Page 7 of Edge of Wonder

He was practically Prince Charming incarnate until he opened his mouth, and I realized that somehow, I was inconveniencinghim!

Are all ghost hunters this egocentric, or is it my lucky day?

I went back to rage floating, though I lost steam with each passing moment. The truth was, I put on a little show earlier. Contrary to my disappearing act, I fully intended to let him send me to the other side. I no longer had any interest in waiting around for some promised encounter. And I might have made it easy for him, but he was too smug for my liking.

All paced out, I stopped my internal rant to listen for the man of the hour. The house was quiet as a tomb. Was he sleeping or lying in wait for me to surrender first?

I tapped my heel against the wooden beams and ground my teeth together. You’d think by now, I’d be a master of patience, but you’d be wrong. With a frustrated growl, I dropped to my knees and pressed my ear to the floor.

Utter silence.

Leaning forward, I slid through the ceiling and peered into the room below. A tapered candle flickered on a side table where he’d laid out a few of his belongings. I studied them, trying to get a sense of who he was.

Besides a worn, leather-bound journal, and a handful of coins, I noticed a small stack of booklets. They looked similar to the many adventure dime novels that were stored in the attic.

The cover illustrated a daring man facing off in front of a forbidding manor. His hand was raised in the air, grasping a cylindrical device with beams of light emanating from the top. A trio of ghosts circled overhead while a forth was caught in the light’s aura, fighting against its pull.

That same device rested on the table near the booklets, its lid covered in mysterious symbols. But it wasn’t the symbols that captured my attention. It was the man sitting in front of me who resembled the reckless ghost hunter on the front of the dime novel.

Apparently, he was famous.

Caught in an unguarded moment, he appeared deep in thought. A frown marred his face as he thumbed through a stack of letters. Choosing one, he slid a pocket knife through the envelope’s seal and removed a piece of parchment. His frown deepened as he leaned forward in the chair and moved the candle closer.

The letters were probably written by some lovesick fool who’d read about him in one of his books. She’d have scribbled her feelings, then sprayed a trace of perfume against her signature. My eyes rolled as I tried to contain a gag.

He scanned the page, not realizing I hovered behind his shoulder.

I wouldn’t say I was proud of spying, but being a spirit certainly made it easy. The same things that gave others away didn’t apply to me. There were no soft breaths against the back of his neck and no warmth emanating from my skin.

Focusing on the letter, I noted the handwriting appeared feminine.Definitely a love letter!Except as I started to read, the words didn’t prove the theory. Their emotion jumped off the page, and I felt the tiniest prick of guilt that I shoved aside to keep reading.

Please come home, Sebastian. You’ve been gone too long. You can’t run forever.

The pleas seemed to grow in desperation, the handwriting morphing into jagged wipes of ink.

The consequences are dire! We’re your family. Talk to us. We miss you.

The paper crinkled as he closed his fist around the letter. I made a tsking sound with my tongue and watched his shoulders tense.

“Did the ghost hunter disappoint his parents? Were they hoping you’d become a healer and not some lowly spirit chaser?”

He shifted in the chair, finding me leaning over his shoulder. Our gazes clashed, inches apart. His eyes narrowed, and the dark look he wore while reading the letters transferred to me.

“Are you eavesdropping?”

“A privilege of being a ghost, don’t you think?” The corner of my mouth lifted, and I winked. “Good thing I didn’t die with bells on.”

Squeezing his fist, he crumpled the letter into a ball and held it up for me to see. He lifted an eyebrow in challenge, before tossing the letter into a wastebasket near his feet. The rest of the letters followed.

“You aren’t going to read them?” I asked, horrified that so much correspondence was going to waste. His answer was to reach for the candle. Picking up the envelope, he stuck it into the flame until it ignited, and then dropped it into the wastebasket.

I groaned as the flames devoured the letters. “What a shame. At least you have someone who writes to you. Nobody sends letters to the dead.”

“Lucky you,” he grumbled, waving away a stream of smoke.

Wrinkling my nose, I barely kept in a sarcastic remark. Clearly, the ghost hunter was in a mood.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I drifted toward the bed and floated primly over the edge of the faded quilt. “I’m a fantastic listener. I’ll only judge you in my mind.”

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