Vincent lost his lunch of instant noodles and rice shortly after Chuck left, the meager effort of changing his clothes too much for his body to handle. Fear, stress, and prying into a disappearing spirit for information created a worse migraine than any single séance should ever cause.

  The silver lining of this near-death experience was that it gave Vincent the push he needed to text Eric.

  I was an ass. Sorry.

  As he lay in the dark with his cooling mask over his eyes and a jazz album playing softly in the background, his focus rested entirely on the phone next to his pillow. When his mind did drift, it drifted to the friends he had as a child. One by one they’d disappeared, having grown out of the silly delusion of playing with ghosts.

  In his adult life, the closest things he had to friends were his regular customers and the occasional fling with gothic, occult obsessed men that only liked the idea of a psychic medium. The pessimistic voice in his head told him Eric probably fell into the latter category, only interested in his ability until it got too troublesome to put up with.

  After the nausea passed and his stomach rumbled to be refilled, Vincent dragged himself from his room. His phone was dead, so he left it behind. The sun had set, leaving him groping around in the dark with the new obstacle of stepping on little plastic plates and cups. He set his kitchen lights on the dimmest setting and settled on dry cereal, a banana, and tap water to avoid the harsh refrigerator light.

  As soon as he sat at the table, Jill scurried up to his chair with one of the toy teacups to join him. Much to her dismay, Vincent plucked her up by the doll’s head and dropped her unceremoniously onto the table. She pushed his cereal box over in revenge.

  “I should lock you in the attic again,” Vincent grumbled, sweeping the spilled cereal into a pile.

  “I’ll scream and scream and make your head hurt so bad it’ll explode.” The little doll folded her arms and stomped her foot.

  “Some people pay a lot of money for haunted dolls.”

  “Now, now, children, let’s not fight.” Gracie patted both Jill and Vincent on the head, only souring the psychic’s mood more. “Jill, we’re supposed to be taking care of Vincent, not make him sicker.”

  Jill only huffed in response.

  Vincent dumped the spilled cereal in the trash and went to turn on his phone to order real food, leaving the two spirits to argue amongst themselves.

  Three missed calls and nearly a dozen texts, all from Eric, all from the past hour. Before Vincent could open the messages, his phone rang again.

  “Eric?”

  “Are you done ignoring me now?” He didn’t sound happy.

  “I wasn’t ignoring you. My phone died and I dozed off. Why are you yelling?” Vincent switched the phone to speaker and tossed it onto his bed.

  “So you can yell and I can’t?”

  “I apologized for this morning, okay?”

  “’I was an ass. Sorry.’ What kind of apology is that? It sounds like someone forced you.” Hangers being roughly scraped along a metal rod filled the background.

  “What do you want me to do? That was an apology! I was an ass and I am sorry. You expect me to be some kind of crime fighting superhero and I can’t.”

  “I just don’t get why you don’t think helping police catch murderers counts as helping spirits.”

  “Can you drop it? I don’t want to. That’s it. If it makes you hate me, so be it. I’m just a disappointment anyway.” Something painful twisted in Vincent’s chest as he reached for his phone.

  “Wait! Wait, I don’t hate you.” Eric sighed as a belt buckle jingled against the speaker. “And I do want to keep working with you. It’s nice to have a friend to talk about ghost stuff with and I have been learning a lot.”

  Vincent nodded, not that Eric could hear it, unsure what to say. It would sound too pathetic to say it was nice to have a friend at all.

  “Did you hang up on me?”

  “No, I’m here,” Vincent answered. “I’ll help you get whatever footage you need. Just… let’s leave crime fighting to the cops.”

  “Fine….” Some bounce returned to Eric’s voice as he continued, “To make it up to me, you can help me film a bunch of B-roll stuff tomorrow night.”

  “Wait--”

  “I need to finish getting ready or I’ll be late. See you tomorrow!”

  “What the hell is B-roll…?” Vincent muttered at the ‘call ended’ screen.

  ~*~

  To figure out what B-roll was the following morning, Vincent returned to Eric’s channel to see what he'd used before. There were clips of him wandering cemeteries alone, him with his ex in random alleyways, houses and neighborhoods, but nothing recent. He still hadn’t posted any of the videos he filmed with Vincent.

