Ghost Perfume | ✔

Chapter 13: Open Up to Me (Part 2)

Lukas took all the keys from me, both for Alexander's house and Tommy's, and I didn't know where he put them.

I didn't like that. How was I going to get into the house if no one else was home? But I thought I'd let him cool off and ask for the keys back tomorrow, before I left for school.

"You're like a kitten,'' he told me lightly, as if he was joking. "If I don't put a cage around you, you go shooting off to get run over in the street or get kidnapped or something.''

I touched his arm. "I just wanted to talk to him.''

"I know. Come on, you only have a few hours left to sleep.''

As soon as Jane and I were alone in my room, she burst out, "Tommy didn't finish the story. Rose, he found the house and manuscripts!''

I whirled on her, my jaw dropping.

"The manuscripts are in the trunk of his car. He was amazing. He must have trekked over every inch of that mountain the last couple of weeks. I started floating ahead of him sometimes, of course I didn't know what he was looking for, and I found that cabin first, it was hidden very well - you could have passed a few feet away and not seen it. It's surrounded by trees and snow. You have to get close to the only entrance to see it. But he found it and he broke in.''

"Books from floor to ceiling?'' I asked, trying to remember.

"Books from floor to ceiling,'' she echoed. "A cot in the corner. A little armchair, for reading. And a little desk and chair, plain hard wood, with an actual typewriter on the desk and a stack of papers and journals and notebooks the height of a child beside the desk. Tommy took it all in plastic bags he'd brought. You should have seen him carrying it back down the mountain.''

"Amazing,'' I said.

"Amazing,'' she said. "He did it. But what happened here?''

"Wait, Jane, would you be able to lead me to the cabin? I want to see it too.''

"Of course.''

I told her everything that had happened since she'd left. I glossed over the details of Colin's attack and made sure to recount as faithfully as I could the conversation I'd had with Gabriel in the coffeeshop. She listened, rapt.

"It's a shame we can't really communicate over distances,'' she said. "We have no equivalent of a cell phone.''

"About that,'' I said excitedly. "Can I try something?''

"What?''

Can you hear me? I thought at her.

"Yeah,'' she said, her eyes widening. "But you didn't move your lips.''

I wondered. I have an inner eye and inner fingers. How come I don't have an inner voice?

"What.''

"It's kind of hard to focus it, though,'' I said out loud.

"Maybe it will come with practice,'' she said.

"Can you see if--sorry.'' Can you see if you can talk to me in your head too?

She couldn't.

She sighed. "When we have another ghost here, we should test to see if they can hear you too, or if it's possible for you to only talk to me, without other ghosts hearing.''

"That's a good idea.''

I still felt warm and too keyed-up to sleep, though I lay over my covers in my bed in Alexander's house. I fluffed my hair off my neck so it lay up over the pillow.