“Yes, I am.” He smiled. “I also know that lately it’s been a hub of activity.”
“Activity?” I wondered. “I saw something the other day.”
“The ghosts?”
My eyes widened. “Yes! You saw them then? I’m not crazy?”
“No. When you’re a person with a sixth-sense, you see ghosts all the time. I can literally feel their vibrations when they’re anywhere in my vicinity.”
“So, you saw them that night?” It felt good to know that someone else had seen them. I wanted to have an extra layer of certainty when I went back to Romeo. Obviously, he’d believed me but still, it was good to know I hadn’t been alone in what I’d witnessed. I wondered how many other town residents had seen the ghosts or the little one who’d separated himself from the others.
“I saw them that night, and I’ve seen them on other occasions as well,” Scott said confidently.
“You have? Well, I can’t say I’m not relieved to hear it.”
“They seem to manifest in large groups, other than a little one who always stays separate. I’m not convinced he’s with the others at all. He has no color like the vibrancy of the other specters.”
“Right. I saw him there. He was a smoky gray, not a translucent ghost-like color. What do you suppose that means?”
“I’m afraid I know what it means,” Scott said, frowning.
“What? Tell me. I’m so curious about all this.” I really was.
“That little one was never a part of the group of others. The others—the ones who seem to be carefree—those are all connected to each other.”
“Can you please explain that?”
“They have community ties in death like they had in life. The children run and play. The adults talk and laugh together like they would have in life. The little one either never had a connection to them or he tried to but was cast out of their group. I have the feeling that it is the former. I think he was always a separate little person.”
“A child?”
“Oh, yes, most definitely, a child.”
“So, why the smoky color?” This was so interesting. No one had ever explained ghosts to me before.
“He appears separate from the others and a smoky color because he exists in a world of such sorrow that neither you nor I can even fathom it.”
“Why?”
“In my experience, ghosts in this state of being exist apart from the others because their corpses were never found,” Scott said. “They died alone and weren’t ever laid to rest. It makes you understand why humans go through so much effort to give our dead a solid funeral...to gather friends to remember a loved one. Even if it means having someone who cared for the dead in life, saying a few words over a hastily dug grave after death. Those kinds of rituals are incredibly important to the dead.”
“I had no idea,” I said, honestly.
“It’s true,” Scott said, nodding. “So, that leads me to believe that the little one was left unclaimed or unfound, perhaps dying all alone. He’s walking in between worlds. He can’t even live on the ghostly plane because he doesn’t belong with the others.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “I thought all ghosts are living in between worlds, unable to move on to Heaven or Hell which is why they haunt the living.”
Scott smiled. “Who’s to say that there are only two choices?”
“What?” I was more confused.
“What if there isn’t only a Heaven or a Hell? What if there are neither a Heaven nor a Hell? What if there is a place in between where ghosts or as I like to think of them, spirits, exist. Sometimes it’s a happy place like the drive-in and sometimes it’s closer to what we think of as Hell.”
“Like the place where the little smoky ghost…er…spirit…stood apart from the others,” I said.
Scott nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly right.”
“Wow, well, that’s really helpful,” I admitted.
“Was there something else to what you saw that bothered you, besides how the small specter was alone and separate from the others?”
I nodded. “Come to think of it, yes there is. When the little one turned away and walked back into the forest, all the other ghosts at the drive-in vanished. They just poofed out of sight like they were never there. It was very strange.”
Scott nodded, looking thoughtful. When he finally spoke, it was with a lot of sadness. “I think you saw things from the perspective of the spirit. When he left, the images of people in the drive-in vanished because he wasn’t there anymore.”
“How—or better yet—why would that happen?” I asked, puzzled.
“I think he has been trying to get someone to notice he’s been hanging around. He wants someone to find him so he can be buried, honored, given a funeral. He wants someone to care about the fact that he isn’t here anymore.”
“Why me? Do you think he knows me somehow?”
Scott nodded. “Oh, he definitely knows that someone who walks among the living but is also dead is now living in Prosper Woods. I believe he’s been waiting for a very long time. He showed you the people at the drive-in to convey how he wants to live out his afterlife, and after you’d seen what he wanted you to see, he left.”
“That’s kind of…” What did one say to that? “That’s kind of amazing but it makes a lot of sense. So, I’m like a conduit?”
“A medium,” Scott said with a chuckle in his voice.
I smirked. “Speaking of which, why didn’t he choose to make himself known to you, then? And why me?”
Scott shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? Obviously, he trusts you to figure it out. Maybe because you are so closely connected to the sheriff? Perhaps he knows the
