Eowyn hesitated, her eyes no longer sparkling. “Well, it does have a thorough bibliography. Primary sources, many of which we have here in the department.” She tapped the cover in a quick staccato. “Things you’ll never find on the Internet.”
“Thank you.” I slid the book toward my chest, resisting the urge to hug it.
“Let me get you a bag.” She opened a drawer. “No offense, but I’ve seen inside teenagers’ backpacks, and it’s not exactly a sterile environment.” She slipped a plastic bag over the heavy book and held it out for me.
In my eagerness to grab the book, I leaned forward and let go of the purple folder on my lap. It tipped, spilling my mother’s photos on the floor. I let out a panicky gasp before realizing they’d fallen facedown. Whew.
“Here.” Zachary slid out of his chair to help me.
“I’ve got it!” I scrambled to gather the pile of slick white squares.
“You missed a couple.” He reached under the desk and extracted the runaway photos. As he pulled them out, he turned them over. One was of the bright white doorway of Newgrange; the other, of a young Eowyn Harris.
Zachary raised his gaze to meet mine. A flash of heat sparked between my shoulder blades.
Eowyn rounded the desk. “Everything okay?”
Zachary flipped the photos over and slid them into my folder. “We’ve got it.” He winked at me, then said to Eowyn, “You were telling us about Chaco Canyon.”
“Right!” Eowyn closed the Newgrange model and set it back on her shelf. “It’s in New Mexico, and it marks the summer solstice…”
I tried to pay attention-or at least look like I was-as she described how the Anasazi people used the progress of a “sun dagger” across a spiral carving to know when to harvest. In the corner of my eye, the Newgrange model glowed white, the dark eye of its door beckoning my imagination.
At the end of our meeting, she told us to return the first week in January, after our next two star maps were finished and we had decided which megaliths we wanted to focus on. Maybe I was paranoid, but Eowyn seemed nervous as she showed us to the door, as though she were a mother sending kids off to army boot camp.
Zachary stayed quiet beside me as we exited the building and walked to the parking lot. The tension was killing me.
“Why don’t you just ask?” I said as we approached my rain-soaked car. “You know you want to.”
“Because I’m trying to decide if you’ll really answer. Otherwise there’s no point, aye?”
I gritted my teeth. “You’re infuriatingly patient.”
“You have no idea.” Zachary smirked at me over the roof of the car. “Yet.”
Chapter Twelve
Like most post-Shifters, Megan and I usually avoided the Free Spirit Cafй. The Charles Village coffee shop’s ghost gimmick held no appeal for those of us who saw spirits on a regular basis. Most of its customers were twenty- and thirtysomething people who thought it would be cool to visit a “haunted” restaurant and have their kids waited on by friendly ghosts.
“I heard the service here sucks,” Megan said as we squeezed into a tiny table by the window, which was painted over with swirling black strokes to keep the place dark. “I heard the ghosts pretend to take your order and then just disappear.”
“At least they have an excuse. Some places, the living waiters do that.”
A mural covered the wall above Megan’s head. On a night-sky background, the violet ghosts of famous people floated together, dancing or talking. People who never could’ve hung out: Elvis and Socrates; Ben Franklin and Julius Caesar.
Like most pre-Shifters’ ideas about ghosts, it was cute but inaccurate. First of all, they couldn’t interact with each other, only with the living. Second, famous people usually got sick of afterlife on Earth pretty fast-after the funerals and TV retrospectives, the twenty-four-hour admiration stopped, so there wasn’t much point in hanging around. Most of them moved on, but a few turned shade. Or so I’d heard, but I’m skeptical. Shades tend to be dark, seething, vaguely human-shaped masses, which wouldn’t do much for a celebrity’s image.
“Speaking of living, or not so much,” Megan said, “how are you sleeping these days?”
“Fine.” I stiffened my posture to simulate alertness.
“Really? Because I was thinking we wouldn’t need to-go bags for our muffins. We can just use the ones under your eyes.”
“I don’t have muffins under my eyes.”
“Dork.” She shoved her sunglasses on top of her head. “If I bought you a new red top, would you wear it?”
“Sorry, got plenty of those.” I picked at the gray fuzz balls on the sleeve of my cardigan.
“I never see you wear them anymore.”
“I may have given them all to Goodwill.”
“What about the ghosts?”
“They don’t bug me as much as they used to.” I held up my hands to cut her off. “Some of them really need help.”
“If you want to take on charity cases, you could start with the living.”
“Did you not just hear me say I donated a bunch of clothes to Goodwill?”
