Our Host is a Ghost

Jackie sits as still as possible. She’d Googled it once and one of the top suggestions on the web was to not move. Movement during a possession could give the ghost something to cling to, like wrinkling up a brand-new white shirt for tie dye.

Of course, how many of those people giving their suggestions online are face to face with a possessed Halloween prop skeleton on a live broadcast ghost hosted talk show?

“Relax!” The voice booms, disconnected from the face in front of her. She can’t tell exactly where it’s coming from. Everywhere? Her own head? “I’m just going to look around in there. Promise I won’t knock anything over.”

She frowns. No, that doesn’t make sense. How would the microphones pick it up? “Hey, how do the microphones pick up your voice?”

“That’s what the voiceover is for, baby.” The plastic skeleton tilts its head to her. They’ve dressed the guy up in a sparkly black suit with orange accents. A little campy, but who’s watching a ghost talk show for drama?

Oh. Right. Technically everyone.

“What happens if you do?” Jackie clears her throat and tries to remind herself to stay still. “Knock something over, that is?”

The skeleton slumps for a moment. Its face can’t change, but the yellowed plastic flickers darker, duller in the studio lights. “We should try our best not to find out.”

Jackie swallows down a refusal. She agreed to do this for a reason. The pay isn’t something to scoff at. All she needs to do is give up a little bit of time and answer questions. She isn’t sure what they expect to find. An experimental botanist from Montana doesn’t exactly scream scandal. But the ghost had chosen her from among the many, many candidates.

She’d accepted out of curiosity as much as necessity.

The ghost’s plastic appendages twitch for a moment. The familiarity has dissipated when he speaks again. “We’re about ready. Are you, Ms. Wilson?”

“Uh…” Jackie swallows and does a quick shake of her arms and shoulders, until the nervous energy feels at least a little satisfied. “Yes.”

The skeleton head bobs in what she assumes is meant to be a nod. “Good. Settle in. The journey is shorter than it will feel, and longer than you will realize.”

She doesn’t know what he means. The phrase sounds like something they’d say to sound impressive on tv, but the cameras aren’t rolling yet. Those are the rules—the possessions aren’t filmed. This is as much for the studios as the guest and ghost. Not all possessions go well. But this ghost has been around for ages. It’s well-practiced now.

The skeleton goes silent in front of her. The silence is deep, almost thick. Jackie considers she may have been pranked.

She clears her throat. “Hey, Mr. Barry?”

The voice responds, though it no longer booms through the room. “Yes, Ms. Wilson?”

“Be careful, please.” Her voice shakes, but the answer is a steady, simple whisper.

“As promised.”

And then the room is empty. She can’t explain how she knows. But the creature—the voice, the animation of the skeleton, the shine and luster to the suit—is no longer present. She sits still, as instructed. This lasts for five minutes. And then she begins to fidget.

Is he coming back? Did he begin already?

Possessions are supposed to feel like ice water. Like a dunk tank carnival game except someone puts a lid on right after the seat comes up without the dunked. Yet, she feels nothing like what people described online. Almost as if nothing is happening at all.

This is the right studio, she’s certain. She’d checked and verified her invitation a hundred thousand times.

Good things don’t usually happen to Jackie Wilson. Not that bad things do, necessarily. But she accepted long ago that she was born to a mother who hated her and that had pretty much set the stage for the rest of her life.  It would make sense that some bored intern had pulled her email from a random pile of entries just to watch her get her hopes up.

She risks pulling her knees up to her chin. What else had Google suggested to help reduce complications during a routine possession?

Hum a song. Touch something comforting. She fumbles around in her pocket until she comes across a soft, smooth ribbon. Her dad bought a cat when she was younger. She’d bought the ribbon for the kitten herself. Mittens, she’d named it. What a generic name for a generic comfort. Still, she’d loved Mittens more than anything in the whole world for ten straight years.

“Hush little baby,” she sings under her breath. She used to pet the kittens fur and sing it lullabies on hard nights. “Don’t say a word.”

A memory flashes, a little slice of her life she’d forgotten. A sharp word, sharper than words, actually—a red stain that spreads and leaks into the memory of the lullaby. Red like wine, and loud and hard and angry. She drops her ribbon.

“Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.” The skeleton sits up straight. “It was quite dusty in there. You should certainly clear out the cobwebs every now and then.”

Jackie swallows down a lump in her throat. The skeleton’s eyes look red for a moment, but when she blinks, the color is gone. He is only a silly dollar store skeleton in a bright sparkly suit. “Sorry, you must have been pretty bored.”

“Oh,” a deep, rumbling laugh booms through the room again. “I was thoroughly entertained. What a nasty little mind you have. You’re a special case, aren’t you?”

