Free Entity Mine by Karin Shah

heard you were back in town. Trying to get into Lily Dale?”
    Devon opened the driver’s side door and the dog jumped into the backseat. Devon slammed the door behind her, if only she could slam the door in Colleen’s face. Oh, mom. I wish you’d raised me to be ruder. “You know the rules as well as I do.” Bitch .
    Colleen gave a shark’s smile, as if scenting blood in the water and going in for the kill. “Well, I’m sure there’s always the suckers too cheap to pay the entry fee. Maybe you can scare them out of their wits.”
    Now, that was going over the line. She couldn’t be rude, but she wouldn’t be walked over. “You begged for that séance, Colleen. Remember? I said ‘no.’”
    Half an hour later, a still obviously seething Devon led the dog into the house.
    Ethan wondered what the anorexic blonde in the Jamestown parking lot had been talking about. He couldn’t imagine Devon scaring anyone.
    Tucking his questions away, He watched the animal sniff around as Devon looked some information up on her tablet. When he peered over her shoulder, he could see she was looking at pictures of purebred dogs.
    “Well, Honey,” she said to the dog. “I would say you were half-golden retriever, half-basenji.”
    The dog bounded over to Devon and leaned into her legs, gazing into her face, tongue lolling out like a thick, pink ribbon.
    Devon rose and went into the bedroom. Honey followed her, her nails tapping on the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. Devon scooped up some laundry from the small closet and noticed the dog. “Well, go ahead. Look around. You can sleep beside my bed. No way are you sleeping with me, though. You’re way too big and I bet you spread out to three-times your size.”
    Ethan eyed the fifty-pound animal. Probably four.
    Honey flopped down onto the carpet in front of his picture.
    The motion made Devon look up from her sorting. “You like him?”
    Honey made a small noise Devon must have taken as an affirmative.
    “Me, too. I wonder what happened to him.” She fell silent, her brown eyes grave as her gaze lingered on the photograph. “I had dreams about him yesterday.”
    Her, too?
    “Between you and me,” she crouched to ruffle the dog’s short fur. “Kissing is highly overrated. No one is that good a kisser in real life.”
    That must have been some dream. If it had been anything like his . . . The memory made his chest contract, and his stomach dip, because as they’d kissed he’d known why she’d seemed so familiar. She was the woman he’d always dreamed about.
    “And then he kissed my hand like something in a movie.” She sighed and stood, slapping dog hair off her jeans. “I’ve got to stop watching Pirates of the Caribbean .”
    He’d kissed her hand in her dream?
    How odd was it that he would dream he’d kissed her hand and she would dream it, as well.
    Were they sharing dreams? Had the kitchen dream been shared, as well as the dream in bed?
    Funny how being a ghost made all sorts of weird shit sound acceptable all of a sudden.
    An idea suddenly struck him. Had the erotic dream been a dream at all?
    A bubble of emotion welled up in the pit of his stomach, floating into his chest. Was it possible he’d somehow manifested himself in his sleep?
    Devon puttered around the house all day, unpacking, setting out her things. Anything to avoid thinking of the future.
    Honey was a big comfort, following her from room to room and perking up her big ears when Devon couldn’t stand the silence anymore and directed a comment to her.
    The day passed in a rush and before she was ready, night had settled over the tiny house.
    The repetitive chirp of crickets alerted Devon to the fact that the long, Western New York twilight had snuck up on her and now the entire house stood cloaked in heavy shadow.
    She placed the last glass in the upper cupboard nearest the foyer and closed it with a decisive click .
    She swept her gaze across the dark kitchen, satisfied that everything was