“When two souls have a particularly strong bond, they can make physical contact across the spiritual realm.” He took my hand back in his.
The warmth of his fingers on my hand was more unsettling than people walking through me. He didn’t look up at me, just studied my palm with his forehead furrowed in concentration.
“It’s been over a year since you passed.” He hadn’t needed my palm to tell me that. “You left great suffering behind you, but the people you care about are starting to heal.”
I clenched my hand closed. He stared at the fist in his hands.
“It’s almost eleven. I’m about to close up.” He stood, his body stretching out from his chair and towering over me with the long, lean build of a runner. “Let’s talk outside.”
Without waiting for my answer, he ushered me out, pulled the grate down in front of the curtains, and locked up. Sighing, he tossed his keys in the air twice before sticking them in his pocket. The light above his stall flickered over us.
“Sadie, could you float up there and turn that thing off for me?”
“I don’t know how to float.”
“Jeez, you’re a pathetic excuse for a ghost. Can you shorten out lights, or have you not done that yet either?”
I blinked at him.
Paul Michael pulled his keys back out of his pocket, turning on the mini flashlight on the key ring. He tossed them to me. The keys and flashlight fell through my hands, and the flashlight turned off as it passed through my outstretched palm. I gaped as it lay on the ground.
“You are the most oblivious spirit I have ever met.” Paul Michael grinned as he picked up his keys from the boardwalk.