Phantom of Fire

by Peacock, Shane;

  Bill and Bonnie were zero help.

  “Antonine Marie Clay?” said Bill. “Jackson Clay? Never heard of him or her.”

  I had the feeling he didn’t know many locals; none of the “average” people around here, even though he was such a big advocate for their “way of life” and this politician who was for “the little guy.” Bill said Antonine’s name as if she were fiction or a character I had made up. I wanted to kick him in the groin.

  We spent the rest of the morning doing nothing, in my opinion, just walking along the beach and then coming back to Bill and Bonnie’s deck and eating. I suppose it was all right just hanging out in this beautiful setting but I didn’t want to be with the adults right then and I couldn’t muster up the deception to fake it. Mom could tell. Bill and Bonnie, of course, didn’t have a clue about what was wrong with me, though Bonnie was trying to be extra nice.

  “I hope you’re having a good time,” she said as she handed me a lemonade.

  I gave her a barely audible “yes.”

  About an hour or so after lunch, Mom surprised me.

  “I think this calls for a single visit to your phone,” she said quietly, as we moved down the hallway toward our rooms.

  A few minutes later, she quietly knocked and handed me my phone when I opened the door.

  “See if you can find Antonine’s address. You know her last name and chances are she lives in Bathurst. Her parents probably have a landline.”

  “Parent,” I said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Her dad is dead. It would just be her mom.”

  “Oh…that’s too bad. Well, if you can find where she lives, I’ll take you there.”

  I couldn’t believe she said that. I searched 411 and found a single Clay, right in Bathurst as Mom suspected.

  She let the others know that we were going out for a drive and we went into town and soon found Antonine’s house, using Mom’s phone for directions. Mom seemed really happy, though I didn’t know whether it was helping me or finally getting a chance to use her cell for something.

  Antonine’s house wasn’t very big—in fact, it was very small—and most of the other houses on her street weren’t exactly mansions, to say the least. There were lots of trucks parked in driveways and people in work boots on the gravel sidewalks. But one thing I will say, her house looked like a home. It was neat and tidy, painted a happy yellow and the lawn was freshly cut and there were lots of bright flowers growing in the beds at the front of the house.

  Mom pulled up and cut the engine.

  “Away you go,” she said.

  I didn’t move. My heart was pounding. For some reason, this was making me really nervous. I could say it was because I was arriving unannounced, that I was concerned that Antonine might be mad at me for almost stalking her all the way to her house, but I knew it was something else.

  “Go on,” said Mom as she reached over and patted my knee.

  I got out without saying a word, approached the front door, walked up the three steps, and held my hand out to knock. I could hear two voices inside, two people talking in French. One of them was Antonine. I just listened for a while. She sounded incredible. I knocked.

  There was silence for a moment and then a woman came to the door.

  “Oui?” she said, looking surprised to greet a young stranger. I could see Antonine in her green eyes and strong build, but her hair was blonde.

  “Uh, Dylan Maples.” I kind of wheezed it out.

  “Pardon?” She pronounced it the French way.

  “I’m…I’m Dylan Maples. Is Antonine here?”

  “Antonine? May I ask what you want?”

  Antonine appeared in the hallway behind her, looking shocked. She was dressed up a bit, her hair done up, as if she had just returned from school.

  “Dylan?” she said. She didn’t sound happy.

  “Can I come in?”

  “No,” said Antonine, “I’ll come out.”

  Her mother smiled at her as she walked past, a look of curiosity in her eyes.

  When we got outside, Antonine noticed the car parked out front.

  “My mom,” I explained.

  She motioned for me to follow her around to the back of the house. The lawn there was really small too, but there was a good-sized shed and lots of kids’ playground equipment scattered about, and all of them looked homemade—wooden slides, ladders, and a cool little playhouse.

  “Wow,” I said. “My dad made them.” She looked down at the ground. “He used to work in that shed. It was his special place. He would go in there some mornings and only come out to eat, it seemed. It’s kind of closed up now. We don’t go in there.”

  “I—”

  “Dylan, why did you come here? How did you find me?”

  “Uh, I used my phone.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course. I don’t have a cellphone.”

  “You what?”

  “I bet you use yours all the time.”

  “Uh, yeah, a bit.”

  “What do you want?”

  This wasn’t going very well.

  “Uh, I just want to know…how you’re doing. How are you?”

  Lame.

  “I’m fine. Had a bit of a headache for a while from bonking my head, but I am okay. Dylan, what do you want, really?”

  “I want to…just hang out. I want…to know more about the ghost ship.”

  “That’s the problem with you being here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My mom doesn’t know anything about Dad and I and the ghost ship. I told you, he didn’t ever tell her. I was scared you were going to blurt something out there at the door, and I have been thinking about it anyway, and I’ve decided it isn’t good for me to dwell on what happened back then. It only makes me unhappy. I have been kind of obsessed with it. Besides, I really don’t remember it that well. How could I, since I was only four years old? Dad couldn’t have seen what he claimed he saw. He must have put all that in my head. It wasn’t a proud moment for him, that hallucination. It may have been something messing with his mind because he was upset about other things. I want to think of my father as a good man…a sane man.”

