Page 12 of The Accidental Ghost

Shamus straightened the fabric so her eyes had visibility again and scanned her sheet-covered face, looming at least ten inches taller than her.

“Because I can. I don’t know how or why. I inherited the ghost thing from my grandmother. It skipped a generation, and the best guess we have is because my mother’s an elf and has magical properties, and my father’s mother—my grandmother, her name was Ramona—could see ghosts, and they sort of merged and made me.” He intertwined his fingers together to signify this merge he spoke of with a smile.

Ralph found she wanted to know more about him and this fascinating life he led. “So you’ve done this all your life?”

“Seen ghosts?”

“Yes.”

He cocked his head. “As far back as I can remember. Nana Ramona, while she was alive, taught me how to cope, and eventually how to help entities get to where they needed to be.”

Ralph thought back to her high school days and how hard they’d been, being so shy and quiet. She was a target for every bully this side of the Mason Dixon. She couldn’t imagine what that was like for a guy with pointy ears who saw ghosts.

“High school must’ve been a blast for you.”

He leaned against the door, crossing his arms over his chest. “You mean my ears, right?”

“Well, those and ghosts popping up around every corner. How do you hide that?”

“I can hide my ears if need be, and I learned from a very young age how to keep my ghostly visitors under wraps. Now it’s even easier because of cell phones. I can pretend I’m talking to someone and no one’s the wiser.”

“I guess a guy your size probably didn’t have too much trouble in school anyway.”

He cocked his head, a look of interest on his face. “Did you? Have trouble in high school?”

She snorted. “Ask Roxanne DeLeon what kind of trouble I had.”

Just thinking about Roxy D. gave her heart palpitations. Roxanne was her worst nightmare from sophomore year until the day they graduated. All because she’d tutored her stupid boyfriend, Cliff Hanson, in math for a semester.

Roxanne had accused her of coming onto him, when it had absolutely been the other way around. He wasn’t at all interested in math, he was more into marine biology.

The kind where he was the octopus and she was his prey. He’d been all hands, Mr. Grabby McGrabberson was.

She’d spurned Cliff and his advances because of Roxy and her reputation for being super jealous. She didn’t want what had happened to Lainie Matheson to happen to her. Lainie and Cliff had made out under the gym bleachers. Even though they’d been broken up at the time, Roxy found out and went ballistic. She’d spray painted a message for Lainie on her locker, labeling her a whore with crabs.

“So I take it Roxy was your mean girl in high school?”

“She was the bane of my existence.”

“There’s one in every school across the globe, huh?”

She chuckled until she realized where she was. Looking around, she blinked. “Gracious…we’re outside!”

Somewhere between her recollection of Roxy and the hell she’d made her teenage years, and his memory of high school and seeing ghosts, Shamus had managed to take her hand and lead her outside.

Ralph could feel his hand. Oh my God, she could feel it! And it felt amazing.

He smiled at her, letting her fingers go. The regret she experienced when he released her stung. “Then we can check that off our list. You’re not attached to anything in Nina’s. Though, something in her house might have drawn you here.”

“Or ditched me here. But who or what?” Ralph mused, looking around in wonder. It was a frigid day. She couldn’t feel the chill, but she could see it in the air and in the condensation shooting from Shamus’s mouth when he spoke.

She could see it on the limbs of the bare trees and the ice hanging from them. In the small snowdrifts piled against the sides of the eternally long driveway.

Shamus zipped up his heavy leather jacket and tugged his cap over his pointy ears. “I don’t know, but for now, you know what this means, don’t you?”

She held up her hands in a helpless gesture. “I can take that trip to the Caribbean I’ve been putting off? Think of all the free airfare.”

“Hah! There’s that, but before you take that trip around the world, you can go to your apartment and check on your cat.”

---