Chapter 22

Zach laid on his bed, random tennis ball he’d found in his hand. He tossed it up into the air where Blue waited. Just like him, she was also laying down, only on her stomach and in thin air. As the ball came up to her, she lazily pointed a single finger at it, causing it to freeze in mid-air and take on a blue glow.

Zach watched it float in place for a second until it lost its blue glow and dropped back down to him. He spread his hand out and allowed the ball to fall into it. He spun it around above his face, inspecting the surface, before tossing it back up to keep the cycle going.

Over on the desk were two files. One of them detailing a family living in Korea, the other a family with a living daughter who’d come back to them after around two weeks. In the two weeks since Zach had brought them home, a small layer of dust had been built up over them.

Now the only lead they had left was the memory of the hidden room underneath the cabin. And with no public route down that far south, their only choice was to waste for the Nightmare made Manifest to pass over them. Once it was back out to sea, he could probably manage to convince an exorcist with a driver’s license to take him down there for a day.

Until then, they were trapped in a bit of a cycle. Zach would eat breakfast with his family, leave for the day with Blue, train at the beach as Gestalt, and then split apart to meet with Zach’s friends in the afternoon.

On one hand, the constant training mixed with free time to relax and recover meant they were making leaps and strives in their abilities. On the other hand, the constant reminder that they had one last clue and now way to follow up on it was driving both of them crazy.

And as of today, it was just too much. No going out to see friends, no training as gestalt, no bugging Beth or the older exorcists for updates on the Nightmare made Manifest. Just staying at home and doing nothing, maybe watching a movie later, if Zach could be bothered to put it on.

“Zach, honey, can I come in?” Zach’s mom knocking on the door was just distracting enough for Blue to drop the ball. Zach put his hands up to try to catch it, only for it to slip through his fingers. He let out a small wince of pain as it landed right on his face.

“Sure, come in,” he took the ball of his face and started rubbing the impact site. His mom walked in a second later, slightly spurned on by the sound of her son in pain. She only needed one look at his position on the bed, as well as the ball in hand, to figure out what happened.

“Okay, so I know we made our deal where you could do whatever you liked for the rest of the summer…” Zach looked up at the ceiling and wondered if it was worth it to get mad at whatever she was about to say. It wasn’t like whatever she could throw at him would throw his plans into chaos. “But we just got a call from your grandfather. He said he wanted to talk to you about something important. Too important to do over the phone.”

Zach was about to roll his eyes when his mind suddenly burst into activity. He rushed to sit up straight and look his mother in the eye. He needed intel, and he needed it now.

“So he wants us to come back to Green Brook to talk?” Blue froze in place before spinning like she was in a washing machine. Slowly at first, but building up speed as she went.

“Well, something like that. He’s driving up here to come get you, and then taking you down to Green Brook.” She shrugged her shoulders at him as Zach wondered what this whole thing was about. Well there was time to figure that out later, first he has one big question.

“How long am I going to be down there for, and do you think he’ll mind if I take an hour or two to check something out while I’m there?” Zach’s mom blinked as her son looked right at her. She coughed, clearly taken aback, before pulling out her phone.

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“Actually I’m not sure. Your grandfather just said he wanted to talk to you, he didn’t actually say how long it would be,” she dialed a number and put the phone up to her ear, “let me just give him a call and… hey dad, Zach had a few questions about your trip up here.”

Zach sat still watching his mom like a hawk as Blue finally stopped spinning. Instead she flew down to his side and laid over his shoulder, watching with equal, if unseen, excitement. Zach’s mom, only aware of a single set of eyes, waited as her father spoke on the other end of the line.

After a couple of minutes, she finally spoke up again.

“Okay, I’ll let him know,” she put the phone down but didn’t hang up. She turned towards her son, still sitting there expecting answers. “Well he said you’d be there for a day. He’d come pick you up in the morning, you would spend the day there, and he’d drive you back up the next morning.”

“That work’s for me.” Zach said, fighting back his urge to cheer. He couldn’t let his mom know what was going on. Blue, not working under such constraints. She flew off into the air and started circling the room, cheering as she did so. Zach fought even harder to keep the smile off his face. “When is he coming up?”

“Whenever you’re up for it, but he would rather it be sooner rather than later,” She explained as Blue started punching the air in celebration, the light in Zach’s starting to shudder. Zach’s mom frowned as she looked up at the ceiling. “Another electrical issue. Might need to call someone about that soon.”

“Okay, let him know he can come as soon as he can. He can come tomorrow if he wants.” Zach quickly moved to change the topic, as Blue stopped and put her arms down.

“Oh… okay,” she put her phone back up to her ear, “okay dad… oh you heard him? You’ll be here tomorrow?” There was a slight noise from the other end of the line which earned a frown out of Zach’s mom. “No dad, you don’t need to check my light’s while you’re up here. Lucas and I can handle it.”

Zach’s mom left the room leaving the two teenagers to celebrate by themselves. Zach got up and watched his mom from the door, making sure she was out of earshot before closing the door. A soft click echoed through the room before Zach swiftly turned around and beamed at Blue.

“We’re in!” he whisper screamed as Blue went back circling the room. Zach, for his part, got into the center and started to do a little dance.

All in all, it probably wasn’t the most appropriate way to celebrate getting a chance to investigate a murder site, if such a thing even existed. However the lack of progress these last few days had pushed both Ghost and Boy to the edge of sanity. They were going to celebrate, and nothing was going to stop them.

At least until blue punched the air again, causing the lights to go on the fritz again. That was enough to stop them. Zach ceased his dancing to watch the mortified Blue freeze in place. The two of them locked eyes until the lights went back to normal.

“I’m going to start packing my stuff.” Zach finally said as he went into his closest for a backpack. Blue raised an eyebrow at the relatively tiny bag. At least relative to the luggage he’d had the last time he went to Green Brook.

“Wait is that it?” Blue questioned as he set the bag on the bed. “You took a way bigger one last time.”

“I’m only going there for a day Blue. There’s plenty of space in here for that.” He zipped the bag open before taking out the school stuff that was still in there. He would need to find a place put that stuff before the end of the day. A few papers here and there were fine, but the entire contents of his backpack were a step too far.

Either he did, or his mom would. The last thing he needed now was for his mom to clean up and find some of the files he had hidden away. Even if she didn’t believe them, there was a non-zero chance she’d throw them out. With what Andrew said about never throwing away case files, it was one conversation he’d rather avoid with the older exorcist.

Speaking of files…

Zach looked over at the two remaining files he’d brought home two weeks ago. If he was being honest, only one of them had a chance of being useful. But at the same time… they were still desperate for clues, even with this shot in the arm.

He packed everything he would need for a day away from home, making sure to leave enough space for two files. He left the actual files to the side. He could put them in after his mom went over his bag despite his assurances that he’d totally packed enough and found a thing or two to stick in there.

Two hours later, he was leaning with the wall to his back as he watched his mom go through his bag. Just like he’d predicted, she’d found a few things he’d forgotten.

“I just knew you’d forget to pack enough of these.” She proudly stated as he held up a bundle of underwear she’d folded herself. Blue was off to the side, giggling like a maniac.

“I’ll be there for a day,” he weakly argued. He knew there was no point, his mom was just going to bulldoze over him. But it would be weird if he didn’t resist at all, so resist he did.

“You never know when you’re going to need extra underwear,” she chided him as blue burst into full on laughter. Zach had never felt the urge to punch the ghost girl before, but boy did he want to try.

He took a deep breath and swore to power through this. Tomorrow morning would get here soon enough.