  She looked really sad.

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” I said.

  “Dylan, that illusion on the water only appears to people maybe every few years, if that. I saw it with you on two consecutive days! The moment you appeared, it did. You remind me of the burning ghost ship of Chaleur Bay. You always will. You will remind me of a very strange moment—and not a good moment—in my father’s life.”

  Girls have really interesting ways of telling you to piss off.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Good start, Dylan. Maybe add a word or two?

  “Yeah…but....” I can be an awfully eloquent guy sometimes.

  “It’s the truth,” she said.

  “I don’t care,” I sputtered. “I don’t want to lose you as a friend.”

  Wow! Where did that come from? Not from Dylan Maples, but from some sort of unknown, invisible force inside me that had at least some courage, that knew I had to have this friend.

  Her eyes went a little moist. Man, had I just said a really good thing to a girl?

  “You are a special guy, Dylan,” she said.

  Wow and wow again. I was putting the moves on her without even knowing it, I think. I had not thought of myself as being in any way a “special guy” for a long time. Then, I almost blew it.

  “So are you,” I said.

  She laughed out loud. “A special guy? I’m a special guy? Thanks, Dylan.”

  But she wasn’t mad. She was smiling at me, a priceless sort of smile that was both in her lips and her eyes, which were looking at me in a kind of intense way.

  “Could…could I see you again?�
�� I asked.

  That sounded way too grown-up for me, for Dylan Maples. I had seen men ask women that in movies. What does it really mean? No one needs to ask permission to see others, to literally observe them. I was seeing her right now!

  “Uh,” she said, “I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  She smiled again.

  The next day was probably the most boring in the history of Dylan Maples. No Antonine. No phone. Just the parental units and the Bill and Bonnie Show. We only had a few days left in New Brunswick. I kept wondering how to work this. Should I just charge over to her house—I had memorized how to get there and figured I could walk it in about a couple of hours, maybe less—or should I wait for her to make her move? And if she did make a move, how would she be able to do it? Did she have Bill and Bonnie’s phone number? Did she know where they lived? How would she contact me?

  Then I realized she was just being nice to me. How in the world could I have ever believed that someone like Antonine would have the least bit of interest in me? Dylan Maples! She had just been putting me off. She didn’t know how to contact me. She didn’t care.

  Then I wondered if I should be going to Youghall Beach, where we had met. I headed downstairs to ask permission to go there on my own—a wise move under the circumstances—and couldn’t find anyone. I went out the front door and discovered Mom and Bonnie walking around outside, inspecting the house and gardens. I heard Bonnie saying something about how “wonderfully New Brunswick” it all was. Dad and Bill were apparently off on a walk, “looking at properties,” as Bonnie put it. The dogs were following the ladies about with spit-soaked tennis balls in their mouths, colour-coded for each pet, slobbering on the humans’ pant legs, shoving the balls into their mistress’s and guest’s personal areas.

  “They are such darlings,” laughed Bonnie.

  Mom looked like she wanted to brain them.

  I sidled up to her. “Can I, uh,” I said quietly, hoping Bonnie couldn’t hear exactly what I was saying. She seemed to lean toward us, though. “Can I go to the beach?”

  I almost felt like I should wink at Mom. But she got it right away.

  “Sure,” she said. Then she moved a little closer. “Have fun, Romeo,” she whispered into my ear. Her jokes are sometimes a little inappropriate.

  I went to the beach feeling nervous, but there was no need. I couldn’t find Antonine—and believe me, I looked everywhere. Then it struck me that—duh!—she was in school. I waited for hours, long past the end of the school day, but she didn’t show.

  I actually went the next morning, too, even though it was a Friday, somehow wildly hoping she would just take time away from school to see me. I got permission from Dad, who was reading a newspaper when I inquired—some old people still do that. He waved me on my way with one of his smiles, likely not hearing a single detail of what I asked for; I could have been telling him that I was heading out to swim with sharks. Not that he doesn’t care. I know he does. He had been quite interested in my affection for Antonine. It’s just his weird concentration thing.

  “Make a good speech at my funeral!” I called back to him at the door. He smiled again and waved me off.

  Antonine wasn’t at Youghall that morning either. It made sense, but when three o’clock came she still wasn’t there, and I had heard Bill complaining that school ended early on Fridays in their region. I started to get upset, my heart throbbing as I walked back to the house. We were running out of time.

  I went to my room and closed the door. Mom didn’t dare bother me about it. She could tell what the problem was and knew it wasn’t fair to pester me right now.

  “Hey, man,” said Bomber, “swipe your phone from your parents’ room and text the guys to tell them what’s going on. It’s good to talk about these things. Friends, man, can’t be beat.”

  “Not now, Bomb,” I whispered.

  I closed my eyes, tried to pretend he wasn’t sitting on the end of my bed. I heard Mom and Dad talking to Bill and Bonnie down in the living room, planning another day trip, this time longer, up north Campbellton way.

  Then the doorbell rang.

  A minute later Mom was at my door, a big smile on her face.

