My dad, strong and fit, smiles at me. “I don’t exactly know. I just know I can talk to you here. I can see you, son.”
The man in front of me doesn’t look much like I remember him, but I do see myself in his features. His hair is white now, his face etched with wrinkles, but it’s his eyes I remember the most,because they haven’t changed. They were always as dark as the night sky and as cold as a winter day.
“What do you want from me?” I ask.
“I want your help, son. I came back specifically to get your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I’m on a mission, but some of it I just can’t do anymore.”
“Because you’re dead.”
My dad flinches when I say that, shaking his head. “No, I’m not dead. I’m just in a different place. They tried to put me in a… in a cage, but I figured a way around it so I could keep living.”
Living? “But, Dad, you’re not alive. You’re not really here. I can’t touch you or have lunch with you. You’re dead.”
“No.” His voice is stern. “Death isn’t what you think it is. It’s not some permanent state that you can never change. I’m talking to you now, aren’t I?”
“Well, yes, but you still can’t be here with me.”
“I’m in a different realm, but I’m still here. I’ll always be here.”
“Why now?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest. “You were never here for me before. Why are you here now?”
“I messed up,” he explains. “I was an absent father because I had my own demons to slay, and I’m sorry about that. At first, it was your mom who kept me away from you, and she should have. I wasn’t a good father. I had problems with alcohol and drugs and women—so many women. She deserved better than me, but you’re the one good thing I did, and unfortunately, it took getting all the way to this point for me to see that.”
His explanation causes my eyes to well up with tears. “I’ve always wondered why I wasn’t important enough to you.”
“The opposite is true, son. You were so important to me that I thought staying away was the right thing to do. I didn’t want my life to mess you up.”
“I guess I can understand that. So, what is this mission you’re talking about?”
He smiles, walking closer to me, but there seems to be some sort of block between us, like an invisible wall that keeps us separated. “I’m not prepared to tell you all of it today. First, I have to make sure you can handle it. It’s really important.”
“How will you find out if I can handle it if you don’t tell me what it is?”
“Time,” he says, glancing over his shoulder as though he can see something I can’t. “It will take time, but I’ll know when you’re ready. For now, I need you to do a couple of things.”
“Okay, what do you need?”
“First, I don’t want you to call those women back. They’re trying to banish me, and I don’t want to waste energy fighting them.”
His request sends a shiver down my spine, but I’m not sure why. “What else?”
“The man you’re with right now.”
“Wilder?”
“Whatever his name is, he wants to get rid of me too.”
“Um, yeah, he said it’s his job, and you’re not supposed to be here with the rest of us.”
“That’s a lie. There are people out there who want to prevent the spirit world from interacting with the human world, because they know how powerful we are and how strong we can be. He doesn’t want to lose his place in the food chain.”
“Food chain? That doesn’t really make sense. Wilder seems like a nice guy. He helped me tonight with this other spirit that was bothering me.”
“I know. Unfortunately, some spirits got through when you were talking alone with me. I tried to stop them, but I don’t have that power yet.”
