She put up her hands. “No need to get defensive. Now that you know the source, you can take steps to stop it. I have some items that can help, but the best thing you can do is talk to a therapist–”
“Thank you for your time,” he snapped. “What do I owe you for the materials?”
Déjà blinked. “Nothing.” She picked up her backpack and slipped on her heels, then walked through the door.
Micah pulled a slow breath through his nose and worked the tightness from his throat. Therapy had been useless. He wasn’t going to give up art so he could become a dog walker or some other damn thing he didn’t want to be.
And something about this wasn’t adding up. Maybe Déjà just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible because his apartment reminded her of her ex. No matter the reason, he never had guests, and he didn’t want this one leaving on a sour note.
“Hey, wait a second.” He slipped inside and retrieved a twenty-dollar bill and the sketch in the top drawer of the drafting table.
Déjà stood on the stairs, her fist tight around the strap of her backpack.
Holding out the money, he said, “Please. For your materials and gas.”
“I walked.”
“Get an expensive coffee with the rest of it then. There’s a great shop down the block.”
She reluctantly plucked the twenty from his grip. “I hate to leave you without a solution, but you don’t want to hear my advice.”
The music could still be a neighbor, the mirror a random occurrence. But the message and the curtain ring… “Do you think your cleansing would have gotten rid of the ghost, even though you couldn’t detect him?”
“If they were in there, the cleansing should have taken care of them, yeah.”
“Okay.” He waited a beat, expecting her to say something like,If it doesn’t work, don’t hesitate to contact me again, and I’ll attack this from another angle.But of course she wasn’t going to say that, because she thought the ghost washim.
She nodded to the sketch in his hand. “What’s that?”
“It’s Darryl. That’s what I do when I call the hotline. Did I get him right?”
A small smile appeared on her face. “I’ve never seen him naked, but yeah, it looks like him. This is beautiful. You have a lot of skill.”
“Will you give it to him for me if you happen to see him? Stick it in with his birthday present or something.”
“You do have a crush on him, huh?”
“No, but I’ve never had the chance to give the drawings to anyone I’ve called.”
She opened her backpack and carefully slid the drawing inside. “I’ll be sure to give it to him. He’ll love it.”
“Thank you.”
Déjà pulled out an herb sachet tied with a string of gemstone beads and brass charms. “I want you to have this, but you have to promise to use it. Don’t you dare toss it in the trash.”
“Is there a dried finger inside?”
She snorted. “No. But I put a lot of intention into making them. The charms are buried in cleansed dirt during the new moon and dug up after thirty days. Amber beads for comfort, howlite to relieve stress, and” – she plucked out a dark stone with subtle striations and pressed it into his palm – “rainbow obsidian. It’ll help cleanse the negative energy and fill your darkness with radiance.”
A soft sheen rippled off the stone as he tilted it. “Did you walk over here with a backpack full of rocks?”
“Yes.” She handed him the sachet. “Promise to use it.”
A bag of potpourri and a chunk of volcanic glass seemed like silly trifles to pit against his wall of bad vibes, but the sincerity in Déjà’s voice made him squeeze them tight. “What do I do with these things?”
“Do you have a localized point of your pain in the studio? A certain spot or object?”
He swallowed, thinking of the box buried deep in his closet. “Yeah.”
