Logan was sitting on the edge of my bed.
“Hi.” He stood quickly as I moved inside the room. “Did you think I’d forget?”
I shut the door behind me. “Do I look worried?” I whispered.
“You look as nervous as I feel.”
I went to the window, partly to hide my smile. If Logan could feel, he could live, sort of.
I lowered the blinds to block out the light from the street. In the total darkness, the details of Logan’s features shone bright.
“I’m glad you came,” I told him, hoping he grasped the force of my understatement.
“This is gonna be great.” Logan reclined on the bed, though the mattress didn’t compress with any weight. “Like when we were kids, remember? When we’d all camp out in our basement and pretend we were in the mountains?”
I hurried over to the other side of the bed, almost skipping in my giddiness. “Didn’t we play ‘doctor’ for the first time on one of those camping trips?”
Logan laughed. “Yeah, that was before I found out about girl cooties.”
I slipped under the covers next to him. He rolled onto his side to face me.
“Nice sheets,” he said, and before he could see my guilt, his gaze traveled down the front of my shirt. “Nice outfit, too.”
I felt suddenly shy. “Thanks.”
“How was your sky gazing?”
“I wasn’t sky gazing.” I faked a playful punch. “I was working.”
“Did he make you see stars?”
I suppressed a cackle. “Don’t be a dick. And don’t make me laugh, or Gina’ll hear.”
“Sorry.” Logan bent his arm and rested his cheek on it. “I’ll do the talking, so you don’t get in trouble.”
I nodded, swallowing a squeak of excitement. Logan was here. In my bed. He could talk the whole night about guitar strings and amp brands, for all I cared. I just wanted to hear his voice.
The lines of his face smoothed solemn. “I’m so sorry about Friday night. Not just for dying, but for getting so wasted we couldn’t make love. It’s like that Dead Kennedys song, ‘Too Drunk to Fuck.’ That’s been running through my head all day.”
“I’m glad you didn’t ask for it to be played at the funeral luncheon.”
He snorted. “What’d you think of my picks?”
“It was a kick-ass mix. Except for ‘The Parting Glass.’”
“Hey, that’s a traditional Irish funeral song.”
“And drinking song,” I snapped back. “Considering it was alcohol that killed you-”
“The cocaine killed me.”
“It probably wouldn’t have if you weren’t so drunk. That’s what the paramedics said. It was the interaction that made your heart go haywire.”
“Oh. Wow.”
I closed my eyes and held back a groan. Logan had made a mistake that had taken his life, and all he could say was “Wow”?
“Dylan told me Mom and Dad are suing the record company.”
“I know.” I kept my eyes shut, worried I would reveal my own hopes and fears.
“I can’t get up on that stand and tell them everything. I don’t care about my own reputation-I’m dead, after all-but you have to deal with the people who’ll talk shit about you.”
“My aunt said it would help you move on.”
“I’ll decide when I move on.” Logan’s voice snapped like a firecracker. “I don’t have to listen to anyone now. I can do what I want.”
As long as what he wanted didn’t involve touching anything, or going anywhere he’d never been before.
“Hey, did you get to see my corpse?”
I opened my eyes. “I wish I hadn’t.”
“Was I still splotchy? I thought they could fix that.”
“No, your color was fine.”
“So how did I look?”
“You looked handsome.”
His lip curled. “Handsome?”
“Yeah.” I giggled. “Like a handsome shoe salesman.”
“Aww, man.” He rolled onto his back and covered his face. “They put me in that dark blue suit, didn’t they?”
“That wasn’t the worst part.” I pushed out the words. “They dyed your hair.”
Logan jerked to face me. “Like what Mickey did to his hair?”
“I don’t know whose idea it was.”
“I’ll ask Dylan. If it was Mickey, I’ll kill him.”
“Just let it go. He’s mad enough at himself as it is. So’s Siobhan.”
“No.” Logan pounded a fist against the mattress and uttered a groan that wasn’t quite human. “It’s not their fault, and it’s not your fault. I’ll make it up to all of you. Somehow.”
The words caught in my throat, the words I knew my aunt wanted me to speak. That the only way he could make things right was to move on, set his soul to rest.
But the thought of losing him again, this time forever, smothered all the words. I started to cry.
