The Long Way Home by Karen McQuestion Page A

door to the restaurant opened and closed and a middle-aged couple came out laughing. The woman said, “Stop it. I already said you were right.” She playfully slapped his arm. “What more do you want?” Jazzy would have liked to hear the answer, but the couple had their backs to them now and they were heading toward their car; his response was muffled.
    “So,” Marnie asked, slowly, “if I wanted to communicate with someone specific, someone dead I mean, could you like, call them up?”
    Jazzy shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. It’s more like I get messages out of the blue. It almost always happens when I’m not expecting it. I’ll get a thought in my head that’s not mine, or I get an impression of something.”
    Marnie said, “So can you actually see the person, or is it like a hologram?”
    Jazzy sighed. How to explain this? “You know how sometimes at the grocery store you’ll be holding a box of something, maybe checking the ingredients or reading the label?” When Marnie nodded she continued. “And out of the corner of your eye you see someone approach, maybe a woman pushing a cart? You might even move to make room for her to pass. If someone were to question you about the woman later, you could give a general description—female, age range, maybe an idea of her size, whether or not she was in a hurry, or whatever. But you couldn’t really say exactly what she looked like. It was more of an impression.”
    “That’s what it’s like for you?” Marnie looked fascinated.
    “Pretty much. And when I get messages it’s like the person whispered something as they went by. I usually only get like seventy percent of it, and most of the time I don’t even know what it means or what I’m supposed to do with it.”
    “Wow.”
    “And some of the dead people are so persistent. They get frustrated with me when I can’t figure it out, so they keep coming back, and back, and back.” She rolled her eyes at the thought. So many times she wished it would all go away. It would be so nice to curl up with a good book or take a nap without being interrupted. Having no control over her private time was frustrating. Closing doors didn’t keep them out. Nothing did.
    “How often does this happen?”
    Jazzy tilted her head and considered. “At least once a week. Sometimes every day.”
    “Maybe it’s not such a cool thing after all,” Marnie said.
    “It’s not always so bad,” Jazzy said. “Sometimes I help people. Once I saw a woman eating at the food court at the mall and I kept hearing, ‘Tell her to check the inside pocket. Tell her to check the inside pocket,’ and I knew it was connected to this quilted bag she had sitting on the table. I went up to her and said I liked her purse, where could I buy one, and she said I couldn’t buy it, her mother had made it. She said her mother was a quilter and very talented seamstress and it was the last thing she made before she passed away. I told her I wanted to make one like it, did it have an inside pocket, and she said yes, but she didn’t use it because it was in an inconvenient place.”
    She had Marnie’s full attention now. “Then what happened?” Marnie said.
    “I asked if I could see the pocket. She was starting to think I was loony, I think, but she opened the purse and showed me this zippered pocket way at the bottom of the bag. I said, oh that would be the perfect place to hide something valuable. When I said that, her expression changed but she didn’t say anything. I thanked her and went back to my table and pretended to eat my sweet potato fries, but I kept sneaking peeks in her direction.”
    “And then she looked in the pocket,” Marnie said.
    “Yep. And she pulled out a ring,” Jazzy said. “Her face lit up like you wouldn’t believe.”
    “And you never told her how you knew?”
    “Oh no,” Jazzy said, drawing back in horror. “I’ve had bad luck with that. If I had told her, she would have thought I was crazy