Chapter Twenty-Four

When Ethan woke next, darkness surrounded him. His mind was filled with silent sounds, like the creaking of doors and cat’s nails. No pain, but his body was stiff. His skin felt bruised. When he saw himself under the bathroom light, he was pale. Almost too pale.

Am I bruised from inside? Ethan wondered. There was no response. Only more quiet sounds like car doors shutting, keys jangling in the hallway, and the traffic nearby; all of it like an ocean wave inside his ear. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but maybe three days. Four? Four was a maximum estimate. He’d changed clothing at some point during his comatose and taken-over state. He’d probably eaten something too, given the disarray of his kitchen. He wandered through his apartment, limping, though he didn’t remember how he’d gotten the injury.

All the drawers in his bedroom had been opened, the clothing scattered on the ground. Some of it was ripped, but the rags remaining appeared more like an accident than something malicious. He tried to find a binder in the mess. When he did, he took off his shirt and stared at his chest in the mirror. The mark shimmered against his skin. Could he anoint it with the stuff Tessa gave him? Banish Vinny even if he was determined to stay? Maybe if he read the Latin phrase aloud, it would suffice.

Ethan paused. Could Vinny hear the excavation plan Ethan wanted to use against him? Was he private in his own head again? Considering Dianne and Barry had heard every last thing he’d thought, and they weren’t even close to hostile, he figured Vinny had superpowers of deduction and hearing. But maybe he was sleeping now. Ethan wasn’t sure if ghosts needed to, but surely energy had to be recharged in some way.

Ethan groaned as he slid on the binder. Everything ached. His body felt as if it had been turned inside out, yet it bore no discernable marks of suffering on the surface. The more time Vinny spent inside him, the more Ethan was sure he would decay below the surface. He had to plan an escape, any escape, as long as the quiet had set in.

The hair. Vinod’s anchoring object. If it was still in the car, Ethan could destroy it. Couldn’t he? How did you destroy something enchanted? Ethan wandered back into his living room and turned on his stereo. He cranked the music in an attempt to drown out Vinny, if that was at all possible. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Vinny was wandering in the ghost belt and wouldn’t hear him. None of it really mattered. It was quiet now, and Ethan had to at least try to reclaim himself in some way.

Something niggled in the back of Ethan’s mind. What did he tell Jacob? What was used to pull him out of a trance? My name. The story of my name. Ethan recalled the research he’d put into searching up all the most popular names from the 1980s. He wrote all the top choices down on several pieces of cue cards he’d once used for a presentation in university on Marcel Du Champ. Joshua. Robert. William. Michael. Mark. Christopher. Nicholas. Then he headed to the stairs in his old apartment building to scatter them. He’d hoped and prayed he’d get Daniel and was disappointed when Ethan had come up on the bottom step. After a few minutes of pouting, he figured it was appropriate, since most kids are disappointed with their names. So he took it anyway, and used Daniel as his middle name.

As it turned out, people grew into their names. He liked Ethan now, far more than he had thought possible.

He bounced along to the song over the radio, centering himself. He remembered this story. He remembered the lyrics to this song. Maybe all of this possession nonsense was a mistake. Maybe Vinny was gone. Ethan caught the glimpse of the Mazda 3 in the lot out his apartment window. Something covered in tissue paper still sat on the front seat. The object was still close. That meant Vinod couldn’t go far, even if he was somehow miraculously out of Ethan.

Ethan grabbed his keys before leaving his apartment. His door did little to muffle the sound of music, and he was surprised no one had called the cops on him earlier. His apartment was a mess, and he knew for a fact that he’d been yelling at Vinny. So why didn’t anyone reach out to see if he was okay? When he walked by Aurora’s apartment, the mewling of her cats stopped. They hissed within seconds.

He was still haunted. Still tainted in some way, the cats all but confirming the sneaking suspicion. No way would Aurora let him into her place. Not like this—maybe never again. That thought disappointed him far more than Vinny still being around.

Ethan slipped his keys into the car. The bundle of hair made his stomach quake. Stay focused. Stay with who you are. Ethan grabbed the bag and got into the front seat. It was risky to drive in this state, but he needed to. Even if he veered off the road, he wondered if any injuries would push Vinny out of his body. What if I nicked the mark? Ethan wondered. Would that set Vinny free?

There was a spine-chilling answer boiling in the back of his mind. No, no. That would only trap him inside me further. Forever?

Ethan shook off his fear. He cranked the radio of the car and sped to the closest body of water he could find. When he reached the local river, he parked with his emergency lighs on and got out of the car. The hair seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, as if Vinny were resisting.

The line from The Bhagavad Gita returned. I am Time, the great destroyer of worlds. He wasn’t sure if it was a memory or a voice anymore.

“Fuck off,” Ethan said. “Just get the fuck out of here.”

He tossed the hair into the river. The current gripped it in a wave before it shuddered downstream. Ethan’s chest tightened and released. The hair was gone, lost in the water. And if ghosts couldn’t cross hallowed ground, they would disperse again into a thousand bolts of unincorporated energy. That meant he was free.

Finally.

He took several deep inhalations with his eyes closed. The third eye was sealed. He spoke the Latin words he’d learned from Tessa, just to be sure.

Nothing happened. He really was gone.

The air outside was cold, though it was halfway through June. Each breath inside Ethan’s lungs was a miracle; something new and familiar at the same time. Back at his apartment complex, the dawn had risen and become blotted into a golden morning, as if time sped up or he slowed down. He wanted to burst into Aurora’s apartment, show her the triumph, but would come later.

He grabbed the phone and dialled Jacob’s number. He didn’t even realize he forgot to turn down the music until Jacob was shouting on the other side.

“Ethan? Is that you? Goddamnit, it sounds like you’re at a bad 90s club. Did you ditch me for this?”

“No, no. Sorry.” Ethan turned down the radio and sighed. His voice was tired. Everything was. But he was free. “I didn’t ditch you. I’m sorry though. Something went wrong.”

“What?” Jacob snapped to attention. “What do you need? Are you okay? I can call Tessa and get her here in two hours, max, if you—”

“No, no. Nothing so serious. I need someone else to tell me how I got my name again. I want to be sure I’m right.”

Jacob did. It was the same story Ethan had told himself. The popular names, the staircase, and the flutter of a dozen boys’ names falling from the sky until he’d unearthed what he was now. “You also wanted to be called John,” Jacob added. “Because you thought all older men were Johns.”

“Good.” Ethan touched the centre of his chest. “It’s not because my name means happy.”

“I have no idea what Ethan means,” Jacob said. “But it’s not happy. Are you okay?”

“I think. I don’t know. Everything feels awful.”

“I’m coming over. Don’t argue with me.”

Ethan didn’t.