The Necromancer

Two

One thing I've come to realize about dead people is you never know when they'll show up for an unexpected visit. Take, for instance, in the middle of the night.

I was dead asleep—pun intended—when a sharp chill woke me from my slumber, a chill I knew wasn't due to my lack of clothing: little cotton shorts and a sports bra. I opened my eyes, perhaps wiped some drool off my chin, and blinked a couple times but the room was engulfed in darkness. I was unable to even see my hand waving two inches in front of my face.

Morning person, I was not. Slowly, I untangled my feet from my fresh sheets—Cynthia had insisted upon washing them, which was a good idea, considering the thick layer of dust—and set them on the cold, hardwood floors. My feet, not the sheets. The chill came again and I froze, mind fully awake.

I could always tell when a spirit was nearby. Death produced a...peculiar feeling, almost like slowly spilling ice water down the back of your neck. I quickly sat up, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

There was always that scary moment when you first meet a spirit and the unknown possibility that it could be one of those spirits. You know, one of the mean kind that have been around so long they drove themselves mad or they just stopped caring about anything.

"Hey!" I whisper-shouted. My mother would think I was insane if she found me talking to myself in the middle of the night. I peered at my alarm clock. "Are you serious? Three in the morning? Can you say, cliché much?"

I know what you're thinking. I looked totally insane scolding a ghost for being a cliché but everything for me goes back to a movie. They're kind of my thing.

And now I felt like the "I see dead people" kid. Was I going to be trapped in this M. Night movie forever?

I stood and fumbled to my desk, nearly knocking over a large stack of books I'd found on necromancy and witchcraft. Interesting? Yeah, the books were interesting. But helpful? Not in the slightest.

My hand found the lamp and turned it on. The switch from dark to light assaulted my corneas painfully and I squeezed my eyes closed.

Necromancy wasn't the easiest job. Not like, say, grocery store clerk or a fake wrestler on WWE. And to be honest, I'd much rather be put in a head lock by a ripped guy standing on a rope and thrown out of a ring than be woken up at three in the morning by a dead guy.

I peeled my eyes open slowly, carefully letting them adjust before doing a full 360 perimeter check.

No ghost I could see.

"Freak of nature!"

I jumped back, startled. My butt hit my desk and sent the books scattering across my floor. Shit, shit, shit. If Cynthia wasn't awake before, she sure was now.

My eyes darted from side to side. There was no sign of the spirit anywhere.

"See me you won't, see me you will?"

What the hell? This ghost was actually taunting me.

"Show yourself, coward," I hissed.

A blur darted past in my peripheral and I spun to the right yet there was nothing there but my dresser and an Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade poster. The cool feeling on my spine steadily receded and just like that, the spirit was gone.

I bent down to pick up my books from the floor. Footsteps sounded in the hall and my bedroom door flew open.

Mom stood there in rubber duck pajamas, a long pink bath robe, and thick wool socks pulled over her pants. She'd also put curlers in her hair—very sloppily, I might add.