The Summoning

Chapter One


The Watching

I felt the unseen eyes upon my bare skin as I turned off the faucet. Goosebumps prickled along my arms, even though I was submerged in steam-producing bath water. I sat motionless in the tub and listened. Silence. Which was all one who lived alone in a condo would expect to hear. But just because I lived alone did not mean I was alone.

I was never alone.

Leaning forward, I reached for my wash cloth, then froze. It slid off the side of the tub and fell into the water on its own, before my fingers even reached a single strand of the yellow cotton. The rising hairs on the back of my neck made me shiver.

“Who are you? Are you trapped here?” I asked aloud. “Would you like to show yourself to me?” I glanced around the white and grey bathroom, uncertain whether it was a good thing or a bad thing I didn’t actually see anything. There was complete stillness, but I knew that the entity was still there with me. Watching. Waiting.

With a long draw, I completely filled my lungs and then exhaled through puckered lips. “Get a grip, Gailyn Bridges,” I told myself. “So it moved a towel. What are you so unnerved about?” After thirty years of life as a psychically aware person, I was more than used to the presence of spirits. There was no reason for me to get so worked up over one extra creepy entity. After closing my eyes and breathing deeply for a few moments, I felt the tension in my shoulders dissipate enough for me to lie back in the tub.

The sudden clanging sound of my cell phone ringing and vibrating on the toilet seat resulted in my clamoring in the tub to retrieve my balance, my heart thudding violently against my chest. I wiped my dripping wet right hand against the floor mat and snatched up the phone to make it cease its frightening commotion, and answered with a gasping hello.

“Hey Gail, it’s me!”

I easily recognized my cousin Dana’s voice. Had I bothered to look at who was calling instead of freaking out and grabbing the phone, I wouldn’t have rushed to answer it.

“Hey.”

“What’s up? I’ve been trying to reach you, but you never call me back.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You always say that, but you never really do anything,” Dana said. “Well, except that thing you do.”

Which we both knew was exactly why she was calling. I sighed. “Mmm hmm.”

“Speaking of which,” she continued. “I’ve got one for you.”

“The same one you’ve been leaving me messages about?”

“Yeah. My boss, Oliver Marks.”

“I don’t think I want to take on any more cases right now, Dana.”

“Girl, what are you talking about? This is what you do. It’s real important to him, and he’s been bugging me about it nonstop ever since he learned I’m related to you.”

I rolled my eyes. In addition to being gifted, or cursed rather, as it sometime seemed-with the ability to communicate with those on The Other Side, one particular spirit helped me see things about people alive in this realm. So not only could I talk to the dead, I could locate the living-but-missing. I called it “seeking.” Based upon an article of clothing, a recorded voice or an impression left on a bed, I could make a connection with the corresponding person. This allowed me, with the aid of my spirit guide, to see their surroundings and learn where they were--or to see the last thing they saw, if they were no more...

“Who’s he looking for?”

“I think his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend or something, I don’t know all the details. Call him and talk to him--I’ve left you his number twice.”

She had. And he’d called and left his number three times. “I’ll think about it.”

“What do you mean you’ll think about it?”

“I said I’m not sure I’m going to keep doing this anymore.”

“Why not?”

“I’m just getting tired of it.” The truth was I was becoming overwhelmed by my supernatural experiences, and all the grief that came with it. And with the unnerving presence of this latest entity, for the first time in a very, very long time, I was truly feeling freaked out.

“You already have enough to move out of there?”

“Almost.” I managed to save enough to put a nice down payment on a house in a nicer, quieter neighborhood in the suburbs. But I wasn’t anywhere near as financially well-off as I would have liked to be. I really could have used a few grand more to pay the bills for a while once I moved, enough that I could take a few months off maybe, to take some classes or at least figure out exactly what I was going to do if I stopped seeking the missing.

“Then what are you going to do? Go back to work? This guy could probably pay you pretty well. He’s freaking rich. Help him out, Gailyn.”

