Shift

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  One urgent part of me had woken up, and I wished ten times harder for that box of tissues.

  I sat up, pins prickling my arm as blood rushed into it. Zachary lay in the same way as the night before—on his back, bare-chested, his wrapped ankle propped on the log.

  “Where you going?” He blinked at me with sleep-heavy lids, surpassing previous levels of cute by several orders of magnitude.

  “Nowhere you need to follow.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I’ll try not to fall in.” I stood, brushed the dirt from my butt, and stomped off, hating all guys for their ease in wilderness peeing.

  I climbed the hill, weaving around the underbrush, trying to find the forest’s least bug-ridden spot. If nothing else, I had to get out of Zachary’s line of sight.

  Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and stopped by a nonmoldy tree so I at least had a handhold. I peeled down my pants, half wishing we’d never escaped the DMP. At least in federal custody I’d have running water and toilet paper.

  A few seconds later, I didn’t care about luxuries. I closed my eyes and exhaled in relief.

  “Wouldn’t you rather use the outhouse?”

  I yelped at the sound of the woman’s voice. By reflex I tried to stand up, but my feet slipped in the damp leaves. I was left clutching the tree trunk to keep from falling.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry.” A woman circled in front of me, her violet shimmer barely visible in the morning light. “Are you okay?”

  It had been more than ten years since a ghost had caught me like this. Bathrooms were the first places to get BlackBoxed.

  In the distance, Zachary called my name.

  “No!” I shouted, yanking up my pants. “Don’t come over here!” This ghost might be the only one who could help us. If he scared her away—

  He hobbled over the ridge. “Are you all right?”

  The ghost let out a shriek and vanished.

  Zachary came closer, his steps more cautious, maybe now that he could see I hadn’t been turned into bear breakfast.

  “There was a ghost.” I finished buttoning my jeans. “She said something about an outhouse.”

  His lips twitched. “Did she interrupt you?”

  “Don’t you dare laugh, Red Boy. You scared her off.”

  “But you didn’t.” He went full-on smirk. “Good thing I didn’t wake you with a kiss, aye?”

  “Shut up and help me find this house.”

  He studied the ground at his feet. “This looks like a trail leading from the water. Let’s follow it.”

  We headed off, keeping the river within earshot so we wouldn’t get completely lost.

  “How’s your ankle?” I asked him.

  “Better. It’s a bit of a sprain, no worse.” He tugged on his shirttail. “And I can be fully dressed again.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I said with a straight face.

  Soon the trees thinned into a clearing, where we saw a tiny house with an even tinier outhouse.

  I didn’t know whether to be relieved or more scared than ever. What if the ghost hadn’t lived alone, and her shotgun-wielding husband was still around? Maybe he had killed her.

  We entered the clearing and stopped in our tracks.

  “What’s that smell?” I whispered, though a deep instinct told me.

  “Wait here.” Zachary walked forward with barely a limp. I followed as he crept to the edge of the house, slid against the wall like a soldier, then peered around the corner.

  “Aura, don’t look.” But it was too late.

  Someone had died here. A long time ago, judging by what was left of her.

  I reached out to steady myself against the corner of the building. Was this the body of the ghost I’d seen?

  Zachary peered through the house’s small side window. “It’s empty. Let’s go in.”

  I followed, my steps as heavy as my heart. Who was this woman, living in the middle of nowhere, with no one to miss her when she died?

  Inside, the one-room house was dusty but tidy. The few furnish-ings—a wooden bed, dresser, kitchen table, and nightstand—looked hand built, but competently so. I was relieved that the back window’s faded yellow curtain was drawn, so I couldn’t see the body lying in the yard.

  The wall above the twin-size bed held a small gallery of family photos. I moved closer to see. There were several of a middle-aged couple and a young woman who could’ve been their daughter. Flanking them were a pair of newspaper obituary notices. William Robinson had died of brain cancer at fifty-five, and leukemia had killed Dara when she was only twenty-eight. Father and daughter had died less than a year apart.

