Giving Up the Ghost

by Jane Davitt

  There was quiet for a minute, the breeze changing direction slightly. Then Nick drew a shaky breath; John could see him trembling.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  It was what John had hoped would happen; that Nick would get what he’d been given, a chance to say goodbye, but this was different. John and his father had been close, with nothing between them but love and respect. Nick couldn’t really have either of those for a man he barely knew, who’d turned his back on him.

  But he was still blood. Still family. John, who could, if needed, list his ancestors going back a couple of centuries without even trying, because they’d all been born, lived, and died on that small scrap of rock and sand in the western sea, couldn’t overlook the importance of that.

  His hand relaxed on the pencil he held. No need for notes here. He just wished, with a fierce, sharp pang of regret, that Nick didn’t have to do this under the eyes of strangers.

  Alicia gave a choked gasp and took a single step forward, halted by Greg’s hand on her arm.

  Nick looked toward Alicia a bit wildly. “Don’t,” he said, swaying on his feet. John took a step toward him, unsure if his intention was to support him or just reassure, but Nick took a deep breath and steadied himself. “It’s okay.”

  “Sit if you need to, lad.” John stayed where he was.

  “I will. I’m okay.” Nick turned his attention back toward his father’s ghost, and after a moment he smiled sadly. “Yeah, I know. Good intentions.” For all the world he sounded like a man who’d been close to his father, who’d considered him a friend. “Alicia? Did you want to talk to him? He’s right here.”

  Alicia was trembling now, the affectations stripped from her face, leaving only the careful makeup to give it any color. Her hands rose slowly to her mouth, jamming against it, smearing the vivid red lipstick. She stood like that for a moment and then her hands dropped. “I can’t see him.” Her voice was flat, desolate. “I wanted to see him.”

  John felt a sympathy he hadn’t thought possible. “It doesn’t work like that, love,” he said. “But he can hear you and he can probably see you. Hurry; you don’t have long. If there’s anything ‑‑”

  “Brian?” Alicia sounded shrill. “I need to know where the money is. I know you would have wanted me to have it…”

  Nick was unmoving as a statue, his head tilted a bit to one side, listening. “Some of it was on the plane with him,” he said, and Alicia gave a choked moan of despair. “But the rest of it’s at his apartment. Under the kitchen sink. He says you know where.”

  Nodding, Alicia wiped at her eyes. “He kept money under there sometimes. In one of those fake spray cans.” John had no idea what she was talking about, but it didn’t matter. Greg was recording everything intently. “All of it?”

  “He says yes,” Nick reported after a moment. “Everything he didn’t have with him. He says the landlord will let you in, but not to wait too long or they’ll clean the place out.”

  Alicia took a step backward, as if she was about to start running to get it, but then paused. “You…he said you’d want Josh to have some. I ‑‑ I guess that’s fair. I’ll do that, Brian. I promise.” Her face crumpled, the middle-aged woman showing through the façade of youth. “I miss you, Brian. Miss you so much, sweetheart.”

  “He’s…” Nick’s voice broke, but he recovered and went on. “He misses you, too. He says…he thought you two were going to get old together. That you ‑‑ you were the only person he ever met he thought he might be able to stand for more than a couple of years.” The words came fast and furious, like they usually did when Nick was trying to echo what someone else was saying. He was looking a bit pale, John thought.

  “Oh, God.” Alicia started sobbing; Greg stepped closer and grasped her elbow in support, but didn’t stop filming. “I really loved…I really love you, Brian. I do. I didn’t think I could, but…”

  “He says to have a good life. Have fun.” Nick’s lips twisted in something that bore little resemblance to a smile. “Find someone else, if you can.”

  “I will. I’ll try. And I’ll send some of the money to Josh, I will.” Alicia sounded sincere enough, although she looked terrible, eye makeup running down her face.

  Nick nodded, his attention turning inward, his voice dropping to a conversational tone John could hear, but he doubted the other two onlookers could. Alicia was too busy searching through her purse for Kleenex to care, her crying getting stormy now, her shoulders heaving, but Greg frowned and began to move forward.

