Элисон Ноэль - Radiance

Only it wasn’t a game.

Not even close.

I’d been rudely awakened, and shaken to the core, but more importantly I’d screamed so loudly, I could practically see Bodhi standing in the hall, doing a lame little victory dance, straw bobbing crazily in his mouth while he gave himself a high-five.

“Great,”I mumbled, patting Buttercup on the head, trying to get him to calm down again, even though I knew the sleeping couple couldn’t hear us unless we wanted to be heard, and truth be told, most of the time not even then. It was the rare person who could truly tune in to the dead, though they did exist, of that I was sure. “That’s just great. ” I shook my head and slid out from between the snoring couple, wishing this radiating kid would just hurry up and show himself already so that I could cross him over and be done with all this.

I moved toward the dressing table and peeked at their stuff, trying to get a handle on just what they were doing here. Lifting the top off a bottle of cologne that smelled just like dead pine needles (blech), before sniffing from the perfume just beside it and inhaling a nasty combination of mothballs and old, dried-out shrubs (double blech). A scent so startlingly bad the bottle accidentally slipped from my fingers and landed with a horrifying thud.

Well, make that a series of thuds, as I watched, frozen in panic, as it tumbled across the floor with Buttercup chasing behind it.

I peered at the sleeping couple, knowing that even though they couldn’t hear us or see us unless we wanted them to, unless we tapped into their own energy supply in order to manifest before them, there was nothing to stop them from hearing the sound of an inanimate object crashing to the ground. And seeing the way they both shuddered and stirred, I knew that on some level they had heard it, but were determined to sleep through it.

I moved on to their overflowing suitcases, curious to see what kind of clothes they’d packed for their haunted castle weekend getaway, when Buttercup, still entranced with the perfume bottle, hit it with his paw so hard it went spinning across the room and slammed into the wall where it cracked into a million little pieces of foul-smelling shards.

“Good one, Buttercup.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes at him. “Way to go.” I sighed, watching as he tucked in his tail and bowed his head low, knowing he was in trouble and unwilling to come anywhere near me. And I was just about to manifest a leash, which I knew he would hate but was obviously becoming necessary, when I heard a click.

Followed by a soft whirring sound.

And then a nervously whispered:

“Did you get it?”

I glanced over my shoulder, clutching a white T-shirt featuring a picture of the Union Jack tightly in my hand, only to find myself face-to-face with the dynamic duo — otherwise known as the husband and wife team who’d sandwiched me earlier. The two of them dressed in matching his and hers forest-green sweatshirts, with the words PENNSYLVANIA’S OWN INTERNATIONAL GHOST BUSTERS written in a large, loopy white scrawl across the front.

The husband holding some kind of recording device that seemed to really excite him, while the wife held the camera with a noticeably shaky hand. Creeping toward my general direction, clearly bent on capturing live, streaming footage of Well Me.

Crouched down low, T-shirt still dangling from the tips of my fingers, knowing I’d just been caught in the embarrassing act of nosing through their belongings.

My eyes darted frantically, realizing the full scope of what was really going on — not only had I been caught peeping — I’d also been caught inadvertently haunting a haunted room I’d fully intended to, well, de-haunt.

And there was nothing I could do about it. No way I could leave. I was stuck right there in that blue room until I could find a way to accomplish what I set out for. Otherwise Bodhi would never let me fly to London, never let me hear the end of it.

“Buttercup!” I hissed, dropping the T-shirt and hearing them both gasp at the sight of it seemingly falling through the air of its own accord. Determined to keep my voice to a whisper, but by the way they gaped at their recorder, at the little squiggles and lines that jumped all around, it was clear that even though they couldn’t see me or hear me, their equipment registered every last bit. “Come here,now!” I called between gritted teeth, annoyed by the way he’d loped toward them, sniffing then licking their hands as though they were long-lost friends suddenly reunited again.

He slunk toward me, tail tucked tightly between his legs as his big brown eyes gazed into mine. “That’s better,” I cooed, scratching his head to show I was more annoyed than mad, watching as the couple lifted their hands and studied the fingers Buttercup had just slobbered all over, before turning to each other, bushy brows raised as if to say: Did you feel that?

“You need to stick by me,not them. No matter what happens from here on out, I need you by my side, okay? We can’t take any chances — I just have to figure out what to do before they—” The woman moved toward me, moved in small baby steps as she crept across the floor. Her large bare feet, riddled with corns and bunions, with nail polish so badly chipped they made my own nails look salon fresh. Raised up high onto her tippy-toes, padding across the rug, video camera held out before her, the soft whir of it the only sound in the room as it recorded what I could only assume were a series of white, glowy, wavering images of one smallish blob of light and one even smaller blob of light, since, from all the shows I’d ever seen on TV that covered ghosts and hauntings and such, it was pretty rare for those recorders to pick up anything more.

“He’s not alone,” she whispered, waving to her husband from over her shoulder. “There’s someone with him, someone smaller, like they’re crouched down low.”

He?

I narrowed my eyes and scowled, nudging Buttercup even closer to my side. Tugging on my skirt and running my fingers through my hair until it was arranged a little more nicely, a little more girly, completely offended by the fact that I’d just been mistaken for a ten-year-old boy.

“Is it him? Is it really the Radiant Boy?” her husband called, the words rising at the end in a potent mix of excitement and fear.

“Yes,” she said, her voice having firmly decided, though her eyes weren’t quite as convinced. “At least it certainly seems like it. And he’s got someone with him — someone smaller — there are two Radiant Boys here!”

Oh brother.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head, sitting back on my heels as she continued to creep closer and closer.

Some ghost buster she was turning out to be. Mistaking what was clearly a cute blond girl and her adorable yellow Lab for not one, but two bratty little boy ghosts.Sheesh!

“Try to speak with them — try to make contact,” her husband urged. His gaze was fixed on the screen of his little hand held device, eager to see the lines shift and move once again. “Ask him why they’re here, and what they might possibly want. Ask them if they have any messages they might like to pass on.”

Saying all of that as though I could only hear the words if she said them. As though she had some special patented way of communicating with the dearly departed.

Her husband came up behind her, seizing the camera she passed over her shoulder and steadying it in one hand while keeping the voice recorder going in the other. Watching as his wife crept even closer, running her hands over her wrinkled green sweats while completely ignoring the bed hair that, had I been her, I would’ve been way more concerned about.

“Is there any message you’d like us to pass on? Is there anything we can do for you?” the woman asked, squatting down on her haunches, as her knees cracked so loudly and violently, I actually jumped in surprise. Cringing back against the wall as she angled her face until it was dangerously close to Buttercup’s and mine.