He chuckles. “I wish I did. How was your day?”
“Interesting,” I start, tucking my hair behind my ear. We sit together on the stone steps, and he wraps one arm around me, bringing me in. The moment my body touches his, I can’t resist him anymore, and I turn my head up, putting my lips to his. The kiss quenches my soul, and I lean back, resting my head on his shoulder.
“I think I saw a ghost again.”
“Tell me everything.”
“I was upstairs and heard something in the library. Then I went down and heard crying, and this girl appeared. She floated through the house and it gave me a really bad feeling. I’ve never wanted to run away from danger before but that’s all I wanted to do, only I don’t know what I’d be running from.”
Jac tightens his hold on me.
“I followed her outside and she disappeared. And then…then…”
He brings his head down to mine, lips against my forehead. “It’s okay, Ace.”
I close my eyes. “I heard my mother give me a warning.”
“A warning?”
I nod. “She said, ‘She’s not what you think. Stay away.’ And then when I went inside, the note you wrote about doing the banishing spell was on the table. IknowI hadn’t left it there. So I did the spell and the bad feeling went away almost immediately.”
Jac is silent for a solid minute, thinking everything over.
“I don’t know why a spirit would want you to do a banishing spell,” he starts, speaking slowly. “Unless they were genuinely concerned about you. And I don’t see why one would be concerned unless…”
“Unless it was really my mother?”
His brows furrow, but he nods. Emotion runs through me and a chill goes down my spine. “Yes.”
My eyes burn with tears, and I look up at the stars as I blink them back. “Is the spell permanent?”
“No. It’s not an exorcism.”
“That’s good and bad. If that was really my mom, then I don’t want to send her away forever…again.”
“But whatever was bad enough for your mother to banish herself isn’t really gone,” he finishes. “It’ll be back.”
“I figured. So if I can’t kill a ghost, and an exorcism only works if the ghost has possessed someone, what are my options?”
“You can get the spirit to move on or send them to hell.”
“Well, that escalated quickly.”
“What did?”
I shake my head. “Never mind. But just because I saw a ghost doesn’t mean I have to send it to hell, right? I mean, people live with hauntings every day.”
“Right, but it’s not every day a ghost makes someone want to run for their lives.”
“True.” I blink and that bad feeling comes rushing back, tightening my chest. I exhale and push it away. “So what do I do?”
“I don’t know,” Jac says, and I know he feels bad. He knows so much about demons and magic, but is almost as clueless as I am about ghosts. “Keep what you need to perform the banishing spell on hand. And having white sage can’t hurt either.”
“I got some of that today.”
“Keep it on you. Use your powers to set it on fire if need be, and it will buy you enough time to get away.”
“Okay,” I say, hating the thought of having to run from anything. But it’s not like I can shoot a ghost. I loop my arm through Jac’s and we sit in silence together, enjoying the sounds of the night until the timer goes off for dinner and Gil comes out to tell us the food is ready.
