One title sticks out, embossed in gothic letters on a thick, burnished gold spine: Help for the Haunted. Checking first to be sure Lucy isn’t close by, I pull it from the shelf and crack it open. It smells musty, and its pages are tissue-thin, yellowing around the edges. I turn them carefully until I find an introduction printed in faded ink.
Some people feel a powerful need to communicate with the dead. Sometimes, this desire stems from a longing to contact a lost loved one, particularly if that loved one died in a tragic or untimely manner. Others are curious about the existence of unknown spirits in their homes or places of business and wish to learn more about their presence. Help for the Haunted hopes to assist individuals with methods for communing with the dead.
I skim the paragraph again, zeroing in on one line:… a longing to contact a lost loved one, particularly if that loved one died in a tragic or untimely manner.
My situation, categorically. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I read on.
Some ghosts hope for companionship. Some linger because they have a message to share. Still others remain because their dealings are unresolved; these ghosts may be released, or pass from our plane to the next, when their business has been finished.
Though there is no need to be afraid in the presence of a spirit, alarm is not uncommon. Ghosts occupy a place many of us fear—the mystifying realm of death. We must defy our apprehension in the face of the paranormal. Fear will only hinder our understanding of the spirits with whom we hope to communicate.
I twist an escaped lock of hair around my finger, turning the antiquated words over.
Is this what I want? To communicate with a ghost?
To communicate with Chloe?
Yes.
I page through a few more sections of the book. Even though I’m trying to keep an open mind—I’m not a skeptic—it reads more as lore than as a true guide. Occasionally, it comes off as trite. I wonder if it’s actually helped anyone.
And then I turn to a chapter full of directives that might actually be worthwhile.
To establish contact with a spirit, position yourself in the quietest part of your dwelling. Relaxation is crucial. Distractions should be eliminated. Lights should be dimmed. Work to empty your mind. Slacken your muscles and allow your eyes to defocus. Notice the fragments of your visual field that are usually ignored. Watch for movement, light, or color.
If you are unsuccessful in fostering a clear and tranquil state of mind, try viewing artwork or listening to soothing music. These activities can help achieve a more far-reaching sense of awareness. Practice until you advance to images. The images you encounter might be brief, though with practice, your endurance will increase.
An aisle away, a book falls to the floor with a thud. Through the stacks, I spy Lucy bending to pick it up, tucking it back onto the shelf among dozens of others.
If she catches me studying a book on hauntings, she’ll sit me down for another of her come-to-Jesus conversations. Or she’ll call my dad.
I slip my phone from my pocket and snap a quick photo of Help for the Haunted’s advice on communing with ghosts. Then I shove the book back onto the shelf and duck out of the alcove, dodging Lucy and a certain inquisition.
I hide out in a section of the store reserved for local authors: books about the history of Oregon, the microhistory of Bell Cove, seafood cookbooks, and children’s books with starfish and hermit crabs as protagonists. I slide Bell Cove: A History from the array because it seems perfectly bland, a safe departure from the occult.
Curling up in an overstuffed chair, I read, marveling at how little Bell Cove has changed in more than a hundred years. I happen on a section detailing the city’s population growth: census data and blurbs about Bell Cove’s slow increase of residents, along with their apparent predisposition for depression and, in a few cases, suicide. According to Bell Cove: A History, the town’s long, rainy winters and lopsided elderly population factor in to its inflated number of mood disorders.
I think of the article I found online, Annabel Tate and her likely death. I find it hard to believe crappy weather could drive a nineteen-year-old girl to suicide.
The bell affixed to A Good Book’s door tinkles, and incoming laughter pulls me from my reading. A few voices travel through the stacks, but Tucker Morgan’s stands out. I straighten in my chair as he says, “Hey, Lucy. What’s up?”
They must be a shelf or two away, because I can’t see them, but I hear the pleased surprise in Lucy’s voice. “Tucker!”
