GHOST PORTAL (#1 GHOST PORTAL series)

TWENTY-SIX

"Our house?" Avery's voice blurted through the phone's speakers, laced with an indignity that made Jessamine picture him sneering. "This place belongs to you? Who are you?"

Jessamine didn't think she'd get on such a high horse while addressing some otherworldly being that had just popped up in front of her; but Avery was another breed of being altogether. A stubborn, experienced investigator who taunted spirits—mostly malevolent ones—for fun. He wouldn't let this thing intimidate him.

But as Jessamine's mind pieced together various flashes of this Ada—yes, she'd definitely met with that curt voice before, and was now able to put a misty body to its sound—she doubted Avery should have been so high-and-mighty.

Ada was, or so Jessamine remembered, a majestic creature of a vibrant blue shade with a gentle touch of turquoise, but more blue than green. She had a vague female outline with feminine features, big eyes that gave off airs of curiosity, of innocence, and long, silk-like silvery hair. The image of her was so clear now, as if she were floating next to Jessamine, speaking to her, guiding her out of the house—

Whoa... these memories are getting more and more intense; is that you?

Jessamine's possessor didn't reply to her thoughts, clearly too busy listening in, spying on Ada having appeared to Avery and Jamie in the attic. Had this being told Jessamine to guide them up there on purpose? To meet with Ada? Was this a trap?

"I'm Ada," said the blue being, in a slightly distorted voice, like she'd been dunked under water and had spoken before coming back up. "I'm a Guide. The Guide, with a capital G."

"Guide?" Jamie's tone, unlike Avery's, was broken, trembling. Jessamine pictured the big and burly dude huddled in a corner, glaring at Ada and swatting at her with the remnants of his exploded flashlight. He'd been more of a comic relief in Avery's YouTube video, she recalled; still, she'd thought Jamie to be unafraid of most ghostly things, as he'd chosen to go on these adventures with Avery. Maybe he was only shocked, and would come to once adjusted to looking at this eerily ethereal creature.

"Let me be clear," said Ada; Jessamine envisioned her eyes narrowing on Avery and Jamie with a hint of spite in her inflection. "I rarely converse with humans, especially living ones. You're no different. But you made it this far—farther than any human who has ever entered this house, bar an exception or two. So I'll be frank with you." She went silent—likely assessing the two mortals before her; Avery glowering, Jamie gulping. "I protect spirits in Limbo before they move on to an alternate dimension for their new life. Their afterlife."

Again, it was Jamie whose voice broke through with surprise, possibly cutting Avery off before he had an opportunity to react. "Limbo? Alternate dimension? New life... afterlife... whoa." He sounded distant, turned away from where Avery's phone was stashed in his jeans. "You mean life after death? Reincarnation?"

"Not in the biblical sense, if that's what you're referring to," said Ada, a stern school-teacher tone to her words. "This is a sort of reincarnation into another realm. We, the Guides, aren't tied to religion or whatever gods you humans have seen fit to create. We're part of the atmosphere, beings developed from nature, formed from foreign particles. And we arrived here to guide spirits—hence the name. Do these explanations suffice, or must I continue to waste my time?"

In her last sentences, she'd gone from sounding almost kind to completely condescending, talking down to Avery and Jamie as if they were inferior beings. And surely in her mind, they were—she was a higher power, in a sense, able to communicate with ghosts and guide them on to their resting places. Avery and Jamie were mere mortals. And they'd been forced to face this cloud-like, see-through, ghostly woman who'd surprised them in an attic and was now acting as if she were better than them.