by Sarah Porter
I open my mouth to tell him to go to hell, but then I close it again and sit there trying to breathe while he waits. By the time I can speak I’ve changed my mind. “What are you getting at, Dash-Dot-Dot?”
Because maybe this is it. In the stories ghosts usually just need you to do one thing for them before they can go into the light or wherever. Maybe Dashiell came back because he needs to make sure his girlfriend and his baby are going to be okay, and then he’ll be at peace and get out of Ruby’s head and leave us all alone.
“Paige won’t have the faintest idea that it’s me coming to call on her,” Dash explains, and I sit there confused, wishing I hadn’t left my inhaler upstairs. “She’ll see you bring her the money, and then I’ll get out of the way and you can have the full benefit of her gratitude.”
I’m not sure what to ask first: What money? or, Full benefit? or, Are you talking about freaking possessing me too? You are, aren’t you?
Instead I say, “What about Ruby? If you’re—riding around—in my head instead?”
Dashiell actually laughs at that. He thinks that is very, very goddamn funny and he laughs for a while. “And here we come to another consideration that might motivate you, Never-Ever! I can’t be in more than one place at a time. Ergo, if you take me on for the duration of this mission, then I’ll be clearing out of our sweet Miss Slippers. Simple.” He tips Ruby’s head and considers me for a while. “I wouldn’t think that you’d be so anxious to protect her from me, Never. Ruby-Ru has our father for that, after all, always champing to shelter her from the unsavory influences. And you’ve seen how well that works.” He grins in a way that says it all: our dad can’t protect Ruby for dirt. Not even from the dead guy. “You should know I have her best interests at heart.”
“I want to be conscious,” I say. “That’s my price. Like you said you could let Ruby listen in on our conversation if you felt like it? Whatever you’re doing with my body, I want to know about it.”
Dashiell shakes his head, or actually Ruby’s head. “I can’t agree to that, Never. It wouldn’t be safe for you.”
“But it’s my body we’re talking about!”
“I know where there’s a stash, at least twenty grand. Thirty. It’s in the mailbox of an abandoned house in Queens. But the men that money belongs to—these are not perfect gentlemen we’re talking about. Not people I’d care to see developing an interest in you and Miss Slippers, Never. The less you know, the better.”
“But—”
“Absolutely not. It wouldn’t be responsible for me to involve you in this.”
The amazing thing is that Dashiell says it like he means it—like he thinks joyriding around in my body wouldn’t count as involving me. And then something else weird occurs to me. Why are we negotiating at all?
“Why are you even asking me? It’s not like you went and got Ruby’s permission before you freaking hijacked her. Why don’t you just—bulldoze your way into me—like you did with her?”
He looks at me for a while. It’s getting to the point where I can half-forget that those are Ruby’s green eyes rotating to home in on me. She’s fast asleep somewhere inside her own body, totally clueless and seeing nothing through her own wide pupils. But I’m starting to lose track of that.
I’m starting to see just Dashiell, even with Ruby’s dark blond hair slopping over his stealthy smile. Dashiell staring at me in a dim room.
“Well, Never-Ever, because I can’t just bulldoze in. I require your kind cooperation.”
“But Ruby didn’t cooperate!” I say and then stop, with everything I don’t know balled up in my mouth. There’s too much. I could choke on it.
“Ah, but she did. I called Miss Slippers and she came to me, Never, on an impulse of the purest faith and devotion. But I knew all along that you’d be a tougher nut to crack. Your instincts would flare up and warn you to keep the hell away from me. I’d cry out, ‘Never-Ever, come get me!’ and you’d just back off, gawking at me like you thought I was going to murder you.”
I can’t follow any of this. “What are you talking about?”
Dashiell smiles. “It will be a mere insubstantial dream, Never. Gossamer and smoke. Nothing that happens to you there will be real in the conventional sense. But the dream, and what you choose to do in it, will have real consequences. It will be a real rite of passage.”
