Talking to the dearly departed can be very draining!

I normally tried to avoid it but lately I find myself tuning into the dead-zone more often than not. Tonight I was doing readings at a girls’ party held at the Lemp Mansion, the most famous haunted B&B/Restaurant in town. I’d been there a number of times in the past for dinner and had a connection with the spirits there, especially the two female spirits, but had never done readings there before.

I’d felt the ghostly activity as soon as I’d finished setting myself up in the Lavender Lady’s bedroom to do the readings. Elsa and Lillian (Lillian was known as the Lavender Lady) are the two female ghosts that haunt the mansion. I felt them there with us right away and somehow, they were keeping the male spirits that also haunt the mansion at bay.

My second reading for the night sat in front of me with tears in her eyes as she told me she’d lost both her parents in the last two years and wanted to know if I could contact them.

The last thing I wanted to do was try to medium here so I explained to her I wasn't sure that I could because of the spirits that were already there when I heard a soft female voice whisper in my mind, “We will help you.”

Shit! As soon as I heard her voice the woman's mother jumped forward. Here's the thing. Whenever I do this I really have no clue what I'm saying. I sort of drop away from myself and let whoever needs to come through. I knew I was on target because my client started bawling her eyes out in no time. When I see them cry is usually when I pull out of it and come back into myself.

After I finished doing the readings I hung out for a while so I could go through the various rooms with my group and tell them what I felt. I was on my way out when I leaned my hand against the outside wall of the nursery and heard the female voice again whisper in my mind, "Beware, he's coming!"

The jolt of energy rolling off of the wall as the voice, I'd associated with Lillian was so painful I almost doubled over. Personally, I'd always been thankful that I didn't actually see ghosts like the character, “Melinda” in “GhostWhisperer” did. I had a sense of them and I could hear them but seeing them, nope, I didn’t want to go there. What I could do was freaky enough for me. Hearing her strong warning was an unexpected jolt to my nervous system...it scared the crap out of me.

I raced down the threadbare Persian carpet covering the staircase hoping I wouldn’t trip and fall. I made my way out of the mansion, took a breath, and plopped down on the corner bench dropping my bag at my feet.

Kathy, the hostess for the night, who’d followed me down, asked, “Sofie, are you okay? What happened when you touched the wall?”

For some reason, I just couldn’t tell her what I’d actually heard so I told her I'd felt some powerful energy rolling off the wall that just hit me the wrong way instead of the ghostly warning. We chatted for a few more minutes until the valet pulled up with my car. As I pulled away trying hard not to screech my tires I still could feel the hairs on the back of ny neck standing on end.

By the time I got home I'd convinced myself that it was just my imagination in overdrive. After all, I’d never done readings there before and really, why would a ghost feel the need to warn me about anything?

~~~~~~

Several hours later I shot up so fast I hit my head on the light pull hanging down from my ceiling fan. The sheets and blankets were twisted in a knot around my legs and most of my pillows had hit the floor. I wrestled with my blankets, untangled myself, sat on the side of my bed, and took a drink of water. Man, oh man, what a weird dream. It really felt like there was someone standing over my bed watching me sleep and was almost ready to touch me right before I woke up. When I looked over at the clock on my nightstand I realized it was still the middle of the night. I plumped my pillows, pulled the blanket up over my head, and curled back down into the mattress hoping I could get back to sleep again when it hit me, the dream...he’s here...I thought to myself before I drifted back off to sleep again.

~~~~~~

I woke up to the heady smell of French Roast beans brewing. I stumbled my way into the kitchen with my eyes half closed--what a good kid, making his Mom coffee first thing in the morning--and poured myself a cup.

It took a bit to go back to sleep after my realization but thankfully, I didn’t have any more dreams. Not long after my divorce, I’d had a similar experience of feeling an entity in my bedroom. All I could do was shiver when I remembered how that had turned out.

Sammy was online chatting with his friends so while I chugged my coffee hoping to clear my mind up quickly I thought about some of my experiences as a psychic. I freely admit that there are still some aspects of my ability that freak the shit out of me. Overall though, I’d made peace with my psychic side a long time ago. I pretty much had no choice in it, given that it ran on both sides of my very Sicilian family.

Joe, my ex-husband, had said he was okay with it when we got married but in the end it was one of the reasons we’d split up. I was always looking for something more and he, well, he was happy with what he had. For Sam’s sake, our divorce had been amicable and we’d been able to remain friends. We got married right out of high school and had Sammy right away. I started working on developing my psychic abilities when Sam was only three. By the time he was seven, Joe and I had grown so far apart that there was no saving us anymore.

After the divorce I turned my whole attention to raising him, my job at the university, and establishing my psychic practice. I dated on and off but never really connected with anyone and in the last few years, had pretty much given up on dating, (much less sex), until Sammy was out of high school.

