I was walking toward the door to leave the room.” Cope was out of his seat and walking toward Jude, who was leaning against the wall in the hallway just outside the door. Cope walked all the way into his and Jude’s bedroom, but didn’t hear the clicking of the keys.
“What’s your plan now?” Jude asked as Cope walked back toward him.
“I’m going to write.” Cope was getting a bit annoyed at Jude. He knew his husband was trying to be helpful, but the fact that he couldn’t directly communicate with this spirit was getting on his nerves.
Jude reached for his hand. “Not everyone wants to be helped.” Seriousness resonated in his dark eyes. “It goes for people. I guess it stands to reason the same would be true for spirits. Isn’t that the definition of a poltergeist? A troublesome spirit?”
Cope bobbed his head in a brief nod. Jude had this uncanny way of hitting the nail on the head when his own emotions were threatening to boil over. “Thanks.”
“You know I believe in you. If this spirit doesn’t want to talk to you, it’s not your fault. You’re opening yourself up to help, and if that help isn’t wanted, then we’re done. The typewriter can go right into the trash and we’ll be done with it. I’ll buy you a brand-new laptop. One with all the bells and whistles.” Jude winked.
It was Jude’s wink that had caught him off guard. Jude, in his conversational way, was telling the spirit it was time to put up or shut up. Cope had to admit the strategy was brilliant.
“Did I ever tell you I had a typewriter similar to this one when I was a boy?” Cope felt wistful just thinking about the gift from his mother.
“No. you didn’t.”
Cope loved the nostalgia the machine brought to him, but even he understood how hard it would be to work with a hand-typed manuscript. “I guess it was silly of me to think I could recreate those happy feelings from my childhood with a machine.” He rolled his eyes dramatically.
Setting his fingers on the home row, Cope started to type. He was retelling the story of when his mother gave him a typewriter of his own. His father had been against Cope becoming anything other than his heir-apparent in the family natural gas business, but Elizabeth always knew what her son needed most. Cope hoped he would have that same innate parenting gift with Wolf.
Just like the other nights he’d banged away on this machine, Cope’s emotions started rising to the top. His mother would have been nuts for Wolf. Thinking about her having the chance to hold his son sent the tears cascading down his cheeks. He pulled the page from the machine and inserted a fresh one.
Cope got up from the desk so fast, he banged his knee against the drawer. Jude was nowhere to be seen. Maybe that was for the best. The spirit had appeared previously when it was only him in the room, maybe that would happen again.
Only a few steps from the hallway, the door slammed shut. Cope froze in his steps. He didn’t turn around, instead staying completely still. Just as it had the last time, the ghost writer started to type.
Click. Click. Click. Ping!
This time, Cope turned and walked back to the typewriter. The words slowed but did not stop. From where he was standing, Cope could see the words on the page were the lyrics to Amazing Grace.
Cope scanned his mind for what he knew about the song. It had been written by a ship owner who’d served in the slave trade and converted to Christianity after a brush with death on rough seas.
“Were you a slave?” Cope asked louder than was necessary. Jude was going to be worried with the way the door had slammed. He didn’t want his husband charging in and scaring the spirit away.
The lyrics kept appearing on the page.
“A clergyman?” This guess made more sense. After all, a man of God would know the lyrics to all of the songs the ghost writer was typing.
The letters struck the paper harder. To Cope, the strokes almost seemed angry.
Okay, maybe not a man of God, but someone who was hurt by a man who was. The revelation made Cope’s breath catch in his throat. “Were you molested by a priest?” He sent a silent prayer to heaven this wasn’t the case.
The typing stopped abruptly. It felt as if the air had been