A Simply Crafty Paranormal Mystery Series

He had no face. Or at least that’s what my brain told me. Rationally, there were reasons. It was too dark out in the deserts of Afghanistan in the middle of the night. He was too far away. I was too tired to see properly. Maybe I was dehydrated and delusional.

Except alarm bells went off in my brain. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something wasn’t right. Again, the rational part of my brain tried to parse facts. The cut of his fatigues was familiar. Maybe he was out for a late-night dump, outside the base, in the middle of nowhere, without a weapon or backup.

I squinted through the night vision goggles, pushed them up, rubbed my eyes, and then put them back down. The blur of his form didn’t change, just got closer as he headed my way. I radioed to the team, “Alpha Team, possible friendly outside base, Roger?”

The radio crackled back, “Location, over.”

I was on post, stationed behind a dune, flat on my stomach, about two dozen yards outside the base. A glance back through the darkness and I could see the vague outline of vehicles, no movement or heat signatures, as those things would give the base away.

“North face,” I replied. “Friendly not accounted for? Over.” I asked. I’d been part of the team long enough to know everyone’s name and face, but in the gear, out here with nothing but sand and wind, everyone looked the same in the dark. Size and shape could sometimes help, but even that was pretty universal with soldiers used to long hikes with hundred-pound packs on their backs.

“No friendlies unaccounted for, over,” the voice crackled back.

But those were our fatigues. I squinted at him some more, trying to make out the face beneath the hat. He got closer, probably four dozen yards. The shadows seemed to distort his face, making it look ghoulish in the night vision lens, like it shifted, contorting, but that had to be the play of shadows. Real people didn’t look like that.

“Maybe another base? Any other channel chatter? Over.”

“None,” the radio spat back. “Nothing in our area. Nearest friendly, twelve kilometers away. Over.”

What the fuck?

He was really close now, the face still distorted and shifting, a void with slits of contorting darkness where features should be. I’d never seen shadows do that to anyone.

It wasn’t a local, not in fatigues like that. “Advise. Unknown approaching. Not local. Not friendly. Over.” Fear intensified in my gut. I’d shoot if I had to, wouldn’t even be the first time, but he was close and each step made my heart pound faster with a feeling I couldn’t quite place. Dread?

“Drone shows no heat signatures. Over.”

I hadn’t even heard the machine when my on-alert senses usually could pick up the heartbeat of the guy standing next to me, but it made sense that they would deploy one at the first hint of something unusual. My night vision gave me a vague heat signal, not unusual in the roasting evening temps, movement and shape, even if it did waver. Fuck.

The day before when we’d stopped in a small village, I’d overheard talk of something in Pashto, which for me wasn’t as fluent as Dari or as they knew internationally, Farsi. A story about jinn, mythical spirits who tricked men into following them into the desert, only to kill them, or something along those lines.

My gut rolled over. It was a legend. Talk. Probably to scare us. They didn’t know any of us spoke the language. Most of the team spoke a few words in Farsi, none as fluently as I did. And none that I knew of could tell the difference between Dari and Pashto. I picked up languages quickly, which is why I was always on point for communications despite being a weapons expert.

“Advise, over.” I aimed for his head, hands tightening around the barrel of my gun, holding on for dear life, while alarm bells screamed in my head.

“Backup headed your way, ETA minus one, over.”

Would he be on me before then? He was still coming. Shouldn’t he have reached me already? I could hear the approach of my team, stealthy, scurrying behind me, but while the sand hid a lot of footsteps and the rustle of clothing, their whispers echoed off the small surfaces of the vehicles and tents when in an enclosed area. The sandstorm earlier in the day had forced the team to base early and in tight formation, which meant keeping a close watch on all sides until morning and we could move again now that the storm was over.

Two team members crawled up beside me, slow enough to not startle me, though I clung to the trigger and the image of whatever the fuck headed our way. Both stared out into the darkness, nothing but our night vision to give us clarity.

“Friendly?” I inquired of them.

Neither spoke for a minute.

“Unknown,” the one on the left said.

I glanced toward the guy on the right and through the night vision I could see him frowning as he stared out into the sand. Both men beside me had faces, defined and full of shadows, but nothing like what was coming our way. I glanced back. The guy—or thing, whatever he was—wavered again, face distorting almost like he yawned, but opened his mouth too wide. It was something out of a horror movie, the unhinged jaw of a skeleton or some creepy cryptid, gaping into a void, which filled my stomach with rocks and terror.

I heard the two men beside me gasp. The one on the right scrambled back, tugging on my jacket as he went. “Pull back,” he said.

“Advise?” I inquired, confused.

The other scrambled away as well, dragging me back with them.

“Pull back to base,” the one from the right said again. Johnson. I recognized his voice. He tapped his radio. “Team regroup, over,” he said as he dragged me back toward the circle of vehicles. The man, or thing, or whatever the fuck it was, was still coming, filling me with a sense of doom.

Silence can be defined in several ways. Sometimes it means late nights indoors with nothing but the sound of a sleeping pet or partner. Sometimes it is a relaxing bath covered in thick bubbles and warm water. Or sometimes silence is more the tuning out of noise, like reading in a public place, or hiking down an active trail through the woods on a bright and sunny day.

Rarely is silence the complete absence of sound.

That had been my first mistake.

I had a handful of excuses: a morning fight with Tim; the chill in the air that whipped through my jacket; the vague memory of something someone said on our drive up to the park; and the annoying squawk of an unidentified bird that no one else seemed to hear.

Preoccupied. Not paying attention. My fault.

Those thoughts echoed in my brain often enough as I recalled that day. Parts of it blurry, like the memory of morning sex, which led to a fight and me not eating or having coffee before the hike his friends insisted on. I hadn’t wanted to come at all. Nature was not my thing. I liked cities, technology, and being near people even if I didn’t always want to talk to them.

The first part of the hike had been mostly uneventful. Teasing from his friends who weren’t supposed to know about the videos we did. I found myself embarrassed, not for the first time, and slowed my step until I was at the back of the group. I’d been planning on leaving sex work, moving on to other things, including a fun craft shop, which would give me time to expand my hobbies into a full-time career. Tim pushed back, not wanting the change. My age, always a factor, had become a constant battle point. I was too young to make those decisions; he claimed. Not too young to have sex on camera, but too young to know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. His gaze strayed to younger men often enough for me to know his interest in me was waning.

Another squawk made me pause and look up, searching the trees for a source of the sound. Never heard a bird like that before, almost like a monkey, or an unusual parrot. Having lived in a half dozen countries in my life, I expected to have seen and heard just about everything. Whatever made that noise, I had never experienced before. A chill raced up my spine and the hint of a cold sweat touched my brow. My gut ached, not from something I ate, but from anxiety. Last time it hurt this bad I had been in a classroom in the middle of nowhere China, when men had entered the room with guns and pointed them at my mother who was teaching.

No one had been hurt that day, but fear had taken up solid residence in my stomach and left a lasting impression. I remembered being on my knees outside the building, surrounded by pigeons, thousands of them. Yet despite their numbers, they were silent, mostly still, staring with those dark and eerie eyes. The world had turned motionless, lasted forever, though probably was only a half an hour. Then the men re-emerged from the school. The birds took off all at once. A terrifying flap of wings as though they would descend on us any second and rip us apart like the gruesome horror movies of old.

Some memories ingrained themselves inside your soul that way. The taint of emotion making them unforgettable. Like that odd squawking. Or the feeling of being watched, which I’d tried to ignore all morning, and brush off as the others looking at me.

High in the trees, nothing moved. No one else seemed to notice, adding to my irritation. I continued up the trail, thankful that it was a wide dirt path, unmistakable through the towering trees and scattered rocks.

I sighed, brain back on high volume, as once again I was reminded of why I had agreed to this stupid trip. Tim. Our relationship began as a spark. I knew it was a spark. That hot burning attraction, the need to taste him, and wrap my body around him. I had hoped it would blossom into more. It hadn’t. Why did I stay?

It came down to comfort, money, and control. Not a surprise, really. He’d helped me a lot in getting settled in the USA with an income to support myself. The rest I’d done. Saved, built outlines and plans for things I wanted to happen in my life. None of them involved sex on camera. That Tim wanted to film us this morning meant our conversation on the way up had fallen on deaf ears. Sex on camera was tedious. A show or an act. Turn this way, face the camera… not the intimacy I’d wanted with a partner. I often felt like a sex doll beneath him rather than a person. Used instead of cherished.

My mother had taught me to respect myself better. Love, she often reminded me, was a partnership. More than attraction or lust, it meant being comfortable with each other as only genuine friends could be. Despite how often she and my father argued; they were very different. Him with his traditional Japanese values, and her a fiercely independent Irish woman, I could see their adoration for each other. Their affection made me long for something similar, a best friend and a lover, a partner and husband. Tim wasn’t it.

I gnawed on my lower lip as I followed the group up the trail, my pace a little slower than theirs, more out of my annoyance with them than my inability to keep up. My thoughts strayed back to the argument this morning. They’d wanted to know if we would have sex in front of them. Put on a show. Tim’s response? Maybe.

More like not a chance. If I’d had cell reception, I’d have called for a ride home. But I could grin and bear it for a few days. No big deal. Change didn’t frighten me like it did many people. Too many years of moving around with my parents, experiencing other countries, struggling to learn other languages. The subtle comfort of minor changes that Americans seemed to think was their ‘God-given’ right didn’t really appeal to me. I had no desire to live in misery just to avoid the discomfort of change.

