"How's Samuel?" She asked trying not to get bogged down in discussing costumes with her mother.
"He's the same as always. Goes out, messes around in the garden, finds activities to keep him busy."
She nodded. "Is he out there now ?"
"Yes," her mother said.
She nodded again. "Mom, are you happy?"
"Define 'happy', sweetie."
"Typical lawyer answer!" She thought. "Ugh!!" She smiled through it. "Being in a state where you enjoy the day to day activities you're involved with."
Her mother shrugged.
"Maybe I got it from both of them!" She thought.
"Sweetie, I think I'm happy. Samuel is a good companion. I still work a few days a week. We have the vacation homes. In my free time I can keep a perfect home." She ran her fingers over the pristine white coach and massaged the shag carpet with her toes, also white.
"Mom, I'm glad." She smiled. Looking around, she realized how white the living room was. "So Samuel has been a good replacement for dad?"
Her mom laughed. "He's present a lot more often than your father."
She nodded.
"It was always hard with him being gone so much. I had my practice of course, then when we had you, he stayed on the road doing his consultant work. I told him I made enough to support us, but he had this need to travel, to be gone."
"But he always called and sent letters."
Her mother shrugged. "He did okay with that. The letters weren't something he did. I did those so you would know he was thinking about you. He did call though, about once a week. I loved that man a really long time."
Her ears perked up. "I think I hear Samuel, does he need any help coming in?"
Her mother got up. "I'll get the door for him."
She looked down at her phone. An email from a craft store touting 30% off fabric. She got thinking about capes, despite her mother thinking they were unflattering. "Maybe they would have something that would work." She thought. Piecing together an idea for a cape that she could super heat the air beneath it allowing her to float. "Wouldn't it combust? Or melt?" She thought more.
"Samuel, No!" She heard her mother yell. In the next moment, a black Scottie dog came racing into the living room, covered in dirt and mud. He jumped all over the couch and licked her face. She laughed and petted him. "Down, Samuel." She whispered.
"Samuel, no, let's got get you washed up." Her mother came back into the living room. "Fortunately the maid will be in later."

She sat down at the cafe, taking a seat outdoors to enjoy the fall sun. Her phone buzzed, she looked down. "Great, save 20% on my car insurance. Even better news, I don't own one."
The waiter stopped by her table. "Do you teach at the college?" He must have overheard her comment.
"Grad student." She said.
He nodded. "Coffee?"
She nodded.
"Flavor?"
"Coffee flavored."
The waiter looked puzzled. He walked away.
She looked at her phone for a moment, then back up. Thinking to herself, "which is better, being mistaken for someone older or being recognized for a super hero?"
"Definitely older." She mumbled thinking, "Being seen as a super hero would be bad for family."
Her phone rang. She looked at it, sighed. "Mom."
"Hi sweetie, what's new?"
"Life."
"That's nice. Do you have some time this afternoon?"
She sighed quietly.
"I needed to talk to you about something."
"Wonderful. Let me get some coffee and I'll be along."
She could hear her mother brighten over the phone. "Oh, coffee would be delightful, see you soon."
Her coffee arrived. "Can you make it to go and a second one, same way?"
"So no flavor?"
She nodded. The waiter left.
She stared at the bill. She doubled the amount and left a little extra for tip. He came back with the coffee and she hailed a cab.

She drank her coffee on the can ride, thinking "this is how you be a super hero, drink coffee."
The cabbie was disinterested in her, listening to his music rather than engaging in conversation.
The can arrived and she got out, paying the fare and walking to her mother's door. She thought about that for a moment, she never thought of it as her door or her parent's door. She shrugged and entered. "Mom, I brought coffee."
Her mom emerged and kissed her on the cheek taking the coffee and inviting her to the living room.
"So you're a super hero..." Her mom commented, sipping her coffee and looking at her around the cup.
She shrugged.
"The neighbors' daughter's boyfriend's brother says he saw a video of you stopping crime. No, 2 videos."
She shrugged again. She laughed at herself, thinking, "oh no, I'm my father's daughter."
"Have you considered an outfit? We could sew one!" Her mom was excited, apparently.
"I thought you'd be against that, you're always trying to encourage me to be careful."
Her mom nodded. "True, but maybe this is your life's calling! You may be able to help a lot of people."
She nodded, wishing her coffee cup was not empty, pretending to drink from it so she didn't have to talk.
"But no capes!"
She looked hard at her mother. "Why no capes?"
"They aren't flattering, dear."