“Aura, please don’t.” Logan reached for my cheek. “Jeez, I can’t even comfort you anymore. I’m so fucking helpless.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” His whisper grew sharp and urgent. “I’m out there on the streets at night, and I see folks in some serious shit. Homeless people dying in alleys, hookers getting the crap beaten out of them, ten-year-olds dealing crack. And that’s not even in the really bad neighborhoods, since I can’t go into those.” He swept his hand toward the window. “You see this on the news, and you forget about it, because really, what can any of us do, and we all have our own problems, right? But there was so much I could’ve done, compared to now. I could’ve made a difference.”
I thought of how one day, when post-Shifters became cops, ghosts really could make a difference. They would be the ultimate Neighborhood Watch. I was about to point that out when Logan spoke again.
“Aura,” he whispered, “I wish I could wipe away just one of your tears. Then I’d feel like a person again. Like I’m something more than a bunch of light.”
“You can.” I reached into the space between our bodies. “Just follow me.”
He placed his left hand behind my right hand, creating a violet shadow. Together, slowly, we touched my face. The wetness soaked into the tip of my middle finger.
“I love you so much,” he said. “I wish you never had to be sad.”
The tear my finger had taken was replaced by another. “Let me cry, Logan. I need to.”
He brought his face near mine, so bright I had to squint, and placed his head on my pillow, close enough that if he’d had breath, it would have caressed my eyelashes. “I’ll stay until you sleep, and I’ll come back tomorrow. If you want.”
I nodded, then shut my eyes against his light.
Chapter Eleven
Logan spent every night with me for the next month. Not until morning, of course. He would leave after I dozed off, because to him, watching me sleep was (a) boring and (b) creepy.
If I called for him, he’d return, but I didn’t unless I’d had a bad dream. It was enough to know he’d c
ome again the following night.
Usually we listened to music together. Since Logan couldn’t use earbuds anymore, I’d pull my MP3 docking station under the covers and play it at low volume. Or we’d read books or magazines by the light of his glow. If I had a test, he’d help me study, but since he couldn’t turn the pages, this didn’t always work.
When I got tired, Logan would sing me to sleep, sometimes a painfully appropriate song like Flogging Molly’s “If I Ever Leave This World Alive” or Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars.” Sometimes he’d pick a lilting Irish lullaby, or even a song he’d written himself.
But never the song he’d meant to sing for me the night he died. Even Logan had his limits.
Mostly we talked. It felt like we were kids again, with a sleepover every night. When I laughed too much, Aunt Gina would knock on the door to see what was up, but I always told her I was watching a funny video. It wasn’t like she could ever prove Logan was there.
Every Sunday morning before Gina did laundry, I changed my sheets back to red and hid the dark purple ones in a secret compartment under my bottom drawer. I spilled drops of soda and scattered cracker crumbs over the red sheets so they’d look used.
Even if she had suspected, how could she complain? I was happy. My boyfriend was dead, but in a way, he was with me more than ever.
During the day he haunted his younger brother Dylan, and some of our other friends, especially if they were having a party. But the nights were all ours, and Logan was all mine.
Zachary and I waited for Eowyn in her office before our second meeting. No tea was on the little table, so we sat in padded wooden chairs in front of the desk. The book fort was gone, replaced with uneven stacks of papers, a scattering of gnawed pencils, and a pair of laptop computers.
“Almost ten minutes late,” Zachary said. His cell phone went off with a text message-I’d been around him enough to know his assigned ring tones-and his expression brightened. “Excuse me for a second?” He flipped open the phone and started texting. At least he was polite about it.
To occupy myself, I pulled my folders out of my book bag and started flipping through their contents. As always, I started with the purple folder, the one containing the journal and photos my mother had left.
The second page of that day’s entry had been torn out mid-sentence. I ran my finger over the jagged edge left behind.
“Sorry I’m late!” Eowyn swept in, her shoes scuffing the carpet. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her long blond curls were swept back in a glittery blue scarf. But her face looked bright, like it had just been splashed with cold water.
“Ooh, you brought me a present.” She untied our portfolio, then opened our first star map and spread it on the desk before her. I placed my purple folder under the yellow one on my lap. My plan was to advance my research without telling anyone my exact theory. Not until I was sure I was right, and maybe even then it wouldn’t be safe.
“Very nice work,” Eowyn said. “But not so nice I’d think you were cheating. You’ve definitely nailed the fundamentals, and the level of detail is admirable.” She sank into her chair. “Clearly you don’t mind spending time together.”
From the corner of my eye I saw Zachary mirror my squirming.
“If we got it right the first time,” I said, “does that mean we can stop?”
