“He found me at a traveling carnival. The sisters had taken us out for a field trip. Some donor had given them money for it. I remember one of the rides, a Ferris wheel, and how dangerous it looked. There was something about it I didn’t like, so I stayed far, far away. It was a good thing, too. I’ll never forget the moment I heard the metal snap. It was horrible. It’s one of those things that never leaves your mind. Sometimes I wake up hearing it, the screech just before one of the arms broke.”
Roan stared with an intensity that made my skin flush. “The whole thing, the wheel, it fell, collapsed. There wasn’t anyone on it at the time, but the operator was killed. Crushed. His spirit wandered around the grass. He walked across the lawn. I knew he was lost, that he hadn’t realized what had happened.”
I pressed my hands between my knees. “That’s normal. Spirits don’t know they’re dead. If I’m around, I give them a friendly push, just to make sure they’ve seen the light.”
I paused to study Roan. “You were right. The night Xavier died, I saw him. If I’d had time, I could’ve gone to his spirit, asked him who killed him.”
“But I pulled you away,” he said.
I nodded. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not like I’m some sort of ghost detective or anything. The sheriff will figure out who killed Xavier.”If I don’t first.
Roan picked up the guitar. He plucked a few strings. “So how’d your dad find you?”
“He was there at the park. Saw what happened. I spoke to the Ferris wheel operator’s spirit and told him it was okay to move on. ‘The light is safe,’ I told him. And it is. Or at least it’s supposed to be. Boy, wouldn’t it be awful if all these years I was telling folks that, the whole time I was wrong?”
Roan shrugged. “I’m sure you’re not wrong.”
“I hope not.” I took another pull of the beer. “The man who became my father heard about me from my biological father, the priest.”
“They knew each other?”
“Apparently. The priest told Dad all about me right before he died. Vince Breneaux found me. He could see spirits, too. He understood the challenge of what it is to be what some people call ‘gifted.’” I made air quotation marks. “It’s what others call ‘cursed.’ That’s what I thought about it for years, until Dad taught me otherwise. You can be either gifted or cursed, depending on how you decide to look at it.”
“And you look at it how?”
Roan's gaze didn’t hold one grain of contempt or even condescension. He stared at me as if he were an open book and I could stamp whatever story I wanted on his heart.
“Well,” I said slowly, “Right now I consider it somewhere between a gift and a curse. Not sure which.”
He leaned back in the rocking chair and stared out into the night. “I think it’s a gift. Essentially what you’re doing is helping others. It might not be the way you look at it, but you are. Is that what you did for the operator?”
I nodded as I wiped beer froth from my upper lip. “Yes, I helped him move on. That’s what I do.”
“And the hair?”
I scoffed. “I thought you liked the hair.”
“I do.”
I paused. “This is going to sound crazy.”
“Crazier than the rest of it?”
“Yep. Crazier. Do you think you can handle it?”
He laughed. “There’s a lot I’ve already handled in my life. A few out-of-this-world stories are nothing compared to that.”
“Spirits have what are called ghost presents that they can bestow on you.”
He quirked a brow.
I laughed. “I told you it sounds crazy.”
“You’re right. I’m not sure what I think about it.”
I leaned back, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You asked. I’m telling. Spirits can give gifts. It can be something as small as a memory to someone they loved, or gifting a living person with a book. Mine happened to be this hair.”
His jaw dropped in surprise. “Did you ask for it?”
