Shift

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Fun? You’ve hung out with my parents, right?”

  “Yes, and all eleven hundred times, they were fun.” I bit back my resentment at the fact that he at least had parents. That wasn’t the point.

  I opened my bag next to the bed and slid my calc text and notebook inside.

  “I guess I should let you sleep,” Logan said, but stayed where he was. Not that he had to physically walk out the door, but he usually stood up to say good-bye. Habit, I guess.

  I brought my bag to my desk to collect my laptop. “Where are you going tonight?”

  “I don’t know.” He traced the stitching on my bedspread. “Aura, do you ever get tired of this world?”

  I considered his question. As miserable as I’d been after he died, and after he shaded, and then after Zachary broke up with me, I’d never felt like I didn’t want to exist.

  “Not really.”

  “Maybe because you sleep. I think that’s why ghosts either pass on or go crazy and turn shade. It’s not the bitterness. It’s the boredom.” He set his palm on the mattress, as if it had finished a task. “Don’t freak out, but sometimes I think about staying here for years, turning solid every three months. What would I do with those seventeen minutes? Play guitar? Eat pizza?” He glanced at me. “Have rampaging rabbit sex with my best friend?”

  I laughed, though I didn’t want to encourage that line of thought. At least he no longer called me his girlfriend.

  “One of those times,” he said, “I think I’d take a nap.”

  I went to sit beside him. “You want to rest. We all do.” I thought of the grueling emotional and academic journey this year had been. After all the angst and hard work, I felt no closer to the answers I sought—about me, about Zachary, about the Shift. “Sometimes I just want to shut off my mind. Music helps.”

  “Music helps everything. Usually.”

  I reached behind him and picked up the MP3 player, then set it on my nightstand. With a few button clicks, I started my pre-exam playlist, the seventy most soothing songs I owned.

  “You can rest with me,” I said.

  Logan gave me a sad, grateful smile. “I’d like that.”

  He lay back against the pillow, almost gingerly, like he thought he would break it, or vice versa.

  “That’s where I sleep now,” I said.

  “You’ve always slept on the left side.”

  “I used to, but then I wanted to be away from the window.”

  “Why?”

  I stared at the dark brown blinds. “Because it hurt too much to watch it, every night, waiting for you to come back.”

  “When I was a shade?”

  I nodded. “And I couldn’t just roll over, because then I’d be looking at the empty space where you used to lie.” I pulled back the covers and slid underneath. “But you’re here now, so I should sleep on this side again. It’s closer to the clock, anyway.” I reached to set the alarm.

  “Aura, sleep wherever you need.”

  “I need to sleep here.” I lay down, the pillow cool beneath my head. “I need to feel normal again.”

  He placed his violet hand around mine in a facsimile of touch. “I’ll do like I used to, leave once you fall asleep.”

  “You can stay all night.”

  “Won’t it be creepy for me to watch you sleep?”

  “Then don’t watch me sleep. Just be here. Tonight, tomorrow night, whenever you need a quiet place to rest. Leave when you want.” I curled my thumb over his. “If you want.”

  “I won’t overdo it, I promise.”

  I believed him. His lack of shadiness was a sign that he’d changed. The last time I could remember him losing his temper was the night we met with Zachary and Megan. Since then he’d grown sadder, more serious. In other words, more grown up.

  “I have to turn over,” I said. “Your light keeps me awake.”

  “Sorry, I can’t help the shine.”

  As I rolled to lie on my left side, his last word echoed in my head, reminding me of what Eowyn had called the Newgrange sunrise a year before my birth. The Shine.

  Which in turn reminded me of how much work Zachary and I still had to do on our project, and how much I dreaded seeing him again. I forced my mind to stay here and focus on the soft music, hoping it would carry me away.

  But my eyes wouldn’t stay shut. I squirmed, my limbs searching for a comfortable configuration.

  “You can’t sleep?” Logan whispered.

  “It’s weird being on this side. It’s like my arm doesn’t fit.”

  We switched places, and immediately I felt myself relax into the mattress.

