Like Seeing a Ghost: A Broken Rope Novella by Paige Shelton

Author:Paige Shelton [Shelton, Paige]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penelope Publishing
Published: 2021-08-01T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

As I put my hand on the bookshop’s doorknob, a light filled the edge of my vision. I turned around again to see the cowboy I thought I’d seen earlier. Glowing. It was more than disconcerting, but I wasn’t afraid as he stood on the edge of the curb and looked at me.

“May I help you?” I asked, warily but firmly.

“You see me?” he asked.

“I do, though you’re … Goodness!” I sighed and put my hands on my hips. “Are you a ghost?”

“I am!” he said with a smile.

I didn’t feel quite as happy as he did about it. “Why am I seeing you? Am I … a ghost too?” But I didn’t think I was. It sure seemed that all the other people I’d been talking to thought I was a live person.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But something’s not right with you.”

“Yes, well, that is true.”

“I don’t know what it is, but I’m drawn to you. I wish I understood why.”

“Oh, me too, but I suspect it’s,” I looked around, but with his glow I could tell there wasn’t anyone else in the vicinity. Nevertheless, I lowered my voice, “because I’ve traveled through time. I’ve from, well, the future.”

He started at me a long moment. He looked exactly like I would expect a cowboy from the Wild West to look: rugged, worn around the edges, handsome. “I think that could be it.”

I nodded. “I can’t imagine what else it might be. Who are you?”

“Name’s Jerome Cowbender. I was shot dead here a long time ago.”

“But you can’t leave, go on to, to whatever or wherever is next?” I crossed my arms in front of myself, now completely fascinated by this new and even crazier (actually, I don’t know which was crazier, time travel or talking to a ghost) eventuality.

“Not exactly. I get to be there, too, but sometimes I’m here. There’s something about Broken Rope. It draws us back.”

“Us?”

“Yes ma’am. There’re more ghosts than me, more who’ve been dealt their fates in Broken Rope. But I’m not sure they matter to you, or they’d probably be here with us tonight.”

“Why do you matter?”

“I’m not sure yet, but it will come to me. It always does.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m here to fix something. I usually work through a friend who’s alive, like you. But for some reason, you can see me. And I figure we need to try to understand that reason.”

“I agree. Maybe you’re here to help me get home?” I hoped.

And then, as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone. I wasn’t sure if I heard a pop or just imagined one, but darkness filled the street once again. I had to blink a few times to see anything.

Had I imagined him?

I really didn’t think so, but I could only shrug and hope that this adventure I was on wasn’t going to continue simply to get weirder before it started making sense.

“Hello?” I said to the air.

No one responded. Farrell’s car was long out of sight.

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