The First Ghost. Marguerite Butler

      Almost there. I could see my train and rummaged in my pocket for my pass, confident I would make it–until the whistle sounded. “No!” Hot coffee sloshed out of my commuter mug, soaking my glove. I said a few naughty words, hoisted my tote bag and ran for the train. If I missed this one, I would be at least fifteen minutes late, and like they say, failure was not an option. My boss had zero sense of humor about tardiness and I was not crawling back to the family business.

      This was about more than pride. We’re not talking about plumbing or insurance or even running a store. My family owns and operates Mahaffey-Ringold Funeral Home, proudly tending to your corpses since 1942. But not me. No way, no how. I was the family freak and I liked it that way.

      All the Mahaffey women were clairvoyant. My mother saw spirits. My cousin Eleanor relived the last moments of death from personal objects. Her sister communed with the dead in Europe. My aunt saw visions of the past and occasionally even the future. I was the only woman without some sort of “gift.” No dead people or spooky visions for me. Nope. Just a nice apartment and a decent day job, which I was about to lose if I didn’t get on that train.

      I focused on finding my rail pass without dropping my coffee or tote bag and trying to run in heels. I didn’t pay attention to where I was going.

      Wham! Headfirst.

      I laid there on the ground for a moment, stunned. “Ow.” I sat up and rubbed my temple.

      “You okay?” somebody called.

      I waved them off. “Fine. Only thing hurt is my pride.” Which wasn’t strictly true. Both my knees and my head hurt. I’d wiped out hard. My pants weren’t torn, but the fabric on the knees was damaged. I located my steel mug, which had leaked most of its precious coffee into a brown pool on the concrete.

      Staggering to my feet, I stepped right into a slushy puddle. My heel caught in a crack in the pavement. Now both my gloved hand and my foot were freezing. I swore a little more and tugged at my foot, trying to free my stiletto from the crevice.

      The train whistle sounded again. I looked up in panic. The last whistle meant I had two minutes to board that train. At the moment that seemed vitally important.

      Then everything in my life changed.

      The air became electric, super-charged the way it does just before a storm hits, even though there were no hurricanes bearing down on Dallas. The hair on my arms stood on end, and not from the cold. A current hummed through me. My vision sharpened. Things looked different, like the world had suddenly snapped into focus. It was as if I’d put on a pair of new glasses.

      A tiny, older gentleman with a head of wild, white hair like Einstein stood on the tracks in front of the train. He worried and twisted a hat as he stared up at the yellow engine.

      How the heck had he gotten down there? Did he jump the railing? Was he confused? Other tardy commuters ran for the train in a mad scramble, ignoring the man on the tracks.

      I tugged again on my shoe.

      “Hey! Get off the track!” I yelled at him. “That train’s about to move!” It was about to move without me on it.

      The man ignored me. The whistle blasted a third time and the train rolled forward. I dropped my tote and my mug, which rolled down into a gutter. “Hey!” I waved my arms in desperation. “Get off the track! Hey! You! Old guy!” The little man turned to look at me, but he didn’t move, just kept twisting that hat. What the hell was wrong with him? “Move!” I screamed.

      The train picked up speed. “Somebody! Stop! Stop!” People looked now, but not at the man on the tracks. They edged away, giving me sideways looks. “Can’t you see him? He’s going to get run over! He’s–”

      I turned away with a sharp cry, unwilling to look. I don’t know what I expected, but I expected something to happen. I thought there would be screaming and horror as people realized what had just happened. I thought the brakes would screech. I even thought I might hear the train hit him, but instead it slowly rumbled out of the station.

      I stepped out of the stiletto still trapped in the puddled crevice and scanned the tracks for carnage.

      Nothing.

      Unless of course you considered the people staring at me. I locked eyes with a man, but he averted his and moved away.

      “Pardon me, miss. Have you seen my mother?” I turned to the voice that came from right next to my ear. The same little man from the tracks, apparently unharmed, stood at my elbow.

      I reached out to grab his coat and swiped my hand right through him. “What the–” I took a startled step back with the foot still wearing a stiletto, overbalanced and fell. My head made contact with the concrete for a second time that morning and everything went black.

      * * * *

      I hurt all over, especially my head.

      I didn’t want to open my eyes, but I had to look around. Bright. I blinked to clear the fuzziness. All I saw was industrial white and green. Curtains. Machines. Beds. Someone lay in the next bed, but her face was turned the other way.

      The woman sitting on the edge of my roommate’s bed had to be at least a hundred years old. She had wrinkles on her wrinkles and a huge mound of teased and sprayed hair colored an improbable shade of blue. She wore the official senior uniform of a hot pink velour tracksuit and a bored expression. She looked around like she was waiting for something.

      “Where am I?” I knew I was in a hospital. What I meant was: What hospital am I in and how did I get here? But I could only manage a few words.

      The woman looked right at me, but she didn’t answer.

      How rude.

      I tried again. “What hospital is this?”

      She looked more intently at me. “Can you see me?”

      “Of course,” I replied.

      She patted her fluffy hair helmet. “Well, la-de-da. I thought I was in invisible mode. Must have been the blow to your head.”

      Which explained my headache, but not the harpy. She looked down at the lump of bedclothes. “Wait here,” she said to the motionless figure. “I’ll be back.”

      I blinked because she suddenly stood right next to me and I hadn’t seen her move.

      “Ow!” I cried out. “You pinched me.”

      “You really can see me. And feel me, too.”

      “Who are you?”

      “Not yet, doll. First you tell me your name.”

      My