  “How sad.” I touched the central photo, of the parents dancing at their daughter’s wedding. “They look so happy here.”

  Zachary read the obituaries over my shoulder. “Maybe the ghost is the mother? Fredericka?”

  “I guess so.”

  “We should bury what’s left of her.”

  Thirsty, I turned to the sink but saw only a basin. “No running water?” I picked up an overturned bucket—thankfully clean. “I’ll get water from the river, and we can boil it. You should stay inside in case ex-Fredericka comes back to talk to me.”

  He frowned but didn’t argue. “I’ll look for food.”

  I hurried out of the house and downhill toward the river.

  “There’s a pump around back,” said a woman’s voice behind me.

  I stopped and turned. A violet shimmer caught my eye, about ten feet away. The thick ceiling of trees gave me a decent view of the ghost’s appearance, now that she was standing still. A long pale braid curled forward over her shoulder, dangling over the curved neckline of what looked like a graduation gown.

  “Hi.” I tried to smile. “Is that you behind the house?”

  “What’s left of me.” She bent her head. “I think I had a heart attack.”

  “You lived out here alone?”

  “Mm-hmm. Moved to this patch of heaven ten years ago, after I lost my family. Didn’t see any more need for human company.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why can’t I go into my house?”

  “It’s my friend. He’s kind of a walking BlackBox. But he wants to bury your body,” I added, before she could get mad.

  The woman’s shoulders dropped. “That would be a blessing. I’ve been traveling the world, all the places I went during life, but I keep coming back to check on my—er, mortal coil. It’s in pretty bad shape.”

  “I could say a few words when we bury you, if it would help you pass on.”

  “Oh, would you? I always wanted to attend my own funeral.” She put a hand to her mouth. “My, that sounds egotistical. Go on and fetch your water. The well is safe to drink from, but the pump is near the . . . you know. It’s near me.”

  “Thanks.” I followed a path to an iron well pump. The handle squeaked as I pushed it down, then released it. Like an eighteenth-century miracle, water came out of the spout. I stuck my face under, lapping like a greedy dog.

  The ghost had followed me. “Any special requests for your funeral?” I asked her, to break the silence and distract me from the corpse smell.

  “Can you sing?”

  “Not really.” I started filling the bucket. “What song?”

  “My favorite is ‘The Rose,’ by Bette Midler. Have you heard it?”

  “Maybe once or twice, in the dentist’s office. Hey, you could sing it yourself. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” It would be fun for Logan.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  I snuck one more gulp of water as it splashed into the bucket. “What’s your name?” I already knew from the obituaries, but didn’t want her to think I’d been snooping.

  “It’s Fredericka. You can call me Fred.”

  “Hi, Fred. I’m Aura.”

  “Aura,” she whispered, almost lovingly. “You might be my salvation.”

  Back in the house, Zachary was leaning over the table, studying a topographical ma
p. He’d put on a clean T-shirt, a yellow one with a snake coiled up under a sign that said DON’T TREAD ON ME. It fit well, so I assumed ex-Fred had kept some of her husband’s clothes in her dresser.

  “Any luck?”

  “You could say that.” I dipped a cup in the cold water and held it out to him.

  “Boil it first,” he said. “I didn’t find purifying tablets. The stove is ready to light.”

  “The water came from a well pump in the back. Ex-Fred says it’s safe.”

  “You met the ghost?”

  “Yep, and they can’t lie, so drink.” I nudged the cup against his chest, glad (sort of) that it was no longer bare.

  “Thanks,” he said softly, and curled his fingers around the cup, brushing them against mine. Our eyes met, and I wondered if he was remembering us falling asleep under the stars together. How at one point I’d rolled to face him, looping my arm across his chest—purely for comfort, of course, since my body still insisted I sleep on my right side. How he’d pulled me closer, just a little.

  I turned to the map. “How far are we from civilization?”

  “Far. Look, here’s the river we crossed. If we follow it . . .” He traced the waterway to the right, then unfolded the map’s next panel.

