And so was Tammy. My freakishly powerful daughter who knew way too much.

  No. Was exposed to way too much.

  Except, of course, there was nothing I could do about that.

  Although that might not be true.

  I suspected space might lessen her power. As in giving her some. When I was in New Orleans, my daughter let it be known that her telepathic powers had wavered somewhat. At the least, they had not expanded. My very proximity gave her power, and that was a difficult concept to wrap my mind around. The further—and longer—I was away from my daughter, the more normal she would be.

  I thought about that as I drove through another intersection.

  God, I hoped the light was green.

  My phone rang. My old minivan didn’t have Bluetooth capability. Luckily, I happen to be quicker than everyone else and so I wasn’t too concerned with safety when I snatched up my phone. Also, I had a little something called an inner alarm, which was kind of like auto braking but way cooler. It was Allison calling.

  “Talk to me,” I said.

  “Most people say hello.”

  “Most people don’t have an Allison in their lives.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you’re so pretty?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know why I try, Sam.”

  “Because you love me.”

  “Just be nice to me, okay? I’m like the only real friend you have.”

  I thought about that. I certainly had other friends, but it was true: Allison was the only real friend I had who was there for me through hell or high water, and who really wanted nothing from me. Except my time. And attention. And love. Hmm.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “There’s no maybe about it. I’m your best friend, so deal with it.”

  “Bitch,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “Witch.”

  I laughed and asked her why she was bothering me.

  “Bothering you? Sam—”

  “Just get on with it.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I just finished reading Charlie Reed’s book. Or his unfinished book.”

  “What do you think?”

  “What do I think? What do I think?? My God, I think I haven’t truly lived until now. That story, those characters. I mean, I only just stopped crying a few minutes ago.”

  I knew what she meant. “Pretty good, huh?”

  “Pretty good? It was transcendent. It was life-changing.”

  It would have been easy to say she was overreacting. Except I knew she wasn’t. In between my thoughts of God, heaven, my kids and Danny... I found myself back in the book. Back into Charlie’s carefully and perfectly realized world. Back with his characters. Back with their problems and loves and hopes and dreams. Back with Queen Autumn and her search for her kidnapped daughter.

  “Sam, will he be finishing the book anytime soon?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I kinda need to know what’s going to happen.”

  “I kinda need to know, too.”

  “Sam, there’s something else.”

  “The ghost,” I said, without needing to read her mind, even if I could.

  “Yes, Sam. Of course, I haven’t seen the ghost personally, but I saw her there in your memory, and she’s...”

  “Queen Autumn,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Allison. “I think she is.”

  “You do understand how crazy we sound.”

  “Said the vampire to the witch.”

  “Everything we do and say from here until eternity will sound crazy,” I said, nodding. I kept my phone in my lap, with Allison on speaker. As in most states, California prohibits drivers from using handheld wireless phones. I often wondered where balancing a cell phone on your knee fell into that category. Either way, I could probably telepathically convince a cop to not give me a ticket, but who likes getting pulled over in the first place? Better to keep the phone on speaker and out of eyesight, and hope to someday afford a newer van.

  Of course, I heard a distant voice speaking as if from a deep well, reminding me that I didn’t have to wait for anything, that I could take what I wanted, and compel others to give me what I wanted. I told that voice to go to hell.

  “Did you just tell me to go to hell?” asked Allison.

  “No, sorry.”

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And if you can hear my thoughts, then you must be close by.”

  “Look to your right.”

  I did, and there was Allison in the lane next to me, hunched over her steering wheel like a sea captain in a nor’easter.

  “I heard that,” she said. “I’m what you call a close driver.”

  “Did you just make that up?” I asked.

  “I did,” she said, her voice reaching me through the phone a fraction after her lips had moved. The miracles of science. She shot me a quick, furtive glance. Allison was also what you called a nervous driver. I noted the Bluetooth in her ear. “So what are we going to do about Autumn?” she asked.

  “We figure out what she wants.”

  “But she’s from the realm of Dur and speaks Durian,” said Allison.

  “We need help,” I said. “Serious help.”

  “Maybe Charlie knows how—”

  “Not that kind of help,” I snapped, and clicked off.

  After all, we had arrived.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The three of us were in Charlie’s study. So far, there was no sign of the ghost. Or Autumn. Or whoever or whatever she was. Then again, it was only 11:30 p.m.

  “And you’re telling me the woman in my story—a book I have yet to finish or publish, and have barely let out of my sight—is our ghost?”

  “We think so, yes.”

  “And you’ve read the book, too?” he said to Allison.

  “I did, yes. It’s very good. I can’t wait to see how it all turns—”

  He whipped his head around to me. “And how did you get the book?”

  “You emailed it to me.”

  “I don’t remember doing that. I’ve been so closely guarding it. I mean, I remember letting you read it here, but...”

  I telepathically eased his mind, told him this was a non-issue and that he was okay with it, because Allison and I were super-special, awesome girls, and he was more than okay sharing his book with us.

