A Ghost for a Clue

by C L R Draeco

  My fingers tapped impatiently on the table as Roy accessed the Verdabulary.

  “There,” Roy said. “Got it.”

  “Sweet. Now, broadcast,” I said.

  “Doin’ it.” Roy looked over at the papayas. I turned in the same direction but saw nothing.

  “Fuckadoodledickdog.” Roy got down on his knees and crawled under the console table. “Shit. It’s the amps.”

  Torula rose from her chair as she curled her fingers around my arm and tapped Starr on the shoulder, then she bobbed her head towards a pathway behind the platform. Even before I looked, her actions already told me: We have the signal.

  My blood rushed at the sight of the hyperwill, and though I wanted to kick Roy out from under the table, I didn’t dare move. Torula’s grip on my arm tightened as the image hovered and, without moving its legs, turned in her direction, looking as solid as flesh and blood. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought there was a real person standing there.

  The hyperwill held out both arms, palms facing upwards, and a smoky stream began to flow over its arms, as though it were holding up a slithering body of mist. The image moved its lips—but I heard nothing. Then blood oozed out of a wound on its nose.

  At the sight of stark red, my mind shot out warnings of danger; I had to convince my own brain it wasn’t real.

  “Holy jumpin’ jack,” Roy cussed from underneath the console. “Damn connections were loose.” He slid out from under the table and looked towards where we were staring.

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  Starr shushed him. “He’s trying to tell us something.”

  “Who is?”

  Torula drew in a sudden breath. “Turn it off.”

  “What?” Starr asked. “Why?”

  “Turn it off!” Urgency flared in Torula’s eyes.

  I reached for the controls and quit the Verdabulary. In the space of a heartbeat, the image faded away.

  Torula sank back into her chair as though being on her feet had sapped her strength. “Did you see him?”

  “Of course, we did,” Starr said.

  “See who?” Roy asked.

  “Did you see who was in his arms?” Torula laid a hand across her forehead, her eyes pinched.

  “No one,” I said. “It was all a haze.”

  “Thomas was crisp and clear,” Starr said, “but whatever he was holding was just . . . fuzzy. Are you okay, honey?”

  Torula’s iHub rang. She gasped upon seeing the ID, got up, and moved away as she answered the call. “Hello, Mom?”

  “What the hell did y’all see?” Roy asked.

  Starr frowned at him. “What do you mean what did we see?”

  “Are you messing with us?” I asked.

  Roy snickered at the accusation. “Yo, that’s a good one. I’m the one messin’ with you guys. Really funny, Morrison.” He slid his fingertips across his neck, beheading the discussion. “OK, cut the crap. I ain’t buyin’ it. So I’m makin’ like a banana and splittin.’”

  Torula returned, still speaking into her iHub. “I’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as I can.” She looked at me, her eyes full of dread. “Mom just found Truth unconscious. I’m meeting her at the hospital.”

  “Jesus.” I grabbed my stuff. “I’m going with you.”

  “No,” she said. “It might make things worse.”

  The three of us looked at her. “What will make what worse?” I asked, frowning.

  She averted her gaze and shoved the hair off her brow. “Truth’s been getting progressively weaker, ever since . . . recently.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Your mother’s blaming this on my being here, isn’t she?”

  “She’s not ‘blaming,’ just . . .” She shook her head. “. . . correlating. What she’s really blaming is the hyperwill, which just happened to start appearing when you arrived.”

  “What the hell? Why can’t she just blame the usual stuff? Like germs or allergies.”

  “Truth’s been talking to something only he can see in his room,” she said.

  “Doesn’t every kid? I used to talk to Buzz Lightyear and Mike Wazowski all the time.” I glanced at Roy and Starr hoping to find some allies, but they were both gawking at Torula.

  “Honey, are you thinking Thomas might be behaving like a parasite?” Starr asked. “Attaching to a living being and taking up nutrients?”

  “That’s impossible,” I said.

  “That’s because you’re convinced he’s a dead signal,” Torula said. “But don’t electromagnetic waves have a malignant side to them too? They’re blamed for everything from birth defects to cancer.”