I didn’t look forward to the upcoming fight about me leaving. And maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Perhaps Tim would change his mind. Or I would.

I questioned us a lot lately. Did I love him? Did he love me? Was it a relationship of convenience? Why stay? Why go?

The noise came again. So close I nearly leapt back, thinking it was in front of me. Except again, I saw nothing. Not even the other guys. Though I suspected they pushed ahead of my slow ass, likely annoyed that I wasn’t putting up with their teasing like the good little boy toy Tim claimed I was.

Gooseflesh broke out on my skin. An eerie sense of something watching me arched down my spine. For a minute, blood pulsed in my ears. My heartbeat and labored breathing echoing in my head. I made myself move, rushing to catch up, racing into the distance while trying to glimpse the guys. How far ahead could they have gotten? They wouldn’t have left me, would they?

I tripped, stumbling several feet. Not falling, but having to slow myself.

A prickling sensation danced over my skin. Not painful at first, a bit like walking through a spiderweb. I flailed, focused on it for a moment, fearing I had staggered into something. A thousand scenarios of deadly arachnids raced through my mind as the feeling intensified to the point of pain.

I didn’t notice the silence that overtook the trail. Unlike a silence of bugs and birds gone quiet because a predator was nearby, but complete absence of sound. No wind. No crunch of my feet on the dirt path. Not even the sound of my breath, heavy from walking at a slightly inclined angle for an hour.

I don’t remember how I came to realize the silence wasn’t natural or that the rest of the group had vanished. Somehow I knew something was wrong, that they were gone and I was alone. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm the panic of some unknown bug crawling on me and collect myself. Not much frightened me. Why an uneasy feeling curled around me in that moment, I couldn’t understand. A bit like a rising panic attack, a sudden wave of anxiety flowing through me. The past few weeks had echoed the same feeling off and on. An odd sense of something on the verge of happening. Almost premonition-like, though instead of the vague déjà vu, this was more of a horror movie something-is-going-to-leap-out-at-me feeling.

The sensation of being watched added to the prickling wriggle on my skin. Air didn’t seem to reach my lungs and my mind screamed for oxygen. I stood on the path, stopped, frozen almost, staring into the distance, straining for the sound of life, my skin on fire with prickling pain.

Fans of paranormal fiction sometimes asked if I’d seen or felt a change. Wavers in the road, or smelled a distinct scent, anything to indicate a shift in dimension.

Big concept. Leaving one dimension for another.

That day I’d seen only the dancing waver of heat on the trail in front of me. I thought nothing of it at the time. Despite being cold enough to huddle in a winter coat, and walking on a dirt trail through towering trees, neither of which was conducive to heat waves from pavement. Had that been the change? Had I stumbled through some otherworld portal? Or had it happened when I first heard that terrifying monkey-bird cry no one else seemed to notice?

Perhaps it had been the pin pricks of dancing ants across my skin which had been the actual change. I’d spent far too many hours thinking about it, had endless nightmares about the feeling of being watched and sensing oncoming doom. Fears about what I’d missed, months vanished both from my life and my memory, echoes of running through woods and snow while something unseen chased me. Memories or simply things my mind conjured up to scare me?

“Micah?”

I glanced up, blinking away the brooding, to find Lukas towering over me, holding out a cup of coffee. The noise of the police precinct rushed back around me in a blanket of sound, voices, computer keys, doors. Life arose around me, ripping me out of the nightmare of my memory. I took the cup.

Handsome, polished, and now clean shaven, hair trimmed, Lukas had pulled himself together in the last few hours. I hoped Skylar had helped.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Any news on Alex?” I replied, deflecting the question.

He shook his head. “They are still questioning him.”

“Did he do something?” I knew Alex hadn’t. Much like my disappearance, Alex had vanished for a month, returning with no memory of the time passed. Unlike my event, they had found traces of him. Bits of video of him around the country. At least that was what I’d been able to deduce from the surrounding conversations. That something had taken over Alex’s body for a month, used it to travel around the country and perhaps do things that might be dangerous or illegal, seemed to come to fruition.

Lukas, as Alex’s twin brother, really appeared bothered by the idea, though he’d been the first to bring it up. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it yet. Relieved that he was back? Worried he’d vanish again? Grateful someone else had experienced something similar to me? Mostly I felt numb, which sent my mind into a spiral of questions into my relationship with Alex. Did we have one? Had his time away changed him? Or me? We barely knew each other before he’d vanished, so did that mean we should start over, or continue on with what we’d begun?

Lukas sat down beside me. I sipped the coffee, which was disgustingly dark and thick, but I needed the caffeine. He said nothing for a few minutes, leaving me to think and overthink. I should have brought something to work on. My hands ached with the need to move, even if it was only to slow my brain down. Over-analyzing was one of my best skills and bad habits.

“It wouldn’t have been him,” Lukas finally said.

“No,” I agreed.

“I don’t know what they have, don’t have, or are even thinking.” Because him being a police detective didn’t mean he got access to everything. Lukas ran his career by the book. Likely why he had no complaints issued against him, and had one of the best solve rates in the city for the homicides he investigated. People talked to him, could relate, and feel comfortable around him since he didn’t come across as a total douche. Most of the time, at least.

He had ‘overprotective big brother’ down to a science. The past month of Alex missing brought Lukas down hard, demanding answers I didn’t have and blaming me for things I couldn’t possibly control. Unreasonable, but understandable. I worked hard not to be angry with him. The car ride across the country to retrieve Alex from a hospital in Georgia had been brutal, Lukas brooding the entire time. He gave off waves of anger, irritation, and terror. If I never had to be trapped in a car with him again, it would be too soon.

He ran his hands through his short hair. “I don’t know what to do.”

“About?”

He turned to glare at me. “This thing that took Alex.”

I sighed. “What is there to do?”

“I’m supposed to just accept this as fact? Something took him, took control of his body and used it to do what?”

I did not have answers to that. Wasn’t sure anyone really did, not even Alex. And honestly, it’s what everyone expected of me. When I’d returned, everyone had thought I’d pick up life again where I’d left off, like it hadn’t changed me. And I tried, but couldn’t help always looking over my shoulder, or thinking about what might happen if it came for me again.

“You haven’t been taken again,” he whispered.

“Not because of anything I’ve done or haven’t done.”

“You haven’t gone back into the woods.”

Not the same one, no, but it wasn’t like I hid from trees or never left my house.

“Maybe if he doesn’t go on the cemetery tour with you?”

“He vanished from my garden,” I pointed out.

“Fuck,” Lukas swore and jumped from the seat to resume his pacing. He paused and looked at me, his gaze intense. “I have some money put away. I could help you find a new place. Help you move.”

Instead of replying, I raised a brow, waiting for him to come up with his own answers. Running changed nothing. Moving led to more of the same; I had tried it a dozen times. Even on the rare occasion I went home to visit my parents or another relative, the odd night noises followed.

I liked my place. Felt safe inside. Especially when Alex stayed over. Funny how short of a time I’ve actually known him and yet I felt so comfortable being with him. Maybe because I already knew and trusted Lukas? Perhaps it didn’t relate to Lukas at all. Alex had his own personal charisma that he kept locked away until someone knew him a little. A lot like his snark, which reared its head when you least expected it. He made me laugh, smile, and relax. I loved that about him. Huh. Love…

A month gone, after having only known him a few days and I still thought about him relentlessly.

“Stupid idea, I know. None of this makes any sense.”

It didn’t, but sometimes that was the way of things.

We coexisted in silence for a few minutes. Him pacing, me sitting and wishing I had something to do with my hands while a million things raced through my head.

“I hate when you’re quiet like this…”

“Sorry,” I said immediately. Everyone hated it. Well, Alex hadn’t commented on it, but maybe he hadn’t experienced it yet. “I’m thinking.”

Lukas let out a long sigh. “Anything you want to share?”

“I wish I’d brought something to work on,” I confessed. My brain needed the focus.

“You’re not worried about Alex?”

“What would worrying change?” Of course, I was worried. But dwelling on it got us nowhere.

“Have you told him you’re leaving yet?” Lukas asked, making it sound like I was abandoning everything and returning to Japan or something. Currently, my parents were in Ireland taking care of my mother’s family, but they would return home soon. I had no intention of going anywhere.

“It’s a week in Houston. Five hours by car. I’m not even that far away.”

“He’ll have to stay with me. I can see if I can take more time off.”

Alex would not like that. He didn’t want his brother to spend all his time worrying about him. And Lukas was one of the moodiest bastards I’d ever met. Funny, since he came across very polished to people who didn’t know him. Maybe it was me who brought out his inner bastard. Well, me and Alex.

“He could come with me,” I said, bracing for the argument, but letting out the one thing I’d been thinking of since I’d walked into his hospital room. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight again.

The argument never came. Lukas sat down in the chair beside me, collapsing like air released out of a balloon.

“I planned this over a year ago,” I reminded him.

“And Sky is looking after your place.”

Ah, so that was part of it, too. Lukas would be alone. “You can stay with her at my place. Jet likes you. You enjoy gardening. Maybe put in a new planter or two. It will give you a reason to leave work on time.”

Lukas didn’t look at me, instead staring intently at his lap. After a few minutes of silence, he said, “Sky told me this morning you’d take Alex with you.”

She had probably read some cards. Her knack for determining immediately pending events was uncanny, though a little unnerving, her long-term skills still lacked a lot of clarity. “Yeah?”

