Ok. It’s been a very long time since I posted. Guilt is a great motivator. Guilt and a hulking pissed-off zombie looming over you.

Not that I don’t want to blog and Liam isn’t forcing me. Just guilting me I just get distracted. There’s been a lot going on lately and frankly, I’ve been so tired that I come home and all I want to do is tumble into bed and sleep for a thousand years. Been working on the ghost issue. Finally got that sorted out. Turned out Eleanor’s daughterghost, Beth, had decided she’d had enough playing the haunter and took off to see the world. She knew her mother would never let her go, so she basically ran away. How about that? A runaway ghost.

Anyway, with Mom’s help we tracked her down, she agreed to come back and work out things with her mom and all is peachy now.

In other news, the dead are as restless as ever and we still haven’t figured out why. It’s all Dad and I can do to keep up with raisings, settlings, and occasional zombie who is too stubborn to realize they are dead and won’t go back down. It saps just about all of Dad’s strength when we get one of those.

Mom’s working with her coven to try and do their thing to find out what the hell is going on, but no joy so far and I’ve been with Dad every night training and helping. See what I mean about tired?

But I’m still around, and the blog will pick up once we get this sorted out, I promise.

What did that ghost want? I’ve finally got a bit of time free to tell you.

The long story short is that in this old house there were actually two ghosts who kept to themselves. A mother and daughter who had both passed on over a hundred years ago. No one who used the home ever knew they lived with ghosts. not even old Arthur who you would think would be sensitive to that sort of thing. But no, the lady told me. She and her daughter merely wanted to exist in peace in the home they both loved, so they kept a low profile.

The lady in question’s name is - err… was - Eleanor, and her daughter was named Beth. She and Beth had both succumbed to tuberculosis within a month of each other. Beth was only 12.

Anyway, the reason she’s made her presence known now is because her daughter’s missing. Vanished. Gone. And Eleanor is terribly distraught. After Beth went missing, Eleanor started to pay attention to the living (so to speak) in her house. She said she was hoping to find someone among them who might be able to help. And that’s when she heard about me.

I don’t have all the details and Eleanor didn’t have much time this night. Apparently, ghosts aren’t able to manifest for very long. She explained that it takes a lot of energy to do so, which is how she and Beth were able to remain undetected for so long. They just never bothered manifesting. So they peacefully coexisted with a houseful of vampires. It didn’t seem to bother her that vampires were real either, which I thought was odd. I’ll have to ask her about that.

I go back to speak to her tomorrow tonight. I had to get Arthur’s permission to return and speak with her. He was astonished as I was at the fact that he has ghosts. “I never believed in them.” He said. Freaky. With as much preternatural stuff that goes on in the world, you’d think at least one of us would have had a run-in with a ghostie at some point. Life’s a funny old thing.

I’m not sure what I can do for Eleanor. I’ve spoken with the parentals about it, wondering if perhaps they’d have some advice. Dad was fresh out of advice, but Mom said she’d like to come along to the meeting and see what she can do to help. She may have better luck sizing the energies in and around the house up. I’m still training and I’d like to have her experience and power with me on this one.

I really want to help Eleanor.

I’ve had some time to regroup after meeting my first ghost. I was going to start from the start wasn’t I?

Simone informed me that I had been invited to a party at the old Victorian on Chestnut Street. It’s a beautiful house. A bit tatty these days, showing its age but it still retains a sense of what it used to be in its glory days. The traditional seven colors of paint in hues of sienna reds and hunter greens that are faded now, Queen Anne architecture with a tile missing here and there, turrets, and decadent ornateness.

The house was owned by Arthur, a local vampire who was mostly known in the vamp community for his soirées and not much else. He’s been here longer than my family but no one really knows him. He holds these parties once every few months but only makes an appearance at the end of the evening before all good vampire boys and girls must go to bed. It’s all very mysterious but quite an honor to be invited.

I’m not much for parties, but I couldn’t very well refuse the invite. My family is um, sort of famous I guess and to refuse to go would ruffle some feathers we don’t particularly want to ruffle. Basically, you just don’t piss off the vampires and Arthur had decided it was time he met me.

Whatever. It was an excuse to get away and try to forget about the zombies I’d had to uh, disassemble recently. I put on my dancing shoes, convinced Liam to wear something other than his usual jeans and hoodie, hooked up with Simone and off we went.

At first everything was going well. Arthur had hired a local cover band to play and I convinced Liam to dance a couple of times (he’s so broody most of the time. It’s just nice to get him to smile.) I ran into a lot of folks who usually help me out at the rallies and despite my desire to forget about that for a while, they would pepper me with questions about the next one.

