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work and I ll come with you?
34 Berengaria Brown
 I don t know. I don t know anything anymore. My life is totally
out of control right now. No, that s not quite right. It s not exactly out
of control. It s more that it s suddenly gotten complex. Very
complex.
 Do you want to talk about it? It s your lunch break. Or we can do
coffee after work tonight. Or you could come to the apartment for
dinner with Wesley and Amos and me, and then we ll have some girl
time afterward.
 Hold that thought. I ll go and see what Gillian wants. If it s not
crazy saying that about a ghost. At least, I suppose she s a ghost, not
something freakier.
 Seriously, if you wait  til tonight, I ll come with you.
 Nah, my brain is totally scrambled. I may as well go now.
Thanks, though, for the offer. Tia took the proffered keycard,
grabbed her purse, and headed for the elevators to the apartments.
Before she passed the fountain with its weird display of metal pipes,
two elevators pinged, and a group of people headed over to the
reception desk.
Tia took the now empty elevator up to the fourteenth floor and
walked to the far end of the hallway. Between the two apartments,
there was a fire escape door locked and alarmed. Except it wasn t a
fire escape, and nor was it alarmed, as Keziah had discovered shortly
after she d moved into the building. It was a private stairway up to a
small apartment on the fifteenth floor where John Smith, the founder
of Smith Incorporated who owned the building, had kept a private
apartment after he died. He d stayed in the building to supervise his
business, then later to watch over his great-nephew. He d only gone
into the light after Keziah, Amos, and Wesley had been blessed at a
commitment ceremony held in the restaurant on the top floor.
The ceremony was conducted by a refugee Tibetan monk whose
beliefs included polyamory. Tia had attended it along with almost one
hundred other friends, family, and colleagues from the building,
including John Smith s ghost.
Complexity 35
Taking a deep breath and subconsciously checking there were no
signs of tightening in her chest or wheezing, Tia swiped the keycard
through the door lock and turned the handle. Jeez, I hope this
stairwell isn t full of dust and cobwebs, she thought.
The stairwell was not as clean as her apartment, which was
vacuumed every alternate day, or Simeon s and Finn s, but it was
certainly not dirty, and there were no signs of any cobwebs. It was
also quite dry, for which she was grateful, as humidity was one of the
trigger factors for her asthma.
At the top of the stairs was another door, so she swiped the
keycard again and stepped into the room. It was much as Keziah had
described to her, an average bedroom-sized room with one window
covered by a flat metal shade that allowed people to see out but no
one to see inside. There was a deep, comfy chair in front of a TV, a
large bookshelf packed with books, a single bed, and a small table
with two chairs. The table held a vase of mixed flowers in various
shades of pink and a laptop computer.
Seeing the vase of flowers, Tia instantly reached into her purse,
grabbed her preventer puffer, and took a deep inhalation. Then,
almost as if a little lightbulb switched on over her head, she thought
back to her work desk. There had been a vase of chrysanthemums
sitting on her desk all morning, and she had not wheezed or reached
for her puffer at all. In fact, she hadn t even been aware of their scent.
And yet, the moment she d seen this vase of flowers, she d reached
for her puffer.
Taking a cautious sniff, Tia decided the flowers here didn t have a
strong scent, but ever wary, she took another inhalation just in case.
 It s okay, they re unscented. I know about your asthma. That s
why I had to speak with you.
Tia whirled about, looking around the room, and saw no one. She
looked again, rotating slowly, but it wasn t a big room, and there was
nowhere for a person, or possibly a ghost, to hide. The voice was
36 Berengaria Brown
quite soft, so she wondered for a moment if she was hearing things.
Then she decided she wasn t quite that crazy yet.
 Where are you, Gillian? I can t see you.
 I don t have a lot of energy or strength. I can t manifest very
well.
Tia became aware of the outline of a young woman, rather wavery
but visible, leaning against the table quite close to her. She stepped
back and sank into the comfy chair.
 What do you want? Why did you write on my computer? Who
are you?
Gillian gave a soft, tinkly little laugh and wafted over to sit almost
at Tia s feet.
 Because of your asthma. I told you. As soon as I learned your [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]