“She got very grim…”

Not all sunshine and rainbows. That, too, was normal for Skylar’s readings. I pulled out my phone and sent her a text. Convention with Alex?

S: Yes…

But?

S: I don’t know.

Skylar often answered exactly that way when the cards gave her negative readings she couldn’t quite articulate.

Is he safe? I wrote back.

S: Yes. Discovers new hobby.

I thought about that for a moment, then wrote: Good or bad?

S: Good.

Of course, there were a thousand meanings for good in this context. Good, he found a new hobby. Good, he had something to excite him. Or it could mean he found someone or something better than me. The thought had crossed my mind a hundred times since he’d returned. Would he be different? Would I? Time did strange things to people. Either way, I didn’t press her for more answers. Later, while I packed for the week away, I would grill her for details.

“He’ll be fine,” I told Lukas.

Lukas’ lips tightened into a thin grimace. Fine was a word he hated.

“Sky says he discovers a new hobby. He could use the focus,” I said. Lukas often talked about how Alex needed focus. Before meeting him, I had thought Alex might have ADHD, but his ability to focus was fine. He had simply been in the military too long, and had yet to find things to occupy him instead.

“I’ve put away every dime he’s given me of his military money. It’s in an account for him. Earning interest. I’ll give you the card. If there is something he needs…”

The far door opened, and the detective led a tired-looking Alex out. His long hair was an afro of frizz I’d need to massage with some special conditioner to untangle. Like his brother, he ran his hands through his hair a lot when stressed. While Alex’s hair was blond, it looked more like a bleached blond, though I knew it wasn’t. And it was one of the few things that showed he had a Black father. His dark molten chocolate eyes were ringed in shadows, practically screaming his need for sleep and hydration. The overgrowth of his beard, though trimmed back, could use some major shaping. And while his skin still appeared tan, I knew it was more his natural color than sun exposure. Once I got him home, I’d put him in the bath, slather him with lotion again, and clean up the rest of that beard overgrowth.

Home. Hm. Was my home his already? Or was it just him?

Both Lukas and I got to our feet. I opened my arms for Alex when he approached us unfettered. The detective held out a hand for Lukas. Alex fell into my embrace, hugging me tightly and resting his weight on me.

“Can we go?” I asked. “Alex should eat.” He was far too thin.

“Dying for a banana,” Alex grumbled in my arms. “Or peanut butter cookies.”

Lukas accepted the detective’s hand, shaking it. “What’s going on? What do you know?”

“Nothing for now,” the detective said. Apparently, he wasn’t telling us anything. He looked at Alex. “Call if you remember anything.”

Alex nodded a bit grimly.

“He’s free to go?” Lukas clarified. We’d discussed the possibility of needing a lawyer, even instructing Alex to request one the second he felt the direction of his questioning was heading towards trouble. Either it hadn’t come to that or there was a lot not being said.

“Yes,” the detective agreed. “We’ll be in touch if more questions arise.”

I took that at face value and tugged Alex toward the door, ready to go home and be away from all the noise and the feeling of eyes on us. Alex stepped away, but took my hand, squeezing it before following me to the parking lot. Wasting an entire day at the police station had not been on my radar of fun things to do. At least we’d be taking him home with us rather than scrambling to find some kind of criminal attorney to get bail set for him.

Lukas lasted only until we got into his car, and had left the station, slowly navigating around traffic. “What did they ask? What do they know?” He demanded.

Alex and I sat in the backseat. He blinked, turning from staring out the window to look at his brother, who sat behind the wheel. “Stuff I didn’t know. There were a couple of FBI guys. They showed me pictures of a few places they thought I’d been. The airport is the only one that actually looks like me. Asked me about people I’ve never met before.”

“What about?” Lukas persisted.

“If I knew them or had seen anything.” Alex shrugged. “I got the impression they thought I knew something about these guys and could point them in the right direction.”

“Like drug dealers or something?” Lukas wanted to know.

“Right, ‘cause me and drugs of any kind mix?” Alex asked. He turned my way and ran his fingers along my face. “How are you doing? You look tired.”

“A little. Head is loud. The coffee sucked.”

“Nothing is as good as that stuff you have,” Alex said. “I’m an official coffee snob now.”

The rest of the short drive, Lukas fumed, though said nothing, and Alex took turns looking out the window and smiling at me. At least he was in good spirits.

The ghost cat perched on the back of the futon in our living room and stared at me with her tail flicking slightly in agitation. I tried not to glare at her. I had wanted to put the futon down and watch a movie while curled up with Micah. But my hesitation, because there was a ghost cat on the back of it, meant Micah was up and moving, digging for crafts. Our lazy Sunday afternoon suddenly turning to planning.

It was my fault she was in our house. I’d brought her home thinking we’d be a calmer place for her to exist. All ghosts weren’t demons, or bad, though Micah assured me they could shift from yurai to yokai due to negative energy. Would moving her make her agitated? Moving Jet sometimes pissed him off, and he was a living cat. Did being a ghost make her more or less catlike?

“You’re okay with us going to the convention in Shreveport?” Micah asked for the fifth time. “Even if I don’t sexy cosplay.”

“Yep,” I agreed.

“What if I wanted you to sexy cosplay?”

I swallowed, thoughts skipping a beat as they often did when broached with the idea of Micah finding me sexy. “Okay?” I thought about it for a minute. “Is the hotel haunted?” The last thing I wanted was something taking me over while I was stuck in sexy gear, and me landing in the psych ward for an indecent exposure instead of enjoying a weekend off.

“I haven’t heard any stories about the hotel,” Micah offered. “But I think every hotel has people who have died. I’ll make sure we’re not in a haunted room.”

I sighed and reached for Jet, the living cat who stalked our apartment. He was indoors only, and rubbed my leg in approval of my unwillingness to sit down beside Precious, the ghost cat. Jet, however, did not like to be picked up and smooched as I would have liked. He would sit with me, or sleep on the pillow beside my head, but he did not like to be babied. I reached down to pet him, using the action to focus on calming my growing anxiety and study Precious’s movements. Was she agitated?

“What did you have in mind?” I finally asked Micah. “For this cosplay?”

“I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he said, showing me the design sketched out.

I straightened up to take the picture and examine it. It wasn’t really the lack of dress, as the sketch had everything covered that was important to keep covered. I worried that even after several months of eating well and working out; I wasn’t back in fighting form. Not that I fought anymore. Being a retired ex-Army ranger meant I worked in retail now. And battles outside the occasional Karen or Kevin argument were rare. The whole ex-military thing about some glamourous new job in law enforcement or security was an annoying romance trope that didn’t meet reality.

“I’m not sure even I can pull this off,” I said. I would definitely workout more before the convention.

He stepped in close, leaning up for a kiss, which instantly set me on fire. I sighed into his lips, willing to promise him just about anything at that moment. “Can I make it? And if you hate it, we can use the Witcher stuff we’ve done in the past?”

“No fair,” I said. “Tempting me with your hot body.”

He smiled against my lips, one hand firm in my hair, body pressed to mine, making me feel like I could fly. “You can have my body anytime.”

And I couldn’t help but sigh because he was my everything. “Okay,” I agreed. “Will you be coordinating with my costume?”

“Of course.”

“But I’m only mostly naked.”

“Everything’s covered, I promise,” he said. “I saw someone do it on a forum, and want to try it with faux leather instead of cosplay foam.”

“Was that English?” Faux leather? Cosplay foam? “Huh?”

“Vinyl,” Micah said. “A more flexible costume than foam.”

“Foam like bubbles?” All I could think of was the spray foam we used to clean the bathroom.

“It’s a type of fabric, hard to explain. I’ll show you. Cosplay has come a long way since your youth of making everything out of cardboard. I have some, but I want to use something more movable. Means lots of little design pieces to make it look like metal.” He shrugged. “I’m thinking about some epoxy elements instead of the whole thing being cut and painted to look like it.”

“Your creative mind never ceases to amaze me.” I spread out my arms. “Design away.”

He gave me a wicked smile. “I need you naked.”

My brain short-circuited. “Um…”

“For measurements,” he added.

“Okay, sure?” I glanced back at the ghost cat, not really wanting a supernatural audience.

“And fun.”

“Can we take measurements in the bathroom?”

Micah’s gaze strayed to the back of the futon. I know he didn’t always see her, but he did sometimes. Did he see her now?

“Yes,” he agreed, grabbing his measuring tape. “There’s lube in there, anyway.” Then it took over a week for him to get all the measurements he needed because we kept devolving into play. But me naked seemed to be enough to tempt Micah to do naughty things, and I was more than happy to indulge him.

Ghost hunting was not my chosen profession.

Standing outside a dilapidated house in the middle of the bayou was not my idea of Friday evening fun. A distance from the city in gator filled swamps on a chilly and overcast night made me wonder about my brother’s sanity. His idea, even though Micah, my boyfriend, and I stood with him and a half-dozen professional ghost hunters.

“Are we being paid for this?” I asked Micah quietly. He shook his head. “Dammit.”

Sometimes Micah and I did ghost hunts with a group of tourists, who paid us to lead them into the scary darkness. We even had some basic equipment, like thermal cameras and EVP devices. Not that we ever caught much. More often we’d see something—well, I’d see something and Micah would feel something—and we’d catch nothing on video. Sometimes something would show up that we couldn’t explain. Photo evidence that had everyone debating for months. Well, not Micah and me. We sort of knew the truth behind the rare glimpses of the supernatural in our lives. We could both do with a little less of the unexplained, which was something we were working on.

