10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

W hile I stood staring at the free-floating forms waiting for me, Phil whispered madly into his Bluetooth headpiece. The tickle in my head was slowly turning into a twisting grip of psychic pull that would, I was sure, end up being a throbbing ache behind my eyes within moments of contact with so many spirits. Still, it had to be done. If they had any kind of information to pass along about the powerful entity in the lake, then it was my duty as a Kee to speak with them. Ease them somehow, if humanly possible.

"I'm going to try to speak to them from here to set up some guidelines," I told Phil without sparing him a glance. The small ones across the creek stood side-by-side, scarred from pox, eyes hollowed, spectral arms and legs thin as matchsticks.

"What? What are we doing?" he asked, caught between the team back in Liverswell and our little drama here. "Oh, the Schmidts have texted Roxie. All the tickets for the corn maze for the next week are sold out. She says they're super stoked."

"Uh-huh," I mumbled while queuing up my online translator.

"Arch, baby, are you okay?" He touched my shoulder. That pulled me from the ever-growing call of the undead a mere hundred feet away. I looked over at him, smiled shakily, and waved my phone in the air.

"I'm going to try to see if we can set up some rules before we cross the creek," I explained because he appeared to be truly worried. I leaned over to kiss his cold lips. "I might get a little spacey when they're all talking at once, so don't freak out. You might want to get the camera on now."

"Right. Okay. Please be careful," he whispered before lifting his camera. Light flooded the area, illuminating trees heavy with bright red apples. "Hey, welcome back, viewers. Arch is going to try to see what old Farmer Schmidt wants. We were led to this family graveyard by an elder of the family from way back. Oh, I have news that the owners of Schmidt Orchards are saying that we may have seen Gerhard Schmidt, the original owner of this land back in the early 1500s."

Whatever he said after that was lost on me. I was typing out my first rule in German. When I was ready, I looked up. Gerhard stood by a skinny woman with gaunt features, her hair hidden under a grayish cap.

"Fass mich nicht an," I called, praying that the translator was good. Many weren't, but this one must have been passable for Gerhard nodded in understanding. Cool. Don't touch me was understood. I erased and typed out another demand. "Nur einer spricht." Only one speaks. Again, Gerhard nodded. Great. So that was that. With Phil at my side, I pocketed my phone, stepped back a few feet, and ran. The jump was good. I landed with a thud. The moment I touched down, the pain in my head began to pulse. Phil arrived with a grunt, the light bobbling about as he righted himself. The air was much colder near the graveyard. Each step closer made my head ache a bit more but nothing that would buckle me, though.

Gerhard began speaking as soon as I was within touching distance of a tiny headstone with a lamb atop it. The ghostly children hid behind their elders. I sensed Phil next to me.

Gerhard spoke too quickly. I shook my head and typed out slow down and then said it. He seemed miffed but began to speak curtly. Phil's arm brushed mine. His presence was everything, it tethered me. Hopefully, it would help keep me from becoming so immersed that I lost myself in the draw of so many needy ghosts.

Phil bumped my arm with his. A subtle reminder that we were supposed to be entertaining people. I floundered on how to explain to people what was going on right now. Lying would take up too much brain power but telling the truth would out me—big time.

I opted to just focus on the undead and let the living figure it out.

"Arch?" Phil tentatively asked as I began madly typing to try to keep up with Gerhard. He was still speaking too quickly, but I was getting the gist.

"Gerhard is here," I said, my mind caught in a one-on-one with the head of the family. "He says…" I typed quickly. "He says…die hexe frisst unser licht. Light. Licht. Hexe. Witch. The witch does what with the light? Slow down. Bitte. Bitte. Please. Slow. Langsam. Bitte langsam. Danke. Frisst. Frisst is eats. The witch eats your light?"

Gerhard nodded at me. The little ones pointed at the older stones, mostly rubble now. One shouted, "Opa!" which I hurried to type into the app. "Grandpa. The witch is eating the light of your grandpa?" Gerhard blinked in confusion. "Shit. Uhm, hold on. One minute. Eine minute." I read the line in German out loud. Several of them shouted at me. I winced at the burst inside my head. "Okay, the witch is eating the light of their grandfather. What does that mean ?"

I stood there like a dipshit, phone in hand, staring at the ghosts of poor immigrants that had died in a deadly smallpox epidemic and trying to tell me something big, but I had no clue how to decipher what that important thing was. That birdsong floated over us. The Schmidts all disappeared at the sound, the wind that carried that lonesome trill rustling the dying leaves on the apple trees.

