King
“So tell ol’Bessie what’s on your mind,” the kindly old woman said, patting my leg.
Bessie had been one of the ghosts who’d lived out at Beckoning Pond for a long, long time, choosing to stay when Chance arrived and helped all the spirits ready to move on cross over to the other side.
We’d become good friends.
I sighed. “It’s the same thing as yesterday and the day before.”
She hummed. “Your gift is special, Kingston.”
“It is, but Sky means more to me than the dreamwalking.” And it was true. I’d been so overwhelmed with gratitude to learn I’d inherited this gift from my grandfather, and I wasn’t sure what it would feel like to sleep and have normal dreams like others since I never had, but if I had to give it all up to keep Sky safe, I would.
“And you’re scared he’s going to get hurt?” she asked softly.
Leaning my elbows on my thighs, I hunched over and stared out at the pond. “Of course, I am. There are so many things we don’t know. Sky thinks this is all fun and games, but there has tobe so much more. There has to be. It’s the unknowns that make me queasy.
“Every night when we wake up in the Dream-veil, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. For us to encounter something we have no idea how to deal with. These entities are scary as fuck as it is, and the sword has been dealing with them, but will that really be the solution every time? I don’t see how that’s possible.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I don’t know what’s out there, so I can’t help you with that, but getting blessed with a soulmate…” She hummed. “That’s extraordinary.”
It really was, and it was also one of the reasons I was so positive that Sky and I hadn’t seen anything yet.
“Um, is it okay if I hang with y’all, or am I intruding?” Trixie asked nervously. The young blonde ghost hovered off to the side like she was scared to intrude.
Bessie’s eyes warmed with kindness as she patted the log she was sitting on next to her. “Come here, child. You’re not interrupting at all. We’re all here for each other.”
An old, old man by the name of Norman blinked in with a scowl on his face, then disappeared. “Ignore him. He takes a while to warm up to newbies. It’s hard for him. He’s been gone a long, long time, and society has changed so much. He’ll watch you for a while, then he’ll start coming around, and before you know it, he’ll be acting like you’re his great, great, great granddaughter.” Bessie cackled.
Trixie smiled tentatively, then sat down. “Thanks.” She crossed her arms around her middle and hugged herself. “I’m never sure what to do with myself.”
“Chance will help you move on,” I reminded her.
She looked toward the mansion, then shook her head as she turned back to me. “Not yet, I don’t think.”
Bessie wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Then you can just sit with me while I knock some sense into Kingston.”
Trixie giggled, and I pouted playfully. But I knew where she was coming from. She took Sky being my soulmate seriously, and she believed I needed to accept it and embrace it with open arms. I had a feeling that if I didn’t pull my head out of my ass soon, she was going to get pissed at me for wasting the gift she believed I’d been given.
Which made sense from her perspective. Bessie had lost her twin brother when they were only twenty-three years old. She’d never married and stayed living in her family’s small home out on the fringes of Willowhope until she passed on at ninety-five years old.
She said she’d sensed her brother’s presence around her for all those years, but she hadn’t been able to find him on this side of life. Since so many people funneled out to this pond, she vowed to wait for him, even if it took until the end of time.
“I see how it’s going to be. I took the day off work to spend time with my favorite people, and you’re going to tease me.”
Bessie harrumphed. “Baby, if a bunch of spirits are your favorite beings to spend time with, then you’re more clueless and lost than I thought. You have a perfectly good man who wants you to be his everything and wants to be yours in return. I don’t know why you’re out here discussing any of this with us anyway, instead of working it through with him.”
Trixie, who’d only been around for five seconds in the larger scheme of things, nodded her head eagerly.
Well, hell.
Pops materialized in front of me—all except his hand, which was odd—with his back to the pond, and faced Bessie with a wide grin. “I’ve got a surprise for you, Miss Bessie.”
“What’s that, young’on?”
Trixie and I both snickered. I knew Miss Bessie had already been the elderly wise woman when Pops was young, so it made sense, but it was still funny to us.
Pops tugged, and a young Black man appeared like he was stepping out from behind a wall. Miss Bessie gasped, clapping her hands together, and the visitor cried out, “Sissy!”
