PENNSYLVANIA’S OWN INTERNATIONAL GHOST BUSTERS written in a large, loopy white scrawl across the front.
The husband holding some kind of recording device that seemed to really excite him, while the wife held the camera with a noticeably shaky hand. Creeping toward my general direction, clearly bent on capturing live, streaming footage of Well Me.
Crouched down low, T-shirt still dangling from the tips of my fingers, knowing I’d just been caught in the embarrassing act of nosing through their belongings.
My eyes darted frantically, realizing the full scope of what was really going on — not only had I been caught peeping — I’d also been caught inadvertently haunting a haunted room I’d fully intended to, well, de-haunt.
And there was nothing I could do about it. No way I could leave. I was stuck right there in that blue room until I could find a way to accomplish what I set out for. Otherwise Bodhi would never let me fly to London, never let me hear the end of it.
“Buttercup!” I hissed, dropping the T-shirt and hearing them both gasp at the sight of it seemingly falling through the air of its own accord. Determined to keep my voice to a whisper, but by the way they gaped at their recorder, at the little squiggles and lines that jumped all around, it was clear that even though they couldn’t see me or hear me, their equipment registered every last bit. “Come here,now!” I called between gritted teeth, annoyed by the way he’d loped toward them, sniffing then licking their hands as though they were long-lost friends suddenly reunited again.
He slunk toward me, tail tucked tightly between his legs as his big brown eyes gazed into mine. “That’s better,” I cooed, scratching his head to show I was more annoyed than mad, watching as the couple lifted their hands and studied the fingers Buttercup had just slobbered all over, before turning to each other, bushy brows raised as if to say: Did you feel that?
“You need to stick by me,not them. No matter what happens from here on out, I need you by my side, okay? We can’t take any chances — I just have to figure out what to do before they—” The woman moved toward me, moved in small baby steps as she crept across the floor. Her large bare feet, riddled with corns and bunions, with nail polish so badly chipped they made my own nails look salon fresh. Raised up high onto her tippy-toes, padding across the rug, video camera held out before her, the soft whir of it the only sound in the room as it recorded what I could only assume were a series of white, glowy, wavering images of one smallish blob of light and one even smaller blob of light, since, from all the shows I’d ever seen on TV that covered ghosts and hauntings and such, it was pretty rare for those recorders to pick up anything more.
“He’s not alone,” she whispered, waving to her husband from over her shoulder. “There’s someone with him, someone smaller, like they’re crouched down low.”
He?
I narrowed my eyes and scowled, nudging Buttercup even closer to my side. Tugging on my skirt and running my fingers through my hair until it was arranged a little more nicely, a little more girly, completely offended by the fact that I’d just been mistaken for a ten-year-old boy.
“Is it him? Is it really the Radiant Boy?” her husband called, the words rising at the end in a potent mix of excitement and fear.
“Yes,” she said, her voice having firmly decided, though her eyes weren’t quite as convinced. “At least it certainly seems like it. And he’s got someone with him — someone smaller — there are two Radiant Boys here!”
Oh brother.
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, sitting back on my heels as she continued to creep closer and closer.
Some ghost buster she was turning out to be. Mistaking what was clearly a cute blond girl and her adorable yellow Lab for not one, but two bratty little boy ghosts.Sheesh!
“Try to speak with them — try to make contact,” her husband urged. His gaze was fixed on the screen of his little hand held device, eager to see the lines shift and move once again. “Ask him why they’re here, and what they might possibly want. Ask them if they have any messages they might like to pass on.”
Saying all of that as though I could only hear the words if she said them. As though she had some special patented way of communicating with the dearly departed.
Her husband came up behind her, seizing the camera she passed over her shoulder and steadying it in one hand while keeping the voice recorder going in the other. Watching as his wife crept even closer, running her hands over her wrinkled green sweats while completely ignoring the bed hair that, had I been her, I would’ve been way more concerned about.
“Is there any message you’d like us to pass on? Is there anything we can do for you?” the woman asked, squatting down on her haunches, as her knees cracked so loudly and violently, I actually jumped in surprise. Cringing back against the wall as she angled her face until it was dangerously close to Buttercup’s and mine.
“Yes,” I said, finding my voice again and nodding sincerely. “I’d really like it if you could just pack up your equipment and move on, so I can deal with this Radiant Boy on my own. You know, the one you actually came here to see? Seriously, move it along so I can finish the job.”
I scowled, knowing she wasn’t about to go anywhere. Not as long as Buttercup and I were inadvertently giving her the thrill of her ghost-busting lifetime, even though, technically speaking anyway, neither of us could truly be considered as earthbound entities, since we were only there on a mission, and therefore had no plans to stay — a small, but pretty substantial fact that was completely lost on her.
I sat back and sighed, long, loudly, no longer caring when she turned toward her husband, her eyes wide, head bobbing up and down as she said, “Did you feel that? Just now? That rush of cold air?”
He nodded, his gaze running the track between the camera’s display, the voice recorder, his wife’s crazy eyes, and back.
“Are you getting all this?” she asked, rising in a way that made her knees crack again, causing Buttercup to wince and me to cringe.
“All of it,” he mumbled. “Every last bit of it.” He smiled, his eyes shining brightly.
“Fantastic!” she exclaimed, face beaming, cheeks flushed with excitement, as her hair, still not attended to since she’d jumped out of bed, pretty much stood up on end.
And watching all of that, well, it was just too much.
Not only had I been recorded and filmed, destined for some pathetically dorky, homegrown, schlocky, ghost- busting Web site, but I’d yet to see the Radiant Boy, and as long as they kept this up, it was clear that I wouldn’t.
I slumped against the wall, and glared at the couple before me, hoping they’d get a good shot of that amongst the rest of their footage. Watching as they closed in on us, stopping just short of where Buttercup was crouching down low, transitioning into full-on guard dog mode, as he let off a low, menacing growl.
“Oh, now you decide you don’t like her?” I looked at him, and shook my head. “What about earlier when you were slobbering all over her hands? Huh, what about that?”
But just after the words were out, I noticed she wasn’t the one he was growling at.
There was someone behind her.
Someone creeping up behind both her and her husband.
Someone who glowed so brightly the whole room lit up.
Someone who could only be described as Radiant.
Behind him, the room shook.
Objects flew.
As the ghost-busting couple bolted through the door with Buttercup close on their heels. Dropping their equipment and abandoning their belongings without a second glance, the shrieking echo of the husband’s high- pitched scream lingering in the air long after they’d left.
Leaving me to face the Radiant Boy all on my own, as practically anything and everything that wasn’t nailed