"Arch?" Phil asked, the light of the camera resting on me. Rubbing the knot between my eyebrows, hard, I turned to face my cameraman slash boyfriend. Maybe boyfriend. We'll talk about that later. I worked up a measly twist of my lips. A sorrowful smile.

"Sorry, everyone. I was…there was a force trying to speak with me." I stared at Phil for guidance. "I mean…" The lie was sticky and sour on my tongue. A soft brush of wind moved over us. Cold, yes, but not rich in the smells of earth as it should be out here, surrounded by fields and trees. This zephyr held the subtle aroma of lotus. The smell was slightly sweet, somewhat aquatic, delicate. Totally out of place in this area. I'd only smelled lotus…when had I ever smelled it? How did I know it? Why was it encircling me now? What did it mean? Lotus flowers were symbols of enlightenment. Was I now enlightened? An ancient hum of a familial touch enveloped me, the embrace of the many in my familial line who had possessed the sight swirled about me. They were proud of me for accepting the gift. Their pride brought clarity. Indecision vanished. "I was speaking with a ghost."

Not exactly the queer kiss Roxie had wanted to end our premiere episode.

***

An hour later, I was seated at the K&K international office—aka the plum sofa in the nook under the stairs—with the executive board members while I stared down at my damp sneakers.

Phil was beside me, right beside me, hip to hip, his arm draped over my sagging shoulders as Grandpa busied himself upstairs making tea. His friend Monique left shortly before Phil and I had staggered into the bookstore, emotionally drained, to meet with Roxie and Tray to try to explain what the shit was going on. She was a tall woman, dark-skinned, with bright white hair and a penchant to hug everyone all the time. I liked her. A hug from a kindly grandmother was always welcome, especially after one had doused his formerly peaceful life with gas and tossed a lit match to it.

"I'm not sure how to begin," I finally said while Phil rubbed at the knot of tension between my shoulder blades.

"Try at the beginning," Roxie replied. She was seated on the coffee table in front of me, her tiny pink sneaks pointing inward, big toe to big toe. I drew in a shuddering breath and then slowly lifted my gaze. Deep brown eyes behind trendy, red-framed glasses grabbed and held my sight. "I thought we were going to end that episode with a happy ending kiss after you two got some flicky lights or something like that."

"Yeah, well, it's not always that easy when you're dealing with the undead," I replied, my tone weary. My head ached. Nothing like when I'd been close to Lake Killikee. It was more like that annoying dull pain when you're coming out the other side of a sinus infection.

"Okay, so the first thing I need to know is if you honestly think you can speak to the dead," Tray interjected. Not rudely or with any malice, just with genuine curiosity. I was thankful for that. No one was laughing or pointing at me. Yet.

"Yes, he can," Grandpa announced as he came down the stairs with our everyday tea set on a fake bamboo tray. Phil leaped up to take the tray from him and got a warm smile from my grandfather. "Archimedes is one of the blessed ones in our lineage who possesses the spiritual eye. I will explain."

Once he was seated beside me and the tea was poured, Grandpa went into great detail about Kee Houng, his spiritual eye and distant vision gifts, and how I was blessed to possess those powers. Roxie and Tray kept shooting side-eye looks at each other as my grandfather sipped tea and talked about supernatural abilities as if he were discussing the price of corn in Iowa. Neither said anything. Probably out of respect for Grandpa but their eyebrows were leaping up and down like they were possessed by Michael Flatley.

"I suppose you may have many questions for us," Grandpa said after taking a loud sip.

"Just a few dozen," Roxie answered while Tray scoped out the store. She nudged Tray. He startled. His teacup rested in his large hands, tea untouched. "I don't even know how to process all of this. So right now, at this very moment, ghosts are out there just moving around doing their own things?"

"Yes," I replied honestly. There was no need to sugarcoat things now. The sheer number of pings my previously emaciated social media accounts were getting was saying it all. The hundred or so viewers—mostly all students at LU, I was sure—were hitting me up. I'd read through two dozen or so on the way home. Most had been okay. The majority of people were happy with the episode but wanted to see the ghost. And then others were just cruel. A few were racist. Phil was irate over the mean ones. It took a lot of talking down for me to get him not to reply online. The old adage about feeding trolls and all that. "The world is filled with unhappy beings that haven't moved over."

"Why don't they just go on to heaven?" Tray asked, his teacup jittery on its little saucer. I could see that he was less the skeptic than Roxie, who was studying me like an amoeba on a microscope slide.

"Most do move onto their next phase," I said, placing my empty cup and saucer on my lap and balancing it.

