Friday Morning, August 22
In the faculty lounge, Lucy stared at her handwritten note as she stirred a single sweetener packet into her lukewarm coffee. “With all the money in this school’s budget, you’d think they could afford a device that makes hot coffee,” she remarked to Anna, who’d just plopped down.
“What’s on the note?” Since it was still 7:45 a.m., Anna had not yet shouldered her usual perkiness. “You look like you just got notified of a tax audit.”
“Huh? Oh, this.” She handed over the note. “It’s from Mr. Sproule at the archives. He said he tracked down the name of that employee who was basically blackmailed by old man Gregg.”
“What’s the name?” Anna squinted at the scrawl. “Harrison. Doesn’t ring any bells with me.”
“Me either.” Lucy’s hand waved away the note’s existence and then her head fell forward until it nearly touched the stained table.
“What on earth is eating you today, Luce?”
“You won’t believe what he’s done now.”
“I gather this is about the new Romeo of the spirit world?” She tugged on an errant sprig of her straight black hair.
“Don’t make light of this, Anna. He’s going to ruin everything.”
“What do you mean? What happened?” She leaned closer. “Ruin what?”
“You know all this. As we comprehend things, there is basically a wall or chasm between our world and the spirit realm.”
Anna nodded. “Yet sometimes we are able to breach it… or they are.”
“Correct. Well, Levi’s been hypnotized or something. Now he’s apparently pursuing a relationship with this ghostess.”
“That’s nuts. It wrecks everything.” Anna had a way of restating things to make them seem like her own observations. “That screws up the entire continuum.”
“Fact is, we don’t know what it affects… could involve things we’ve never heard of. Of course, we don’t even how much contact is feasible, but he’s already taken a step I didn’t think was possible.”
“So what did he do? Snap her photo? Douse her with salsa dip?”
“Worse.” Lucy lowered her voice. “Levi touched her.”
“Touch a ghost? That’s, uh, well it’s…”
“Exactly,” said Lucy as her chin jutted slightly.
“Why on earth…?”
Lucy silently stared at the donut fragments on the napkin, close enough to grab if she had more energy.
Anna finally plopped the last significant donut piece into her mouth and chewed hurriedly. “That poor English teacher is in love, honey.”
“But his paramour is not even human.” Lucy shook her head sadly. “That really makes it sting.”
“Just as we were trying to get his attention back on you, Luce.”
“And I thought we were getting closer. But now he’s totally smitten, with her.”
“Can a beautiful entity put a spell on a man?”
“Happens all the time in Hollywood.” Lucy shook her head slowly and stared at her cooling coffee.
“True. But in south Alabama, ghosts shouldn’t be possessing mortals.”
“Well, possession might be too strong a word. But she’s certainly manipulating him.”
“That’s not right.” Anna tapped the table for emphasis. “Levi’s got no defenses against spectral manipulation. How extensive is it?”
“There’s been no update from their tête-à-tête last night. For all I know, Danielle pulled out her broom, flew him to Vegas, and married him.”
Anna gasped. “Do they even let ghosts marry out there?”
After overhearing Anna’s comment, a nearby math teacher looked up and relocated to a table farther away.
Only Anna giggled. “You think he heard us?”
Lucy’s eyebrows conveyed the answer.
“So what’s the next step, Luce? We need to break her hold on him, so we’ve got to have a plan.”
“No way to make plans. Besides everything else going on, Levi’s also keeping us from investigating the most active manifestation any of our members could’ve ever imagined… right here in Magnolia.”
“I thought you said that was the ghost’s mandate, and Levi just relayed the message.”
“Whatever. I think he’s got more to do with it than he’s letting on.”
Anna thoughtfully pinched a remaining piece of cold donut but didn’t yet raise it to her full lips. “Hold on. Now I’m not testifying for the defense here, but everything you told me prior to this minute suggested that Levi is more in the dark than the rest of us and he was simply repeating things the spirit told him.”
“Maybe so, maybe not.” Lucy groaned. “She usually visits him in the evenings. Most other nights, after Danielle left, Levi called me with an update.”
