Page 62 of Ghosted
“Anyway, I want to make peace with him. So, do you think you can find him?” he asks hopefully.
“I hope so. Let me try. Give me some time to reach out, and if he’s here, I’ll let you know. I’ll be his voice, and I’ll try to make the communication as seamless as possible,” I explain.
When Misha agrees, I close my eyes and cast out my awareness, that inner net unfurling. I feel Dean just outside the room, flitting about. I nudge him affectionately with my awareness and then keep going. Looking for a specific person in the ether is like walking into a vast, dimly lit chamber, searching for a specific candle flame that flickers in its own unique way. Eventually, I find an essence that feels like Ivan. I reach out my hand and beckon him forward. I show him that his nephew is trying to make contact to entice him.
I gasp when he tugs away and race to keep up. I feel my eyelids flutter as I try to reason with him. None of this happens in words, more like my consciousness touching his. When he tries to pull away again, my anger gets the better of me. I can’t believe he’s unwilling to give his nephew just a little bit of peace—a few minutes of his time. Mishadeservesthat. So, I tug harder. And harder. Until we snap like a rubber band into the room. I slam back into my body so hard, the breath leaves my lungs.
“Everything okay over there?” Misha asks tentatively.
I fumble with the microphone and pant, “Yes, one moment.” I look up… and up… and up at the imposing man towering over me. Ivan scowls down at me with a thunderous expression on his aged face. He’s built like a brick wall, nearly as wide as he is tall, and if I didn’t know he was mostly incorporeal, I’d be scared out of my mind right now.
“Why did you bring me here?” he seethes at me.
I swallow around my painfully dry throat and whisper, “He deserves some peace. It’s the least you can do.”
Ivan’s face reddens. “The least I can do?” he hisses, “I’ve been stuck here because of that boy. He’s the one who owes me. And now he’s the one who coerced a damned witch to pull me from the ether. I hadn’t moved on, but I found as much peace as I could. And now this?” He waves his massive arm around the space, and my arms pebble with goosebumps as the temperature drops swiftly. I bristle at being called a witch; first because it’s untrue, and secondly because he says it derisively. We don’t put up with that in these parts.
“Is—is he here?” Misha asks from the other side of the curtain, snapping my attention away from Ivan.
I turn my glare back on Ivan and say, “Yes.”
“Uncle Ivan, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I never got the chance to apologize, and I just—I’m sorry for what I said. I know we didn’t see eye to eye, but I never actually wanted any harm to come to you,” Misha says quietly, voice wavering.
Ivan turns to face the curtain, but not before I catch the way his eyes soften the smallest amount. “What the hell is this for?” Before I can stop him, he reaches out and tugs hard. The velvet curtain that protected my identity falls to the ground with a heavyfwump.
I jump to my feet as Misha stares at me, face drained ofcolor. “Rae? What are you doing here? Where’s Claire?” He looks behind me as if he’s searching for a trap door, and my heart squeezes because his first thought isn’t that I’ve deceived him, it’s that the medium he was speaking to must have spirited herself away.
“I…” I don’t know what to say, or how to fix this, so I word vomit the truth. “I’m Claire. Or, I guess Claire is me. I’m a medium.Themedium,” I feel the need to correct, holding up the microphone.
His expression shifts from confusion into disbelief, and then finally, anger. “So you just let me tell you all that shit, thinking you were someone else? You didn’t stop and think, ‘Hm, maybe I should stop him from spilling his guts because I know him and see him every single day?’ Or at least that you should have told me who you were so I could decide for myself what I was willing to share?”
“I’m sorry, Misha. I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I just… This is a part of my life that I don’t share with anyone.” I gesture weakly to the walls of the Medium Meeting Room and vaguely to Ivan, who has become a quiet bystander, watching us.
Misha crosses his arms and laughs sardonically. “Yeah. Well, I don’t tell anyone about my childhood either, but here we are.”
Frustration bubbles up inside me at being misunderstood and misjudged. I’m getting irritated that he thinks I did this just to hear his secrets. I understand why he’s upset, but I wish he could give me the benefit of the doubt, considering he’s known me forever. “I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t trying to have you spill all of your secrets, I’m just trying to help people!” I say, sharper than I intend. I toss the voice changer on the chair behind me.
“Yeah, this has beensohelpful. Are you even really a medium?” he asks, standing from his seat.
“I am! I’m not lying about that,” I say, looking to Ivan. “Your uncle is right there.” I point to his uncle.
“I don’t see anything,” Misha says, staring hard at the spot where I pointed.
I grit my teeth and say, “Well, of course not. I’m the medium.”
“Prove it,” he demands.
“Fine,” I say and turn to Ivan. “Tell me something only Misha would know,” I demand.
He squints at me, heavy brow all but concealing his deep-set eyes. “No,” he replies calmly.
“No?” I ask, my pitch going impossibly high.
“No, I think I’m good,” Ivan affirms, a twisted little smirk pulling up one corner of his mouth.
“But then he won’t believe me,” I sputter.
Ivan shrugs, already starting to fade when he says, “Not my problem.” And then he’s gone.
