Free K.J. Emrick - Darcy Sweet 13 - Ghost Story by K.J. Emrick Page B

soul, and felt for his.  She found it easily, the familiar warmth of his character that she had experienced so often, when he would hug her in the morning or walk with her at night or listen to her talk about her day.  It was him.  Purely him, and no one else.
    “He’s gone Jon.  He’s not in you anymore.”
    “Darcy, he was never in me!  I was not possessed.  It wasn’t me.”
    She ran to him and threw herself in his arms.  They held each other tightly, and she didn’t bother arguing with him.  She was hurting.  Someone had attacked her, and there was no one else here but Jon.
    And if Nathaniel Williams had possessed Jon just now to do this to her, then the prime suspect in the murder of Bonnie Verhault had just become her own fiancé.

Chapter Six
     
    “You don’t think you’re being just a little ridiculous?”
    “No,” Darcy said to him honestly.  “I don’t.”
    She was still sore all over, but it was only a dull throbbing now and a twinge that tweaked her back whenever she reached up above her head.
    “Ow.”
    Like that.
    The book that Millie and Smudge had shown her in the dream was heavier than she remembered it.  Sitting at the kitchen table, she opened it up to read.  The red cover was soft in her hand like old leather got sometimes.  It was too bad, in her opinion, that all books weren’t still bound in leather like this.  Aside from how hard that would be on the cow population, she enjoyed the heft and feel of a book like this.  Then again, her bookstore was only making money now because of how she was able to sell e-books.
    Technology was wonderful, but it sure made life confusing.
    “What’s in that book?” Jon asked. 
    “The instructions to do the exorcism.”  At least, she hoped that’s what was there.
    “Hmm.”
    His tone was still offended.  No matter what she said or how she explained it he refused to believe he had been possessed by a ghost.  She didn’t blame him for the attack.  If anything, she figured she hadn’t been hurt worse than she was exactly because it was Jon doing the…what was done to her.  He probably had resisted whatever Nathaniel Williams had made him do because of how much he loved her.
    “Jon, just trust me, okay?  I know what I’m doing.”
    Looking over at the windows, then back at her, he raised one eyebrow.
    “It works!” she protested.
    “I’m sure.  Listen, putting salt across the windowsills is one thing, but I’m going to be tracking it through the house for a week from where you laid it in front of the doors.”
    There were certain rules that remained constant when dealing with ghosts.  They were rarely easy to understand even when they managed to contact the living.  They could not be seen by most people.  They were annoyingly evasive.  They missed their loved ones.  Things like that.
    Then there were a few truly weird facts about ghosts.  Like they could not cross a line of salt.
    Maybe one day Darcy would have the chance to write a book on the science of spiritual visitations.  They were as immutable as the laws of physics, really.  People had just as much use for knowing how to protect their home from ghosts as they did for knowing the periodic table of elements, and there were a ton of textbooks about the elements.  So why not one on ghosts?
    There had been two round containers of household salt up in the cabinets.  Darcy had used everything in both of them to lace the windows and the doors, too.  No way was she going to let the Pilgrim Ghost back in here for round two.
    She looked over at Jon.  Then looked away quickly.
    “Stop that,” he said, pointing at her.  “I saw that.”
    “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.  She couldn’t help it, though.  The thought that someone so close to her could have been taken over so easily scared her to death.  What would have happened if she hadn’t woken up when she did?  Or, worse, if it had been someone besides Jon who had been available for the