“Not every night. There was…”
Lucy held up her hand to halt the interruption. “And I’m pretty sure I know what they were up to last night.”
“I sure hope he doesn’t try to kiss her.”
“Me too, but tell me your reasoning.”
“Remember when Jack Nicholson kissed that ghost in The Shining?”
“Yeah,” Lucy nodded. “She turned out to be a worm-eaten hag.”
“And she wasn’t nearly as old as our Miss Gregg.”
“Yuck.”
****
Friday afternoon
Muir had only about four minutes before the pre-bell buzzer when he hustled into the faculty lounge and went straight to the far corner chairs where Lucy sat glaring at papers in a folder. “Got a minute?”
She nodded civilly and closed her folder.
When he plopped into the adjacent chair, its cushion expunged air with a disagreeable sound and several teachers looked their direction. “Sorry.”
Lucy just frowned. “I got a call from the archives. Mr. Sproule thinks he found the name of the employee who was threatened by Danielle’s father.”
“Anybody you know about?”
“Anna and I were talking earlier. Doesn’t ring any bells, but as I sit here and stare at the name, I get a vague sense of déjà vu.”
He slid over the note and read it quickly. “Pretty common name.”
“Maybe that’s it.” She retrieved the note and tucked it into her purse. “By the way, your ears must have been burning this morning.”
“What do you mean?”
“Anna and I were talking before school about how regrettable — uh, actually, how potentially disastrous — this is, the business about touching your ghostess.”
“Well, you keep chanting about disasters, but nothing bad has happened. In fact, things are going very well, and we’re already past the touch.”
When she lurched forward, her folder fell and spilled papers to the floor. “You’re what? How far past? How many bases did you reach last night?”
“Not sure what it’s called now, but at least first base.” He tried not to look smug.
“You kissed a ghost?”
“Yep. Twice.”
She groaned. “Any tongue?”
“Hard to tell. There’s something about the sensation that’s not totally complete.”
“At this point, nothing would surprise me, unless you said she left spectral lipstick on your face.” She peered closely as though she were checking.
“No lipstick that I know of, but the sensation felt wonderful. It was both warm and cold at the same time, but a stimulating mixture. It was a bit like electrical current, but just enough to tickle.” He took a breath. “It made my lips and tongue come alive.” Numerous sensory impulses.
Lucy’s expression was almost a glare. “Better than human kisses?”
“I’m out of practice with humans. It’s been a while.” He immediately regretted saying that out loud.
“I was available for lessons.” She gulped. “At least until you were Frenched by a spook.”
Each had said more than they’d intended, so it was time to shift gears.
“What I came to tell you is I’ve been practicing a mental exercise to keep Danielle from jamming my thoughts when I’m thinking about you.”
“That’s promising.” It sounded quite sarcastic. “Be sure to patent that before all the other ghost-kissers steal your invention.”
Uncertain how to respond, Muir looked at his shoes.
“Why are you continuing this bizarre involvement with the spirit of Miss Gregg?” Lucy seemed genuinely concerned.
“I’m not sure I can explain it, but something comes over me and it almost feels like I’m not making up my own mind.”
“Can’t you invoke that mind trick you just told me about, and get your brain back?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t seem to work that way when I’m with her. It’s a bit like being…”
“Inebriated?”
“Yeah. And everything you hear sounds totally agreeable and cool, so naturally you just go with the flow.”
“Sounds like a form of hypnosis to me.” She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes.
“What’s that for?”
“To get you to snap out of it.”
“I’m not hypnotized here. Whatever control she has over me is there in the apartment.”
“So don’t go back.”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Not sure, but I know I do. Danielle keeps saying she needs my help with something that’s about to happen. She even hinted that you might be involved somehow.”
“About the only help she’d get from me is a big push under another train.”
“That’s cruel. You don’t mean it.”
Lucy’s eyes clouded. “Maybe not. But I think she’s taken over your life to a large extent and not only do you seem powerless to get away from her clutches, you appear to be enjoying yourself.”
