Page 47 of My Road Trip with a Vampire: Season One
I shake my head. Banishing ghosts isn’t a spectator sport. Interruptions make it harder.
“Don’t tell me no,” she says, grabbing my shoulders. “Who is it?”
She pales when I answer.
“Your mother.”
She steps back. The matronly ghost fades out of sight for a moment and reappears right in front of my face.
“Tell her to leave,” she demands. Three more of the candles flicker out, and more ghosts appear in the shadows. Soon we’ll be surrounded.
“What is she telling you?”
“She wants you to leave. She says you’re not welcome in the house anymore.”
“Tell her I’m not going anywhere.”
I sigh.
There’s no need to relay the message because her mother can hear her, and she’s pissed now. Dear god, I’m stuck in the middle of an argument between a woman and her late mother. And I thoughtmymommy issues were bad.
"I played by all your rules, Mother. I can’t help it that I met someone who showed me there can be another way to live,” Faith yells across the room. Then she turns on me. "What is she saying?"
I look at Dennis. He’s standing defensively as the crowd of ghosts builds around him. I’m glad he can see them. I feel nuts with Faith shouting to her mother like they’re the only two in the room when we're gaining such an audience.
“She’s not saying much right now, Faith. Please give me a sec. It’s not healthy to engage with her. She’ll end up hanging on and forgetting what she was mad about in the first place. That’s how the worst hauntings are born.”
Faith’s mother pats her chest, blinking as if she’s just realized something.
“I don’t want to be here forever,” she says. “That’s not natural.”
“No. You should be at peace. With your family.”
“Peace.”
“Yeah. You can all be at peace.”
“Wait. No. We can’t, not when she—” Her face cuts out from my sight and comes back with a glowering expression. Shit. “Faith can’t do this.”
“Do what? Feel something for someone you wouldn’t approve of?”
I don’t have time to unpack whatever feelings Faith has for Dennis, or how those feelings made her defy her family so brazenly, but clearly, something is going on there. I can’t think of how that makes me feel right now.
“You know she’s jealous of you,” her mother sneers, and at first I think she’s talking to Faith about the thoughts I’m having about her and Dennis. “She wishes she had your talent,” she continues, and I know that’s not the case.
“No wonder she doesn’t want to live by your family’s rules. What a shitty thing to say about your own daughter.”
My manners fly out the window, but the ghost’s lips curl back in a laugh.
“Ask her why you’re here. Do you know what she wants you for?” I step back, but she vanishes and reappears behind me, her stiff corpse fingers digging into my arms. “Do you know what he’ll do to you when she gives him what he wants?”
She moves a hand under my chin, forcing me to look in Dennis’ direction.
“You think your life matters to him?”
I like to think so, but at the moment, I’m not so sure. It’s hard to think straight when the veil is billowing in my peripheral vision. So many souls are slipping through to chase their excommunicated kin away from the property. “Poor Beatrice, but I suppose I shouldn’t feel too bad. You’re not natural yourself, are you? Whatever touched you beyond the veil left you with a most unholy mark on your soul.”
The accusation is unsettling.