“Just because you’re the girlfriend-or whatever you are-to a ghost doesn’t mean you have to become a champion for them all.” Megan jerked the zipper open on her purse. “You’re turning into your aunt.”
“Ouch. If I were dating a black guy, would you complain if I started having more black friends?”
“There’s no comparison. Ghosts aren’t people.”
“Hello!” Next to our table appeared the ghost of a ponytailed woman in her early twenties. “I’m Stephanie. Is this your first time here?” When we nodded, she continued. “Okay, the way it works is I take your order back to Justin in the kitchen, and then he brings out your food and drinks.” She beamed at me. “He’s a liver.”
“Liver?” I crinkled my forehead. “Oh. Live-r. I get it.” I hadn’t heard that term used to describe we who breathed. I didn’t think it would catch on.
Ex-Stephanie gestured to the blackboard above the counter. “As you can see, our special dessert today is the white chocolate cheesecake. I’m told it’s to die for.” She let out a string of giggles, and I joined in to be polite.
“Funny,” Megan said through tight lips as she pulled out her wallet. “I think we’ll just order at the counter.”
I flapped my menu. “Oh, come on, this is cool.” I turned to ex-Stephanie. “Do they pay you?”
“Under the table.” She flipped the end of her ponytail. “My social security number expired when I did. The money goes to my kid.”
I told Megan, “Make sure we leave a big tip.”
She rolled her eyes and said to the ghost, “Two skinny mochas, extra whipped cream on mine.”
“And the cheesecake,” I added.
“Sounds great. Thank you!” Instead of walking away, ex-Stephanie vanished.
Megan dragged h
erself out of her chair. “I’ll go see if she really put in our order.”
My cell phone vibrated, still in silent mode from working that afternoon at the law office. I peeked at the caller ID and was surprised at the number.
“Hello?” I answered, half expecting to hear Logan’s voice.
“Aura.” Dylan spoke in a hushed tone. “Where are you?”
“I’m at Free Spirit with Megan. I just got off work, so I’m desperate for sugar.”
“Have you seen Logan?”
“Last night. Why?”
“I figured I should tell you first-his headstone is almost ready. My mom said she was going to call your aunt so we could all go out together next week to see it.”
My fingers turned cold at the thought, as if they were already caressing the hard granite proof of his death. “I don’t want to see it,” I said flatly.
“Me neither.” There was a brushing noise, like he was shifting the phone to his other ear. “So when he comes over, what do you guys do? I mean, do you, you know…”
His implication made my face flush. “No. Mostly we just talk.”
“About what?”
“Everything. Old times, I guess.”
“Hey, you remember when we all went camping in Harpers Ferry, and my dad told ghost stories?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I think I was what, seven? And you were six.”
“I guess.” His voice faded for a second, then brightened. “Anyway, then remember me and you pretended there were real ghosts at the campsite and freaked everyone out?”
“And they made us pack up all the tents and go to a motel? That was awesome. Except that there were actual ghosts in the motel.”
“It was worth it, though, to see everyone get scared. I hated all the bugs outside, anyway.”
A few silent moments passed. “Well, thanks for calling,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you at the cemetery.”
Dylan paused, and I checked the phone to see if it had cut off. Finally he said, “I’m in the bathroom.”
I scrunched up my face. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“I mean, I’m in the bathroom because I don’t want Logan to hear.”
The BlackBox, of course. “Wait, is it… that bathroom? In the upstairs hallway?”
“Yeah. Kinda funny, huh? A ghost who can’t haunt the place he died? Everyone else is too creeped out to use it. Siobhan and Mickey started showering in Mom and Dad’s bathroom. So it’s pretty much all mine now. Which is cool. But I had to use the old land phone with the long cord to call you.”
“What don’t you want Logan to hear?”
“Oh.” He continued in a near whisper, “Do you ever wish he would leave?”
A shiver ran up the arm that was holding the phone, as if his words carried an electrical shock. “You mean for good?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Swear?”
“Why, Dylan? Do you wish he would leave?”
“I don’t know.” He paused. “Sometimes. Maybe not for good, though. It’s weird, seeing him like that. All purple and shit.”
“I’ve gotten used to it.”
“Me too. That’s what scares me.” He let out a hard breath. “What if he stays a really long time? He died when he was seventeen, right? What if one day seventeen years from now, he’s still around? Then he would’ve been a ghost longer than he’d been a person.”
“He’s still a person.”
