Sex and the Single Vampire

"Dear, you are a young woman. You have a dashing young man. Why don't you put your hair up in papers? It would do wonders for it."

I ground my teeth and made note of Esme's EMF reading.

"And your clothes - really, I understand that they're comfortable, but you have your future to think of! What man will want to marry a woman who wears loose athletic trousers and baggy jumpers? You have a very nice figure, I'm sure. Don't be afraid to show it off!"

The point of my pencil broke against the notebook. I threw it away with a muttered snarl and reached for a pen.

"And your posture - I realize this is a different age than when I was a girl, but my mother would have swooned if she'd seen me slouching as you do. Shoulders back, child, back straight, head high. A lady never sits like a lump."

The pen gouged a hole in the paper. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There were just a few more things to record; then I could send Esme on to her reward, leaving me in blissful quiet. Two hours of her nonstop, if well-meaning advice had just about worn my nerves raw.

"You know, I think if you tried a different sort of eyeliner, it might help tone down your eyes a wee bit. I realize there's nothing you can do with them, but you do want to maximize what you have, in a minimal sort of way, if you know what I mean. A lady doesn't look like a painted trollop; she just looks... enhanced. Subtlety is the key with cosmetics."

I picked up my digital camera and switched the settings to manual. "Could you hold... um... Mr. Woogums for a minute? I'd like to get a few pictures."

"Photos! Why, of course, I'd be delighted. Come here, my little Woogy-woogy man."

I focused, checked the flash settings (I'd found that flashes made ghosts all but invisible to the camera), and snapped a few shots.

"Now you must do one of my left side," Esme said as she struck a dramatic pose in profile. "I'm told it's my best side. You must cultivate your best side, dear. Always keep your man on that side, so he will have only the best of you to look at. And we must have a word about your eyebrows! Young ladies nowadays simply have no idea of the proper way to groom their eyebrows."

"My eyebrows are just fine, thank you. Now how about a couple of shots of you next to the wall? I want to see if you show up better with a dark background."

"Oh, I'm sure I do," she said as she obligingly moved over to the wall, which was covered in dark blue silk. She struck a pose that reminded me of Hollywood starlets in the 1930s. "And as for your eyebrows - tsk, dear, tsk! You cannot mean to have them looking like great hairy caterpillars clinging to your face. Eyebrows are meant to be delicate little swoops that draw attention to the eye."

I looked at her over the top of the camera, one great hairy caterpillar cocked in question.

"Yes, well, perhaps your eyes demand an eyebrow with a bit more substance, but they do need help. Lots and lots of help."

"Mmm. Just a couple more shots and then I think I'll be finished with you. I can Release you so you'll be free to move on to the next level of existence."

She held her smile until I lowered the camera, then shook her head, fat iron-gray curls bobbing madly as she walked over to me. "Oh, I couldn't do that, dear. I'm not ready to move on yet."

I made a note of the conditions of the pictures, camera settings, and day and time, then tucked the camera away in the bag. "Oh, right, you have some unfinished business. Well, I can't guarantee I can fix it, but I'll do my best. What do you need done?"

She smiled and reached out to pat my shoulder. My arm went numb. "Why, it's you, dear. You are my unfinished business."

I goggled at her. "Me?" I squeaked. "What do you mean, I'm your unfinished business? You didn't even know me until I Summoned you!"

Her curls bobbed as she nodded. "Exactly. As soon as I saw you, I said to myself, 'Esme, that young woman needs your help. This is why you were meant to stay in this room all those years.' And I was right; you do need my help."

I thought madly over everything I'd learned about Releasing a ghost. Was it possible to send one on if it didn't wish to go?

"Poop," I snarled, knowing full well the answer was no. It wasn't possible to Release a ghost without its cooperation.

"Allie! Language! We are judged by the quality of our language. It behooves a lady to strip from her vocabulary any of those words deemed uncouth. Oaths are definitely a no-no. Gentlemen do not wish their wives to have a mouth like a sailor!"

I sat down in the chair with a half sob caught in my throat. "Esme, I know you think I need your help, and I appreciate your kindness in giving me such - " unwanted... useless... dated " - helpful advice, but I can honestly say that I'm very happy in my life. I have everything I've ever wanted: a great job... well, great now that I have evidence of two successful Summonings... a nice apartment, a couple of friends - "

She tipped her head to the side. "And what of Christian?"