  Eric's videos led to streaming platforms, which ultimately killed Vincent's temporal awareness for the day. The more mind-numbing content he watched, the less he thought of Dennis's memories. Fragments appeared in his dreams, and he did not want to go further. The feeling of being killed by a friend was bad enough.

  Eric had to text three times before Vincent noticed it was even nighttime.

  “I thought you fell asleep,” Eric complained as Vincent joined him in his car.

  “I’ve been binging survival shows all day and lost track of time.” Vincent stretched and rubbed his eyes to adjust to reality.

  “Did you have to cancel appointments or something? Are you feeling okay?” Eric’s hand hovered over his gear stick, waiting for an answer before shifting into drive.

  “I didn’t have any appointments today. It happens. I mean, the most advertising I do is posting to social media when I remember.”

  “Shouldn’t you be more worried about your only source of income?” Eric muttered as he started driving.

  “My grandmother paid off this house years ago, I don’t have a car or crazy debt aside from medical bills, and my most expensive hobby is the endless streaming services my shows keep moving to. One séance or a few readings a day is enough.”

  A mix of jealousy and despair washed over Eric's face. “I should be more serious about monetizing…. I’m going to lose my mind if I have to keep explaining that coupons expire and sales end.” He sighed, pouting when Vincent laughed, and changed the subject. “I thought you’d avoid doctors.”

  Vincent shrugged. “I visit the one neurologist that doesn’t think I’m insane. He brings up the possibility of aneurysms every time I see him, but otherwise tries to help.” It was his turn to change the subject. “Why haven’t you uploaded any of the videos we’ve done so far?”

  “That’s what I need B-roll for. There wasn’t enough footage.”

  “You had that camera in my face all that time and it still wasn’t enough?”

  Eric picked at his steering wheel, muttering something about aesthetic shots and atmosphere.

  Vincent opened his gallery, remembering more footage Eric could use. “I sent you a video I recorded at the Dells’ house. Look at it later.” He snatched Eric’s phone before he ran them off the road. “It’s you talking to that toddler.”

  “No one needs to see that…. It’s not as interesting as talking to spirits.”

  “Anne would still be lingering there if you didn’t convince that little girl to let her go. It wouldn’t make sense without this footage.” Vincent didn’t want to be the only subject of his videos either.

  “I guess…. I could have made it make sense…” Eric muttered.

  Vincent shook his head and looked out the window. They’d been driving for a while and he had no idea where they were going. They passed the train station north of his house and hadn’t changed direction. Neither the ocean nor the mountains, the only two things in this direction, seemed like the right atmosphere for Eric’s footage.

  The road got darker the further they drove, and even darker yet when Eric turned onto a dirt road that led up into the mountains. Shadows of scattered trees bent at unnerving angles as they swayed in the wind and bats darted in and out of their branches. Glowing eyes of nocturnal hunters followed the car as the trees grew dense enough to blot out the dim light of the moon. Eric humming to himself did nothing to make the situation any less creepy.

  Vincent sank in his seat once his eyes started to see shadows that didn’t belong to creatures he recognized. “Where the hell are you taking me? You aren’t secretly a serial killer, are you?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be so jumpy. It’s just the woods. There’s even a playground a little further up the road.”

  “Great. We can play on the swings while snakes and coyotes gnaw on our legs.”

  Eric just laughed and turned off the car. Cutting the engine amplified every tiny sound in the trees. Every flutter of wings, every rustle in the bushes, every snapped twig made it harder for Vincent to swing his legs out of the car. The trunk slamming shut almost made him jump out of his skin.

  “Come on. Nothing’s going to eat you. There’s no meat on your bones anyway.”

  Vincent followed Eric to the tree line, cold wind cutting through his hoodie, grumbling about rabies and infections while Eric set up his equipment. The lights sent multiple rodents and bugs skittering away and provided warmth while Vincent waited.

  “Okay, now just pace through the trees a bit. You know, weave in and out and stuff,” Eric directed. “Slowly, though. And look serious, not bored.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Vincent sighed and did as Eric directed, only tripping over roots twice as he shuffled through the underbrush. He lost count of how many times Eric made him walk back and forth.

  When they switched, Eric made dramatic turns, pointing his EMF recorder in a random direction, or acted surprised with his hands over his headphones, EVP recorder in hand. The footage would be muted, so Vincent didn’t hold back his laughter.

  After a few more shots, Vincent wasn’t bothered by the creatures lurking in the shadows anymore.