Tonight, they loaded me for bear, or a ghost-vampire-yeti, but not with equipment for detection, rather talismans of protection. Every charm or trinket my brother Lukas thought would save me from the dark unknown he couldn’t see. Micah stood next to me, wary, tired, but determined to stay at my side.

We were both bundled up against the early January cold. Phones in hand. I had the thermal and a digital recorder. Micah had a camera and was instructed to keep eyes on me at all times. I glanced his way. He was frowning.

“Cold?” I asked him, feeling like the wind was blowing right through my jacket even while the trees didn’t appear to move much. This deep in the bayou, having driven far outside the city and taken a boat to get to this middle of nowhere falling down house, I felt very alone.

Micah nodded, glanced at my brother who was standing in a circle of paranormal investigators, and said, “Ants on my skin. Made worse by goosebumps.” He often felt things long before I saw them. Though his awareness of the supernatural, or paranormal, or whatever the fuck it was, had increased of late. I suspected that was my fault, but tried to remain positive.

“Want some of my charms?”

He gave me a teasing smile. “I always want your charms.”

Which of course made me hot. “Stop being sexy while we’re stuck in the swamp.” He wasn’t doing anything at all to be sexy. Bundled up in a thick coat and even a pair of mittens he’d dug up somewhere, with a beanie pulled down over his shoulder-length chocolate brown hair, I couldn’t see much more than a pale gleam of the camera light on his face. The high cheekbones, delicate lips, and pale blue eyes were all hidden in the shadows. I could spend hours counting the freckles across his cheeks and nose, loving them. He hated them.

Thankfully, we’d spent enough time together in the dark that I seemed to find comfort in the overlap of our souls. Or spiritual energy, which is what Sky called it. She said she could see the way it draped over us when we were together. A version of kindred spirits, perhaps. Not that it mattered. Having Micah close, hearing his voice, and knowing he was mine, turned my slow libido into hyper-drive, and brought me peace, all at once. He didn’t look at me and think I was insane or broken.

Micah leaned in close, having to stand up on his tiptoes to kiss me. I lingered with the warmth of his lips on mine. Hard to believe we’d been together a few months. Life had become fairly normal. The New Orleans ghost tours we did had died down for the winter, leaving us with holiday shoppers and planning for the upcoming Mardi Gras and music festivals. We’d been expanding the online version of Micah’s shop, Simply Crafty. Building a strong e-commerce version and regular video tutorials, which meant a lot of shipping, product photos, and constant movement in the shop. Life had become… quiet, almost mundane, but steady.

Not that I was protesting.

Meanwhile, Lukas struggled.

“It will be okay,” Micah said.

I sucked in a deep breath. “Don’t let me vanish, okay?”

“Same?”

“Agreed,” I said. My eyes were on him, his on me.

“Alex,” Lukas called. I pried my gaze from Micah’s shadowed face to find my brother in the sprawl of overgrowth and ghost hunters. He’d morphed from police homicide detective to paranormal detective. I was not a fan. But he didn’t see the same sort of stuff I did, and it seemed to be a goal to either prove me right, or crazy. I wasn’t sure.

“Stay close to Micah. Keep to the back of the group. The house is enormous, but I want to keep us together. One team out here monitoring cameras. The rest inside in small groups. No one goes in alone.”

Alex looked at the team. They had set up a sort of tent-like thing filled with equipment that looked a lot like the setups we used for craft tutorials. All of them were fairly new to the ghost hunting thing, or so I’d been told. Lukas had been running this group a little over two months. Building up an online reputation with a handful of spooky videos. I don’t know if he was hoping to catch more with Micah and me around, or if he really wanted the charms-of-a-thousand-legends to work and keep everything away from me. So far, other than the cold and an eerie sense of being watched, which was a normal part of my life, everything felt ordinary.

“Sure. Do I have to wear the garlic all night? Or will there be a warning of oncoming vampires?” If there was a legend to prevent the supernatural that I could wear, Lukas had found it. I was going to need a shower before getting into bed tonight. Even a normal garlic fan wouldn’t enjoy the extended stink. “Was crushing the cloves necessary before I put it on?”

“Keep it on,” Lukas said. “All of it.”

“How will we know what works and what doesn’t?” If any of it worked at all.

“Keep it all on.”

I sighed. Micah stifled a small laugh, keeping close to my side.

“You’re the one who has to smell me.”

He shrugged, obviously not bothered. “Stop tugging on your hair or it will come out of the braids,” he said. The snug beanie I wore wouldn’t help, and it itched.

“Means you’ll get to play with it later,” I reminded him. His smile was warm even in the pale dredges of light projected by our phone cameras.

The group headed toward the main doors of the house. It was a bit of a monstrous thing in size alone. Weathered and stripped on the outside, and painted with fading graffiti. At one time, three floors maybe? Likely, severe weather had dropped the roof down on the third floor. Perhaps that had been an attic rather than an actual living space.

The swamp had reclaimed a lot of the area; the grass soggy close to the house. I hoped there was no sort of cellar or basement, as it would probably be filled with alligators. Or was it crocodiles? I couldn’t remember which was more common in the bayou. Desert combat had not prepared me for swamp monsters. I kept my eyes peeled for the glowing eyes of something looking for a snack.

Micah and I moved in behind the small crew going in. Cameras and lights projecting into the open doorway, making it stretch like a gaping mouth. Micah looked around us, keeping plastered to my side. Did he hear anything? To me, the entire area was oddly silent. No birds or bugs, only the faint rustle of leaves. Though that could be because of the cold, or even our presence disturbing the normal rhythm of the place. I didn’t think humans ventured out here much. Not that they had a reason to. Inside, the house was a broken mess of smeared artwork, falling walls, and rotting wood.

“Careful where you step,” Lukas said, leading the group around a giant hole in the floor. If there was a floor below, it was flooded, as all I caught when we passed was the gleam of water reflecting our flashlights.

I kept the thermal imager up, creeping it around the room. The handful of lights, as low as they were, messed with my night vision, so I tried to focus on the screen. The crew emulated heat, but the space itself was barely above freezing. It was going to be hard to recognize anything as something other than our heat moving around. Micah focused his camera on my thermal screen, arm wrapped around my elbow, locked in close.

“You two stay down here,” Lukas said, motioning to Micah and me. “We’re going to do a base scan of the rooms, set up some cameras, and be back.”

I glanced up, not liking the look of the ceiling and rotting timbers above us. What if someone fell through? We were in the middle of nowhere. Medical attention would be long in coming. I opened my mouth to protest, but Micah squeezed my arm, gaze focused on his camera and my thermal screen.

I blinked at it and up. Something moved across the screen, only slightly above the normal room temperature. An animal maybe? I tried to see across to that open doorway, but it was too dark. The movement had been pretty faint on the screen. Maybe a trick of shadow?

“We should time stamp that,” Micah said.

“What?” Lukas demanded. Every word we whispered echoing loudly in the silence of the abandoned space.

“Something moved that way,” I said, pointing toward a distant doorway. “Barely a change in heat level from the environment. But showed up on the thermal. A shadow of one of our heat levels, maybe?” Science in the paranormal space is something I’d begun researching a while ago. It was part of all the equipment Lukas had brought. His attempt to see as I did, without whatever curse I had. But I still wasn’t sure it wasn’t all in my head. Even if Micah did sometimes see the same things. We were both a little strange. Maybe that’s why we fit so well together.

Lukas made his way back to us. He had Micah pause his recording and rewind to view. Everyone gathered around us, searching out the small bit of movement.

“There,” Micah pointed it out.

Lukas made him replay it two more times before taking a group to the door and beyond to search for anything. He left us in the wide main room, with a stern warning to two of his team to monitor us.

“I’d rather be quilting,” I grumbled.

Micah laughed. “Me too. We sort of have quite the stack now.”

We had been fanatical about getting things done. Everyone we knew got a quilt for the holiday. And who knew sending something that big overseas would cost a fortune? But we’d gotten letters back from Micah’s family, praising the work and thanking us for the gifts. I hadn’t really expected anything as my family was never big on gifts. My mom had called, and that was all. Micah’s family had sent us enough to cause a bit of havoc in our tiny apartment space. From real fabrics made in Japan, to a stack of books on legends and history from his father, to wildflower honey from a cousin I’d never heard of.

I groaned. “Dreaming of honey now. Over buttermilk biscuits.” Which Micah couldn’t eat because his stomach hated anything dairy.

“There’s a new vegan bakery right off Bourbon. We can try tomorrow. But I have a couple of protein bars packed if you’re hungry.”

Of course he did. He probably had a crochet project and several hooks in that backpack of his, too, as much for himself as me. “Not right now. But thank you.” I watched the area we’d seen the movement. Nothing happened, though the creaking of the house meant the group had gone upstairs. I stared upward warily. “Let’s hope the house doesn’t fall on us.”

The crew returned. I jumped when their heat signatures appeared in the doorway. These things didn’t see through walls, that much I knew, but I should have been prepared for them. I could hear them moving around the house.

“There’s a couple of rooms upstairs. One actually has some furniture,” Lukas said. “We set cameras up. I think we’ll have Micah and Alex start up there.”

“Really?” I groaned. “Why are we here again?”

“Testing. Make sure that stuff works,” Lukas waved at me. “Are you seeing a creepy black-eyed kid?”

