by K. A. Holt
“I was actually going to bring you here,” Twitch says after clearing his throat. “But I wanted it to be finished first.”
That’s when I realize the girl with the Mohawk is Maureen. And the bald girl is Desiree. They were on the boat with Twitch at Clara’s party. The boy is Henry. The other boy stands up and wipes his hands on his pants. Jake. Everyone stares at me through the shadows of the trees. They were all on the boat when Clara drowned. I haven’t seen them together since the funeral.
“We’re getting really close to being finished,” Twitch says. “Remember all those papers I dropped when we ran into each other at school ages ago? That was a bunch of research into figuring out how we can get city funding for an art project … maybe move this somewhere where other people can see it. Or maybe leave it here, but protect it. Anyway, we’ve been getting together more often lately so we can finish it.” Twitch sighs and looks off into the distance. After a second he turns back to me. “We needed to do something. For Clara. Together. And we didn’t know what. This just kind of … happened.”
I can’t quite figure out what I’m feeling. I want to cry. Not because I’m sad. I mean, I’m always sad, but I’m not extra sad or anything. I just … I think maybe I feel left out. No one thought to ask if I wanted to help? Just like Clara, this art that they’ve created for or about or because of her is so beautiful … and a little bit scary, and … familiar to me. But no one wanted to tell me about it until it was finished? They didn’t even think to include me. Would Twitch have planned to tell me about it if we hadn’t become quasi-friends?
I look at them all looking at me. Then I turn and run.
I’ve slowed to a walk now that I’ve made it to the town square. I’m making my way to Grant’s, brain still whirling, when I see Mrs. Grant pop out of the Enchanted Florist. She’s holding two bunches of yellow flowers that look like daisies.
“Swamp sunflowers,” Mrs. Grant says to me when we meet on the sidewalk. “Terrible name, beautiful flowers. Thought I’d spruce up the place a bit.” She puts her hand on my arm. “Amelia, dear, are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I shake my head. I can feel hot tears swirling into my eyes. Stupid. It’s stupid to cry. What am I even crying about?
“Here,” Mrs. Grant says, handing me one of the bunches of flowers. She links her empty arm in mine. “Let’s walk and talk.”
“But the store …” I start. She shushes me.
“The store doesn’t need a walk and talk right now. You do.”
All I can do is nod and feel the tears spill down my cheeks, hot with anger over crying again, and also hot with, what … sadness? Left out–ness? Aloneness? Maybe that’s it.
“I feel like there’s no place for me,” I whisper, my chin trembling. “I feel like everyone has a spot in the world. But I don’t. It’s like Clara and I shared a spot and when she died I lost my place, too. But that’s not like Taylor, who has so many friends and always knows what she wants and how to get it. It’s not like Twitch, who has these friends who are all creating art together. It’s not like Dad and his barbecue, or you and your store, or Mom and her work. I don’t have anything. I just float around and feel sad and invisible.”
Mrs. Grant tightens her arm around mine. “Does it help if I tell you everyone is sad in their own way, and you are definitely not invisible?”
I shrug. As we’re walking, a bunch of workers are setting everything up for Kite Night. It’s really coming up so soon?
Our walk and talk mostly ends up just a walk as we make a loop around the town center in companionable silence. When we get to Grant’s General Store, I feel better, even though there wasn’t a lot of soul-searching or talking. Sometimes just walking with someone is nice. Kind of like just playing catch.
“Amelia!” Taylor screeches as soon as we walk through the door. My peacefulness shatters. “Now you’re out exercising with Gram instead of me?! Do you even want my help anymore?!” She glowers at me for a split second and then storms upstairs before I even have a chance to respond.
“I don’t think she’s used to seeing you on your own so much,” Mrs. Grant says, pulling on an apron over her sweater and jeans. “Give her time. She’ll figure it out.”