“Those dreams Ruby’s been having—that’s what you mean? She did something when she was dreaming about you, and that’s how this happened?”
Dashiell doesn’t answer that, just nestles back into the cushions and watches me patiently.
“She went to you in a dream, and somehow that let you possess her,” I say. I’m starting to sort it out, at least a little. “She dreamed about you and I didn’t, because you figured she’d be easier to take advantage of.”
I can see that Dashiell’s not thrilled with my putting it that way—he’s never been much good at taking criticism.
“I wouldn’t call that a fair characterization at all, Never. Ruby Slippers acted out of love, and then she’s incomparably more courageous than you are. There’s not a lot of inhibition in my sweet girl, at least where her emotions are concerned. You’re a hundred times more cautious by nature. Now you, when you’re looking at me across whatever landscape we wind up in—you’ll have to make a deliberate effort to override your fear. You’ll need to be prepared, and Ru-Ru didn’t.”
“But she didn’t know! I mean, she didn’t realize—what would happen afterward?”
“I didn’t exactly have an opportunity to explain the details to her beforehand, Never. So you’re right, our Miss Slippers is still safe from understanding the situation. All she knows is that she’s been feeling unsettled. Nothing specific about the reasons for it.”
I think about that. I hope to God it’s true. “But then—once I let you—you’ll leave Ruby alone. You’ll let her have her body back?”
“I already mentioned that I’ll be obliged to vacate the premises. Before you and I can go adventuring together.”
“And then, once Paige has all that money and you know she’s going to be fine—you’ll be at peace?”
“Well naturally, Never-Ever. I’ll be far less concerned about her situation. Paige isn’t much good at looking after herself, and you wouldn’t want me to leave her without any means of support. Not exactly chivalrous.”
Paige’s rent is so high that even thirty thousand dollars won’t last her very long, but I guess if that doesn’t bother Dashiell it shouldn’t bother me.
“Okay,” I say. And then I wonder what’s wrong with me. But that’s the thing, if this works then maybe I can get rid of him and Ruby will never have to know what happened to her. Maybe she’ll be able to recover and get over him—and I know I’m always saying that nothing matters, but actually Ruby’s sanity matters a lot to me, it turns out. “So this means I’ll be dreaming about you soon?”
Dashiell barely smiles. “Soon enough.”
“And then I just have to go to wherever you are? That’s it?”
“Just come when you’re called. Ruby Slippers had to swim to reach me. I can’t predict what the experience will be like for you.” He grins, but with the light behind Ruby’s head the teeth look gray and jagged. “It will be a surprise for both of us.”
RUBY
I’m awake and I don’t know why. I’m a girl with a drumming heart in a bedroom at night, and the darkness creases into complicated origami against my walls. The same darkness unfolds into pulsing wings beyond my window, and the wings’ beat smacks my thoughts and sets them spinning. I’m almost positive there were voices talking quietly, just outside a room much smaller than this one: as small as my own skull.
I heard my two brothers, one dead and one living, murmuring together, but I couldn’t catch what they were saying.
That is something that could only happen in a dream, so I really ought to feel like I was dreaming. But I have a strange deep sense that I was wide awake, just awake in a way where
I couldn’t open my eyes or move the smallest muscle or even feel my own skin. And I was afraid.
Specifically, I was afraid that something terrible was going to happen to Everett, but I couldn’t make any sound to warn him. I could feel that something, or someone, was shadowing him: a ghostly, predatory darkness. The feeling of it sharpens in my chest until I’m getting out of bed without thinking it through. It would be too crazy to go bang on his door at this hour, when the red glow of my clock says it’s just after four and there’s no hint of gray yet in the sky. But maybe I’ll feel better if I just go upstairs and listen near his door for a while.
As soon as I slip from my bedroom I can see coral-colored light rushing out of the living room. I stop with my chest rattling—though really, why should a lamp left on by accident seem so frightening? Because that’s probably all it is; nothing unusual about it. I should do the right thing and go switch it off, and then I should forget all my paranoid ideas and go back to bed. Why should I let myself give in to a delusion that there’s someone in the house with us?