  “Better?” he said.

  “Mm-hmm,” I murmured.

  “Good. I love you, Aura.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I snuggled my face into the pillow, feeling at home again. This right-side, right-side-of-the-bed position—one of hiding and mourning—had become normal to me. Facing the window meant facing the world, something I’d thought I was ready to do.

  Obviously not yet.

  Zachary and I drove separately to our next meeting with Professor Harris. I’d told him—via text message, since we weren’t speaking complete sentences to each other—that I had another stop to make on the way back from the University of Maryland. It was easier to lie in a text.

  As I approached her office, I could hear him and Eowyn laughing.

  “Sorry I’m late.” I sat beside Zachary in front of Eowyn’s wide cherrywood desk—after pulling the chair farther away from him. “Hope I didn’t miss anything.”

  “Not at all.” Eowyn smiled at me. “Zachary was just telling me about the international soccer rivalry at home, and how if England advances in the World Cup and Scotland doesn’t, his mother will be the filling in a resentment sandwich.”

  “Heh.” I unzipped my messenger bag and pulled out my project materials, glancing at Zachary. He was eyeing the Keeley Brothers and Tabloid Decoys stickers on my notebook and folders.

  “So tell me.” Eowyn folded her hands. “Why are you two falling behind schedule? Is there a research roadblock I can help with?”

  “We’re fine,” I said, “just busy.”

  Zachary nodded at my notebook. “Aye, busy with the rock star and his paparazzi.”

  My mouth dropped open. Ouch.

  “Ooo-kay.” Eowyn sat back in her chair. “So it’s not a research roadblock, I take it.”

  “Our biggest problem isn’t the ragged schedule.” Zachary muted the edge in his voice. “To be honest, we have several theories that we can’t prove. We aren’t even sure if it’s safe to report them.”

  Her usual smile dissipated. “I’m sure that what I told you at the exhibit didn’t help. But that’s outside the scope of your thesis, which Mrs. Richards insists is a history paper. Your assignment is to focus on the people who built Newgrange and used it throughout the centuries. Not its hypothetical connection to other things.”

  “You mean the Shift,” I said.

  She looked at my right hand, which I noticed was clutching the arm of my chair so tight, the knuckles were turning white. I let go and rubbed my wrist.

  Eowyn pulled a set of keys from her top desk drawer. “Let’s take a walk.”

  On our way out, she closed and locked her door, checking the knob twice to make sure it didn’t turn.

  As we exited the building, Eowyn’s cell phone rang. She looked at the screen. “Oh! Excuse me for a second.”

  She answered the phone, leaving me and Zachary to walk beside each other in silence toward the wide grassy expanse of McKeldin Mall.

  After a few yards, he spoke quietly. “Did you really listen to my voice mail?”

  I startled at the suddenness of his question and the vulnerability of his voice. “Which one?”

  “The one I left the morning after the prom,” he said with a touch of annoyance.

  Eowyn gasped into the phone. “Are you kidding me? For a oneway ticket? Is that coach or business class?”

>   I turned back to Zachary. “I told you I listened to it. I said everything was fine.”

  He walked backward, with an athlete’s easy grace. “What did my message say?”

  “Um.” I swiped at the hair blowing across my cheek. “That you were sorry about the night before. Can’t we just move on?”

  Eowyn groaned. “I don’t have an exact date yet, I’m just shopping for rates and schedules.”

  Zachary kept his eyes on me, his dark hair tossed at his temples. “What else did I tell you in the voice mail?”

  “That . . .” I sucked at improvising, and besides, he knew the right answer and I didn’t, which gave him an advantage. “Uh.”

  “I knew it,” he said with a mix of triumph and anger. “You didn’t listen to it.” He faced forward again, a few paces ahead of me.

  “Was it about your dad?” I shouted over the whistling breeze. “How is he?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Zachary said, “and he’s the same, thanks. But his work visa’s expiring next month, because he can’t work.”

  My feet slowed, almost stumbling. “When are you leaving?”

