“Thank you. I worked really hard on it.” He tosses me a spray bottle, and I yank my hands out of my pockets just in time to catch it. “Here. Get yourself nice and seasoned.”
Okay then. I give myself a couple of sprays and am about to put it back when Griffin adds, “You also have to drink some.”
My arm holding the bottle goes slack at my side. “I’m sorry, butwhat?”
“Just a little bit.” He offers me a Poland Spring bottle withSALT WATERwritten on it in rushed Sharpie. “Helps repel them from the inside out.”
“Are you saying I could get possessed?”
Donny must see the panic on my face because he says, “Possession doesn’t happen instantaneously. It’s a gradual process. One week minimum before an entity can establish full control of a person.”
DJ made it sound like the ghost who took Bonnie’s sanity did so mere minutes after entering her mind, but I guess a direct assault on the brain is different than full possession. I’m starting to learn that there are a lot of different ways a ghost can hurt someone.
Donny takes a measured sip from his own bottle. “The salt water does marginally disrupt their ability to cause damage if they successfully initiate an internal assault.”
At least that’s something. I look at the water bottle Griffin’s offering me.
“It’s not that bad.” Griffin unscrews the cap and takes a long swig, making a face that suggests it is, in fact, that bad. “See? I’m fine.”
I bring the bottle to my lips, my mouth puckering.
“Just a couple sips,” Griffin says, but I’m already tilting the bottle back, gulping it down. If everyone else can do this, then I can, too.
“Easy.” Griffin pushes the bottom of the bottle down. “I said a couple sips, not chug the whole thing.”
I gag and stick out my tongue, scraping it along the roof of my mouth. The salt taste clings to my teeth and gums, but I guess that’s the entire point of drinking it.
“There you go.” Griffin claps me on the shoulder. “You’re officially baptized.”
Donny chuckles as he returns his bottle to the storage basket and pulls out two handheld devices about the size of TV remotes. They’re black and boxy with small LED screens on top and a sensor array on the business end. Both he and Griffin slip rusted iron crowbars into their belts.
I shift my weight from foot to foot, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand as they prep their equipment. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Griffin glances up. “Nah, you’re here to observe, remember? But I can show you how these bad boys work. ” He holds up one of the scanners. “Come here.”
He tells me the device is called a residue scanner. It’s heavier than it looks, and I turn it over in my hands, studying the small screen and the array of sensors, as he runs through how it works: green light means we’re fine, yellow light means a ghost was here not long ago, and red light means we’re about to become something very dead ourselves.
“Energy doesn’t hang in the air,” he explains. “It settles on surfaces, soaks into fabric, clings to walls—so the scanner has to make contact to pick anything up.”
Griffin hands me a pair of latex gloves and a small earpiece. I tug on the gloves, stretching the latex under the cuffs of myjumpsuit, then fumble with the earpiece until it settles in my ear canal.
“Testing, testing,” DJ’s voice crackles through, making me jump. “Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” I say, touching my ear.
Griffin snorts and guides my finger to the raised button on the fat part of the earpiece.
“Eden, push down on the button once when you want to talk, then once when you’re done talking,” DJ says, and I glimpse her watching me from the front of the van, through the back window.
I nod even though she can’t see me. Griffin laughs at me, and I realize why a second too long.
I press the button firmly. “Copy that.”
Griffin’s stupid smile turns green as I secure my goggles over my eyes. I pull my sleeves down over my hands, but then roll them back up because what am I thinking? I’m going to need my hands.
“I was scared on my first one of these, too,” Griffin tells me.
“I’m not scared.”
