He dropped his arms but took my hands. “Not so lucky. The dumpers didn’t like what I told the media about being illegally detained. They want me to leave the country.”
I gasped. “You’re being deported?”
“Not officially. By the time Immigration can draw up paperwork, I’ll be gone anyway. But I’ll be on a watch list, so it’ll be harder to get a visa to come back.”
I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Then I’ll have to come to you.”
“Promise?”
“Gina can only legally ground me until I’m eighteen.”
Zachary stroked my hair. “Six months and a day.”
“Besides,” I said into his T-shirt so no one would hear, “I need to see Eowyn’s copy of my mother’s journal.”
“True, it might not be safe for me to send it to you by post or e-mail.” He put a hand to my chin, tilting it up. “But forgive me if it’s not the first thing I show you when you arrive.”
He kissed me then, because he could. I was free to be red, free to be his. Free to live, at last.
In a gesture of extreme mercy, Gina deferred my grounding until after Zachary left the country, so he and I spent Saturday catching up on everything we should’ve done sooner. Touristy stuff like the Air and Space Museum, and romantic stuff like a dinner cruise on the Inner Harbor.
We even went back to our sky-mapping field Saturday night, one last time. Without our sky maps.
Late Sunday afternoon, I drove the Moores down to BWI Airport, dropping them off to check in, then parking in the garage across from the terminal.
When I joined them at the end of the international terminal’s long security line, I saw that the airline had loaned Ian a wheelchair so he wouldn’t have to stand while they waited. His hair had thinned even more from the chemo, and his suit hung slightly loose on his once-muscular frame. But his green eyes still gleamed when he made a joke or gazed at Fiona.
Ian’s renewed perkiness was partly due to his oncologist’s rosier prognosis. The chemotherapy was buying him a few more months, and he was now expected to see the New Year. I hoped I would see him again, too, in this year and the next.
The security line moved way too fast, and before I knew it, the Moores stood a hundred feet from the boarding pass checkpoint. Time to say good-bye.
Zachary tugged me several feet away from the line. “I need to give you one thing before I go.” He reached into the inside pocket of his blazer (his mother had insisted he dress up for the flight like a proper man), then withdrew a fat white envelope. “No, wait. Two things.”
He kissed me as if we were the only two people in the airport, possibly the entire county. The terminal’s noise faded as my mind heard nothing but our breath and the music stuck in my head—the music we’d listened to last night under the stars.
Zachary’s face stayed near mine as he slipped the envelope into my hand. “Don’t open this in front of me.”
“Okay.” I ran my finger along the seal, seriously tempted. “So we’ll video-chat tomorrow after you get in?”
“Even if I’m completely shattered from the flight. But it’ll be early for you, maybe five a.m.”
“I don’t care.”
“Zachary, it’s time!” his mother called.
He waved to her, then turned back to me. “We’ll be together again soon, aye?”
“Aye,” I whispered.
And with a sweet, fast kiss, he was gone.
Slowly I turned and headed down the long, polished hallway toward the main terminal. Halfway to the exit, I opened the envelope. Inside was a glossy brochure and three sheets of paper stapled together. My heartbeat surged.
Ballyrock Castle, County Meath, Ireland.
The first sheet was an e-mail printout addressed to Zachary.
Re: Your reservation!
This confirms your reservation and receipt of one night’s deposit at Ballyrock Castle for the following dates:
20–24 December
The second sheet was a round-trip ticket in my name, from BWI to Dublin, departing December 19 and arriving the morning of December 20.
The third sheet was in Zachary’s handwriting.
Aura,
Please say you’ll come.
Zachary
P.S. Note the date I made the reservation.
I flipped back to the first page. March 30. Easter. The night I came to his apartment, the night we found out his dad had cancer. All along, he never gave up on us.
My new phone vibrated with a text message from Zachary. The DMP had returned the phones they’d taken from us, but we assumed they were bugged. So on Saturday we’d each bought a new one—red, of course—just for our own private communication.
I’M THROUGH SECURITY. SO YES OR NO?
I replied as I walked toward the exit: YES. 6 MONTHS = TOO LONG TO WAIT.
His reply: 6 MONTHS MINUS 1 DAY.
Me: OH. NO PROBLEM THEN.
Him: I LOVE YOU.
Me: SAVING THAT IN MY IN-BOX.
And then to follow up: I LOVE YOU.
Him: SAVED HERE. BYE.
“Aura.”