The tea had helped settle my nerves, which in turn eased the lingering build-up of telekinetic energy fizzing inside my brain. We talked then about how souls moved along, touching on different religious points of view, for at least an hour. I was fading fast, but Roxie and Tray deserved to know it all. Then they could opt out on the stream, and me the weirdo, if they wished. By the time the clock struck two in the morning, Grandpa and I had summarized the Kee gifts and how they were used by the giftee.

"Okay." Roxie sighed, her weariness evident even though her clever eyes were bright still. "So this whole gig is for reals. You will communicate with the ghosts that we're looking for." I nodded. She chewed on her lower lip. Tray sat stiff as a board beside her, his eyes darting around, looking for the resident ghost we had touched on but hadn't gone into great detail about. It was too late to try to explain a randy redcoat. "I'll be honest. This is a lot to accept. It freaks me out while intriguing me. My great-aunt used to say she could feel the dead moving past her from time to time. The whole goose stepping on your future grave thing. We used to laugh at her, but now…" She lifted a shoulder. "Maybe I won't laugh so hard. You all seem truly sold on this being real." Her sight moved to Phil. He nodded vigorously. "Right. Well, I'm not scared of facing down any ghosts."

"You and Ray Parker Jr," Grandpa quipped before offering the last dregs of tea left in the pot to our guests. They both declined.

"To be fair, you'll be behind the scenes if you stay on, so it would be me and Phil who—"

"Who said I was leaving?" she asked in surprise.

"I just…well, no one, but I assumed after hearing all of this you'd probably think all the Kees were a few lettuce leaves short of a salad."

She giggled softly. "No, I don't think that. I'm not sure I'm totally into this whole ghosts stalking the living world thing like you are, but your beliefs are cool. And if you can sense something on the other side of the veil or barrier or whatever it's called, then that's all the better for our shows. Now if we can get Phil to get his shit together in terms of onsite tech…"

"Yeah, I need to scrap the night vision goggles. I never thought about ghosts being cold, but we will have the static cameras for the next episode!" Phil perked up a bit then.

"Tray, are you okay with all of this? You can back out now and no hard feelings," I asked, sensing he was sitting on an icy block of hidden fear.

"Nah, man, I'm good," he replied. "I'll just be manning the website. If you run into demons or shit out there in the field, that's on you." I nodded, smiling. "Are there demons?"

"Demons only come up from the depths when summoned," I said, hoping that would ease the tight lines of worry around his eyes. It did. I did not mention that a dominus was next door recently sharing tea and netherworld gossip with a poltergeist. We'd ease him into that if and when it became necessary. "Thank you both for being so open and understanding. I know I should have told you before when this was mentioned, but I…I've been hiding it for so long that I didn't want to scare off my new friends."

"You can't scare me off," Phil said, kissing me on the cheek. My face grew hot. Grandpa grinned and yawned widely. "We should go. Gramps looks wiped out."

We rose. I walked everyone to the door. "We'll look at numbers and comments tomorrow, okay?" Roxie said before giving me a tight hug. I nodded as I breathed in a floral scent that fit her perfectly. "Get some sleep. And next time I want a gay kiss at the end!"

"I'm bi," Phil stated and kissed me goodbye.

"A gay-bi kiss then," Roxie corrected, linking her arm with Tray's, who shook my hand with a little trepidation. As if he could catch the spiritual eye by touch. Still, I got his unease. We'd dumped a ton of shit on them both this evening. It would take a lot of time for him to shift his beliefs enough to accept that the dead sometimes lingered.

I stood in the shop doorway, waving at the threesome until they all disappeared into the foggy night. After cranking down the gate, locking up, and helping Grandpa clean up the tea prep mess, I dragged my exhausted ass to my bedroom. Reggie was waiting for me, seated primly on the bed, his face drawn with concern.

"I've been waiting to speak with you," he said as I closed the door and tugged my shirt over my head. "You look peaked."

"I had a run-in with several spirits. I asked them not to speak all at once, but I think the request kind of got lost in the translation along the way." I sighed, shucking off my jeans and leaving them in a heap on the floor. I was too tired to be tidy. "Where have you been lately?"

"I've been about," he tersely replied. I gave him a long look before finding my flannel loungers and my old LU tee for bed. "I'd like to discuss something of import with you."

"Can't it wait until morning? We had our first livestream tonight, and I'm fucking wiped out." I tugged the sheets and blanket down. Reggie moved over an inch to rest his skinny backside on the very edge of my bed.