I tried to smile, but was just too tired to make the muscles of my mouth work properly. The lightening of the perpetual gray outside indicated that dawn had come. "Christian doesn't fit into my life picture. He's just an acquaintance. So you see, much as I'd like to keep you with me just for the pleasure of your company" - a little white lie never hurt anyone - "it would be greedy and selfish of me to keep you from the reward that waits for you."

"Don't be ridiculous, dear. How could I enjoy myself without knowing you and that darling man have worked out your differences? No," she said, settling down on the bed with the cat in her lap. "I'll just stay with you until everything is set right; then you can send me on."

"But, but..."

It was no use. I tried for an hour to get her to agree to a Release (assuming I could do it), but she remained adamant that she couldn't leave until she saw me happy. I explained three more times that my happiness was not tied up with Christian, but she countered every excellent point I made with criticism of my wardrobe, my hair, and everything else from my attitude toward men to the color of my socks.

By eight o'clock I was exhausted, worn out from lack of sleep and the energy needed not only to Summon Esme, but most draining, to listen to all of her advice.

I gathered up my jammies, told her I was taking a bath, and used the bathroom as a quiet zone, somewhere I could relax and not worry that my eyebrows or underwear or choice of sleeping apparel would be cause for comment.

It lasted all of two minutes.

"What a cozy little scene this is," she said, drifting in through the closed door. "I always did like this room; it has the best view of the park. The room proper, that is, not the WC. Dear, a word of advice - women who do not have large bosoms should never hunch their shoulders forward. It minimizes, and you want to maximize."

I sank my minimized bosom below the water and considered continuing on until my head was under as well, but if I drowned in the tub, no doubt my spirit would be trapped with Esme's, and the thought of eternity with her raised goose bumps on my arms.

"Esme, I'm taking a bath," I said finally, water lapping at my chin. I waved my sponge around. "See? Water. Bubbles. Tub. Me."

"Oh, don't mind me, dear; I'll just make myself comfortable over here. Now, what shall we talk about? Oooh, is this your cosmetics bag? Now, cosmetics I know. Just let me look at what you have. I can advise you as to what colors will look good with your skin tone and... erm... eyes."

Just what I needed, a motherly ghost.

"No, no, this shade of eyeliner is all wrong for you. Well, it might be fine for the dark eye, but it's much too harsh for your white eye."

"It's not white; it's silver. Or gray, if you prefer. The doctor said my left eye is actually just an extremely light version of gray, while the right is ordinary brown."

Esme looked up from where she was poking through my cosmetics case. "Allie, dear, your eyes are anything but ordinary."

"Well, the left one is a bit spooky, but the right - "

"Has color variations that just aren't human."

I dropped my chin into the water and made a face into the bubbles, where she couldn't see it. While I'd heard comments like that all my life, it didn't make them hurt any less.

"Oh, my, now I've hurt your feelings. That was unkind of me, Allie; please accept my apology."

I lifted my chin so I could speak. "Esme, you're standing in my legs. While I know you don't feel anything, you're making me lose all feeling in my toes."

"I won't move until you tell me you forgive me for that unkind comment."

"I forgive you. Believe me, I've heard worse."

She stepped through the edge of the tub and patted my head, making my vision go squirrelly for a minute. "Don't listen to anything unkind that people tell you. It just shows they're jealous. And ignorant. That's what caused me to say that cruel thing, I'm ashamed to say. Why don't you tell me about your eyes, and then I'll understand."

I had to give her credit; she was truly sorry she'd said what she did. It was hard to stay hurt when she felt so bad about it. I explained about the heterochromia irides, and tried to leave it at that, but she prodded and pushed until I spilled how hard it was to grow up so obviously different from anyone else.

"But that just makes you unique, dear! You should celebrate your differences, not hide them!"

"Easy for you to say; it doesn't make people skittish when they see your eyes coming."

She smiled and winked. "Now that isn't in the least bit true."

I laughed at her mischievous face and reached for the towel as I got out of the tub. "Oh, trust me, I've heard tales about the ghost of room one-fourteen. I know you like to pop out at couples when they are arguing, and you have a tendency to rearrange towels."

She made a little moue. "Girls these days have no idea how to properly fold a towel."

Eventually I managed to impress Esme with the fact that I needed to sleep, and she faded off into the nothingness that I gathered was a ghost's state of sleep. Before she dissolved away, I begged her to not bother the maid when she came in later to clean the room. She fussed about that for a bit, but in the end promised that she would make no untoward appearances.