  “Yo, now don’t go jumpin’ to that scary shit right away, ayt?” Roy said. “We still don’t know the dynamics between ELF waves and hyperwills.”

  “And I don’t want to find out at the expense of my brother.” Torula closed her eyes and shuddered. “I saw Truth in Thomas’s arms.”

  “What?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Oh, mercy!”

  “The haze flowing over his arms,” Torula said. “It dissipated. I saw Truth’s face. I’m sure of it. His nose was bleeding.”

  “My goodness.” Starr gave Torula a comforting hug. “I’m sure it’s just an illusion brought on by your trauma in the FR3 because I didn’t see that.”

  “No one else saw that,” I said.

  “But just in case,” Starr said, “I promise to keep the Verdabulary off until we get some answers from the doctors. And please, honey, have Bram go with you.”

  “Yeah. Just like you said, Jackson. There’s no tellin’ what effects these hyperwills have on people. So best to have a chaperone in case Thomas tries somethin’ else on you on the road.”

  22

  Meeting Her Family Again

  Torula told the car to take us to Kingston Medical City—the hospital where her eldest brother worked as an attending physician. Only then did it dawn on me I was headed for something I hadn’t braced for: Meeting her family again after sixteen years.

  Torula and I hardly spoke during the entire ride, spending most of the time looking out opposite windows at passing cars, buildings, and most anything with lights in the nighttime cityscape. I might as well have been staring at total darkness with my mind a complete blank on my reason for being here. What if they ask what I’m doing back in town? I could say I was on vacation, even though the only places I’d been to were the Green Manor and Roy’s garage. Would they even care? Maybe Torula had already told them I was visiting before leaving for a job overseas.

  I let out a sigh, my mind in strange territory having lost my compass on the right way to go. I’d pictured every possible scenario of how her mother and brothers would have reacted to me asking Torula to leave Earth for good. Jesus. I might have just avoided a fist fight or two. But then again . . .

  I cracked my knuckles. It would be worth all the fist fights in the world to have Torula come with me.

  We arrived at the hospital, and as she and I walked down the corridors, passing nurses and doctors and patients in wheelchairs, it became obvious this was the best place to be for immediate medical attention after a brawl.

  What if she could overcome her claustrophobia? I knew of astronauts with a great fear of heights who’d managed to spacewalk. Heck, what could be more frighteningly high than that? I couldn’t back down on a dream, right? Though this was my dream, not hers. Except . . . it wouldn’t be complete without her.

  I snapped out of my crazy reverie when we entered Truth’s hospital room with its sky-blue walls decorated with murals of trees and flowers. Though the room was a comfortable size, it felt smaller in the presence of three Dr. Jacksons.

  The full brunt of how unlike a biological family the Jacksons were suddenly hit me, with the fair and red-haired Triana, the tall and dusky Tromino, the Asian-esque Torula, and the blond and blue-eyed boy in his bed. The only one missing was Treble, studying overseas.

  It was a relief to see Truth awake and sitting u
p in bed.

  “After all these years, it’s remarkable to see you again,” Triana said in that mellow voice I hadn’t forgotten. She sat by the bed, with a light silken shawl draped over her shoulders. Her face, her physique, her bearing made it seem as though time had stood still for her, and perhaps had even gone a bit backwards. “Trom, you remember this young man, of course?”

  Tromino, though in his doctor’s coat, had the unwelcoming aura of a bodyguard as he stood at the foot of his brother’s bed. He stared at me for a few seconds, then spoke in an imposing baritone. “Bram? Is that you?” He broke into a smile, which loosened up the armor. “My, you’ve grown.”

  “Great to see you again, Trom.” I found it unusual to stand taller than Torula’s eldest brother. As a kid, I’d been intimidated by this guy who had taken upon himself the role of father to his siblings. It didn’t help that one of my first memories of him was of one Halloween, when he’d dressed as a Klingon warrior. I’d imagined him sworn to protect his only sister from inferior humans—which obviously included me. Torula, however, convinced me that Tromino’s father was most likely of Southeast Asian lineage—definitely of Earthly origin—which didn’t change a thing about how I thought he might have regarded me.