  “I’ve never seen a spirit in the woods, so what good is this footage going to be?” Vincent asked once they returned to the car.

  “Do you spend a lot of time in the woods?” Eric countered. Vincent didn’t respond. “Besides, it’s just filler footage, so it doesn’t matter where we film it. Do you have to wake up early tomorrow?”

  Vincent pulled up his calendar. “Looks like my first appointment isn’t until noon, so not really. I’ll probably—”

  “Good! I have a couple more locations in mind.”

  In front of a condemned building, in a graffitied tunnel, under a bridge, along train tracks—Eric probably had hours of short filler clips by the time Vincent reached his limit. He couldn’t keep his eyes open in the car and dozed off more than once.

  The events of the night jumbled together in Vincent’s mind. He heard the wind rustling leaves and smelled the damp underbrush, but was laying on something soft, like a pillow. Yet one shift was all it took for him to feel the sand getting under his shirt and pants. He jerked awake, bleary eyes focusing on the figure over him. The soft thing his head was resting on was Eric's thigh.

  Eric looked up from his camera, pausing the footage he was reviewing, and helped brush the sand off Vincent. “Sorry if that was weird, but you were sleeping in the sand. Out cold, too.”

  Vincent stood to shake sand off. Right. Their most recent location was the beach. He’d have to shower before he could even go to bed. “What time is it?”

  “Almost three in the morning, so it makes sense you’re tired…. Sorry. I didn’t plan to keep you out so late.”

  “Mn. Are you done?” Vincent yawned and stretched, a wary eye on Eric's camera. “I better not see footage of me sleeping in these videos.”

  “I won’t use those clips, don’t worry.” Eric grinned and tugged Vincent’s sleeve to guide him back to the car. “…Do you think these videos will take off? I mean, I hardly get any views as it is….”

  “So? You have hundreds of videos no one watches. What’s a few more?” As soon as he sat in the car, Vincent wanted to go back to sleep.

  “That’s not very encouraging…” Eric mumbled. “Will you watch them?”

  “Sure. And if I look bad, I’m suing.”

  ~*~

  The pain of being shot, stabbed, or strangled hurt just as much no matter how many times Vincent experienced it. In his fit of rage, Chuck plunged a knife into his friend’s gut, leaving him to bleed in the woods. Dennis’s memory, however, wasn’t filled with the same fear as most other final memories were. He felt only relief. Relief that he wouldn’t need to lie to Chuck any longer, that his secrets would die with him.

  Secrets that forced their way into Vincent’s mind.

  Men in suits threatened Dennis. They filled him with the fear his death should have. When blinded by a hood, the fear increased exponentially. Garbled conversations layered incoherently. Stolen money? Plans? Disappearing? The same confusing scenes repeated in Vincent’s mind, leaving him with no answers and nothing to tell Chuck.

  The dreams made Vincent miss his alarms. He woke in a cold sweat, without any time to even eat before his first appointments. A shower helped clear his mind enough to paste a fake smile onto his lips, but that was about it.

  Sandy was scheduled for her usual therapy session and Vincent didn’t know if he could put on his usual show for her. She’d already arrived by the time he made it to the door to unlock it and flip his signs on.

  “Is everything okay? You’ve never been late to open like this.” Sandy touched Vincent’s arm as she walked past him and her eyes studied his face.

  “I’m fine. Just didn’t sleep well.” Vincent answered in his usual voice—low, blunt, borderline rude. He swept the curtain aside with as much flourish as he could manage.

  “Was the universe speaking to you in your dreams?” A brief look of dread darkened her face, then she pursed her lips as if bracing for a blow.

  “Something like that,” Vincent muttered as he sat at the table. “Nothing about you, so no need to worry.”

  Sandy let out a sigh of relief, hand over her heart, as she joined him. “I’ve been having such a good week. I was worried.”

  “I take it your trip went well?” The tarot cards didn’t cooperate with Vincent’s groggy hands when he tried to shuffle properly. He had to settle for a simple overhand shuffle, though he was tempted to just mix them up on the table.

  “Yes! Your advice was spot on, as usual! I couldn’t get my car repaired after pitching in money for that cabin, so I’ve been taking the train. And guess what?” She waited a total of two seconds before shouting the answer. “Tom takes the same train!”