Six hours later I was heading out the door to meet with the hermit. The SIP office had been reticent to give me her name and number (at least I knew it was a woman now), but promised to pass along my information. Ten minutes after I'd hung up, the hermit called and made an appointment to meet me at the British Library.

"I thought the whole purpose of a hermit was that they shut themselves away from everyone, not gallivanted around one of the most popular research libraries in the world," I told the then-quiet room. It didn't answer back.

The British Library is now housed in a huge building at St. Pancras, more than fourteen floors of books, manuscripts, periodicals, and other literary items. I had arranged to meet the hermit in the John Ritblat Gallery (which contains, amongst other things, the Magna Carta), as I didn't have a reader's card and couldn't access the reading rooms.

I wandered through the gallery looking at the missals and Leonardo da Vinci's notebook, and was about to join a demonstration of what a scribe's workshop was like when a middle-aged woman in a tweed skirt and jacket approached me.

"Allegra Telford? I'm Phillippa. I spoke with you this morning."

"Oh, hi. You must be the - " I stopped. I supposed it wasn't entirely appropriate to call a woman wearing a tweed suit and expensively coiffed blond hair a hermit.

"I'm a hermit, yes," she nodded, then waved toward an exit. "Why don't we go into the restaurant and have a cup of tea? We can talk about your problem there."

I followed her through the piazza to a well-lit restaurant. We collected two little pots of tea, and seated ourselves in an out-of-the-way corner table.

"Phillippa, you'll have to forgive me, but I've never met an honest-to-God hermit before. What... uh... what exactly does a hermit do? If you're not comfortable being here, around so many people, I'd be happy to go somewhere a little quieter."

She looked around the room. "No, this is fine. I spend many hours at the library. Oh, I see what you want to know - why am I a hermit when I don't hide myself away in a dank cave?"

I nodded.

"In my case, the hermit status applies on a metaphysical level only. I spend most of my time mentally cloistered, doing research. I do sometimes take on apprentices, and even more rarely offer my services to penitents such as yourself who seek to gain greater knowledge."

I gnawed on my lip a bit. "I see. You're kind of a mental hermit?"

She grimaced and sipped at her tea. "For lack of a better term, I will accept that. Now what is the problem you're having with Releasing spirits?"

I explained what had happened the day before with the cat.

"I tried every variation I could think of, but none of it worked. I thought perhaps there might be something different about English ghosts, and that's why I couldn't send the cat on."

"Hmmm." The hermit poured more tea into her cup. "You warded yourself before you spoke the words of Release, yes?"

I nodded. "Left hand, right eye."

"Just so. And the ginseng? It was ground by a stone mortar and pestle? No metal touched it?"

"Ground it myself."

"You haven't been raising demons lately, have you? I've found that even the weakest of demons can wreak havoc on ginseng."

"I didn't know that, but no, I haven't raised any demons, ever. I'm really not interested in the dark arts, just the Summoning side of things."

"Hmm. Very bizarre. Now, if it were a human spirit, I would say it had some unfinished business, but a cat... surely a cat cannot refuse to be Released. What do you know of the cat's owner, the one who died in the fire? Perhaps the cat is bound to her, and that is keeping it from transferring."

"The ghost is a woman. She refuses to leave, too. She told me she's not leaving me until she sees me happy with a... well, with a certain man. It's not going to happen, so I have no idea how I'm going to convince her to move on."

The hermit set her cup down carefully. "You didn't tell me you'd Summoned a human spirit."

"Oh. Sorry. I did, last night... er... early this morning."

"And does the cat seem to be bound to her?"

I thought about Esme kissing that poor cat's head. "Oh, definitely. She calls him her woogie Woogums. I think that just about says it all."

"Indeed!" The hermit looked horrified. "Well, then, that is your answer. The human spirit has bound the cat's spirit to hers. If she refuses to leave, the cat will not be able to be sent on."

"But I tried to Release the cat before I Summoned the other ghost."

She shrugged and adjusted the string of pearls she wore over a blush-pink blouse. "It is still bound."

I took notes on some suggestions she had that might help in future Releases, then looked up when she asked, "Tell me about this spirit refusing to be Released."

I sighed heavily. "Oh, Esme. She's - Oh, my God! What are you doing here?"

I stared in horror at the translucent image of a woman in a ratty old bathrobe with fat gray curls, holding a three-legged cat. "Good afternoon, Allie. You called?"

