Page 38 of Curse of the Stag's Eye
We lay down, face to face. I rested my head on my hands, Rhys on a little travel pillow, the kind they sell in airports.
I tried to ignore the gnawing sensation in my stomach. I was going to have to tell him soon. I just didn’t know how. “Whatarewe going to do?” I asked him. “About Baines?”
“I'm not sure but I have a feeling whatever we do, it’ll have to be soon. Whatever it was about Dawn that got Baines all hot and bothered is bound to wear off sooner or later.”
“She’d make a hell of a ghosthunter if she kept her nerve.”
Rhys frowned and told me what she’d said about getting information from the other side. How it just appeared in her mind. It sounded frightening to me. How could you be sure your thoughts were your own? “It can’t be easy for her,” Rhys said. “I wonder if she could learn to control it, somehow. Meditation or something.”
“Do you meditate?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Every night before I go to sleep. I picture myself lying in a forest, with rustling leaves and soft grass under a starry sky.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
“That’s all. It helps me relax and drift off to sleep. And it helps me remember my dreams more clearly. Haven’t you ever tried it?”
I made a face. “It always struck me a bit New Age. It’s a short leap from there to burning incense, and then before you know it you’re wearing robes made of hemp, giving blessings at stone circles, and living in the bushes on a roundabout.”
Rhys chuckled again. He really did have the warmest laugh.
“Can it help with… with a bad temper?” I asked.
He cocked his head. “Is that something you struggle with?”
I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I did anyway. Another victory for my mouth. “It’s always been a bit of an issue with me, since I was a lad. I’m not violent, never have been, but I’ve got a short fuse. I was not a pleasant child to be around. I’m sorry to say it but I was probably a bully at school.”
“You didn’t go to school in Carmarthen, did you? Because that would be one hell of a coincidence.”
I shook my head. “But if I had, I might have picked on you. I lashed out at everyone. I didn’t like being a child — It didn’t suit me. I hated being told what to do with a passion. I was always getting detention or skipping class. It’s probably why I’ve had so many jobs. So, when I lash out, when I get all red-faced and shouty, please don’t take it personally. I don’t mean it.”
“Don’t.” He closed his eyes.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t smile at me like that. Not when we’re lying so close to each another.” Rhys opened his eyes again. I was still smiling. “I’m trying to be a professional ghost tour guide here.”
“I’m sorry, I’ll stop.” I lay on my back and put on my very sternest expression, which made him laugh.
“You’re very good-looking, you know.”
“Stop it.” My ears started to burn.
“It’s true.”
“I’m a bull-necked, puffy-eyed, baldy bastard, and we both know it.”
“That’s exactly my type.” He chuckled a bit. “Tell me you’ve got a hairy chest and I’ll propose here and now.”
I laughed this time and told him I did. “I’m surprised you don’t have a man at home.”
He lay on his back too, and pulled his sleeping bag up to his throat. “You’ll never believe it, but there’s not a huge market for chubby, ghost-hunting weirdos.”
“I’ve seen the darker side of social media. I know that’s not true.”
“Well, maybe I just haven’t really been looking. It’s scary out there.”
I made a face. “Some would say it’s scarier in here. In places like this.”
