Stranger Than Fiction Investigations

It was a long drive from Michigan to Arizona, but I didn't mind. It gave me time to reflect on my current case, which was a doozy.

My phone jingled in my Jeep’s cup holder ”Hey Dad!”

“Honey, please be careful, I would rather we send somebody else to deliver this stuff to the kid.” Dad’s voice was filled with concern. I knew he had not wanted me involved once I informed him of everything that Rosie had told me, but what was I supposed to do.

He and I had a rather unique skill set for our line of work. After everything that I learned, I couldn't just let this go, and Dad was barely in any shape to meet with prospective clients…let alone travel all the way to some carnival in a backwater Arizona town and hunt for a kid who didn't want to be found. Not that I blamed this kid.

“Yeah, and who else is bringing his dead Grandmother with them?” I had been working cases by myself since I turned 18. Dad, though, still thought of me as a little girl…...even though I now did all the fieldwork and a good deal of the back work for our P.I. agency Stranger Than Fiction Investigations on my own.

I heard him sigh ”Just be careful, get in and get out.….I love you. Hurry home.” The line clicked off and it was my turn to sigh. Dad had probably gotten a clairvoyant flash, which meant I would most likely be walking into a problem.

I was just thankful I ended up running into the ghost who was currently riding shotgun on this trip. Grandma Rosetta Brambleson, or Gramma Rosie. She was the matriarch of the Brambleson clan, the folks who hired Dad and I to find their missing son. Rosie’s Grandson, and her favorite out of the Brambelson family was Matthew Brambleson. Matthew was 13 years old and had up and disappeared one day from the Brambleson estate.

Rosie ended up solving the entire case for me. Now all that was left to do was find the kid and hand him his inheritance, which she had guided me to.

Being able to see the dead and sense other people's emotions were a plus in private investigation, it set us apart in the field. Dad was technically the one who had the best rapport with the dead. However, we both have our own unique set of psychic gifts.

I blew out a long breath as I thought back to the Bramblesons. They were a stressful bunch, and I felt my hands tighten on the steering wheel thinking about them, even during the initial consultation at our office they seemed downright shifty. Not to mention that I was extremely curious as to why they had come all of the way from Nebraska to Michigan to hire private investigators. Our reputation was good, but it wasn't “that” good. When we asked, they gave a vague excuse. Quite a few times they either withheld information or outright lied to us. Dad and I had only agreed to take the case due to a hunch that the kid was being mistreated before his disappearance.

It also sounded a lot like there was an inheritance involved in the family's desperation to find this kid. I thought maybe the kid had run away from home to see the world or for a better life, but something about this case had a creepy feel to it. Uck!

After my little recon adventure, I had discovered why, and thankfully I met Rosie.

All that the Bramblesons had said was that Matthew had disappeared around a week ago and that he had an unusual skin condition. They refused to go into detail about said condition and only gave us a halfway decent description of the kid. They said he was 13 with sandy brown hair, small and frail for his age, and hadn't gotten out much. Due to his condition, he had been home schooled and didn't really have any friends outside of the family.

After the consultation visit, and the severe lack of information, I had decided to go and do some snooping on both the family and around their property. Since the Bramblesons also refused to let us look at the kid's room on the grounds of religion, it was right around this time that I began wondering just how many red flags these people were going to send up. Even Dad was weirded out by this bunch. Dad had seen a lot of crazy stuff in his time as a P.I. but this case put him on edge too.

Dad, or P.I. Geoffrey Rutgers to our clients, started Stranger Than Fiction Investigations when I was six, after Mom left us and we had a hard time making ends meet. Now Dad was a barely functional alcoholic, but he tried to keep himself together. I stuck around mostly to make sure he was ok. Thankfully, Dad doesn't need to be sober to speak with the dead or see the future. I just wished more than anything that he would go back to A.A.

“I appreciate you helping Moon Bear, but please don't make your father worry Azraela. He loves you very much you know.” Gramma Rosie had turned to eye me, pronouncing my name perfectly which was a challenge for most people, she arched an eyebrow.

I sighed again and kept my eyes on the road, I had a feeling I needed to go and see Matthew Brambleson for myself. I didn't know why; I just knew I needed to go to Harpers Sanctuary and find him. One of those gut instinct things, I couldn't tell you why, but I was absolutely certain that there was something waiting for me in Arizona. I could feel myself frowning at the blacktop.