I thought about my degree in human resources I could dust off, but I had no desire at all to hustle for profit-seeking corporations again. Other than that, I knew how to knit--but the last scarf I’d made took me a full several weeks to finish and sold for only ten bucks.

Finding the lost was much easier than finding a new career.

The ability to find missing people wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for two things; the people hurting them and the people searching for them. The people hurting the missing were the kidnappers, the rapists, the insane and inhumane. But as the morality of mankind degraded over the years, so did my cases. I got three times as many people come to me in pursuit of deadbeat daddies to sue and lovers of lying spouses to punish as I got folks just hoping to learn whatever happened to a lost loved one.

And many times, the ones hunting for the missing were the ones hurting them. It’s no wonder why so many people went missing--they didn’t want to be found! They run off and hide from the abusers searching for them.

There was just too much discomfort involved with the job. Too many loathsome individuals doing despicable things to people, which served as haunting reminders of what happened to my parents...

So this was it. This was going to be my very last case before I retired as a psychic private investigator.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll take him on. But seriously--no more cases after this.”

“Whew, thank you so much, cousin. Call him now.”

“I’ll call him when I get out of the tub.”

“No, you’ve got to call him right now.”

“He can’t wait until I’m done with my bath?”

“You don’t get it--I can’t wait. I’m supposed to be his personal assistant, and I can’t even get him an appointment with my cousin. He thinks I haven’t been trying to help him reach you. He’s holding my pay.”

“He’s holding your pay? What an ass!”

“Yeah, he really is, but this is the best paying job I’ve ever had. Come on, Gail.”

I scoffed. “Fine, fine. I’ll call him.”

After I hung up on Dana, I took a few minutes to bask in the soothing water of the tub, watched my brown skin disappear in a sea of white bubbles. Maybe I was being too hasty in wanting to end my career of seeking. Sure there were a lot of bad people in the world looking for the missing, but good folks lost loved ones on a daily basis, too. I closed my eyes and meditated a bit, attempting to find the courage to give my cousin’s boss a call.

Turned out that there wasn’t enough meditation in the world that would have made that call with Oliver Marks less painful.

“I need for you to find my last ex,” he said over the phone.

“How long has she been missing?”

“Since the day I told that useless bitch to get out.”

I shifted uncomfortably in the tub. This man really was an ass. No wonder he couldn’t find his ex, I thought to myself. If I was his ex, I’d probably go “missing,” too, “When was that?” I asked.

“Six months ago.”

“So you broke up with her, but now you can’t find her. Mr. Marks, are you sure she’s missing instead of just ... avoiding you?”

“I know she is avoiding me,” he said. “But according to my sources she is supposedly pregnant, very possibly with my child.”

That brought a smile to my face. “You’re a father-to-be? How nice!”

Oliver snorted. “I don’t know for certain whether or not I am the father. That’s where you come in. I need to know whether or not that is my child, as soon as possible.”

And then I got the coldest chill as a vision of murder flashed before my eyes. I apologized and told him I had to cut the call short but would call him back in a few days, and I hung up.

Murders were one of the top reasons I’d grown weary of this line of work. I saw so many people being hurt. So very many.

Didn’t I put to rest the endless questioning of countless people searching for their loved ones? Many times, yes. And hadn’t I saved lives? Yes, sometimes. But who was going to save me? From the pain and loneliness that came with my paranormal existence? Even the discovery of my ability, my very first display of power, had come wrapped in a bow of pain and sorrow...

I sighed and lowered myself into the water. There was something alienating about being able to communicate with beings no one could see. It was hard to relate to people while being linked to those that the majority of the world couldn’t hear, feel, or even really believe in. Not even my kind, patient grandparents, who’d raised me after I’d been orphaned, could fully comprehend--or even want to, really--my reality, and what it was like for me to live in it.

The awareness of being silently watched distracted me from my thoughts. I sat up and called out again, with less patience this time. “Who’s there? Is there something you want to tell me?”

