Ghost Perfume | ✔

Chapter 10: Trust Me (Part 2)

Was it real?

I glanced at the ghost at my side. "Jane is here,'' I introduced her.

"Hello, Jane,'' Michael said gravely, looking in the direction I looked. The others did the same, with a touch of wariness.

"Tell them I say hello, handsome,'' she said.

I'm sure I turned bright pink. "She says hi.''

"Tell them I wanna take over all their bodies,'' she whispered in my ear.

"No,'' I squeaked.

Lukas frowned. "What's she saying?''

"Nothing!''

"Ask them if their intentions are honorable.''

I covered my cheeks.

"Seriously, what?''

"Let's eat,'' I said. I could smell the lasagna in the oven.

Michael snorted and helped me to my feet. I saw Lukas carefully close my notebook and place it on a side table.

I went with Gabriel and Michael to the kitchen, Jane floating over us, and we made light foods to go with the lasagna - a salad with green leaves and cucumbers and slices of hard-boiled egg; another with pickled cabbage and thin slices of carrot in a balsamic sauce; and a plate of icy, bursting green grapes, like bubbles of sugar ice. I ate a few, then a few more.

I wondered when they'd tell me about their work now. But for the moment they wanted to know more about Jane - asking her how long she'd been a ghost, what she'd been when she lived - so I kept translating between them.

Of course, Jane played her usual evasions. Saying she'd been boring. Saying she'd been around for a while.

I thought the men grew suspicious, and I wanted to explain that she wasn't hiding anything, she was only a kind of romantic who'd dreamed of an exciting life and gotten an everyday one instead, and never accepted it. Not even in death. But I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

The lasagna breathed through the heat-laden air of the oven. Gabriel said it was almost ready.

"Oh, where are the others?'' I asked.

"They went outside.''

Michael laughed at my expression.

"We can join them now.''

Jane and I followed after him through the living room area. "We need coats then?'' I called, but he shook his head. He drew aside heavy curtains along one wall, revealing sliding doors that opened into an inner courtyard.

Beyond the doors, we weren't met by the bitter, cold, and dark. The night was warmed by fires licking up the walls of great iron pillars. Lukas and Alexander were setting them ablaze. They illuminated a wide grassy area edged with bushes and flowers, with a raised stone dais in the corner, holding a table and chairs made of glass and iron, and surrounded by plants that climbed and hung in pretty falls of green leaves.

"Fairyland,'' Jane laughed.

Gabriel came up behind us with the lasagna and a stack of plates and cutlery. I hurried to bring the salads.

They sat me with one of the fire pillars at my back and I was almost too warm.

"Do you like helping the ghosts?'' Alexander asked me.

It's more than that, I said, though I didn't know how to put it into words; it wasn't about whether I liked it or not. It was a law, like the sun; even if the rays burned me or the night was a relief, my world would be destroyed if one day the sun stopped rising and setting as it had to.