  “Truth,” Torula said, “this is my friend, Bram.”

  “Hello, mate.” I tossed the boy a small salute.

  “I flied a kite! In my room!” Truth raised the arm not attached to an IV to demonstrate, his Rs and Ls sounding more like Ws.

  “Really?” Torula looked questioningly at her mother.

  “Flew a kite, sweetheart.” Triana smiled. “He says that’s why he fell off his bed.”

  “Thomas did it,” Truth said. “He teached me to fly the kite.”

  “Who’s Thomas?” Tromino asked.

  “Tor’s friend,” Truth said. “He’s dead.”

  Triana gripped her shawl tighter. Torula flicked the hair off her brow. Tromino eyed both of them.

  “How do you know his name?” I asked.

  “Mom said.”

  A trio of grownups stared with disbelief at the most senior one in the room.

  Triana rose from her seat. “I simply told him to ask his invisible guest if his name was Thomas the next time he came to visit.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” Torula asked, which was a question I’d asked about almost everything Triana did.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Tromino said, giving his sister a reassuring wink. “Research shows preschoolers who have imaginary friends grow up to be more creative and well-adjusted.”

  “But this friend isn’t imaginary,” Triana said. “Is he, Tor?”

  “Mom . . .” Torula shook her head.

  Tromino’s gaze darted from mother to sister to me. “What’s going on here? Do you have an explanation for the hallucinations?”

  Torula clasped her hands and raised her shoulders, as though she were a child about to confess to some misdeed to her father. “It’s probably got something to do with tests I’ve been conducting at the Manor.”

  “What kind of tests?” Tromino asked. “Involving pathogens? His attending should know about—”

  “No, it doesn’t. I mean, yes.” Torula wrung her hands as she spoke. “But they were in sealed Petri dishes. The point is—I saw . . . I mean, we saw . . . something. Bram and I, together, right?” She tossed me a look imploring me to continue the explanation.

  I gripped Truth’s bed rail, certain I was moments from ruining Tromino’s opinion of me for life. “There’s been a . . . visual phenomenon.”

  “A what?” He grimaced.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, just say it.” Triana tossed one end of her shawl across her neck. “Truth’s being haunted by a ghost. Somehow, the equipment Tor’s been using at work has also been triggering the apparition. And now, I suspect, it’s causing this lingering ailment.”

  Tromino stood unmoving with a deadpan expression as he stared at Triana, then, with a sigh, turned to his little brother. “Truth, you do know we have a strange mother, don’t you?”

  “Yup!”

  “Good. Keep that in mind, and you’ll end up just fine.”

  Triana folded her arms, torturing her delicate shawl. “His weakness could be a telepathic energy drain—the brain being the ravenous organ that it is.”

  Tromino grunted. “When grownups talk about ghosts in front of a child, there’s no telling where his little mind could take it. You could’ve ended up prompting his weakness by suggesting it.”

  “Oh, that’s baseless.”

  “Right,” Torula said. “The same way suggesting the name Thomas couldn’t possibly have influenced him either.”

  “It’s exasperating talking with people who don’t see the human brain the way I do.” Triana closed her eyes and shook her head slightly like a frustrated queen who failed to understand why the peasants couldn’t eat cake. “It consumes a fifth of the body’s total energy at ten times the rate, half of that energy consumption going to maintaining ionic gradients.” She looked at the two other doctors with her in the room. “Your brother’s illness may be because of some form of energy transfer through electrochemical gradients in the brain.”

  Tromino grunted. “You do realize you’ve just compared his brain to a fuel cell.”

  “Which is probably what it is to the ghost,” Triana said. “Truth first saw the apparition in Tor’s bedroom when we slept over before my annual checkup. All this started the same night she met up with Bram. And Truth’s been growing weaker ever since.”

  I looked at Triana through narrowed eyes. Did she just take a potshot at me?

  Tromino scowled at his mother. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  “Would you have believed me then?” Triana asked.

