"I... I think I did," I gasped. The patio around me seemed to sway.
"Whoa, easy there," Luc said, catching me. He guided me back down to my seat and knelt before me. "Are you alright?" His incredible green eyes—shadowed by his folded brow—searched my face.
"I don't... I don't know," I said, shaking my head. "I... I saw... I saw..." The girl's sunken face surfaced inside my mind, and I recoiled from the memory.
"Rachel? What did you see?" he asked, moving his hand to cradle my face. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, holding it in place. My anger with him was forgotten. I was just thankful he was here. It would be all right as long as Luc was here...
"I think I saw..." I began again, then dropped my voice. "I think I saw a ghost."
I expected Luc's eyes to widen, reacting with the same fear that was strangling me, but his features remained perfectly still and calm. "That's impossible, Rachel," he said. "It couldn't have been a ghost."
I blinked at him. "What? Why? I mean, you're a... a..." My eyes darted around to see if anyone was watching us. They were, again, so I couldn't bring myself to say the word aloud. "You're a you-know. Don't you believe in ghosts?"
"Of course I do," he said plainly, not bothering to match my tone; he didn't seem to care about our audience. "But the fact that I am a psychic is precisely why I don't believe you've seen a ghost."
My mouth fell open, hurt piercing through me. "You don't believe me?"
"No, no, I didn't mean it like that," he said quickly. "It's just... It couldn't have been a ghost. It's impossible."
"You keep saying that, but it's not impossible!" I snapped back. "I saw a girl and she... She looked like a ghost..." Was she though? Luc's doubt was starting to make me second guess myself.
"Let's take a step back," he said, taking my scarred hand and giving it a heartening squeeze. "Start at the beginning. Tell me exactly what you s—"
A sharp spike of pain shot through my arm, surging along the ridges of scar. "Ah!" I cried, yanking it away from him.
Luc blinked at me in surprise. "What's wrong?"
"It's my scar." I grimaced at my arm as I shook it out. "It's been acting up again."
"Again?" he echoed. The fold in his brow was back. He took my left hand instead, his touch extra gentle. He began stroking the back of my hand in a slow rhythm. "Are you okay to continue?"
I dropped my now-numb arm on the table. "I t-think so."
"Then please continue."
I took a deep breath to prepare myself for facing the girl again, even if it was just in my head. "I was sitting here, waiting for you," I began, keeping my eyes closed as I tried to remember every detail. "I had just noticed you standing over there, but when I looked away for a second, you disappeared. So I was looking around for you when... when I saw her."
Her ravaged face flashed through my mind again—her pallid skin, her sunken eyes. A shudder ripped through me, and I had to stop for a moment to collect myself.
"What did she look like?" Luc prompted.
My eyes snapped open and met with his. "Normal, at first. Sort of sick, though. But when she noticed me and her eyes went wide and her face... Her face..." My mouth failed me again. Even though I saw her horrible face in my mind, I couldn't find the words to describe it.
Luc had to prod me again. "What about her face?"
Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to concentrate and force my tongue to cooperate. "Her face... I-It was like it started to rot. And then she started walking toward me, but the closer she got, the more she rotted." I saw her gaunt arm reach for me as the flesh melted from her bones. "A-And all the while, I couldn't... I couldn't move. I couldn't even look away." I let out a big gust of breath. That was all I could manage.
A moment passed as I waited for Luc to respond, but he kept quiet. Finally, I opened my eyes to look at him. He was staring at the ground, chewing on his lip like he did when he was deep in thought. His thumb kept its even pace across the back of my hand.
As his silence began to drag on, I spoke up. "She seemed like a ghost to me."
"It wasn't," Luc said, finally turning his green eyes on me.
The heat of my anger flared. "How do you know? You weren't here! You should have been, but you weren't."
His eyes flickered as my accusation landed. "You're right, I should have been," he said, softly.
"But you weren't," I repeated, my glare deepening. "You were late, again. So how do you know?"
"Because I'm psychic," Luc said, sounding exasperated. He closed his eyes for a moment and let out a deep exhale before opening them again. "I think I would know."
I held my glare, even though I couldn't argue that point. "Well, if it wasn't a ghost, then what was it?"
"I'm not sure," Luc said, dropping my hand and standing up from his crouch. He was still for a moment, his gaze unfocussed, like he was trying to listen for some distant sound. Then his eyes sharpened, and he met my gaze again. "I don't feel any residual supernatural energy."
