by Pat Cummings
Auntie Lea handed Presley a mug of hot chocolate and became absorbed in reading the metal buttons that were studding her backpack. Go Green or Go Home, I Tattoos, Peace, Love & Pastries, they shouted. Some had images of insects and rap stars and heavily frosted cupcakes. Just the usual mix, Trace thought. The kid was nuts.
“So what did I miss?” he asked her, bracing for another oddly phrased flood of words. It took a while, and an additional mug of hot chocolate with a side of ginger cookies, for Presley to download the Post-it’s worth of information about what the group had accomplished. They had each noted resources for their topics that were better found in the library than online and they had agreed to meet after school on Tuesday to map out their presentation. Trace stole a look at the clock on the stove. It was nearly five p.m. Surely Presley needed to head home before it got dark.
“Thank you for the delicious snacks, Ms. Cumberbatch, but I have to go,” she said suddenly, giving Trace a small frown, almost as if she had read his mind.
“Take some cookies with you if you like,” Auntie Lea offered.
Presley brightened. She folded three cookies into a napkin and opened her backpack to fit them in. A book slid out. Word Power Made Easy. So that was it. It had to be tough to be younger than everyone else in class. But Trace would not be the one to tell her that all her big words just sounded loony, laughable, and ludicrous. He caught himself smiling.
“What is all this old stuff anyway?” Presley asked, slipping her backpack on. She leaned over the table, seeming to have just noticed the piles in front of her. Picking up a strand of glass beads, she held them up to the light. “Cool,” she breathed.
“We were just going through some things that my aunt Frenchy left me when you arrived,” Auntie Lea explained. Presley nodded.
She opened a photo album and some of the black paper crumbled on her fingers. “Oh, wow! Sorry, Ms. Cumberbatch, I really—” she said.
“Don’t worry about it, dear.” Auntie Lea smiled. “It’s all pretty old and falling apart. We’re just sorting through it.”
Trace watched Presley. She seemed genuinely interested. It would be nice to be able to look at these family relics like a stranger might. Not to feel there were land mines in the pile. Her fingers were running over brooches and bracelets, a crinkled fan, a carved ivory box.
“Yeowwwch!” Presley gasped. She had picked up a metal object that was shaped like a little mallet. But she dropped it instantly and it landed with a clattering rattle on the table.
“Are you okay?” Auntie Lea asked, hurrying around the table to take Presley’s hand. “What happened? Did you get a splinter?”
Presley looked at her fingers, then at Auntie Lea, then at Trace. “It burned,” she said quietly. She looked confused, but there was something more, Trace thought.
“What do you mean, ‘burned’?” he asked. “Is that another one of your synonyms for something?” He did not like what he saw in her eyes. She looked almost afraid.
Presley shook her head. “I . . . I’ve got to go,” she said, ignoring his comment about her choice of words. “Sorry. It was nice meeting you, Ms. Cumberbatch.” She turned and headed toward the door. Trace could only shrug when Auntie Lea made a questioning face at him. She had picked up the little metal object and was turning it over in her hands, inspecting it for any sharp ragged edges or protruding sliver of metal.
Trace caught up to Presley at the front door.
“Thanks for coming by, Presley,” he said. “Really.” She looked up at him nervously. “Do you want some lotion or something for your fingers, maybe?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” she said. “Bye.” And then she was off, down the front stairs and hurrying away from the building as though he was radioactive.
“Weird,” Trace said. He studied the sky. The air was crisp and carried the faint smell of wood burning in a fireplace. A police siren screamed in the distance. He would never, ever in a trillion years understand girls. They had on and off switches that flipped easily, and it was never clear what did it. He shivered in the chill wind as he watched Presley round the corner onto Myrtle Avenue. Closing the door, Trace headed back to the kitchen, ready to face Aunt Frenchy’s souvenirs. But Auntie Lea was putting the last of the pile back into the basket.
“We’ll go through this old stuff later,” she said. “I’m starving. Gotta get some dinner going.”
The little metal object was still on the table.
“What is that thing?” he asked.
