For thirty long years I’ve lived with this curse.

The house was in a pretty nice neighborhood, by the standards of the area, upper middle class might have been an understatement in regards to it. Still, there was something vaguely off putting about it that I couldn’t find words for. It just seemed… cold somehow. Anwyn was either unbothered by this or expecting it as she just walked right up to the door and rang the bell.

The woman who answered the door was in her early fifties if I had to guess (my guess was off by about ten years, I was later able to discover thanks to her files), and although she must have been a looker when she was younger and could probably clean up nice now if she gave it some effort with professionally maintained blonde hair and probably a body by Mentor (the biggest silicone breast implant manufacturer in the US), the only real signs of age on her being a couple crows feet and the dark circles around her eyes that made it pretty clear that she had not been on good terms with sleep for some time.

“Ms. Stern?”

“Call me Dot young lady. You from The Company? Here about my Ed?”

“Yes ma’am. Anwyn Peters, and this is my associate Miles Donne.”

After we’d gotten in and Ms. Stern had offered us some refreshments (Anwyn had refused, I accepted a cup of coffee), my new partner started asking questions. I just kinda kept my mouth shut and tried to look like I knew what she was talking about.

“Our records show that my previous partner, River, had measures in place to ameliorate any activity by unwanted visitors, and I can see that those measures are still in place, so unless there has been some change in the variables surrounding their functionality they should still be working. Ms. Stern, has there been a change in variables?”

Yeah, she said more in that breath than she had since I came in for training.

“I don’t know… I haven’t varied my routine all that much. I can’t think of what could be causing all this.”

“Why don’t you run through your average day and we’ll see if we can’t find a trigger?”

She started describing the hat I can only call the average day of someone who has no real responsibilities. “… and then there’s the Daughters of the American Revolution meeting on Thursdays, but Monday and Friday I go to the club for a tennis lesson. There’s a new pro there, and he’s just painfully dreamy. Doesn’t mind an old lady like me. Why, we’ve had two dates already! Can you imagine? I haven’t looked at another man in the three months since Ed-”

“Hold up. When did the activity pick up?”

“Oh, about two weeks ago,” her face fell, “right after my first date with Wayne. Does this mean that that was the trigger?”

“Hard to say, but that sounds like a pretty good jumping off point. If it’s ok with you, Ms. Stern… Dot, my associate and I will need to spend the night here, and by morning you should have no more trouble from your visitor. Miles, if you would assist me with the equipment we can get settled in.” Without waiting for a response, She turned to exit leaving me to flash Ms. Stern an embarrassed grin and a shrug before I hurried after her.

I caught her by the van unloading those heavy hard cases, and picking one up I looked right at her. “So… any chance of translating all of that gobbledygook to English?”

“What? What didn’t you understand?”

“How about ‘all of it’?”

She sighed in exasperation, but steadying herself, she turned to look at me. “Ok, here’s the most simplistic way I think I can relay. Ed Stern had a horrible car accident a little over three months ago. A couple days after the funeral, shit started moving around the house on its own. My old partner River did a service call here and it all stopped until Ms. Stern got herself a boy toy. Now Big Ed is back and making life hell for Dotty. Our job is to edit River’s wards so Ed can rest peacefully and Dot can still get her freak on. Capisce?”

I don’t like the word ‘gobsmacked’, but it was kinda the appropriate descriptor for my reaction to that. “Wait, so that thing about poltergeists in the interview was… it wasn’t just you being cute and quirky? You were serious?”

Her reaction was almost on par with my incredulity. “So, are you saying that you don’t have experience with the supernatural?” She looked like she was ready to burst into tears. “The ad in the paper wasn’t supposed to even be visible to anyone but a high level initiate! How the fuck did you find it if you don’t even know that ghosts are real?”

I just shrugged while my internal debate raged on vis a vis the merits of dropping the two cases I was carrying and running away as quickly as I could. That, of course, was when she actually started crying.

Well shit.

(Title: “Fucked With An Anchor” by Alestorm)