"No, no, it cannot. Good faith, I have been all of a dudder for days now and I shall be heard out!" he snapped, his spine rigid as a new pencil.

"Okay, just don't yell." I dug around in the nightstand drawer for a bottle of acetaminophen and downed two after twisting the cap off a bottle of water that had been here for a few days.

"Sorry, yes, I shan't yell." He twisted around to face me as I leaned my back against the headboard. "I do apologize for acting like a cur." I waved off his shortness. He lifted his pointy chin up a tad to level a serious look at me. "You and I have been good and genteel mates for many a year. Since you were a toddler, I looked after you, teaching you the ways of the world and guiding you along as an older sibling would. When your face erupted with imposthumes and your temperament was akin to a befouled bear throughout all your teenage years, I remained steadfast at your side."

Yeah, he had, and during my ugly teen years having Reggie to talk to helped me get through the horrors of high school.

"Reg, where are you going with all this? My head hurts and I'm so damn tired."

He stared at me. "Prithee Archimedes, I beseech you, do not go to that lake again. The twins are in a state of sheer bedlam across the alley! They've been hearing tales from—"

"If you say an incubus…"

"No, goose, honestly . No, they have heard tales from the washerwoman who oversees the laundromat. Lovely woman was drowned in her washtub by her drunkard husband, the blackguard. I, for one, would never have taken up with such a vile caitiff, even if he were fair of face and endowed well, for his misdeeds were known from Salem all the way to—"

"Reg, please stay on track." My pillow was calling my name. There was so much on my mind I just wanted to crash and sleep for a full day, if at all possible.

"Apologies. Yes, well, the twins are in a state that would require smelling salts if they were in danger of passing out. Surely, you've felt the surges of otherworldly power emanating from that lake? I know you have, so do not think to deny it! Whatever preternatural force resides in that accursed water is growing stronger with every passing of the moon. I saw your streaming program over your grandfather's shoulder and when the Mennonite folk spoke of the witch draining the light from their kin, I nearly went down in a heap myself. I thought I may have to send Caleb to the apothecary for a small vial of Egyptian oils to calm my bowels." I blinked. "It's a fine product that also cures cholera. My mother swore by it when I was a lad."

"Reg, please …"

"Ah yes, well, as I was saying when I heard you repeating those Germanic words, I flew into a dither. Do you understand what that old farmer in the frumpish clothing meant?" I shook my head, eager for the tablets to kick in. "That witch is not only draining the life from hapless humans, but she is now reaching out to siphon the energy that allows specters to linger on this plane seeking justice for the crimes committed against them."

"Oh shit." That shook me out of my exhaustion.

"Indeed. The crone is growing hungrier. And that old man in the silly hat asked you to investigate her misdeeds! Archimedes, I beg of you, do not venture to that lake again. She will drain you down as she has all the other men who have foolishly gone too close. She shall leave you a pile of dust that will blow away come dawn. Please, you are my dearest friend. I know that you have no need of me now that you have Philip and your two new comrades, but—"

"Hey, no, that is not true. I will always have need of you. You're like the loving but dirty, drunken uncle every family has but wishes they didn't."

He sniffled and pulled a frilly, blood-soaked hankie to dab at his eyes. I was rather sure ghosts didn't cry as they had no body fluids, but I'd not call him out on that.

"How absolutely sweet of you," he coughed out, his smile shaky. "As your uncle, then I ask you not to venture forth to that wretched body of water."

"But if I don't go, whatever is in that lake will keep stealing more and more energy from the spirits as well as the people who just happen to stumble by. Children are in that plot. They already died a terrible death. Am I supposed to just let them be drained as well?" He lowered his head and shook it just once. "I knew you would understand. I'm the only one who can bring this to an end. Somehow."

His chin flew up. "If you insist on this foolish course of action, then you must read everything you can find about whatever that woman has become over the years. Her anger and hatred have corrupted what may have been a pure soul into something dark and hungry. I will help you in whatever ways I can, but know my concerns are only doubled now that you are being so heroic."

"I'm no hero. I'm just some queer Asian dude who can talk to dead people."

"I rather think that the souls you are going to save will think differently." He reached out to touch me, his hand moving through my arm. I got a flash of a memory of his, a little blip of a young blond boy in knee pants picking flowers while humming a tune about a jovial broom man.

"Oh bother, I so dislike that!" He flapped his hand away and rose to stand beside my bed. "Rest now. We shall begin preparations in the morning."

With that dictate delivered, he moved through the door, leaving me to stare out the window at the dark fall night while trying to work out how to appease an unhappy wraith. And here I thought my biggest worry would be midterms.