  The noise and the news startled Vincent into dropping a couple cards. He regained his composure and set the deck aside. “The universe will always answer if you’re patient enough to listen. Looks like it even chose your cards for you today.”

  “I-I haven’t even asked my question yet. Do you think it has something to do with Tom? Is the universe warning me about something?” Sandy’s hands were visibly shaking, and she stared down at the dropped cards like they were vipers ready to strike.

  Vincent separated the two cards, still face down, so they were no longer overlapping. “Are you ready to see what the universe has to tell you?”

  Sandy nodded and pressed her trembling hands to the table.

  His brain lagged while his hands flipped both cards without commentary. He covered himself with a wave over the cards and cleared his throat. “These were meant to be read together. The Page of Wands and the reversed Moon.”

  After a few seconds too long of silence, Sandy asked, “What is it telling me? The Moon, that’s good, right?”

  “There is no good or bad card. But this does look to be a warning.” Vincent closed his eyes and fought a yawn. “The Page of Wands is going on a new adventure, optimistic and enthusiastic. This excitement can help you overcome whatever anxiety you may have. But… the Moon coming up reversed is warning you to be wary of deceit.”

  “So should I pursue this?” Sandy muttered. “Tom’s manager said I’d be a good fit for their team. It wouldn’t be a promotion, per se, but it would be a step up.”

  “What you do is up to you. I can only pass on the message.” Sandy’s eyes bored holes into Vincent’s face. He had no choice but to continue, “The Page of Wands is starting something new, something big. It wouldn’t show up if you weren’t meant to take this leap. Just be careful of deception and miscommunication. Listen to your gut.”

  “Deceit from who? Where? Why?” Sandy reached across the table and grabbed Vincent’s hands. “I can’t just be on guard all day every day!”

  “I don’t want to narrow your vision by telling you who may or may not try to deceive you. Just trust yourself and your intuition will guide you.”

  “Right. Right, okay. I’ve never been a gullible person, so I won’t let anyone pull one over on me!” Sandy’s smile returned and her shoulders relaxed. “I don’t know if this will be an extra fee, but could you help balance the energies around me?”

  I don’t even know what that means, Vincent complained silently. He stared blankly at the crystals scattered across the table and gave up on thinking how he could pretend to do what she asked. Instead, he held his hand out for her to hold onto.

  “That’s outside of my range. All I can offer is my interpretations and advice. You’re welcome to take my hand and calm your mind for a moment if you want.”

  Sandy squeezed his hand and took a deep breath. Vincent closed his eyes, the sharp nails digging into his knuckles the only thing keeping him from falling asleep on the spot, and fidgeted with one of the crystals.

  “I never thought I’d be so overwhelmed by this change. It really did just happen all at once,” she whispered.

  “Mm, it did, didn’t it?” Vincent mumbled in response. “It’s surprising how one small thing can snowball into something more than we can handle….”

  “I don’t know if I can handle all this change and watch out for deceit.” Her eyes fell to the cards again.

  “You’re resilient and persistent, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  Sandy let out a shaky laugh and released his hand. “You’re just saying I’m bull-headed, aren’t you? I’ll take it as a compliment anyway."

  Vincent stopped fidgeting with the crystal and flipped the card on the top of the tarot deck. He placed it sideways across the two earlier cards to avoid having another negative reverse interpretation. “The High Priestess tells you to trust your intuition. Don’t think too hard. Your gut will tell you when something is wrong.”

  It took another ten minutes of coaxing to get Sandy to accept her reading without further explanation. Vincent couldn’t think of anything to add and would toss the deck into a fire if it gave him another card with the same meaning again.

  Sandy was only his first reading for the day. With school out for the summer, his weekly appointments doubled as college students looked for ways to pass the time and high school kids looked for ways to torment local business owners.

  The rest of the readings he gave barely made any sense. They all started to run together. When questioned about it, he blamed the universe for the cryptic messages.

  He’d finally sat down for lunch when his sister called. He grunted into the phone through a mouthful of cold pizza.

  “Do you have a headache or did you regress back to neanderthal?” Robin asked, waiting for a better greeting.

  “Eating.”

  “Just letting you know, I’m taking anything less than a detailed excuse as a yes today.” Vincent only sighed and let her continue. “Chris has an art gala Friday night. I know it’s short notice, but—”

  “I don’t want to and I don’t know anything about art.”

