Page 8 of Ayden

“Okay. Let me make notes.” She wanted to roll her eyes at him. He was forever making notes but didn’t say anything to him. “You can see ghosts, and you’ve not spoken to any of them. All right, good. Do they ask you questions?”

“They want to know what happened to me all of the sudden. Like the bullet that Aunt Brandy saved me from.” He made a note, and she nodded. Maybe this note thing was better. Harley asked her what she wanted from the ghosts. “Nothing. I mean, I don’t know them, and I don’t know that I want to know them.”

“Are they messed up?” She had to think about what Harley was asking her and nodded when she realized that she wanted to know if they were like they had died. “Okay. That’s good to know. I mean, you can look at them—the ghost you said was with Ayden? What does she look like?”

“She’s all cut up. Not so she’s falling apart, but she is missing her right hand.” Ayden looked at her sharply. “I didn’t do it.”

“No, I know you didn’t, sweetie. But can you please ask her if she was part of the restaurant? I think she’ll understand what I mean.” Selma told him that she was nodding. “She was part of the murders at the restaurant that night. The bodies that we found.”

“Tell him please that I’d been missing for several weeks, and when he found us, my parents knew that I didn’t run off and leave them. Him finding my body, at least most of it, gave them a story behind why I was missing.” She told Ayden what the woman was saying to her. “Tell him there are others that want to thank him as well. But I was voted the least scary for you to talk to.”

“Can she hear me, honey?” Selma nodded, feeling like she was finally making some progress in what was going on. “I don’t know your name. I was never told any of them, but I’m so happy that I was in the right place to be able to solve your disappearance.”

Selma couldn’t help it. She cried when the body just faded out. It was working; no matter that he didn’t understand anything more than she did, Ayden was helping her solve the mystery with the ghosts. While her sister held her hand, Ayden made notes on the people who were in the room with them. Once he had notes on the ones that she could see, she told him a little bit about the people. And they were people he told her that just needed her to help.

“But I think we need to tell your mom. This isn’t a secret that I’m comfortable with keeping.” She said she understood. “If you want to do it while we’re all together, I’ll get her and give her a heads up so she’s not freaked out like you said.”

Ayden left them there with a kiss on their heads. He was like that, always holding them, hugging them just when they neededit. He’d talk to their mom, and things would be all right. She didn’t know why she felt that way, but she did.

“I think we should think about calling him Dad all the time. He’s been better to us since we moved in than our real dad was all our life. We don’t have to do it, but I’m going to think about it.” Harley squeezed her hand and told her that she was smart in doing this. “I hope so. He didn’t look too freaked out, did he?”

“No. He’s nervous, I think. And yeah, we should call him Dad. You’re right, again, on him being good to us. But he’s really good to Mom, too.” Harley told her that she loved her. “I really do. And as much as I love you, I’m glad that I don’t have this thing. I’d be rude, and they’d be banging at my door all the time, wanting me to say I’m sorry for something that I said.”

It made her laugh. Something that she’d not done since she’d been able to see the first ghost. Harley had always been the best sister in the world, and she could make her laugh more than anyone. Glad now that she had told her, she asked her what she thought of the man in the barn.

“I’ve been thinking about him. How he’s not allowed to come into the house. I think that he might be his dad.” She asked her sister why she’d think that. “You said he had a hold in his chest and that he looked nasty like he didn’t bathe all the time?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” She thought of the man and his anger. He was really mad about Ayden all the time and wanted her to get their uncle Lica to come and see him. “I think you might be right. I know that I can make him go away, but I don’t want to do that unless Ayden…Dad tells me to. He might have something to say to him.”

The more she thought about it, the more she believed that Harley was right. That the man was the father of the Fraizer boys and that he had something to say to them. She knew that Dad’s mom was in prison, but she didn’t know what either of them looked like. Thinking about it, she was happy when her momshowed up with Ayden, and she looked all right.

“Ghosts, huh?” She nodded, her eyes filling with tears again as her mom sat on the desk in front of her. “Ayden said that you don’t talk to them, but I have a feeling that you have been. The other night, you were arguing with someone in your room. Is that right?”

“He’s one of the men that were killed about two weeks ago. He wants me to make him live again. I don’t know that I can do that. I mean, dead is dead, right?” Mom told her that was right, but if he got mean with her, to send him away. “I can do that. I haven’t yet, but I can.” She looked at Dad. “Your dad is here too. Not here but in the barn. I won’t let him in the house anymore.”

“Did he hurt you?” She said that he screams at her all the time. “That sounds like him. You can send him away if you want. I have nothing to say to him.”

“He wants to talk to Uncle Lica.” He seemed to be startled by that and then nodded. “He said that you all owe him, and he wants you to kill my uncle so that he’s on the other side with him. I don’t think that would be a good idea. He looks mean mugged all the time.”

“I’ll talk to my brothers and see what they want to do. You did well in not letting him in the house. I don’t know what he’d do to any of us, but you were brilliant for not letting him near us.” She said that she was finding out all kinds of things dealing with the dead. “I bet you are, honey. And I’m so sorry that you’re having to deal with this. If Brandy knew, she’d still save you, but she’d feel bad about it.”

It was only about ten minutes later when they were all meeting in the barn. The man was still there. She and Harley had decided that they weren’t going to call him grandda but just the man. Uncle Edmond asked her to ask him what he wanted.

“You tell them that they’re to kill off Lica.” She told him that no one was going to do that. “You little bitch, you’ll do whatyou’re told, or so help me, what I gave them boys of mine, you’ll think it was a walk in the mall.” She corrected him. Telling the others what he was saying.

“Why does he hate me so much? Can you ask him that, sweetie? He’s had it out for me since I was born.” Since the man could hear them speaking, Selma just looked at him. “Tell him too that all of can—” She told them that he could hear them and that all he had to do was to talk to them. “Good. Old man, you leave my niece alone. What do you have against me? It’s not anything to do with her.”

“You tell him what I tell you.” She told him that she wasn’t going to cuss. “You will, or I’ll slap you around, too. I can do it, too.”

“I’m not afraid of you. And if you don’t want me to send you away, you’ll be nice to me or else. I won’t cuss. My momma raised me better than that, and Dad here, he’s the best person in the world for taking care of me and my sister. My mom is happy, too.”

“Old man?” The ghost looked at Lica, and she could almost feel his hate coming from him. “You never knew this, but the six of us could shift. We played you like a fiddle, and you never knew.” The ghost lunged at Lica, and he must have felt something because he laughed. “Still have nothing, do you? I’m so happy that you’re dead and gone.” Uncle Lica looked at her. “You can send him on or whatever you need to do, honey. There isn’t a thing that I can say to him that would make any of us feel any better other than to tell him that we’ve been able to shift since we were eight years old.”

“You tell that bastard that he’s to die right now.” She stared at the man who had six of the most well-respected and loved men around. Looking at her uncles and her new dad and all she could think about was that she was safe from men like him thanks to her mom having Dad in her life. “Did you hear me little shit? Tellhim that I want him to pull out a gun and blow his brains out so I can talk to him over here.”

“No.” He sputtered for a bit, then told her that he was going to make her life a living hell. “No, you won’t. And you know why? On account of you not scaring me. Not one bit.” She looked at her family, all of them. “I bid you gone from here, never to return.”

It sounded like he’d been sucked into a tube and spit out the other end when he disappeared. Looking at her family again, she told them that he was gone and he’d not be back. It was Brandy that told her that she was sorry for giving her this magic.

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