  John put himself between Nick and Greg, blocking the man’s view. “You’ll let him say goodbye to his father in peace.”

  “I just want to ‑‑”

  “You heard me.” John was prepared to take the camera from him if he had to, and he didn’t care what he had to do to get it, but Greg bit his lip, nodded reluctantly, and stepped back again.

  John turned and saw a smile, regretful but not unhappy, pass over Nick’s face.

  “I know. And I will. Or I’ll try, at least.” Nick’s eyes met his and his smile turned loving. “I’ve got a pretty good shot at being happy, Dad.”

  John smiled back and watched Nick’s head sink forward, his body bowed as if some strength had left him. “Nick? Are you ‑‑?”

  “I’m fine.” Nick’s voice was husky with tears but he managed a reassuring look. He glanced over, directing his words to Alicia. “He’s gone.”

  “You mean…” Alicia sounded bereft, but after another moment or two she nodded and sniffled and turned to go. None of them made a move to stop her. She’d gone ten steps or so before she turned back and said to Nick, “Thank you. I wouldn’t have had…” She wiped her eyes again. “Thanks.”

  Nick didn’t say anything; there were beads of sweat gathering around his hairline, and he was already starting to look strained, but he took a deep breath and made contact with the next ghost, inviting it into the circle. Off to the side, Greg was still taping with a look of intent fascination.

  John took notes as Nick talked with the remaining spirits one by one. By the time Nick said, “This is the last one,” another half hour or so had passed. Nick’s words were halting, the pauses between communications longer, but even so it was an incredible improvement from the night before.

  “Okay,” Nick said finally, rubbing his face. “I think that’s it.”

  “Thank God,” John said, feeling as exhausted as Nick looked, although with far less cause. Watching Nick work didn’t require anything like the physical exertion of hauling in net after net of mackerel, silvery and squirming, but he was starting to think that he did more than watch and record; as if Nick drew something from him.

  He didn’t mind that. In fact, he liked the idea, because he wanted to help Nick all he could, but God, he was having trouble focusing on the words he’d scrawled down. He tucked the paper and pen away and gave Nick a wavering smile.

  “So can we just blow out the--” Greg began.

  A rush of wind drove through the clearing, carrying a shriek within it, bitter and savage. Nick flinched and John instinctively brought his hands to his ears. Greg looked puzzled and slightly uneasy. “Guys?”

  The small, bright flames of the candles popped out neatly, one by one, the circle of light extinguished.

  “Nick? What the hell’s going on?” John had to raise his voice; the wind was a howl now, and the trees nearby were bending, limbs lashing, leaves scattering.

  Nick’s face was pale, his hair unusually dark, and for a moment John could have sworn that the man’s eyes were glowing. “It’s Grant,” Nick shouted. “Get him out of here!” He gestured at Greg, and John shook his head.

  “I’m not leaving you. He can bloody well get out of here on his own!”

  Greg had moved closer ‑‑ the wind was so strong, swirling like a tornado, that John understood the natural instinct to be near others. “Are you kidding? I’m not leaving!” He was still holding that damned video camera, and it was still recording if the little glowing red l
ight was any indication.

  Hesitating, Nick’s face made it clear how torn he was. Step out of the circle, where he’d be less protected, or stay in the hopes of capturing Grant there?

  “Stay there!” John yelled. “You’re the only one who can control him.”

  “Who? Who is it?”

  Greg seemed fascinated rather than scared, which was good in a way; John didn’t want to deal with someone panicking. He spared a fleeting thought for Alicia, hoping that she was well clear, and then focused his attention on Nick. “It’ll be you he’s after; you need all the protection you can get. Just stay in there.” Greg’s hand closed around his arm and John shook him off, saying briefly, “It’s one of the victims. He’s…different. Angry. Pissed as hell. Won’t let Nick help ‑‑”

  Something ‑‑ something invisible but that managed to distort the air at the same time ‑‑ rushed past them. John stumbled and Greg caught at his sleeve, kept him upright. It came at them again, the howling of the wind becoming a shriek, then it circled away.