“Looks like an old toy,” Auntie Lea answered. She picked it up and turned it around and around in her hands. “Some kind of whistle, maybe. But a rattle too, see?” She gave it a shake and the sound of dry seeds loose in a tin can prickled his ears. The sound made him uneasy.
“Hey, don’t you have homework to do?” Auntie Lea asked. “Get busy and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready, okay?” She dropped the rattle into the basket with the rest of the stuff.
“I’m feeling the call of the Mideast,” she warned. Trace headed for the stairs. “Feeling kinda spanakopita, kinda tabbouleh, kinda baba ghanoushy, kinda . . .” Her voice trailed off. By the time Trace reached his room he could hear the doorbell ringing. Auntie Lea didn’t cook every night, but when she did, her Cuties appeared right on time.
“Hello, Mrs. Lee. This is Trace Carter, is Ty home?”
“Hi, Trace. I think he’s in his room. He must not have heard his phone; did you call his cell?” Tiberius’s mom asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Maybe he’s recharging it or . . .” He trailed off. Ty’s mom had gone to call him, but Trace was the one getting the message: Ty didn’t want to talk to him. This was stupid. They were supposed to be partners. While he waited, Trace slipped under the loft bed, sat at his desk, and kicked off his shoes.
“Whaddya want?” Ty said when he came to the phone. He sounded bored and annoyed, too busy for even a hello.
“What I want,” Trace began, forcing himself to stay pleasant, “what I wanted was to check in with you and apologize for this afternoon.” That was a lie. He had nothing to apologize for. This was stupid. “What happened was—”
“Look, just get your outline together for Tuesday. Presley said she would tell you what we did, so just get it together and bring copies for everyone, okay? Okay.” Ty hung up.
Trace glared at the phone. Ty had not just hung up on him. No, it wasn’t okay. What was his problem? If things had been reversed he would have assumed something had come up, at the very least he would hear Ty out, let him explain. Stretching his legs under the desk, he studied the blank wall before him. A row of faint rectangles reminded him that Auntie Lea had removed pictures so that he could hang his own on this wall. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
This day could not end soon enough.
Trace fired up his laptop to check the NYPL website. Good. The library had Sunday hours. He could go tomorrow, get his outline together, and at least that would be done. He should have asked Presley for details. Like what topics he had agreed to cover, for one thing. And maybe why Ty was so pissed. He should text her, call her. But Presley Jackson? Jackson was way too common a name. She said she lived nearby, but their neighborhood was probably crawling with Jacksons.
He would not be calling Ty again, that much he knew. And tracking down Kali was out of the question. There couldn’t be too many Kali Castleberrys on Facebook, but even if he found her, the girl was not about to friend him.
Pulling a notepad out of his desk, he wrote 1860 in big numerals across the top. This is what he should do. Start on his outline. But all he recalled was that his topics sucked. The girls had grabbed the good stuff, like Jesse James and John Wilkes Booth. Trace groaned as Ty’s words suddenly came back to him. He had been left with slavery, the KKK, and Jim Crow, who apparently was not even a real person. Great.
Trace closed his laptop and pushed back from his desk, bumping his head on the ladder. It was too early for bed, but the thought of climbing up and burying himself under the covers was te
mpting. Music from stringed instruments drifted into his room, followed by shouts of opa! opa! from downstairs. Dinner must be ready.
Trace padded down the stairs in his socks. His aunt and two other women were lined up, hands on one another’s hips, swaying around the kitchen like a large, gangly caterpillar to music streaming from the speakers on top of the refrigerator.
“We are in for a treat tonight, my man,” Auntie Lea said. Her cheeks were flushed and, considering how worried he had been about her feelings just hours ago, it felt good to see her smiling.
“This is Vesper; I think you guys met when you first got here.” Trace nodded at the stocky Hispanic woman. He remembered the map of freckles covering her face but not much more. Auntie Lea was grabbing plates and glasses. “And this is her roommate, Talia,” she said over her shoulder. “Sit, sit, sit, you guys.”
Trace sat. Auntie Lea turned down the music and the Cuties dug in, chattering away. He didn’t wait. There was hummus and pita bread, tabbouleh and lentil soup, followed by large, warm pillows of spanakopita. Trace had never been a fan of spinach before, but his aunt served these little turnovers often and he knew he liked them.