“What?” Jackie forces a laugh through the tightness in her chest. “Are you sure you didn’t get muddled up in my detective novel phase?”

“Didn’t even see it.” The skeleton jumps up. “My name is Barry Newsman. You should probably stop calling me Skeleton. I’ll get insulted if you do it again.”

“Oh.” Jackie nods. “Sorry.”

“Not a problem. Come over to the waiting area. I’ll introduce you once we get started.” He pauses. “Are you comfortable?”

She gives a hesitant nod.

“Good. Enjoy that.”

The waiting area is poorly lit. Her skin burns too hot—the anxiety has started. Hopefully she can get out there and calm down before she sweats through her blouse.

Music shakes the speakers above the set. A very bright light shines on the skeleton sitting behind an ornate, painted desk. A lavish chair in burgundy velvet cages Mr. Barry’s borrowed body into the scene. He looks so tiny and ridiculous in such rich surroundings.

“Welcome to Our Host is a Ghost! Haunting us today is a very shy little lady of surprises in the nightshade arena.” The skeleton fills out with a silvery sheen over the worn plastic limbs. Jackie has seen the show, but the ghost looks different. The cheap prop is a man, almost a boy, with dark hair and gray skin. He reminds her of old black and white movies. An actor forever on the cusp of adulthood. “Introducing Jackie Wilson, renowned Montanan botanist. From a small town with even smaller ideas, we bring you a real blockbuster of a gal.”

Jackie shrinks back. She’s not even dressed up. Her flowery blouse and pinstriped dress slacks had seemed a good idea at the time. Now the heat of the overhead spotlight burns too bright. Her outfit is too hot. Do the pinstripes clash with the flowers? She can’t remember what her mom told her about patterns. She should have worn a hat.

The ghost curls his fingers at her in a summoning gesture. The cue is subtle, but she can’t miss it.

She inches her way towards the guest chair—the same as the burgundy velvet, but this one is green. The ghost waves again, this time with his whole arm circling.

“Forgive us. She’s a little shy.” Barry stands and clears his throat. “You wouldn’t believe what we have in store for you.”

Singular, shining black eyes, paired only with the red dot of the recording light, stare back at them. A silent audience.

“So, Jackie. How did you get into the field of botany? I understand you have loved plants since you were a kid.” Barry’s hands rest on her shoulders. The touch is cold. She can’t even feel the molded phalanges under his soft ghostly overlay. “Remember to be honest.”

She nods. Her hair must be standing end to end with the chill running through her. “Well, my dad kept a garden when I was younger. He knew all the names of all the plants—like their actual names, the ones you’d find in identification books. I spent so many summers weeding the flowerbeds, clipping off dead leaves, checking soil pH.”

“Do you still go back to visit the garden your dad left behind?”

Jackie knew they’d eventually talk about her father. The story is not very interesting. He got sick. They kept thinking he’d get better but he never did. And eventually he died, just from being sick for so long. He got tired.

“It was important to me. The lady who lives there let’s me come by sometimes.” Jackie smiles. “Hey, she gets free landscaping out of it, right?”

“Oh, free landscaping! You must visit quite a lot then.” Barry crosses the stage and stands near one of the cameras. His cheeks stretch and squish into a wide smile. He gives an unsettling wink then he’s back.

The black suit really does capture the light so well. She thought he’d look ridiculous, but the sparkle drags the viewer’s eye behind it, like a spell.

“I do. Ms. Mavis is so sweet, too. She makes the best scones. I think she must use a truckload of butter.” Jackie pushes through the block of anxiety in her chest.

“Tell me more about this garden. What grows there?” Barry leans against his desk. He’s so mobile. Much more than when he’d just looked like a skeleton. “How did it inspire you to pursue the field of botany? Did it have anything to do with your recent discoveries?”

“I guess it had to, right? I mean. I spent so much time with plants. Gardening’s how I spent time with my father, and time remembering him too.”

“Yes. Your father died when you were quite young, didn’t he?”

“I wasn’t that young.” Jackie recalls the night it happened. He’d been sick for a while. A nurse held her hand after he’d passed, while she was in the room waiting to say goodbye. She’d said something passively comforting about how sometimes people just get sick and it’s better if they don’t suffer any more. “He passed when I was nine. By then he’d already taught me so much.”

“Your father was a good man, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Fair and good.” Barry nods. “Except for the drinking.”

Jackie recoils, hands gripping the knees of her slacks. “What?”

“Yes. The drinking.” Barry taps against the desk. “You have been called the Saint of the Drunk and the Doped. Do you credit your father with this title?”

