Page 57 of Claiming Sarah

I glanced down at what was set in front of me, trying to be open minded about the cuisine on Halla. I recognized soft boiled eggs—from what kind of creature, I had no idea—shredded meat, and a bright pink fruit of some sort. I tentatively took a taste of the meat, which was savory with sweet undertones.

“Tell me, Sarah, prior to your union with Deacon and Jac, had you ever been possessed by a ghost?” Rex asked.

His out of the blue question startled me. I wanted to say no, but I didn’t want to lie to him, either. Not until I needed to lie to him, anyway.

“The truth is, I’m not sure,” I said, then tried a bite of the egg, which tasted very similarly to ours on Earth.

“Possession is unambiguous,” Rex pressed in a curious tone. “How are you unsure?”

Setting my eating utensil down on my plate, I took a breath, trying not to outwardly shiver as I thought back to that eerie night. “I don’t know how much you know about Earth, but—”

“A fair amount,” Rex cut in. “Go on.”

“Seeing ghosts is not a common thing on Earth, and it’s definitely not something you talk about,” I said. “It’s the kind of thing that can get you locked in an institution for the rest of your life, if you’re not careful.”

“Yes,” Rex said with a nod as he finished the meat on his plate. “I’ve never understood that.”

I tried to explain how things worked on Earth. “As a people, we’ve drifted from religion being a dominant force in our lives, so now if something supernatural happens, it’s usually seen as a psychosis. My former boyfriend kept me drugged up to stop me from seeing the ghosts—”

Rex scowled. “That’s appalling.”

I smiled at his outrage on my behalf. “I figured out when I was young that I couldn’t tell too many people about seeing ghosts. I didn’t really knowwhatI was seeing until I was eight and myimaginary friendtold me details about my teacher’s past, like how she liked to shoplift and had been a thief before she became a teacher. I was asking her about all of this because it sounded more interesting than our math lesson for the day.”

He chuckled, the sound rife with amusement. “I would think so. What happened?”

I sat back in my chair, remembering that day. “Well, the parent-teacher conference after school was mortifying for my mom, who told me afterwards that I couldn’t tell people what the ghosts told me. She knew what I was seeing, and she told me to never tell anyone again. She made me swear it. She said people would take me away from her, and I would have to live in an institution for crazy people if I kept sharing. So, that was enough to put the fear in me and I swore I wouldn’t.”

I took a moment to take a drink from the pale brown liquid in my glass, which tasted like a sweet nectar, before telling Rex more. “When I was fourteen, a ghost told me my older sister’s boyfriend was drunk, right before Elizabeth was about to get into a car with him behind the wheel. I cracked. I ran and warned her, and of course she didn’t believe me, until I told her that a ghost told me. Elizabeth ratted me out to Mom for saying that in front of her boyfriend, and I was punished, even though telling her had saved her life.”

“That’s not fair,” Rex said, sounding miffed on my behalf.

“I agree. I was so mad about it at the time.” I shook my head, still annoyed, even though it was such a long ago memory.

But then my stomach twisted when I recalled what happened later that evening. “That night I was stuck in my room because I was grounded, and the ghost came to me again—the same one who had warned me about Elizabeth’s boyfriend. He wanted some kind of compensation for helping me to save her life. I didn’t understand—no other ghost had ever wanted anything in exchange for information. He…”

My voice faded, while I tried to tell a stranger one of the darkest things to ever happen to me. But then, in some ways our unfamiliarity made sharing my story easier than trying to tell Jac or Deacon.

Almost compassionately, he said, “You don’t have to tell me, Sarah.”

I swallowed hard and met Rex’s gaze, surprised by the empathy I saw there, as if he understoodme. “I think I should. It might help, if you don’t mind.”

He nodded. “You can tell me anything.”

Lured in by Rex’s offer and the chance to unburden myself of such a humiliating secret, I found myself opening up to him. “The ghost…he was irate and kept shouting at me to give him all of my body. That I owed him, but I refused. He found my letter opener in my desk and made my hand grab it and hold it to my throat. He told me to go to my vanity and sit there, so I could watch him force me to cut my throat.”

Tears burned my eyes. I could still feel the fear that had gripped me at having very little control over my body, and how this ghost intended to possess me. “When he dragged me to the chair to force me to sit, I struggled and ended up kicking the chair over, which made him angry. I managed a strangled scream, and my mom and my sisters showed up within seconds, having heard the commotion. They sawmeholding the letter opener to my throat, and my sister, Jenny, rushed me, knocking me backward. The knife went flying, and that jarring movement is what finally broke the ghost’s hold on me.”

“You’re lucky she saved you,” Rex said, drawing me in deeper with more of his kind words.

“I spent a year in an institution after that,” I forced myself to say out loud as I wiped away the tears that had fallen down my cheeks with my fingers. Then, I ducked my head in embarrassment. “Sorry, this isn’t something I usually talk about. Actually, I never talk about it. No one in my family does. I’ve never told anyone.”

“Thank you for trusting me with that.” Either Rex was actually touched that I shared my story with him, or he was a truly great actor. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

He patted the back of my hand before I could stop him and hold true to the promise I’d made to Deacon. His touch was peculiar—not creepy, like I had thought being touched by a ghost would be, especially after sharing that story with him. His hand was soft and surprisingly warm. Almost…real.

I lifted my gaze to his. “Rex, how is it that you can touch the living?”

He smiled and sat back, withdrawing his hand. “Some ghosts have this ability. We don’t have to be filthy conduits to do it. I’ve heard tale that it is due to our mental fortitude in life, and it carries through to our death, but most ghosts I knew in life, men stronger than me, cannot do it. To be honest, I think I’m just lucky.”

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