“No. Not at all.”
“Then I don’t see any reason for you to be embarrassed. Everyone gets lonely. It’s okay to need comfort.”
Micah’s throat constricted, and he hugged his arms to his chest. Maybe shedidknow how to reach the ghosts inside him. One of them, anyway. “You sure you want to serve paranormal eviction notices? Maybe you should be my therapist instead.”
She barked a laugh. “I doubt I have the bedside manner for something like that. And your face has turned into a cherry tomato, so I’m sure you want me to change the subject. But seriously. You shouldn’t feel ashamed.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Hopping up, Déjà poured the contents of the mortar onto the briquette in the brass jar. The heady scent of lavender, sage, and something with a woodsy citrus bite filled the room. Micah leaned his head against the doorjamb and drew in a lungful of the fragrant air. A flush still throbbed in his cheeks, but some of the tension left his shoulders.
“Even when activity seems localized to a specific room or hallway, ghosts like dark, enclosed places that don’t have much activity – attics, closets, storage cabinets,” Déjà said. “So I like to get every corner. Is it cool if I walk through your place?”
“Yeah. Sure. The music always seems concentrated in the front room, and the message is still on the bathroom mirror.”
She paused. Smoke coiled from the brass jar in her hand. “By the way… Not sure you want to hear this, but this won’t be an ‘eviction,’ per se. Pretty much every building hosts dozens of ghosts. They’re here all the time, everywhere. It’s just that they usually don’t make a fuss. I can’t kick them out. I just calm down the rowdy ones.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t exactly reassuring. “What a bunch of freeloaders. They could at least chip in for the electric bill or let me know when I’m running low on milk. Do these calm ones watch me shower? Laugh at me when I spill salsa down my shirt?”
“Hard to say. Not much we can do about it if they do, but I’ve always gotten the sense that they’re barely aware of our world anymore and couldn’t care less about our human affairs.”
This sparked a whole new tangent of thought about what most ghostswereaware of, and what purpose their post-death form served, but that seemed more like a question for a priest than the woman in his studio.
If the other ghosts weren’t bothering him, they could hide wherever they wanted. He hadn’t noticed their presence in the three years he’d lived here. He just needed the music and noises to stop. And no more shattered mirrors.
“There are mites that live on our eyelashes and in our oil glands,” Micah said, “and the idea is kind of gross, I guess, but they’re harmless. A handful of ghosts hiding inside the bathroom nook where I keep my toilet paper isn’t any more stressful.”
Déjà curled her lip, her nose wrinkled. “That’s great for you, but now I’m going to be thinking about bugs all over my face.”
She stopped by his art desk, wafting smoke toward his supply drawers and the narrow closet. After disappearing from view, she said, “You were right about the nook in the bathroom. Dark alcove with unfinished wood and a hard-to-open door. They’re definitely in there.”
Micah crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “I guess if they come out of there while I’m taking a shit, that’s athemproblem.”
He hadn’t said it very loud, but Déjà snorted with laughter. “You’re real chill about this, y’know? A lot of people aren’t. You sure you want to stand outside? I’m not going to do anything to you.”
“I’m sure.” He retreated from the door and rested his elbows on the railing. Low clouds backlit by the sun hung over downtown, refracted in the windows of a nearby bank building. After a few minutes, footsteps and the heady scent of incense filled the doorway. Micah turned around.
Déjà tapped her nails against the brass jar, a furrow between her brows. “Okay, so whenever I enter a place with calm ghosts – which is pretty much everywhere – it’s like… a soft draft of air, or cool water on a hot day. It gets stronger the closer I get to the source. In your case, that’s the bathroom nook and your back closet. But a rowdy ghost is like someone sitting on my chest. I don’t physically have a hard time breathing, I’m not in pain, but it feels constricting, suffocating.”
She was going to tell him this ghost was strong, that his presence was crushing her, and that a simple cleansing wouldn’t do the job. She was going to need to fumigate the place with weapons-grade sage, then she’d charge him a hundred dollars. This was probably her go-to shtick. The process was free on the surface, but there wouldalwaysbe a roisterous ghost who “resisted” her normal methods. This should have occurred to him much sooner.
“Let me guess–”
“There’s nothing here.” Her voice was flat, matter of fact, without any of the warmth it had contained before.
“What?”
“There’s no rowdy ghost. I checked every corner, every cabinet and closet. You don’t have one.”
He scratched his head. Did she think he was wasting her time? “Well… Could he have gone into one of the other apartments? Maybe he saw your incense and snuck out for a while.”
“That would be a first.”
“Maybe it’s easier to detect him at night?”
“It makes no difference for me… I’m going to be straight with you. I don’t think you’ve ever had a rowdy ghost.” She tapped his chest. “You have a lot of murky red and black going on here – anger, anxiety, and grief – in what is otherwise a very sweet and creative electromagnetic field. The manifestations are likely coming from within you. Your trauma has turned into negative psychic energy.”
“I’mthe ghost?” He huffed and balled his fists. “My anxiety is so bad that I’m shattering mirrors with my mind and writing cryptic messages to myself? And somehow, I’ve generated songs from an eighties band that I haven’t listened to in years? That’s preposterous.”