  “Did you see that?” Greg shouted. “What the hell was that?”

  The wind died down, the place where they were standing getting quiet again. “That,” Nick said flatly, “was a ghost. And he’s not very happy about it. He thinks I had something to do with how he got that way, so he’s…”

  A thinly white form in the vague shape of a person winked into existence immediately in front of Nick, hovering just outside the circle.

  “Just listen to me,” Nick told it urgently. He reached out a hand that shook. “Come in and we’ll talk. We can ‑‑ “

  Before Nick could finish, the spirit was inside the circle with him. Nick stumbled backward and John saw, through the mostly transparent form of the ghost, his shirt move as Grant touched him. For a brief instant, Nick’s eyes met John’s, and that was enough to communicate how utterly, utterly fucked they were.

  Everything happened very fast after that. The howling wind was back, blowing leaves across the grass, and the ghost inside the circle shoved Nick, making him take another step backward. Grant made a sound, something between a scream and a laugh and did it again, harder this time ‑‑ Nick fell, and when he did, his hand broke the line of salt on the ground.

  Fuck. Even if it hadn’t been doing much of anything, the loss of that fragile, shimmering barrier left John feeling a sick lurch of dismay. Grant was strong; stronger than any of the spirits John had heard about from Nick. Manifesting, physically affecting his surroundings ‑‑ that was all off the scale. He had to wonder what Grant had been when he was living to have this much presence and belief in himself after death. It was a twisted sort of power, backed by a blindness to reality, but that didn’t weaken it any.

  Nick’s cry of pain as he fell, landing awkwardly, shattered John’s moment of frozen panic and he lunged forward, trying to put himself between Nick and Grant in the hope that he could slow him down. With Nick lying behind him, he turned his head, looking through the flying debris, thicker, concentrated here in the broken circle, for that flicker of white.

  “John!” Nick sounded desperate, but John knew it wasn’t himself he was worried for. “He’s too strong. I can’t ‑‑”

  The manifestation rushed at John, striking him in the chest and knocking him off his feet. He had a second or two, flat on his back, to blink up at the sky, and then the ghost, faceless but for two black holes like eyes, was staring down at him. There was a tremendous pressure in his chest, like a giant hand squeezing. John tried to cry out to Nick, to get up, but his struggle was for nothing; he couldn’t breathe, and he could feel his body slowing as his supply of oxygen dwindled.

  It was like being underwater, he decided, his mind rushing back through the years to the first time he’d fallen overboard, reaching for a treasured spinner, his fingers closing around air, his body learning about centers of gravity the hard way. The water had cocooned him for a second, deceptively gentle, then the cold wet had seeped through his clothes in a swift invasion and the sea had dragged him down, the light above him dimming. He’d sunk, luckily too terrified to scream, his mouth clamped close, and then his father’s hand had closed on him as he’d bobbed back up to the surface courtesy of the trapped air in his lungs and a few frantic kicks. He’d been hauled back into the boat, cuffed for being an idiot, and wrapped in his dad’s Aran sweater, its thick and oily wool keeping out the brisk breeze.

  And now it was Nick saving him.

  Nick tossing salt at Grant, making the awful pressure on John’s chest ease, just a little, followed by what was left of the tea, a lukewarm splatter of translucent, aromatic liquid. What it did, John wasn’t sure, but he felt the challenge rise in Nick’s voice as he screamed at Grant, overpowering the uncertainty of a moment earlier.

  “He’s mine! Leave him alone!”

  Yours, John thought, his vision graying. Always.

  Everything got strangely peaceful then. His eyes closed ‑‑ it was too much effort to hold them open ‑‑ and sounds became muffled, distant. The pain in his chest increased again, taking the world away with it, even Nick, who was the last person John wanted to leave. He thought, briefly, of his mother, and of Michael, and then the ground tilted beneath him and he lifted away.

  John opened his eyes. Or maybe they’d never been properly shut in the first place. Either way, he was floating just above his body, looking down at Nick and himself and Greg bloody Duncan, and for a moment it seemed that dying wasn’t as bad as he’d always imagined.

