But luckily, I do have enough willpower to refrain from word vomiting all that, and instead say a half-truth, “Tired, mostly. I’ve been working on a video for a contest I’m entering, and it’s been a lot of work. I got some good footage, though. I just need to put it all together and edit.”
Meggie smiles, likely relieved that that is all that is wrong with me. “That’s good. What do you get out of this contest if you win it?”
I cast my eyes downward, somewhat embarrassed to think I have a chance at this. “A pilot for my own TV show.”
Her eyes grow wide, and she claps her hands together. “That would be amazing! Oh, you are so going to win this, Lace. Need help with anything? I can rework your Instagram. Your aesthetic is too dark and moody.”
I smile and shake my head, both shocked and delighted by this response. Meggie has always been verbally unsupportive of the paranormal investigating, but it comes from a place of worry. From the concern that I only do it as a method to bring August back—which, I do, in a sense. She does not at all believe in ghosts, nor does she understand what I’m doing.
“My aesthetic is fine. A friend helped me get the footage I needed, so now it’s down to editing, which always works best for me as a solo project.”
Her eyebrows perk up, and it takes me a second to realize why. The use of the wordfriend. It’s not that friends are a foreign concept to me, but after August, I let go of my friends. I mean, there’s Matthias and Meggie, but that’s really all. I lost the most important one, and keeping the others…well, what if I lost them, too? So, for fear of losing them, I gave them away.Pushedthem away. Silly. Done only to protect my heart, but I ended up hurting myself anyway.
So, the mention of a friend means that I am spending time with someone besides her, my coworkers, and random Bumble or Tinder dates that always go up in flames. Or sizzle out likewater on a frying pan. Whatever metaphor you want.
“Who is this friend? New? Old? Matthias?”
My jaw hitches. “New. It doesn’t matter. I don’t think I’ll see him again.”
“Why not?”
“He went home. He lives far away.”
“Where?”
Hell. “Missouri.”
“Ah. Too bad.” She takes a sip from her wine. “Well, I guess that’s what texting is for. You can at least keep in touch with him.”
I smile like my heart isn’t shattering at the mere thought of being able to have something as normal as a texting relationship with him. “Yeah. Totally.” I excuse myself to go grab a drink from the bar.
Thankfully, when I sit back down, we move on from the subject of my social life.
Meggie asks, “Have you talked to Mom lately?”
I cringe. “No. Not really.”
“Well, keep it that way. She’s training for a 5K and literally won’t shut up about it.”
We spend the next couple of hours talking and laughing, staying at the bar nearly until closing. I tightly hug her goodbye at the end of the night and tell her to get home safe. She tells me the same. We drive off separately.
When I walk in my apartment, I do my ritual of shutting the curtains and locking everything that can be locked, but now I’ve added a new step of securing my salt lines.
Sleep still sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. I pullout my laptop and decide to do some more research on keeping demons away. I read up more on the charms you can buy so you don’t have to permanently ink something onto your body. It’s fine. I feel safer with the tattoo, but extra protection is not a bad thing. I’m still not positive it will work. Not that I’m looking forward to putting it to the test. Not at all.
Nowhere in my town or the towns over sell charms like that, but I do find a store in New York City that does. Unsurprising. You can buy anything in that city. New York is only a train ride away from me, so I can try to go there on my next day off in a couple of days. I’ll be able to get a charm for Meggie. She’ll be more open to wearing that than a tattoo, for sure. And if I add a sapphire, her birthstone, to it, it’s guaranteed she will wear it every day for the rest of her life.
I keep up with my research, so much so that by the time my eyes get too heavy to fight with, it’s past three a.m. I hardly have time to close the laptop before I pass out on the couch.
thirty-two
. . .
The next fewdays are normal. Sure, I’m glancing over my shoulder at every opportunity, but normal. Everything is as it was. While I’m not at work, I’m editing the contest video. The footage we got at the haunted house is great. Violet can be seen in full on the thermal camera, a fiery orange body in the pink and purple room. I also caught a flash of something in the bathroom. It was a random flash of orange before fading to purple. Also, I found a shadow on the camera I set up in the kitchen while I was upstairs, and I could hear something that could be argued as a voice on the EVP recorder while in the bathroom.
I’m distracted, though, by the fact that I never posted the video of the house I was investigating when I met Kit. Or, re-met him, I suppose.
I leave the contest video behind to work on that one. While editing the moment I was talking to the ghost of Alice McCall,I spot something in the corner of the screen. Right when I was asking if someone else was with us. It’s a dark shadow. A massive one. Humanoid, for the most part, but it almost looks like something is jutting out from its shoulders and head. Like spikes.Shit. I’ve seen that before—in the video from the minigolf course.