I’m not sure I want to give her time to figure it out, though. It’s annoying to always be yelled at, especially when I don’t feel like I’ve done anything to deserve the yelling. I’ve seen her at school with Lacy and Katherine. It’s not like she’s pining away for me, or something. She has plenty of friends and projects and things. Can’t we be friends without her having to know about every tiny thing I do?
Taylor comes back downstairs holding Ratface. She bites her lip and takes a deep breath. “Sorry I just yelled at you. That wasn’t very cool. I just … I’m here to help you, Amelia, you know that, right?”
“Of course, I know that,” I say, feeling like maybe I have whiplash from her mad–not mad switcheroo. “And you know that sometimes I have to figure things out on my own, right?”
She nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. Ratface leaps out of her arms and runs to the front door to greet a customer.
“Why don’t you two get behind the counter, wash your hands, and help me cut some cheese?” Mrs. Grant asks.
Taylor and I both burst out laughing, and for just a second it feels like old times.
“Come on,” I say. “Taylor. This is stupid.” We’re standing in her kitchen. She’s draped red fabric over the window so that the small area glows like the inside of an eyelid. There’s a long tablecloth hanging off the kitchen table and a candle in the middle. On one end of the table is a Ouija board.
“No, Amelia. You need closure. We’re going to fix you for good.” She smiles brightly and gestures to a chair nearest the board.
I sit and cross my arms. “Um, (a), I don’t need to be fixed. And (b), this is a game, Taylor. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
Taylor sits across from me and shakes her head like I just told her the earth is flat. “Girl, all you ever DO is talk about how you wish you could stop feeling sad, how you wish you could be normal, how you wish you could be as beautiful as me.” I stick my tongue out at her, but I smile a little bit. She’s such a booger, but I do love her. “This is your brief opportunity to break through the bonds of this world,” she continues with a twinkle in her eye, “and peek through the veil of the next world. This is your chance to have some new last words with Clara.” Her voice has softened and she puts a hand over mine. “Okay? I know it’s silly, but maybe it will help?”
I nod, and swallow back tears. It’s stupid. But fine. Taylor deserves a normal friend, and I would love to launch into the world of Taylorville where everything is fun and no one is sad and the only thing that makes me angry is when my best friend doesn’t exercise enough.
“So, what do we do?” I ask.
The Ouija board has the alphabet in the middle of it, split into two lines and bent in a kind of rainbow shape. Under the alphabet is a line of numbers going from one to nine, with a zero at the end, and under that it says GOOD BYE. It says YES and NO in the top corners. There’s a plastic thing in the middle of the board that’s sort of in a heart shape, and in the middle of it is a magnifying glass so you can see what’s under it.
“Put two of your fingers here,” Taylor says, showing me how to hold the plastic thing. “And I put two of my fingers here,” she says, putting her hand on the other side of it. We look up at each other and burst out laughing.
“Dumb …” I say with a smile.
“Zip it, you,” Taylor says. But she’s smiling, too. “Make sure you don’t push it or anything. Just let your fingers barely rest there.”
We sit like that for a second. “Now what?” I say. The red light filtering in probably isn’t any warmer than usual, but I’m starting to feel hot and claustrophobic in the small kitchen. I’m ready to get this thing done. I need closure for my closure.
Taylor makes a face. “The instructions weren’t in
the box. So … I guess we just ask questions?” She clears her voice, and in a very dramatic voice says, “Hello, spirit world. I hope you are doing well today. We would like to talk to Clara Peabody. Is she available?”
“It’s not a voice mail—” I start to say, but the plastic thing under our fingers jerks over to the YES by a drawing of a smiley sun. What the—?
Taylor and I lock eyes. “Oh em gee,” she whispers. “Spirit world,” she continues in her silly deep voice. “Just to confirm we have the right Clara, can she tell us her sister’s name?” The plastic thing glides under our fingers to the A. Then it jerks to the M and my heart starts to bang in my chest like I’ve just sprinted half a mile. When it moves toward the E, I yank my hand off of it, my eyes meeting Taylor’s in a kind of panic.
