Ghost a La Mode Read Online Free PDF Page B

for Grant's low-life, trailer-trash-mentality talk show-like alien abductions and religious images found in slices of baloney.
    Emma walked to the bed. Holding out a hand, she waved it through the image of Ish Reynolds. Nothing but air.
    "That's not very polite," the ghost snapped. "How'd you like someone sticking their paws through you?"
    Laughing, Emma yanked back the covers and dropped herself down onto the bed, falling through Ish to do so. She turned out the light and pulled the covers over herself against the cold that still filled the room.
    "A good night's sleep will stop this nonsense," she announced out loud as she closed her eyes.
    "You trying to convince yourself or us?" It was Ish again.
    Emma opened one eye. Even with the light out, she could still make out an image. It was Kitty, now glowing slightly like phosphorous. She was still in the rocker, but Ish was gone.
    "One ghost down, one to go." Emma turned over, determined to go to sleep.
    Just as she was drifting off, Emma felt something soft and fluttering and as delicate as a spider web brush against her cheek. She opened her eyes and was startled to see Kitty's ghost standing over the bed. The spirit reached out a hand and stroked Emma's cheek. It felt like the lightest of feathers.
    "Where's your friend?" Emma asked.
    Kitty's ghost smiled down at her. "Open your heart to the unexpected, Emma. You used to be so full of adventure. So full of life."
    "That was a lifetime ago." A tear rolled down Emma's cheek. "If you're real, Aunt Kitty, then please don't go. Stay here with us."
    "But I must go, dear. Your uncle Tony is waiting for me. He's been waiting a long time."
    Marlene's father, her uncle Tony, had died of cancer twelve years earlier. While alive, he and Kitty had been inseparable.
    Kitty bent down and brushed her ghostly lips against Emma's forehead. For the briefest of moments, Emma could have sworn she felt a bit of warm breath against her skin.
    "You're the one, Emma," Kitty whispered as her presence began to fade. "You're the one Ish has been waiting for. She's family, and she needs your help. You need each other"
     

"JusT TELL HER TO come back," Emma demanded.
    Milo looked at Emma Whitecastle over the top rim of his wireframed glasses. He studied her for a moment as a patient parent would study a petulant child. There was an inner strength and assurance emanating from the nerdy little man across from Emma with his dirty, crooked glasses and pill-covered blue cardigan sweater. Still, Emma had to fight the urge to reach across the table and snatch the glasses-to clean them and replace them in a straight and orderly manner.
    "The other side does not take orders, Emma," Milo told her. "They come to us when they wish to come, not when we demand their presence." "
    "But I want to help her. Tell her that"
    "Help her how?"
    I don't know exactly. She didn't stick around long enough for me to find out." She shot him a challenging look. "And besides, shouldn't you know that already? Isn't that your job, to know what these things want when they come here?"
    "These `things,' Emma," Milo cautioned her in a stern yet soft voice, "are spirits of people who have gone on before us. People who were once alive and walking this earth, just as you and I do now. Please be mindful and respectful of that."
    Under his reproach, Emma squirmed in her chair like a schoolgirl and lowered her eyes. She was seated at a small wooden table in a low-lit room. Heavy drapes covered the room's two windows, shutting out the daylight. Burning candles were scattered around on various level surfaces, bathing the space in warm shadows. In the middle of the table, a large candle, white as snow and the size of a small dinner plate, flickered brightly with three lit wicks. She had returned to Milo Ravenscroft, this time with a different purpose. Initially, she had wanted to prove him a fraud. Now she wanted his help.
    "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be disrespectful." She looked up, eye to eye