  “But we’d like you to come and support him. He’s up for an award that could really help his career. And a lot of the art community is into tarot these days, so you can use it as free networking.”

  “Just put my business cards on a table somewhere.” Vincent switched to speaker to look up local art galas. The Maer Foundation EvARTful Garden Gala. “This thing has an unfortunate name.”

  “We’re calling it the MEGG instead…. Does this mean you’ll come?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No. I’ll text you the formal invitation. There’s a dress code so no hoodies. You can also bring a plus one….” Robin trailed off, her expectant stare perfectly visible in Vincent’s mind.

  “I might have someone I can ask.”

  “Someone alive?” She sounded too surprised.

  “Just send me the details. Mom and Dad won’t be there, will they?”

  “No, I promise they won’t. Aunt Jeanie is sick again, so they’re in Arizona for the week. They don’t think she’s going to make it, if you want to send flowers or something.”

  “She’ll probably think they’re cursed. Make sure they don’t bring her back up here. I don’t want her spirit trying to drown me in holy water too….”

  Robin snorted, failing to contain her laughter. “She used to spray you like a cat.”

  “Hilarious. See you Friday.” Vincent hung up and waited for his phone to buzz with the invitation. “What the hell are rococo and baroque? How is that a dress code?”

  A quick search made him want to throw his phone, preferably at his sister.

  Robin reiterated in her text that he could bring someone.

  The dress code was ridiculous, but it was free food and something to do. It couldn’t hurt to ask.

  Stalling, Vincent opened Eric’s channel to see he posted two new videos—Amy and Jill and the Dells. They both had more views than his other videos, though not by much, and to a layman like Vincent, the production quality was impressive. His intro—what he used most of the B-roll clips for—even had music.

  As he suspected, most of the videos were focused on Vincent, zoomed in unnecessarily close. Some of the clips of Vincent explaining his interactions with spirits were from the Old Victorian visit. Eric added a note that they were flashbacks from an “unairable” previous case. The mystery around this secret case boosted comments, which in turn increased his popularity.

  While he included Vincent looking at his bruised torso in a unicorn mirror, he’d left out the clip of him talking to Krissy.

  Perhaps out of spite, Vincent uploaded the clip of Eric talking to Krissy to his own social media, linking Eric’s video in the description, and even tagged him. He captioned the video, “Talking to spirits is easier than talking to babies.”

  Vincent put off calling for another three hours, telling himself Eric was sleeping or busy getting ready for work. His video got comments asking about the spirit and Eric, but he ignored them. He usually disabled comments all together because of the inevitable hate and trolling.

  He thought he’d turned off his notifications, but his phone was vibrating with message after message on his desk. It was Eric.

  Why did you post it? Aaahhhhhhh

  The next ten messages were emojis in varying degrees of distress.

  I sound so dumb. People are going to call me creepy….

  Vincent couldn’t keep up with the onslaught of texts, so he finally hit call.

  Eric answered, whining, “I can’t believe you just posted it. And tagged me! I didn’t even know you knew my other accounts.”

  “You have them listed on your profile.”

  “I didn’t think you’d look!”

  Vincent rolled his eyes and let Eric melt down incoherently a few minutes longer. “Anyway. Do you work Friday?”

  Eric froze mid-sentence, his voice shaky. “No. Why?”

  His nervousness made Vincent nervous, the idea of telling him about an art show costume party slowly becoming impossible. What should have been a basic invitation became a rambling embarrassment.

  “My sister’s boyfriend—fiancé now—he does… art stuff and there’s this gala…. I have to go or my sister will stop talking to me, but the invitation says I can bring someone. The dress code is roco-something—shit I don’t remember now.”

  “Are you asking me to be your plus one?” Eric sounded suspicious. Why wouldn’t he? Vincent hadn’t been at all friendly since the day they met. “Is the gala haunted?”

  “Would you not want to go if it isn’t?”

  “No! I want to go! I never expected you to ask me on a date.”

  “It isn’t—I just don’t want to go alone.”

  “I was kidding. A gala you don’t seem remotely interested in wouldn’t make a very romantic first date.”

  “I guess. I just sent you the details. Don’t worry too much about the dress code. It’s probably not that—”

  “This means you have to dress up, too, right?” Eric chuckled, his grin obvious in his voice. “I’m definitely going.”