Royal Street 01 - The Shop on Royal Street by Karen White

Author:Karen White [White, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

I clutched Mr. Bingle on my lap as Beau and I sat in his truck in front of the house on Prytania, the rain cascading down the windshield with a violence that still couldn’t erase the image of the woman with the sad eyes who had disappeared as soon as Beau aimed his flashlight.

We hadn’t spoken on the fifteen-minute drive, except for me repeating the same unanswered question. “You saw her, right?” I said again. Despite the blasting air-conditioning, sweat beaded on Beau’s forehead.

His hands still gripped the steering wheel and I noticed he was wearing two rubber bands instead of just one. He followed my gaze and slid one off. “Here,” he said, handing it to me, his voice straining to sound normal. “I got one for you. It’s blue, and it reminded me of your shirt, so I figured you’d like it. I was going to wait until our next driving lesson, but I thought you might want it sooner.”

I stretched it between my thumbs, testing it, not sure what I should be focusing on—the fact that he remembered the blue blouse or that I might have need of the rubber band now. I decided on the latter. “So you did see her.”

He dropped his hands from the wheel and met my eyes. “I saw something. But there was nothing there when I shone my light in the corner, and nothing showed up in the photo I snapped. When Thibaut got the generator running again and we could see in full light, the corner was definitely empty. No one was upstairs, and no one could have passed us on the stairs if they had come from downstairs. I think the storm and the power outage freaked us out a bit. And the lightning created weird shadows that looked like a person standing in the upstairs hallway. This is a common thread in all the stories I discuss in my podcast.”

“Are you listening to yourself? I’m not just anyone with a casual belief in ghosts. I lived with a psychic medium for more years than I can count right now, and I know what a shadow is and what a ghost is. I can’t talk to them, but I have seen them when they are strong enough to allow being seen by ordinary people like me. And I know you saw her, too, so stop trying to deny it and instead tell me why you won’t admit that she was real.”

His nostrils flared as he took two deep breaths, his chest slowly rising and falling with each one. It’s what my dad did when he caught Melanie in his office with her labeling gun. Instead of answering, he said, “Why is it so important to you?”

His question surprised me. “Because if I have a ghost living in my house, there’s a reason she’s there, and chances are she’d rather not be. I always thought it was a real gift that Melanie and my aunt Jayne could release earthbound spirits by figuring out what tethered them here.

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