I couldn’t decide what was worse: the chunk of wet ceiling spread across the floor of my waiting room or that the management company sent Walter to fix the leak. They could have sent any of their dozen maintenance workers and it wouldn’t have bothered me. But instead they sent one of the five adult children of the company’s elderly and superstitious owner. Like all of her children, he searched and schemed for a reason to kick me out. Their effort inevitably gravitated toward attempting to prove my paranormal investigation business was defrauding the public. I did not enjoy interacting with any of them. However, out of the five, Walter had the slight redeeming quality of being the least talkative.

Walter chewed like there was something bitter in his mouth. It was a cue I had come to recognize that he was preparing to speak. Perhaps he experienced some physical discomfort when he spoke and that could explain why he doesn’t talk as much as his siblings. I’ve never asked. Not out of lack of curiosity, I just don’t want to talk to the guy anymore than I have to.

“You think a ghost did this?” Walter paced out his syllables. People who use the slow rate of his speech as a yardstick to measure his intellect learn the hard way that he’s a brilliant, albeit unlicensed, engineer. Well, brilliant for every other tenant except me. But that was probably because he wanted me to find a new place with a different landlord.

“No, Walter, I think water did this.”

I had spent the night on the cot in my office and found the mess in the waiting room after the sound of dripping woke me up. It was a miracle it missed the vacant receptionist desk, as any damage to the original furnishings would have caused problems with my lease.

Walter stood with the posture of a tree. His eyes gazed everywhere except for the ceiling and where it landed.

From my office, the digital alarm clock sounded at a volume so loud it felt like it was compensating for all the times it never went off.

“That a smoke detector?”

“Walter, I’ll take care of the alarm clock. I need you to focus on the leak.” I turned away and walked into the office where the digital clock rested on my vintage metal tanker desk. The whole suite was frozen in time, as per the conditions of my controversial lease.

I flicked the switch on the clock off, but it kept going. I tried again without any luck. I grabbed the cord and yanked the plug out of the wall. Of course this was the one time the battery inside had enough charge to keep the alarm going. I picked up the heavy book of Arthurian legends I had been reading last night and whacked the alarm clock with the tome. It made one final pathetic beep before it went silent for good.

There was a brief moment of serenity in the fresh silence and I was about to breathe it in but Walter startled me.

“You sleep here?”

He stood in the doorway to the office and pointed to the cot with the mismatched blankets. He could move fifty times faster than he could talk, but only if I wasn’t looking.

“I’m between apartments. You know how it is in the city.” Not only was I between apartments but I was also between cases, which would be necessary to pay rent.

“Nah, I just fix things. Family takes care of the business stuff.” The sound of water dripping from the ceiling as he spoke was more disturbing than the alarm clock had been.

Why couldn’t they have sent someone else over, just this one time?

I don’t blame Walter or his siblings, even if their antics irritate me. Their mother hired me to look into the haunting of this unit, only there was no haunting. I was upfront about it, but then she insisted I use the space. When I said I couldn’t afford the rent, she waived it.

When it comes to hauntings, most people will go to great lengths to deny the evidence. No matter how obvious it is. She, on the other hand, denied the lack of evidence. She wanted or needed to know this particular office was haunted.

In between the sound of dripping water, a young woman’s voice called from the waiting room. “Mr. Krelig? Are you in?”

I glanced at the calendar on the desk to confirm there was nothing scheduled for today. The fact that it was on the wrong month didn’t matter at the moment.

I grabbed my latest second hadn’t sports jacket from the back of my desk chair and walked past Walter. “Excuse me.”

The slender young woman held two cups from a local coffee shop and was captivated that walls of the waiting area were lined with overflowing bookcases. The contents of which was a concern for my plumbing problems second only to the furniture. If the leak got worse, the books would be difficult to replace if they were ruined.

Without looking at me, she said, “That’s a lot of books.”

“Can I help you?”

She turned, revealing her face, and said, “I know it’s early, but I was hoping I could get to you before you had any appointments.”

Walter laughed without modesty.

The woman had long, straight brown hair, and sunshine radiated from her face, but I recognized a familiar gloom to her voice.

She handed me one of the cups. “I brought you some coffee too. If I remember correctly, you drink it black.”

I nodded my head, trying to force a memory that wouldn’t surface. It was an effort that I failed to conceal.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I can’t place you, if that’s any different.”

“I’m Igraine, Avalon’s roommate. From, you know…”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Wow, you’ve changed!” I said with too much enthusiasm. The last time I had seen her, she had been struggling with insomnia and hadn’t left her apartment in months.

She smiled with ease when before it took considerable effort. “Amazing what some sleep, decent food, and much needed self-care can do for a person.”

“It’s only been, what, six weeks?”

“Closer to six months.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.”

Walter crept into our conversation.

“You hired this ghost doctor?” he asked with heavy skepticism.

“Not really. Um, is your ceiling ok?”

“Any time a ceiling is on the floor, it is not ok,” I responded and then looked at Walter, who gave me a vacant stare. I nodded in the direction of the door to the hallway out of the office. He massaged his jaw.

“Ya ya ya. I’ll go check the unit above,” and then made his way to the door.

“On the way there, could you” —Walter slammed the door—“turn off the water?”

Igraine took in the scene and said, “Hope you don’t lose your deposit over this.”

“I’m not worried.” Have to put up a deposit to lose one. “What brings you into my office?”