  And the next. And the next. And the next. The map ended with no towns in sight.

  Zachary sighed. “We’re up the arse of nowhere.”

  “We’re better off going back the way we came.”

  “They’ll be looking for us there.” He unfolded the top panel. “If we go north, we’ll hit a road.” The two-lane Pennsylvania state highway went off the edge of the map. “But we can’t tell how far it is to town.”

  “I’ll ask ex-Fred. First, food.”

  We were too hungry to cook the pasta and canned goods, so we sat down to a breakfast of protein bars, crackers, and Cheez Whiz.

  We’d barely started eating when Zachary said, “When we get home—if we get home—the DMP will be looking for us there, too.”

  I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. “Shit. They know I’m supposed to be at Logan’s concert.”

  “Do you have to go?”

  “I don’t think he’ll pass on if I don’t.”

  “Then you have to go,” he said flatly.

  I ignored his comment. “The media will be watching to see if Logan shades again.” I gasped, almost choking on a cracker crumb. “That’s it! We head back to Baltimore tomorrow and go straight to the concert. We’ll be safe in front of the cameras. The DMP won’t dare pick us up with the whole world watching.”

  He gave me a skeptical look. “What about that Nicola woman? Won’t she be there?”

  “Yeah, since she’s literally running the show.”

  “It seemed like she didn’t expect them to take us away. You think she’ll help us?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” I tore the wrapper off a second protein bar. “And we still have to get there in time. Who can we call to pick us up once we find a phone?”

  “Not my parents or your aunt. Their lines are probably tapped by now.”

  “Maybe one of our friends?”

  “If the DMP is as thorough as MI-X, they’ll go through our cell phones and monitor every contact.”

  “I guess we’ll have to hitchhike.”

  “No, we’ll call someone. Wouldn’t want to meet the sort of person who would pick up a couple of manky teenage hitchhikers.” He glanced at me. “Not that you’re manky.”

  I chortled at his Scottish-ism, then touched my stringy hair. “I’m completely manky. I should heat up water for a sponge bath.”

  He licked a dab of Cheez Whiz off his thumb. “There’s always the river.”

  “Yeah, right. The icebergs might get in the way.”

  Zachary wiped his hands and rested his arms on the table. “I’ll keep you warm.”

  I ripped my eyes from his and stared at his long, strong fingers, imagining them on my bare wet skin, smoothing out the goose bumps. Everywhere.

  But those fingers had touched Becca, too. How much of her, I didn’t know, and hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask. Maybe it didn’t matter anymore. But I couldn’t decide with him looking at me that way.

  I stood and grabbed the topographical map. “Rest your ankle. I’m going to get directions from a ghost.”

  Ex-Fred not only showed me how to get to the nearest town (a five-mile walk once we reached the road, which was five miles from the shack), but also showed me where she preferred to be buried, under her favorite hickory tree. It was only several feet from her temporary resting place, so we wouldn’t have far to drag the body.

  Unfortunately, she was so adamant about having “The Rose” sung at her funeral—and not by her—she insisted on teaching it to me. Due to my total lack of musical talent, this took two hours.

  So with lunch in our stomachs, gloves on our hands, and Vapo-Rub under our noses (I’d seen it used on a cop show, to cover the corpse smell), Zachary and I dug ex-Fred’s grave late that afternoon. Then we wrapped the remains in the quilt from the bed and lowered her gently into the grave.

  Zachary stood at ex-Fred’s feet, gazing down at the deceptively small bundle. “I’ll go inside so you can call her. You’ll be all right?”

  “I can handle ghosts. Most of them, anyway,” I added, thinking of Logan.

  Zachary slowly pulled off his gloves. “You know, grave digging gives a bloke time to think.”

  “About what?”

  “Mistakes.” He angled his chin at the hole in the ground. “Words I don’t want to take to my own grave.”

  My stomach quivered. “Then we should talk.”

  He nodded.

  “After the funeral,” I added.