“This isn’t real,” I say. “This can’t be …”
“Put your hand back on it, Amelia,” Taylor says. Her voice is firm, but not mean. “This is your chance to talk to Clara. Make things right.”
I swallow hard. How can this be real? There’s no such thing as the spirit world or ghosts or any of that. When you die, you die. I have seen death. There is no filmy fog of a soul floating up to the sky. And yet …
My voice comes out as a croak. “Clara? Do you hate me?”
The plastic thing pulls our fingers to the NO, and I feel something inside me break open. A rush of tears pours down my face. I stare at the board and sob, “I had no idea you were going to die. I was mad you wouldn’t let me on the boat. I didn’t actually mean I never wanted to see you again. I didn’t actually mean I hated you.”
The plastic thing moves to I, then K, then N, then O, and finally W. It stops for a second, and Taylor and I just look at each other, stunned. I feel movement under my fingers and now it moves to L, and O, and V, then E. Then it slowly moves to U.
I bury my face in my hands and cry and cry. Can this be real? Is it actually Clara speaking to us from … wherever? Does she really not hate me? I’m sniffling and wiping my face as Taylor stands up and comes over to me. She kneels next to me and puts her arm around my shoulders. She’s about to say something, when a streak of white light crashes into the kitchen. Our red eyelid opens to reveal Mrs. Grant standing in the doorway at the top of the stairs from the store.
“What in the world?” she says. Ratface runs past her and over to us, wagging his tail and hopping around.
“Ratface, no!” Taylor hisses, making a grab for him. She misses, though, and he runs under the hanging tablecloth, barking. The tablecloth ripples as he runs around under the table. Now he’s growling and barking and I hear … what was that? A “shhh”? From under the table? Wait. What?
I hear it again: “Shhh!” and that’s when Taylor puts her hands over her face. Ratface is going absolutely berserk now and the shushes become “ow!” and “stop it!” Then the tablecloth lifts up and Twitch rolls out from under the table, Ratface attached to his back pocket, trying to free a stick of beef jerky. Twitch’s helmet is all cockeyed on his head, and he’s holding a big U-shaped magnet that I recognize from physics class.
Taylor peeks at me through her hands. My mouth hangs open. Twitch sits on the floor and says nothing. Mrs. Grant has her hands on her hips. Ratface eats the jerky.
Finally, I find my voice. “This was a JOKE? You were … You thought …” My face feels like it’s going to catch on fire.
“Amelia,” Taylor pleads. “It wasn’t a joke, I swear. We just wanted to—”
But I don’t hear what she has to say. I don’t WANT to hear it. I fling myself from my seat, and fly down the stairs. Taylor and Twitch call after me, but I don’t turn around. I’m never speaking to either one of them again.
Ever.
How could they? How could they? I’m pacing circles in my bedroom, raging mad. I feel like every bond of friendship or trust or anything has been shattered into a billion tiny pieces.
When I came home, I flew past Mom, who was at the kitchen table reading and having a snack. She called upstairs after me, but I didn’t answer. Now she’s knocking quietly on my door.
“Amelia? Taylor’s here.”
“NO!” I yell, spluttering. I’m so mad I can’t even find complete sentences. I have turned into a cavewoman. A very, very angry cavewoman. “GO!” I shout, pointing at the dresser shoved in front of the closed door. “GET OUT! AAAARGH!”
“Amelia?” Taylor’s voice is small outside my door. I want to destroy something. I breathe fire and smoke as I cast my gaze around the room. It lands on a picture of me and Taylor making goofy faces. I tear it up into tiny shreds and then shove the tiny shreds under the corner of the bottom of the door that isn’t covered by the dresser.
“I was just trying to help,” Taylor says through the door. “I thought this would fix everything. I thought it would make you … you … again.”
