Rick was finishing a smoke and talking on his phone when he came in the door, and gave us a half wave and nod when Jackie and I glanced over at him. We turned our attention back to the movie while he chatted about something to do with work on his way to the kitchen, and by the time he returned with a can of pop and sat next to Jackie on the couch the phone was back in his pocket. She leaned over and he put his arm around her as she grabbed his smoke and took a drag.

“How was Pittsburgh?” I asked.

“Pretty good. That’s actually what I came over to talk to you about.” He turned to Jackie and said to her, “We were all pretty disappointed you couldn’t be there.”

“You wanted to talk to me about being disappointed Jackie was at work?”

“No, no,” he said, accepting his cigarette back and taking one last drag before snuffing it out in the ashtray. “She’s got a ghost problem.”

“Is that why they were disappointed I wasn’t there?” Jackie asked, pinching him. He yelped a little.

“Alice just wanted to meet you, I’m sure.”

“Mhm.”

“What kind of ghost problem?” I asked.

“A ‘they scream in the night and she thought someone was breaking in’ ghost problem.”

“Did that happen while you were there?” He nodded. “Wasn’t Mandy with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Bet she loved that.”

“Didn’t sleep a wink.” I grabbed the remote and paused the movie, then turned to face him.

“Alright. What’re we doing?”

“Well, actually, it’s mostly just you. She wants to hire you.” I raised a brow.

“For what?”

“For…ghost, stuff, I guess! She said if you can do something about the ghosts she best pay you for it.”

“Professional services are usually paid work,” Jackie said. “Really, this shouldn’t be a radical idea for you.”

“I’m not some kind of supernatural plumber,” I said, sitting back. “Guess I never thought of it that way, anyway.”

“Well, whatever, but her family has money so it isn’t like it would inconvenience her at all,” he said. “Will you just call her? She’s a good friend and needs help here.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll call her.” I tossed him my phone, which Jackie caught and handed him. “Just put her number in there.”

“It’ll be under Alice,” he said, tapping away.

“Could you include a last name, just in case? I like to have whole names in my phone.”

​“Fine. It’ll be under Alice Templeton.” I nodded and turned the movie back on.

I decided to host Thanksgiving this year, with Jackie’s help. We worked hard on it this morning, with no idea who was showing up from the list of people we’d reached out to. I knew most of them would probably have to spend the day with their families, but I couldn’t bear to do it alone. So we invited basically everyone, and cooked as though they were all coming, but didn’t know what would actually come of it.

It was actually a really good turnout. Everyone from the band, except Tony, came by. Rick and Charles and Bob, and probably about a third of the theatre troop, and a couple people from work rounded off the gathering. We had a lot of fun, played some music, ate good food (probably about half the people who showed up brought something with them), and Charles dug out some board games and those of us that remained had a few rounds of those after dinner. It was late when we wrapped up, and Rick stayed over with Jackie while Bob and Charles crashed on the couch.

​It was a good day, probably the best I’d had this month.

I finally got around to the guest book from Dad’s funeral. I’ve always felt awkward about these things. I sign them when I go to funerals, of course, but I’m never sure why. Is it just a record of how many people bothered to show up? Am I supposed to take some comfort from it somehow? Is it more for them? I kinda always assumed other people knew why they were doing it, but it never seemed appropriate to ask. But now that I had one, I didn’t know what to do with it. I skimmed through the names and short messages, hoping I would get a sense of what everyone else thought it was for, when I noticed the one from Benedict.

“When you’re ready, call me,” it said. “We need to talk.” I decided that I might as well be ready, set the book aside, and stepped away to call him. I don’t know why I still do that. It’s not like I have roommates anymore, except Jackie, and she’s never going to give me weird looks for talking about spirits.

“Matteson,” he said, by way of a greeting. “I expected it to take you a little longer.”

“Is this a good time?” I asked.

“Might as well be. Sprichst du Deutsch?”

“Yeah. Dad was very keen on teaching me a few languages.” He continued in German, so I did the same, and it took me a minute to figure out why.

“Your father and I were working on a case. Well, I brought him a case, and he gave me the information I needed to move on it. He said something very interesting, though, and I need to know if he ever told you.”

“I will need you to be a bit more specific.”

“Did your father ever tell you that you do more than break magic?” I sat down, thinking about that for a moment.

“No. He did not. What do you mean?” I heard some conversation in the background, sounded probably English. It grew more distant, as if Benedict was slipping away from a group.

“If he took notes, they may be more” here he said a word I didn’t understand, and when I repeated it back as a question, he said, “ah…helpful, I suppose. Clear.”

“Like ‘enlightening?’” I asked, in English.

“Yes, much like that,” he continued in German. “But what I know of it is this: your power is not just a passive breaking of magic, or at least it does not have to be. I searched that town you told me about, in Ohio. What they were doing there is something you can do, maybe by nature, maybe with some work.”

“What is it?” I slipped back into German.

“He said it as ‘enforcing a version of reality,’” that last bit in English, “as if you set rules on spirits, or on the world of spirits. That town was…separated from the rest of the world of spirits. It was a dead zone, and they were trying to create a new form of spirit world there that they liked. We have been searching for others.”

“I will see if he left notes.”

“Good. I have to go. We should talk more about this.” I agreed, and then he was gone. I sat in the chair for a few moments, tapping the arm of it, before I finally got up and went to the basement. I dug around the books on the shelves, until I found one out of place. It was in with the texts in a language I hadn’t learned, so I had never looked there before, but it was definitely I English. I opened it to find that it was a text on how the worlds meet, and as I flipped through the pages a note fell out. I sat down and opened it.

​“There is no doubt now that Johnny is a door between the worlds,” it said, in Dad’s handwriting. “The things he sees and knows line up with too much of this research. The question is whether he is an open door, or a closed one; if open, I must keep him away from these things for his own safety. But if closed, he may be exactly what can stop Jeremiah.” There were no other notes in the book, but I gathered that a ‘closed’ door must be what I turned out to be, given the way he didn’t try to keep me away from these things. I turned back to the beginning of the book and began reading.

It wasn’t a surprise that Dad was leaving me the house and basically everything in it. He always said he was going to, but it still didn’t really hit until I was told as much in an office, sitting alone with a lawyer. Dad didn’t really have much of an estate outside of the house and books, so there wasn’t much else to handle, but there was a little bit of money he had designated for a small list of charities, the community library and things like that. As we took care of the legal aspects of the house falling into my care, I just felt…numb. I had been trying to really face what was happening, but things like this and the funeral planning just seemed so business-focused that it was hard to feel much of anything while they were happening. And this occupied a lot of my time; the planning, and the contacting people, and figuring out legal things and utility bills and everything was just…it was a lot of my time spent doing this stuff.

​I knew this was coming, though, and had sat down with Kyle and Jackie last night to talk about the apartment. Kyle and I reached an agreement, I paid him for November rent and, if he didn’t find anyone to move in by then, I would pay him for December rent as well, but that would be it. Jackie offered to move in with me, and made the same deal with Kyle, and I thanked her and accepted. It would be nice, I figured, to not be alone in the house. Besides, if anyone but me could make good on unfettered access to the library in the basement, it was probably Jackie.
I had been out running errands all day, and it was getting close to dinner by the time I left the office and headed home. I pulled up in front of the house on Lorain, and just as I went to turn the car off, I remembered I didn’t really live there anymore. I debated about whether to go inside to where my bed was, or to go to Dad’s…my house. I took a deep breath and decided to at least stop by, make sure everything was cleaned up and in order before everyone came by after the funeral tomorrow.