I startled at the voice. Megan sat on a bench near the skywalk to the parking lot, drinking a bottle of iced tea. Her hair was pulled back into a long red braid, and she wore a blue cami with yellow capris.
I strolled over to her. “I didn’t recognize you in color.”
“Ha, ha.” She stood and hugged me. “I figured you’d need a friendly face and a mocha fix right about now.”
“I do. Where do you want to go?”
“Your choice. You’re the one driving. I took the light rail down so we could ride home together. So you wouldn’t be alone in the car missing Zach.”
“Thanks. But what if your train had been late?”
“I would’ve called you and said to wait for me. Would’ve ruined the surprise, though.” She slipped on her sunglasses as we entered the glass-enclosed skywalk. “Not that you seem surprised.”
“I’m in shock.” I handed her the papers Zachary had given me.
She started reading them. “Whoa.” Her mouth rounded as she scanned his message on the last page. “How could you let that boy get on a plane?”
“It was two against one, and the two were his parents. I was legally doomed.”
She folded the pages and gave them back to me as we entered the parking garage’s stairwell. “Six months. My God, how will you last without your soul twin?”
“My what?”
“‘Soul twin.’ I came up with it a few nights ago.” She shoved her sunglasses atop her head, fanning out her red bangs. “I was thinking about that VIP idea—you know, how you and Zachary got into the world when no one was supposed to?”
“I was thinking about it a few nights ago, too.” I bumped my shoulder against hers. “Maybe you and I are soul twins, too.”
“Nah, just soul sistahs.” She offered me her iced tea. It wasn’t the brand with the symbols under the lid, but I took a sip anyway.
“I thought you were going out with Mickey tonight.”
“He’s not here. Guess where he is?”
“A monastery?”
She laughed, harder than I’d heard in months. “He’s at Shenandoah looking for an apartment.”
I stopped. “He’s going to college this year?”
“Yep. And since it’s too late to get a dorm room, he has to find his own place.” She grinned at me. “But that means when I visit him? No roommates.”
“Sweet.” I wondered if her mom would actually let Megan visit him, or if I would have to cover for her. “What changed Mickey’s mind about school?”
“I think working with Logan the last few weeks, and especially seeing him last night, was really good for him. His parents seem happier, too, now that Logan’s passed on, even though that scene Friday night was insane. Hey, speaking of Keeleys, call Siobhan and see if she wants to meet us for mochas.”
I slowed down to pull out my original phone while Megan went ahead of
me into the dark parking garage. Her head turned as she rounded the corner. I followed her, searching for Siobhan’s number.
Megan halted. “Wow, I just saw your redness in action.”
“Huh?”
She pointed to the garage elevator. “A ghost was standing next to that trash can, but she disappeared the second you walked through the door.”
“Cool.” I shrugged. “Won’t last long.”
My red “Zachary phone” buzzed.
I AM LOOKING AT A GHOST. RIGHT NOW. IN THE PUB. AMAZING. . .
I grinned and replied: ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS!
As we turned for my car, I looked back at the terminal, laughing at the image of Zachary spending the next hour or two pretending to his mom and dad that he didn’t see ghosts. I’d opened up a whole new world of experience for him, even as he’d given me a whole new world of peace.
For a short time, we’d become each other, a little. Maybe that’s what people do when they fall in love, mind, body, and soul. Or maybe we were just weird.
In any case, we belonged together, no matter what parents and governments had to say about it.
Soon enough, time and destiny would have their own say.
After the marathon mocha session, which included profoundly delicious sandwiches—after my time in the woods I would never again take food for granted—I let Siobhan drive Megan home so I could make another stop alone. Somewhere I’d been only twice.
“Sorry I haven’t visited much,” I told Logan as I laid a bouquet of white roses on his grave. “It never seemed like you were here.”
I stepped back, reading the scripture cut into the smooth stone: FOR WHAT IS SEEN IS TEMPORARY, BUT WHAT IS UNSEEN IS ETERNAL. Logan had told me he would’ve preferred something more contemporary, like, IT’S BETTER TO BURN OUT THAN TO FADE AWAY.
But eight months and three days after his death, I was starting to understand the quote his parents had chosen, and found it strangely comforting.
“I still don’t know where you are. It seems like I should know, like there should be an empty space inside me.” I swiped my hand over his full name, LOGAN PATRICK KEELEY, coming away with a thin layer of dirt. “But I still feel full. Maybe I always will. Maybe that’s a good thing.”
