Clay’s throat clicked as he dry-swallowed. “That’s your plan? Dress me up and wait for the spook to show? Scooby fucking Doo-style?”
Shit. Is that where I’m gettin’ it from?
Clay grunted.“I thought you said ghosts have anchors. How can she leave the house?”
I’ve been up on the roof of the Generator, in the gardener’s shed out back.For now, let’s assume the patio is an extension of the house.
“Assuming you’re right, how would I even know she’s there?”
I imagine she’ll open the door. Or a window.
“She can’t walk through the wall and ambush me?”
If you blow smoke at a wall, does it end up in the next room? It needs an opening, a vent, some portal to pass through. In my experience, we’re no different. Make sure all the doors and windows are sealed and she can’t creep up.
“What about the chimney? The stove pipe?”
Deidre? My Deidre? I couldn’t get her to go camping and she’s gonna crawl up a soot-filled tunnel?
“Look, whatever, she’ll never believe I’m you. She already thinks I’m this Rooster guy.”
That’s the trick, man. With the Ganeks in the house, Dee was passive for years. You don’t look a thing like Rooster, so I imagine she’s not seeing… completely clearly. It took a long time for me to see in this state. We’re not physical beings, after all. We don’t have eyes, so it’s more about learning to use a… kind of third eye. If Deidre spots my guitar, my jacket, my hair in shadowy light, don’t underestimate the power of suggestion. You want to see something bad enough, you do.
“‘Sometimes truth is only what you want it to be.’”
Don’t quote my songs at me, but yes.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way you could stretch your anchor to the back patio and play the show yourself?”
I’ve tried going outside. It’s fade to black every time… Boyle trailed off, as if something occurred to him. Although… always been curious… stand there a second, will you?
“Where else am I going to go?”
This is probably a new level of crazy, but keep still.
Clay shoved his hands anxiously into his pockets. “If it’s crazy, maybe tell me what it is first.”
No response. A moment later the floorboards creaked rapidly, the footfalls crossing the room right at him. “Rocco, what—”
Clay was interrupted by something hitting him. He fell back a step, exhaled roughly, but felt no pain. Instead, the sensation that spread through his chest was unlike anything he’d known before. The only thing he could compare it to was being hit, bare-skinned, by a powdery snowball the size of Frosty’s head. “What the fuck, man?”
When Boyle spoke again, it was from the far side of the room, and he sounded winded himself, like he’d gotten the worst of their collision. After Smiles… I got curious about the afterlife…. Read way too… too many books on the occult. One had a chapter… devoted to a ghost who could jump from body to body.
“That’s what that was? You were trying to jump into me?”
Don’t make it sound so rapey, Clay. I only wanted to know if it’d work, so I could see Deidre again. It failed miserably, by the way. Something got in the way.
“Yeah, my chest,” Clay said, rubbing at the Icy Hot tingle. He peeked through the neck hole in his shirt, but saw no oncoming bruise or mark.
It wasn’t anything physical. It was… your spirit? Essence? Soul? Whatever it is we really are at our core.
On another day, Clay might have appreciated Boyle’s impromptu attempt at possession. “I should just move out,” he sighed. “Let Deidre terrorize realtors for all eternity.”
No, Boyle told him, and now his voice changed. I need you to try—as much for me as yourself. You didn’t know Dee when she was alive. She was sweet and good. She looked out for me always. He hesitated, the next words coming hard. And she died for me. She deserves a better fate than being perpetually afraid in that house.
Clay fingered his stitches. “Say your plan works. She sees me, dances genie-like into the bottle. If I somehow live to tell the tale, are you going to ask me to put you to sleep too?”
Boyle considered the idea. Not me, he said, after what felt like a long time. I’m a glutton for punishment. A dead man hanging around life always is. Clay felt a pressure grip his hand and pump it up and down. You’re just startin’ to get interesting. So I’m not goin’ noooowhere.
Clay threw the jacket on. Boyle’s arms had been longer than his, but it wasn’t a half-bad fit. He gave a nod and ventured out into the fading light to retrieve their guitar.
Worse case, she doesn’t go for it, Boyle called from the doorway. That happens, do what I did at The Fillmore: Throw the Rick in one direction, haul ass in the other.
“Okay, man.” The snowball sensation still tingled in Clay’s chest, and everywhere. “What could go wrong?”
If Farewell Ghost taught him anything, it was that fear, no matter how intensely felt, could not endure. It was a fuel that burned too bright, and the heart was not inclined to sustain its demand. After an hour of playing Throne tunes, even all the naturally anxious atoms that fused Clay Harper together needed respite. So, instead of a throbbing pulse and cold sweats, his nervous system downshifted to a vague feeling of butterflies and a perspiration born out of wearing a thick leather jacket on a warm
