Page 2 of Soul Bound

I know what’s coming before I see them. This isn’t the first time this has happened, it’s not even the first time this week I’ve experienced this, but I was hoping I was going to have the night off.

With a huff, I roll off the bed. The mattress springs creak and groan under my shifting weight. The room has already dropped thirty degrees by the time I’m standing in the middle. I shiver and reach for the sweater that’s thrown over the chair, even though I know the extra layer of clothing will do little to help.

I scan the room, waiting for him or her to show themselves. Sometimes this can take a while. It takes a lot of energy for a spirit to make themselves visible, and time to build up strength. But I can tell this one is strong by how fast this is all happening. The temperature drop is usually a gradual thing, but I can already see my breath in front of my face just after a minute.

“Hello?” I whisper, just in case there’s someone in the hallway who can hear me. I see something flicker from the corner of my eye and spin around, but nothing is there.Yet.

When I turn back, I glance at the mirror bolted to the wall and notice that a layer of frost as already formed there, and when I check the window, I see the same thing. They can rarely make the room so cold that ice forms, but it would appear this spirit is strong enough.

I anxiously rub at the scars on my wrist and shift back and forth on my feet, waiting for him or her to show up. My fingers feel numb and stiff. My teeth chatter from the cold. The sound of squeaking draws my attention back to the mirror, and I see the word HELP has been written across the frosted glass.

“Help you how?” I ask, shaking my head in confusion as I step closer to the mirror. “I’m stuck in here. I don’t know how much help I’ll be to you.”

I watch in fascination as another word is written across the mirror, followed by two more. I’ve never had a ghost write me a message asking for something. For the most part, they wander around, wailing about not being able to find their family or not understanding why they’re there. I typically just help them accept their new reality and encourage them to move on, but not this spirit. This one’s asking for something more than I can offer.

I reread the message on the glass and frown. Sometimes, it’s hard for the spirits to communicate clearly with the living. Their messages are occasionally all garbled and not in the right order. It’s not very often that I can actually understand what they want.

I spin around the still empty room and ask, “I don’t understand what you want from me. Is that a person or a place?”

When I look back to the mirror again, I find a woman in a bloodied hospital gown looking back at me. Her eyes, like all spirits, are a milky ice-blue. She never blinks, but her head cocks to the side as if she’s just realizing I can see her standing there. Her dark hair is stringy and knotted, and strands hang in her face. Her lips have lost all pigment and blend in with her pale complexion.

When I feel a presence behind me, I whirl around to find her now standing behind me.

“Jesus Christ!” I gasp, clenching my chest with a shaking hand. “Not cool, lady.” I narrow my eyes at her. I’ve seen a lot of spirits in the past ten years, but she takes the cake for the creepiest. It’s not very often that I see a spirit look this…dead. Their eyes are always like hers, but they never look like a walking corpse the way she does.

“Help…” she whispers in a hoarse voice.

“I can’t. I’m stuck in here.” I shake my head and point to the locked door. “Do you want to talk about it? I’m sure you’re ready to move on—”

“No!” she snaps, her expression turning angry.

“Okay, so no talking. That’s fine with me. Honestly, after the past couple of months I’ve had, I’m starting to think talking about our feelings is overrated.” I back up a foot or so away as I babble, just in case she isn’tfriendly.

“Help me,” she pleads, closing the distance I just put between us.

Great.

“I don’t understand what you need me to do; your message, I don’t understand it.” I look over my shoulder and see the message has started to fade, her letters barely visible. “Is that a person? A place?” I point at what’s left of her writing.

“Help me!” she wails, her hoarse voice cracking. “Go to him and he’ll help you find her.”

“Find who?” I ask, feeling bad that I’m just asking more questions and not helping in the least.

“My baby,” she sobs, gripping the bloodied gown over her abdomen. “They took her. They took my baby from me. He promised he’d help me find her. Please help me. Findhim.”

My heart breaks for the woman standing in front of me. She probably doesn’t fully understand what has happened to her, and on top of that, she’s missing her child.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to find your baby. Or how I’m supposed to findhim.Him who?”

The woman points a bony finger at the mirror. “Him.”

So, the words she had written out were a personanda place. The last word is Montana, so I was starting to think it was a location, but...

“Who thehellis Ranger Weylyn?”

She doesn’t answer, instead, the sound of the electronic locks from my door clicks, drawing my attention behind her. The metal door creaks open, the dim light from the hallway filling the room.

When I don’t make any moves toward the open door, she rolls her eyes and points dramatically toward it.

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