He couldn’t deny either, but part of him wished he could. Muir checked the wall clock — about a minute before the buzzer. “If anybody had told me, prior to a week ago, that I’d be living with a ghost, making out with her, and enjoying it… I would’ve called them crazy.”
“Yet, that’s exactly what you’re doing, Levi. But it’s all wrong. And it distresses me to hear how far you’re taking this. Or, at least, how far you’re letting it haul you along.”
“Look, I’m sorry I mentioned it. I was thinking, you’re the scientist, you’re the psychic investigator. I’m in the middle of the most potent experiment since Houdini conducted his séances, and I thought you’d want to know.”
“You’re in way over your head, Levi.”
“Admittedly, but why don’t you examine it instead of trying to quash it?”
“I’m still not certain if you’re making any of your own choices or if she has you totally bedazzled.” Lucy appeared to grind her teeth. “Either way, you’re not objective and your motivation is totally skewed.”
“What do you mean?”
“On your own, or with her unusual spell, you’ve fallen in love with a beautiful ghostess, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. There’s no basis for any relationship with a spirit except possibly some form of intellectual companionship, and that’s only in theory.”
“Mine isn’t intellectual, it feels like it’s in here.” He patted his own heart.
“And that’s absurdly impossible… your mind has been deceived. Besides, you’re mistaking emotions for an abnormal ghost lust.”
Muir could not reply, even if the pre-bell signal had not buzzed.
“Levi, you’re stretching the boundaries which define these two dimensions and the results could be terrible.”
“Terrible for whom?”
“Everyone involved.”
****
Friday night
Danielle gazed at her handsome suitemate, napping in what had become his favorite furnishing — her old chair. Even with his mouth partly open, Muir seemed adorable… in that boyish way her own Neddy had looked, before Father ended everything. Every thing.
She hovered near enough to sniff his face. He had applied the shaving soap again. What a sweet gesture. Even though not the exact scent Neddy had worn, it reminded her, as did Muir’s considerate efforts to please her. Of course, her guest also had a disquieting forwardness and an urgent focus on physicality. She wasn’t sure how much she had directly instigated.
Danielle did not really want to wake Muir, but did prefer to keep a reasonably predictable schedule. Besides, time was running out. The important anniversary was only a week away and she might not have another opportunity this favorable for another hundred years. She still could not discern the precise role to be played by the handsome live-in visitor, but Danielle knew he was intimately involved. Hmm… intimately.
For Muir’s part, he seemed clueless. He was enthusiastically jumping over fences into fields he could not see, with circumstances he dared not imagine, for reasons impossible to explain. No, Muir had not verbalized this, but it was abundantly clear from the way he acted and reacted. The naïve English teacher could have taken lessons from tragic heroes who leapt before looking, or who looked but leapt anyway. But Muir appeared to have ceased thinking with his own mind. The young man napping in her chair relied on his painfully ardor-ish heart and his rather immature soul. A combination agreeable to impetuous lovers, but not of much practical value to spirits restrained for perpetuity.
Oh, he was stirring. She would not have to wake him after all. As Muir yawned, not covering his mouth, Danielle softly hummed the chorus to her music box song.
He smiled and turned that direction. “I was hoping you’d show up. Missed you today.”
“It is usually lonely here also.” On this occasion, she materialized her visual form right away instead of waiting for him to ask.
Muir smiled as he saw her, then straightened in his chair. “I wanted to leave school and be here with you.”
“But that would be irresponsible. Think of your students.”
“I don’t want to be responsible, and I’m not sure I even want to teach. I just want to spend all my time with you.”
“What about that young woman?” Danielle had not intended to bring up Miss Tierney, but it slipped out.
“Look, I know you don’t like her, or maybe you’re a bit jealous. Whatever. But…”
Danielle bristled. “It is she who is jealous of me, Mr. Muir.”
“Probably so. I know she looks stressed when I mention you or tell her about our visits.”
“How much have you told her?”
“About your touch on my cheek,” he felt that area as he spoke. “And about our kiss.”
“That kiss was our second mistake.”
“Please don’t say that. It was beautiful.”