I glared at him. “No, just an annoying big brother.”

The crew eyed me. Had they not known about the thing that followed me? Micah had seen it. I knew it wasn’t a me thing. Not exactly. My first encounter had been something much more terrifying. I wasn’t sure if it had changed or presented itself differently, so it could use me whenever it wanted. I wasn’t a fan of the latter option.

 Lukas led us through the doorway, flashlight bright and almost blinding in the darkness. I kept my camera, and the thermal held up. I stuffed the digital recorder in my pocket. There was no movement or sign of anything as we made our way to a back staircase half broken by weathering. I didn’t like climbing to the creaking second floor.

Micah gripped my arm tight, but I saw nothing that caused alarm. Maybe the charms were working? If so, I’d have to get him some too. I still felt ridiculous draped in random supernatural paraphernalia.

Most of the inside walls were gone and parts of the roof had caved in, leaving patches of gray covered night sky above. We didn’t even have the comfort of starlight.

“Do you see anything?” Lukas asked, leading us back toward the front of the house. Every step made the floor creak and moan, and I clung to Micah’s arm, worried more that we’d fall through, than run face-to-face with a ghost.

“No,” I said.

“No,” agreed Micah.

The last room on the left was a wide space with a hole where the window once had been and a rocking chair in the corner. There were pieces of a broken bed, but not enough to call it much more than that. Lukas opened the backpack he was carrying and pulled out a teddy bear.

“Um?”

“It’s a psychic bear,” Lukas said. “Gives them an outlet. It will tell us if it senses vibrations, records an EVP, or high EMF levels. It’s pretty handy.”

“I thought that was what we were for,” I joked.

“Nope. That’s why you’re all warded,” Lukas corrected me. He set the bear on the rocking chair. There was a camera set up in the room to face the chair. “I want anything here to be attracted to the bear, not you. You two stay up here for a bit. Let us know if the bear talks.”

“The entire house is shaking with our movement. I think if it senses vibration, it’s going to talk soon.” It didn’t sound all that scientific to me. Who decided a teddy bear was a good outlet for spiritual voices?

“Find a spot and don’t move. I’m going to have folks do multiple EVP sessions in different spaces.” Lukas headed out of the room, leaving us with the creepy toy.

I sighed. Micah was quiet. “Do you feel anything?” I whispered.

“Ants, lots of ants,” Micah muttered. “Nothing for you?”

“Cold? Uneasy?” I looked around the room, searching out all the shadows with my gaze, finding no movement. “Let’s sit there.” I pointed to a spot mostly clear of debris, and still somewhat in sight of the tripod camera. Close to the wall, it would give us something at our backs and a view of the window, the door, and that spooky bear.

Micah let out a long breath. We both sat down, side by side, him holding tight to my arm. I focused the thermal on the bear. It was slightly warmer than the surrounding room, but I attributed that to Lukas having it in his backpack.

“Should we ask questions?” I wondered. Lukas hadn’t really given us any instructions other than to stay here. On the rare occasion Micah did a ghost hunt, he led and there was always a very set game plan before we began the night. But those hunts were tourists, and keeping them safe was a priority. I wasn’t sure what my brother’s priorities were.

“I don’t know the history of this place, but sure. Questions. No provoking,” Micah said. He had a very firm rule about irritating spirits. Respect was key. I wholeheartedly agreed. Pissing off supernatural things didn’t sound healthy for anyone.

I pulled out the digital recorder and flipped it on. “Micah and Alex, upstairs bedroom with spirit bear?” I noted the time on my phone. Maybe we’d be lucky and it would be an uneventful night. “Is anyone here?” We listened for a minute, but if anyone spoke, we didn’t hear it.

“If someone is here, can you tell us your name?” Micah asked.

We paused between each question as though we expected to hear something. The room and the house remained quiet. If anyone else was upstairs, I couldn’t hear any movement. We asked a few more questions before turning it off and sitting to wait, since nothing seemed to change.

Time passed, and we sat huddled together for so long that I dozed. This late-night stuff messed with my sleep schedule. And since it was almost three in the morning, I figured no one would begrudge me a catnap.

The bear tittered. A bit of a maniacal laugh, like a possessed child. I jolted awake. Was it supposed to do that? Some light on the bear’s belly flickered. I blinked. “Did you see that?” I asked Micah.

“Yeah. Got it on camera. I think it’s supposed to do that? Hands and belly light up? I looked them up a while back when I saw another YouTuber use one. They’re expensive.”

“The giggle?” I was going to hear that in my nightmares. “It’s supposed to do that?”

“I didn’t hear a giggle. You heard something?”

That didn’t bode well. Fuck. I hated the idea that I was hearing some disturbing kid laugh that wasn’t attributed to that terrifying bear. “Creepy as hell.” I kept my gaze on the psycho bear. It did nothing for a while, and I relaxed. The sound of the floor creaking out in the hallway nearly made me jump out of my skin. Was Lukas coming back?

No one came through the door. Maybe they were exploring the other rooms? Odd, as I didn’t hear any voices, only the wood groaning.

“Do you smell perfume?” Micah whispered. He had the digital recorder set in front of us on the floor, on again. The small red light on the top indicating it was rolling.

“All I smell is garlic,” I said. “Making me crave spaghetti and garlic bread.” I couldn’t imagine any scents in this place other than swamp and rot, and was kind of grateful for the garlic. “My phone battery is getting really low.”

“Mine too,” Micah agreed. He looked at the tripod camera set up not far away. “Light is still on. I think that’s still recording.”

Another rush of footsteps sent the hallway creaking, like someone running toward us. I tensed, waiting for one of the other guys to burst through the door. Nothing. Micah’s gaze was intent on the door, too. He gripped my arm tightly.

Nothing happened.

The bear flickered again, an eerie dance of rainbow lights.

“Do the colors mean something?” I whispered.

“I don’t remember,” Micah whispered back, his gaze focused on the bear.

That creepy laugh came again. Not the bear. Wrong direction. Near the door. I swung around, heart racing, thinking I’d catch something in the doorway, but there was nothing. What was it they said about hauntings? Fear gave them strength? The battery in my phone went from thirty percent to five and then off.

“Fuck,” I grumbled.

The bear danced now. Shaking, lights flickering like some horror movie prop. If it was supposed to talk, whatever it was saying was coming out garbled.

“Is it supposed to do that?” I asked Micah. He gripped my hand so tight it hurt, but at least it was grounding. The room was freezing. Our breath a visible mist in the tiny glow of light from the screens. I shivered, feeling iced to the core. Fear or legit cold, I wasn’t certain. “Because if so, this is a prop I don’t recommend for our tourist stuff.”

The bear flew off the chair, landing as a pulsing, glowing thing at our feet. I dropped my phone and the thermal as the words became something recognizable.

Get out! Get out! Get out!

“Fuck,” I cursed. We were backed into a corner, but the urge to run was strong. The need to get out, run away, demanding we escape.

Had it suddenly gotten darker? I tried to find the window and the pale bit of light that had come from it, but it was gone, lost to pitch blackness. Even Micah’s screen had vanished, though I could still feel him holding me tight.

“Micah?” I whispered. But then there was nothing.

“Wanna go on a date with me?” I asked.

Micah froze in the bathroom’s doorway, pants unbuttoned to reveal bikini undies in bright turquoise with chibi anime characters on them. He glanced down and then back up at me.

“Not that seeing you undressed isn’t the highlight of my day,” I teased. We started the day that way, snuggled together in the loft, me waking him slowly with kisses. Micah was not a morning person, but he never said no to kisses or my mouth on his cock.

“We just went to a wake.”

The wake was an interruption in our Sunday off. We’d had a lot of those lately, but Sally had been a student in our crafting classes. Usually we’d get home, strip as he was doing, and snuggle up on the futon or spend some time crafting, but we both took a few hours to say our goodbyes.

“Yes, I was there,” I said with a smile. “But a wake isn’t really a date.”

“Was Sally there?” Micah asked.

“Do I get more strip teasing for answering questions? Technically, it was Sally’s wake, so yes, she was there.”

“Alex,” Micah growled, which was so sexy.

My small and pretty boyfriend with his half-Japanese, half-Irish features always brought me to my knees with desire. I could have spent forever examining the freckles across his nose, or the nuances of his expressions as his brain ran away with thoughts he never voiced. The sneak peek of the cute undies, which he made, and my memory of how they would hug his ass and outline his beautiful cock, made me hard. Him scowling and looking ready to demand answers made my heart race. If I hadn’t had a special request from Sally, I’d have dropped to my knees and let him tell me how the day was going to go.

“Was her ghost there?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He re-buttoned his pants, tight black slacks that hugged his sweet little butt nearly as perfectly as my hands could, but I instantly missed the glimpse of the undies. He’d been making quite a few new pairs lately from exclusive fabrics he found online. It was often like a treasure hunt discovering what he hid beneath his very practical outerwear.

“You felt nothing?” I asked. Micah got sensations when supernatural things were nearby. Sometimes he saw stuff, not like I did, but I’d been working on improving my skills. He mostly ignored his, using it to guide us away from potential trouble.

“Funeral homes always feel awful.”

“Like ants on your skin awful?”

“Like everyone is watching me,” Micah corrected. He adjusted his shirt to shove it back into the waistband. “Our date has something to do with Sally?”

“Estate sale,” I said.

