“I wondered, as I keep seeing you turn sideways, like you’re avoiding someone.”
“That’s precisely what I’m doing.” I shook my head, baffled. What was going on here? I’d never seen the like before. “Hang on, cher, I’m going to try something direct.”
I touched the shoulder of a male ghost walking past. In life, he’d likely died near my age, maybe a few years older.
“Sir?”
He stopped, blinking at me as if suddenly realizing I was there. “Oh, hello. You are…alive?”
“I am, oui. Could you not see me before I touched you?”
“Well, no. How long have you been here?” His eyes scanned me from head to toe again, expression growing perplexed. “And what are these strange clothes you are wearing?”
“I’m from the current era,” I told him. This was somehow getting weirder. I wasn’t a fan of weirder. What the H. E. Double FUCK was going on here? “A lot of time has passed since you died. Over a hundred years, in fact.”
He stared at me without comprehension. “No, I died recently.”
“Today’s year is 2021.”
“I… What? No, it’s 1856.”
Brandon muttered, “Is he even aware he’s dead?”
He didn’t seem to hear Brandon at all.
On a theory, I lifted my hand off his shoulder.
The ghost blinked, looking around, clearly startled. “Where did you go?”
My god, he really couldn’t see me unless I was touching him. I replaced the hand and his attention fixed on me again.
“There you are.”
Brandon went very still, realizing the implications as well. If the ghosts couldn’t even see us until we physically interacted with them, then no, passing them wouldn’t be an easy peasy job. It would be tedious and incredibly time consuming.
Also, why the hell couldn’t they see me?! This was not a rhetorical question.
“Sir, would you like to pass on?”
“Oh! That would be grand.”
“Can you hold my shoulder while I escort you over? Another Medium will guide you through from there.”
“Sure, sure, many thanks. Been wondering when that bright light would appear. Kept waiting, but it never showed.”
I walked him over, Beau took him and guided him through, and then Beau came back to me with a confuzzled expression.
“Why’d you bring him over? He was strong enough on his own.”
“Because he couldn’t see me unless I was directly touching him.”
Beau went very, very still. “At all?”
“At all. It’s almost like they’re on a slightly different plane than the rest of us.”
Beau looked about us grimly, muttering under his breath, “I hate being right.” To me, he said, “Call up Eli. Or one of them, I don’t care. They need to check something.”
I was scared of what they might find.