  “Boy, I’m relieved you like it! You know, you’re the only two people to even read it.”

  “I feel honored,” said Allison.

  “And I can breathe easier. You just never know if these things are any good.”

  “Is this your first book?” asked Allison.

  “It is.”

  “How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Forty-four.”

  “Why did you wait so long to write your first book?”

  Allison and I were sitting on the sofa. Charlie had pulled around his desk chair. Allison sat maybe a little closer than I was comfortable with. She harrumphed at that, and moved over.

  “Rude,” she whispered.

  “What can I say?” I whispered back. “I’m not a close sitter.”

  “Excuse me?” said Charlie.

  “Sorry,” said Allison. “My friend here is a prima donna.”

  Charlie smiled and sat back and nodded as if he cared, but he didn’t. Minor as it was, he and I now had a mindlink, and I could sense him turning her question over and over in his mind. Finally, he said, “I wasn’t ready, I guess. I didn’t feel like I knew the characters enough. I... and this is going to sound strange... I wanted to, well...”

  We waited. Charlie shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’ll just say it,” he said, turning a shade of red. “I wanted to, well, love them first.”

  “Love them?” asked Allison.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “And do you love them now?”

  “More than you know.”

  “I think we know, Charlie,” I said. “It kinda comes across in the story.”

  “Oh, thank God,” he said. “I mean, I knew I loved them, but I wasn’t sure if I was able to convey that to the reader.”

  “You conveyed the crap out of it,” said Allison.

  I nearly added my own praise but figured Allison had blown enough sunshine up his ass. I knew Charlie hadn’t recognized his “ghost” because he hadn’t actually seen her. I had seen her, using the second sight that I had been blessed—or cursed—with. The sight that sees the energetic world side by side with the physical.

  Charlie might have caught a snatch of this thought, because he asked, “How can you two be so sure the ghost is Autumn? I mean, no offense, but you weren’t even here when Sam saw the ghost—”

  “Oh, she described it in great detail,” said Allison. “Sam has an amazing flair for details. It’s what makes her such a great detective. And why she thinks so highly of herself. And why, possibly, she takes her friends for granted.”

  “Um...” said Charlie.

  Allie, cool it, I thought, knowing she could read my thoughts, even if hers were presently blocked from me. At the same time, I instructed Charlie to forget what he was about to hear in the next few minutes.

  I turned to Allison. “Whatever I said to you, I’m sorry.”

  “You say lots of mean things, Sam. Things that make me feel small. I’m not small. I’m just as powerful as you, in my own right. You should see the things I can do now.”

  “I have seen them, and you are powerful, and you are not small. Look, can we have this talk later?”

  “Why not now? In fact, I insist we talk about it now—there you go again!”

  “What?” Except I suspected I knew what.

  “Damn straight you know what. You rolled your eyes. Again. As in, what I think and want isn’t as important as what you think and want.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But your eyes said it!”

  “I can’t help what my eyes do.”

  “Yes, you can, Sam. Just like you can help what you say and think.”

  “Thinking is trickier. And if you look deep enough, you will see I have nothing but respect and...” I hesitated. It was a natural instinct not to give Allison too much. When I gave her an inch, she took a mile.

  “What, Sam? I want to hear it. Or do you have that word permanently blocked from me?”

  “It’s not permanently blocked. You know I do. We’ve been through a lot together.”

  “Then say it, Sam. Say it in front of Charlie too.”

  “Charlie’s not listening to us,” I said. “Not really.”

  “Well, say it anyway.”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes.”

  “You shouldn’t make someone say it. It should come out naturally.”

  “Well, naturally for you is like pulling teeth.”

  “I’m not sure that metaphor makes sense—”

  “Say it, damn it.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I respect and like you.”

  “Sam...”

  “I respect and adore you?”

  “Sam, you suck.”

  “You can’t make someone say I love you,” I said. “Even friends.”

  “Well, it doesn’t seem like you do sometimes.”

  “You know I do, Allie. You can see it right there in my thoughts.”

  She knew I did, and she obviously saw it there in my thoughts.

  “You really do, Sam?”

  “Of course, now can we get back to—”

  She threw herself on me, hugging me far too hard, and getting way, way up in my personal space. “I love you, too, Sam! More than you know.”

  “I know,” I said, rolling the crap out of my eyes. “I know.”

  “I see that, Sam. There’s a mirror behind you.”

  “Liar,” I said. Yes, I had enough make up on to mostly show up in mirrors, but not my eyeballs. Never my eyeballs.

  “Fine. I lied. But I don’t care. And yes, that was you giving an inch, and this is me taking a mile. Deal with it. And have you ever considered colored contacts?”

  ***

  “I’m sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought,” said Charlie. “What were we talking about?”

  “We were talking about how the ghost might just be Queen Autumn from your unfinished novel,” I said.

  “Right.” He shook his head a little. “And what makes you think the ghost is a character from my novel?”

  “We don’t for sure. But we think it might be one and the same.”