"You're going to get wrinkles if you keep that up" Rosie smiled and her tone was teasing. "I'm gonna find Matthew and I'm gonna give him what is rightfully his. But there is something pulling at me, and I know something important is waiting for me in Arizona. If I don’t go now, it's gonna bother me. So, I'm going. Maybe it's nothing but a new popcorn flavor, who knows? '' I shrugged. I knew better, but I needed to lighten my mood.

While I drove, my mind drifted back to Gramma Rosie and I’s meeting. I had driven down to Nebraska and had been sneaking around the Brambleson House and acreage to get more intel when Gramma Rosie had snuck up on me by their sidewall gardens.

After I had picked myself up from my butt, she smiled and pointed to the rose bushes that I had narrowly missed falling on and then pointed to herself.

I blinked at her and shook myself a little, then I realized she was a ghost, and a recently deceased one at that due to how solid she looked. At the time I had hoped she was a maid or a nanny by the way that she was dressed. They always had all the information that any investigator could want.

I looked between the two and then whispered "Rose?"

She smiled and spelled out the letter E with her right hand.

"Rose-E...Rosie!" it came out louder than I had expected.

"Rosy" put her finger to her lips and pointed to a window on the third floor. She then showed me the house key in the flower planter which I snagged. I made my way inside the large red and brown brick manor style house and climbed up the long staircase to the room she had indicated

I thought she was leading me to where I would find Matthew's room. As I came around the corner of the third-floor hallway leading to Rosy’s destination, the stench hit me! Panic, indignation and rage struck me like a lightning bolt at the thought of that poor kid dead in a room for weeks while his parents pretended that he was missing!

Instead, I found Gramma Rosie, well her decaying corpse anyway. Relief washed over me so hard I felt my legs buckle a little. Rosie shooed me into the room. So, I scampered in and regretfully shut the door behind me.

Inside was a gorgeous room, warmly decorated in oak wood with white macrame and soft pink everything else. Everything from the four-poster bed to the carved vanity set looked like a genuine antique. Roses were carved into all of the wooden furnishings; it was a nice touch.

"You could have warned me" I hissed at the ghost. She widened her eyes and spread her hands in a "what was I supposed to do" gesture. She is right, unlike Dad I'm psionically deaf. By that I mean I can only see ghosts and not hear them, which makes chatting with them very interesting.

They must use a combination of gestures, pictures, and feelings...although a lot of them can pour the ideas right into my mind. Rosie was too recently deceased for that. I needed info fast though, and there were only two ways to accomplish that. One, automatic writing or two, get her to possess someone, preferably not me.

"Ok fine, I gotcha. So, not to rush but, do you know what automatic writing is?"

She shook her head. Ok, it was gonna have to be option B. I really didn't want to scare this poor little old lady ghost, but I needed to be fast.

"Ummm...ok.... Is there anyone on the property that is kind of weak-willed at the moment or anyone who is very ill?"

She nodded and then spelled out "Why?"

I gave her a withering look and hesitated “Errmm”

Which apparently irritated her as she “Why” a little more forcefully.

I raised my eyebrows "Because you're going to need to possess somebody. I know it sounds bad, but I need to be able to talk to you. It won't hurt them, you're just going to borrow their body for a little bit, and when you're done, you go, with them none the wiser or the worse for wear." I made a whooshing gesture with my hands.

At first, she looked horrified, then she contemplated it for a few seconds and a strange twinkle came into her eye. She nodded and held up her index finger indicating for me to wait and that she would be right back. She disappeared with a poof.

I ducked into the closet just in case anyone decided to stop by this room, and to cut the smell as the closet was made of red cedar, although judging by the looks of this part of the house and the cobwebs woven to Rosie’s bedposts, no one had come up here in a while.

I only had to wait a few minutes and then I heard the light footsteps in the hall. The door to the room swung open and a petite brunette with a rather severe bob and unpleasantly pinched features glided into the room wearing a huge grin that looked alien on her.

"Come on out honey, it's me Rosie" The warm and playful tone was also completely at odds with the woman's aura so, I scanned her quickly with my second sight and sure enough Rosie had successfully possessed someone...I was impressed. Rosie was a fast learner.

I slid out of the closet " Wow! Have you ever done that before?"

