Haunted Humans Part 12

She felt much better after a shower, deodorant, baby powder, and teeth brushing.

She was ready to eat something, anything. She wondered if Harley had eaten all dozen doughnuts in the night. After sliding into her sweaty T-shirt, she sneaked back out and ransacked her duffel for other clothes, then retreated to the bathroom again, glancing at Morgan before she shut the door. She stopped when she realized his eyes were open and he was looking at her.

"Pasty," said a new voice coming from his mouth.

"What?" D.J. straightened. She clapped a hand over her mouth, felt her eyes going wide.

Morgan struggled up on his elbows. He squinched his face up, then relaxed it into a frown.

"Too soon," said Clift, rumbling a little. "Way too soon." Evidently he wasn't good at mornings. He waved a limp hand at D.J. "Go get dressed."

D.J. ducked into the bathroom and dressed slowly. The new voice. Familiar.

Afra's.

SIX.

Morgan?" She said when she came out of the bathroom. She had picked one of her dresses to wear today, a crush-proof comfortable polyester number in burgundy.

Morgan had pulled on jeans and had his head bent forward, brushing his hair down over his face. "What?" asked the Lauren Bacall voice from beneath the hair.

"Elaine?" said D.J., sitting on the bed beside Morgan. The voice wasn't Valerie's; it sounded deeper, devoid of accent, and smokier.

"Mm-hmm," said the Lauren Bacall voice. "I'm the hygiene nut." She tossed her head back and brushed the hair out of her face. "You should have seen this boy before I got here. Talk about socially unacceptable!"

"Does he like it, that you -- take care of him?"

"'Course! He's grateful. He's not stupid, you know; he realizes that this kind of maintenance makes people accept him more. n.o.body else ever taught him these things. Mostly his mother just left him in the bas.e.m.e.nt and told him not to make any noise." She finished brushing. "Got a robber band, sis?"

D.J. searched through the purse Morgan had filled with her bathroom supplies, found the pouch with hair things in it. D.J. wore short permed hair at the moment, but she had had her long hair days, too, until she got tired of having to deal with it all the time. She handed Elaine a braided elastic loop, and Elaine twisted it around Morgan's long black hair, making a ponytail down the back.

"Normally he likes the jungle look, so he can hide behind his hair if the moment demands it. But I think we can do without that today," Elaine said.

Harley stood on the threshold of their room and knocked on the door sill.

"Decent?" he said.

Morgan's lip lifted in Saul's sneer, but he didn't say anything out loud.

"Come on in," D.J. said. "I'm starving."

Morgan looked through his suitcase and pulled out a white shirt with billowy sleeves, like the shirts pirates wore in Errol Flynn movies. "Eh?" Saul said, as he held the shirt up to his chest, lifting one of the sleeves, shaking the lace-edged ruffled cuff at her.

"Who does your shopping?" asked D.J.

"It's a constant battle," Saul said. "Mostly we shop in thrift stores, so we can get a piece of clothing for each of us." He slipped the shirt on over his head.

"I don't think our style makes us popular at parties. The bits don't go together."

"Does that voice trick work for you or against you?" Harley asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You could put it all together into some kind of act, if you had a writer. It's uncanny how different your voices are."

"That's what I thought," Afra said. "Lots of potential."

D.J.'s face p.r.i.c.kled and her fingers tingled.

"Shut up," said Clift. "Not yet." He sat down on the bed next to D.J. "You're pale. We're sorry, Deej. I know it's a shock. It's a shock to us too, every time this happens. We haven't settled in yet."

D.J. gripped a fold of her dress, staring down at the material. "There's some kind of selection process, isn't there? I mean, not every single person who dies comes and gets inside you, only special ones --otherwise you'd be legion, right?

You have ghosts from all over the states! How do you pick them?"

"I suspect a prerequisite for it is that we have to believe in ghosts, one way or another, to become them," Clift said. "Another thing that distinguishes us from garden variety ghosts is that we are impregnated with some sense of mission, at least initially. Violent death seems to have quite a bit to do with it. Then there's resonance. Morgan isn't the only ghost magnet in the world, but he emits a certain resonance that appeals to a select few, namely those of us here. In effect, there's quite a strict entrance exam."

She twisted her dress between her hands. "Does Morgan have any say about this?"

"I want her," Morgan said. He patted D.J.'s shoulder. "I like her. She's real nice. You want her to go away, Miss Deej?"

"No, of course not," she said, turning to look at him through a glaze of tears.

"I can't quite understand it yet, but I'm glad she's here. But I just worry about you, Morgan. It must be so crowded inside you"

"I have all these friends to talk to," he said.

"But what if they all want to talk at once?"

"I tried to introduce us to Robert's Rules of Order, but the others say that's silly," Clift said. "If we didn't like each other, this would be a nightmare.

However, I admire all of us."

"Even Saul?"

"Oh, yes. He's a pain in the b.u.t.t, but he doesn't mean anything by it. He has certain strengths the rest of us don't."

Harley vanished into his room and returned with half a dozen doughnuts, which he offered to D.J. and Morgan. D.J. grabbed three cake doughnuts. Morgan took one glazed twist.

"Aren't you, like, eating for twelve?" Harley asked Morgan.

"Most of us don't care for sweets," said Clift. "This is for Gary."

"Oh, G.o.d," Harley said, sitting down at the table. "Gary." He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. "I think I better get this straight now. D.J., you buy this whole ghost-possession thing?"

"Yes," mumbled D.J. around a mouthful of doughnut.

"Even though it makes no sense."

"I don't think I can explain it any other way. Besides, Gary --" "Gary?"

"I knew Gary in San Francisco, Harley. He says he consulted with you on a case while you were in Seattle. Were you in Seattle before you came to Spores Ferry?"

"Oh, G.o.d," said Harley.