“These are my buddies,” he says. “Drew Taupo and Brynn Stevens. This is my boss.”
Lucy greets Drew and Brynn, who respond with polite hellos.
“I’ll catch up with you guys in a minute,” Tucker says, apparently dismissing his friends. And then, “Shopping for cookbooks?” There’s a smile in his voice, I can tell, and I bet his eyes are crinkled at the corners.
It’s quiet. What is Lucy showing him?
“Ahh.” Tucker’s voice is softer, less jovial. I lean forward, peeking through shelves for a glimpse of them. Nothing. “What’d you need those for?”
“Well,” Lucy says, “after everything that’s happened over the last few years, I’m working on getting my life back together.”
Shit. What kind of books does she have? The Lonely Woman’s Guide to Redecorating a Victorian? How to Drive Your Depressed Niece Crazy with Questions? Poor Tucker—I doubt he’s interested in playing concerned with my aunt when he’s supposed to be enjoying a day off with his friends. But he surprises me when he says, “Anything I can do?”
“All the work you’re taking care of outside … You have no idea how big a help you are.”
“Yeah, but that’s my job.”
“Thanks, Tuck, but I won’t bore you with the details of my heartache.”
He gives a sympathetic laugh, and now I feel like I’ve undersold him, pegging him as this good-looking guy who’s handy with a hedge trimmer. Yet here he is, thoughtful, a comfort to my aunt without being flippant or snotty—without trivializing her feelings as I’ve done.
His voice filters through the stacks. “Is Callie with you?”
“Yep,” Lucy says. “She’s around here somewhere. You should go find her.”
18
My stomach comes alive with butterflies, unexpected and unwelcome. I flip the book on my lap open and pretend to be absorbed. When Tucker rounds the corner, I glance up, eyes wide, like I had no idea he was in the store.
He looks different in jeans, more put together than he does in gardening clothes. His gray T-shirt is dotted with raindrops, and his hair’s stylishly disheveled. He probably spent all of ten seconds getting ready this morning, yet he could have just stepped out of a J.Crew ad.
“What’re you reading?” he asks, standing over my chair.
I glance at the cover of the book I’m holding, my mind inconveniently blank. “Oh. Bell Cove: A History.”
“Nice choice,” he says, smiling. “It’s good to see you out. I was starting to think you’d grown roots to that old house.”
“I get out.”
“Yeah? Where’s the last place you went?”
I frown sheepishly and mumble, “The animal shelter.”
His laughter is low and knowing. “Speaking of the kittens, Rex called to tell me that all but one have been adopted. They haven’t found a home for the littlest yet.”
I don’t know why this bothers me, the idea of the runt kitten left behind, deemed undesirable by Bell Cove’s cat-seeking population. “Is something wrong with him?”
“Nah. He’s just taking longer to place.”
“Do you think Rex will be able to find him a home?”
Tucker shrugs like it doesn’t matter, but he’s looking at me inquisitively. “Guess so. He was cute, yeah?”
“Yeah, he was.”
He shuffles a little, looking around the shop, at the books and the weird spiderweb plants—anywhere but at me. I get the impression he’s got something on his mi
nd, something he’s working up the courage to say, but he doesn’t get a chance, because a guy in an OSU T-shirt rounds the shelf that’s been shielding us. He’s built like a football player, muscular and thick-torso-ed. His skin is ocher, his black hair cut short; he looks like he could have a Polynesian background.
“Dude. I’ve been looking for you,” he says, slapping Tucker on the shoulder with an enormous hand.
Tucker whacks him back before gesturing at me. “Callie, my friend Drew.”
Drew smirks like he’s got a secret, lifting an eyebrow at Tucker. He offers me his hand. I rise from my chair to take it.
He pumps my arm up and down, grip strong, his gaze skimming my face. “How long you in town for?”
I falter, rusty when it comes to meeting new people, and especially rusty when it comes to appreciative attention.
