Haunted -- Part One

Cassie turned around at the sound of her name, wondering who it could be that was shouting at her across the campus. A man with long dyed-black hair and dark glasses was striding toward her. He was grinning. She raised her eyebrows.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Looking for you, obviously," Gilhen said. "I need to talk to you."

"You couldn't leave a message on my machine?"

"You don't return my phone calls," he said, matter-of-factly. Cassie cringed, remembering the blinking light on her answering machine that she'd been too tired to respond to for the last couple of days.

"I've been busy, Gil. I'm sorry."

"Nah, don't be sorry. I had the afternoon off so I thought I'd wander over here and see if I couldn't catch you. I'm glad I did."

"Isn't this afternoon your once-a-week class?"

"Yeah. I figure I can skip it since I actually read the book this time. Besides, I needed to talk to you....why are you walking like that?"

"Like what?"

"You aren't walking in a straight line. It's like you keep weaving to avoid people who aren't there."

Cassie gritted her teeth. "Oh lovely. I was hoping it wasn't obvious. Please, by all means tell me how ridiculous I look, while I hope that no one I know is crossing the campus at this exact time."

She could feel Gilhen's gaze on her for a few seconds before the realization dawned. "Oh," he said quietly

They walked silently for a few moments before Gilhen said timidly, "The meditations haven't been helping then?"

"Helping, yes. I'm still having bad days, though, and today happens to be one of them. You know what? Stress apparently doesn't help. And guess what I've been for the past week? Stressed. And then I get stressed out that I'm stressed. It's this vicious cycle. Plus I'm told by your helpful books that it takes years of dedicated study to become good at this whole meditative state thing. And it's only been weeks. Besides which, do you think I have years? I don't have years. I don't have five minutes. I can't go off by myself and live at the top of a mountain on light and air."

"Okay, well, listen. I'll buy you a coffee," Gilhen offered. "You can relax. We can talk."

"I'm actually headed home to do some marking. I don't have a whole lot of time to talk. What exactly was it you wanted?"

"Umm..."

Cassie stopped suddenly. "Please tell me you haven't come to ask me to do some kind of séance for you."

"Not a séance, no." Gilhen shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"Gilhen...."

"Look, I wouldn't ask, but it's really important."

"What have you done?"

"It's not even for me."

"Okay, look," Cassie said, and sighed. "We've talked about this. I can't help you. Even if I could, I don't want to. And even if I wanted to, I don't have time to."

"Can we talk about this at your place?" Gilhen asked, his voice sounding strained. "It really is important."

For the first time, Cassie noticed how worried Gilhen looked. The dark glasses weren't quite hiding the circles under his eyes. She sighed inwardly. She had a new stack of thirty-six papers to mark and an entire book to read before her evening class. She wanted to tell him to go home, but that wasn't really fair, was it? She'd been awfully bitchy to him lately, and over stuff that wasn't his fault. Or mostly wasn't. She'd been promising herself that she'd do better.

"Fine. But I've only got about fifteen minutes. I can't spend the afternoon talking. I really, really can't."

"Sure. I don't think this will take long. It's just that I really think you can help me with this, and it seems like such a great coincidence. Sometimes the Gods just steer you in the right direction, you know?"

"I've never noticed. But if you say so, sure."

Gilhen shook his head. "I just can't get my brain around it. You see all these things and yet you can't believe in a higher power."

"Oh, I don't disbelieve, exactly," Cassie kept her tone light. "But, really, I would think the Gods could have given me an instruction manual, or something."

Gilhen laughed. "Yeah, somehow it never works out that way." He didn't say anything else until they reached the apartment and had sat down. By that time the laughter had faded out of his expression and he just looked tired.

"Make yourself at home," Cassie said. She tossed the newspaper down on the coffee table and headed into the next room. "I'll just be a second."

"You've started getting the paper?" Gilhen picked it up and scanned the front page.

"Yeah." She poked her head out of the office. "There was a special on for students. I don't know why I bothered, though. I don't have time to read it. Plus it's depressing. All about that girl who's missing."

"Yeah, one of the guys I work with was on the search team for her."

"Oh yeah?"

"They were looking for her over in Cole Harbour. Didn't find anything though."

"Well, I suppose that's good, anyway," Cassie said, coming back into the room. "I thought the parents had gotten a ransom note or something."

"Nope. At least, not that I've heard. They might not release that kind of information to the public, anyway."

"True enough," Cassie said, sitting down across from him. "Now, what's bothering you?"

