Tiger Lily

by Wende Dikec

  She didn’t realize we had company. An ever-enlarging, slightly hyperactive group of black blobs trailed after me like a bunch of ducklings following their mother. They bobbed around, seemingly eager for any kind of attention or physical contact. One of them rested on Jessica’s head. Another curled up on her lap like a kitten.

  “Not really. I remember hurting when I woke up, but that’s about it.”

  As I placed my napkin on my lap, a blob slid across the table and began jumping up and down on top of my salad. I ignored it. I’d gotten pretty good at ignoring them but no closer to figuring out why I saw them all the time. The fact that I’d completely recovered from my accident but still had visual issues terrified me. A secret I couldn’t share with anyone, not even my best friends.

  I doused my hands in sanitizer, a ritual for a germaphobe like me, and picked up my fork. The salad didn’t look quite as appetizing with a furry black blob sitting in the middle of it. I tried to eat around the edges, but the blob kept moving and shifting. I gave up and munched on my roll.

  Dying made me learn to appreciate the little things, like a perfect spring day. I wore a sleeveless green dress that matched my eyes. I had new clothes in my closet, a new phone in my hand, and a new car outside. My parents handled post-traumatic stress with excessive shopping, their form of therapy. I was just the lucky recipient.

  I’d always been a fortunate girl, and not just because I wasn’t dead anymore. My parents could be slightly distracted at times, but they loved me and always had the best of intentions. I went to a great school and hung around with a bunch of nice kids with nice parents who lived in nice houses. A few exceptions existed, like the Goth girl who sat by herself in the corner of the cafeteria and wore black. She was strange, and although no one ever acted openly unkind to her, some mean girls did whisper about her behind her back. I refused to be part of that, but I did have trouble with her fashion choices. Her dark clothing offset her pale skin nicely, but I wanted to put a splash of color in there. Even her lipstick was black.

  “Is it true? Josh Parker rescued you?” asked my friend Maura. She sat across the table from me, her dark eyes huge in her face.

  I nodded. “Do you know him?”

  Maura rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows him. He’s perfect.”

  “He goes to Baldwin,” said Jessica. Baldwin was our rival school, located across town.

  “I know. We’ve been texting.” I waved my new phone in the air.

  “He’s the star of the soccer team. A total hottie.” Maura fanned herself with a well-manicured hand. Her nail polish, crimson and sexy, suited her, but Maura had skin the color of café au lait and dark hair that fell in soft curls around her face. On me, because of my red hair, that color would have been a total disaster.

  I grinned. “I call him ‘Lifesaver Candy’. He saved my life and he’s completely delicious.”

  “Yum.” Maura had such a serious expression on her face it caused us to break into a fit of giggles.

  One of the blobs slowly began to ascend higher and higher, twirling merrily around in a happy blobby dance until it hit the ceiling. I watched it, mesmerized, and then I realized I wasn’t the only one who could see it. Goth Girl gazed up at it too.

  My mouth dropped open in shock as our eyes met. Goth Girl could see the blobs, which meant maybe I wasn’t crazy or brain injured. I jumped to my feet, about to walk over and talk to her when I saw a flash of fear cross her face. She got up and practically ran out of the cafeteria, leaving her lunch on the table. Maura grabbed my arm when I tried to follow her out into the commons.

  “Hold on, Lily.”

  “What?” I did my best to wiggle out of her grasp so that I could chase after Goth Girl, but couldn’t escape Maura’s talon-like grip. She pulled me back into my seat.

  “You’re so distracted lately,” she said with a huff. “I asked you a question.”

  “She died, Maura. Give her a break.” Jessica narrowed her eyes and Maura scowled at her. They had a love/hate relationship. They loved me and hated each other. Jess, president of the drama club, ran completely on emotion. Maura, on the debate team, liked a good fight. It made for an interesting friendship triangle.

  I took a deep breath before they pushed me over the edge. “What were you saying, Maura?”

  “I asked you about prom. Three times.”

