Page 46 of Purrfectly Haunted

“I see!” the ghost says to me in French, lounging on the table. “You already tasted that particular poison!”

I bury myself deeper into my chair. “No, I—We just—”

The Nobleman laughs like a maniac before disappearing through the floor.

James and I share a glance over the table once again. We wait, except this time the ghost doesn’t make a reappearance.

“Where did he go?” James asks with a frustrated sigh.

I shrug.

“Let’s go find him. And this time don’t let him talk, just free him from the house.”

“Alright,” I say.

The ghost isn’t difficult to locate thanks to three of the cats who lead us to him. He’s in the entrance hall, wearing one of the plastic jack-o-lanterns from the Halloween decorations over his head, laughing. What the guests must make of him when he crashes their parties?

When the Nobleman sees us, he points an accusatory finger at me and says in French, “Why do you resist what life is giving?” He suddenly switches to heavily accented English again. “What is love, 'tis not hereafter. Present mirth, hath present laughter. What's to come, is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty, then come kiss me sweet and twenty. Youth's a stuff will not endure!” He falls to his knees at the last words.

James groans. “Is he quoting Shakespeare now?”

I laugh. But when I turn back, the ghost is right in front of me. This close, I can see his translucence and a faint glow. Were he alive, I would feel his breath on my face. But he isn’t. He died centuries ago, and it suddenly fills me with sorrow. He was around my age when death found him.

“In my time, people like us couldn’t love and enjoy life as you can now,” he says in French.

People like us? I wonder.

“I have loved and desired in the dark,” he continues. “I have feared and deceived. But you have the freedom to love whomever you fancy, do not squander that chance.” His eyes are clear as he holds my gaze.

His words hit me like a punch in the gut, and I can only stare at him, at a loss for words. By us, he probably means queer people. Gay men. He lived during a time when getting high in opium dens was acceptable, but not loving another man.

And here I am, afraid that the worst that can happen to me was getting my heart broken. How silly it suddenly sounds, when I have the freedom to actually get hurt for all the right reasons, and not just because of who I am.

The ghost puts his elegant hands on my shoulders, and I’m surprised to feel the weight of them, even if they’re cold. He’s strong enough to pierce through the veil and interact with the material world.

“Take your hands off him!” James shouts, ignorant to our heartfelt exchange in French.

The blue zaps from his PolterPulse hits the Nobleman and he lets out a high-pitched scream before disappear through the ceiling.

James pulls me to him. “Are you okay?”

I nod, in a daze. “Aye... He wasn’t doing anything bad to me. He was just... talking.”

The great hall suddenly appears too dark and quiet, hollow. Or maybe it’s just how I feel.

He frowns. “Why didn’t you banish him?”

I hesitate. “I don’t know, I just wanted to know what he had to say, I guess.”

He sighs. “You and your big heart. Come on, let’s hunt him down.” To my surprise, he waves at one of the cats who's been observing the scene from the staircase. “Hey little one, can you lead us to the lunatic please?”

Pearl meows and runs upstairs, her white tail cleaving the dark, and we try to follow. Up and up we go, to the fifth floor, both breathing hard from all the steps we have to climb. She leads us to a wooden door we never used before, and it swings open before we even need to put our hand on the knob.

“I’ll never get used to it,” James mumbles.

“Thank you,” I say to the house.

The dusty light bulb above our head flares, as if in acknowledgement. We enter what looks to be the attic of the house, right below the rafters. There are a few cobwebs and forgotten items in trunks, an old bicycle, a broken cat tree, boxes of Christmas decorations... Pearl leaves adorable footprints in the dust as she leads us to a window. It opens on rusty hinges, groaning. It leads to the roof, the dark slates covered in green moss. The cold breeze carries soft singing in French.