Page 10 of Giving Up The Ghost
“Hell,” I muttered, a headache building between my eyes and the cold finally registering in a meaningful way with my hip and knee. “I need a fucking break.”
Getting up and walking around would be a pain in the literal and figurative sense, but if nothing else, it’d give me a chance to take another look at the architecture of the place. That sparkly stone was in every room I’d seen so far, mostly the floors but also around the windows, set into the wide wooden sills and architraves as a sort of accent. I had a passing thought of asking Oscar to check in those binders and see if any of them mentioned the house’s history.
No doubt Charlotte would manage to manifest out of the shadows like a Fury and put paid to that idea.
The low murmur of Ezra’s voice caught my attention as I made my way through the ground floor, drawing me towards the conservatory. I slipped into the conservatory as quietly as I could with my thumping limp and tapping cane. Ezra wasn’t on the phone anymore, but he did have it resting on his chest as he sprawled on a low divan set to look out of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “I think that must have been a knot garden at one point.”
“Who knows,” he grumbled. “It’s a mess now.”
Even in the dark, it was easy to tell the back expanse was overgrown and, despite the vague suggestions of once-ordered shapes, the true purpose of the garden was impossible to discern. A hint of a folly peeked out between what I thought might be rhododendrons left to their own devices and grown huge, but I couldn’t be entirely sure. Ezra was glaring at it as if it had done him a great personal wrong.
“You look like you just found half a worm in your apple.”
Ezra wrinkled his retrousse nose at that. “You’re terrible with analogies.”
“It’s why I went into social sciences instead of becoming an English professor. That and the fact I overuse ellipses.”
“You monster,” he deadpanned. “And anyway, I’m fine. Just… tired.” I gave him my bestProfessor Weems thinks you’re full of shitglare and he threw up his hands. “Oscar,” he said, only needing the two syllables to convey what we were both stressing about.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I don’t know what to do.” Carefully, I sank down into a leather recliner that was part of the divan’s conversation pit arrangement, thankful it was firm enough to keep me from sinking and rising awkwardly later. “He thinks we’re just being touchy, I think. Overreacting.”
Ezra rolled his eyes, flopping back on the narrow divan. “Everyone forgets about my abilities, don’t they? They’re not flash, not interesting, or a nifty party trick, but they’re real, and I can tell you right now that they’re sending up all sorts of flares about Charlotte.”
I shifted to better face him in the dim light, my hip twinging with the motion. Ezra sat up, frowning but letting me wave him off before he could start fussing. It had become something of a pastime for him and Oscar over the past several months, mother-henning me like I wasn’t a grown man who could listen to his own body’s signals.
Okay, sometimes it was nice. but a lot of the time it just made me feel weak and useless. Ezra’s keen gaze made me realize he’d known if not every time, then most of the times I’d lied about my pain, my anger, depression… “I thought your empathic abilities were?—”
“For the dead?” he finished, pushing back onto his elbows. “They work best that way. Not super strong, nothing like Oscar’s abilities obviously but still there. With the living, it’s a bit more difficult. I have to either focus on letting it happen, or their feelings have to be very strong. Even then it’s barely a tickle compared to a ghost that’s broadcasting loud and clear.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in being part of my research project?’
He snorted. “Go on, then.”
“Seriously. I know I’m focusing on Oscar right now, and by extension mediumship, but I want to bring in other abilities too. I feel like there’s a connection, something that ties you all together on some level. Why does it seem to run in families? Why are some people able to get it loud and clear, as you said, and others barely get a tingle?”
“Why is the sky blue? Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?” he muttered. “I’m the only one in my family with it. And that’s that.”
I wanted to push for more, but I swallowed that down. There’d be a better time, one less fraught with his anxiety and my exhaustion and whatever was going on downstairs. Speaking of… “So. Charlotte?”
“It’s all red when I try to focus on her. Red and oily.” He made a face, sticking out his tongue to get some psychic bitterness off it. “She’s blue and soft for Oscar, but us? All red and oily and sharp.”
“I, um… What does that mean?” I itched to grab my phone or even some paper and a pen to take notes.
Ezra smirked at my aborted grab for something to write with. “From what I can gather, everyone with abilities like mine experiences them in a sort of synesthesia. For me, it’s colors and textures.”
“Really…” I leaned in, ignoring the throb in my thigh as I tilted at an awkward angle. “Where did you?—”
He made a shushing motion, like he was pinching my lips closed with his thumb and pointer finger. “Shut.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I think we need to have what my grandmother would call a Come to Jesus talk with Oscar about this situation.”
Ezra shuddered. “Don’t mention Jesus. Not while we’re near my family’s place.”
“Ah?”
“Sorry, just prickly from earlier. Bad memories, religious trauma, homophobic family—you know, standard queer kid backstory number three.”
We were quiet for several long minutes before Ezra spoke up again. “We should get him out and about tomorrow. We’ve been here a day and already he’s burrowing in like a tick.”