The rage inside me, which I thought had already hit “exceeds maximum,” boils up even faster and angrier. “THIS IS ME!” I scream. “I AM ME! I CAN’T BE FIXED! THIS IS WHAT YOU GET! THIS BIG MESS OF A PERSON IS ME NOW! THE ME I WAS ISN’T THE ME I AM ANYMORE!” The words I’m screaming make perfect sense to me, but I can hear how they might sound like Dr. Seuss having a very bad day. I don’t care. Taylor can figure it out.
“Amelia, please,” Taylor says. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was trying to help.” I can hear that she’s crying, but I don’t care. Good. Let her cry for once.
“Amelia.” It’s Mom now. “Take a deep breath, baby. Deep breaths.”
There’s some quiet talking that I can’t understand, and I hear footsteps going down the stairs. After a minute, it’s Mom again. “Taylor went home. Can you open the door now, please? Can you tell me what happened?”
I don’t really want to tell Mom what happened, but it crashes over me that I have zero friends now. And I really, really need to talk about what happened, if only to get the whole yucky story out of me. Like barfing when you’ve eaten bad fish. I push the dresser out of the way and open the door. Mom rushes in and grabs me in a bear hug. Neither of us says anything while I cry and cry until I can’t anymore. Then we sit on my bed and I tell her the whole story.
Mom is quiet for a bit when I’m all talked out. Then she says, “Well, that was a very poor choice on their part.”
I start to laugh through all my tears and snot. I wipe my face with the back of my hand and my voice comes out blurry, “You think?!”
Mom laughs, too, as she nods. “A terrible plan.”
I lie back on my bed, my nose completely stuffed up from all the crying. “Why would they be so mean? Why would they do something like that?” My voice has gone from sounding blurry and wet to sounding like I have a very bad cold.
Mom lies back next to me and we both stare at the ceiling. “I think people are good at heart,” she says quietly. “I think Taylor and William really were trying to help you, even though their execution was terrible. I think people who have not experienced hard things have a difficult time understanding what it’s like, and so they might do or say things that feel insensitive. They might do or say things that ARE insensitive.”
“But then is it my job to tell them that?” I ask. “I don’t want that job. I want them to be able to figure it out on their own.”
“I know, honey,” Mom says, taking hold of my hand. “It shouldn’t be your job or my job to comfort the people who are supposed to be comforting us. Grief is hard for everyone. It takes a toll.”
I don’t say anything. All the anger is slowly dissipating, like the steam on a road after a particularly violent thunderstorm.
“How could they do that, though?” I whisper.
“They just wanted to help,” Mom whispers back.
“That’s not good enough of an answer,” I whisper.
“I know,” Mom whispers back. And we lie there together, on my bed, until the sun sinks and the moon rises and Dad comes home, walks up the stairs, and stands in my doorway. Wood smoke drifts off of him.
“Everything okay
in here?” he asks.
“Not really,” I say.
He comes over and lies on top of us both, squishing us until we can’t help but laugh and squeal for him to get off.
“I brought dinner,” he growls into our hair, making us squeal and squirm more. His huge arms dig under us both until he’s lying on us and hugging us, and all three of us are giggling. “Guess I better bring this giant, heavy cord of wood down to the smoker,” he says, trying to lift us from the bed. “Guess it’s time to see how this new flavor will rock everyone’s taste buds.” We’re too heavy for him, or he pretends we are, or he loses his balance, I’m not sure which, but Dad makes a startled grunt and rolls off us onto the floor.
“Man down,” he groans. “Man down.”
Mom stands up and offers him a hand. I stand up and offer him my hand, too, and together we heave him to his feet.
He and Mom share a quick look that seems to say, “What in the world?” and “I’ll tell you later, but it’s okay now.”
“Time to eat?” he asks.
“Let’s eat,” Mom says. She puts her hands on my shoulders, I put my hands on Dad’s shoulders (which I can barely reach), and we conga-line down the stairs to the kitchen.
“Okay,” Mr. Robertson says, clapping his hands loudly, one time. “Ready to shake things up a bit? How about we have a little fun for once?”