She stared at the coffee pot. It was on. There appeared to be water in the holding tank. It was going through the warm up cycles. The three blue circles lit up.  "Yes!" She thought. Then the blue add water light came on just as she pressed brew. She swore.
"Father, it's not nice to haunt my coffee maker, especially at this hour."
Her father appeared on her side. He looked at the coffee pot. "That isn't my doing, did you add water?"
She glared. "I has more than enough to make a cup of coffee."
"Add more." he suggested.
She took the holding tank and refilled it with water. Returning it to it's place nothing changed.
"Could it be other ghosts haunting my coffee maker?" She asked aloud.
"No." It was the witch doctor in her head.
"Unlikely." Her father answered stretching above the coach reading a pale blue newspaper.
"So newspapers really are dead." She said, a smirk on her face.
Her father nodded.
"Mom never believed you came back."
He nodded again, clearly absorbed in reading his paper. "Just like Sundays growing up." She thought.
"At least you have a dad." Her witch doctor companion commented.
"Resurrect yours and get out of my head while you're at it."
Her father nodded again.
"Can't. He got vaporized by a summoning gone wrong." Rafael, the witch doctor replied.
She nodded gravely. Then slammed her hand down on the counter next to the coffee pot. "Work!" She commanded.
The coffee maker was unfazed.
She got her coat and huffed out the door. "You two stay here."

"Pearly Gates, huh?" She sounded skeptical.
"Don't think your old man is worthy of that?" He grinned that big silly grin that always made her smile.
She shook her head, enthralled by his story, like she was a little kid again hearing his tales of adventure, many were even more outlandish than this one.
"So I died, then I was floating up above the world. It was like I was floating into the bright light. It was dazzling. My thoughts kept jumping back to you though and the orb. I started hearing the old man's voice repeating how the orb had to leave this plane and go back albeit briefly to the next plane."
She nodded.
"It struck me as I was floating toward the heavens that I had left the orb on my person, then I reached into my coat pocket and voila, there it was!"
She was still listening.
"I made my way over to the place where souls seem to collect after their lives ended and they could move on. I saw my parents and several friends that were deceased. It was nice for that moment, but it all felt wrong. They say around sipping tea. It felt very posh to me, but I was never one to be posh."
"Truly you don't even know the meaning of the word." She laughed.
He shrugged and continued on. "It was nice enough, but something was missing in my life and realized I needed to see my little girl again and give her the present I'd held onto for those few years." He held up a pamphlet that depicted a stick figure and what she assumed were gates, also a cup of tea.
She nodded. "Very posh indeed."
He sighed, slightly deflated, the pamphlet faded. "Really, it was about missing you. I know I was never around during your childhood and I felt so incredibly guilty that I had to stay."
"Thank you."
"All those years traveling and being away, I know that you liked the presents and the phone calls, but do you still have any of that crap I drug home from my trips?"
She shook her head. "Probably still at mom's."
He nodded. "Good place for it."
"She never did forgive you."
"I know."
"When you died, she took me to see your body at the hospital. You were the first person I saw who was dead. You know what's weird, you were like a doll, sort of just a body with no trace that life had ever been there. When the auntie passed and grandma, it was like they were dead, but you could see a trace where they had been in those bodies. Do souls leave residue?"
He shrugged.
"Well? You left your body did it ever seem like you lost part of yourself there?"
"No, it was more like I knew I had died, right, but then I came to and the world was different. I went for a walk and tried to talk to people, but they didn't see me. So I walked home. When my hand passed through the front door without touching it, I knew that I was dead."
"So no 'idiot's guide to being a ghost'?"
He shook his head. "Certainly not. I had to figure it all out on my own. For a few days I just sort of lingered around the porch, watching you go to school and coming home. That's when it hit me that maybe I could try to talk to you."
"And give me the orb."
"Yes. I had forgotten about it. Somehow it did transition with me. I wasn't really sure what it did. When I handed it to you, I heard a voice explain it's power. So I was then able to tell you. Pretty cool, huh?"
She laughed. "Yes, very cool. It has been nice that you've stayed." She looked down for a moment.
"Daughter?" He asked.
She looked up, a tear was forming in her eye. "Will you leave again?"
Her father shrugged. "I don't know. Ghosts don't exactly have a code or anything to follow."
"What about the ones we saw in New Orleans?"
He shrugged again.
"Some of them were really old!"
"Yes and met untimely ends." The voice of the witch doctor popped into her head.
She sighed.
Her father looked puzzled.
"The witch doctor." She explained to her father.
"Great! Put him on speaker!" Her father had a big grin.
"What? Does it work that way?" She asked.
She imagined the dreadlocks shaking back and forth and a laugh came from behind them.