Still no response.

I shook my head at my own silliness and concentrated on stopping my limbs from trembling. A spirit couldn’t hurt me. Each one I encountered was generally harmless. But something about this encounter was different than the others. Something more menacing, yet oddly familiar. Intimate. As if this encounter was personal. For weeks I’d felt as if I were being stalked. Not just curiously observed as was usual with those on The Other Side, but genuinely stalked –perhaps even preyed upon. Like I was desperately sought after to fulfill some critical need. But for something like what?

I tried to tell myself that maybe it just wanted some company. A friend. Certainly, I could understand that. Releasing some of the tension in my shoulders I lathered myself up, drawing slow, soapy circles all over my neck and shoulders. For a few moments I imagined there was a sexy guy in the tub with me, massaging my breasts as he washed them. My nipples grew erect under the bubbles.

Too bad me and dating just didn’t work out, and I was doomed to die as a spinster. So many things in guys’ homes triggered unwanted “sightings.” The last guy, Dennis, mistook my refusal to visit his place as a sign that I was a commitment-phobe. But in reality, I was uncomfortable at his place because the impression left on the cream-colored sheets of his bed by the blonde who spent many nights under and on top of them was strong. And quite fresh. So fresh, in fact, as to have been left within hours of the very day that I first--and last--visited his place.

The guy before that, Mike, had an entire apartment contaminated by his hordes of sexual conquests, both male and female. Which might not have been too big of an issue if he had been honest with me about it.

“So, you’ve had quite a number of lovers, huh?” It was more of a rhetorical comment I meant to mumble to myself, but he heard me.

Mike gave me a wide-eyed, innocent look. “Who, me? Nah, I don’t really get down like that. I’ve only had three or four girlfriends in my whole life.”

“Only three or four?” I laughed. “Come on, you don’t have to fudge your numbers for me. I’m not judging you.”

“I’m not fudging, I really haven’t slept with more than a handful of women.”

“And what about men?”

Mike scoffed. “Never! I don’t go that way, I’m strictly into chicks!”

Again, I laughed. Bisexual men, I didn’t particularly have anything against. But I definitely did not like liars. So I had nothing to lose when I replied with, “Did I forget to mention that I’m psychic?”

Apparently what he meant to say was that he was strictly into chicks who were not psychic.

The guy before that had a deceased grandmother whose spirit came along on all of our dates. She told me about how her grandson was not a good catch--James was spoiled, selfish and she wished she’d never left a dime of her money to him.

A guy must be a creep if his own grandma will adamantly badmouth him. After she’s dead!

Thus I was convinced that I wasn’t going to ever find a guy I could both tolerate and be tolerated by. But I was lonely. My only source of affectionate contact was in my dreams. Abnormally intense, vivid, erotic dreams I always remembered clearly the next day--including every real, full orgasm I experienced in my sleep. But as wild and erotic and hot as they were, dreams were no replacement for the real deal of intimacy. My relationships with the dead did not count, either. No offense to any spirits, but I needed someone alive and present to share my life with.

I could so use the touch of another’s hands right now, I thought to myself with a sigh as I swished in the tub.

Just then, a breeze made me shiver. But there was no window open and it was early on a hot and humid July day in Chicago. Again, I listened. And then my bath water suddenly dropped a few degrees, and I had the distinctive sensation that I wasn’t alone in the tub. The coolness wrapped around me, brushing my skin, caressing my body, giving me goosebumps and making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Both from arousal and alarm.

“I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re here,” I called out. “Either tell me what you want, or leave me alone.”

Silence.

As I sat there trembling, a cool touch came to my lips. Lightly at first, then the pressure increased, lingering. Unmistakably a kiss.

This was strange. And it completely freaked me out.

The water in the tub sloshed around violently as I jerked backwards then leapt to my feet. I grabbed my towel and hurried out of the bathroom.

No spirit had ever touched me like that before. Not ever.