  He stepped away from me. “Tell Fredericka I’m very sorry.”

  When he was gone, ex-Fred appeared instantly at my side. She glowed a brighter violet now that the sun had disappeared behind the mountain.

  “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I always thought to myself, ‘Fred, if you choose to live alone, then one day you’ll die alone.’ I didn’t think I’d be only sixty-one.” She raised her palms. “Ready for your big debut?”

  I stepped back from the grave to avoid inhaling the scent of her remains. Then I unfolded the paper with the lyrics she’d dictated, took a deep breath, and began to sing.

  She stopped me at the second note. “You’re off-key. It goes like this, remember?” She hummed a bar. “Try again.”

  For the next twenty minutes, I sang “The Rose,” stopping and starting again on ex-Fred’s cues. If my ghost-translating profession gave out awards for valor, I would’ve earned the mother of all medals.

  Finally, on the seventeenth try, I got it perfect.

  Ex-Fred jumped and clapped her hands. “Wonderful!”

  I gave a quick bow, then crouched down and scooped up a handful of damp dirt before she could ask for an encore. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” The soil fell over the shroud, making a soft patter. I brought up the only comforting words I could remember from Logan’s funeral. “May eternal light shine on you, Fredericka, and may you rest in peace forever. Amen.”

  I was finally able to make out her features—a prominent chin, large eyes, and high cheekbones. She smiled at the grave, but didn’t glow white-gold to indicate she was passing on.

  “Amen,” I repeated.

  Ex-Fred looked at me. “That’s it? No sermon?”

  “Um . . .” I scratched the back of my head, suddenly craving a hot shower. “Fredericka was a woman of great—”

  “Dignity.”

  “Dignity. Despite her rugged surroundings, she kept a, uh, a clean house.” I peeked at her from the corner of my eye. No golden glow. “And she loved the two people who filled her life, William and Dara.”

  She shot me a sharp look. “How do you—”

  “The photos and the obituaries.” I was taking a risk. If I didn’t mention them, she might not feel complete enough to pass on. Then again, if she was stil
l bitter about their deaths, she could turn shade.

  “Did you go through my drawers, too?” Her voice crackled. “Find all my secrets?”

  “I swear I only read what was on the wall. I wanted to know more about you so I could give you a good funeral.”

  “Liar.” Her outline shimmered as black lines stabbed her violet form.

  “Soon you’ll be with your husband and daughter,” I said, though I had no clue if that was true. But most pre-Shifters believed that heaven was a giant after-party, so I hoped she’d find comfort in the idea.

  Her fists relaxed, and the black brightened into violet. “You’re right. I’ve been so busy reflecting on what’s happened in this world, I’d forgotten about the next.”

  I stood and faced her. “They’re waiting for you, Fred.”

  She blinked twice, then spoke in an almost childlike voice. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s not about what I know.” I reached out to the place where her heart had been. “It’s about what you know.”

  As she stared at me, she brightened. I looked up to see if the sky had grown cloudy. It shone as blue as ever through the treetops.

  Ex-Fred was passing on.

  In her stomach, a pale yellow light began to glow. She closed her eyes and gave a serene smile.

  A wave of contentment flowed through my veins. In my job I’d helped countless ghosts prepare themselves to pass on, but this was the first time I’d seen it happen in person. I thought of Logan and his departure tomorrow night, and had the fiercest wish that he would follow this path. I only hoped he wanted it as much as I wanted it for him.

  “Aura, you have a gift.” The gold-white light spread in streams, then rivers, out to the ends of ex-Fred’s legs and arms. “Never forget that.”

  Her form became a pulsing, woman-shaped star. Then, with no sound, she faded, leaving nothing but a dark afterimage on my eyes.

  A gift, she’d said. For once, I had to agree.

  Zachary and I filled the grave in silence, then placed the pick and shovel back in the small toolshed. Dusk had fallen, and the forest was loud with crickets.

  I picked up the small bag I’d packed. “We’ve got food, cash, paper and pens, and the map. So we can go whenever.”