As for my psychic practice, my greatest reward came when a client would call to let me know just how much I'd been able to help them. Everyone I know is out there looking for the meaning of life or what their greater purpose might be. When client’s told me how much I helped them out it made me feel like I was living my greater purpose.

Personally, I found the ability to talk to the other side the scariest part of being psychic. Last night was a prime example of scary cool. Lillian being there and helping me out was the cool part but the warning, followed by the entity dream was the scary part.

“Guess what happened last night while I was doing a couple of the readings Sam.”

“What?” Sam broke away from the computer and came over to sit on the arm of the loveseat. He'd grown taller than me in the last year and was almost five ten now. He'd also thinned out and had his dad's lanky frame along with his dad's green-orange eyes. That was what had really drawn me into Joe when we were teenagers. He has these vivid green eyes flecked with an orange rim and a little dash of orange right in a corner as if God had flecked his eyes with a paintbrush. Sam has those same eyes along with mega long eyelashes that women of any age would kill for, or pay a small fortune in mascara to achieve.

I told him about Lillian’s spirit and how she’d helped me channel the dead for a couple of my clients.

“Mom, that's just creepy! Doesn't it bother you?”

“Yeah, it’s freaky. But also cool too, don’t you think?”

“Nope, just creepy to me. I don’t know how you deal with it sometimes.” He shrugged his shoulders as he went back to his facebook.com page.

~~~~~~

On Monday, I decided I was lucky to have two careers I enjoyed. I work at the best university in the city. My job had peak times and low times when it came to managing the courses I handled and this week was peak time. It was exam week, which usually meant controlled chaos. I'd been there long enough to have my routine down to a fine science so despite being mega busy I was always able to keep my sanity. At least I liked to think so.

I was hiding out in my office winding up the first draft of our second semester exam when I started feeling extra strange vibes. There was something weird in the air and it was more than the full moon.

I tried to concentrate on my work but by 3:00 p.m., I decided I needed a break. I headed over to the student center bakery to pick up a double-shot mocha. There was nothing better than coffee and chocolate to put me in a good mood. I was trying to decide what type of scone, chocolate chip or orange, I wanted to go with my coffee when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I looked around and noticed two men, one younger and one older, heading toward the doorway from one of the back tables. The older man was stunning. He was deep in conversation with the other man so I took him in all at once; tall, at least six feet plus, short dark hair with a streak of gray on the side, and dressed all in black with a long black overcoat.

It was early March and there was still a chill in the air so I took a quick sip of my mocha to warm up before I headed back across the courtyard to my building. I felt the strange energy twitch again so I decided to take the sidewalk closest to the library instead of the middle path. As I looked around the library, I noticed a small group of people at the end of the walkway. I was trying not to stare but the man from the bakery was there with them, his scarf blowing in the breeze.

His back was turned away from me but the energy he gave off was powerful. He turned suddenly, as if he felt me looking at him, and our eyes made direct contact. I ducked my head, embarrassed that he'd caught me staring. I started to walk away when I heard his voice call out.

“Hello, wait, don’t go. Don’t I know you?” he asked as he approached me. A jolt of electricity shot through me as he looked me up and down that made my toes curl. He was easily the most beautiful man I'd ever laid eyes on.

Did I know him? Even though there was something vaguely familiar about him I’d lost all power of reasoning, much less my memory and believe I would’ve remembered meeting Mr. Beautiful before.

“Do you? I’m sorry, I don't remember you."

“I'm sure we’ve met before...perhaps another life?"

I saw a smile enter his forest green eyes and had a flash of a very old memory...being in a forest waiting for someone or something. The image was so strong that I jumped back from him. I found myself mumbling like an idiot some excuse that I had to go back to my office. Then I rudely turned away from him and hurried toward my building. I heard him call out to me, but I was too afraid to turn back.

I was out of breath by the time I closed the door to my office and fell into my chair kicking myself for the way I acted. When he walked up to me as if he knew me, and smiled at me with those sexy deep forest green eyes--yes, I was still a sucker for green eyes--I froze. I'm thirty-six years old and I froze like an awkward teenager. What an idiot! I'm normally fine when it comes to talking to men but there was something about Mr. Beautiful and the way he looked at me that set my senses on edge...or was it my hormones? Damn, he was incredibly sexy. Anyway, nothing I could do to fix things now. I’d probably never see him again. I tried to settle back down to finish my project and eat my scone.

~~~~~~

Later that evening I finalized my plan for my meditation class the next night. It had been a long strange week, starting with the Lemp party, the entity dream, and the guy on campus, and--oh shit--the guy. Could he possibly be the entity come to life? Was that why he was familiar?