Page 43 of Ghostridden
“Stop talking about me as though I’m not here,” Avi snapped.
“From Ricky’s perspective, youaren’there. He can’t see you.”
Avi’s brows lifted toward his hairline. “He can’t?” I shook my head. “So why can you?”
I shrugged. “No idea.” I glanced over my shoulder at Ricky. “He wants to know why I can see him, but you can’t.” I turned back to Avi before he blew a gasket. “Let’s table that discussion for later. Where were you when the intruder arrived?”
His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know that either. I was…”
“Grieving?” I asked gently. He had only just realized Oren was dead—and that he himself was no longer among the alive and kicking.
He nodded. “When I’m not here, in the house, I’m just…not.”
“Not what?”
“Not anything. Not anywhere. But I could tell that somebody was moving around in the house. I felt it. Here.” He thumped his chest with a fist, but it made no noise. “I didn’t know what it meant at first. I thought it was just because I was sad.”
“So itwasa disturbance in the Force!” I crowed. When he glared at me, I held up my hands. “Sorry. But it’s the best metaphor I can think of right now. This house is your space—that is, I assume you don’t go anywhere else?”
He shook his head. “Here or nowhere.”
“So if it’s your space, in your present, er, incarnation, you’re probably connected enough to it that you can tell something’s wrong, yeah?”
“Maz,” Ricky murmured, “maybe we should call Saul and Professor DeHaven.”
I slapped my forehead. “Shoot! You’re right. I promised them.” I gave Avi a strained smile. “Is it okay if I let Saul Pasternak and Professor DeHaven know you’re”—my gesture swept from his head to his feet—“manifesting?”
He bit his lip, clearly thinking. “Do you think they’ll be able to see me?”
“No idea. But they investigated the library tornado—”
“Sorry about that.”
“No worries. They were so excited about that, I thought they were going to plotz.”
“Plotz?” A smile glimmered on Avi’s transparent features, and I could suddenly see why someone like Oren, with a life and career elsewhere, would give it all up to move here and be with this man. “Aren’t you Arabic, Maz? I’m the one who should be breaking out the Yiddish slang.”
“Arabicheritage. Actually, I’m from Connecticut.”
“Noted.” He swept an arm out. “By all means, give them a call. I can’t promise they’ll see anything.” Despite his grand gesture, his eyes behind his spectral glasses looked bleak and a little lost. “I haven’t the vaguest idea how this works.”
I think Saul must have broken a land-speed record after I called him, because he showed up, panting, at the same time as Professor DeHaven, who only had to walk over from next door.
“He’s here?” Saul asked between gulps of air. “Really?”
“Right there. Sitting on the second stair from the bottom.” I pointed, and Avi raised a hand to wave. Saul, however, was focused at least a foot to the left of Avi’s face, where Gil sat two steps up.
“Have you spoken with him this time?” Professor DeHaven asked.
“Quite a bit. He’s upset because he thinks somebody was in the house while I was gone.”
“Mortal or spiritus?” she asked.
I looked at Avi, who shrugged. “He doesn’t know. He wasn’t actually, er, manifesting at the time. Just felt that something was off.”
“Well.” Saul rubbed his hands together. “What do you say weinspect the house and see if we can collect any evidence, one way or the other?”
“I checked all the doors and windows,” Ricky said. “It doesn’t seem like anyone broke in.”