“Is that what you were hoping?” Eowyn closed the portfolio. “The point is for you to see what changes over time and what stays the same.” She folded her hands, shoulders sagging from what looked like exhaustion. “From year to year, the stars are the most constant thing we know. But within that time frame, they seem downright fickle. So yes, you still have to do this every month. Plan to dress warmly.”
My face heated at the memory of Zachary’s jacket around my shoulders, despite the casual turn our friendship had recently taken. Our conversations had grown less personal over the last few weeks. Sometimes he ate lunch with me and Megan and our friends who were starting to act like friends again, but it seemed like we were merely part of his social rotation. Zachary didn’t hang out with anyone so much as he hung out with everyone.
“What’s next?” he asked, and I realized he was speaking to me.
“I thought it would be cool to study ancient observatories that marked special times of the year, like equinoxes and solstices.” I opened my yellow folder on the desk. “I figured we’d start with Stonehenge.” I looked at Eowyn, then Zachary. “If that’s okay with you.”
The professor steepled her fingers under her chin. “What exactly did you want to study about Stonehenge?”
“How the ancient astronomers figured it all out. How they decided where to place the slabs of rock. It’s so unique.”
“Actually, there are many sites like it around the world,” Eowyn told me. “Stonehenge is simply the most famous because its size is so impressive and its structure so distinctive.”
I feigned surprise. “But it’s the oldest, right?”
“The passage tomb Newgrange is older,” Zachary said.
“Where’s that?” I asked him, hoping my ignorance was convincing.
“In Ireland. It marks the winter solstice sunrise.” He shifted to face me, his green eyes sparking with animation. “And up in the Orkney Islands in Scotland, Maeshowe marks the sunset on the same day. You should see it.” He scratched his jaw, as if realizing he’d lost his sheen of guarded cool. “Because it’s brilliant.”
My pulse quickened from the way he’d looked at me, like he wanted to whisk me across the ocean. “How do they mark it?”
“I’ll show you.” Eowyn shoved some papers aside, then went to her bookshelf. She took down the model of Newgrange, a glistening white granite half-ring topped by a grassy dome, and laid it on her desk. I examined it as if I’d never seen it before-which I hadn’t, in 3-D at least.
Back at the bookshelf, Eowyn flipped up one of the posters and pinned it to the frame of the shelf, which contained old, leather-bound, musty-looking books, the kind that make you want to roll around in them. (Well, that make me want to roll around in them. But I’m weird.)
She pulled out an armful of books and set them on a stool, letting out a whoosh of exertion. In the space left behind, I noticed an odd nick in the backing of the bookcase. It almost looked like a switch, the kind you press on to release a nearby panel. The Keeleys’ old home in the city used to have hiding places like that-supposedly their house had been a speakeasy during Prohibition, and the secret compartments had held illegal liquor.
Eowyn unpinned the poster, and it fell back into place, hiding the shelf. When she saw me examining the spot, I looked away and pretended to adjust the zipper on my book bag.
She opened one of the books to a wrinkled, yellowed page filled with sepia-toned photographs.
“Here’s what happens.” She turned the domed model so that the door faced me,
and pointed to a small rectangular window above the entrance. “On the morning of the winter solstice, the rising sun shines through this roof box into a chamber inside.”
She opened the model’s roof to reveal a narrow corridor with a round room at its end, then indicated the first photo. “Over the course of seventeen minutes, the light traces a pattern over the carved walls, through three recesses.”
I studied the photograph. A man stood beside a spiral carved into the rock. I’d known about the solstice sunrise shining inside Newgrange, but I’d never heard of these recesses. They looked like rough versions of those cubbyholes that rich people use to display vases.
“What do they mean?” I asked her.
“Archaeologists believe that they signify mother, father, and child.” She turned the page, revealing close-ups of the three ancient marks.
Zachary leaned over. “Can anyone go in there?”
“They give tours year-round,” Eowyn said, “but to be there on a solstice you enter a lottery. Fifty names are drawn, and each person can bring a friend.”
I scanned the images with greedy eyes. Was this where Mom had met my father? Was that why she hid the photos?
Turning the pages carefully, I said to Eowyn, “Have you been there?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“When did you go?” Zachary asked her.
“Well.” Eowyn spoke faster, drawing my attention back to her face. “I went several times for my work, but only once for the solstice. I can’t remember which year.” She shut the book, almost trapping my fingers. “There are also many other sites you could study. Zachary mentioned Maeshowe, and here in the States we have Chaco Canyon out in-”
“Can I borrow this?” I held on to the book’s edge with fingers that felt like claws. “I know it’s old, but I swear I’ll take good care of it.”
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