And even worse: I have a whirling impression of forces gathering just outside, tapping at the glass and probing for weak spots. I try to push the feeling away.
When I draw close I see it at once: a head of brown hair, a blue shoulder, sitting absolutely still on the red sofa. I fall back so suddenly that my elbow smacks the doorframe: a whispery thud, but loud enough that there’s no way the stranger won’t hear. The person on the sofa jerks as if the soft sound was a gunshot, spins around, and then jumps again when he sees me.
It’s only Everett. How dumb can I be? But he’s gaping at me like I’m the enemy, like he has to watch intently for my next move.
“Everett?” I say. “Are you okay?”
His posture loosens and he spills back into the cushions. So he’s just been sitting here alone, not playing video games or anything? “Ruby. Hey.”
“Who did you think I was?” I ask. If Everett’s awake, of course, then there might be an explanation for that conversation I thought I heard. Maybe he was on the phone, and the only part I made up was that I could hear Dashiell with him. “Were you talking to someone?”
He tenses and the guarded expression seizes his face again. “What makes you say that?”
“I thought I heard voices,” I tell him, and then Everett’s stare reminds me that he’s already worrying about my mental health. He even accused me of being in denial that Dashiell is dead, and nothing could possibly make his concerns go through the roof more quickly and efficiently than my saying, I thought you were talking to Dashiell, and it scared me. It’s crazy, I know, but I was afraid—that somehow Dash had escaped from my nightmares and come to us, with evil trailing after him. “But maybe it was just some people out in the street.”
Everett relaxes as soon as I say it. “Probably. That, or you were dreaming.”
I hesitate to ask because the last thing I want to do is upset him again, but as the moments keep beating away through the darkness the question starts to feel completely necessary.
“Ever? Did you have another dream? Is that why you’re awake?”
He jumps again. I said the wrong thing.
“Oh—no,” Everett tells me at last. “No dreams. I can’t sleep at all. But, Ruby? I wanted to ask you something?”
“Okay,” I say, though I don’t really feel okay about any of it. I’m still too rattled by the memory of Dashiell’s voice purring through the corners of my head, and by the intimation I had of something else, something savage and ravenous and much too close to us. I’d like to believe it was all imaginary—but Ever’s face is too taut, like he feels it, too.
“I need to ask about the last time you did. Dreamed about Dash, I mean. Right before you got so agitated, with the hair and … I guess it was Saturday morning? It feels like that was so long ago.”
“Saturday morning,” I repeat, and then my mind jerks back to the oily wobble of that water closing over my head and Dashiell’s hands driving me under with a thrust that was almost casual, as if he was just going through the motions. Like he barely cared at all. “What I was dreaming then? Before you heard me yell?”
“Yeah,” Everett says, and his face is strained like it’s trying to stretch across the gap between us. “Ruby, I really need to know.”
“I can’t talk about that,” I say and take a step back toward the hallway. My chest and head are throbbing violently, a warning code banged out inside my body. It’s not just because that dream was too painful to tell anyone, either. I have this icy nagging sense that talking about it is somehow off-limits, not allowed: a violation of something inside me so powerful and private and raw that touching it would drop me to my knees. “Don’t ask me, Ever.”
“You said it was horrible. Listen, Ruby, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need—”
“Don’t ask me!” My panicked voice shoots from my mouth, shrill and out of control, and Everett fires a glance at the stairs, obviously worried that I might wake our dad. “You don’t need to know! It’s cruel to try and make me tell. Don’t!”
Everett is off the sofa now, reaching out for me. I shy back. His face driving through the shadows looks too gray, too big and glassy. “Ruby, calm down. It’s okay. Ruby, I’m sorry. I just want—”
“No!”
“But it was bad, right? Whatever happened in that dream. Can I just ask you that?”