  “I’d forgotten about it,” I said, and they both gasped in shock. I guess that did seem kind of weird. Prom, and potential prom dresses, had been the main focus of my existence for the last few months. Now I obsessed about things no one else could see, especially the strange boy from the hospital, Shadow Guy. As much as I tried to chalk up my encounter with him as the direct result of a lack of oxygen to my brain, I couldn’t shake the feeling I would see him again someday.

  “Four boys asked you already. Haven’t you decided yet?” Jessica’s big blue eyes widened with concern.

  “Nope, but I’ll have to soon.”

  “I know what you should do.” Maura plotted my fate with a twinkle in her eye.

  “What?” That twinkle worried me. It usually led to trouble.

  “Lifesaver Candy,” she said.

  Jessica clapped her hands and bounced up and down in her seat. The blob that had been resting on her lap bounced up and down too.

  “It’ll be so romantic. I can see the caption in the yearbook, Lily Madison, attending her junior prom escorted by Josh Parker, the boy who rescued her from Lake Eugene!”

  “Maybe he can give you more mouth to mouth,” said Maura, elbowing me in my side.

  They both waited for a reaction, but I didn’t have time for this right now. I needed to chase Goth Girl and find out what she knew about the blobs.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. The blobs had gotten bored. They flew back and forth across the room, slipping right through the unsuspecting bodies of the students still milling around and finishing their lunches.

  “You should pull a Sadie Hawkins on Josh. Think about it,” said Maura.

  Asking Josh Parker to the prom could be the solution to my problems, but I wouldn’t want him to agree to go with me out some misguided sense of duty. He’d saved my life, but that didn’t make him obligated to date me.

  I said goodbye to Maura and Jessica, put my hand sanitizer back in my purse, and slipped out the door, followed closely by the blobs. I realized as soon as I got outside that I didn’t know Goth Girl’s actual name. We’d been calling her Goth Girl for so long, I must have forgotten it, if I’d ever even known it in the first place.

  It didn’t take long to find her. The commons, a grassy area right next to the cafeteria, had a beautiful view of rolling hills and just a glimpse of Lake Eugene sparkling in the distance. We were allowed to sit outside and eat there if the weather permitted, but it had rained earlier and the grass still felt a little soggy.

  Goth Girl didn’t seem to mind. She sat under a tree with her knees pulled up to her chest, deep in thought. She wore a long black skirt and blouse, topped off with a full-length black velvet jacket. Very monochromatic of her. It was a warm day for early spring, too warm for such a heavy jacket. I hadn’t even brought a sweater today, although my mother had bought an adorable cardigan with embroidered flowers on it to go with my dress.

  We had fifteen minutes left of lunch period. Now would be as good a time as any to talk to her. She didn’t look pleased to see me approach.

  “Hi,” I said, giving her a little wave and my sunniest smile. I’d pulled my hair back into a ponytail and tied it with a green ribbon that matched my dress. My shoes were green flats. I looked like spring. She looked like death.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her bright blue eyes peering out at me from behind a curtain of dark, silky, bangs. Not everyone could get away with bangs. I certainly couldn’t. But Goth Girl wore them well. And although I’m not a fan of black hair dye in general, her choice made her eyes stand out and accentuated her porcelain skin.

  I kept my smile in place as I pulle
d a white linen handkerchief out of my purse and spread it on the ground next to her. I really didn’t want to get my dress dirty, but I needed to talk to her. The black orbs floated in a circle around me. One of them edged over to her knee, and I saw her look down at it before she could stop herself.

  I pointed at the blob closest to her. “I need to talk to you about that.”

  “What?”

  I could recognize a bluff, but I decided to approach this gently. I extended my hand to her. “My name is Lily.”

  She stared at me like I was diseased. “I know who you are.”

  I blinked and slowly dropped my hand before taking a deep breath and trying again. “Then you have an advantage. I don’t know your name.” I pulled my sanitizer out of my bag and rubbed it over my hands. It smelled like apples and lavender, and the idea of it killing all the nasty little germs crawling on my hands brought me a great deal of satisfaction.

