The village of Prestley has a ghost. Fortunately, Charles Hayward and his brother John come from a family of occult specialists, and Charles is a gifted medium. This ghost doesn’t seem too dangerous, but appearances can be deceptive. And Charles is already haunted by his own past.
Alex Leonfeld never meant to be a ghost. He always enjoyed life, perhaps too much, which might be why he’s still here. But he likes people, so he tries to use his spectral existence to assist them if he can. And the attractive newly-arrived medium definitely needs some assistance.
Charles knows his job is to solve the haunting and help Alex find rest, but what if he’s falling for the Prestley ghost?
“Why aren’t you confined to one place?”
“Are we meant to be?”
“Yes!”
“Oh.” The young man considered this. “Well, I suppose I’ve never gone much further than the bridge at the mill, or the edge of the forest, so perhaps you’re not wrong.”
“I’m not -- why are you here?”
“At first I was curious --” The young man shrugged -- Charles had never seen a ghost shrug -- and ran a hazy hand through his shoulder-length hair, a tumbled romantic fall of gilt-edge light. “And then I got worried. It’s a bad spot.”
“Why is everyone worried about me,” Charles grumbled, accidentally aloud.
The ghost’s eyebrows went up. “Should we be? Would you like to talk? I’m a fairly good listener.”
“No!” He scrambled for self-control. Being a good medium. Helping people. Using his gift. Doing good with it, the way John had decided they should, the way Charles himself wanted to. Helping ghosts, not ... being helped by them. Or whatever might be happening. “I’m fine. You’re not. You’re a ghost.”
“Er ... yes? I thought that was obvious? Should I wave my arms a bit and make distressing noises?”
“Christ,” Charles said, inadvertently. “You’re not just a ghost, you’re a ridiculous one.”
“How lucky for you that I’m not easily insulted. Honestly, I was trying to help.” The young man eyed the river. “It’s also going to be very cold. Unpleasant.”
“I’m not trying to drown myself!”
“Oh. Good, then.”
“I was just thinking.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I’m supposed to be banishing you.”
“Ah.” The ghost leaned against the old grey stones of the Prestley wall again, even closer to Charles. He was even more angelic up close, except perhaps for the eyebrows, slightly too dark and heavy for that pretty face; but somehow that made him more human. The brocade of his antique waistcoat held a tapestry of flowers and leaves, in contrast to Charles’s plain blue and brown lines. “Did you want to try that, then?”
“You sound as if you don’t believe I can.”
“A few people have tried, a few decades ago.” The ghost leaned in a bit closer, and Charles would’ve sworn that was deliberate, a temptation, and he might indeed be susceptible to gorgeous men with eyes like summer heat, but ideally the man in question would be alive and breathing and not transparent. Not to mention that he had a job to do.
He got out, “Tried?” The beauty was distracting. Even more so, this ghost appeared to have some sort of conscience, or kindness, or benevolence, assuming the attempt at assistance had been genuine. That was unusual. And intriguing.
No. Not intriguing. Charles managed not to swear aloud.
“Tried,” the ghost agreed, unreasonably calm about it. “None of them actually bothered to talk to me. They shouted a lot in Latin and waved incense around and rang bells. I decided to be nice about it and vanish for a while. You know, let them think they’d done something.”
“Chivalrous of you,” Charles said, before he could stop himself. This was a ghost. He was not here to be witty and exchange teasing conversation.
The ghost looked mildly hurt. “They went to a certain amount of effort. It seemed the polite thing to do. It didn’t hurt me, and I don’t mind being invisible for a bit.”
“A ghost and a martyr to social politeness. Impressive.”
“One does what one can to help others.” Those tawny eyes narrowed. “As you’re doing, trying to banish me. So you should understand.”
“I’m being lectured on empathy and compassion by a non-corporeal manifestation.”
“I’m only saying, you don’t know everything about other people.” The young man ran a spectral hand through his hair again, turned away from Charles toward the river. “Sometimes people are hurting. Or they need to feel that they’ve done something to protect people they love. I don’t have to be alive to remember that.”
Charles had opened his mouth to answer. The thread of heartache in the last words tugged his answer sideways. “Did someone hurt you? Or are you trying to protect someone? Is that why you’re here?” He would’ve asked in any case -- it mattered, for banishment and because the folklorist background in his heart wanted to know -- but he found that he wished to know the answer with an unexpected amount of interest.
“One of those.” The man did an exaggerated wave of fingers, brushing away the idea: graceful, elegant, simultaneously antique and just slightly theatrical. “Would you like to try now? It won’t work, but I’ll play along if it’ll help.”
“Now you’re humoring me.”
“I’m having fun. Most people don’t take the time for a chat.”