"No M'dear, I've only been dead a few weeks. Boy, it sure is fun though" Her eyes lit up and her grin got even wider, it took on a decidedly wicked quality.

My eyes widened a bit, and I got a wee bit nervous that I may have gotten her started on a road that led to bad things for her and anyone who was possessable in her immediate vicinity. Sadly, it couldn't be helped, I needed to find Matthew Brambleson and she was one of the only leads that I had.

"In all seriousness dear, I'm so glad that you and your father took this case! Honestly, had I known what I know now when I was alive things would have been so much different. I was in the room when you were talking with my son and his wife and I'm just so relieved that you were smart enough not to believe their lies." Her expression shifted to one of deep unhappiness.

"Thank you.... Wait a second! If you were there, why couldn't Dad or I see you?" This made no sense, you can do a lot to keep spirits out, but you can't just block spirits from someone, at least as far as I knew. "Atreus Amulet." Her eyes were so sad as whatever memory those words conjured up flickered through her thoughts. I wondered what the story was behind it but needed to stay focused.

"I thought it was a myth." Well, a little more info couldn't hurt. Any mystical researcher worth their salt knew about the Atreus amulet, but it was supposed to be fictional. If it was real, it would be a huge gamechanger. It also needed to be locked away from anyone who would misuse it. If it fell into the wrong hands, the consequences were all kinds of bad.

"My great great grandfather spread that rumor to good effect, but that's a story for another time. You and your father's suspicions about Matthew being mistreated are correct. I had been so busy trying to get all the family business affairs in order so that I could pass the business to Matthew when he came of age and then I fell extremely ill before I could tell him. My son & his wife showed me pictures and even brought little Moonbear to see me a few times, now I know why he was always so quiet on those visits..." At that point, she began to fade out of the brunette who looked as though she were about to scream.

"Rosie!! Rosie!! Rosie!!! You need to get a hold of your emotions, or this chick gets her body back and I am toast!" I flailed my hands in front of her face to get her attention, one scream meant I was out of time. Rosie's face went stonelike, and she pulled herself back into the body of the brunette, firmly! She closed her eyes "My apologies, as I said. If I had known then what I know now, things would have been so very different. I of all people should know better than to trust this family."

She cleared her throat and maintained her composure with effort, but her eyes were filled with self-blame "My son said that little Moonbear was shy because of his skin. I believed him because Matthew and I share the skin deformity that my son refused to speak with you about and I remember the toll it took on me growing up. Luckily, mine was more easily hidden than poor little Moonbears. He has it covering half of his body.”

I narrowed my eyes on her. Something doesn't add up, and it's not like ghosts can't lie. Just because their dead doesn't make them any less human, just less visible.

"Wait a minute, did Matthew's father know about the mistreatment? Because if both his mother and his son have the same condition then shouldn't he have been more empathetic towards his child after watching how it made you feel?" No child would be ashamed of their mother’s illness without a lot of outside coercion. The mother-child bond generally ensured quite a bit of affection and loyalty from the child.

Rosie's eyes were filled with guilt "I never let my son see my skin. Mine was from my lower chest to my upper thighs, not a difficult place to keep hidden. I have always been ashamed of my condition and my own father called me a freak openly. Had I been more open with Tommy and not been so insecure, perhaps Matthew wouldn't have had to suffer the way that he did. What Moonbear went through....I had no idea that my own son, my little Tommy could be so cruel."

She began to phase out of the other woman's body as tears started falling down her cheeks. Both spirit tears and tears from the petite brunette. In case you're wondering, yes, a ghost can cry. It’s always heartbreaking to watch a ghost cry an actual tear, as it came from a wound to their soul. You can always tell when a ghost is truly heartbroken, and Rosie was.

My heart hurt for her and her family. It was a terrible situation all the way around and I felt bad about pushing her, but Matthew Brambleson was still out there, and we needed to make sure he was safe, for that I needed more information.

"I’m so sorry Rosie." I still didn't know the full extent of what young Matthew had gone through but judging by the little old lady ghost crying her heart out in front of me it was worse than Dad or I had suspected, and I felt terrible for her and Matthew both, but then a thought hit me. "Wait a minute, you've been dead a few weeks? Matthew disappeared a week ago! Rosie, do you know what happened???"

She looked up through her tears at me incredulously. "Of course, who do you think it was that convinced him to run away?"

My jaw hung open " Say what now?"