Family time
“Uh yeah.” Jesse worked for a company that researched all things occult. Unsurprisingly it was mostly young adults, conspiracy theorists, and odd balls that worked there. Plus a few like Jesse that had gifts. This meant there was tons of interesting gossip. He launched into a story of how the new receptionist had started sleeping with the manager of the cryptozoology department. Only he had failed to mention he was also sleeping with the office manager. Today the two women had discovered they were part of a triangle. Instead of going after the cheating SOB, who incidentally was married, they ended up attacking each other. First, they exchanged insults and then the office manager tried to staple the receptionist to a wall. The receptionist retaliated by three hole punching the office manager’s silk blouse. It took three people to pull them apart in the end. One for each of the women and another to pull the staples that were holding their clothes together. Savannah and I were in danger of spewing our drinks out of our noses when he finished.
“Do we have plans for tomorrow night?” Jess asked when we were all done giggling.
“Not that I can think of. Why?”
“There’s a house over in Grapevine that needs your help.” By day I was a data analysis. By night I was a ghost hunter. I didn’t investigate every supposedly haunted house. Just the ones the ghost team at Jesse’s firm determined were legitimate hauntings and that my gifts would be helpful. Often times I was called in to deal with the unruly specters that were causing problems for the living. I pulled out my phone to enter the time and address into my calendar.
“Can I go?” Savannah was looking at me hopefully. She had been asking to join us on our investigations since she was old enough to understand what we did. Jesse and I exchanged looks.
“Let me check it out first.” I held up a hand to delay her protest. “You know we don’t want you going to haunted places that we don’t know what’s in there.”
“But mom! Come on! What’s the chances there’s a demon or something dangerous in there?” She had learned how to bat those gorgeous green eyes for sure. Undoubtedly, they got her anything she wanted from the boys at school. I was immune to them since they were a mirror image of her father’s. After almost twenty years together, they had lost their potency.
“Everyone loves a movie about demons. They like the scare when it attacks. It’s a whole different story when you are the one being dragged down the hallway.” Jesse and I both grimaced. We’d run into our fair share of nasty entities in our lives. I tried to stay away from the demonic. The last one spun me around the ceiling like a merry-go-round. I still couldn’t sleep with the fan running without getting nauseous. “If it turns out to be a run of the mill ghost that just needs to talk, maybe you can go on one of the visits.”
Our daughter’s gifts were still developing so we weren’t sure exactly what she was going to be able to do. So far, she showed signs of a blending of mine and Jesse’s. She could hear the dead but barely see them. She also could make out energies faintly. Jesse could read auras at a glance; Savannah could only pick out the strongest colors in a dim halo around a person. She did seem to have his gift for being able to see residual energy on an object.
“Fine.” She drug out the word so we would know she was displeased.
Once dinner was over and the kitchen cleaned, we adjourned to the living room to watch TV. Jesse and I were comfortably curled up together watching the giant screen he had recently installed on the wall. Savannah mostly played on her phone. It dinged about every thirty seconds. I had serious thoughts of flinging it out a window one day.
“Meow. Meow. Meow.” Our tortoise shell cat, Galapagos came running out of the master bedroom, a sock hanging from her mouth. She darted across the living room, stopping under the dining room table. Once there, she dropped the sock, then jumped up in one of the chairs to lick herself.
“Did you leave the laundry out again?” I didn’t care for the accusatory tone in my loving spouse’s tone.
“Nope. I shoved the hamper back in the closet like a normal person.” We’d added Galapagos to our menagerie a few months ago. She’d showed up as a stray and demanded entry. Like the soft-hearted fools we were, we took her in. Her mannerisms suggested she had been a housecat at some point, so it worked out fairly well. Until she started dragging laundry around. Socks were her favorite. I could no longer leave my dirty clothes in a pile. My clean freak of a husband was thrilled.
“The hamper had clean clothes in it. Why didn’t you put them up?” It always amused me how put out he could sound with me while twirling a strand of my hair around his finger.
“I did. I put the hamper in the closet.” He rolled his eyes at me.
“Then how did she get a sock?” Normally I liked it when he whispered things in my ear, but this was not sweet nothings. I also didn’t trust the fingers that were now resting on my ribs in a prime position to tickle me. In a pre-emptive move, I rolled out of his grip onto the floor. He looked over the edge of the couch at me. “That’s not the actions of an innocent person.”
I stuck my tongue out at him as I scrambled to my feet. He dove for me. I took off running for the bedroom. Savannah made her grossed out sounds. She and Jesse followed me into our room. I flung my arms up in victory. “See. No laundry.”
“Mom, look.” Savannah pointed at my dresser that, yet another giant TV sat on. There was a sock hanging out of the middle drawer.
“Oh, dear lord. She’s figured out how to open and close drawers.” I looked at my family in disbelief. “How does she know which drawer my socks are in?”
“I told you, there’s too much intelligence in her eyes.” Our daughter was convinced Galapagos was actually a human turned into a cat. We’d never found any verifiable proof that such a thing could be done. But we did have to agree that at times, she did seem to understand us.
“I looked it up. Cats use socks as prey substitutes. That’s all it is. Nothing to be alarmed by.” Jesse opened the drawer to tuck my sock back inside while he tried to alleviate our daughter’s concern. “It’s after ten, time for bed.” Savannah ran from the room as he stripped off his shirt to reveal his slightly out of shape dad bod.