Chapter 1 

Whipping up my most professional smile, I try and convince the woman in front of me that I’ve been talking to her dead son this entire time. You see, I can talk to the dead, and this is how I make my living - I convene with these spirits on the behalf of others, and they pay me to do it.

One slight problem: I’m a charlatan. Yep. I’m just your average guy. Totally normal, nothing weird about me at all. Nothing other than the fact that I con innocent people out of their money, persuading them to pay me for literally nothing.

“What did my son say? Does he- does he miss me?” The woman asks as she chokes back a sob. This kind of thing used to make me feel bad, made me feel like the dick that I really am. But now? Well, I’ve been doing this job for bloody ages at this point so I’ve seen it all. And I don’t really care anymore, I’ll be honest.

“He misses you greatly, ma’am. He asked me to ask you to visit him soon, he feels lonely without you there,” I say convincingly, like I actually care about the crying woman in front of me.

She leans forwards, grabbing my hands and holding them tightly. I try and suppress my grimace; this is all part of the job. “Thank you so much, Spiritualist Johanneson, I am so grateful to have had this chance to speak with my beloved son again!” 

I pat her hands, extricating mine from her grasp and smiling cordially. “Of course, come back any time,” I tell her despite hoping that I never see her again. As soon as she leaves, I flip the sign on my shop door to closed and draw the weird curtain over it. 

The whole aesthetic of my shop is ~weird and mystical~ and it always seems to make people think that I’m more legit. Which I’m really not. I mean I’m just a guy in a room with some incense burning in the corner and some rocks on the bookshelves. 

Obviously all the books are about ghosts and shit, the paranormal, the things I pretend to convene with for a living. People only believe any of this bullshit I pull because my ancestors, back along back along, were supposedly actually legit.

And I do sort of believe in ghosts, I’m certain that my mother could see them. It’s just that…I can’t. So what’s the next best thing? Pretend that I can see them, obviously.

Trudging up to my room, I close the door and take off my ‘spiritualist’ clothes which are literally just random pieces of fabric I found in charity shops and some beaded necklaces and bracelets. Now that I’m off the job, I can wear what I really want to - a black hoodie and jeans

I’m a style icon, I know.

Flopping down on my face, I let out a groan. I kind of wish I had a different career, I mean aside from the moralities of scamming people for a living, I spend literally all day trying to make enough money to keep my shop, and it’s really not that easy to keep up my act.

Sometimes I imagine what it’d be like to have a totally normal career like my sister, the well-respected prosecutor. And then I think about our weird family and how my mother desperately wanted to talk to the ghost of our father, but apparently his was the only one she never managed to work out a way to convene with.

Eventually I heave myself up off the bed to go run a nice bubble bath. I like my water super hot to a point where it feels like my skin is tingling and kind of painful, but hey it’s weirdly satisfying to get in a scalding bath and then feel myself get used to it.

Kind of weird I know, but I’m literally a fake ghost-talker. So. The expectations are already extremely low.

Tying my black hair up in a bun, I grab a shower cap and secure my hair inside it. Because the problem with having waist-long hair is that it takes fucking forever to dry. Or wash. Or anything. It’s a bloody nuisance but I look hot with long hair and it adds to my authenticity with the whole spiritualist thing anyway, for some reason.

I cut my hair once, and that whole year I got way fewer customers, so. It must be a hair thing.

Letting out a relaxed sigh, I lean back in the bath, letting the water cascade across me. And then suddenly a massive splash has my eyes shooting open and I scream.

I don’t normally scream, I don’t really get scared. But I was just trying to have a nice and relaxing bubble bath, and now there’s somehow a guy in my bath.

I keep screaming and sitting perfectly still in the bath as the guy thrashes around for a moment before quickly throwing himself at the side of the bath and falling out onto the bathmat. 

Finally I stop screaming when I have to actually take a moment to breathe, and I just watch in mute horror as some vampirical-looking dude stands up coughing and spluttering, his hair and skin as white as porcelain beneath his white shirt and white trousers.

Weird fashion choice but ok.

He stops choking on nothing and glances over at me before completely freezing, and I finally regain the ability to move. So I chuck my bar of soap at him.

And it goes right fucking through him.

I start screaming again, and this time? The guy is also screaming. He keeps touching his chest where the soap went right through him before he locks eyes with me and yells “what the fuck did your soap do to me?!” 

My screaming stops for long enough that I am able to throw a bottle of conditioner at him- it sails right through his groin this time, which was pretty deliberate actually - I wanted to make sure that if he somehow did materialise, I’d get a good shot in.

Sadly, the result is instead that my favourite conditioner whacks into the wall behind him and the cap comes off, leaving a nice mess of my conditioner on the floor.

Standing up, utterly outraged, I don’t even care about the fact that I’m naked and covered in bubbles - this guy should consider himself lucky for getting to see me in all my naked glory because I’m the god damn sexy ok?! - anyway, I stand up, anger and fury and a little bit of pride bubbling through my veins when bath-guy checks me out for a moment and then I’m all anger and fury again as I climb out of the bath and jab my finger against his chest.

“You wasted my FUCKING CONDITIONER! It was my goddamn FAVOURITE one you absolute PENIS!”