes, fine. Goodnight, Detective." She shuts the door on him without further explanation. I'm sure I will owe him a bevy of apologies tomorrow. But for now, I need to be with Beverly. I need to talk to someone who will understand what I've just been through.

Beverly ushers me to her sitting room and sits me on a plush couch.

"Well," she says, "Cora Barnes. You have a lot of explaining to do."

CHAPTER 5

Beverly's cottage is exactly how I imagine a witch's home would look. There are herbs hanging to dry, crystals on shelves and dangling from window panes, and countless books on witchcraft on the shelves. It smells warm and spicy. There is a Christmas tree in the corner, little lights twinkling all around it, and stockings hanging on the mantle over the fireplace, one for each of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Beverly hands me a hot cup of tea and I just hold it for a moment, absorbing the warmth through my fingers and inhaling the scent of peppermint.

"You don't look quite like your painting," Beverly says as she takes a seat across from me.

"Mother had it commissioned after I'd died," I say. "The artist had known me in life, but without me there to sit for him... Well, his memory was imperfect."

"I'm surprised Detective Dawson didn't recognize you," she says.

I nod. "He seemed to," I say. "It might come to him later. I'm sure it will the next time he stops by the bookstore and sees the painting."

"Whatever will I tell him?" she asks with a laugh.

I shake my head. "I have no idea."

"You don't know how or why you are here?" she asks.

"Not the faintest clue. I saw...a light. A bright light. I thought...I thought I was heading toward the light at the end of the eternal tunnel that people always talk about. Instead, I woke up in the woods, near Mystic Cove Cemetery." I shudder as I think about the cemetery, the gravestones.

"You are sure you didn't wake up in the cemetery," Beverly said.

"I'm quite sure," I say. "I was surrounded by trees and could see the stars above me. I had to walk some way to get to the cemetery. Not far, but far enough."

Beverly sighs. "And you are clean, so you didn't crawl out of the ground. You aren't a zombie, then. Could you be a vampire? Are you hungry?"

At that, my stomach growls. Beverly goes pale.

"I'm ravenous," I say thoughtlessly. "Do you have any cookies?"

Beverly lets out a sigh of relief. "Cookies. Not blood?"

I wrinkle my nose. "That's disgusting. No. I've spent two hundred years thinking about freshly baked chocolate chip cookies like my mother used to make. I believe you have the family recipe."

She chuckles. "I do. And I happen to have some cookies in the jar. They aren't poppin' fresh mind you. I made them this morning, or yesterday morning I suppose. But let me get them all the same."

I hear the microwave beep as she heats the cookies up, so when she brings them to me, the chips are melty just like freshly baked ones. I take a bite and nearly faint from ecstasy. My eyes water and I choke back tears as I devour the cookie, and then a second one. I try to stop myself from eating a third, but I cannot resist it. I drink the cup of tea, which Beverly refills.

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