“I… What?” She doesn’t recall her father drinking particularly heavy. Sure, she has a few memories of him being a little too cheery. A little too loud and rowdy. He was a happy drunk. Jackie hadn’t considered it much of a problem. “I wasn’t aware people were calling me that.”

“I mean, you did create an at home, over the counter, FDA approved kit for poison treatment. From nightshade to bleach, your kit covers almost all conceivable accidents. So many variants. Decades of work dedicated to such a task. Didn’t you ever wonder why it meant so much to you?”

“My dad just got sick. He wasn’t poisoned. The doctors didn’t even think so.”

“Oh, come now. All this study and you didn’t connect the dots?” Barry leans on one hand and flourishes the other. A datura, gray and ghostly as the man himself, appears in his hand. Not just any datura. The Brugmansia Candida. The devil’s trumpet. “What is this plant?”

“Commonly known as the devil’s trumpet.” Jackie’s palms are sweaty. Suddenly all those cameras really do feel like eyes. “My father’s favorite. It is poisonous, but only fatal if ingested in high doses.”

“Many cultures and recreationally adventurous individuals use this pretty trumpet to,” Barry pauses for dramatic effect. “Experience reality beyond the limitations of their comprehension.”

“I mean there’s a very thin line between delirium and death.” Jackie sits up straight in her seat. “And with wild or homegrown plants, the dosage could vary so wildly between one and the other. There’s no way to know if you’re going over your limit for sure.”

“And when one mixes the effects with other substances, it becomes even more dangerous.” Barry nods, as if he’s agreeing with something Jackie has said and not his own addition. “Your mother, what does she think of your botanical work?”

Jackie grimaces then covers it with a cough. When she looks back she makes sure she’s smiling. “My mom is very supportive of my success. She and I used to struggle, but now I think she understands that I only want to help people.”

She can at least think that, if nothing else. Her mother hasn’t exactly said differently. And she does have one of Jackie’s kits in her home, right next to the first aid. Jackie had seen it there last Christmas. The sight was a bit of warmth in a cold season. Of course, her mom would rather die than acknowledge the kit in her bathroom.

“Fascinating! Do you think your mother’s career path influenced you as much as your fathers?”

“My mom is a chemist. She is arguably my biggest influence.” Her family background and her mother’s books had certainly helped her through college.

“No,” Barry’s voice is sharp and sudden, his eyes cutting to her. His grin is missing. The boyish charm he’d oozed since the cameras started rolling is suddenly replaced with the cold formality of the plastic skeleton. “I don’t think we can argue that.”

“Ok, then.” Jackie always credits her mother with her chosen career. At least a dozen interviews out there have that line specifically.

“Do you drink, Jackie?”

“No?” Jackie frowns. “I never really had a taste for alcohol.”

“Not even a little wine with dinner?” Barry bounces over to the mini fridge behind his desk. He pulls out a beetle-back green bottle. The label on it is cream colored and gold lettered. The year listed is 1997. The year her father died. “Here, share a glass.”

The glass is wider than she is used to, the stem thinner. It’s so delicate in her hands she’s afraid to hold it.

He pours the wine carefully. It glugs out anyway, splashing up the side of the glass as strange, red-soaked chunks sink to the bottom of the bowl. She recognizes the flowers as the same bell shaped datura Barry had held earlier. “Is this—”

Barry holds a finger up to his lips. She was about to ask if the flower was real, or an illusion like his appearance. The studio forbids mention of the gimmick. They say it ruins it for the audience.

“Drink up. It’s expensive wine.”

She looks at the petal in the cup. It’s almost a pretty picture. There’s no way it’s real. Still, she won’t be drinking it. “I already said, I prefer not to drink. I fear the expense would be wasted on me.”

Barry watches her with keen interest as she places the glass on the edge of his desk. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

“I guess not?” The flower settles again after all the movement.

“Your mother threw your father’s ashes in the garden when he died, yes?”

Jackie hadn’t told anyone about that. “She did. It makes me feel like we’re visiting when I go take care of the garden at Ms. Mavis’s house.”

“He was taken too soon.” Barry sighs and shakes his head. “Tell me, your mother, when did she start to mistreat you? Was it when you became hyper-fixated on poison prevention? Do you think she thought you knew?”

Jackie doesn’t know how to answer. Her mom has always hated her. She’s pretty sure that’s true, at least. Right?

Barry doesn’t wait for her to respond. He sits in the chair behind his desk and folds his hands over each other. And then Barry is not Barry anymore. He is a plastic skeleton from some Halloween store, and the lights to the cameras are fading. Jackie doesn’t leave until one of the executives shows up to pack the props away for the night.

The next morning, the internet is full of articles about her father and her mother and the murder that may have happened.