After all, it was within this second cavern that we had buried my ex-husband, Danny.
After I took a moment, Allison and I entered the second cavern, and I immediately saw the reason why I hadn’t seen Danny’s spirit since his death. There he was, sitting next to his grave, legs crossed and looking miserable, haunting the crap out of this place. He drifted slightly, bobbing and rising, as if he were sitting on an inner tube in the shallow end of a dark pool.
He looked up as I entered.
Chapter Thirty-five
Danny is a recent spirit.
He’d been killed only months earlier, which meant I could still see a lot of his detail, even though his “light body” was composed of tens of thousands, if not millions, of tiny light particles.
“Guys, give me a minute,” I said.
Kingsley looked toward the dirt pile where my ex-husband’s corpse was still rotting away. He nodded, understanding. Whether or not he knew that I saw Danny’s spirit, I didn’t know, but he understood enough and said, “I’ll go check on our friend Hanner.”
Allison gave me an encouraging smile. She, too, could sometimes see into the spirit world, and I knew she, too, sensed Danny’s presence. Good luck, Sam, she thought to me.
Thanks, I responded, and headed over to my dead ex-husband, whose spirit was looking miserable.
* * *
“Hi, Danny,” I said, addressing the spirit.
I sat on a rock very near to where he was standing. He watched me silently, his body forming and reforming, pulsing and shimmering. Truly the body electric.
“Have a seat, Danny,” I said, and patted the rock next to me. “Let’s talk.”
He studied me silently, rising and falling ever so slightly, drifting on currents unseen and unfelt by the living. Or even the non-living. The details of Danny’s energetic body were so sharp that I could still see the mortal wound in his chest where the knife had plunged deep. I could also see the belt loops to his jeans, his shoelaces and the collar of his short. I knew, with time, such details would fade away. But for now, they were clear enough.
Unfortunately, his facial expressions were lost to me, although I could see the general outline of what had been a handsome face. I saw his ears, his mussed hair, his straight jawline. I couldn’t see his eyes, and that saddened me. Danny had beautiful blue eyes.
Unsure of himself—at least, that was the impression I got—he sat next to me. If I were a new ghost, I would sure as hell be unsure of myself, too. As he sat, some of his light fragments scattered towards me like a bag of marbles that had burst. Unlike marbles, these particles of living energy moved over my right arm and around my wrist and fingers and hand before disappearing. I shivered and the goose bumps bumped.
“I should have checked on you sooner, Danny,” I began. “I should have suspected you would still be down here.”
He cocked his head slightly.
“I should have known you would be confused and unable to move on.”
Now he cocked his head to the other side. I had his attention. I wondered how much he was really hearing, and how much he was actually comprehending.
That was when tears came, and they came hard, as I realized again that the man I had planned my future with and built a family with and had wanted to grow old with, had been forgotten in this shitty, desolate hellhole.
“I was taking care of the kids,” I said, doing my best to speak through the tears. “They’ve been so upset.”
I wanted to reach out and take his hand. And just as the thought crossed my mind, Danny did just that: he reached out with his own pulsating, crackling hand...and took my own. And he didn’t stop there, he leaned over and gave me the most electrifying hug I’d ever had.
* * *
This was the first time I had really cried for Danny, and I did it now, in the presence of his confused ghost, at the bottom of a forgotten hole in the ground, in the place of his murder. He continued holding me, and I leaned my head in his direction, although I mostly hit air. Mostly.
“The kids miss you, but they are okay. They are both healing, but it will take time, maybe forever. I was worried about Anthony, but he has found...a new friend.”
I purposely didn’t mention that this was all because of Danny’s idiocy. His desire to destroy me, in the end, had directly led to his death. He had aligned himself with the wrong people, people who used him.
I glanced over at Kingsley and Allison, who were both standing over another form, a form we had not bothered to bury, a form that, because of the contours of the cavern floor, I couldn’t quite see.
A form who might not be dead, after all.
I knew Danny was sorry. I also knew that he was doing something that he had never done while living...sensing my thoughts. It took him dying before the idiot and I finally became truly connected.
“You’re sorry,” I said. “I know. I can feel it.”
He nodded once, although the gesture seemed strange to him. He tried it again, liked it, and then nodded again and again.
“Okay, goofball. So you can nod. Big deal.”
I might have seen the corners of his mouth rise slightly. Back in the day, before his fear of me and his love for other women, Danny had had a nice sense of humor. It was why I had married him. That, and I wanted his last name.
Now, Danny threw his head back and I saw his shoulders shake. He was laughing, and a scattered remnant of his thought appeared in my thoughts: he’d always suspected that was why I had married him.
I laughed, too, and when we were both done and had settled down, I next felt Danny’s sadness.
“You miss them,” I said.
He nodded his head again, and I saw something next that I didn’t think I would ever soon forget: a shiny, fiery tear appeared in the corner of Danny’s right eye. It slid down his face, leaving behind a blazing trail of quicksilver. The tear dropped free, and, while falling, exploded into a thousand tiny fragments of light.
“You can visit them, you know,” I said. “But you can’t visit them if you’re stuck in here.”
He cocked his head again, his way of telling me he was listening. Danny, who had always been the practical, skeptical lawyer, had found himself ill-equipped in the bewildering world of spirits.
“There’s a tunnel, Danny. A tunnel of light. I know you’ve seen it. It will show itself every now and then. Do not be afraid of it. Go to it. Others will be waiting for you. Others you have loved, grandparents, friends, relatives. They will guide you, Danny. Go to them. Go to the light.”
He looked down, and I sensed his fear.