I rubbed my hands together, as if I could make the soil of his gravestone part of my skin. I hoped never to lose the part of Logan that dwelled within me. It would keep me from growing old, at least on the inside.
“You know what would be cool, next time?” said a voice behind me. “Black roses.”
I lowered my hands slowly, then turned to face Logan. Standing beside his grandmother’s grave two rows over, he shone violet in the fading evening light.
He tilted his head. “But my mom might think it’s morbid.”
I ran to him on shaky legs. “What are you doing here? I thought you passed on at the end of the show.”
His face lit up. “Did you? Was it convincing?”
I could barely speak through my bewilderment. “It looked different from the other ghost I saw, but I thought maybe that was because you were going straight from human to gone.”
“Turns out some things actually are impossible. You know, it hurt like hell falling through that trapdoor. They need a thicker cushion underneath.” He beamed at me, literally. “Besides, I changed my mind.”
My heart jumped and sank at the same time. “You’re staying?”
“No, no. I’m definitely ready to pass on. But I decided I didn’t want to do it in front of a crowd. I wanted it to just be us.”
I gestured to the empty cemetery. “Here? Now?” My voice trembled with hope and fear.
“It’s quiet. No music, no one screaming my name. Just you and me.” He looked at the grave. “And Nana. Maybe I’ll see her where I’m going.”
I remembered Logan’s grandmother weeping outside the funeral home during his viewing. “If she’s still a ghost, maybe she’ll follow you.”
“That’d be cool. Can you help her pass on?”
“I’ll try.” When he frowned, I said, “All right, I’ll make it my mission in life.”
“Awesome. Oh, and there was a third reason why I wanted to do this here and now. I wanted you to know for sure that I was gone, that your secret was safe. No one’ll ever know about your dad, not from me.”
I knew then that he would have no trouble passing on, because he wasn’t leaving only for himself. He was leaving to protect me. “Thank you.”
“It’s safe with Zachary, too,” Logan said.
“How do you know he knows? I didn’t tell you that.”
Logan’s eyes went round and innocent as he looked away. “I sort of talked to him. In the airport.”
My jaw dropped. “You were the ghost he saw. When he was—when he had—”
“You, all over him? Yeah, I didn’t see a bit of red on that dude. Must have been one hell of a good-bye kiss.”
My cheeks heated. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad you have him.” He touched his throat. “Wow, those words came out in one piece. They must be true.”
I laughed, even as I wanted to cry. “Logan, why did you have to die to grow up?”
“Ha.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his baggy shorts. “You wouldn’t have liked me as a grown-up. Just remember me like this. Or better yet, like I was when I was alive.”
“Some of my favorite memories will be of you as a ghost. You had a good life, and a pretty good afterlife, too.”
“One was too short and the other one, maybe too long.”
We fell silent, staring at his headstone. The years on it were way too close together. Even the month and days gave me a pain under my ribs to see: October 18 and October 19—he’d died a few minutes after his birthday.
“So what happened with that kidnapping?” Logan said finally. “Did the dumpers hurt you?”
“Not directly. I almost fell off a cliff running away from them, though. I am so not the outdoorsy type.” I looked up at the hazy orange-yellow sky. “But there were a lot of stars, more than I ever knew it was possible to see.”
Logan followed my gaze. “I wonder if there’ll be stars where I’m going.”
“If there aren’t now, there will be once you show up.”
His eyes softened, and he lowered his chin to look at me. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“Don’t worry.” I stepped close enough to mingle with his violet glow. “You won’t.”
Logan wrapped his arms around me in an embrace as real as any that flesh could offer. “No good-byes this time. Been there, done that, right?”
I forced out the word, “Yes.”
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “I can’t go if you cry.”
It was too late, so I kept my face against his ethereal chest, my tears drenching the place where my name was forever inked.
But my next breath came slow and even, and the one after that was smooth as steam. The tears stopped flowing. Soon the last one dripped off my chin and fell at our feet.
“Ah, there,” Logan said as a golden glow began to pulse at his core.
Part of me wanted to pull away, for fear of being engulfed in the light, maybe even dragged with him into that other realm.
But I was alive. No matter what forces had brought me into this world, I was here to stay for a long time. I could stand next to Logan, stand within him, while he walked that path without me.
Logan took his own deep, sweet breath, ready to sing a brand-new song.
“Close your eyes,” he said. “It’s gonna be bright.”
Aura’s search for truth—and love—continues in
Don’t miss the dramatic conclusion to the Shade trilogy
COMINGING SUMMER 2012
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