Tucker gives Drew a shove. “Leave her alone, asshole.”
He chortles affably. “Brynnie,” he bellows. “I found Tuck!”
She appears, brown-sugar hair bobbed short and angular, gray eyes huge and extraordinarily bright. Her jeans are dark and fitted, and she’s left the top button of her cardigan unfastened. Her arms are laden with magazines, and she’s smiling, open and carefree, not an insecure bone in her cute, little body.
“Tuck!” she says as cheerful and buoyant as a bunch of colorful balloons. “We’ve been here all of five minutes, and you’ve already made a friend?”
“This is Callie,” he says. There’s a meaningful bite to his tone.
Brynn and Drew share a glance. “Callie,” she says. “Lucy’s niece, right? Tucker talks about you all the time.”
“He does?”
Tucker clears his throat. “Not all the time.”
She laughs. “Yes, all the time. But your aunt’s been keeping him so busy. We’ve hardly seen him this summer, much less had a chance to hang out with you.”
“Oh, um, sorry?”
“Ignore her,” Tucker says. His hand finds the small of my back. Heat seeps through my T-shirt and soaks into my skin. I quash the urge to step closer.
Brynn huffs. “Ignore me? You’re the one who’s been hogging the new girl. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’d like some female company after hanging out with the two of you for so long?”
Tucker rolls his eyes, and she laughs, a light, confident sound that makes me feel like a schlep among sophistication. The jeans and tank I threw on earlier hang like rags. Would it have killed me to put on a little mascara?
And then my head crowds with conjecture: What if Brynn likes Tucker? What if he likes her? What if they’re together?
“We’ll let you two finish up,” Brynn says, linking her arm through Drew’s. “It was nice to meet you, Callie. Maybe someday Tucker will learn to share.”
“Oh—okay.” I hope the smile I’ve managed doesn’t appear as forged as it feels.
“See ya,” Drew sings as they walk away, his laughter rumbling through the store.
“Sorry,” Tucker says. “My friends can be … a lot.”
“Brynn seems okay,” I say, fishing for clues as to the nature of their relationship.
He doesn’t take the bait. “Drew is, too. Sometimes not in an observable way, though.”
“I’ll take your word on that.”
He smiles faintly, sweetly, and my cheeks warm under the intimacy of his gaze. It’s been a long time since a boy sent my heart spinning this way, and, honestly, I’m terrified. When I was with Isaac, I surrendered bits of myself. Not because he asked me to, but because trading parts of me for pieces of him felt right. Symbiotic.
It wasn’t.
“Anyway,” Tucker says. “I should catch up with them, but when you’re ready to explore, you know I’m game.”
I wonder what Chloe would say if she knew how often I think about this boy. How I look forward to seeing him out in Lucy’s yard and catching up with him at lunch. How he makes me feel like, someday, the cloud of gloom I live under might start to dissipate.
I hug Bell Cove: A History to my chest and gaze up at him. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Later, after Lucy’s paid for two cookbooks, we walk outside to her SUV.
The clouds have cleared. The sun is shining.
* * *
The first time I betrayed my sister, I was hanging out with Isaac on his home’s third-story patio. It overlooked Seattle, aglow in the overcast night, and was furnished in wicker and linen. It was, conveniently, on the side of the house opposite mine, so there was no risk of my parents or my sister catching me with a pipe, a lighter, and a glazed expression.
“Chloe has a crush on you,” I blurted out.
I regretted the words instantly, but Isaac smiled, impassive. “I kind of figured. She’s come around a few times to talk about biking. She’s cute. Kinda flirty.”
“She’s barely fifteen,” I said, suddenly cross. “She doesn’t know how to flirt.”
After exhaling a billow of smoke, he gave me a pointed look and said, “You’re sixteen, and you flirt just fine.”
I ignored his attempt at humor. “I don’t want her to like you.”
“Well, apologies. I’m very likable.”