  Goth Girl laughed. “Are you for real?”

  I stopped rubbing my hands together. “What do you mean?”

  “So prim, proper, prissy, and perfect.” Goth Girl folded her arms across her chest and stretched out her legs. Although I admired her use of alliteration, I didn’t like her tone. “One day you are going to wake up and realize that your parents have been training you since birth to do what they want and be who they want, and you are going to freak out because you have no idea who you actually are.”

  I shrugged and looked down at the hem of my skirt. My legs had begun to fall asleep, but my skirt was too short to be able to sprawl out on the grass like Goth Girl.

  “I know exactly who I am.” I gave her a condescending little smile.

  She sneered. “Yeah, right. I bet your mommy still picks out your clothes.”

  I stared at her in surprise. My mother did buy most of my clothes, but she had excellent taste. Everyone said so.

  I cleared my throat and straightened some imaginary wrinkles in my skirt. A different approach was needed.

  “Look, I could analyze the whole persona you have going here, with the hair and the clothes and the make-up, but we only have ten minutes left before the bell and I’m not in the mood to judge. You don’t know anything about me, but I do know something about you.” Goth Girl raised a pierced eyebrow at me and pursed her lips, but she didn’t say anything so I continued. “You can see them, too,” I whispered.

  Goth Girl looked away, her cheeks turning pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I groaned. “Why you are being so difficult? I have one simple question. If you answer it, I’ll stop bugging you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Okay. Ask.”

  “What are they?” I carefully enunciated each word.

  Goth Girl laughed as she rose to her feet, brushing the grass from her skirt. I got up, too, waiting for her to answer. She shook her head, her long earrings making a jingling sound.

  “You’re clueless.”

  “I realize that. Enlighten me.” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. Not an easy task.

  Goth Girl rolled her eyes. “They are ghosts, stupid.”

  I sank back down onto the grass, no longer caring about my dress. “Ghosts?” One of the blobs flew in a circle around Goth Girl’s head. She scowled at it, and it retreated back in my direction. I shook my head in disbelief. They never swooshed away when I gave them dirty looks. She had a power over the blobs I did not possess. “That isn’t possible.”

  The blobs didn’t look like ghosts to me, but then again, neither had Shadow Guy. He looked fuzzy and strange, but there was something lost and hopeless and sad in his eyes that tugged at my heart. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I’d become just a little obsessed, and for someone who had significant OCD issues to begin with, a little obsession went a long way.

  Goth Girl looked up at the sky, her hands balled tightly into fists next to her hips, as if deciding what to tell me. I knew the minute she’d made up her mind. She reached out a hand and helped me up.

  “I know because I’m a medium. And my name is Zoe, not Goth Girl.”

  I gasped and covered my mouth. “You heard we called you Goth Girl? I’m so sorry.”

  Zoe frowned. “You’re seeing ghosts, you just found out that I’m a medium, and you’re worried about that?” She shook her head.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  Zoe shrugged. “Then maybe you and your posse should stop talking about people behind their backs.” She took a deep breath. “But that’s neither here nor there. The question is why are ghosts following you around? You obviously aren’t a medium. You don’t seem clairvoyant, either. What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said softly as the lunch bell rang.

  Zoe gave me one last hard look. “Well, that’s what you have to figure out.” She turned to go back to the school, but I grabbed her arm.

  “Will you help me?”

  She shrugged off my hand. “I don’t think so,” she said, but I could hear just a hint of indecision in her voice.

  “Please, Zoe. I don’t know what else to do.”

  My eyes filled with tears of desperation. I needed to get rid of these blobs before someone figured out I still saw them and sent me back to the hospital. The fact that Zoe could see them, too, gave me hope.

  “Fine,” Zoe growled. “But not at school. I can’t be seen with you here. It would be embarrassing.”

  She stomped back into the building, and I followed her slowly, still numb with shock. The black masses surrounded me like a fuzzy sweater, and I had to face facts. I had a serious problem. I was seeing ghosts, I needed it to stop, and the only person who could help me hated my guts.

