Melissa scowled and put the apple back into the bowl. “You’re harshing my mellow, Grandma,” she said. It was a favorite expression; the girl is adorable.

“Nonetheless.”

“Come on, Melissa,” Maxine said. “Let’s go upstairs and I’ll dye your hair blue.” Maxine likes to think of herself as Melissa’s “roommate.”

Melissa giggled and started for the stairs while Maxine took the more direct route through the ceiling. I doubted Melissa’s hair really would be a different color when she returned for dinner—especially since it would be so soon—but that was the least of my worries at the moment.

Because when I looked up, the roast chicken had raised itself out of its bed of carrots and apples, and seemed to will itself over the edge of the roasting pan and then, in midair, toward the kitchen door.

Chapter 2

As I’ve said, I pride myself on seeing every ghost in my path, but there are a lot of them, and they vary in their intensity. By that, I mean the spirits I see have levels of energy. Some could easily pass for living people because they are very strong and vibrant. They have color and depth. The majority, like Maxine and Paul, have an average amount of energy. Their voices don’t echo like in the movies but sound less forceful than a living person’s, and the ghosts are less colorful in appearance, given that light seems to go through them. They can interact with physical objects to various degrees, but they can pass through them, too.

There are some, however, who have very little physical energy. This type of spirit can be seen, but it requires a good deal of concentration. I believe it indicates their energy is either very new—they died not long ago and haven’t established themselves on this level of existence yet—or waning, as the spirit might be ready to move on to the next plane, whatever that is. This kind of ghost is almost transparent to the eye; Alison can’t always sense these ghosts, and even Melissa sometimes has some difficulty with them. I usually don’t have that trouble, but when I saw the flying roast chicken, I had to assume I was in such a presence.

“Can I help you?” I asked in the direction of the chicken.

The chicken stopped moving. I turned toward it, away from the stove and in the direction of the door, and squinted just a little to block out some of the light from the overhead fixture, because direct light can sometimes cancel out the ghost’s form. Sure enough, I began to see the dim outline of a man, tall and straight. His face wasn’t very visible, so I couldn’t read his expression. He stood—or floated, to be more accurate—very still, seeming stunned that I had seen him. He did not speak.

“I can’t imagine you’re hungry,” I told the man. Spirits don’t need to eat, of course. “So may I ask what you need with our dinner?”

The man moved a little closer to me and for a second looked like he was going to drop the chicken, but managed to place it carefully back in the Pyrex baking dish.

As he gained substance, I could see he was in his late twenties or early thirties, dressed in army fatigues. His uniform held some indication of rank, but I don’t know much about such things. “It’s not for me,” he said, indicating the chicken. “It’s for . . . friends.”

“Friends?” I asked. The ghost’s mode of dress and age were not necessarily an indication of when the man had died; some spirits take on the look of another time (usually a happier one) in their lives. This doesn’t happen all the time, but then, I had discovered, there are no definites concerning the afterlife; everyone’s seems to be a different experience. “If your friends are hungry, maybe we can find something for them to eat without giving up our own dinner.”

“My friends are homeless,” the ghost said. “They live on the beach not far from here. There is a very bad storm brewing.”

“How many friends are you talking about?” I asked. Something about his tale didn’t add up. I figured I should keep him talking.

“Eight,” the soldier said, after thinking about it.

“That chicken isn’t going to feed eight hungry people,” I noted.

“It’s going to be a very bad storm,” he repeated, as if that explained the discrepancy.

“Then food is not their biggest problem,” I told him. “We should call the police and get them to a shelter before this becomes dangerous. They’ll get food there.”

I took a few steps toward the new arrival, and Paul rose up out of the basement and through the stove—usually Paul has better aim than that—and startled the new ghost (new to us, anyway) when his face appeared directly in front of the chicken. The soldier’s shoulders shuddered, but Paul stopped and looked at him, smiling.

“Did I miss something, Loretta?” he asked me. “Why not introduce me to your friend?”

“Mostly because I don’t know his name,” I said. I turned to the newcomer. “I’m Loretta Kerby, and this is my friend Paul Harrison. What should we call you, dear?”

The new ghost had turned back toward me after Paul spoke, still visibly shaken by his arrival. I suppose ghosts don’t always see other ghosts coming, either. “Sergeant Robert Elliot, United States Army,” he said. For a moment I thought he’d give us his serial number as well, but instead he added, “I owned this house once, a long time ago.”

It took me a moment to absorb that, but Paul was quicker to respond. “When was that?” he asked. It’s always tricky when a ghost talks about time. For them, “a long time ago” could be three months, or it could be the Revolutionary War. Paul had been a private investigator when he was alive, and he likes nothing better than to ask questions. It keeps his mind sharp, he says. He’d even gone so far as to convince Alison to get a private investigator’s license so she could go out and do some digging for him on what he calls his “cases.” Alison is very clever at it, but she’s never quite taken to the idea of being a detective and doesn’t like to put herself or especially Melissa in danger, so she often resists the jobs Paul accepts on her behalf.

“I bought it in nineteen sixty . . . eight?” Sergeant Elliot said with an absent tone, as if he were thinking about something else. “I didn’t live here very long. It was sold in the early seventies.” He was getting less visible, more transparent as his voice became ethereal. I had to get him to focus on the conversation or he might fade away. The memory seemed to be overpowering him.

“Why?” I asked. “If you had the house for such a short time, why did you sell it?”

“I was about to get married, so I bought the house for me and my fiancée, Barbara Litton,” the sergeant answered. “But then I was inducted into the army, and we decided to postpone the wedding until I came back.” He stopped, closed his eyes and opened them again. “I did not return alive.”

This was not explaining the walking roast chicken, but there’s no point in rushing some people, alive or dead, when they’re telling you a story. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “What happened?”

“A land mine in Thua Thien-Hue Province,” he said simply.

“Vietnam,” Paul said to me. “Late nineteen sixties.”

“Nineteen seventy, to be precise,” Sergeant Elliot responded. “I don’t remember the exact date; the incident is a little . . . confused in my memory.”

“Is that why you came back here?” I asked. “To jog your memory?”

Robert’s head snapped down to look at me, and he seemed more focused, but almost annoyed. “No, I came for the food for my friends.”

I still didn’t believe that claim, but I thought I’d play along to see what Paul could find out. “I’ll call the police right now about seeing to your friends,” I said and got my cell phone from my backpack. Alison teases me about “looking like a third grader,” but the backpack carries everything I need and keeps my hands free when I’m walking. It helps with my posture, too.