“You know what I mean. Chloe and I don’t do competition. When she wants something, I let her have it. Like, a few years ago, she had her heart set on swimming fly, which used to be my stroke. But to see her work so hard at dropping her time … I started to focus on freestyle so I wouldn’t be the person standing in her way.”
Isaac passed me the pipe. “What about when you want something. Does she clear out?”
I thought on his question, feeling more capable with the lighter, and pretty freaking comfortable with inhaling, too. “I guess I’ve never wanted anything bad enough to test her.”
He’d given me a charged look then, daring me to prioritize my feelings. It was an uncomfortable notion, putting myself before Chloe, but for the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn’t want to step out of her way.
Quietly, I qualified my statement. “Until now.”
Isaac smiled.
I’d met his parents earlier, over the steaks and asparagus they grilled. He’d been right about Mr. and Mrs. Park; they were relaxed and darkly funny, a lot like their son. When they left to have drinks with a few of Mr. Park’s coworkers, Isaac and I baked cookies from premade dough we found in the fridge. We took them up to the patio, where we’d been since.
“Your parents don’t care that you smoke up here?” I asked, finishing off a cookie.
“I haven’t asked their permission.”
“Where do you get it?”
“My gall?”
I sank into my chair, muscles as loose as my tongue, and stage-whispered, “Your cannabis.”
He laughed. “In San Diego, I had a friend whose brother owned a dispensary. He hooked me up with someone here.”
“Interesting,” I said languorously.
“I can give you his info.”
“But I don’t need it. I have you.”
He grinned, dimpled and gratified, summoning me with a wave of his hand. I left my chair for his, giggling as he pulled me down to sit on his lap. His fingertips made a slow trip up my spine, and I shivered.
“Chloe doesn’t know I come over here,” I told him, breathing in the scent of his shirt: detergent and earth and smoke. “She doesn’t know you and I are…”
“A thing?” he supplied.
“A thing,” I repeated. “I shouldn’t have told you. About her crush. That was shitty of me.”
“I’m glad I know,” he murmured against my ear. “I don’t want to encourage her.”
I sighed, nestling closer. “I think you already have.”
19
A few days later, I’m back in the Gabriel, sorting junk. After two hours and a dozen boxes, I’ve found nothing valuable or even interesting. Sweaty and dispirited, I open one more box, vowing to break for fresh air after I’ve sifted through it.
There are nov
els inside—A Separate Peace, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Count of Monte Cristo—and a big pile of Runner’s World magazines from the late nineties. I’ll dump the periodicals, but Lucy will be all over the classics. Right between Frankenstein and Moby-Dick, I find a journal, wrapped in leather. Front and center on its cover is an ornately inscribed S. For Stewart, I suppose.
The first page is blank, lily white, but I flip on. With each turn of thick paper, my frustration swells. Except, what did I expect? A cordial letter from the ghost who’s haunting me?
I toss the journal aside, ready for my break. As it skids across the floor and bumps against an old steamer trunk, though, a few pieces of loose paper come untucked. I snatch it back up and pluck the pages from it.
Letters, unaddressed, written on pink stationery, in beautiful, swirling script.
I read the first, holding my breath.
I know you saw me on Sitka this afternoon. You can’t ignore me forever. Bell Cove is too small for avoidance. I broke what we had—I know that—but it was special. Too special to throw away. I never would have thought we’d go months without talking, even after everything that’s happened. Won’t you give me another chance?
~A
It takes a minute for the enormity of this discovery—this initial—to sink in.
A … Annabel?
The synchronicity makes my hands shake.
The next letter sounds more desperate:
Last summer feels like ages ago. With every passing minute, I regret my time with him more. Every day I doubt my decision to stick it out, to commit to him, to do the right thing. What is the “right thing” anyway? What my parents want? What this tiny town thinks is best? Is the right thing sacrificing it all to be with the person I love?
Or, is it right to follow my heart?
I know I’ve made mistakes. I carry my
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