I wait for a long, dragged-out beat before I roll my eyes and shove my sleeves up to the elbows. She’s not heavy when I lift her from the dirt—even with the deadweight and lolling head, I can’t help but pause as I stare at her.
“If you can hear me, you’re an idiot.”
Nothing. I don’t think she’s even breathing.
Whatever’s going on here, I don’t like it.
It’s been a few hours since I was summoned, and I have next to no answers as to why the fuck I’m here—all this girl is doing is crying, dying, or passing out. If her plan was to bring me here and piss me off for a bit of fun, then it’s working.
The irritation in my gut intensifies when I look down.
And I especially don’t like the fact that I’m carrying her back to the house.
My foot hits a branch, and my arms tighten around her so I don’t drop her. A tick starts in my jaw. I should’ve let her fall.
My gaze drops to look at her, tucked against me. A strand of hair is trapped between her lips. They aren’t blue yet, but since I’ve never met a ghost before, I’m not sure if that will happen. She’ll still be pretty though.
I nearly trip over my feet at that thought and how it’s now my second time thinking it. But I’m not fucking blind. She is pretty. If we met in the real world and weren’t both categorically dead, I reckon I’d try to talk to her or stare at her—either works.
I throw her over my shoulder so I can’t see her face. There’s a solution to everything.
At this time of day, the sun shines on the long glass windows of the building—some are stained with colors, designs I only ever saw on the rich houses back when I was alive.
Typical I’d be trapped here.
The place is spread over numerous wings and four floors, its stone painted black. And why do they need so many chimneys? Who sweeps them? It would take them a decade.
For being abandoned, the yard is littered with flowerbeds. I can smell the plants as I carry her through the back entrance of the manor, up to a room with boarded-up windows and a single cot in the middle. Weird, but everything about this situation is fucking weird.
An abnormally large clock stands in the corner of the room, ticking louder than necessary. The glass face is smashed, and the wood is coated in dust.
I set her down on the sheetless cot and start to look for a blanket, but then I pause and shake my head at the idiocy. She can’t get cold. She’s dead.
My gaze drifts from her face, all the way down to her dirt-covered boots. She isn’t vertically challenged, yet she only reaches my shoulder. Other than getting my dick wet or gripping it hard enough to hurt when my roommate is out, I haven’t gotten much pleasure in years—that must be why my heart rate is starting to pick up its pace and make me step back.
I can’t find her attractive. I can’t imagine what her bare legs look like under her pants or acknowledge the way her covered tits are catching far too much of my attention to be healthy. Against my need to keep staring at her, to move the hair from her face or run the pad of my thumb across her plump lips, I fist my hands and turn my back to the girl, leaving her lying on the cot as I head back to where I was summoned.
I search the surroundings once more, hunting for something that could indicate a way for me to be released from this prison.My attention snags on a brown wooden box beside the girl’s body. It’s the only thing in here that isn’t broken.
The lid doesn’t give, but one whiff is all I need to know it’s burnt human remains.
Grimacing, I set the urn back where I found it. Safe to assume that’s the sister ghost girl mentioned before fainting.
I frown at the physical version of her. The corpse’s neck is still at the same crooked angle, but her skin color has changed. There’s something not right about leaving her body there.
Shaking my head, I step over her slowly decaying corpse and leave the room. It’s not my problem. My footsteps echo around the manor until I reach the dining room.
The grimoire mocks me from its place on the table. I flip through its pages, searching for some type of reversal, or a spell to set me free, but given the mix of languages and symbols, I have no idea what I’m doing.
When I find the page she used, I read through the text, my brows knitting together as I try to sound out the incantation. My Latin is piss-poor on a good day, but I’m at least slightly better at hearing it than reading it.
From my limited understanding, the symbols create a safe portal through the dimensions, allowing a spirit to come to this plane. That’s all I get. There’s no fine print, or caution notes, or a proper explanation of what the spell does beyond “calling a spirit.”
My chest fills with air as I close my eyes and say the words again, peeking one eye open to see absolutely nothing happening.
I kick the closest thing to me, sending a basket filled with blankets across the room.
She needs to wake up and do the spell. She did it once—she can do it again. Presumably. Her being dead and all might pose an issue.