She returned home, her head was spinning. Sitting on the edge of the bed, the neglected suitcase behind her, she stared at the wall. "Father." She said.
"Daughter." He replied, not in the alarm clock but floating before her looking as regal as usual.
"Tell me about the orb. Where did you get it?"
He smiled and began to unravel his tale.

It was during the times when I was a traveling consultant. I took a business trip to New York, it was snowing and cold. As luck would have it I was at a bar drinking.
"I thought you didn't drink." She interrupted.
I don't drink now, probably that's what caused my heart attack. In those days of traveling I went to many a bar. That bar in particular was near China Town.
I came out of the bar that evening, I thought to hail a cab, but instead tottered off down the block. The lights were beautiful all yellow and red.
I stopped in at an antique shop. There was this little old man there, he had lots of crazy things.
"Gremlins."
No, not gremlins, this actually happened. He didn't have any animals, none alive at least. I poked around his store for a while.
Something caught my eye, a little wooden chest, it was old, really old, and it stood out because it wasn't colorful like the rest of his artifacts.
I picked it up, looked it over. It appeared to actually be old, no "made in China" on this one.
I opened it and was blinded by the orb, it was like sunlight suddenly lit up that store. I snapped it closed quick and went to talk to the old man who ran the store. It made me think of you, daughter, and how you were the shining point of my life.
He looked at her and smiled, she was blushing.
So then I was talking to him, he was really old, maybe two-hundred years. I asked him how much it was. He told me it wasn't for sale.
I said, "but the sign out front says everything for sale."
He shook his head. "No, it not for sale, it a gift. I can see on your face who it for, you wait until you gone to give it to her."
"Gone?" I said.
He nodded gravely, "after you die, you give it to her. It has to pass back through the vale to be in this world again."
I didn't believe him, I took it, left him a hundred dollar bill and walked out.
That case got put in my bag, I forgot about it while I was traveling.
A couple years later, I was back in that bar and remembered the old man and his shop, it was gone. Like it had never been there.
When I died, that was the first thing I thought of and the box was in my hand as a ghost.
"So you died and then woke up as a ghost?" She asked.
"Sort of, I had a detour to the Pearly Gates and then decided I wanted to see you again." He smiled at her.

The witch doctor chased after them. "Wait up!" He called. They kept walking, or floating in the of her dad. He saw them turn to look at each other something was said he couldn't hear. She turned back to the front but her father's head continued to turn the other 90 degrees. He stuck out a ghostly tongue.
He looked at them as he slowed for a moment. She looked just like the videos, always walking away. He smirked at his though "the camera didn't add ten pounds at all."
She turned then hands on hips.
"Oh hell," he thought, "I wonder if she can hear me."
"Very loudly in my head. Now, let's get something straight, I'm not interested in dating a bum in a glow in the dark cape."
He nodded. "Sorry."
"Better," she said. "You said in my dream you could help me. None of that destiny crap, I don't want to hear it. I'm not Frodo or any of those other characters destined for a quest. I'm not doing it."
He nodded again.
"I'll assist the police when I am available."
He shrugged at that. Clearly not much of a law abiding citizen.
"I have classes to get back to tomorrow, so I need you to tell me what I actually need to know and none of this sorcerer business where you shroud things in mystery."
He nodded.
"Well?"
"The orb that was given to you was acquired through unsavory means. The original bearer met an unfortunate end." He looked suspiciously at her father.
He looked away disinterested.
"The order of monks who protect the orbs tell of things not of this plane coming to steal the orbs. The orb you possess was actually stolen from one of those beings."
She wrinkled her nose, "Like Cthulhu or something?"
"I don't know, I only know of that stories. The beings are never named."
"So you think my father died, went to this other plane, snuffed the demon or whatever and stole the orb to give me powers?"
He nodded, his dreadlocks bouncing.
She smiled. "And?"
"Well that's it."
"I'm not returning it to the monks."
"Agreed." Her father chimed in.
"That's fair." The witch doctor said. "You just have to be wary in case someone comes for it."
"Really? It's part of my though, it's not like it's a brooch or a wrist watch."
"Truly." The witch doctor said. "But something may come after you."
"Like you?"
He nodded.
"I'll turn them to a pile of ash." She grinned. "Or a pillar of ice!"
Her father laughed.
The witch doctor was not amused. "Let me at least watch over you."
"When I'm awake, none of that creepy dream stuff."
The dreads bobbed as he assented. "Can you fly?" He asked off-handedly.
She looked down, maybe blushed slightly. "No, not part of my skill set."
"Hmm, seems like you should be able to heat the water droplets in the air enough that you'd be able to float on them." The witch doctor knew his thermal dynamics.
"That would take extreme concentration." She said. "Besides I can barely stay awake without several cups of coffee."
"Maybe you'll learn the secret one day." He pulled out a doll, it looked sort of like her. He handed it to her.
"Aren't you a little old to play with dolls?" Her father quipped.
She stared at the doll. It looked typical voodoo doll style with red pants, a black t-shirt and hair matching the color of her own.
"What does it do?" She asked.
The witch doctor waved his hands over the doll which began to float. She felt herself lifting off the ground as well.
He slammed his hand down on the doll which flattened her to the ground. He then kicked it's legs and she kicked hers.
"Too much power for you, slick." She held the doll away from him.
He laughed, shaking his dreadlocked head from side to side. "It's how I contacted you. It only has that much power when it's close to you. If it were in a different city you would barely be affe ed at all!"
"Note to self: visit Cape Canaveral and send this thing into orbit around Jupiter." She said, looking at her doll self.