“But did you ever think about that? What if one day we get married? I don’t mean me and you,” he rushed to add. “When we get married to other people, will Logan be at the wedding? Will he visit our kids? Will he sit in his old room every night, staring at that fucking guitar?”
A lump filled my throat at the image. “If your family wins the lawsuit in January, he’ll pass on. That’s a long time before either of us has kids.” I twisted my tone. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling us.”
“We might not win,” said Dylan, ignoring my lame attempt at humor. “Dad says there’s a fifty-fifty chance. Which means there’s really a thirty-seventy chance. And then what if Logan-”
I waited a moment for him to finish his sentence, dreading its end. “What if Logan what?”
Dylan’s voice dropped to the faintest whisper. “He could go shade.”
“No!” I glanced at the older couple at the next table, who were giving me the evil eye for yelling, or maybe for existing. “Dylan, he would never.”
He snorted. “Maybe Logan’s all happy when he’s with you, but I see him the way he really is. He’s pissed as hell-about dying, about this stupid court case, about everything he can’t do.” The phone shifted again. “Sometimes he makes me so dizzy I think I’m gonna hurl.”
My pulse surged, and I fought to keep my breath steady. “That never happens when he’s with me.”
“Well, that’s just great. For you.” Dylan’s voice cracked. “Next thing we know, those Obsidian Corps people could be after him. They could lock him up forever.”
“That won’t happen.” I clutched the phone, sweaty now against my cheek. “What do you want me to do, Dylan? Convince him to move on?”
“He’ll listen to you.”
“Not about this.”
“Aura, just try, okay?” He let out a long, hissing sigh, like it was coming through his nose. “It was fun at first, having Logan back, me and him hanging out. It was like when we were kids and people used to call us ‘the other twins,’ before he got into music with Mickey and Siobhan. Now I just want to stay in the bathroom all the time.”
I pictured Dylan huddled on top of the toilet seat, waiting for his brother to get bored and go away. I wondered what it would take to put me in that desperate, sick-of-Logan state.
It wasn’t that Logan had never pissed me off. I’d suffered through his loudest prima donna fits, his heaviest drinking binges, his craziest thrill-seeking stunts.
But sitting in that cafй, surrounded by ordinary ghosts, I had a feeling that the world wasn’t done with Logan.
And neither was I.
Chapter Thirteen
A new sky greeted Zachary and me the next time we went to Farmer Frank’s field.
“I knew in my head that things would change.” I craned my neck as Zachary laid the blanket down. “But somehow I’m still surprised.” I gestured to Cygnus, the Swan, a large, pointy constellation that was diving headfirst beneath the western horizon. “A month ago, that would’ve just been starting to set.”
“Eowyn would say, ‘I told you so,’ but I won’t.” Zachary smoothed out the blanket’s corners. “How was your Thanksgiving?”
I let my shoulders relax a notch. I’d been waiting for him to ask me why I’d lied about my knowledge of Newgrange. But if we were small-talking about holidays, maybe he really was letting the subject go.
“It was busy.” I settled on the blanket next to him. “We went to my grandmom’s like always, in Philly. I have a million cousins up there that I only see a cou
ple times a year. They hang out together all the time, so I feel kinda odd when I’m with them. I don’t get their inside jokes, and they always-” I caught myself, remembering I was talking to a guy. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”
“Tell me anyway.”
I studied my fingernails, where I’d picked off half of the black nail polish. “They look so perfect. Their hair is all sleek and shiny and cut in new styles, while mine is terminally frizzy. My cousin Gabi? She’s twelve, and her makeup looks better than mine.” I glanced over at him. “See, I told you it was stupid.”
“I guess I’m the stupid one, since you don’t seem to value my opinion.”
“Opinion about what?”
He unzipped our packet of pencils. “Remember what I told you that first day we went to see Eowyn? What I said in the parking lot?”
My cheeks warmed along my hairline at the memory of his bonnier-than-ever declaration. “I thought you were trying to make me feel better.”
“I was.” Zachary focused on the drawing tools he was arranging between us. “Doesn’t mean it’s no’ true.”
I let the silence weigh heavy for a few moments, wondering how to respond. If we started flirting, it could be a long, unproductive evening. Not to mention frustrating, since I couldn’t hook up with Zachary without contracting a major case of guilt. Logan and I were together, even though we couldn’t be together.
“Most of your family lives in the same city?” Zachary asked.
I nodded, relieved to change the subject. “The same neighborhood, even. All but me and my aunt. Who wants to meet you, by the way. She’s kind of overprotective.”
“All right.” He opened our constellation book and switched on the red-painted flashlight. “You never mention your parents.”
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