His mind wandered as Vesper rambled on and on about her latest project: a photographic family tree. She and Talia were both photographers or taught photography or had met on a photo shoot or they liked photography, or something about photography was involved. He wondered if the two women were roommates or girlfriends. Trace was not exactly sure what lesbians did with each other. Vesper looked mighty soft and chunky, but Talia was a tiny thing with sharp edges. Her chin was pointy, her shoulders looked pointy, even her ears came to Spock-like points. Whatever they did together probably left Vesper bruised. He grinned at the thought of them tangled around each other and nodded to himself. Live long and prosper, ladies.
“You like that idea, Theo?” Auntie Lea suddenly said. “Okay, we’ll do it.” She smiled at him happily, as though he had been nodding at her. “All that stuff of Aunt Frenchy’s? We’ll start with that.”
“Co-o-o-ol,” Trace said slowly, returning her smile. Now what? He had to stop agreeing to stuff accidentally.
So now he listened. The women were talking about DNA traces that revealed where in the world your ancestors had come from. Auntie Lea eagerly pulled out one of Aunt Frenchy’s photo albums and the Cuties began oohing and aahing over the cracked and faded images. Even from across the table and upside down he recognized a picture of his mom when she was about his age. No way was he going through those pictures.
Trace felt warm. It wasn’t a good warm, though. They were passing around a plate piled with stuffed grape leaves and Trace leaned away, unable to hide a grimace as Vesper offered them to him. Cold rice and wet leaves? No. The damp and too-dark green clumps looked as if they’d been underwater for a long, long time. Trace pushed away from the table.
“Hey, wait,” Auntie Lea pleaded. “Where’s your sense of adventure? You have got to try the dessert Talia brought.” Pulling a round, undulating pastry out of a box, she set it before him. Its flaky surface glistened menacingly.
“Galactoboureko!” Talia breathed, her eyes all glittery.
So she really was a Vulcan.
9
The wide stone steps in front of the library were packed with people, but Trace found a space in the shadow of the lions and shrugged his book bag off his shoulders. The morning had been gray and chilly and now that the sun had come out, it felt nice just to sit and soak it in for a minute. Well, to sit and to check out the steady stream of girls walking down Fifth Avenue, clustered at the bus stop, and stretched out on the steps around him.
The sun was making him drowsy. It had been a rough night. He knew he must have had the dream again. But here, in the soothing daylight, he was glad he couldn’t remember any details. His bed had been a mess when he woke up: sheets twisted into knots, blankets dropped to the floor, his pillow bunched up and cowering in a corner as though trying to escape. Whatever he had been running from in his sleep had chased him right into consciousness at the crack of dawn. Trace could not remember the last time he had been able to sleep late. He closed his eyes and leaned back on his elbows.
“So you saw the ghost, huh?” A man’s voice in his ear made him jump.
“Wha . . . ?” A tall, brown-skinned man with a mustache had folded himself onto the step next to Trace.
“Whaddya mean? W . . . w . . . who are you?” Trace stammered. The air tightened around him and he suddenly saw, in great detail, the little closet of a room that Lemuel T. Spitz had held him in only yesterday. It was the guy who had come to take the broken chair and table from the guard’s office.
The man just smiled, tilted his face to the sun, and leaned back on his elbows too. “Relax, kid,” he finally said. “My name is Dallas Houston.” He gave Trace a knowing look out of the corner of his eye and grinned as though he was waiting for a comeback. “Go ahead, say it. I know it’s a messed-up name.” When Trace said nothing, the man sat up and leaned toward him, nudging his arm as though they were old buddies.
“I’ve seen him too, you know,” Dallas said quietly. “My workshop’s down there. Woodworking, handyman stuff—whatever needs fixing, I fix. I hear the kid from time to time. Even think I catch a glimpse of him once in a while. But I never get a really good look, you know?” Dallas Houston leaned back on the steps again, turning his face to the sky.