"Before we go any further," she said stopping in the street. "How is it that you can see my father?"
"Yeah!" Said her father floating over her shoulder.
"Quiet you." She whispered to her shoulder.
Their guide smirked. "Because I'm a witch doctor or voodoo priest if you prefer that term."
"So..." She waited.
He raised his arms high above his head, blue tendrils of light shot into the ground from his fingertips. In a moment they were surrounded by ghosts as far as they could see. A French soldier here, a washerwoman there. All heights and ages, each preserved as they had been prior to exiting their mortal coil.
She shivered slightly then remembered herself and sent a wave of warmth passing through her and creating a ring of fire around her feet. It burned bright white for a moment then was gone. The ghosts moved back slightly then disappeared.
"Cool trick." Her father applauded.
The witch doctor bowed.
She looked at him funny. "So what other tricks do you do, Mr Witch Doctor?"
He held up a finger and rummaged in his pockets, he pulled out a shrunken head, "Sallright." He said to the head. "Sallright." Said the head. He stuffed it back in his pocket.
Next he pulled out an old key that floated above his palm when he opened his fingers.
"Key to the city." He muttered.
Next he flourished his cape in such a way that the stars were now on the outside. He shook his shoulders and they began to glow.
"Cool party tricks, but somehow you tapped into my dreams. What gives? Do you have some sort of dial a dream line? Like could you tap into Bill Clinton?"
He smiled. "Partly. It's being able to find trails in the sleep plane and following them and tapping into their line."
"So Jung was right, the collective unconscious?"
The witch doctor shrugged.
"Why me?"
"Because you have a great destiny."
"Can it! I'm done with this destiny crap." She turned and walked away.
Her father looked at the witch doctor then back to her. "She's my ride." He  shrugged and faded.
The witch doctor was alone for a moment, then chased after them.

Her father stared at her from by the window. She hung up the phone.
"Well done." He said, his arms folded in front of him. "Especially for someone who doesn't want to be a 'hero'."
She shrugged.
"TV news is calling you a 'vigilante'."
She sighed. "Why can't they just call me a 'helper' or 'police assistant'?"
He laughed.
"'Vigilante' makes me think of Punisher or those guys in Kick-Ass."
"Same thing." He said.
She shrugged and got up to answer the door, took her tray from the bellhop, handed him a buck and kicked the door shut.
"You're doing a good job 'assisting' the police." Her father commented.
She sipped her coffee, dipped a bite of beignet into it. She smiled.