  “There’s someone here to see you.”

  11

  A Gift

  Antonine was standing a few feet back from the front door, taking in Bill and Bonnie’s fancy house with an uncertain look, as if wondering whether she should even be here.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Wow, I thought, she actually seems a bit nervous.

  Was it really possible that this fascinating girl was nervous about seeing Dylan Maples? Maybe seeing him, but not me. The units were both gazing at her with huge smiles, which I thought was a bit much.

  “Come on in,” I said.

  “I’d rather not. Could we go to the beach?”

  I didn’t have any problem convincing Mom and Dad to allow us to go. In fact, they even let me off of the big trip to Campbellton. The four of them were planning to have lobster somewhere and visit some things that had to do with the Battle of Restigouche—which actually sounded pretty cool—and I was going to miss that, but I could tell Mom and Dad thought it was important for me to have time with Antonine.

  Bill and Bonnie didn’t look too pleased about me missing the trip. They came out to the door and had a proper introduction to Antonine, but they seemed kind of snobby about it, or at least Bill did. On the surface they were all warm and friendly but Bill took a look at my friend in her plain T-shirt and jeans and didn’t even bother to shake her hand or say anything more than “hello” and “how nice to meet you” and that sort of crap. They didn’t ask her one word about where she lived or what school she went to or anything like that, though Bonnie did add that she hoped to see her again.

  Ten minutes later, Antonine and I were on the beach, well rid of the adults, at least the Bill and Bonnie part, though Dad had nearly embarrassed the pants off me by wishing me a “great time, champ,” right in front of Antonine.

  “What are you the champ of?” she asked with a grin as we hit the sand.

  “Anyone’s guess.”

  We didn’t talk very much at first, just walked along the beach toward Youghall, which was kind of our area, I suppose. It was funny, usually when I’m with someone and there isn’t a lot of talking, it feels really uncomfortable, but it didn’t with her. We just walked, fairly close to each other, saying nothing, for the most part just looking out at the water.

  When we got to Youghall, we sat down on a log and then really started to talk.

  “I think we should investigate the ghost ship,” I said. I figured that was a daring thing to say, given how much she didn’t even want the topic brought up.

  She just stared at me for moment. I was sure I’d blown it. Finally, she sighed. “You are probably right. I should face this whole thing. Maybe if I learn more about it and think about why my Dad might have thought he interacted with an illusion, I can live with it a little better.”

  “Do you want to talk more about your dad? About what happened at the end?” That was another tough subject, but I had the feeling that she hadn’t discussed it at all, with anyone, and needed to express her feelings about it. It was as if I were suddenly that Dr. Phil guy on TV, exploring a personal issue for someone. I was definitely not Dylan Maples.

  At first she didn’t respond to that either, but then she started to speak and everything came out in a waterfall of words.

  “Like I said, it was only about a month ago. He had not been feeling well for a while. He was never particularly good with stress and we were having a hard time financially, getting calls from the banks. We are fine now that he’s gone. Life insurance.”

  She could barely get that out, but she steeled herself and kept talking. She was tough. I thought of how little she had said about her headache after knoc
king herself woozy in the boat.

  “He never really fit in here. Even though we are such a mixture of people and think we are so welcoming, I can actually name people who treated him differently from others because he was black. He could feel it. He just kept working, though, day after day at his part-time teaching job. He was pretty embarrassed by that, since he had such a good position in Alabama. He never said so, he was quite an old-fashioned man about it all, but I could tell.”

  She paused again for a while.

  “He was such an amazing dad. I believe he is still here, with me and Mom.”

  “I have a friend like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone who died.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He was just a guy; a goof like me. His name was Bomb Connors.”

  “Bomb? That’s cool.”

  I could have kissed her for that. Although, I could have kissed her for just being alive and sitting there, too.

  “He was killed in a head-on collision on the big highway that runs through Toronto. What are the chances of that?”

  “Not good.”

  “It kind of…broke my heart.” Holy crap, I couldn’t believe I said that, nor could I believe that tears were welling in my eyes. This was an emergency! I looked out over the water and tried to remember some Leafs stats.

  “That’s understandable,” she said…and took my hand.

  Holy, holy, holy, holy.

  You cannot imagine what that felt like. I knew she was strong and likely played lots of sports and yet her hand felt like it was made of cream or something. I just about fell off the log. She squeezed my hand and then let go. That was probably a good thing since I was literally speechless when she was touching me. If she had asked me anything then I would probably have sounded like Chewbacca when I answered.

  “Your friend is still with you, Dylan,” Antonine said. “The most important things in life are the invisible things, the things that touch your heart. Dad used to say that all the time. We all get caught up in visible things…you know, clothes, money, businesses, politics, that sort of thing, the way we look, what race we are, what culture we’re from. Dad said those things weren’t important. He used to insist that you needed to hold on to what mattered to you deep inside and that was all that was important in the end. He was a very spiritual man. I believe all those things he said. He is with me. He walks beside me every day. To be honest…I see him sometimes—as alive as he was in life—a sort of ghost. I’ve never told Mom that.”