  “The twenty-second of June.”

  Two days after the solstice. I would lose both him and Logan in one weekend.

  “Frankly,” he said, “I don’t know whether to be mad or relieved you didn’t hear my message. I think I’m both.”

  Now he was torturing me on purpose. “I accidentally deleted it, okay? I was tired that morning, and my thumb slipped and hit the wrong key.”

  He shot me an oh, please look over his shoulder. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “You’ve been so helpful,” Eowyn said into the phone. “You’ll be the first I call when I set a date. Thanks again!”

  She hung up as we approached the long, rectangular fountain in the center of the mall. It reminded me of the Reflecting Pool on the Mall in DC. But because the landscape here was sloped, this one incorporated several stairlike waterfalls, creating a background murmur.

  Oh. Maybe she’d brought us here so no one could overhear us over the fountain and the wind. Or maybe I was paranoid.

  “Aura. Zachary.” Eowyn took one of our hands in each of hers. “The time is coming soon when I must leave you.”

  “Are you sick?” Zachary blurted.

  She squeezed our hands and let go. “I’m fine, despite a severe lack of sleep. I just need to leave the country. I’m in trouble. I haven’t done anything illegal, I simply need to be out of the DMP’s reach so I can continue my research in peace.” She looked at Zachary. “Your father says I’ll be safe in the UK.”

  “Why is the DMP after you?” he asked.

  “They think I have information that might lead them to the mysteries of the Shift.”

  My muscles jolted. “Is that true?”

  “Not sure. I have the documents, but I can’t read them.”

  “Are they in some ancient language?” Zachary asked.

  “They’re in English, but I can’t unlock them.” She pressed her lips together, as if sealing in the words. “Only Aura can.”

  I jerked my head to look at her bag. It wasn’t big enough for papers. “Where are they? Can I have them now?”

  “I promised to wait until you were eighteen, or until I could no longer personally protect the information.”

  Great. I wouldn’t be eighteen for seven months. “Promised who?”

  She squared her shoulders and faced me head-on. “Your mother.”

  “I was right.” I kicked a stone down the sidewalk ahead of me as Zachary and I walked toward the university’s visitor parking lot. “My mom was hiding secrets from me.”

  “Not from you,” he said. “For you.”

  I kicked the stone again, with more force. “But not until I’m eighteen! What’s so horrible that I can’t handle it now?”

  “Maybe it’s a legal matter. What can you do once you turn eighteen?”

  “I can use my cell phone while I’m driving. I can vote. I can buy cigarettes and lottery tickets and porn.”

  “It’s probably not one of those. Don’t you become an official adult at eighteen?”

  “Duh.” I kicked the rock, but it spun off the side of my foot. Zachary saved it from shooting off the sidewalk.

  “So think. What would that mean for your mother, you being a real person?”

  I stopped. “Oh my God. I think that’s the age when adopted kids can hunt down their birth mothers.”

  “You know who your mother is.”

  “But I don’t know my father.” I grabbed his arm. “Maybe that’s what’s in the documents—my dad’s name. Which means I can find him!”

  He gave a wistful smile. “I hope so.”

  “I will.” I tilted my head back in triumph. The sky suddenly looked bluer, the clouds puffier.

  I noticed I was still holding on to Zachary’s arm. I dropped my hand but didn’t move away. My excitement gave me a shot of courage.

  “Please tell me what your voice mail said. The part I missed.”

  His gaze dropped to the notebook I was gripping, the one with the stickers for Logan’s bands. His smile disappeared, making my heart plummet to my shoes.

  “Sorry.” He turned and gave the rock an extra-hard kick, shooting it across the street. “Not today.”

  I gave a defeated sigh and followed him toward the parking lot. As we walked, we divided our thesis into sections, each of us choosing the parts we would polish into a final form.

  When we reached my car, he said, “I’ll send you the outline and maybe we can meet next week?”

  The thought of spending more time with Zachary, seeing up close the hands and mouth that had been all over Becca—and trying to decode his mixed signals—sounded downright masochistic. I had to get over him.

