Death Retires

came in handy. As a retired “teacher,” it was not convenient.
Geooooof. Oh, Geoffy-boy. Pretty lady, across the street. So preeeetty.
Damned inconvenient, in fact. Time to start searching for exorcism rituals.
If there were ghosts, then there must be ways to get rid of ghosts.
It was only logical.

3
Sunday afternoon
“Ghost removal? I can’t help you.” Lilac, a medium I’d discovered in the yellow pages, wasn’t quite living up to my expectations. Younger, prettier, greener, and more pierced than I’d expected—but also not nearly as cooperative as I’d hoped.
Then again, the yellow pages weren’t cutting-edge advertising any longer, per Clarence. I’d had my suspicions. I had been living in and around people the last few decades—just not as a person—but old habits liked to cling. In the world I’d known, there’d been phone books and people had used them.
Lilac’s gaze shifted to Clarence. “What exactly does an emotional support cat do?”
“Ah . . .” I glared at Clarence. He’d told me to say that. Had sworn it would get him in the door, no questions asked, and since he’d threatened to spray my bed if I didn’t take him along, I’d conceded.
Lilac waved a heavily ringed hand. “Never mind.” Her words might have been dismissive, but she wouldn’t stop looking at me as if I had something in between my teeth. “You’re sure your place is haunted? I can come out and do a preliminary screening for a modest fee. Just to double-check it’s not, you know, something else. Something not otherworldly.”
Ah. The medium thought I was nuts.
When the woman with the fluorescent, green hair, bright blue nail polish, and five competing spiritual philosophies plastered on her walls thought I was delusional, I might need to consider how I was presenting myself to the public.
Or stop taking Clarence’s advice. I turned a critical eye on my four-legged companion.
The leash pulled tight as Clarence tried to run for the hills, or at least for the safety of the small space under Lilac’s couch.
Twenty-five pounds of cat was a lot of feline, but a long way from being able to yank me around. I planted my feet and let him struggle. We’d already had one harness-slipping incident, so I’d made darn sure the thing was snug this time.
“I think something’s upset your cat.” Lilac’s eyebrows, thankfully not green, rose as she watched Clarence’s paws slip and slide on her laminate flooring.
“He’s fine.” Though I did grip the leash tighter. “Thanks for your offer, but the voices I’m hearing are very real. I had a colleague verify the ghost’s presence.”
Clarence must have been mollified by my “colleague” reference, because he stopped pulling. A split second later, he was flopped on the ground and had assumed the pose of a serenely relaxed cat. That lasted just long enough for him to shoot me a taunting glance, then he kicked a back leg high in the air and started to clean all his parts.
Gritting my teeth, I turned back to the lovely and less-than-helpful Lilac. “There has to be a way to get rid of a ghost. Every pest has a weakness.”
Lilac narrowed her eyes. “I wouldn’t exactly call a spirit visiting from another plane of existence a pest.”
“And that tells me you’re not living with one.” I closed my eyes and did a quick mental reset. When I opened them, I smiled with as much warmth as I could muster. That used to work well with women—several decades ago, when I’d been human. “I’m sorry. I’m frustrated, and that’s not your fault. Do you have any recommendations for me?”
Her eyes went wide, and she stared for a few seconds. When she did finally blink, it looked like she was fighting her way through a dust storm.
Looked like I might have lost the knack for charming women. That or modern women found a little focused attention terrifying. I waited for her to get her bearings again.
Eventually, she frowned at me and then Clarence. “You could try asking your ghost what he wants.”
Clarence coughed and then started to hack as if a monstrous hairball were caught in his throat. Except that was no hairball.
I watched him laugh maniacally for a few more seconds, and when it looked like he wasn’t stopping anytime soon, I raised my voice. “I know what he wants.”
She tipped her head inquisitively as Clarence continued to cackle like a demented crow.
Clarence fell silent just as the tail end of my response boomed through the room. “He wants me to have sex with his wife.”


4
Sunday evening
Awkward. That summed up the remainder of my session with Lilac, the green-haired medium.
Things hadn’t changed that much with women over the years. Add sex to the mix and everything went topsy-turvy.
I tried to explain that it was our resident ghost who was the pervert and not me, but that hadn’t gone to plan. I finally opted to retreat when it became clear the situation had devolved beyond recovery. I scheduled a second session before I was shown the door, but I suspected it would be chaperoned by a very large friend.
If she thought I was a lunatic, so be it, so long as she didn’t try to get me committed. Four white walls would drive me nuttier than the ghostly voices. But I was willing to risk a second meeting, because I’d sniffed a whiff of real talent underneath the green hair and woo-woo façade. There weren’t that many authentic talents running around in the world. With a little cooperation from Clarence, I planned to discover how much of a medium Lilac really was.
An unexpected positive result had been the ease of the interaction, except for that part at the end. I’d found the shop, introduced myself, and even started to have a reasonable conversation about a desired service. I hadn’t done too terribly, emotional support cat aside. It had been . . . not horrible.
Lilac had voiced subtle concerns about my sanity, but that hadn’t happened until the