“On the same day as her wake?” He wandered into the bathroom, cursing in four languages as he went. I didn’t disagree with his assessment. She had passed a week ago, the entire process a little strange to both of us. I was used to big parties for funerals, almost like weddings, and for Micah, funerals had lots of variance. His travels across the world had given him tons of experience, but the rushed event we’d encountered today had been odd.

“It’s probably money related,” I said.

“Isn’t everything?” he sighed. “Why does Sally want us at her estate sale?”

“Supposed to give something to a grandchild?” I had a name and an item, but not enough clarification from Sally to know more. Ghosts were rarely straightforward with what they needed.

Micah exited the bathroom, his hair and clothes back in place, but no less grumpy. Hopefully, this request would be an easy one to fulfill. I’d learned with a lot of practice that if I could gift people whatever their request was, within my power, they seemed to move on faster. Some spirits had been around a long time and either couldn’t convey what they needed, or had lost all sense of self, unable to really communicate at all. Those I’d learned to avoid as they often pulsed with dark energy and had a habit of trying to take all of mine.

He grumbled something about cake and slow Sundays, sounding adorably put out, but he would go anyway simply because I asked him to.

“We can stop at the bakery and get cake on the way back,” I promised. There was a vegan place that opened up a few streets over from our shop with amazing desserts. Micah’s stomach hated anything with dairy in it, including butter, but they had a flourless chocolate cake made with a coconut cream that was divine.

I stepped in close to him, cupping his face to catch his lips in a kiss until he was smiling at me. “That’s better.”

He sighed. “I wanted to snuggle with you and the boys today.”

“We still can. After we get back.” Link and Jet, our orange and black cats sat nestled together on the futon, fast asleep in a ray of sunshine from the open front blinds. “Just gotta settle old Sally first.” I put my hand over my heart, remembering how she would pat my hand as I passed and told me I was a good boy, and to take care of Micah.

“Let’s go. And I won’t forget you promised me cake,” Micah grabbed my hand, and I pulled out my phone to order a ride share.

“Why are we going to the creepiest house I’ve ever seen?” Alex asked.

Rows of giant oak trees and high fences hid the house, one of those historic Garden District homes everyone wanted to tour. I had never been inside, but knew a lot of history about it, some of it sketchy. Dion had referred us, which had to mean something positive.

“Dion says she takes care of ghost animals.”

“Cause that’s not creepy?”

“Uh, we have a ghost cat,” I reminded him, “who sometimes gives you nightmares.”

“She’s sensitive to negative energy,” Alex defended our ghost cat. She wasn’t really ours. Alex had invited her to stay with us instead of remaining at an active B&B in Texas, which had really seemed to mess with her peaceful afterlife.

“That’s why we are visiting first,” I said. “We can see how she treats the animals.”

“Or if she’s off her rocker?” Alex offered.

“You’re the one who sees dead people.”

“What if it’s a house full of yokai?”

“Then we leave.”

“That simple?” Alex asked. He’d been working hard on his control and had created a dozen grounding charms that helped keep spirits out, and Alex where he belonged, with me. We’d had a few months without incident, and were getting used to the ghost cat, until Lukas showed up to have a breakdown. I still wasn’t clear on all the details, but he’d flipped out at Alex.

“Why was your brother on boss mode?”

Alex flinched. “I didn’t send Mom a Mother’s Day present.”

“Okay. I assume that happened a lot when you were overseas, too. You can send her something even if it’s a little late,” I offered, thinking it was a simple solution to make everyone happy.

“No,” Alex said.

I looked at him. “You sent my mom a gift.” He’d quilted a delicate pattern of fleur de lis on a piece of faux leather, and I’d made it into a handbag. It looked designer when we’d finished and my mom loved it.

“Your mom doesn’t treat me like I’m an inconvenience,” Alex said. He headed up the walk toward the gate entrance. “My therapist says I’m allowed to set boundaries.”

And that was true, but I also knew him well enough to understand that he felt guilty, and his brother had made it worse. Was he setting a boundary with his mother, or himself? I raced to catch up with him and slid my hand into his. His tension eased immediately. “I just want Precious to be safe.”

Concern for the cat, or his mother?

“We weren’t allowed pets as kids. Mom worked too much and didn’t think we were responsible enough. I found a batch of kittens once. She said she took them to the Humane Society,” Alex said.

“She didn’t?”

“I don’t know. I called to ask about them, but they didn’t know what I was talking about. Maybe she took them to a location far from us? She always worked pretty far away.”

Alex had an enormous heart, and of course he worried about those kittens from decades ago. States away and ages later, it wasn’t likely we’d find them at the ghost cat lady’s house. “Jet loves you.”

“He’s an amazing cat, but I think he likes Lukas more than me.”

I was pretty sure Jet adored Lukas because cats had an uncanny way of gravitating to the individuals who acted the most annoyed with them. Timothy had gifted him to me and found the cat stupidly annoying because Jet would sit inches away and stare at him for hours on end. With Lukas, Jet’s contact was more hands on, but he curled up in Alex’s lap without hesitation and always marked him with his scent when he came in. “Jet loves you and you spoil him rotten.”

Alex sighed. “He loves the new toys. I can’t help that there are so many amazing toys for cats in every shop in the Quarter.” Every time he wandered through the Quarter, he came home with something new for Jet. Often handmade catnip mice, or jingle toys, but Jet had an entire drawer dedicated to his amusement at home. “Maybe Precious needs toys?”

“How do we find a cat toy for a ghost cat?”

“I don’t know, maybe the cat lady will know?”

“I’ve heard she has more than cats, but one battle at a time, right? Let’s see this menagerie.” We found the gate and entered the code they had given us to unlock it, sliding inside and closing it behind us. “I hope there aren’t ghost attack dogs or anything,” I said in a half joke, hoping to lighten the mood.

He scanned the yard with a slow gaze. Since it was the middle of a weekday everything was still, at least to my eyes. “Nothing,” he said. “Not even ghost dog poop.”

“Well, that’s good to know. I’d hate to step in ecto-poo.”

A smile tugged at Alex’s lips, and I squeezed his hand as we made our way up to the door. He rang the bell and we waited. He swayed a little, self-comfort that I was learning a lot about lately called stimming. We hadn’t talked about his new diagnosis yet. He’d come home from the therapist, sank down into my arms and cried. He was on a waitlist for an actual evaluation, but his therapist suspected and gave him a dozen books to read. And each one he had tabbed with a bunch of little colored stickies, passages highlighted, page after page of self-awareness rising.

We heard movement from inside. “Ready for the paranormal Dr. Doolittle?” I asked.

“Probably better than seeing random dead people,” he said.

The door opened and while I had expected it to be an older woman, the woman at the door couldn’t have been much older than Alex, early thirties? She wore a sweater and one of those floaty long skirts like Sky often did, and her curvy figure would have made Sky jealous. Her hair was long and pale brown but pulled back in a thick ponytail. She seemed ordinary enough, but so did Alex and I most days.

“Ms. Houghton?” I asked. “I’m Micah Richards, and this is my boyfriend, Alex Caine.”

She studied us, but nodded, stepping back to let us inside. We followed her into the entry. The house was vast and every bit as grand on the inside as it was on the outside. “Dion said you have a spirit in need of a home,” she said. She shut the door behind us.

“We are trying to find a less volatile place for her,” I said. Then realized it sounded like we were in some sort of abusive relationship. “I mean, she’s very reactive. If anyone is upset, she changes. And sometimes gives Alex nightmares.”

“How long has she been gone?” she asked.

“Twenty years? I don’t remember. She was a friend’s cat. I never met her in real life,” I said.

“We accidentally invited her to come live with us after finding her at a hotel,” Alex added. “The hotel’s energy did really strange things to her.”

“The older ones cling to the negative for energy,” Ms. Houghton said.

“Does that mean she’ll fade without us?” Alex asked, sounding really worried. “I didn’t invite her to come home with us, only to make her vanish completely. She’s a sweet thing.”

When she wasn’t cursing him with nightmares.

“They all fade eventually,” she said. She sighed and motioned for us to follow. “Let me show you to the cat room. And you can call me Maggie.”

“Thanks, Maggie,” I said as I followed, Alex close behind.

“How well can you see them?” she asked as she led us through a hall and into a ballroom sort of space filled with cat towers, wall shelves and large stuffed furniture, like chairs, sofas, and even two bean bags. The room looked like a crazy cat lady’s space, a bit cluttered and very eclectic.

Alex’s mouth dropped open. To me, the room looked empty, but I could feel a tickle of something, like we were being watched. I squeezed his hand. He glanced at me with enormously wide eyes. “There are a lot. Like dozens,” he said in awe.

I looked around and tried to determine if anything was moving on its own, or if there were misplaced shadows, but other than the edge of awareness that someone or something was looking at me, I couldn’t tell.

“There are close to thirty cats, which is why they have the ballroom. They stay longer than a lot of the other animals. Though there’s a horse in the backyard that was my great grandmother’s…” Maggie said. She flinched as if realizing what she just said. “I mean…”

Alex reached out and pet something sitting on the top of the couch nearby. “They seem happy. Do they all get along?”

“Sometimes a stray shows up, and there’s a bit of fur up, but it only lasts a few days.”

“This would be the best cat café ever,” Alex said. “No one could claim they are allergic.” His gaze met mine. “You can’t see them at all? Sense them? You can see Precious.”

