Page 8 of Ghost Walk
“I don’t need to go to the hospital.” Grace assured her. “I’m fine.” She pointedly refused to look at the delusion ofJamie Riordan, who was now lounging in the corner of the Harrisonburg Guest Relations Center.
Housed in a two hundred year old building, the inside of the space was a modern mess, filled with computers and overflowing files. At nine o’clock in the evening, Anita and Grace were the only ones left in the office, which was a block from the center of town. The delusion of Jamie Riordan had smugly informed her that it used to be a brothel.
Not that she was listening to him.
Since she’d regained consciousness, Grace had done her best to ignore the big, handsome evidence of her insanity and it was clearly pissing him off. His gorgeous face was set in an irritated expression, as ifshewas the one being unreasonable. The man wanted to talk. Helovedto talk. Since she seemed to be the only person who could hear his constant talking, he kept up a running commentary to her, whether she responded to him or not.
And shewasn’tresponding to him.
No way.
“How much longer do you plan to tolerate this horrible woman, lass?” He demanded as Anitasubtlymentioned that she’d had to give refunds to everyone on the Ghost Walk and didn’t Grace think it was just alittleunfair to expect Harrisonburg to pay for Grace’s mistakes.
Grace pretended that he wasn’t there. If she just ignored him, Thomas Payne-in-the-ass (minus theCommon Sense) would just go away. Hehadto. Darn it, sherefusedto go crazy, again. “I can reimburse you for the tour admissions, Anita.”
“Well, Idothink that would be the right thing to do. But the guests were also saying that you were talking to yourself.” Anita continued in a disapproving tone that she tried to pass off as worry over Grace’s wellbeing. “That’s very troubling, in light of your history. Were you seeing things, Grace?”
“No. Of course not. I think my electrolytes were just low.”
“That’s it, lass. Donea tell her anything that will get you locked up. You’ll be of no help to me trapped in an asylum.”
Grace’s lips compressed into a line, but she still didn’t acknowledge him.
Anita made an “umm” sound, not convinced by Grace’s denials. “Are yousureyou weren’t experiencing anything… odd? You’ve been under a lot of stress this past year. And then there’s your family’s… business. No one would blame you if you’re having a few… problems.”
Faux-Jamie scoffed at all the pointed pauses. “See?” He waved a dismissive (but beautifully shaped) hand at Anita’s faux-concern and faux-sympathy. “She thinks you’re off your head. Convince her everything’s alright so we can be going.”
“I’mfine, Anita.” Grace adjusted her icepack with a bit more force than necessary. Visualizing a safe and happy place was supposed to help with anxiety, but no amount of peaceful green cornfields could stop the throbbing in her skull. “I just need to drink more water.”
“I’m sure that’s it.” Anita obviouslywasn’tsure that was it. “It’s shaping up to be a sweltering Independence Day, isn’t it?” She patted Grace’s arm. “Things will besohectic here over the holiday. Take tomorrow off and recuperate. You can come back for the weekend, rested and ready to go. I think that would be best, don’t you?” It wasn’t a question.
Grace ground her teeth together at the loss of a day’s pay. “Of course.”
Her answer was totally unnecessary. Anita was already moving on to her real priorities. “And you have a point. With the temperatures so high, we’ll sell record amounts of bottled water this weekend on the tours. I’ll just go make a note to order even more.” She headed for her private office. “You can get home on your own, can’t you, Grace?” She called over her shoulder and then shut the door after her, without waiting for an answer.
Grace sighed.
“Do you truly plan to stay working for that harridan, lass? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’d rather be dead and Iamdead. You should grow a backbone. Walk out of this place and never come back.”
On some level, she agreed with his disapproving analysis. This job wasn’t for her. She was terrible at it and very, very bad at confrontations. Everyone knew that. Great-Uncle Devotion once told her she could lose an argument with a stuffed jackalope.
As a crypto-taxidermist, Devotion had a lot of time on his hands to think up witticisms like that. Most of them involved some kind of non-existent animal he was just waiting to discover, hunt down, and pose with onNational Geographic’scover. Dev’s fondest wish was to shoot a unicorn. In this case, though, her crazy uncle was probably right. Grace was stuck in a life that didn’t quite fit. Not a single part of it made her happy.
Unfortunately, after Grace’s breakdown, Anita had been the only normal person willing to hire her.
She couldn’t go back to being a crime scene tech. It had nearly cost Grace her sanity. And she sure couldn’t go work with her family. They were a surefire ticketbackto the crazy house. Not only were her relatives insane, but their potion shop somehow lost money even though they could literallymake moneywith their spells. As much as Grace hated to admit it, their magic could actually do --well-- magical things. There was no logical explanation for their powers. So how on God’s green earth could they have spent three hundred years dead broke?
It was enough to drive even a really normal person bonkers.
“Why do you let her speak to you so?” The delusion continued, gesturing towards Anita’s office door. “You should stand up for yourself!”
Grace looked up at the ugly dropped ceiling and let out a long breath. He was actually right. Was that a bad sign? An evenworsesign than seeing a delusion in the first place?
Maybe sheshould’vegone to the hospital. Grace just couldn’t shake the feeling that if she stepped foot into thatsterile, cold space, she wouldn’t be able to get back out, again. It would be like a year ago, only worse. Just thinking about it triggered claustrophobia and had her doing her deep breathing exercises to calm down.
What she really needed was to just be normal. Normal people didn’t see visions of Revolutionary War era criminals. Normal people didn’t have relatives who hunted unicorns and spent every free moment trying to recreate the family’s long-lost recipe for “troll powder.” Normal people didn’t visit crime scenes and relive the murders. Normal people were boring and stable and… normal.
Normalwas the key to happiness.
