This is a story about ghosts, histories, and what remains of those who have lived. Following a mysterious world-changing event in 2012 that brought specters into our neighborhoods, cities, and everywhere in between, those on both sides of the mortal coil are forced to co-exist – or at least try.
Shortly after that night, young Brendan Vinter, who just recently lost his mother, is put on a new life course. Neche, a mischievous and troubled ghost girl with foggy memories, appears in his home and slowly but surely, the two become close friends, unbound by time and death. Shortly afterwards, while the world becomes a scarier place and those in charge scramble to create a spectral task force, Brendan also acquires through a terrifying event the ability to release any ghost with a simple touch.
Naturally, years later as an adult, he uses his power to make some money as a freelancing ghost whisperer – while keeping away from the eyes of CSR, or Central Spectral Research, fearing they would exploit him to send away ghosts against their will en masse. Working at a Shell Station at night for some extra cash, Brendan lives a simple life in a small house in Green Bay, Wisconsin, sharing the place with Neche, who can’t age and at this point is more of a little sister.
When he’s at home, he watches classic movies with her, or browses the spectral hunting community’s Wiki and Reddit pages, while also dropping by his aging father’s house to help with chores. And that’s about all that he wants out life, following the trauma he experienced as a child.
But then one day, after doing a favor for his old friend Danny, he meets by chance with Wallace Stant, one of the leaders of the local CSR branch. That meeting inevitably places Brendan under the watch of the company, and starts him down a journey that will eventually bring him a secret research facility in Alaska, where powerful, mindless poltergeists are rumored to end up, and a top secret, potentially very dangerous experiment is undergoing final preparations…
A Bountiful Garden can be both emotionally charged and light-hearted and warm as we follow Brendan along and experience his dramatic childhood throughout the story. His ghost Neche, who grew up as much as she could back in the ’90s, keeps him grounded to his past. She seems closer to life than most ghosts, and is also quick to anger, which is a concern as her kind can lose themselves if enraged and become a destructive poltergeist, the most dangerous specters of all. Brendan, on the other hand, would prefer to stay out of trouble and his efforts to hide himself has kept him locked in time, too.
This is not a horror story. It is a tale of moving on, but also of the importance of our life’s stories, of those we cling onto and rely upon, and what we may be willing to risk for the people we love. Brendan thought that the arrival of the ghosts would give him a second chance to see his mother. What he got instead was a new friend and a chance to help others – and in ways that he can’t yet understand.
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