Page 5 of Captivating Magic

It had been five months since her accident. Five months since the death of her then-current guyfriend, Spencer. That timeframe coincided with the manifestation and her periodicblackouts. She wavered back and forth between believing the apparition was real and a figment of her imagination.

Was it possible her brain was scrambled, or had Spencer refused to cross over? If so, why? They’d only gone out on a handful of occasions, and there hadn’t been enough time to fall into feelings. The guy had bored her to sleep during their one and only picnic. Granted, she’d worked a double at her mother’s new bakery that day because Mom had been short-staffed. Still, it was a dastardly dull dinner date.

But what else could the constant haunting be?Whoelse?

“Why didn’t I remember to ask Lo?” she muttered. After all, that had been her primary reason for seeking him out. Or so she told herself. Sure, the ink on his divorce papers was finally dry, but that hadn’t played into her visit.

More dishes rattled, and she drew the covers closer around her neck.

“I don’t know what you want.” She whimpered like the total coward she was, eyes squeezed shut.

An answering breeze swept the hair back from her chilled skin like the softest caress. The next instant, the covers were swept away. Apparently, Ebba wasn’t allowed to wallow in misery, and no reprieve from the chaos and cacophony was to be had tonight. One by one, self-help and empowerment books fell from the shelves to litter the floor.

“Funny,” she muttered, not finding it humorous in the least.

Banging sounded on the front door, and seizing the opportunity to escape, she bolted across the room. Maybe if she could get out of the apartment, the entity would calm the hell down. But before she made good her escape, a vase crashed to the floor, sprinkling shards of glass in her path. Barefoot, she skidded to a halt. If she sprinted the last five feet to freedom, she’d cut the hell out of her bare soles.

“Why can’t you just go away?” she shouted in her frustration, not even wincing at the begging in her voice. She was fed up by the countless sleepless nights due to the icy feel of fingers stroking her hair. Her ghost had an obsession, and she was it.

Laszlo’s muffled voice was apologetic from the other side of the wooden panel. “Of course. I’m sorry to bother you, Ebba. I was just checking?—”

“Lo?Lo, I?—”

She screamed as her body was thrown sideways into the wall.

Then again when the door flew back on its hinges.

Arms raised for battle, wearing an intensely dark and frightening look on his handsome face, Laszlo blasted his way inside. There was no other word for it. He summed up the situation with a single glance and rushed to Ebba’s aid.

“Back off,” he warned as he scooped her off the floor.

It took her a few confusing seconds to realize he wasn’t speaking to her.

“You see it?” she whispered.

“I do,” he replied grimly.

“Thank God I’m not going crazy.”

He snorted but never glanced down, and his steely-eyed stare was focused on something or someone she couldn’t see. “If you are, I am.”

“Can you, uh, talk to them, too?”

“Sure, and so can you. The difference is I can hear the reply.”

Ebba gaped at him, noting the challenging expression he cast her eerie entity. What must it be like to see and speak to things beyond the normal? For that matter, what did it feel like to blow the door off its hinges without the need for mortal tools?

“Can you ask whoever it is to go away and leave me alone?”

He hesitated, and the frown between his slashing brows deepened to trench-like depths. “There’s a problem with that request, Ebba.”

The sound of his too-solemn tone woke butterflies in her belly, and not the good kind. “What? What problem?”

“The spirit on the other side of the room… Yeah, it’syou, Sweet.”

Her heart stuttered and stalled like a standard transmission shifting from first gear to second with a novice working the clutch. The vigorous thudding hurt her chest.

“What?How can that be?” she croaked.

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