A thousand bees buzzed in my ears. A curtain of darkness snuffed out the light.

Hours or seconds passed. Time had no meaning, and what did time matter anyway? Davina had been inside me when she crossed over, and something had gone very, very wrong. She’d killed me. Or worse.

Was there something worse? I wasn’t sure.

And where was the light? Wasn’t I supposed to go into the light when I died?

I drifted through endless night until a sound penetrated the darkness.

“Hello, my darling girl.”

I recognized a voice I never expected to hear again.

“Grammie Dupree? Am I dead?”

“Not exactly.” My grandmother chuckled.

“What do you mean not exactly? I’m asking you a yes or no question. Am I dead or alive?”

“What do you think?”

I’d have sighed if I could still feel my body. Not being able to set my mind racing. “I think if you’re here, I must be dead or dying. Did you come to help me cross over?”

“Not exactly.” In life, Grammie Dupree never used two words when she could fit in ten, so these brief answers were out of character. Or maybe not. Maybe people changed when they died and went into the light. I guessed I’d probably find out soon enough. Except, now that I thought of it, there was a hint of stronger emotion in her tone.

“What, then?” Panic suggested the faint scent of brimstone. “Am I not welcome on the other side? I’ve helped a lot of ghosts find their way there. Seems like that should buy me a ticket through the veil, and I’m not a bad person.”

The comfort of her presence surrounded me like a hug. “Of course, you’re not a bad person, but this wasn’t supposed to happen. I came back because what’s happened to you is all my fault, but I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen. It’s not your time. You have to go back.”

“Happy to.” I still couldn’t see her or anything else, but the darkness felt less like a weight on my soul now. “Tell me how.”

She hesitated so long I wondered if she’d gone.

“Are you there? What’s the deal with my body?” I explained that the last thing I remembered was helping Davina hug her long-lost son right before she’d crossed over and dragged me into purgatory or wherever this was. My body could be on the inn’s kitchen floor or in the morgue, or anywhere in between, depending on how much time had passed. “Davina’s gone, right? I remember her telling me it was time, then there was screaming. I’m a little hazy on the details after that.”

“She’s gone, but there’s a trial coming,” came the cryptic reply, followed by, “Forgive me, love, but it’s time to wake up.” Grammie Dupree snapped her fingers, and I did. Sort of.

My eyes popped open. I was still in the inn’s kitchen, but not on the floor. Several feet away, Jason still stood right where he’d been, with his arms around his mother. Well, technically, his arms were around my body where his mother had just been, but she wasn’t there anymore, which was, I supposed, the good news of the day.

“Thank you.” Jason hugged me hard. “You have no idea the gift you’ve given me. I feel like I’ve been reborn.”

I heard myself say something soothing and saw myself pat him on the back. It took me a moment or two to realize I was watching all of this happen from the outside. Another moment passed before the implications set in, and still, one more before I realized who was in my body.

My father always said I had his mother’s eyes. This was taking that to the next level.

Stunned, I watched while my grandmother assured Jason it had been her pleasure to help and made excuses to leave. Without my having to prompt her, she asked him to keep quiet about what we’d just done for him. “People would talk. People in this town always talk. It might not be good for either of us if they do.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Jason agreed, and we left him standing over his pastry table with a sad smile on his face but also with peace in his soul.

Outside, after a somewhat shaky walk across the lobby, Grammie Dupree closed the door behind her and leaned back against it for a few seconds to get her bearings.

“That was….interesting,” she deadpanned, then pulled herself together and opened my purse. “I need a hanky.”

“There’s a napkin in my coat pocket,” I answered helpfully. She hesitated briefly, then closed the purse and tested both pockets before pulling out the napkin to blow her nose. Had she heard me tell her where to look? I couldn’t be certain. She didn’t say anything to me as she walked down the steps, but I noticed her hands shaking as I followed her to the car, where Drew waited.

I hadn’t had nearly enough time to process my new reality, so I wasn’t thinking straight when I reached for the door handle and lost my balance when my hand went right through. Time slowed to a snail’s pace as my face passed through the door, then the seat, and I wondered if I might fall all the way through the car, the entire earth, and keep right on going. Maybe I was just the worst ghost to ever live. Or die. Or not die, or whatever it was I had done.

