Chapter Eleven:

Why must she be so rude, I wondered to myself as I wondered around on the astral

plane. It's a fairly quiet place. It looks kind of like a big white room that stretches on forever in all directions. Other ghosts come around, and we talk about other ghosts and the living, particularly the mediators.

Tonight, there was a man there, I had no idea who he was. He was the type of

ghost I was: the kind who had become a ghost because he'd died unjustly, but had never moved on because he simply liked to watch the living.

"You like the little mediator girl don't you?" He said as soon as I appeared on the plane.

"Well, of course I don't dislike her," I said.

"That's not what I meant, sonny boy," he said chuckling. He'd been in his late fifties when he'd died when his truck jackknifed during a snowstorm, He'd once told me. What he'd meant, I don't know, but I think he was referring to an automobile accident. I thought it was kind of ironic that he'd refer to me as 'sonny boy' when I was technically older than he was.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," I said.

"You're sweet on her, aren't you?" he said.

"I still do not understand." I was really confused.

"You like her as in you almost love her. I mean, if you hang around her some

more, you probably will love her," he said. He was smiling.

I liked Susannah. I could not love her. That would have been wrong.

"I can't love her. I'm dead. She's alive."

"But you do, and you can. I love my daughter. She loves me," he said.

"But your daughter can't see you, as Susannah can see me. Besides, I told

her father I did not have any dishonorable intentions toward her," I said. I

sighed.

"Is loving a person dishonorable?" He asked, but he did not leave me time to

answer his question. Instead, he left me alone to think on his question.

Was loving a person dishonorable? It was dishonorable for me to love Susannah

because in the unlikely event she felt the same, it would prevent her from leading a normal life, or so it seemed to me. It wouldn't be wise to stay around her, but she needed my help.

I didn't know who this Red person was, but I knew that he wasn't who she thought he was.

I had heard her ask her friend Cee Cee who was named Red, and Cee Cee and Adam had

told her about a man, an older man, who owned some sort of business managing

property. It didn't make sense that he would have not killed someone, but think that he had anyway.

Susannah, however, seemed to think that he was the man she was looking for.

I knew she was going to be in more trouble later on. Even her father had tried

to tell her that the realtor was not the right man, that it was someone else,

yet she refused to listen.

If she refused to listen to her father, who would she listen to? Certainly not

I.