  “There’s a lot going on right now.” I scraped my shoe against the mud splash on the bottom of the car door. “With finals and band rehearsals and all of Logan’s interviews, plus the show next month.”

  “And?”

  “In my aunt’s firm there are these two guys who work down on the Eastern Shore.” To avoid Zachary’s narrowing eyes, I stuffed my notebook back in my bag, which I took my time refastening. “We hardly ever see them, but they do a ton of work for us by e-mail and videoconferencing and remote desktopping. Maybe you and I could do that, so we wouldn’t have to—”

  “See each other?”

  Exactly. “No, it’s not that. I just think, with our crazy schedules, it would be—”

  “Brilliant. Let’s do it.”

  I watched him walk away, trying to convince myself that this was easier. If it was just a matter of time before I could read my mother’s secrets, then I didn’t need Zachary to help me figure things out.

  I turned back to my car, fumbling with the keys on Gina’s giant metallic Italian flag key chain. I couldn’t look at Zachary and think of my birthday—either the last one, when we had first kissed; or the next one, when I had hoped we’d go to Newgrange for the solstice.

  Another dead dream.

  The school year ended, and I officially became a senior—a senior who could look forward to an entire year without calculus. With Logan’s help, I’d aced the class final.

  It was the least he could do, since wrangling him and Tabloid Decoys had become my part-time job, one that was interfering with my real job, which actually paid me. The band members—Josh, Heather, and Corey—agreed to give me a portion of their CD sales for the next year. Since their previous year’s sales only reached mid-double digits, I figured my royalty checks would maybe buy me lunch. At McDonald’s.

  But the money wasn’t the point. As always, I needed to monitor Logan to keep him from spilling my secrets. Plus, I needed to wring every moment out of his time on Earth.

  Because this time, I knew it was ending. This time, I knew he was ready.

  However, his band—and its new “lead singer”—were not. Tabloid Decoys had only two rehearsals left before their big solstice concert. Logan and Mickey�
�finally communicating—had figured out the ultimate fake magic trick, one that would make Logan’s return to solidity less believable and thus less likely to cause a universal freak-out.

  Now they just had to get it right.

  “If you want to be me,” Logan told his older brother at the end of the song, “you have to be less cool.”

  Sitting beside us in the second row, Megan repeated his words toward the stage.

  Mickey glared at the ceiling of the high school auditorium, where he was rehearsing the finale. “I can’t help it if I’m naturally cooler than he is.”

  “For the fortieth time,” I said, “don’t talk about him like he’s not here.” I gestured to my left, where Logan sat with his feet propped on the seat in front of him.

  Mickey’s hand tightened on the neck of the black Fender. “What do you mean by ‘less cool,’ Logan?”

  “Try smiling for once in your life. And bounce more. Work those Vans.”

  After I translated, Mickey frowned at the blue-and-black-checkered high-tops on his own feet, but thankfully made no comment. He and Logan had been bickering all afternoon, as they had when Logan was alive. But at least they were speaking again.

  We’d found an outfit that matched what Logan had been wearing the night he died, and which he still wore, as it was apparently the happiest moment of his life. The day after tomorrow, on the morning of Logan’s solstice show, Mickey would get a temporary Aura tattoo over his heart, then bleach his hair blond with black streaks. Their faces and lanky builds were so similar, people used to think they were twins.

  After Logan’s death, Mickey had rejected his own punk image. He’d dyed his jet-black hair back to its natural medium brown and stopped spiking it. He’d also abandoned the electric guitar.

  Seeing Mickey plugged in again was like bringing a piece of Logan back to life—and Mickey with him.

  Mickey turned to his temporary bandmates. “Let’s take it two measures before the first bridge. Josh, watch your tempo—you sound like you’re on crack heading into that chorus.”

  Corey, the drummer, counted off, and they crashed into the rolling, swerving bridge, my favorite part of “Shade,” Logan’s new tune. If he became human again on Friday night, he would play it himself. It would be his swan song.