Page 58 of After Life
“Populist drivel,” she muttered. “Dickens should never have attained the level of popularity he did. He was a terrible, cruel man who abandoned his wife and children.” Grandmere glanced at me and rolled her eyes. “What? I’m allowed to have opinions on things outside of your experience of me.”
“I know—”
“Do you though?” She pressed her hand against the door, and it appeared to open but the image was blurred—it opened under her touch but stood closed at the same time. “Come inside.”
Hesitantly, I followed her through the blurred door. We were in a small entry way, barely big enough for the coat rack and the cluster of dusty boots by the door. If we’d been corporeal, we’d be bumping into one another. “I don’t remember this place outside of the photo,” I admitted.
She nodded. “You wouldn’t. It was theirs before you were born.”
“Then why are we here?”
“You tell me.”
I looked around, staring at the dark staircase leading to the second story, the dimly lit sitting room beyond the entryway and shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“We go to where we have attachments,” she said. “Do you remember that lesson?”
“Ghosts are attached to places, occasionally to a person,” I repeated the words from my childhood, one of the first things Grandmere ever explained to me about hauntings. “That’s why Henry VIII doesn’t suddenly appear at the Brooklyn Zoo or The Gray Lady of Wroxham Hall remains on her staircase.”
She nodded. “And you, for some reason, have an attachment to this place. A place you’ve never been in life.”
“I dreamed of it, though. Because of the photo.”
She made an approving little sound at that. “And what does that mean?”
“That I was desperate for a connection to my parents, who I barely remember in life and who’ve never visited me after?” My eyes wanted to burn but didn’t. Instead, I felt a wave of sadness, deep and bitter and cold, wash over me. Overhead, the light burst to life, flickered, then exploded.
Grandmere sighed. “You were always so dramatic, Oscar. Really. Think this through.”
“I’m not a ghost,” I began, but she shook her head.
“For the moment, you’re as close as you can be without being dead. This is not a case of astral projection or a bad dream, Oscar. You’ve been forcibly displaced. Your body is not your own, and you have nowhere to go.”
“I was trying to find Enoch,” I murmured. “He’s the one I was looking for, not you.” Cocking a curious glance at her, I frowned. “Why did I find you?”
The light pulsed, and she scowled. “Not yet, damn it! Not yet!”
“I need to find Enoch,” I repeated. “He might be able to help me. Oddly enough,” I chuckled. “Who’d have thought...”
The white glare washed over us, and I felt nonexistent. No weight to my limbs, no pressure of air and gravity. Everything was white and glowing. I tried to speak, to call for Grandmere, but no sound came out.
All I could do was fall.
“THIS IS AWKWARD.”
Enoch stared at me, eyes wide. “Uh. Hey. This is my friend Theresa. Theresa, this is Oscar Fellowes. He’s the best medium in the world, and also I think he might be dead. Are you dead?”
I shook my head. The girl beside Enoch, not much older than him, scrambled back from the edge of the tailgate they’d been sitting on and gave me an odd little wave. “Um, I’ll let y’all... do whatever it is you do.” She vaulted over the side and headed toward the low-slung blue house about a hundred yards away, nearly reaching the porch before she burst into a run.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I muttered. “I don’t know what I’m doing, actually.”
Enoch grinned. “You picked a good place to practice astral projecting! I’m at a retreat for people like me. Theresa, she’s real good at it. She wanted to give me lessons and all.”
“Enoch, I think Theresa...”
He waited, eyes wide.
“You know what, she’ll explain it to you later, I’m sure. Enoch, I actually need your help, if you’re able?”