And then it happened. I was returning to the main room from the bathroom when the ghost appeared as if stepping from one of the rooms off the staircase. Like I said before, I assumed it was another activist friend, until I looked at her.  God, she was beautiful. She seemed quite young, perhaps late teens early twenties. She wore a tattered, old-fashioned dress like she was from a time when the house was brand new. But it wasn’t the sort of dress the lady of the house would have worn. It was more like that of a servant in the household. It was faded and worn in spots. The hem was ragged from dragging along the floor. But the girl… She wore her thick, blonde hair in a long plait and wound into a messy bun at the nape of her neck. Wispy tendrils of it framed her lovely pale face. Despite her opaqueness, her eyes seemed a clear bright blue and when she smiled, that grin reached her eyes. She’d been happy in life, it seemed.

I followed her into the library, mesmerized. She pointed at a chair near the fireplace and I sat down. She… drifted I guess you could say until she was standing by the mantle.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you a moment ago.”  she said. “I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. I’ve just never… well I didn’t even know ghosts existed. I’m not afraid though, if you were worried about that. I was just startled.” I replied. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

“I’m surprised. I would have thought the daughter of a powerful necromancer like Desmond McGee would have met her fair share of ghosts by now.”

“I was just thinking the same thing. Believe me, I’ll be grilling dad about that later. Er, wait a minute. How do you now who I am?” I asked.

She smiled. “There’s very little I do not know living in this house. I am bound to it. The present owner - Arthur, you call him - was very excited that you’d accepted his invitation.”

“I see.”

“I don’t mean to appear rude Miss McGee, but I do not have much time.” She glanced nervously at the door. “Arthur will have learned I’m gone by now and will be looking for me. I… I need your help. You see, I would very much like to move on from this existence. But I am trapped.”

“Trapped?”

She cocked her head, listening for a moment. “Yes. I’m afraid it’s a rather long story and Arthur will find me any moment. Will you help me?”

I didn’t know what to say. What if she was lying? What if she was being kept in this world against her will? What kind of vampire was Arthur anyway? Why would he hold a ghost against its will? Was he a bad guy? Was she a good guy?

“I’m afraid I need more info to go on before I can jump into the mix here.”

The ghost clenched her jaw and frowned. “I see.” She stiffened and I heard footsteps on the stairs outside the door. “I must go. Please… Come back when you can. I’ll find you and tell you my story.” And with that, she shimmered and was gone just as the door opened and Arthur himself stepped into the room.

It was a bit of a close call. I was still a bit thrown by the whole ghost encounter but I just acted flustered as if lost in the big house and he showed me the way back to the main room. The rest of the party was a blur to me, my head spun so much from my encounter. Liam and I dropped Simone off at dawn and went home.
Now I just need to find a way to get back.

Just got home a few minutes ago and I’m still in a state of shock. Shock, denial, whatever.

Okay. Let me start by reiterating that the supernatural and I are old friends. Mom, witch. Dad, necromancer. Bodyguard, zombie. Best friend, vampire. If I hadn’t grown up with all of that then maybe I’d be wigging out much worse than I already am. I mean… Crap.

Tonight I met a ghost. A real live ghost. I’m aware of the contradiction there. But holy frikkin’ cow - a ghost!

In all my years I’ve never seen one, much less exchanged words with one. As someone who does routinely speak to the dead, I’ve seen firsthand what happens to people when they die. Never have I caught a spirit lurking about the cemeteries or murder scenes or morgues. No odd shadows, no unusual movements out of the corner of my eye. Nothing! Frankly, I assumed they didn’t exist. Just fiction created by writers afraid of what’s next when they pass away.

I never asked mom or dad about them. It never occurred to me to ask. So it’s safe to assume that the existence of ghosts was never on my radar.

Until tonight when one stepped in front of me and asked if she could speak to me. At first I thought it was just someone who had a question about the next zombie rally, so I wasn’t paying much attention having answered that question a gazillion times earlier in the evening. It wasn’t until I actually LOOKED at her that I realized she wasn’t all there.

I must have gasped or something because she smiled and waited patiently for me to get over it and answer her.  It took a while though, I will admit. She was amazing! She had a shimmery sheen, like she was standing in moonlight. Her form would also waver, like a flicker as if someone had flipped a switch or something. And I could see through her. That was the weirdest part. I could look at her face, right in her eyes and see the painting on the wall behind her.

“What are you?” I remember asking because at this point I just wasn’t sure. I don’t think I’d gotten to ‘She’s a ghost’ yet.

“I’m a ghost.” She replied. Oh. Oh holy hell.

I must have looked skeptical because she smiled at me again and gestured to the next room. “Let’s step into the library and talk. Please.” She said to me. It was the “Please.” that shook me out of my reverie. There was an air of urgency to it.

I should back up a bit and explain where I was and what I was doing there, but I’ll save that for the next post. I need to regroup.

More later.