The Living, The Dead, and The Unwed

I’ve seen the living; I’ve seen the dead. I’ve seen angels and I’ve seen demons. No matter how many malevolent or benevolent beings I interacted with, none could terrify me as much as the spirit that walked through the laundry room door into the kitchen where I was cooking dinner. Mentally bracing myself, I stirred in chili powder to the ground beef on the stove before I acknowledged the woman that was now looking over my shoulder.

“That’s too much seasoning. It’s going to be too spicy.” Somehow, I kept the sigh to myself as I turned to face the food police. She was fairly tall, white hair wrapped around her head in an intricate braid, with her superior complex obvious in her blue eyes. “You need to call your mother.” It was an order, not a request. I raised an eyebrow, inviting her to explain. “She won’t listen to reason.”

“Are you two still feuding?” Grandma Eleanor had been dead for three years now. She had been fighting with my mother for the last two and a half years.1 I’d inherited the “gift” from my mother who had gotten it from my grandmother and so on and so forth. They didn’t need me to pass messages back and forth. Nope, she wanted me to take her side against my mother. She seemed to have forgotten that I had refused to get involved.

“She has no right to do what she’s doing! She won’t listen to me, but she’ll listen to you. Maybe you should go over there and tell her.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on now, that chili isn’t going to be fit to eat anyways. Why won’t you just go to those cooking classes I suggested?”

Careful not to touch the lenses on my glasses, I pinched my nose. I heard the garage door rattle up followed by the roar of a v-8 engine. Moments later, my husband stepped into the dining room from the garage with a barely concealed smirk. The look I sent him was a little less warm than normal. His dark blonde covered head with the features on the delicate side was welcome, his green eyes with that knowing glint in them was not. He couldn’t see the dead or non-human entities like I could, his gifts laid in energies. While he couldn’t see grandma, he could feel her and read my irritation. He swung his gaze to where my grandmother stood before addressing the empty space in front of the dishwasher.

“Eleanor, always good to see you.” His eyes swung back to me while he deposited his laptop bag on the dining room table. She glared at my husband, hard to say if it was because she had no sense of humor or because she never approved of my marrying a psychic instead of a medium. She always thought I’d married beneath my station, that I should have married a medium like she had.

“I’ll be downstairs.” He headed down the hall to the pit of denial AKA the lower floor of our split-level house he had converted to his man cave after our eight-year-old daughter proclaimed Joe Jonas the hottest man on earth. He’d added a pool table and jukebox when she had hit puberty.

“Coward!” I yelled at his rapidly retreating back. He flashed me a flirty smile then disappeared behind the basement door. A throat being cleared returned my attention to my ghostly visitor. “If you have something to say to mom, pop over there and talk to her yourself.”

“Holly Lee Bush! You know how unreasonable your mother can be when it comes to me. She will listen to you.” I threw her an irritated look.

“Leefe. Holly Lee Bush Leefe. If you must use my full name, don’t forget the one I actually go by.”   Leefe wasn’t much of an upgrade from Bush, but it did reduce the number of jokes. The double entendres had gotten old before high school. Growing up in Texas with the last name of Bush hadn’t been easy either. I sniffed the air. “No no no!” Quickly I spun around to the stove. I’d been so distracted I’d forgotten to turn down the heat on the chili. The bottom of the pan felt like a bumpy back road when I tried to stir the bubbling mess. Well dinner was ruined. Guess we would be having sandwiches.

“They have cooking classes at the Y.” Grandma Eleanor dissipated after her parting shot. With a growling sound, I dumped the chili down the drain then started cleaning up the mess.

Meanwhile at a house in Grapevine

Libby Walker sat on her plush vanity bench staring into the three mirrors on the vanity, tweezers in hand looking for any unwanted facial hair. Not seeing any hair that needed plucked, she began checking her roots to see if her natural brown was showing. Currently she had colored it gray. The color was popular among the young women. She was certain that she looked young enough to wear it. Content that all hairs were as they should be, she loaded her favorite TikTok makeup channel to practice the new eye liner styles.

Michael Cook felt a shiver as he entered the house. The AC felt chilly after spending the last few hours cleaning the flowerbeds in the courtyard. Carefully he slipped off his work boots, placing them upside down on the shoe hooks by the garage door. Once his house shoes were on his feet, he padded across the laminate floor to the bathroom. As he washed his hands, splashing the water on his face to cool down, he thought he heard a woman’s voice in the hall. “Toots?”

Opening the door revealed an empty hall. Cocking his head, he thought he could still hear a female’s voice. Maybe multiple women talking. He walked as silently as he could on floors that echoed every step. The popping of his knee brought him to a halt. The voices stilled as well. Mentally he chastised his old knee. They had been hearing voices for months. This could have been his chance to finally figure out the source of them. Even though she had been gone for years now, he worried that his beloved Norma Rae was jealous of his relationship with Libby.

He turned the corner into the kitchen Libby had recently remodeled. The light reflecting off the shiny new appliances sent a pang through his heart for the avocado green gas stove he had tinkered with for years to keep it running. Noting that the kitchen was empty, Michael turned the light back off. As he walked through the living room he glanced at the back door. Reflected in the glass of the door was a woman in an aqua robe. She was walking beside him. With a startled oomph, he whirled his head to the left. No one was there. Footsteps ran across the laminate floors towards the master bedroom. A terrified shriek came from the same direction.