10. Owen

Chapter ten

Owen

I spent the afternoon finishing my paperwork, and by some miracle, another pile hadn't been added. I wasn't sure why but had to assume that was because I was working with Damian. Regardless of why, I was happy I'd have the weekend off, so I didn't dare mention it to anyone.

I texted Damian to find out when and where we should meet but hadn't heard back. Was he ghosting me already? I thought of the ghostly picture from his phone and smiled. I guess that gave new meaning to the word.

When the partners left a little before four, that was my cue to go as well. I waited a few minutes to make sure they didn't come back with a list of things for me to complete this weekend, and then I jumped up, grabbed my jacket, and dashed toward the front door.

"I'm off, Cary," I said as I walked through the door. I didn't turn around to see him, knowing he could easily be the one to add a bunch of crap to my to-do list. When the door closed behind me, I almost jumped up and down with relief.

I didn't use my app to order a car, but the walk from the office to Damian's place wasn't far. I could walk in that direction and enjoy all the historic homes along the way, and if he was there, great. If not, well, that was fine too. I could use the exercise.

The Queen Anne neighborhood was one of my favorites in Seattle. There's no way I could even afford a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood, but I dreamed of one day owning something here or in Capitol Hill. Maybe one of the cute little bungalows with a garden in the front.

I imagined myself as a successful attorney, making enough to live in the neighborhood, when I came upon the old mansion house. The gate was open, which was strange, but I saw Damian's car sitting in the driveway and assumed he was home.

"You're his attorney, or at least, you work for his attorney," I said to myself, then took a deep breath and walked through the gate. I planned to tell him if he wasn't interested in me in any other way, we were fine. It's not like I expected someone like Damian to be interested in someone like me.

I reached the front door and knocked. It opened slowly. The only thing to make it scarier would be a creak, which this door didn't do. "Hello?" I called out.

No one responded, so I stepped closer. "Hello!" I called out again. I was just about to go in when the door slammed shut in my face, hitting me.

"Fuck!" I yelled as I fell back, gripping my nose.

"What the hell?" I heard Damian's voice as he pulled the door open. "Did they do that to you?"

"Dey?" I asked, the swelling already messing up my speech.

"Come here," he demanded and pulled me into the house. I quickly looked around to make sure there wasn't some kind of they around. But the room was empty. It must've been a draft that slammed the door shut. I knew old houses where I grew up did that sort of thing all the time.

Opening a different door or a window could cause a draft that would open a door, and closing it would make it slam shut. I let Damian pull me into the little powder room underneath the stairs. He used a washcloth to help me dab away the blood.

"I'm going to go to the kitchen to see if I can find some ice."

I nodded as I tried to stop the bleeding. I looked in the mirror, and even through the tears from the swelling of my sinuses, from the size of it, I guessed my nose was probably broken.

Damian returned a few moments later with ice in a towel. "Here, hold this to your nose. You need to stop the swelling. Do you think it's broken?"

I nodded but didn't respond. My head was beginning to hurt now. "Come in here and sit down," he said, leading me out of the powder room and into the formal sitting room at the front of the house. I sat on a wooden chair, afraid I'd get blood on one of the pretty upholstered ones.

"Now, let me look closer," he said, and I let him pull the towel back. "Damn, yeah, I think it's broken too. Want me to drive you to the hospital?" he asked.

I nodded and was about to get up when Damian paused. "Really? How?" he asked, and I looked around the room.

"Huh?"

Damian blushed. "Um, I'll tell you in a moment." He looked to his left as if listening to someone, then turned back to me and sighed. "Listen, this is going to be bizarre for both of us, but I want to try something."

"Is it going to hurt?" I asked, thinking maybe he would try to set my nose himself.

"I-I don't know," he said, looking to his left again. "The consensus is that it won't. It's probably nonsense, but let's try."

Damian closed his eyes and lifted his hands. They cupped my nose, he began to hum, and then his eyes flew open. They were both solid white, and I just about jumped out of my seat, but something held me in place.

I wanted to scream, run, but I couldn't do a damned thing.

Seconds passed, and Damian's eyes returned to normal. Then he lowered his hands. "Wow," he said when he examined my nose.

Whatever held me down loosened, so I jumped up, dropping the bloody towel to the floor. I rushed toward the door, but Damian stopped me. "Wait, don't freak out. I can explain."

