Free Tortured Souls (The Orion Circle) by Kimber Leigh Wheaton

repair.”
    My eyes fill with tears when I realize he’s still closed to the possibility. With supreme effort, I manage to keep them from spilling over my eyelashes. Logan has a calm, agreeable expression on his face, but I can feel his body tense up.
    “You still insist your daughter is either a liar or insane?” Logan asks in a careful, even tone. “That must be very difficult for you.”
    Hot tears trickle down my cheeks at his blunt summation of our issues. I blink several times to keep more from forming.
    “You have no right to come into this house and speak to me like you know anything about our family,” Dad barks at him. “We have managed this situation just fine so far.”
    “No, we haven’t,” I whisper, forcing myself to look at Dad. “You think if you ignore it, it’ll go away. It’s not that easy. I suffer in silence every day, while you go around with your head in the sand. If you cared about me at all, you’d try to open your mind and understand.”
    “I can’t just believe in something I can’t see,” Dad says, throwing his arms in the air.
    “We believe in many things we can’t see,” Logan murmurs while his fingers rub soothing circles on my shoulder blade. “This sofa is covered in dust mites, I can’t see them yet I know they’re there. Our bodies are made up of billions of atoms we can’t see. The universe exists far beyond what we can see with the limited technology we have.”
    “That’s different,” Dad insists with a stony glare.
    “What if I could prove it to you?” Logan asks as he stares down my father. “Would you believe then?”
    “How could you possibly do that?” Gavin asks.
    My heart soars with renewed hope. Gavin wants to believe. I can see it in the excitement in his eyes, the way he leans forward eager to listen.
    “I’m a psychic medium like Kacie,” Logan replies. “Perhaps I can call on one of your deceased relatives and relay a message from them.”
    “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Dad scoffs, adding a snort of derisive laughter.
    “Who should I try to contact?” Logan asks with a defiant glare.
    “Fine, contact my sister Constance. She died last year, and I have a few questions for her,” Dad says, radiating skepticism from the sneer on his face to the clenched fist resting on his leg.
    “I banished Aunt Constance from the house,” I admit in a soft murmur. “She wouldn’t leave me alone. Kept saying she needed me to tell some guy named Richie that the treasure is buried under the spider oak. It made no sense and she wouldn’t let me sleep, so I finally convinced her to move on to the next plane.” When I glance up at my father, his face is pale. “What’s wrong, Dad?”
    “Were those her exact words?” Dad asks in a hoarse whisper. “The treasure is under the spider oak?”
    “Well, spirits don’t just talk the way you and I do,” I hedge, confused by his sudden change in demeanor. “Sometimes everything comes out jumbled. But, yeah, that’s what I remember her saying. Why?”
    “It was a game we played when we were kids,” Dad says, running a shaking hand through his dark hair. “The cartoon Richie Rich . I played Richie and she played Gloria Glad. The spider oak was the largest oak tree on our farm. I can’t believe it. I know I never told you this. I had forgotten until now.”
    “Do you think she actually hid something under the tree?” I ask intrigued.
    “I think I’ll go check this weekend,” Dad says, pulling and rubbing at his chin. “It’s still hard for me to accept that you see and communicate with spirits, but after this… There’s no way you could possibly know about it. Constance lived in France for most of your life. I have no choice but to at least try to believe.”
    “I suppose that’s all I can ask for now,” I say with a heavy sigh, too scared to raise my hopes.
    Silence falls over the room. Dad’s starting to believe me. Maybe. And yet, I feel lighter, like a weight I didn’t realize