"Go away!" I hissed, waving my hands through her in an attempt to dissipate her ghostly form as I peered around us to see how many people were witnessing a completely unplanned spectral visitation. I was thankful no one was looking in our corner of the room, but it would be only a matter of a few seconds before someone noticed that the third person at our table was floating approximately six inches above the chair.

Esme looked mildly insulted at both my words and my actions.

"You didn't seal the ghost to her room?" the hermit asked in quiet surprise.

"Are we having tea? What a lovely idea. It's been ever so long since I enjoyed a good cuppa. How do you do? I'm Esme Cartwright, Allie's friend. I see you are a Summoner, as well."

"Seal her? I grounded her, if that's what you mean. Esme, go away! Fade! Dissolve! Make yourself invisible! Someone is going to see you!" I had my head in my hands now, peering out over the top of my glasses to see if anyone was looking toward us.

"You have to seal a spirit to a physical location," Phillippa lectured, eyeing both Esme and the cat with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "That keeps them bound to one location. Otherwise, as the Summoner, you have the power to bring the spirit to you simply by invoking their name."

"Oh, God, I didn't know! Esme, will you please disappear!"

"Mmm, Earl Grey, I always did enjoy a nice cup of Earl Grey. Who is your companion, Allie?"

The crash of crockery hitting the hard stone floor and a loud, feminine shriek indicated that someone had at last looked our way.

"Her name is Phillippa and she's a hermit and please, please, please fade away, Esme. You're about to get me into a very sticky situation."

"Well, as you asked me so nicely..." She faded away until there was only a faint shimmering of the air where she'd been.

"Oh, thank God she's gone," I moaned, banging my forehead against the palms of my hand, sending out the only kind of mental push I used - one to muddle the memory of Esme in the mind of the woman who was hysterically telling her friends what she'd seen. She quieted down immediately.

"I'm not gone, dear; I'm still here safe and sound. Do you want me to rematerialize?" Esme's voice might have been disembodied, but it could still be heard loud and clear.

"No!" I shrieked, then lowered my voice and hissed through my teeth, "Just stay the way you are, and don't move. Phillippa, what am I going to do? How do I get you-know-who back to our room? I can't have her coming with me - I have things to do this afternoon, and she's likely to - " I waved my hands around to indicate a person's form.

"I won't be any trouble, dear."

"No," I said firmly to the shimmering air, then turned back to the hermit. She opened her mouth to speak.

"It's been so long since Mr. Woogums and I have been anywhere," the chair intoned mournfully.

"Another time, Esme."

The hermit waited a moment to see if there would be a reply, then tapped her fingers against the teapot. "Do you have any keepers on you?"

"Keepers?" I looked down at my sweater and jeans. The sweater was the most feminine thing I had, worn because I had a nasty suspicion that Christian was going to make an appearance at Joy's tea. The sun set shortly after five o'clock, so it wasn't out of the question that he'd pop in. I didn't relish the comparison that could be made between frumpy little me, the statuesque and obviously pregnant, very feminine Joy, and the petite, pretty beauty of Roxy. All of which goes to explain - at more length than anyone probably cared to know - why I was at that moment wearing a cream, pink, and gray sweater in a rose trellis design, with little yarn bobbles accenting each of the rose stems. "Um. I don't think I have any keepers. I'd know, wouldn't I?"

The hermit sighed. "A keeper is a talisman, something you inscribe with the power to bind an unsealed spirit. It is a way for you to contain the spirit and move it without its becoming visible."

"My name is Esme Cartwright," the chair said indignantly, trembling a little. "I am not an it."

"Ah. I must have missed the class on keepers. What do I need to make one? Some sort of a bottle or something with a lid?"

The hermit shook her head. "No, any object will do. The spirit doesn't go inside the keeper; it becomes part of it, bound to it until you release the spirit from it."

I looked around me. "Okay, so... how do I go about making a keeper? I'll take a few notes now and make some up later tonight."

"Allie, I would suggest you think about this before you take such a radical action. You don't really know this hermit woman. I am quite happy to stay invisible for however long you desire, and I can assure you that both Mr. Woogums and I will be no trouble as you go about your day. Now I think on it, I can see a benefit to you in having us along with you, a great benefit. I will be able to offer you such advice as you may need when you next meet Christian. I know you are very nervous about your date tonight, and I would be happy to act as a chaperon if it will make you feel more comfortable. I shan't leave you alone for a minute."

