by Amy Huntley
Samhain and the Celtic folklore associated with
Halloween until Gabe brought it up, but so what? He can't
be smarter :han I am about evoyibingi can he? "You stick
with physic; and calculus and stuff like that."
He laugis. As he opens his book and pulls his assignment
from it, he pushes aside my carton of french fries
a little too quickly. I he wind whisks away my half-done
homework. *Aahh," I say, trying to leap up from the picnic
table. My left foot gets stuck under Gabe's leg and I start to
lose my balance. Laughing, Gabe grabs my arm to keep me
from nose-diving into the table, but Gabe makes the mistake
of letting go of his own homework.
The wind seems to mock both of us as it picks up his
paper and sends it fleeing in a different direction from mine.
We each run off, laughing, in search of our homework.
,'ji
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I HAVE A STRANGE SENSE about that moment with Gabe at
the picnic table. It's somehow essential. I don't know why
it is, but it's the centerpiece of the puzzle of my existence.
If I could just figure out what pieces are supposed to be
attached to it, maybe I could . . .
W a i t . . . I do know one of the reasons that moment is
so essential.
Gabe is there.
I mean, the dead Gabe. I could feel his presence there
just like 1 did when we lost our keys. Ic makes sense that he'd
be there, too. After all, he also lost his homework when we
were sitting at the picnic table.
iCJ
I suppose it should be comforting to have him there—to
have the company. But it's not,
Because Gabe's there, but I can't reach him.
I go in search of my physics homework. Is it still here? It
should be. I remember now that we never found our homework.
But one failing grade in physics . . . well, it just didn't
seem that important after we'd gotten back together.
That's all I remember about that day, though. And
it's. . . so near the end. I do know that.
Kristen was in labor that day, and I never found out
whether the baby was a boy or girl. I'm sure of that. If I'd
ever known who that baby was, it would have changed me
somehow, become part of me. I mean, Kristen's my sister.
There's a connection there that can't be broken, even by
this death thing. I'm convinced I'd have the same connection
to her child.
So exactly what did happen that day?
My physics homework is waiting for me, so I return . . .
and return and r e t u r n , . ..
But learn nothing.
Frustrated, I start flinging myself randomly back into
all the moments of my life that I still have access to.
But nothing's changed in any of those moments. It's all
still the same.
Until about my tenth time returning to the picnic table
scene....
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HMRetCMiO J..?Ait?JSdKB
the note
age W
I'm so intent on my misery, I don't notice at first that I've
been playing with my necklace . . . the one Gabe gave me
last summer. It's silver, and at the center it has block letters
that say FOREVER.
Yeah . . . so much for that. We aren't even talking now.
Tears blur mv eyes, and I look down to see the words /
need to talk to yon written in strange handwriting. Definitely
not mine.
How did that get on this piece of paper?
I'm startled by a soft touch on my shoulder, and I whirl
around, gasping.
Gabe...
,L!
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lia.tB.e^9.HlPJ.PubJAlb.?.f.J.
15
THE SONG OF MY LIKE has changed again. Even though I
can't now remember what happened on my earlier trips to
that picnic table, I can tell that a significant shake-up has
happened. Something is fundamentally different in my
world because .. . because Gabe left me a note on that piece
of paper, and it wasn't the living Gabe who did it. It can't be.
A ghost has been messing with that moment, and it doesn't
feel like it was rne. The other ghost in that moment was
Gabe.
And he wants to talk to me.
I'm thrilled and full of longing but frustrated, too. I
can't figure out how Gabe managed to leave me a note. My
ghost can't go around leaving notes for other people. The
i-JS
only change I've ever managed to make to my life in a revisit
is finding an object.
For a moment, I'm envious. Why does Gabe get to be a
more advanced spirit than I am?
Maybe it's because he was better at physics than I was.
Maybe it takes some kind of understanding that I don't have
of quantum mechanics . . . all that simultaneous-communication-and-observation-of-subatomic-particles-changingreality
stuff.
Maybe. But probably not. Me always did figure out life
foster than I did (well, except when it came to his dad and
the whole drinking thing). I shouldn't be surprised that he
managed to figure out death faster, too.
So what's he doing differently than I am? I try to recall
how my journeys back to life began. They started with the
sweatshirt. Then there was the bracelet.. . which I found.
Can't go back there to find the answer.
At least not the way I'm used to going back to
moments.
But I can remember that moment. I have a nagging feeling
that something was different about that visit than about
the many others I've made since then. What was it?