Trace said nothing, just glared at the street below. So he had known about the boy? Fifth Avenue was jumping: people walking by, getting on buses, sprinting through traffic. There were cars honking, tires screeching, chatter, even birdcalls if he listened hard enough. Everything looked clear, sharp-edged, solid and real.
“I only get a quick glimpse,” Dallas was saying, “but he kinda fades away if I look right at him. Did he do that to you?”
Trace pressed his lips together tightly. Now the man wanted to talk?
Dallas nodded as though he already knew Trace’s answer. “Every now and again . . . can’t put my finger on just how I know . . . but I know he’s there. Something kinda electrical happens to the air. Did you get that?”
“What are you talking about?” Trace blurted out. But he knew. Because his skin was all prickly again, that weird tingling sensation was back. “What do you mean, ‘fades away’?” He realized he had spoken too harshly, given away too much.
“He’s crying, right?” Dallas asked. “And raggedy?”
Trace slipped the straps of his backpack over his shoulders again and got up to leave. That raggedy kid was at the top of his list of things to not think about. With just a bit more time, the boy would become something imagined, a daydream, one of those shadows you catch moving from the corner of your eye. But when you look, it’s just a chair out of position, or a lampshade hung crookedly, or an unfamiliar coat draped on a rack. It’s not real. At least, it would not be if he kept working on it. The man tapped at his ankle.
“You’re not crazy,” Dallas Houston said. He was shielding his eyes against the sun as he looked up at Trace. “That boy’s down there all right. For some reason, he let you get a good look at him.”
The boy’s face, his eyes wet in the glow of the red light, drifted into Trace’s mind. The prickly, electrical sensation was fading, but now he felt uneasy, antsy, like there was something important he should be doing. What he felt like doing was kicking the man.
“If you knew he was there, why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell that guard who was grilling me like I was a kidnapper or something? Why tell me now, Dallas Houston?” Trace sneered, trying to turn the man’s name into a nasty punch line.
“No point. Those guards won’t find him,” Dallas said evenly. Beneath his hand, Dallas’s shaded eyes locked onto Trace’s. “He finds you. I think the kid’s waiting for someone.” The man paused, but Trace was already turning, heading up the steps.
“He’s down there all right,” Dallas called after him. “And he is a ghost.”
Trace f
elt good about the information he had collected. It had taken him one hour and forty-five minutes in the Reading Room: one hour for research and forty-five minutes to get his heart to stop racing, his fingers to stop vibrating as he tried to make notes. He could not decide if having someone confirm that he had seen a ghost was a good thing or a totally mind-altering, earthshaking, bone-rattling thing. Ghosts were fine in Stephen King or Peter Straub books. He could handle them easily in the dark with a box of popcorn and some 3-D glasses. But not underneath the streets of midtown Manhattan on a trip to the public library.
He spread his notes across his loft bed and was staring out the window below at the remains of Auntie Lea’s herb garden and flower beds. They were bathed in that last blast of pink light before the day slid into darkness. But it was a phony pink. A cold pink. Nothing warm about it. Winter was coming. A sudden image of his mom, her face made up to be artificially rosy at the funeral, came to mind and made him wince, stabbed him somewhere in his chest.
He pushed it back. Think about other things. Push it back. This, Trace realized, was becoming his talent: he could stop thoughts. He just needed other thoughts to knock them off center stage. So he studied the notes he had made in the Reading Room. The three pages he had filled with notes on the Ku Klux Klan were enough to let him know he would have never survived “back in the day.” No way would he have been able to put up with being taunted and harassed, treated like a criminal. Trace slammed his notebook closed. Well, maybe things had not changed so very much. New faces, new methods. Same crap.
In one sweep, Trace pushed papers, notebook, and pens off the bed, enjoying the slapping sounds as everything hit the floor below. Falling backward onto his pillow, he planted his feet on the ceiling. There was a hole in one sock, almost large enough for him to poke his big toe through. Only last week it had been just a little pinhole. This was how everything went. Everything came apart, ripped and unraveled, crumbled and died. And who was going to tell him to toss these socks out now or take him to get new ones? Who even noticed if he changed them or washed them or even wore them? No one. Not anymore. It was all on him now.