I pulled a fuzzy bobble off my sweater. "Now," I said to the hermit in a tone of voice that had her raising her eyebrows. "Tell me how to do it right now!"

She showed me the wards to trace over the keeper, followed by the words of binding. During the whole time I was preparing the keeper, Esme first pleaded with me not to do such a cruel thing, then threatened to make herself visible if I didn't stop. I rushed through the last few words as the air over the chair started to thicken, growing milky white and solidifying into a familiar form, then hastily cleared my mind and visualized the sweater bobble trapping Esme's spirit.

"I'm warning you, Allie, I'll not be treated like some sort of spectral good luck chaaaaaaaaaaaaaa - "

The bobble trembled in my hand for a moment, glowed with an inner light that is not normally found in a yarn bobble, then settled back into normal, albeit slightly tingly, bobbleness.

"Whew! That was close. Thank you for your help. I don't know what I'd have done without you."

The hermit accepted my thanks with a nod, then glanced at her watch. "I must be leaving; I have an herbal to translate. Do not leave your keepers lying about; they should be carried with you at all times."

I looked at the bobble resting on the table. "Oh? Why is that?"

"Possession of the keeper grants control over the spirit within. If it is destroyed or damaged, the spirit is destroyed with it."

"Oh, yeah, I suppose that isn't too good."

"Good?" She stood up and gathered up an expensive-looking briefcase. "Such an event would rend your soul in two. As the Summoner of a spirit, your soul is bound with it. To destroy the spirit's soul is - "

" - to destroy mine," I finished, feeling a little sick as I carefully tucked the bobble away in my inner coat pocket. "Gotcha. Thanks again. Once I can convince you-know-who to be Released, I'll let you know if your suggestions help."

She traced a protection ward on my forehead, and left with a brisk good-bye. I sat at the table, feeling a bit drained by the creation of the keeper, not to mention all the worry that Esme's unexpected appearance caused. I made notes on the keeper process, and half an hour later limped out to find a taxi to take me to Jamaica House, where Joy and her fianc¨¦ lived in a top-floor flat.

Luckily it had an elevator, so I could stand composed and dignified as I rang the bell, rather than gasping for breath and clutching my bad leg.

"Oh, it's you. She's heeeeeeere," Roxy bellowed over her shoulder, grabbing my wrist and pulling me inside. "Did you have any trouble finding the place? It's a bit out of the way, huh? I told Raphael and Joy that, but they like it. It's an historic building, you know. Used to be some sort of a coffee shop, one of the old-timey ones, not a modern one. Johnson and his dictionary and all that. I wonder if it has any ghosts. Hey, maybe you could look around and see? Here, let me take your coat."

Roxy started tugging my coat off just as Joy and an extremely large man with yellowish eyes (no wonder she didn't find my eyes that strange) emerged from a sitting room.

"Allie, how nice to see you again. This is Raphael, my husband-to-be. Roxy, let her get her arm out of the coat before you take it."

Somehow - and I swear that someone who shall be nameless had a hand in this - as I was reaching to shake Raphael's hand, Roxy jerked my coat from my left arm, and the Esme'd bobble bounced onto the floor. Roxy started forward toward a coat stand. I shrieked.

"Oh, my God, stop! You'll crush Esme!"

A name has power, thus the ability to Release, bind, and enchant a spirit by means of the entity's name. As I had seen in the British Library restaurant, speaking the name of a spirit bound to me had the effect of calling that spirit forward, bringing it to wherever I was. Hence the need, the hermit had explained, for sealing a spirit to a location if one did not want it to come running everytime its name was spoken.

True to form, the second Esme's name left my lips she was released from the bobble, just a scant nanosecond before Roxy trod upon it.

The appearance of a middle-aged ghost in a bath-robe, holding a three-legged cat, did much to stop conversation. In fact, it was a pretty fair bet to say that you could have heard an individual atom of oxygen hit the floor.

I closed my eyes for a second and wondered why I couldn't have a nice, normal life with nice, normal ghosts.

"Good afternoon, everyone. Allie, you didn't tell me we were going to pay calls. I'm all at sixes and sevens today. Is that scones I smell? I haven't had scones in years! I do hope you make the kind with dates in them, not sultanas. Sultanas give me the wind. Just let me freshen up a bit and I'll be ready for a nice little chat."

Three pairs of extremely surprised eyes turned to look at me. I did my utmost to rally a smile. "Are we early?"