The Ghost Collector by Allison Mills

Author:Allison Mills
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Annick Press
Published: 2019-07-16T19:47:58+00:00

13

Shelly carries Estelle back to the house tangled up in her hair. Having Estelle with her for the walk makes it less scary—the cold weight of another person’s soul traveling with her the whole way home is comforting, even if Estelle doesn’t talk too much. Ghosts tend to be disoriented when you move them from a place they’ve gotten used to. Estelle had been in the cemetery long enough to settle in.

The house is still dark when they get home. Shelly slides her key into the lock and opens the door slowly, trying not to make too much noise. Grandma stays asleep through Shelly locking the door, taking off her shoes and coat, and sneaking back down the hallway to her bedroom.

Shelly brushes Estelle out of her hair and looks at the new spirit haunting her room. “You can’t let my grandma know you’re here,” she says. “If she finds out, she’ll make you move on.”

“When I move on, I’m going to be with the angels. I’m not afraid,” Estelle says, peering around Shelly’s room. She talks a big game, but Shelly’s pretty sure she’s nervous about crossing over. Why wouldn’t she be? Nobody knows what’s on the other side. Not Grandma or Shelly or even Joseph, who’s been dead for a while now.

“Well, until you’re ready, you should keep quiet,” Shelly says. “Grandma will make you leave right away.”

“I can keep quiet, kid,” Estelle promises. “I know how to keep a secret. Shouldn’t you be sleeping? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

It is. It’s almost two in the morning and Shelly’s tired from running around in the dark and bringing Estelle home, but she feels like she should be a good host. “I don’t have to sleep if you want company,” she says. “I can show you around the house for when you’re here by yourself.”

“It’s a small house,” says Estelle. “I think I can figure it out. Sleep, kid. You look exhausted. You look like me two weeks before I dropped dead, and trust me—I was tired.”

Shelly does feel dead on her feet. “Are you sure?”

Estelle shrugs. “I’ve got nothing but time. You on the other hand still need to get through the business of living. Enjoy it. Being dead isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a lot like being alive, except when you’re dead and people ignore you, you know it’s not just because they’re rude.”

Shelly laughs and climbs into bed. “Lots of people wish they could see ghosts,” she says. “They’d pay attention to you if they could.”

“Oh, I’m sure they think they would. If they could see me, I’d be old hat in a week. TV made me think being a ghost was more exciting than this.”

“TV gets most things about ghosts wrong,” says Shelly. “Trust me, you’d like it less if they were right.”

Joseph didn’t go along with her plan the way she thought he would—but things are still working out. Having Estelle in her room is nice. It’s not her mother’s ghost, but it’s company.

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