Ghosts

              I dreamed I was lying in bed with a fever, when a chilled spirit approached. She asked to join me, as she needed my heat. I had plenty to spare, so agreed. The spirit climbed into bed, slipping under the covers and slowly expanding to take the form of a slender woman, one who reminded me of a post high school infatuation. She was cold so I wrapped myself around her and held her tight. Soon she began to warm up. The more I held her, the more solid she seemed to become. I was rubbing her arms and legs, more to get them warm than caressing.
              “I'm married, you know.” He comment seemed to come at great cost to her.
              “So am I,” I said, “We are just warming you, even if you remind me of someone who's memory is very dear to me.
              “Do you love her?” She asked, but I wasn't sure about which, N or my former infatuation.
              I realized that the answer was essentially the same, either way, just to different degrees and manners.
              “Yes, of course.”
              The spirit sighed and faded into nothingness.

              In the next dream I was working as an attorney in a court, defending a woman who was the target of commitment proceedings. The woman was famous, hourglass figure, dark brown curly hair, and a failed dairy farm that she claimed was haunted, and thus the commitment hearing. In this dream I started out not believing in ghosts (Pretty much my stance normally.)
              The first witness for her defense was a “Spirit Photographer” who had spent some time on the Dairy farm taking photos of the haunted areas. I must admit, I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary in those photographs, but soon the state attorney and the witness were circling blobs and making outlines. In short order the judge was also in on the game. I didn't object, even though I wanted to, as believing the place was actually haunted would help my client.
              At that point we broke. My client and I came to my house, where N was not really happy to see us. “She brought the ghost with her.”
              While I wasn't sure of the whole ghost thing, N and my client seemed fully convinced. I was helping mostly at N's insistance. N now seemed to be having second thoughts, as the client and I had become fairly close friends.
              Suddenly, my client began to act as if possessed. She fell to the ground, legs folded under her and legs spread. Her skirt vanished. Not taken off, vanished. Then her top and soon it was clear she was acting out the events of being tied up and molested. Soon she was completely naked. N was very upset, not blaming the ghost but the client trying to seduce me.
              I, on the other hand, saw it a bit differently.
              “We understand what happened to you, do you really want to inflict that on another person?” I asked the spirit.
              My client was released and her clothing all re-appeared.
              Back on the farm, the barn had collapsed. Again we asked the spirit to stop interfering. We wanted to make the place healthy and functional again. The second attempt to put the barn back together succeeded.
              The milk was all soured. My client had a heart to heart talk with the ghost again. We found ourselves in another hearing. This time the prosecution had video of my client going through the rape possession incident.
              I pointed out that even on the video, you could plainly see her clothing vanish, not being removed, but vanishing. I made him play it through to the end, where she was naked one moment, and the next fully clothed again. The detective admitted that the video was unedited.
              “I find myself having to rule that some form of magic exists and the client is not crazy. It goes against everything I believe to do so. Otherwise I would have to rule that the court's detective is guilty of perjury and evidence tampering, and that all of you are crazy.”
              “I don't like it either.” I said.
              We prevailed and the client and I went back to her farm. While we were chatting and making arrangements for N and I to come visit, an alligator stormed into the front room and lunged for my client's small fluffy dog. I snatched the dog away.
              My client, for the first time in all of this, was angry not frightened. “Laura, I've had enough of this. I know you were hurt, we are going to figure out what happened. Now you just stop this, it isn't helping you any.” My client chased the alligator out into the hallway and towards the front door. It shrank as she chased it, slowly becoming one of the dog's little stuffed toys. I put the dog down. The dog sniffed the small fabric green and yellow alligator with white cartoon-like plastic teeth, and ran yelping down the hall.
              It turns out the invitation to N and I was going to be about making sure my client wasn't alone. I wasn't sure this was going to fly with N. It would mean a 120 mile commute for her. “I can hire a pilot to fly her to work.”
              “N doesn't like to fly.”
              “A limo, then, she can nap all the way.”
              “I'll ask her, but it is far more likely that we'd ask you to come stay with us if you need company.”
              “I don't want to leave Laura.”
              “I'm not sure you can, at this point. She came to the house with you last time.”
              “Oh! Yes, she did.”
              My client wanted to hire me to find out what had happened to Laura, and to bring justice, if possible. She offered a pretty good salary to do so. I wasn't sure I was going to be any good at hunting down the perpetrators of a forty year old crime, but suddenly I saw Laura standing behind my client, expectantly looking at me. She faded in an instant, but I knew she was still there.
              “Okay, I can try.”
              “I'm sure if anyone can figure this out, you can.”
              I got a great hug, a hug that felt like I was being hugged by two people.