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I considered him, narrowing my eyes. After the incident at Shrine Hill, I’d learned my eyes betrayed me—and that ghosts might be real. Or they might be someone, like me, who somehow managed to get a little out of sync with the rest of reality.
I needed to ask my parents about what I had seen versus what my camera had seen.
A lot didn’t add up.
The man grinned at me, his mouth a bit lopsided while he regarded me with soft eyes. “I moved. I work in the morgue, so when I see someone new come around, I warn them about the park. The ghosts are picky about who they let into their turf, and I’d rather you not end up at the hospital being treated for a haunting.”
“I haven’t been in Dragon Heights all that long, and it’s my first time here,” I admitted, and I eyed the park. “What, exactly, is a haunting? How is it treated?”
“I’m Dr. Anstino. I’m one of the coroners. I handle suspicious deaths for this ward. The hospital has a coffee shop open to the public. Why don’t we have a drink? I’m on break, and I’d rather talk about ghosts and hauntings than glare at the work piling up on my desk.”
As cops needed to have good relationships with coroners—and a coroner might be able to answer some of my odder questions—I refused to look the gift horse in the mouth. “I’d love a coffee. It can be my treat for you taking the time to tell me about Death Mile.”
“This way.” The coroner pointed at the main entrance of the hospital, and sure enough, I saw a sign for a coffee shop displayed in the window. “Masks are required if you go beyond the entrance of the coffee shop, but you don’t need one in the shop. The gift store is next door, and you can take your drink in, just be careful not to spill anything. You break it, you buy it.”
“Any crystals?”
“There are some, yes. I can show you. Are you into crystals?”
“No, but my carbunclo is.”
“Ah. I’ve heard of you. Kinsley, right?”
“Yes, I’m Kinsley.”
“I can’t help but notice your kitten is not with you.”
Great. The rumor mill would label me as an abuser of all carbunclo kind if I didn’t put the brakes on his poor assumptions. “My kitten is a little traitor, and Tourmaline joined in. They have decided the Ramonses are the most interesting dragons in the city, and they were invited to go on a shopping adventure. I was told I could go or not go as I wanted, and I decided to flee in the exact opposite direction to get a few hours of peace and quiet before doing my grocery shopping and heading home. I’d like Garnet to have a little independence, and as she showed interest in the shopping venture, I thought it was a good idea. While they’re a little abrupt, the Ramonses seem like a decent sort. Well, when they aren’t trying to kill each other. But if I went with them, they’d buy more things, and I don’t want them to buy more things.” It took no effort on my part to stare at the coroner with wide, imploring eyes. “I hope I don’t lose my kitten and hummingbird to them.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t worry about your pets with them watching them. I’m glad to see that you have an understanding of carbunclo. Yes, you’re right—she does need independence, and teaching her that she’s allowed to make decisions for herself is excellent at her age. They do quite value their freedom. I’m sure the Ramonses can handle caring for a carbunclo and a hummingbird. I wasn’t aware you have a hummingbird, however.”
“I’ve been told Tourmaline is my familiar. He is a true creation that happened during the last rain. Garnet was playing outside when it hit, and I didn’t want her to get hurt, so I retrieved her and took her inside.”
“How fascinating.” Dr. Anstino joined the line to get coffee, which was six people deep. The coffee shop bustled, as did the gift shop next door. “The answer to your question is a complicated one, and it involves understanding the states of the human psyche. For the sake of this discussion, I mean conscious, semiconscious, subconscious, and unconscious. Scholars debate about whether there are more states than this, but in terms of hauntings, these are the core states. Conscious is your current, regular state. Unconscious is a state of sleep. Semiconscious and subconscious are where the hauntings tend to damage people. View a haunting as the energy of a spirit infecting your semiconscious and subconscious states. Treating a haunting, on the surface, is a simple matter of extracting the spirit of the deceased from someone’s semiconscious or subconscious state. For reasons we’ve yet determined, unconscious and conscious states are uninfluenced by spirits.”
“A haunting can only happen when someone is in a daze or may not be aware they’re doing something?” I asked in an attempt to understand what, precisely, the man was going on about.
“That’s a good way to think about it. Have you ever done something by habit? You’re so used to doing it that it just happens without you putting any thought into it? That’s when a spirit can get a foothold within someone. Hauntings damage someone’s ability to develop new habits, as the spirit has taken over that portion of the psyche. It also bars people from being able to make use of the habits they’ve learned. It’s quite the problem. Purple dragons are the best at ejecting haunting spirits, but we have ways of correcting the problem with medicines.”
I struggled to imagine life without being able to develop or use habits. “That sounds awful.”
“It is. Fortunately, it’s easy to identify. The sufferer changes rather drastically. Subconscious and semiconscious behavior is a critical part of someone’s identity and existence.”
The line moved with surprising speed, and Dr. Anstino ordered his usual. I pointed at a sugary and creamy monstrosity of a coffee displayed on the board and asked for the largest size the barista would give me. She laughed and promised she’d take care of me. I held out my card, told her I was paying for the doctor’s, and navigated the perilous waters of the transaction terminal with tolerable grace.
“Thank you,” the coroner said.
I grinned at him while we went to join the line of those waiting for their coffees. “You’re welcome. I appreciate you teaching me about the hauntings. I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”
“Dragon Heights is a city of magic, and where magic pools, strange things can happen. One of those strange things involves the dead. I’ve been trying to find out why the rate of hauntings has increased lately. I’ve been recommending that they close the park for a few months now, but until the hospital codes due to too many haunting patients, nobody is willing to take my concern seriously. Everyone agrees the hauntings is a problem, mind you, but it’s not a problem enough yet to warrant closing the park.”
I could understand why the powers that be in charge of the city wouldn’t want to close the park. “It’s a known entity. Let’s say the park is closed. Wouldn’t the hauntings just move to unexpected places, then? The spirits aren’t bound specifically to the park, are they? It’s just a pleasant place next door—and wouldn’t a spirit want to go to a pleasant place?”
Dr. Anstino considered me through narrowed eyes, and then his expression brightened with his smile. “You’re clever. That is a possibility that has been discussed—and that possibility is the one reason I hold my peace. Yes, there absolutely is a chance the hauntings might move to unexpected locations and make the diagnosis process more difficult.”
“Is something making the hauntings more frequent?”
“That’s the million dollar question. I’m sure there is. But what? That I can’t tell you. We’ve been arguing about it for months. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before.”