To my great surprise, I did not fall through the earth because my thoughts distracted me long enough for my subconscious to impose itself on my altered reality. I ended up on my hands and knees with my head sticking out through the floorboard.

“If you’re quite finished flinging yourself around, get in, and we’ll chat with your young man. Unless you think we shouldn’t tell him. I could pretend to be you.”

“You can see me, then. That’s comforting, I guess. No, we’re not keeping secrets from Drew. Just tell him what happened.” The sooner, the better, because I wanted to hear the rest of the story, too.

The key to interacting with the regular world was to forget I wasn’t part of it. My second attempt to get in the car ended with me in a near approximation of a seated position. Close enough, anyway.

“Everything go okay?” Drew leaned in for a kiss and was surprised when Grammie Dupree held up a hand to stop him.

“Not exactly,” she said. He settled back but kept his body angled toward hers. Mine. This was really weird. She echoed my thoughts. “There’s a story to tell, and it’s a dilly. You’d better prepare yourself, young man.”

Drew cocked an eyebrow at the term. “Young man?”

In a gesture I remembered from childhood, she waggled a pointed finger at him. My memory superimposed the shape of her fingers over mine. “Take me home. Please.”

Now both of Drew’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you okay? Did you bump your head or something?” He leaned closer to inspect, but she pushed him away. His voice carried a slight echo, but hers didn’t. Again, weird day.

“Or something,” she agreed. “This may be hard to believe, but there was a slight mishap, and now we have a dilemma on our hands.” She pronounced it die-lemma. Freudian slip?

Since Drew hadn’t cared whether or not Davina put an end to my ghost-seeing ability, he kept his face carefully blank while trying to gauge my current mood. “The door? It’s still open?”

I wanted to hear the answer as much as he did.

Grammie swiveled in her seat to look me in the eye as she answered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause such a fuss.”

“You call this a fuss?” I fired up. “It’s not a fuss. A fuss is something minor. This is not minor. This is major. It’s the ghostly grandmother version of Freaky Friday, and I want my body back.” I had never spoken to my grandmother with such disrespect and half-regretted it immediately. But only half.

“Who are you talking to?” Drew wanted to know, but his gaze passed right over me when he looked into the back seat. “I left you alone for half an hour. Even you can’t have run across another body that quickly.”

“That was harsh,” I muttered. But fair. Grammie Dupree found the comment amusing.

“No. That would have been easier. We should probably have this conversation when you’re sitting down.”

“I am sitting down,” Drew quirked a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Even the most patient man in the world has his limits.

“Not here. Take us home.”

“Okay.” Drew dropped the shifter into reverse and hit the gas, leaving me sitting in midair while he backed out from under me. So far, in my opinion, things on this side of the veil sucked.

“Stop.” I heard her yell, then saw the car rock a little as he jammed on the brakes. “Pull forward again.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. I’ll explain later.”

Drew whacking the car into drive and pulling back in beneath me didn’t improve my mood, nor did the peal of her laughter at my expense.

“I fail to see the humor in this situation,” I sat scowling while Drew simply stared at her.

“Sorry. It’s okay. You can go now.” To me, she said, “Stop thinking so much. Just let things happen naturally.”

I’ll give her credit for attempting to contain her mirth. She was about as successful as the Arch Deluxe served with a glass of New Coke, but she tried, and she was my beloved grandmother, so I let it go. In the process of deciding to be the better ghost, I realized the car was moving, and so was I.

One problem down. A million or two to go. Did I mention how weird it was to see my body doing things I had no control over? Still, with the strange turns my life had taken since my divorce, I thought I was bearing the strain pretty well. Go me.

“That’s home.” I pointed and accidentally poked my hand through the seat. “I bought Catherine Willowby’s house when I moved back to town.”

“You think I don’t know that? Been watching over you since the day you were born, wasn’t stopping just because I died.”

The knowledge warmed my heart. Or the blank space where my heart used to be.

“Know what? Watching who? You’re not making sense.” Drew pulled into the driveway and dropped the shifter into park.

Unable to help myself, I reached for him, then flinched when he shivered.

“Inside,” Grammie’s mirth had subsided. “I’ll tell you everything.”