Page 32 of The Rut in the Road

We sat that way for a while, Bethany’s tears slowing, her breathing growing more even. “Has he—has he been with me the whole time?” she asked.

Of course, the ghost answered immediately.Where else would I be?

“He has,” I told her.

She nodded again. “I wondered why it felt like he wasn’t really gone,” she whispered. “Because—because it wasn’t like that with Daddy. When he died it felt—it felt like he was gone.” She looked at me. “Where is he?” she asked.

I knew it was rude to point, but I had no idea how else to answer her, so I pointed beside me to where Robby was crouching.

She looked at him, or, rather, looked at the space where he was, since she couldn’t see him. “You still should have told me, Robby,” she whispered. “But I know why you didn’t. And I love you.Welove you.”

I love her, too,he said.Tell her I love her so much.

“He says to tell you that he loves you so much,” I said quickly, before she said more.

She smiled, a sad expression, and nodded. “I know you do, Robby. I know that’s why you did it now.” She rubbed at the fresh tears falling from her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Baby brother.”

I’ll always be with you, Betts,he said.

I told her this.

She shook her head. “No, Robby,” she said softly. “Don’t stay with me. I love you, but you deserve to be able to move on. To find Daddy. To tell him we still love him. You can do that. You can go be with him.” She turned to look at me. “He can, right?”

I didn’t know, not really, but Ward seemed to think that people could find their loved ones beyond the veil. “If that’s what they both want,” I answered her.

“Go find Daddy, Robby,” she continued. “Tell him we’ll see him when our time comes. Mom will. And I’ll come find you, too.”

The ghost was crying, again, too.Tell her to take her time,he told me.Take a long, long time. Have babies. Teach them how to throw boccie balls and make blueberry pancakes and homemade banana pudding. And I’ll come back and visit, sometimes. I can do that, right?His eyes were pleading.

If you want, I answered. I knew ghosts could come and go, if they wanted to.

Tell her that, he pleaded.

I told her.

I was exhaustedby the time Bethany and Robby left. Robby had gone first, fading away as he allowed himself to cross over, but not before wrapping me in a hug that felt cold and clammy and made me have to suppress a shudder. Bethany hugged me, too, before she left, pressing a check into my hands that was more than we would have charged her to see Ward.

She’d insisted I keep it all, even though I told her it was too much.

I stood there, staring at the door, realizing that my hands were shaking and there was a line of cold sweat down my spine only after the door had been closed for a good thirty seconds.

I turned around, then let out a tiny squeak when I realized Mason was standing in the mouth of the hallway.

“Well done, Rayn,” he said softly. “Very well done.”

I blinked, startled and confused. “What?”

Mason stepped away from the wall, walking over and guiding me gently to sit on the couch where Bethany had recently been sitting, the upholstery a little warm still from her body. “You handled that very well,” Mason said, taking the check away from me. “That was a lot of work, and it’s not easy to manage other people’s grief like that.” He grimaced. “I know what it takes out of me, and I don’t have to talk to dead people.” Then he stood. “Stay here.”

I stayed, the exhaustion brought on by so much magic use making my limbs feel heavy. Even though I could see ghostsmore or less naturally—without having to put effort into it—sustaining the energy to hear them and speak to them required magic. Not as much as pushing for a psychic reading of something. Definitely not as much as trying to use my death magic or summon a ghost. But it still took magic, which meant that a long conversation like the one I’d just had with Robby Tripp had taken more out of me than I’d expected.

Mason returned after a few minutes, a mug of hot chocolate in one big hand. “Are you okay to hold it?” he asked me. “Or should I find your gloves?”

“It’s fine,” I replied, reaching out. “Thank you.” I took the mug—my mug—from him, careful not to burn my fingertips on the now-hot ceramic. I was much, much better at controlling my psychic senses than I’d been even a four months ago, although it was more difficult the more tired or emotional I was feeling, and at that precise moment, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by both. I sipped cautiously at the hot chocolate, not wanting to scald my tongue.

“What happened?” he asked, quietly, after I’d taken my third sip.

“Her brother had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer,” I replied, the words surprisingly difficult to say. “And he took his own life rather than put his family through watching him decline.”