“Did something—I almost felt—What happened, Jack?” Deborah asked.
I swallowed. My throat felt thick. “Roger left.”
“Tell Pidge I can stay here,” said the shadow mother. “The nurses are nice.”
I opened and closed my hands, clenched them into fists so tight it hurt.
Mom put her hand on my shoulder. “Jack, are you all right?” she asked.
I swallowed again, and said, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Tell the girl, Jack,” said Mrs. Jernigan. She patted my other shoulder.
I opened my hands and stared down at them. I had little fingernail crescent marks in my palms, but they faded fast. My stomach was churning. I was thinking: Mrs. Jernigan was right. Things could change.
If I told Deborah what her mom said—
Hell. I was already a freak.
I stared at the carpet. It was pondwater green, with a few splotchy stains here and there. “Your mom says she can stay here. The nurses are nice,” I muttered.
“But Jack,” said Mom. “How could you know—She’s not—“
Deborah slowly lowered herself to sit on the bed next to her mom. She took her mom’s hand, scattering the torn pieces of napkin. Her mom moaned, slipped her hand out of Deborah’s, and gathered up the napkin scraps.
“Jack,” Deborah whispered.
The shadow mother knelt beside Deborah. “Tell her she doesn’t have to hold on to the beads now that the string has broken,” she said. “Nobody could keep track of them all.”
I cleared my throat and said that, and Deborah burst into noisy sobs and ran out of the room.
There was a kind of crushing in my chest. I had trouble getting breath.
“Jack, what the hell are you talking about?” Dad asked.
“I don’t know,” I wheezed.
“Straighten up, Jack.” Mrs. Jernigan whacked me on the back.
I stumbled, stared over my shoulder at her. How had she done that?
“Shoulders back, chest out. Think calming thoughts.” Her brown dress and sweater and shoes looked yellower, and her hair was loose again, swirling around her head. “Upsy daisy.” She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up straight, and darned if I didn’t start breathing easier, even though her fingers were freezing. “You did a fine job.”
“But—” I pointed toward the door where Deborah had disappeared.
“She’ll be all right,” said Deborah’s shadow mom. The live mom was crooning and playing with the paper scraps again. The shadow mom sat beside her, smiling.
I looked up at my mom. “Can we go home now?”
“You’re ready for that?” Mom asked.
I nodded. She hugged me tight, and I let her. It felt good.
“Good-bye, Mrs. McFarlane,” Mom said. The live woman on the bed didn’t respond. The shadow woman smiled and waved.
Dad put his arm around Mom, Mom put her arm around me, and we all left.
Deborah was sitting on a bench in the sunshine outside. She followed us to the car and climbed into the back seat next to me without saying anything. Mrs. Jernigan sat in the cargo space and spoke softly to my third ghost, whom I still hadn’t seen. I leaned back and fell asleep.
Amy was home from the movies when we pulled into the driveway. She ran outside to meet us, waving Mom’s note as we climbed out of the car. “What were you doing at a nursing home?” She quieted when she noticed Deborah. “Sorry. Didn’t know we had company.”
Deborah ignored her. “It was when I was a little kid,” she said to me. “Mom had this long necklace of beautiful green beads. Sometimes she let me wear it. One day the string broke because I pulled too hard, and the beads fell all over the floor, and I couldn’t catch them. They bounced and rolled. I couldn’t—I couldn’t fix it. She said it was okay.” She fiddled with a zipper on her purse, and said, “I’ll call you and let you know about Roger’s memorial service, okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Thanks.” She kissed me on the ear, ran to her car, and drove away.
“What a day,” said Dad.
“What happened? What happened? What happened?” Amy yelled, dancing around us.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” I did an end run around my sister and rushed upstairs. I didn’t want to be around when Amy found out I was talking to ghosts again. She was still bigger than me and packed quite a punch.
And anyway, I had to find out what my new ghost looked like.
“This is Christie,” Mrs. Jernigan told me. I stared in the mirror at the pale girl behind me. She was wearing a light blue dress and blue shoes that looked like ballet slippers. She had large dark eyes, long, wavy brown hair, and shadowy finger marks around her neck. She tilted her head and smiled at me.
I swallowed. I was never going to drink anything again. How could I pee with Christie around?
“We had time to talk while you slept in the car,” Mrs. Jernigan said. “She needs a different kind of help, the kind you can only give in dreams.”
I fingered the bruises on my upper arms and shivered.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come with you,” said Mrs. Jernigan. “There are things I can teach you.”
“Like where to find a battle-ax?”
“Lesson one,” she said.
Copyright (C) 2011 by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Art copyright (C) 2011 by Goni Montes
Novels
A Red Heart of Memories:
A Red Heart of Memories (1999)
Past the Size of Dreaming (2001)
A Stir of Bones (2003)
Magic Next Door:
Thresholds (2010)
Meeting (2011)
Fear Street:
Body Switchers from Outer Space (1996, with R. L. Stine)
Why I’m Not Afraid of Ghosts (1997, with R. L. Stine)
I Was a Sixth Grade Zombie (1998, with R. L. Stine)
Child of an Ancient City (1992, with Tad Williams)
The Thread That Binds the Bones (1993)
The Silent Strength of Stones (1995)
Echoes (1998, with Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch)
Third Wheel (2000) (as by Jamie Suzanne)
A Fistful of Sky (2002)
Catalyst (2006)
Spirits That Walk in Shadow (2006)
Fall of Light (2009)
Collections
Legacy of Fire (1990)
Courting Disasters and Other Strange Affinities (1991)
A Handful of Twist-Ties (1995)
Time Travelers, Ghosts, and Other Visitors (2003)
Ghost Hedgehog Page 3