"Well, like I said, it's not me." He paused, looking at her. When she didn't say anything, he continued. "It's this girl I've been seeing."

"Kameko? You've told her about me?" Cassie tried to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice.

Maybe he didn't,
Let him explain.

"No. I haven't told anyone, I swear, and I won't mention it unless you say I can." Gilhen shook his head. "But listen, she's living in residence. The Owen building."

"Right. You mentioned that."

"Well, she hasn't been sleeping well," he continued, and paused.

"Right." Cassie waited for him to finish.

He took a deep breath before blurting it out. "She thinks there's a ghost in the residence. In fact, she's pretty sure she's seen it. And so I was hoping you could go and...well, do something about it."

"Oh, Gilhen." Cassie rolled her eyes.

"What? Cass, she's terrified."

"And she's certain this is a ghost because...?"

"She hears banging noises at night when she tries to sleep. Things go missing when she puts them down. The television keeps turning on in the common room when no one is there. Doors opening when there's no one there to open them. And she's seen shapes drifting up and down the hallway."

"Okay, first of all, the doors in a residence don't exactly shut tight. If it's not locked, stuff drifts open. Televisions can be left on, accidentally. And there are lots of banging noises in a residence. And they have nothing to do with ghosts."

"Her room's at the end of the hall. There's no room on the side the noises are coming from."

"It's coming from above or below then."

"No, it's not." He shook his head. "I can't speak for the other things, but I've heard the banging and it's not coming from a room. The only thing that's on that side of her is a tiny little broom closet that doesn't even go that far back."

"Look, this doesn't exactly sound like my kind of territory."

"Why not? Okay, I know you hate it, but you see these things. You can tell us...or tell the ghost. Get it to go away, like you did with Anna."

"I think Anna was rather a special circumstance," Cassie said dryly. "Gilhen, have you missed that I'm trying to stop seeing these things? I can't just wander into the residence, start talking to ghosts and finding out which one of them may or may not be causing poltergeist-like noises in your girlfriend's room."

"You think there's more than one ghost in the residence?" Gilhen looked surprised.

"You may have noticed that I see rather a few ghosts in the course of a day. Yes, in a residence that's been there as long as the Owen building has, I imagine there's more than one lonely student who's been left behind, or imprinted, or whatever it is that causes them to stick around."

"Oh."

"Look, what has you so convinced that this is a ghost, anyway? It sounds to me like it could just be a bunch of coincidences."

"Yeah, but you haven't talked to Kameko. She's not sleeping. She can't study. She's terrified to stay there at night. And she won't hang out in the day unless there's someone else around. She's not the superstitious type, either, but she's convinced that she's seen something in that residence. She looks sick. And I've gone over and tried to do some stuff, gave her some incense to burn, some charms she can use, but they're not working. I'm worried about her."

"I still don't see what I can do about it. Even if there is a ghost, it's not like they listen to me."

"You haven't even tried getting them to listen to you!" The volume of Gilhen's voice went up a couple of notches. "Every time we talk, it's about how you have to stop seeing these things. You can't even think for one minute that it might be a good thing if you'd only let it happen. You can't even think about using it to help people! Kameko is scared. She's making herself sick over this. And I want to help her. You can help me and you won't!"

"And you don't understand anything about it, Gilhen. You act like you know but you don't. You're not the one that has to live with this. If you think it's such a gift, you can fucking well have it if I can find a way to give it to you. Just let me tell you that it's not what you think it is. You think your girlfriend's terrified? If she saw what I saw for an hour she'd be beyond terrified, she'd be completely insane. It's a wonder I'm not. Do you understand that? Of course you don't."

There was a sudden silence. They stared at each other across the sofa. Gilhen looked shocked. Cassie didn't know what her face looked like but she felt angry and frustrated. Then Gilhen broke her gaze and looked down.

"She's seeing something, Cass," he said, his voice suddenly so quiet she had to strain to hear him. "I don't know what happened to you, but I do know it can't be undone. And if you thought you could help someone not see the same things you do, well then, wouldn't you want to help them?" He looked up. "Don't say anything, all right? Just think about it." He got up. Cassie followed suit.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Hey. Don't worry about it." He gave her a small smile, then turned to go. She followed him down the stairs to the door. "I'll talk to you on the weekend, I guess."

"Yeah, I'll call you."

"Don't wait too long, huh? This is kind of important."

"I won't."

God damn it, but he already knows what my answer is going to be.

Gilhen waved as he headed down the walk. Cassie closed the door firmly.

And how the hell am I supposed to work now?

***

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