Not always. Sometimes she popped out of nowhere, other times Alex could see her and I couldn’t. I didn’t know why that was. Was she showing herself only to him? Or was he simply more in tune to the supernatural, no matter their strength? “It feels like I’m being watched, but I don’t see any cats,” I admitted.

“There’s a lot of trust involved,” Maggie said. “Those who aren’t as sensitive sometimes feel like something touches them, or even a ghost sensation of one making biscuits if they stay long enough. Some find the energy of the room too much, like they know the cats are there, and because they can’t see them, it makes them agitated. The cats are avoidant, mostly. The dogs not as much.”

“How many dogs do you have?” Alex asked, as though the woman were a kennel rather than a ghost pet rescue. He crouched down and nuzzled something like he often did to Jet. “This little guy is super lovey.”

“Orange males are pretty needy,” Maggie said. “I have seven dogs right now. They never stay as long as cats.”

“What about the whole ‘rainbow bridge’ thing? Is that all a lie to make us feel better when they pass?” Alex asked. I knew he was worried about Jet. We’d had a scare with him last month when he’d gotten into string. Four days of waiting with him at the vet to see if he’d pass it or need surgery had racked up medical bills, and Alex’s anxiety. I tried to keep calm over the event, as the vet assured us Jet was young and healthy, and with care he had a good chance of survival, but I’d also spent those four days cat proofing anything with thread and blaming myself. Only when Jet was home safe, having passed the string, and ravenously hungry from being on a liquid diet, did I break down and cry into his dark rosettes.

“I’ve seen many vanish right away. Why do some stay? They can’t really tell me,” Maggie said. “I find the strays often fade faster than pets. All perceptions of death are from the living. Rainbow bridge, probably not, but it’s not like they can tell me.”

“Can we visit her?” Alex asked. “If we bring her here? I’m not even sure how we’ll get her here, but I don’t want her to think we abandoned her.”

“You’re welcome to visit anytime. They don’t get a lot of attention from others.” She clapped her hands and turned. “I have an instruction guide I typed up. It works to help get most to move over. Let me grab a copy and you can read it over before deciding.” She left, and I stared at the giant space, thinking I could easily fit four of my lofts into half this space. Ghost cats lived in luxury.

“She’s very organized,” Alex said. He took a seat on the sofa.

“Can I sit, or is there a cat?” I asked him.

He patted the cushion beside him. “All clear.”

I carefully made my way around and sat down, fearing something would jump out or magically appear. My comfort level with seeing the supernatural wasn’t as honed as I would like. How would I handle seeing screaming faces and distorted spirits that used to be human, like Alex did? I’d probably need medication to turn it off, or have a heart attack. I relaxed into Alex’s side, trusting him to tell me if I should worry about some ghost cat strangeness, and let my gaze focus out the window. A dozen bird feeders and squirrel boxes decorated the trees and area outside the giant windows. More for the cats to watch, probably. It seemed like a nice place.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I finally asked, after Alex went silent. I left the it open for interpretation. He could choose to talk about the cats, his mother, or even his therapist’s diagnosis, whatever he needed.

“I love you,” Alex said.

It always felt amazing when he spoke those words out loud, even if sometimes he wore them like armor as he was about to go do something stupid. “I love you, too. We aren’t bringing more ghost cats home.”

He chuckled. “It’s like wonderland here. I hope Precious likes it.”

At least he was feeling better about moving her. I knew his guilt was eating at him for a dozen things and taking care of Precious was only part of it. “What else?” I asked as I closed my eyes. The feeling of being watched didn’t go away but shifted to something that felt less wary and more like curiosity. Something touched my thigh, and at first, I thought it was Alex, but realized he was on my other side. I breathed deep and kept myself calm, waiting for the sensation to come again, or Alex to say something.

“You really love me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Even when you know I’m not normal?”

“Normal is overrated. You’re normal for you. And I like your normal. It’s not like it’s a secret. Did you know that statistically speaking, because you and Lukas are twins, he’s probably autistic too?” I asked, voicing the thing that made his palms sweaty and heart race.

“He’s probably in the twenty-four percent that’s not,” Alex said. Of course, he’d have looked it up, much as I had. “Maybe that’s why my parents like him more?”

“Didn’t that book you were reading say something about gifted kids and how they seemed less work and were more often ignored, which leads to trauma?” I’d been reading too, finding similarities I’d brought up with my therapist.

“I guess. I would have thought they’d have caught it when we were kids,” Alex said.

Something curled itself on my lap. I didn’t look at it, or move more than to breathe, afraid to scare it away. “You said your mom never took you to the doctor. Which is odd, since she’s a nurse.”

He shrugged, and I knew he was working through those feelings with his therapist. “I guess I could send her a gift card or something. She always complains about the lack of thought with that sort of thing. I don’t want to make her a bag. She wouldn’t appreciate it unless it had a brand name on it.”

“You don’t have to give her anything. When was the last time she sent you a gift?” I asked.

“But gifts don’t have to be given to receive,” Alex said.

“No. You also don’t owe her anything.”

He flinched. I knew he’d heard those words before, as we sometimes attended each other’s therapy sessions. He had the mentality that she’d given him life, inconvenienced herself to care for him for eighteen years, and now he owed her everything, even when she treated him like crap. PTSD could be a real bitch, especially the stuff generated by childhood trauma.

I looked down and found a calico cat curled up in my lap. An orange boy with a lion-like mane was wrapped around Alex’s shoulders. Another tuxedo cat sat like a loaf of bread beside him, nose pressed to his thigh like it breathed him in. “You are the ghost cat whisperer,” I said.

He smiled. “You can see them?”

“Only the few close to us. The rest of the room still looks bare.”

Maggie returned and handed us a printed packet. Her gaze trailed over us where we sat, pausing on each of the cats I saw draping over us, and behind us, to where more of them probably sat. I hoped if Jet passed and stayed, he’d have a peaceful place like this.

“I try to keep it to just the facts,” Maggie offered. “No philosophy about why they are here or for how long. Only how to help them move locations. I don’t know about people ghosts, but I’ve heard it’s easier to move animals than people. People get tied to locations. Animals’ instinct is for safety first.”

“That makes sense,” Alex said, as he accepted the packet and flipped through it. “People are complicated, the living or the dead.”

“Truth,” Maggie said.

Alex wiggled to get the cats to move. Two of them vanished, and the one on my lap did too. He got up, and I followed, letting him decide, as he was more connected to our ghost cat than I was. “We’ll look over all of this and call with questions, if that’s okay?”

“Sure,” Maggie agreed.

“Do you need money or anything for her care?”

She smiled. “It’s not like they need food. Care for the living ones you find and I’ll monitor the ones not ready to move on yet. The universe sends cats when we need an extra bit of moody love.”

I thought about when I’d gotten Jet, and she wasn’t wrong.

“Did the universe send me Precious, then? Should I keep her?” Alex asked.

“That is for you to decide. And her. She’ll move here if she’s ready.”

“You mean sometimes they don’t move even if we try to get them to?” I asked.

“Yes,” Maggie agreed. “It happens, though rare. Some cats are strongly connected to their people. But you said this one moved once already; she’s probably just looking for a quiet place to rest.”

Alex nodded. “Thank you. We’ll call soon.”

“Isn’t he beautiful?” I asked Gran, showing off pictures of Prince. Soon he’d be of adopting age, and I feared my heart would break if he wasn’t mine. We sat at our usual center table for bingo and spaghetti night at her senior living community. As far as I knew, I was the only one who ever came, though she had seven kids, and now a couple dozen grandkids. From what I could see, there were no other non-residents that came regularly. From time to time there would be a family member, but I never saw them more than once. Maybe it was because non-residents had to pay for the cards? I didn’t mind, it wasn’t a terrible cost. The time spent with Gran once a week was worth it.

“He’s a very handsome boy,” Gran said, peering over her readers at the screen of my phone. “How are things with that man of yours?”

I sighed.

She laughed. “That bad? Doesn’t he know what’s good for him?”

“He needs a lot of therapy,” I said, laying out all the boards and getting the markers ready.

“Don’t they all,” Gran said.

I’d never met my grandfather. He’d passed when my mom was young, something my mom often blamed Gran for, though I didn’t know why. “Micah got the sane brother,” I said, not really believing it. Both Alex and Lukas were a duo of unusual psychic abilities, childhood trauma, PTSD, and moodiness. Alex turned his discomforts into sarcasm and snark. Lukas just shut down. Would I have fallen for Alex if I hadn’t met Lukas first? Maybe. I adored Alex. He was the big brother I’d never had, and he was madly in love with my best friend. But it was sad to see them together sometimes and know how badly I wanted that.

“We have to love ourselves first, right?” I said, glancing up toward the massive digital number board. Old people had crappy hearing and eyesight, and this bingo party catered to them. Gran was in her mid-eighties but still got around pretty well, though I feared a stiff wind would blow her over most days. That she had enough money to stay at a condo community with minimal support, and events that gave out designer prizes, had my family fighting over who’d be first on her will. I preferred the memories, since she was the only one of my family who let me be me and never judged me for it.

I’d won bingo twice, Kate Spade handbags both times, which I sold to add to my savings. I preferred Micah’s handmade stuff over the brand names, anyway. Gran had several Coach bags she’d won over the years. Some she passed down to me and never minded when I flipped them for cash.

“Bullshit,” Gran said. “That love yourself first thing is all patriarchy nonsense. Trying to blame women for being unhappy at home. I want you to be happy with who you are and not need a man to find that.”