“Beautiful, yes. But a mistake nonetheless.” Danielle leaned forward slightly to peer into his face. “Have you kissed that woman yet? She is very attractive.”
“Oh, she’s pretty, shapely, kind… fun to be around.” He shook his head slowly. “But I haven’t kissed her yet. Every time things began to get lined up right, that buzzing would return to my head. Which I believe you’re responsible for.”
“I have merely been trying to protect you from the distraction of a predatory female. But I noticed you have been strengthening your counter-measures.”
Muir smiled lamely. “Wasn’t sure if they’d work, and didn’t know if you’d even notice.”
“They are becoming more effective. Not that I will ever need to know this, but I am curious where you conceived of using your mind that way.”
“We didn’t have to go to the S.E.R.E. school, which is mainly for pilots, but we did attend several briefings from their instructors. We learned a bit about the mental aspects of survival, evasion, resistance, and escape.”
“I have not heard of that university.” When Muir started to interrupt, Danielle waved him quiet. “We do not have many more visits, I fear.” She frowned. “Time is running out.”
“Time for what? You won’t explain anything but you keep acting like we’ve got a tight deadline.”
“It is simply because I do not comprehend enough myself. I know only that it is soon, most likely in one week.”
“It… what?” He started to rise, but she motioned him back down. “How do you know?”
“I know very little, but I strongly sense the time is quite near.”
“How does it involve me? What am I supposed to do?”
Danielle smiled sadly. “Truthfully, I do not know yet. But I sense you will realize it at the time and all will become clear when the information is necessary.”
“But not before?”
She shook her head slowly. “I do not think we will know much of anything beforehand. None of us.”
“Who else is involved in this, whatever it is? You hinted that Lucy had a role somehow.”
“That will become clear in due time, Mr. Muir.” Seeing the defeated look on his face, Danielle tried to brighten the mood. “Let us change the topic and stop fretting about things over which we have little control and about which neither of us are fully informed.”
“I got nothing.” He shrugged lamely. “I just want to be here with you.”
It was touching how fully involved he had become, when she’d only needed his focus and assistance. “What was the reaction of that woman when you confided to her about our contact?”
“She couldn’t believe it, for one, because none of her research suggested it was even possible. For another, she started preaching gloom and doom about how it could upset the balance of time and space… or something. Oh, plus she seemed totally ticked off at me for, um, doing it.”
“Was she aware that our contact was at your behest?”
“I didn’t volunteer the info, but she seemed to guess it.”
“When you speak of her, it is clear she registers highly in your emotional involvement.” Danielle studied his eyes carefully for a reaction. “Surely, as a mortal, you would rather be in her company.”
“But she’s not you, Danielle.”
She felt guilty for taking over Muir, but his comment still warmed her. “I take that as a compliment, Mr. Muir. And I perceive that your flattery is angling for my favor.”
Muir nodded as he straightened in his chair. “Another kiss if possible.”
Without warning him to close his eyes, she gave him a quick peck on the forehead.
“I wasn’t ready for that one.” He stood. “Besides, I want more.”
She moved slightly away. “Additional kisses, Mr. Muir?”
“That and more.” He started to reach for her, but, evidently remembering past reproaches, he ceased… though he remained standing.
“I am only a spirit. Remember?”
“We’ve touched, we’ve kissed.”
“True, I succumbed to temptation, but I should not have allowed either.”
“But we did, and there has to be more.”
“Mr. Muir, you do not grasp the fundamental issue — what occurred was not physical. Our energies were briefly in contact.”
“It felt… delicious. And I want more of your energy.”
She shook her head slowly.
“I just want to be as close to you as possible, but there are so many restrictions.”
“Not of my doing, I assure you, sir. I only iterate facts. We are of different forms and have variant capabilities.”
“And I’m trying to find ways to merge those capabilities.”
She struggled for an explanation he could understand. “If you tried to embrace me it would be like squeezing thin air.”
“But you could embrace me, couldn’t you?”
“You are so direct, sir. You put me at such imbalance. A refined lady should slap your face.”
“I’d rather a hug.”
She made the motion of stamping her foot, but it created no sound.