I narrowed my eyes. "What does that mean?"
"That it's probably nothing," he said, sliding into the seat across from me.
"Seriously?" I sank back into my seat and rubbed at my eyes with my good hand. "I see a random rotting girl on the street, and you just shrug it off?"
"I'm not trying to be dismissive," Luc said, reaching across the table and lacing his fingers through mine. "It's just that if I can't detect any energy, then it's highly unlikely that it was something supernatural."
Even though part of me wanted to stay angry, his touch sparked a warmth in me that was hard to fight off. I tightened my grip on him. "But then what was it?" I repeated, half to myself.
Luc's eyes searched my face before he spoke again. "Could it have been another... episode?"
My whole body went stiff at that word: episode. I hated it. I hated the way it sounded, the way it was always said in careful, hushed tones. Hearing it made me feel broken. I shook my head, half in response to his question, half to chase the dark memories away. "This felt real."
Luc's eyes softened. "That's just the thing, though Rachel. Do you remember what the doctor said? It may seem very real to you, but it's not. It's just a flashback. It's in your head."
"This was different. This wasn't me getting pulled back into a—" I swallowed hard, fighting against it. I didn't want to remember. "—memory. This was in the present, right here. This... This wasn't in my head."
"Are you sure?" Luc asked.
I paused for a moment, then shook my head. No, I wasn't sure. My mind had played tricks—cruel, painful tricks—on me before. One little trigger—the growl of a dog, a high-pitched scream—and I would be thrown back, forced to relive my terrifying showdown with the Beast.
"If it would make you feel better, I could do a tarot reading for you," Luc offered. Tarot cards were his specialty; his powerful gifts made the answers they provided eerily accurate. "Provide some insight, perhaps."
My encounter was just the thing that could use a little otherworldly insight. But before I could answer, a waitress appeared beside us.
"Sorry that took so long," she chirped, plunking down two pints of beer on the table between Luc and I, separating us. "Had to run through a few bills through first."
"But we didn't order—" I started, confused.
"That's perfectly alright," Luc cut in, smiling at her. "Thank you."
I could practically hear her heart stutter under the power of his smile. "Can I get you anything else?" she asked, focusing solely on Luc like I didn't exist. She jutted her hip out, her tight black dress emphasizing the dramatic curve that lead from it to her waist.
"Perhaps after we've had a moment to review the menus," he said blithely.
"Cool. Just wave me down when you need me," she said, winking at him before flipping her perfectly curled hair over her shoulder and heading back into the restaurant's interior.
Once she was out of sight, I raised my eyebrow at him in question. I had been sitting out here for half an hour waiting for him and she had barely paid me any attention.
"I ordered these when I came in," he explained with a meek smile as he pushed one pint towards me and pulled the other towards himself. "In appeasement for my being... late."
"Ah." So that's where he disappeared to...
"Sorry about that, by the way," he continued. "I know I promised I'd take the day off, but I got an urgent call and—"
"It's fine," I lied. I was used to the brush off when it came to his work. "At least you're here now."
"I am," Luc said. "No more business today. No more calls." He pulled his phone out and held it up so I could watch him power it off. "So, then, did you want that reading?"
I mulled it over, still unsure. Without the edge of panic, it seemed pointless. Luc was probably right; it was just another one of my episodes. My heart sank; I thought I had been getting better...
"Maybe we can try it later," Luc said, after a moment, when I didn't reply. "For now, let's just forget about it and try to enjoy our beer. You should try to relax... You have a big afternoon ahead."
Ugh. Right. In the wake of everything, I had completely forgotten.
He raised his pint of beer into the air between us. "To your new job!"
"You mean my interview," I corrected, leaving my beer where it was on the table. It looked so nice and cool, the sides of the glass dewy with condensation... "Shouldn't we wait to celebrate when—if—I actually get the job?" There already had been several interviews before this one, and all of them had led to nothing... I worried that premature celebrations would jinx me or something. After all I had been through, it wasn't entirely impossible.
Luc reached across the table and tapped his glass against mine anyway. "Don't worry," he said before taking a long drink. He wiped the foam from his upper lip then added, "I'm sure you'll do great."
"Oh yeah?" I asked, half mocking. "Why's that?"
"Because I have a good feeling about it," he said calmly, finishing with a smirk.
Despite everything, I felt my lips twitch into a small smile of my own. A psychic's 'good feeling' was hard to argue with.
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