  There was some sort of a scuffle, Nick grabbing the rest of the box of salt and throwing it at Grant, and then a spectacular explosion of lights like fairy dust, glittering and shining. When John turned his attention back to Nick, the man was kneeling beside him ‑‑ him, his body. Nick bent and breathed into his mouth, laced hands over his chest and pushed down. There were tears on Nick’s cheeks, and John felt a savage stubbornness flood through him; he would not leave Nick, not like this, not now, not ever if he had anything to say about it. And just like that, with an audible snap, he did a sickening flip down into his body.

  The ground underneath him was hard and uncomfortable, and his chest hurt almost unbearably, but the only thing John cared about was Nick, who was repeating his name in a broken, desolate voice.

  “‘M here,” he whispered, forcing the words out of a mouth that felt bruised and stiff. His tongue explored his lips carefully, finding nothing but a residual warmth from Nick’s attempts to resuscitate him. “Nick?”

  It wasn’t working. Nick was still lost in sorrow and he didn’t have to be because ‑‑

  “He’s still breathing.” Duncan’s voice. “I saw ‑‑ he tried to say something. Back off. Give him some space, Nick, will you?”

  Nick didn’t ever have to go away, but when John tried to tell Greg that, all that emerged was a muffled groan, and he realized his earlier attempt to speak had been no better, no matter how clear the words had been in his head. He licked at dry lips again and took the deepest breath his aching chest could hold, using it to shape a single lie. “Fine.”

  The sound Nick made hurt John’s chest as much as what had happened; warm hands touched John’s face gently. “John?”

  “Zz ’e gone?” he managed.

  “I think so. Yes.” Nick’s voice was incredibly beautiful to John just then. “God. John. I thought you were ‑‑ you were ‑‑ “

  “Think I was.” The memory of floating, looking down, was hazing over. John focused in on what mattered. “Here now. Not going ’way.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Nick said fervently, and leaned his forehead down to rest against John’s shoulder. In the background, John could hear the sound of a siren growing steadily closer.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nick sat up half the night at John’s bedside in the hospital. The guards at the crash site had known something was wrong, even if they hadn’t been able to say exactly what, and had called 9-1-1. Despite John’s assurances that he was fine, he’d been
bundled into the ambulance and taken to the nearest hospital, where he’d been pronounced bruised but otherwise all right and admitted overnight for observation. The nurses had been surprisingly cooperative about letting Nick stay ‑‑ not that either he or John would have accepted anything else ‑‑ and had brought in a chair that unfolded into a fairly uncomfortable bed for him. But he’d spent the first three hours after John fell asleep sitting beside the bed, holding John’s hand.

  He’d never worried before that his abilities might endanger John. Now everything had come crashing down around him; and yet, strangely, Nick felt more secure rather than less. Things had gone terribly, terribly wrong, but he’d handled it. They’d come through it okay.

  Eventually, as much as he needed to gaze at John’s beloved face, he fell asleep sitting right there, slouched down in the chair with his head on his shoulder. He slept heavily and didn’t wake until sunshine was streaming into the room, a nurse adjusting the blinds and then moving over to the bed to take John’s pulse.

  “How is he?” Nick asked. He was a little disorientated and sleepy but for all that he was conscious of a lightness of spirit. It made him wonder just how much Grant had been affecting him since they’d first made contact with each other, and he shuddered, the vivid picture of a leech stuck to his flesh coming into his head. Well, salt dealt with them, too, he supposed.

  “He’s fine,” John replied, his eyes opening and his gaze finding Nick at once. A smile, slow and happy, spread over his face. “Good morning, love.”

  “No talking,” the nurse said reprovingly, but she gave John’s hand a pat as she released it. “And, yes, you are. Doctor Carter will want to see you this morning, but if I were you, I wouldn’t bother picking what you want for lunch when they come around with the menus later.”

  She gave Nick a sympathetic smile. “Rough night trying to sleep in that chair? If you want some breakfast, there’s a cafeteria on the ground floor. The coffee’s not bad, but I’d steer clear of the donuts this early; they’ll be yesterday’s leftovers.”