Six months ago, I was hired by her roommate’s grandmother to find out what paranormal trouble her granddaughter Avalon claimed to be in and what it would take to get her out. The case was tragic. Avalon was in over her head. And she wasn’t alone. As her roommate, Igraine had unwittingly gotten tangled up in the whole mess as well. Avalon was compelled to do a terrible thing to satisfy a debt for casting a dark magic spell, and the two of us helped undo it. Or at least we tried.

In the end, Avalon had vanished without a trace. Presumed dead by the two of us.

I had left Igraine my business card and said if she ever needed a friend that she could call. I probably should have emphasized the word “call,” but drop-in meetings work well too.

She moved a stack of books that were taking up a spot on one of the old green leather seats and then sat down.

The facade of warmth faded from her face. She fell back into the tired and frustrated person I had originally met.

I considered all the things I could do to put her at ease, even smiling, but nothing could change her mood. She had been hurt in a way no one understood, including herself.

“I can’t do it, Viktor. I need to move out of the apartment.”

“What’s keeping you from doing that?”

“Can’t afford a place on my own. Avalon’s family is still covering the rent for some reason.” Avalon had met with her grandmother and requested this arrangement in the event of her disappearance, but it seems no one had told Igraine.

She continued, “And I haven’t worked in ages, so I have this gap on my resume because…” she struggled for the words.

I offered, “You were taking care of Avalon.”

“Taking care” was a polite and roundabout way to side-step her paranormal trauma.

“I can’t move in with any of my friends or family because they all think I’m nuts.”

“Did you tell them about…” The polite words didn’t come to me in time, before there was banging on the pipes in the ceiling (presumably Walter at work). I waited to hear a different rhythm of the water dripping, but nothing happened.

Igraine picked the conversation back up. “I didn’t tell my family the details. I started alluding to what had happened, but each time they looked at me like I was so strange. Like I needed help. Serious help.”

We heard a muffled swear from Walter, and then the steady drip became a small and thankfully brief waterfall that splashed on my floor. It was followed by the return of the drip, which had resumed its original pace.

I sighed and rubbed my temples, trying to focus on our conversation. I could check on the books later.

“Do you want to go back to your old life?” I asked with misplaced frustration that Igraine thought was directed at her but didn’t get upset over.

“Yes, but I don’t think I can.”

For an instant I thought I could be helpful. I knew a person who worked with people in Igraine’s situation. My stomach made a terrible twist as I remembered who the person was. I kept silent.

Igraine continued, “I need a new life, but don’t know where to start.”

“Dammit,” I muttered under my breath and shook my head. Igraine is exactly the type of client Dolly looks for.

“What was that?”

“Sorry, the leak is distracting me,” I lied.

Walter walked back into the office, rubbing his jaw.

“Well, that ghost of yours really worked a number on the pipes,” he said.

Igraine asked, “This place is haunted?”

I looked directly at Walter, who was watching me like a hawk, hoping I’d tell her that it was.

“No, the office isn’t haunted.”

Walter’s jaw moved around in an angry dance, before it calmed down and he said, “I need some things from the warehouse. Be back this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow! What could take so long?”

Walter shrugged and simply said, “Founding Day.”

Of course, one of the days on the calendar I forget exist the moment it’s over and surprised by every year when it reemerges.

Igraine asked, “What’s that?”

I sighed. “It’s like New Year’s Eve and St Patrick’s Day had a problem child and they shipped the kid to New Carissimi.”

“Wait, that was the big thing last year? It happens every year?! I thought we won the Super Bowl or something.”

Walter spoke atypically fast to Igraine as he packed up the last of his things. “Super Bowl is in February”

“World Series or whatever. God, that parade was so obnoxious last year.”

Walter was one foot out the door when I resigned to the fate of the leak in the ceiling and said, “Could you at least get a bucket for the drip?”

He slammed the door behind him.

There was a brief moment where we both stared at the closed door waiting for some kind of response. When it was clear none was coming, Igraine asked, “Did he not hear you?”

“No, he most certainly did.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because he slammed the door.”

“You’re saying if he hadn’t heard you he would have closed it gently?”

I nodded.

“You have quite the effect on people.”

My mind jumped back to Dolly.

“You have no idea,” I replied.

“Come on, give me a little credit, I have some idea. I mean, I’m pretty sure I threw a coffee mug at you, or hit you with a notebook or something.”

“Your point?”

“I don’t throw things or hit people. That’s not who I am. I knew you for like a day and—”

“I know someone who can help you,” I blurted out.

“What?”

I took a moment to get a clear head before continuing. Igraine was right. I frustrate people, and just because Dolly was mad at me didn’t mean she would take it out on Igraine.

I spoke in an even tone almost as slow as Walter. “Her name is Dolly. She's what I would call a ‘post paranormal life consultant.’”

“A what now?”

“She helps people return to their lives after a paranormal encounter.”

“Does it work?”

“Don’t know. Dolly and I haven’t been on speaking terms for a long time.”

“How long?”

There was no point in lying. “Fifteen years.”

That earned a suspicious expression.

“Don’t look at me that way, you said yourself I have an effect on people.”

“Is there anyone you haven’t pissed off.”

“The only ones on that list are people I haven’t met yet.”

Igraine laughed, and a smile returned to her face.

“How do you know she’s still doing this?”

“I might not know every paranormal professional in the city, but I know of them.” I paused. She seemed interested and I wanted to go on. “But you’re not here to know more about that type of stuff.”

I pulled up Dolly’s number on my phone, which I had never called or received a call from. In fact, I wasn’t sure why I had gone through the trouble of entering it in the first place. “Here’s her number. Just don't believe anything she tells you about me.”

“Why?”

“Because Dolly is my ex-wife.”