"Explain what? Are you possessed or something? I need to get out of here. You too. You should leave this house."

Just then, three apparitions appeared in front of me. I recognized the one in the middle first. It was the man from Damian's photo. "What the hell?" I asked as I came to a stop in front of them.

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm Orville, this is Alice, and this is Emma," he said, but I was too stunned to move, much less respond.

"I-I'm sorry, sir," the apparition named Alice said. "I didn't mean to hit you in the face."

I looked at Damian, who shrugged. "I just met them all today myself," Damian said.

"Ghosts? You're talking to the house's ghosts?"

"And why wouldn't he?" Orville asked indignantly.

"First of all, there's not supposed to be ghosts, and second, you attacked me. And…and your eyes, something must've possessed you. This isn't okay. You need to let me leave."

"No one possessed him. He's a wizard, and he was using his powers and a mighty fine job he did of it. Look here, in the mirror," Orville said, pointing toward an oval wooden framed mirror on the wall above a sideboard.

I gulped, afraid to look away from the apparitions in case one of them attacked me again, but I couldn't resist looking where he pointed either. I saw myself in the mirror, and there was blood under my nose, but the swelling was gone. It looked as if nothing had happened but a simple nosebleed.

Ignoring the ghosts, more intrigued by what I saw in the mirror than the fear of them, I went to get a closer look, reaching up and feeling my nose. It was fixed. Not even tender.

"H-how?" I asked, turning toward Damian, who just shrugged.

"No idea, it just happened, but it worked, right? Your nose isn't broken now?"

I looked at him for a few seconds and then back at the mirror, then turned to where the ghosts stood. "Why did you attack me?" I asked the female spirit, Alice, as the male ghost had called her.

"I didn't mean to. I saw the door was open, and you were coming in, and I tried to close it before you could trespass."

"Trespass? I was here yesterday."

"I know, sir. I just didn't recognize you."

"Alice, please go to your quarters. Let me spend some time with our guest. You too, Emma," Orville said.

Both female ghosts disappeared, and I felt a slight breeze indicating they'd just walked past. Of course, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. "What's going on? I don't understand any of this."

Damian stepped forward and put his hand on my elbow. "I think I can explain some of it. After you left the sandwich place, I found a piece of parchment and a quill in the envelope your boss gave me this morning. It gave me instructions about the home, about Orville," he said, gesturing toward the ghost who stood before me.

"Orville is a servant to the home. My predecessor, who left the place to me in his will, said I should spend time with Orville and the other ghosts. They're here to help me fulfill some destiny I have."

"Destiny?" I asked stupidly, not knowing how to respond to it all.

"Yeah, I guess I'm supposed to be some legacy wizard. I don't know. I'm still figuring it all out."

"Why did your eyes turn white? That was freaky," I asked, and Damian shrugged.

Orville stepped forward. "When the power comes through the wizard, or at least this is how it was with his predecessor and clearly how it happened just a moment ago, it can be drawn from parts of the wizard's being. More often than not, in a healing, the wizard lends his own essence to the person he is healing. In this case, your nose was broken, so the power flowed from Mr. Richard's face—his eyes in particular, as the nose and eyes are closely related, are they not?"

I nodded and realized I was talking to a ghost. I was getting an explanation of what happened from a fucking ghost. I was losing my mind, except, apparently, so was Damian.

"I don't get any of this, the ghosts. Do you have…what? Magic powers or something? "

Damian laughed. "Do I get a wand?" he asked Orville, whose eyes shot open. "I should say not. You aren't a witch. You're a wizard. Wand indeed."

"I like wands," Damian said, and I snorted at how preposterous the whole thing was.

"Okay, I need a drink. Damian, I'll see you later."

"Wait," Damian said. "Don't go. I-I wanted to spend time with you, and now you're the only person I know who's experienced all this," he said, waving his hands around the room, "except me. It helps me feel less crazy."

"Your predecessor left a very fine scotch in the library if you'd like to share that with your guest," Orville said, gesturing toward the room to his right.

"Do you like scotch?" Damian asked.

I laughed. "Not that much, but right now, it sounds good enough."

"Good enough," Orville spat out then seemed to catch himself. "We have other spirits as well," he said, leaving us in the entryway. I looked at Damian, and both of us snickered.

"They do indeed," Damian said.