  “But a ghost is a ghost... and a character is, well, made up.” He tapped his brain. “In here.”

  “That, admittedly, is the tricky part.”

  Charlie stood and seemed to regain the confidence he’d displayed the other day, when he hired me. “I mean, I would never have believed in ghosts either. But these past few months... it’s undeniable. Just undeniable. Something is here.” I saw in his mind’s eye again the fleeting glimpses he had of movement. Glimpses only. No details. I saw again the flickering blue light, the mist, the sense of being watched. All of this played out in his mind, and all of it was, admittedly, strong indicators of a typical haunting. “And you, Sam? You believe it’s her?”

  “I do,” I said, “and I think it’s time that I show you what I saw.”

  “Show me? Wait. What?”

  “Sit next to me, Charlie,” I said.

  He was pacing, but paused and sat between Allison and I. He shivered a little when his forearm brushed my own arm. I tried not to be offended.

  “Close your eyes,” I said.

  “Why—”

  “It’ll be okay,” I said, adding a small suggestion that all would be okay, and his eyes promptly closed.

  I didn’t want him too deep, because I wanted him to remember what he was seeing, so I gave him a series of prompts to remember the image I was about to convey to him, and to also believe that I had drawn the image for him. And when he was calm and receptive, I gave him a clear view, telepathically, of the woman in my own memory, and he gasped.

  And then he wept.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Can I keep this?” he asked, reaching for the closest piece of paper, a bill from AT&T. Yes, he believed this was my drawing of Autumn.

  “Sure,” I said, and reinforced the belief that the image he saw in his mind’s eye—the image I had transferred to him—was, in fact, clearly displayed on the phone bill before him. Briefly, I saw what he saw: a surprisingly lifelike portrait of Autumn smiling back at him.

  “Her eyes look so real,” he said, staring closely at his phone bill. “You really are a wonderful artist, Samantha. I mean, this is exactly how I imagined her.” He held up the page for Allison to see, showing her the AT&T logo and columns of numbers.

  “She’s a regular Picasso,” said Allison drily.

  As Charlie stared at his phone bill, often reaching out and brushing it lightly with his fingertips, Allison motioned with her head for me to follow her, which I did into the very hallway where I’d seen the full-body apparition of Queen Autumn.

  Allison, privy to my thoughts, scanned the area. “There’s no ghost here. In fact, I don’t feel a ghost anywhere in this house.”

  My psychic, witchy friend was almost as good at perceiving ghosts as I was. Almost. She didn’t quite see the world of energy and light that I did. Nor did she see the minor and often fleeting manifestations, or the ever-flowing currents of well-being. She didn’t see, for instance, the briefest hint of a dog manifesting in the far corner of the hallway, then disappear again. But she did catch it in my thoughts.

  She turned and looked in the corner. “Really, a dog?”

  “It came and went, so fleeting as almost to not be here.”

  “A ghost dog?”

  “Almost, but not quite. The wavering hint of a memory of a dog.”

  “But how?” she asked.

  “Its imprint could be stamped upon this place, or it was just swinging by to say hello. Then again, it might have realized it had the wrong house. It was just a dog, after all.”

  “Do you see her now?” asked Allison. “Autumn?”

  “She’s not here, but this hallway...” I let my voice trail off and frowned. I hadn’t really looked at the hallway before. Or, rather, I hadn’t looked too deeply. “This hallway is particularly lively.”

  Allison saw what I was seeing in my mind’s eye, so tuned in was she to me.

  “You are seeing mini-manifestations everywhere, Sam. They’re coming and going rapidly.”

  And so I was. I turned in the hallway, tuning into the energy, and watching the various eddying pools of flowing light coagulate into faces and shapes and blobs, only to disperse again. I looked toward the end of the long hallway, where the light was flowing through walls and passing through us. Some of this wasn’t new to me. All light behaved this way. Although I had come to know it not as light, but as a never-ending flow of well-being, the energy that creates worlds. I always suspected that those who harnessed the energy, through focused thought and right action, had the best results. It was energy available to all. I just happened to see it, and it lit my way, even in the darkest of rooms.

  But this hallway had one difference: the sheer amount of manifestations.

  “What does it mean, Sam?” asked Allison, who had been following my train of thought.

  “I don’t know.”

  She nodded, frowned. “It’s like we’re standing in a tunnel of creation.”

  “Why tunnel?” I asked.

  “It sounds more mysterious.”

  “Oh, brother,” I said.

  She snapped her head around because she had caught in my mind’s eye the merest hint of a stag or horse manifesting behind her, and charging at her. She shuddered as it went through her. “Sam, what’s going on here? Have you seen something like this before?”

  “No, not really. Not that I can recall. I mean, some areas tend to have a lot of spirit activity. Cemeteries. Hospitals. Old homes. Busy street corners.”

  “Where people have died in accidents?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “But you aren’t seeing much human activity,” she said. “I mean, I can see some manifestations that could be human. But many more are animal shapes. Some tiny and some quite—whoa!”