“But I’m drawn to you, Danielle. It’s a craving I can’t control.” He hesitated before adding, “Besides, I think you enjoy intoxicating me.”
That caught her off guard. “Mr. Muir, everything which has happened has basically been experimental. But there are limits.” She cleared her throat. “Even if not limitations from the boundaries of our realms, then at least restrictions for the sake of propriety.”
“I want to hold you.” Muir seemed close to salivating. “Embrace you.”
“You ask too much, you have no restraint. Besides, you already know the answer.”
“We’ve been through this conversation before. If we can touch and we can kiss, surely we can embrace.”
“A mortal cannot embrace a spirit, at least not in the way you imagine.”
“Why not?”
“You already know this. Because I do not exist in a substance that you can feel.”
“Right. So you keep saying. But I feel certain you can hold me.”
“If even possible, it would not be advisable.”
“Danielle, you’re focused on what divides us, but I’m trying to bring us closer together.”
“You, sir, appear to have misguided carnal motives, and you do not comprehend how unalike we are.”
“Does attraction have to follow similarity?”
“That distorts my meaning and besides, you assume far too much.”
“So you’re not attracted to me?”
Danielle chose her words carefully. “I enjoy our interaction, Mr. Muir, and I need your assistance… but I have not voiced any declarations.”
“You don’t have to, I can feel them.”
“As you believed we conversed in your dream?”
Muir smiled. “You knew about it, whether dream or reality. We spoke that night and several times since. And last night we kissed.”
“What occurred last evening was not actually a kiss as you know them. It was a brief unity of two energies.”
“So you keep saying. Well, your energies felt wonderful and I want more of them. I want to feel your body against mine. I know you can make it happen.”
Tears leaked from her manifested eyes. “I do not have a body, Mr. Muir, and having to remind myself of that mournful fact for a century makes me all the more forlorn.”
“Maybe I use the wrong words, but I think you know what I mean.”
He looked so pitiful that her heart melted. “Very well. I am not certain if I can make this occur, but you will need to take your seat again and keep your eyes closed. Try to shut out any hearing except for my voice in your head. Do you understand?”
Muir took his chair and nodded. “Yes.”
She spoke the rest of her words directly into his thoughts. “Move forward to the edge of your seat and I will position my form directly in front of you. Keep your arms by your sides and the entire embrace will be manifested by my arms and my upper body. Nod if you comprehend, Mr. Muir.”
He nodded slowly and his visible skin looked like freshly-plucked goose flesh. “Hug me.”
“Shh.” Danielle took a deep breath and slowly wrapped her arms around Muir’s shoulders, pulling his head against her breast. She could feel him leaning into her.
“Tighter. Closer.”
“Hush, Mr. Muir,” she transmitted directly into his thoughts. “Just feel the sensation, but do not speak. We have only a few seconds before I must release.” Her chin rested upon the top of his head and warm tears fell to his hair. Danielle felt like she was melting. After some tender words, barely audible, she disengaged… and Muir nearly toppled over.
He opened his eyes and jumped from the chair. “We were hugging!”
Danielle turned, crying. “We have taken things much too far. We cannot continue along these pathways.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just happy and surprised.”
“I am equally surprised, Mr. Muir, but as I feared, this was a terrible mistake. You are full-blooded, young, and mortal. I am… none of those. We have already been more intimate than is appropriate and for that I apologize. I allowed your ardor to influence mine, as latent as it is at this point. The error was mine.”
Her image began to fade.
“Are you leaving already?”
“I must contemplate what has happened and try to discover what can be done about it. I did not want our contact to end, especially not this way and not this soon, but it must not continue in this vein.”
“Why not? It felt awesome.” Immediately Muir realized she was gone because she left the aroma of her imported perfume. “Why did you haunt me, Danielle? Is it only to tantalize and then vanish? Is it only because you need my help for whatever?” He scraped away his own tears with the heel of each hand.
Silent, she realized she was being selfish — yet she had not even garnered solace for herself sufficient to compensate for the hurt she had caused him.
“Why, Danielle?”
She did not reply, because in every way understandable to a mortal, she had already departed.