Her father found them a ghost tour. It was a few blocks from the hotel so they walked.
She listened to some music so as to ignore her ghost of a father. He was like a kid in a candy store though. She could hear his comments over the music. "Do you think they'll be able to see me? I bet it won't be scary."
She just walked on in silence.
They arrived, she paid for her ticket. The crowd contained 7 other tourists of various sizes. She mostly ignored them and pulled her sweater tighter. "Should have worn a disguise." Her father suggested.
She stuck out her tongue.
"Welcome to the ghost tour, ladies and gents!" The orator gave a bow, he had long dreadlocks. She noted that various beads, bones and trinkets were interwoven within them. He wore a flowing cape with glow in the dark stars.
He started the group along. "Now if the 9 of you will follow me."
She looked around, "9?"
Her father shrugged.
They stopped at a cemetery and waved, "behold, our first ghost your stop, a spooky graveyard, known to be inhabited by countless ghosts, including the world renowned Marie Laveau! You can see her resting place there, if you listen you can hear her!" He held his hand to his ear and leaned.
The crowd heard a "woo!" and a rattle of chains. This was followed by the sound of someone tripping and a "ghost" landing near them on the path.
"Oh my gosh! A ghooooost!" Their guide said, helping his partner up. "Now let's continue on."
The group followed him. His partner had wandered away after dusting himself off.
They walked past several buildings which he pointed out were home to a number of other spirits.
They came to a building with a balcony. "Oh lady in white, show yourself to my guests!" He called to the balcony.
Just then a white dog on a leash barked and made everyone jump.
Her father laughed aloud. "There she is!" He yelled from the back.
The guide turned their direction. He laughed, "well not exactly the lady in white I was looking for." He waved to the woman walking the little white dog and they proceeded on his partner out of breath by the corner of the building in a white dress.
The group laughed and kept going.
They had one more stop before returning to their starting point. It was in Jackson Square.
The guide pointed to Muriel's and proclaimed it to be home to one Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan. "They leave a table set for the old boy so he can continue to have his meals." His partner sprinted up, still in the white dress, curtsied to the crowd.
"He needs to shave his legs." Her father whispered.
The ghost Jourdan took a seat at a table that was set up with a white cloth and proceeded to make the table "float" with his knees. The group laughed and clapped.
Her father leapt to the top of the table for a quick Russian dance then leapt down.
The guide's jaw was on the ground, the rest of the group was oblivious.
He regrouped, thanked the assembled tourists and sent them on their way with a line about "enjoy the gator!"
He turned to her and her father.
"Au chanté" he said, "so you came."
She nodded. "Got lucky this was your ghost tour."
"Come, we have much to discuss." He gave a wave with his hand walking to the other end of the square. "You too, papa ghost."

Her father sulked around the hotel room. She slipped her ring off and set it on the dresser. "I'm going out for a bit." She said.
He looked up. "Ghost tours are good ways to find witch doctors."
She nodded her agreement. "I will book one for tonight if I can. In the meantime, I hear there are amazing beignets and coffee are nearby."
She gathered her clothes, "black shirt and red jeans, convenient" she thought.
She changed and headed out the door with a wave to her ghostly father who was staring out the window.
Down to the lobby, across the street dodging a cab and a bicyclist, she reached a café. She took a table outside and ordered. The waiter returned with her beignets and coffee. He paused for a second. "Are you that super hero?"
She looked perplexed. "No, just a regular girl who likes coffee and beignets."
"Oh." He turned and walked away, looking back twice.
"Great now I'm some kind of internet sensation." She muttered into her coffee.
She thought of the Stan Lee comics she'd read as a kid, "great powers great responsibilities."
She was enjoying the first beignet, tearing off pieces, when she heard a rumble and saw dust spill from the side of a building down the street. She looked up and saw it was a bank and two criminal types exiting with bulging duffle bags.
The waiter was standing nearby, mouth agape.
She sighed and got up. Waving her hand the side walk the two stood on turned to ice, they fell atop each other when they tried to run.
She approached them, looking around for police officers. She spotted one down the block running and waving his hand.
She looked down at the robbers. One looked up, sneered and pulled out a pistol. He fired and instinctively she threw up her hands. A wall of heat and flame melted the bullet and the robbers gun.
The cop, nearly out of breath stopped next to her. "You okay, miss?"
She nodded. "They're all yours."
"Thank you for your assistance, miss, what do they call you?"
She didn't hear him, by then she was walking back to the café.
The waiter was waiting for her. "Oh my god, that was awesome!!"
She nodded.
"You're her! You're a super hero!!" He hugged her.
She sighed and pushed him off.
She picked up her cup of coffee. Rather than simply walk away, she took the pen off the bill he had left for her, scribbled "Heat" as a signature.
Then she walked back to the hotel, up to her room, coffee in hand. She called down to room service and ordered an order of beignets and more coffee, "hot and black, don't mess around with it."