“It was bad,” I agree, and close my eyes. I’m leaning against the wall, my whole body pulsing with feverish heat and slippery cold, and I feel like everything is sliding. “It was the worst thing possible. Ever, I really, really can’t tell you anything else.”
Everett is stroking my hair and it’s like we’re not twins at all. It’s like I’m suddenly way younger and he’s looking after me. I’m supposed to be the mature one, though, right?
“It’s okay. I think I understand why you can’t. I understand. Ruby, it’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not,” I tell him, but I can’t begin to justify feeling so disturbed. And really, why should I have such a frantic reaction at the thought of telling Everett my dream, when I know that’s all it was? Just a bad dream. As in, it was not real. My heart is finally slowing a little but I won’t open my eyes. Instead I stare into watery darkness streaked with bubbles of shining red. “None of it is okay, and it’s never going to be!”
“It is,” Everett insists. “It is, Ruby. Because I’m going to take care of it.”
“I’m worried about you,” I tell him. “I know you’re worried about me but I’m afraid for you too. When I woke up just now I was sure … I don’t know, that you were in trouble.” Stay away from him, I almost say, but then I think of how insane that would sound.
And who do I mean by him? Dashiell?
Don’t you dare dream about Dashiell, I want to say. These awful, senseless thoughts keep intruding on my mind, and I can’t stop them. Maybe Everett is right, and madness like a snapping fox is chasing me through my own brain. But not just about Dash. Don’t dream about anyone. Please.
Stay away from—God, what’s wrong with me?—from all the dead.
Everett would just point out that it’s pretty easy to stay away from people who are buried; there’s a lot of dirt in the way, after all. And how could I possibly tell Everett to stay away from our brother, even if there was any choice? That’s obviously wrong, when Dashiell needs—
One thing I know for a fact is that people have to be alive to need anything.
Right. I open my eyes and suddenly everything seems a little calmer.
“I’m fine,” Everett says. “Everything’s going to be fine, okay, Ruby? Are you going back to bed?” He kisses me on the forehead, sweetly, the way Dashiell used to do, but maybe Ever doesn’t remember that.
“Okay,” I say. “You too? We have to get up in like two hours.”
He’s already turning away from me, heading up the stairs, when he mutters something under his breath. I’m not that big of a coward, it almost soun
ds like. But what sense would that make?
“What? Everett…”
When he pivots back to me I can’t help seeing how much he’s changed in the last two days. His big sloppy mouth is sort of held together more and he has an expression I never would have imagined he could have, hounded and ironic and wise at the same time. And I can promise that nobody has ever flashed on the word wise in connection with Everett before this moment, not once.
It’s my fault. It has to be. He never looked this way before he had to drag me out of the East River.
“Nothing, Ruby,” he says, and smiles wearily down from the third step. “It’s nothing. I just need to sleep.”
No, I almost say. You can’t. But then something shining catches at the edge of my vision, and my head jerks toward the window. There are two winking, greenish dots on the fire escape, but I can’t process what I’m seeing until a soft paw bats at the pane.
I’m so on edge that even a cat can send my heart leaping into my throat.
ALOYSIUS
And if young Mr. Bohnacker believes that he has given us all the slip, whose fault is that?
If he thinks he’s tossed the world like a coin and righted himself again on the other side, where we have no sway—if he thinks he can proceed unsupervised and unobserved, cosseted in the bodies of innocents—well, put that down to a lack of experience. He’s a callow boy, recently slotted under the humus, the grass above not yet grown thick enough to tuck him in properly at night. An inconvenience, that, when it’s night all the time.
Two months dead, and he’s enough of a child to think he can outsmart his betters. It might occur to him that we are vastly more knowledgeable in these affairs. It might occur to him that we have ways of checking up on the business of the living, and ways as well of sniffing out the stowaways in their pretty heads. Though as it happens, he could hardly have picked a more obvious vessel. Naturally, I would never think to peek inside his noisy and sentimental younger sister! How clever of him.