Then it comes to me.
Ohmygod. It's been so obvious the whole time.
And I've missed it.
I don't have to be me when I'm experiencing those
iti
moments. I can stay separate from myself... like I did the
first few times I returned to mv life. On my original visit to
the sweatshirt, I stayed back and watched for a few minutes.
I did the same thing when I used the bracelet. It was only
when I pushed myself too close to, well, myself, that I was
drawn back into the experience. Drawn like a magnet to a
lodestone. I could have kept my distance. But I liked living
too much. So every time I returned to a moment of my life,
I lived it again instead of observing it.
For the first time ever in //, I laugh. At least, I think
that's what I'm doing. It's like every subatomic particle in
my being is dancing with delight.
My mother was right. About everything.
The whole object attachment thing?
Right. Even in death, I've still been attached to those
objects.
The whole you-have-trouble-with-change speech she
gave me when I started middle school?
Right again. I haven't been able to let go of life.
My mother knows me so well that she even knows who
I am when I'm dead.
It's time to experiment with observing instead of living.
Who knows what will happen?
I know just the right
experience to start with.
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ttaBsCsUios-SubSsfesra
unrattled
KEEP BACK . . . KEEP BACK, I remind myself. If I want to
watch this all happening, I have to keep my distance from
that baby in the bouncy seat on the kitchen floor. It's difficult
to do. There is a natural pull drawing me closer. I have
to work hard to resist it, but, surprisingly, the longer I do,
the easier it gets.
When the force dragging me tapers off enough for me
to notice what's actually going on in the room, my first
thought is, Ofmiygpd... its Mom, and she looks so young.
My second thought is, Lose the outfit, Mom. Totally eighties
and it's well into the nineties. And the hair. Mom? Definitely
has to go. It s long and curly and, well, bushy.
• CS
be scared of," she reassures baby me. "It was just a breeze
knocking over the plate."
Ha. Just a breeze. As mom puts baby me back in the
bouncy seat, she chucks me under the chin, then moves
toward the kitchen sink where she starts peeling carrots. I
miss her already. Loneliness emanates from a tiny me and,
like smell and sound, floats across the boundary between
us, reaching me in the form of an echo.
Baby me starts fussing, jerking around in the bouncy
seat, and knocks the rattle onto the floor. It slides under the
cabinet. My crying brings Mom rushing over. She says, in
a singsong voice, "What's the matter with my baby? Is she
wet?"
Oh, get real, I want to tell her. I just lost my rattle. Mow
hard is it to notice that?
Apparently, pretty hard. She picks me up, checks my
diaper, realizes it isn't messy, and then starts trying to nurse
me . . . nurse me?! Ohmygod . . . this is so sick. I have to get
out of here. Now!
But how? I have to wait until my body moves a certain
distance from the lost object, don't I?
Thank God the baby me isn't having anything to do with
the whole nursing thing. I keep pulling away, and finally
Mom decides to take me for a little walk down the hallway.
Released. Sent back to //.
Thank God. Or the Universe. Or Whatever.
. -}
Being here but not being me (at least the original me)
is way weird. This is a Mom that I've seen in pictures but
don't actually remember. She is cooing at the baby me, who
(by the way) stinks. I've never been able to stand the smell
of baby. Eau de spit-up, baby powder, and plastic diaper?
Yeah, no, thanks.
Smell, I notice, is a lot different for me in this hovering
spiritual state. It's not as real as when I'm living the
moment. I can still smell things, but it's like all those scents
are coming from a great distance, like they have to cross
some kind of invisible boundary to get to me. That's the
way sounds seem to work, too.
Mom doesn't care that the baby me smells so bad. She's
leaning close, talking nonsense to me and rubbing noses.
It's a habit she didn't get rid of until I was older, so I have a
clear memory of doing a lot of nose rubbing with her.
I wonder if my spirit has any power over things in this
moment. Can I, for instance, knock over that plate balancing
precariously on the edge of the counter? I sort of. . .
will it to happen.
And it does.
Mom, startled, whirls around. "Whew . . ." she says as
she realizes there's no immediate danger. She goes to the
closet to get a broom. She cleans up the mess (I can't help
feeling proud of myself for creating it) and then goes back
and picks me up, snuggling and cuddling me. "Nothing to
m
For the release, but also for graduating me to a new
level in the spirit world. The Universe has actually given
me more power than I thought it had. I can create changes
in my original life from a ghost state, too.
