Kia and Gio Read Online Free

says people make too big a deal out of ghosts; they get freaked out and don’t know how to handle them, because we so full up with freaky stories about poltergeists and whatnot. He says most ghosts just want something, and usually all you have to do is ask what they want and then give it to them; it’s that simple.
    I put my hands to either side, not unlike Ishigu right before he takes off, and say “Spirit!” It sounds so cheesy; but still, something shifts in the room. “Spirit,” I say again. “What do you want?”
    When nothing happens, I feel even sillier, but that’s better than the sheer terror. I am, after all, still alive. I exhale, drop my arms. I’m thinking maybe some absurd coincidence happened; Eliades stroked out just as the smoke alarm malfunctioned and the power went out and I had an anxiety attack, yes that’s it—and then a searing pain erupts in the center of my head. I close my eyes and all the bright color splotches resolve into a pair of diamonds, and then they open, they’re eyes. See me. It’s like a hundred people whispering the same thing at the same time. I hold my breath. See me.
    â€œSpirits just want attention,” Baba Eddie told me once as he watched a jubilant customer walk out the door. “Like, more than half the time. And they’ll do what they gotta to get it. Ignore them, they’ll up the ante.”
    See me. It’s not talking to me, this thing. It’s talking through me. And I can’t really blame it: I volunteered myself. I put my hand on Eliades’ contorted face. He’s clammy, trembling. “Open your eyes,” I say. “Look at it.”
    Eliades shudders, shakes his head.
    â€œDo it.”
    Slowly, one at a time, his eyes open. I step back, step away from it all. The heaviness leaks steadily out of the room. I can breathe again. Eliades’ face unclenches and tears pool at the edges of his eyes. His chest heaves up and down, silent sobs. The presence is still in the air just above him but it’s dissipating. “I’m sorry,” Eliades whispers. “Isadora. Lo siento.” He’s staring up at it, watching it go. “I’m so so sorry.”
    *   *   *
    The night of the roaches wasn’t the last time I saw Giovanni, but it might as well have been. In the weeks after Jeremy disappeared, Gio withdrew deeper and deeper into himself until one day he was just gone. His parents had kicked him out years earlier, but my dad loved him like their only son. They wallpapered the neighborhood with flyers, pestered the police about it everyday, put search teams together to scour all the back corners and abandoned fields. Nothing. The boy was just gone. It barely got a blurb in the papers of course—a little missing notice in the local crime section of the same issue that had a moving tribute to Jeremy on the front page.
    I’ve made up so many stories. But the practical part of me knew he was just a hurt kid that had been through some fucked up shit he couldn’t make any sense of, couldn’t even tell anyone about. But then again, so was I. And then he was gone and I was truly alone.
    Baba Eddie comes in just as Eliades is leaving.
    â€œYou don’t want your reading anymore?”
    â€œNo, Baba, I’m all set.” Eliades wipes his eyes. “I feel … I feel light. I feel like I can go on now. Your student is quite impressive.” He whistles as he walks out into the street. The door shuts with a jangle of bells.
    Baba Eddie looks at me. “The fuck did you do to him, Kia?”
    â€œI don’t wanna talk about it.” I keep my eyes on the computer screen. “Just show up on time next time, please.” I should tell Baba Eddie all about it, everything. I want to. But I also don’t. Because right now, I’m busy saying goodbye. Giovanni has been with me all day, just like Isadora, whoever she was,