  “A book holds a house of gold.”

  Chinese proverb

  Chapter Four

  Saturday morning I had an appointment at Wan Fine Lady to make up for the whole Pretty and Pink debacle. My hands had healed, and I hadn’t caused any permanent damage to myself as far as I could tell. As I drove my new Audi, everything felt pretty normal, except, of course, for the fact that my collection of furry black blobs accompanied me everywhere I went.

  Even if they seemed more like a pack of black, fuzzy, disembodied Labrador Retriever puppies, there was definitely something otherworldly about the blobs. Zoe had told me the truth. They had to be ghosts. As much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, I just knew it.

  Walking into the shop, extremely irritated regarding the whole ghost situation, I considered giving Mr. Wan a piece of my mind about Pretty and Pink. He looked so genuinely happy to see me, though, I didn’t have the heart to do it.

  “You look good, Miss Lily.” His eyes sparkled behind his thick glasses. A tiny man and older than dirt, Mr. Wan was an artist with a nail polish brush.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wan.”

  I sat down in my usual spot, right next to a giant black and white painting of a tiger done in bold brush strokes. The tiger crouched, about to pounce, with its teeth bared in a menacing snarl. The blobs liked the painting. They flew over and sat on it, mixing in with the dark ink. It made the tiger look alive, which sort of creeped me out.

  Miss Lin, Mr. Wan’s assistant, waved to me from the back of the room as she worked on another customer. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she shouted, nodding to show her enthusiasm.

  If Mr. Wan looked as old as dirt, Miss Lin’s age felt like a mystery. She could have been anywhere between twenty-five and fifty-five. I smiled back at her, not sure how to respond. I was glad not to be dead too.

  I cleaned my area with wipes before we started, but Mr. Wan didn’t mind. I had an issue with surfaces. He knew all about it. He set to work, chatting about the weather, and the routine and rhythm of the process soon soothed me. I adored having my feet massaged and buffed and my toes painted. I loved soaking my fingers until they felt as soft as silk, and the way Mr. Wan would blot them gently dry for me. I even liked his color choice, a pale peach called Melancholy Baby. It went perfectly with the peach
silk sweater and cream-colored pleated mini skirt I wore today. Miss Lin complained to her customer very loudly about buying a bag of stinky broccoli at the market, but even that didn’t bother me. I’d reached my happy place.

  Mr. Wan painted with quick, even strokes. “So, you died, huh?”

  I nodded, waiting for the usual questions. I thought about making up something, since the answers I gave almost seemed disappointing. Most people liked the peaceful part, but they wanted more drama, lights, and action.

  Mr. Wan raised one bushy gray eyebrow and peered at me over his spectacles. “Do you have a problem now, with ghosts?” he asked quietly, not that Miss Lin or her customer could have heard him. She’d moved onto complaining loudly about cauliflower now.

  My mouth dropped open in shock. “How did you know?”

  Mr. Wan sighed, and put the brush into the bottle of polish, swishing it back and forth as if trying to think about how to answer. “Once, when I was a young boy in my village in China, the same thing happened. A girl died, and then came back to life. We were all so happy, until we realized that she hadn’t come back alone.”

  “What do you mean?” My fingers were still extended over the soft white towel that separated us on the table. I couldn’t move. I could hardly breathe.

  Mr. Wan grabbed my left hand and went back to work, talking as he painted. “When you cross over the barrier between life and death, things sometimes follow you back. They might be ghosts, or they might be something else. Either way it is a problem for you.”

  “Why?” I asked, watching him. I really liked Melancholy Baby. I thought about making it my signature shade for spring. Focusing on the color helped me remain calm at the idea that I might have issues bigger than the blobs or Shadow Guy.

  Mr. Wan paused, the brush hovering above my nail. “It knocks the world out of balance. Dead things are supposed to stay in the dead place, living things in the living place. It’s like yin and yang. When there is no balance, bad things happen.”

  “What kinds of bad things?” It took a lot of control to keep my hands from shaking. “And what made them choose me?”