Except...
Maybe this zipping around in and out of life as a spirit
isn't such a cool idea after all. There are some things that we
are not meant to know, understand, or see. Like my mom
trying to nurse me, for example.
Besides, interfering in that moment has changed my
original life again. I'm starting to feel that strange shifting
of self. "It was just a silly plate I broke!" I find myself wanting
to shout at the Universe.
Not that it would care, anyway.
The Universe just doesn't make the best of companions.
I long for something more than it's giving me. I recall the
note that Gabriel left at the picnic table: / need to talk to
you.
Realization tingles through me: I've been too focused
on how Gabe managed to leave me that note. Too focused
on his desire to see me. I've been missing a possible implication
of his words: Maybe we can talk.
I try to imagine how this would be possible. If I return
to a moment that another ghost shares with me, and stay in
the state I used for observation, will I encounter that other
ghost?
I onlv know of two possible moments I share with
another ghost and that I still have access to—the picnic
table scene, and the Ouija board one. I consider both.
What if I'm wrong? What if I can't communicate with
a ghost?
Better to have that happen when I'm expecting to
encounter Tammy than Gabe. If it doesn't work, I'll be less
disappointed.
Where's that hair clip?
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gathering as o ghost
RETURNING TO THE NIGHT of the Ouija board is completely
different from my last spiritual expedition. For one thing,
we're in a basement. The humidity makes the air heavier,
and it's harder for me to move around with this not-exactlycorporeal
body.
But the big difference? That would be sharing space
with another ghost. I mean, a real ghost. Tammy's ghost.
I'm watching things from a distance when she startles me
by more or less saying, "Thought you were never gonna show
up. I was starting to wonder if you were avoiding me."
I say "more or less" because it turns ont that ghosts don't
actually talk to each other in the same sense that living
ili
humans do. I'm not sure what you'd call it. Certainly it's
some form of communication. And clear enough commuaication
that I know what she's telling me. It's just that there
aren't any, well, words. There're j u s t . . . ideas. I'm not sure
how to respond to her, because how can you talk to someone
when you aren't really talking?
Turns out I don't have to worry about it. I'm confused
by her "Thought you were never gon na show up" statement
(since I've been here what seems like a million times) and
think, What's she talking about? She immediately tells me,
"You. Coming here. As a spirit. So I could actually have a
conversation with you."
It's like . . . whatchamacallit—telepathic communic
ation.
We're communicating telepathic ally, and whoa . . . not
such a t>ood thing. I mean, what if somehow she reads my
mind and I'm thinking something that I don't really want
her to know?
"Oh, in time you'll learn how to keep some ideas back
from other spirits. It's just that you have to learn all over
again how to communicate . . . both the truth and lies."
Great. Like learning to communicate the first time
wasn't hard enough?
"Doesn't talce all that long. You'll catch on quickly. This
must be your first attempt at communicating with another
spirit."
..'
"Well, yeah. It's not like I've experienced many moments
where I lost something at the same time some other dead
person I know did. In fact, I've only discovered two other
moments like that, and one of them I can't get to anymore.
I lound the stupid keys that would take me there."
"Oh. Don't worry," Tammy reassures me. "You'll find
more moments like that. You have eternity to do it."
Not exactly reassuring.
"And the more experience you get hanging out with
other spirits, the belter you'll communicate with us."
"Well, my only practice so far has been when I was thirteen
and talking to you through the Ouija board."
"Oh, yeah, sorry about that."
"1 hat reminds me. The whole thing where you used the
Ouija board to apologize? Do you think you could be a little
clearer about that? I mean, what are you sorry for?"
Neither of us has a body. I know this misty whiteness
next to me is Tammy because . . . well, I just do. The same
way I know what she's saying to me. When I ask her that
question, it's like all her whiteness becomes brighter, and I
know this is a form of laughter. I don't find anything here
particularly funny.
"Did you kill me? Is that why you're sorry?"
The glow of laughter disappears. She darkens with what
seems like . . . regret. Just when I'm thinking I have the
answer to my question, she surprises me.
M
"Of course I have regrets. But they aren't about killing
you. I mean, how could you even think it? . would never kill
someone who had once been my friend."
I don't know if I'm more stunned by the loyalty she's
expressing or the way she's kind of left open the possibility
that she might kill someone who wasn't once her friend.
She interrupts my thoughts: "Don't even go there. Of
course I wouldn't kill anyone. I might have made my mistakes,