“Fuck the patriarchy,” a couple of other old ladies muttered next to us, their white hair bobbing in agreement. “Killed my husband to shut that nasty bastard up,” one said.

“Helped my momma bury my uncle after she caught him touching my older brother,” the other said.

I gaped at them. There was no end to the insanity and boldness of old people. “Is any of that true?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the one closest to me said. “Hanna there tells tales of a lake of many secrets.”

“River,” Gran corrected. “Moving water dissolves organic matter faster.”

I blinked at her in shock.

“We didn’t have divorce in my day,” Gran said. “Not like it is now. You got married at seventeen, had as many kids as you could until you died trying or became infertile and he beat you for it.”

“Was grandpa that bad?” I wondered.

“He had his moments. I didn’t mind one bit when he fell out of a hunting stand and broke his neck. Never been so happy to never have to carve up another deer and spend months trying to feed hungry mouths with it while he went out drinking.”

“So you didn’t murder Grandpa?” I asked suspiciously, making a note that I would do a reading later. Would the cards tell me the truth about grandpa? Did I even want to know?

“Never said I didn’t loosen the stand,” Gran joked.

“Grandma!” I said, shocked.

She cackled as a round began, numbers called off, everyone rushing to stamp their cards. Well, rushing as much as a room full of eighty- and ninety-year-olds could. “Find someone who makes you feel real, loved, and happy when you’re with them. If you have to hide yourself from them, it’s not love. Love doesn’t come from a piece of paper, Sky,” Gran said as we flipped through the cards. “But it’s not like the storybooks either. You can’t change a bad man. You can’t save him. He won’t wake up one day and realize you are more important than himself.”

Was Lukas a bad man? I didn’t think so. He took care of his brother and tried to balance a family that really struggled with toxic relationships. He was terrible at communicating, but a bad man? I didn’t think so.

“Do you think Lukas will ever love me? Should I find someone else?” I asked my cards that a thousand times, but never got an answer that wasn’t a mess of mixed signals, much like Lukas himself. In a lot of ways, he was the savior, the prince, the strong man who always ran first into danger, but that also made him stupid and reckless in a lot of ways. I suspected he did what he did because it was expected of him, not because he actually wanted to do any of it. He was a book nerd, but never talked about what he read. The supernatural fascinated and terrified him all at once. And I’d seen the horror in his eyes when he rescued me from a trafficking ring and had to kill a man to do it. His heart never recovered. Was it the only person he’d ever killed? He’d been a police officer, but I knew the stats. Most of them rarely pulled a weapon. Did he regret saving me? I sucked in a deep breath, wishing he’d talk to me.

“Love is more than an emotion. It’s about fitting your lives together. You tell me all the time about Micah and his man…”

“Alex…” I supplied when she hesitated. Gran met Micah a few times, though he didn’t have the patience for bingo. Alex probably would. All these old biddies would love him and embarrass him instantly as they fawned over his muscles and good looks. Alex didn’t think of himself as handsome, but he was romance cover attractive, even if he wasn’t the sort of tall, dark, and handsome with straight short hair and pale skin required by modern media.

Micah was smaller and more pretty than handsome, but plenty male enough to have the ladies on bingo night making inappropriate comments. I understood how the two fit. They gravitated toward each other like planets around the sun, always pulled in the same direction. I thought Lukas and I had that for a while. Mostly he treated me like I was fragile and it was his duty to protect me, which pissed me off and gave me joy all at once. Was it because he saw me as a woman and thought I was weak? Or a child? I sighed. Fucking patriarchy.

“You have your surgery yet?” The one next to me asked.

“Gloria, that is rude,” Gran lectured.

“What? I watch the clock app and there’s a girl documenting every day she gets to live as a girl. She’s having surgery.”

I knew who she was talking about, but she was having facial surgery to soften her more masculine features. I didn’t have that problem. My features were more delicate, and having been privileged to begin my transition in my teens thanks to my grandmother’s intervention, I had access to hormone blockers and now estrogen. Questions about surgery were never about facial things or easy discussions. They did not mean it to be rude and invasive. These old ladies were curious, and that was okay. Curiosity meant they were open to learn rather than making assumptions. I knew of only one transperson who lived in the entire community, and he wasn’t the social type.

“No surgery for me,” I said. It was a recent decision. A lot of it based on fear, but also a recent discussion with a couple of post-op transfolks. I had so many questions and had gone in starry-eyed. Media brainwashed us all to believe beauty on the outside meant perfection on the inside, too. If I woke up one day with one hundred percent girl parts, would life be easier? Maybe some things. Gran attended with me because she had questions too, hers more of safety than mine. She’d also gone with me to a doctor for a consultation, and neither of us had come out of that meeting happy. Big dreams didn’t always become reality, and that was okay. If there was anything the last year had taught me, it was to advocate for myself, and protect my mental health at all costs.

Surgery was an unknown. Added stress that could go wrong in a thousand ways, or perfectly right, but still leave me feeling inadequate. I decided I needed time.

“Not right now, doesn’t mean forever,” Gran said.

“I know…” It was hard to explain the feeling. Disappointment? Self-resentment? Did it make me weak that I wasn’t ready and might never be?

“Not everyone has surgery,” Gran lectured them. “Sky is a beautiful woman without it.”

“Prettier than I was,” the one on Gran’s other side said. “And I had plenty of boys coming to my yard. Milkshake or not.”

I felt heat rise in my cheeks, and pride. I had to admit I worked hard to feel good in my skin, even if some days I still battled the mirror, most of the time I was happy being me. “Thank you,” I said.

“Bingo!” Gran called. The room erupted in applause and the announcer came over to confirm. The prize was another Coach bag, this one more of a backpack style. Gran handed it to me. “More your style than mine.”

“Gran…” I began.

“It’s fine. And you don’t need to sell it. You don’t need all that money for surgery now.”

That was true, but I also wasn’t about to toss the money out willy-nilly. I’d been homeless in my teens, kicked out by my mother at twelve before finding my way to the shelter and reconnecting with Gran at fourteen. Her senior community didn’t allow those under the age of sixty-five to live long term on-site, which means she could only provide a temporary space. Before meeting Micah and Lukas, I spent years bouncing from Gran’s, to the shelter, to my cousin Steve. Steve was an odd duck and had friends who really enjoyed misgendering me or trying to touch me inappropriately to “prove” I was a boy. I only stayed with him when I had nowhere else to go. Getting my own place hadn’t been an option until I’d turned eighteen, and even then, with no parents to cosign, and my income inconsistent, it hadn’t been possible.

Lukas’s recent refrain was about signing a lease with him for his apartment. He owned the space, a loft above a slew of businesses, and he said putting me on a lease would give me rental history. I already lived there ninety percent of the time and paid Lukas rent on the first of the month, though he never asked for a dime. My payments were one of the first things we argued about. I used what Micah paid for his space, adding half the cost of estimated utilities to calculate the payment, since Lukas wouldn’t give me an amount. But he hadn’t lived there in months. I started off sleeping on the couch, but had recently made his room my own. The space still smelled like him. Even after a dozen washes, the pillows reminded me of him. I didn’t hate it, and slept better in his bed than anywhere else, but wished he were there with me.

Did he even see me? If I never physically transitioned, would he ever see me?

Conversations about living arrangements always devolved into an argument. If Lukas wanted a tenant, so be it. It wouldn’t be me. I didn’t want to be tied to him in that way, giving him another excuse to keep me at a distance. What was the saying, if something was meant to be yours, let it go and it will come back to you? I’d done it the other way for years, clinging to him, throwing myself at him, all for nothing.

“Did you find an apartment you like?” Gran asked as we got a new batch of cards.

“No.” I’d toured a dozen, with Micah offering to cosign. It had been much easier to get approved, but the cost for what I could get was almost double what I was paying now for a quarter of the space. That’s what made me mad at Lukas. Did he want a lease so he could charge me more? Did he know how much he could make? Was he treating me like charity? “I have an appointment with a realtor today,” I whispered, fearing jinxing myself.

Gran raised a brow. “You want to buy a house?”

“Not a house.” I’d have to go a distance outside the Quarter to find anything that wasn’t a giant historic home, and I enjoyed being able to walk most everywhere. Condo’s, like the one Lukas had, were rare. They were almost never sold, and even those, because of the proximity to the Quarter, went for over a half million. I knew Lukas had paid much less for his, but he’d also owned it for almost ten years. There was a unit in Micah’s manor that was for sale, though. Being neighbors with my best friend sounded like a dream. It was an upstairs unit with an enormous section of the balcony, and actually larger than Micah’s. I’d only seen pictures to know they had remodeled it with a more traditional layout and it faced the back of the property. The down payment would whip out most of my savings, but after touring a lot of rentals, I wanted something that was mine.

“A condo like Micah’s,” I said.

“That’s exciting. Will you do one of those virtual tours for me? Phonetime or whatever? I’d love to see it,” Gran said.

“Sure. I’m not sure I’m sold on it yet. It’s a lot of money and more space than I need.” I’d have to work really hard to afford the payments and the utilities, but again Micah promised to cosign for me. With full-time employment at his shop, and the side money from reading cards, I brought in a steady income. And while I didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I was pretty happy where I was.

Gran patted my hand. “Let your heart decide. We’ll figure out the rest. Next prize is that gift card for Saks Fifth Avenue? That could buy some pretty clothes for you, right? Let’s win that.” I leaned over to kiss her on the cheek and nodded, working to win because it was what she wanted.