Mortal Ghost Read Online Free Page A

been replicated in Sarah.
    ‘ I’m Jesse Wright,’ he said, feeling rather awkward. ‘Sarah invited me for a meal.’
    She glanced down at the dog, who retreated behind Jesse, uttering an odd little yip. Nearly as gracefully as her daughter, she bent and stroked its head, then went to take some things from the cupboard.
    ‘ There’s a herbal tea I use that should settle your stomach,’ she said, filling the kettle.
    ‘ How did you know—’ Jesse began.
    ‘ About the nausea?’ She smiled. ‘Sit down. I’ll massage your neck and shoulders while you drink. It’ll help. Perhaps we can forestall the migraine.’
    He intended to refuse—politely—but found himself taking the chair she indicated.
    ‘ Not my shoulders and back. Please don’t touch them,’ he said. ‘Just the top of my neck, the base of my skull.’
    She agreed without questioning him.
    Her fingers were cool and competent, kneading the knots of tension while he sipped the tea. It had been so long since someone had touched him except in anger—that he had allowed someone touch him. Liam had been the last. Jesse closed his eyes, listening to the tune she hummed under her breath. The room was warm, warm as the musky tea, warm as the song, warm as sleep. Water lapped at his temples, pushed at the locks of his mind. Behind him lay the past. Far behind. He drifted, warm and relaxed.
    ~~~
    Jesse lay in bed. He threw off the covers and padded barefoot to the window, twitched back the curtain. He must have slept a few hours this time, for the sky had hazed over once more, but he could tell that it was around noon. He opened the window and breathed deeply. His headache was gone, and the air was muggy, saturated with the mingled scent of noonday heat and incipient rain, honeysuckle and late roses and lavender and blackcurrant, so potent that he could feel the gravel underfoot on the path through his grandmother’s garden, taste the jam she’d be making.
    He tried to remember how he’d got back to the bedroom. He had a clear picture of Sarah’s mother in the kitchen, brewing him a mug of pungent herbal tea, then massaging his neck and temples, but after that—nothing. Surely she couldn’t have carried him upstairs, even if he’d drifted off to sleep. He was wearing jeans: had he dreamt it after all, and somehow dressed himself without being aware of it? Some form of sleepwalking, perhaps.
    ‘ You’re awake,’ a voice called up from below.
    Trowel in hand, Sarah’s mother stood by a tangled flowerbed. Her hair was tied back from her face, but like her daughter’s, it was fast escaping. The dog was sprawled thoroughly at home under a large walnut tree, which sported a handsome if somewhat lopsided treehouse, complete with shingled roof and a shuttered window.
    ‘ What time is it?’ Jesse asked, more for something to say than because he wanted to know.
    ‘ Just before one,’ she said. ‘Come down to the kitchen for lunch. I was about to stop now anyway. It’s beginning to rain.’
    Frenzied barking, a streak of fur followed by a canine missile.
    ‘ Come back here!’ Jesse shouted.
    Meg laughed. ‘He’ll never get our neighbour’s wily tom. That animal has at least ninety-nine lives.’
    ‘ How did I get upstairs?’ Jesse asked her over a grilled cheese-and-tomato sandwich and fresh lemonade.
    ‘ You don’t remember?’ she asked. ‘It can take some people like that.’
    ‘ What takes some people like that?’
    ‘ The tea, the massage.’
    ‘ Rubbish.’ Jesse narrowed his eyes. ‘Unless you drugged the tea . . . ?’
    She laughed, her voice light and frothy like the heads of elderflowers growing wild along the lanes of his childhood.
    ‘ Of course not. It’s just a little technique I use for headaches. It works too, doesn’t it? I led you upstairs, helped you into bed. You’ll probably remember after a while.’ She looked at him, her eyes thoughtful. ‘But you’re particularly receptive. A sensitive, I should