Page 2 of Embraced By the Ghost

The light continued to grow until it was almost blinding. The itching between my shoulder blades got worse, and I had to fight to keep from yanking my hand away from the crystal ball.

And then a face appeared in the crystal surface—the face of a woman in her eighties, lined with wrinkles. She had wise, faded blue eyes and a puff of cotton-candy pink hair. If this really was Natalie’s grandmother, she had obviously been ahead of her time.

The face grew rapidly from a pinprick, getting larger and larger until it filled the entire crystal ball. And those faded blue eyes seemed to be staring directly at me.

Okay, this was probably some kind of trick, but I was over it now. I tried to yank my fingers away from the ball…and found I couldn’t. It was like someone had glued my fingertips to the hard crystal surface.

When I looked around the table, I saw that Tamara and Phyllis were also trying—and failing—to pull their fingers back. Natalie was the only one who wasn’t moving. Her pale blue eyes, much like her grandmother’s, had grown wide and she was staring into the crystal ball like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Either her acting was really superb, or she was as surprised as the rest of us.

I had a sinking feeling it was the latter rather than the former.

“Nana?” she whispered, staring into the ball. “Nana Cordelia—is that really you?”

“Of course it’s me!” the old lady said, frowning. “Why are you bothering me, child, when I’m trying to rest?”

“Oh, I…I…I needed advice,” Natalie stammered at last. “You see, I have this boyfriend—fiancé, really—named Brad. And he⁠—”

“Got down on his knees and begged you to marry him. Yes, yes, I know all that.” Her grandmother waved one wrinkled hand impatiently. “I also know that he’s cheating on you,” she added.

“He’s what?” Natalie’s eyes got so wide they seemed to make up most of her face.

“Yes, he is! With that nasty girl right there.”

And Natalie’s grandmother pointed directly at Tamara.

“What?” Tamara’s brown eyes went wide, and she tried even harder to pull her fingers away from the crystal ball—to no avail. “What? I don’t know what she’s talking about!” she babbled to Natalie, who was glaring at her.

“Don’t lie!” Natalie snapped. “If my Nana says you and Brad did the dirty, I know you did!”

Tamara’s face fell.

“We only did it once and it didn’t mean anything,” she said sullenly. “It was ages ago—during the Christmas party when we were all high on those gummies you gave us.”

So that was why Natalie had gone into a “dance trance”—she’d been high. I vaguely remember her offering me one of her homemade gummies but at the time I’d thought they were some kind of Christmas treat and had turned them down because I was afraid they’d get stuck in my fillings.

“So that was what you two were doing in the broom closet?” Natalie shrieked. “I knew you weren’t just in there looking for paper towels to clean up the vomit!”

Oh that’s right, I remembered, one of our other coworkers—Greg—had been sick all over his desk. Apparently the mixture of gummies and alcohol hadn’t agreed with him. But using that as an excuse to hook up in the closet with your coworker’s fiancé was really low. I was glad all over again I had turned down the Christmas-tree shaped gummy.

But the drama was far from over. Natalie was glaring at Tamara with real hatred, and I had the feeling if any of us could have gotten our hands unstuck from the crystal ball, there would have been a fight happening right now.

Natalie’s Nana wasn’t done yet, however.

“She’s not the only one he’s cheating on you with, either,” she said, glaring at her granddaughter. “He’s all over the place. I hope you’re being safe, missy, because he’s a walking STD factory!”

“What?” Natalie looked even more upset. “But Nana, he seems so sweet!”

“Of course he does—he wants to marry you so he can get his hands on my house!” Nana exclaimed. “He’s already asked you to put his name on the deed, hasn’t he?”

Natalie’s blue eyes went wide.

“How…how did you know that? Have you been watching me all this time?”

“Just off and on,” Nana said, shrugging. “But I couldn’t warn you until now—I’m glad you brought someone with real power to the party so she could form a bridge between us.”

And she pointed at me.

I stared back in disbelief. Was she saying what I thought she was saying? This couldn’t be real, could it? I must be dreaming.