  “I don’t believe it now. All I know is Truth may have been exposed to a pathogen or toxin at Tor’s place. Or from you when you came back from your doctor that day. Maybe even Bram brought it over from another state entirely, triggering these hallucinations.”

  “I’ve never been to her apartment,” I said.

  “But you could still have triggered all of this in the first place,” Triana said.

  “Now wait a minute.” I raised a halting hand. “You’re not pinning this on me.”

  “Well, it’s undeniable, isn’t it?” Triana asked. “My daughter gets one whiff of your testosterone and poof! The ghost appears.”

  “Mom!” Torula exclaimed, leaving Truth’s side and moving towards Triana. Tromino eased himself in and took her place beside their little brother.

  My hands tightened around the bed rail. “For years, I’ve been away from your daughter, and the minute I’m back, you slap a ghost on my back? Is that how determined you are to get rid of me?”

  Triana raised a brow. “You sound as if you think I’ve been standing between you and Tor.”

  I let out a snort of a laugh. “Well, now, isn’t that undeniable? One whiff of your point of view, and poof! She’s out of my grasp.”

  “What?” Torula asked. “That’s your opinion of my spine?”

  Triana smiled. “If you sense my daughter distancing herself from you, it’s none of my doing.”

  “You once told her you think monogamy is for penguins. You don’t think I know that?”

  The eccentric matriarch leaned in closer towards me. “You may find this impossible to believe, Bram, but I’ve always thought that one of my daughter’s grandest stupidities is not bagging you for herself the day she became capable of having children.”

  “Oh, shut the front door,” Torula cried, then clamped a hand over her own mouth and muffled, what was most likely, a flagrant curse.

  As though a cloud of puzzlement had suddenly lifted, Triana’s eyes widened. “Oh, my word. Did you come back in town to ask for Torula’s hand in marriage?”

  “What? No.”

  “No?” Torula asked.

  “I mean . . . not exactly. But something like it, I think.”

  �
�I see,” Torula said. “Like what?”

  “What?” I gulped. Jesus. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.

  “Well now, this is interesting.” Tromino leaned in closer to Truth.

  I refocused and centered my sights on Triana. “Don’t force this discussion now just so you can be around to influence her.”

  “Influence her about what?” asked Triana.

  “Yes, about what?” Tromino asked.

  I clamped my jaw and averted my eyes from Torula’s searing scrutiny. Bollocks. This was the worst possible way to go about this, but—Here goes. I sighed and faced Torula. “I came to tell you that I was asked to . . . go away . . . somewhere.”

  “Suh . . . suv . . . Svalbard?” Torula asked.

  “Svalbard?” Triana exclaimed. “Where on devil’s earth is that?”

  I thrust an accusing finger at her. “That’s what I’m talking about. I knew you’d try and stop me before I could get to my point.”

  “Stop you? I was just going to haggle for Venice or Prague. Whoever elopes to a place called Svalbard?”

  Tromino shot out of his post next to Truth. “All right, that’s about as far as I can let this go.” He went to his mother’s side and tucked her arm into the crook of his. “I’m taking you out of this room before you chop off my sister’s hand and toss it to someone in marriage.”

  “I was merely expressing a personal opinion.” Triana allowed herself to be led away by Tromino.

  After the door shut behind them, Torula took a deep breath and shuddered. I wanted to swallow but feared the sound would reverberate around the room.

  I kept my gaze on her, but she avoided eye contact, tucking her hair behind one ear. I cleared my throat. “I know it’s not the ideal time or place, but could I talk to you about—”

  The door swung open, and Tromino peered in with a scowl. “Torula, I need you to tell the attending about those pathogens in your experiments.”

  “Right. Of course.” She glanced back at me, her gaze faltering, and thrust a thumb towards the doorway.

  “No worries.” I nodded and smiled as she made her exit, though my mind was in a gnarl of knots. I’d lost all clarity about the right thing to do. It was probably unreasonable to ask Torula to join me on Pangaea, and yet it was still beyond me to say goodbye. I’d take this question mark with me to the grave if I never asked.