Safe Landing

by Tess Oliver

  “I think I’ll stay here.” Deep down I knew I should’ve gone. I knew Mom was lonely these days, and I hadn’t been much of a friend, the opposite in fact. I was still too busy trying to sort the whole divorce thing out, and I especially didn’t know how to talk to her about it.

  I absently began rinsing clean cups in the sink as Mom walked to the laundry room to put on her beach shoes. I snuck a peek at her while she was tying her laces, and it was there. What Sebastian had told me was there. Her face stretched thin and long, and her mouth tightened in a grim line as if it were pressed together to hold back some incredible pain, the pain of a broken heart. Why had I not seen it before? My own cloud of distress had been too thick to see through. I was too busy with my own heartache from losing dad. But I had not really lost him. He was still my dad even if I rarely saw him. It was different for Mom. She had really lost him.

  Chapter 10

  I trudged up to my room not sure whether I was feeling extra sad for Mom or feeling like a self-centered boob. My computer beckoned me and I slouched in front of it staring at my vague reflection in the sleeping, black screen. As I reached for the mouse, I noticed a glimmer of light floating above my head in the wavy image on the glass. It faded instantly. My head twisted around. “Sebastian?” No answer. He was probably sick of me too.

  I wiggled the mouse and my desktop emerged from the black screen.

  Brandy was online. I typed.

 

 

 

  I typed the phrase and then stared at it. It was weird coming from my fingers.

 

 

  Jenny’s screen popped up.

  I typed back.

  Her message popped back.

  We were talking like old friends. I guess time was all I needed to get over it. Especially since I had no feelings for Blake.

  Jen wrote again.

  I typed in return. That ought to freak her out a bit.

 

  I smiled. What the heck. It’s not like she’d believe me anyhow.

  she wrote back.

  “What is this, LOL?” Sebastian’s voice drifted over my shoulder, and it hardly fazed me. I was getting used to him popping in.

  “LOL means laugh out loud.”

  “So you’re friend, pinka--pinkalicious laughed out loud at your message?”

  I signed off. “She probably didn’t physically laugh. It just means she thought my message was funny.” I peered up over my shoulder but he was across the room sitting on my dresser. His voice had sounded so close, and somehow he had read my message. He must have been leaning over me. His light speed movements were unsettling.

  “That’s absurd. And sexy is a good thing, right?”

  Heat rose in my cheeks. “That was a typo. I’d meant to write a nosy ghost.”

  “I’m not nosy. I have better things to do than read the nonsense messages you send your childish friends.”

  “Better things to do? What could you possibly have to do?” I laughed. “Do you write yourself a checklist of things to do each morning? Six o’clock float through wall, seven o’clock drift around room, eight o’clock vanish into--”

  “Enough. As you can see I’m not lol-ing at what you perceive as charm.” He glanced down at the pile of folded laundry on the top of my dresser. I knew I should’ve put it away. My lacy green bra floated up. “This is interesting.”

  I stomped over and snatched it out of mid air. As my hand went through his, a rush of cold air flowed straight through the palm of my hand, cooling the blood and bones beneath. But it was not painful like when your hand has made too many snowballs with soaked gloves. It was more like the soothing feeling of sucking on a wintergreen mint. I stomped back to my chair.

  Mom’s voice floated up to my window. I wondered whom she could be talking to, a neighbor or, more likely, her pet crew.

  “I saw it today,” I said still facing my computer away from Sebastian. “She was tying her shoes, and she looked incredibly sad. Not sure why I hadn’t seen it before.”

  “Face it. You are rather self-absorbed.”

  “Thanks.” I spun around on my chair. He was floating near the window ledge staring down at the beach. “Sebastian, how did you die? Did you commit suicide over Emily?”

  His image disappeared and reappeared on the foot of my bed. It was bizarre being so close to him. The slightest fragrance of almond surrounded him. That cool feeling of wintergreen made the hairs on my arm stand straight up as if he was surrounded by an icy cloud of static electricity. And, somehow, the closer he got, the more blurry his features became. If we were to stand nose to nose, he would surely vaporize into a misty cloud, and his image would be completely obliterated.

  “I don’t really know how I died,” he said. There was a grim tone in his voice as if he had gone to some sinister place in his mind. “The last thing I remember is the frigid salt water washing over me. I had always been a good swimmer, but I could not fight the tide.”

  “So you drowned accidentally because of a riptide? Even the best swimmers can die in strong current.”

  He shook his head and shot up from the bed and back to the window. “It was not the tide. I could not fight the current because of the illness.”

  “Illness?’

  “The headaches had become unbearable. They had plagued me for a month.” He fell silent and stared down at the ocean below. I could see my own reflection in the window through the white haze of his shirt.

  “You were sick? With what? Why would you go in the water if you were sick?”

  Now he vanished and reappeared on my dresser amongst my clean underwear. I had not seen him move, but suddenly he seemed agitated, and I nervously wondered if I should change the subject. The last thing I needed was my computer or chair flung across the room.

  “I don’t remember walking to the water but I was so confused all the time. My uncle had called the doctor, but the man was a buffoon. He could not find the cause of my illness. My health grew worse each day. I didn’t care though. My Emily had abandoned me and I had no will to live. I let it, whatever it was, consume me. I guess, eventually, I was in such a wretched state, I wandered into the sea and drowned. By that point, my entire life had become a blur, a horrendously ugly blur.”

  “I know medicine back then wasn’t like today, but it seems someone must have been able to help you. If only your uncle had taken you to a better doctor.”

  He laughed but it was not out of fun. It was a sound edged with sarcasm, disgust. “My uncle would never have tried that hard to help me. He was an abusive monster who craved only one thing--my trust fund. And with me dead, it fell right into his greedy hands.”

  I stared at him, speechless. The emotions in his face were fluid. Every movement of air brought a change in expression from sadness, to anger, to the innocence of youth. He had been young when he died, incredibly young. That youth was now immortalized in his face, a face which would never droop into soft wrinkles and lines.

  “I’m sorry. You had a terrible life.” Ones. Sebastian had lived with a constant flow of days that were ones. Miserable days etched forever in his mind. Even in death. “I want to help you.” I blurted it out in my usual manner of speaking before thinking. But after some thought, I repeated it. “How can I help you?”

  “Not knowing if Emily truly loved me has left me in an eternity of agony.”

  “But there is no way to know now.”

  He swept across the room to the antique chest. “Emily kept a diary. She hid it under some floor boards in her h
ouse. If I just knew what was going through her head, whether or not she had still loved me.”

  “Where’s the diary now?”

  “Not sure. She left town rather abruptly, so it may still be in the house where she lived, a house several blocks from here.”

  I sat up confidently even though I had no idea how to retrieve a hidden diary from a complete stranger’s house without getting arrested. “Well then, I’ll have to make a plan to get into the house.”

  Sebastian’s image tightened for a moment making him look almost solid enough to touch, then it wavered again. “I don’t know. It’s risky, and the diary may not be there after all these years.”

  “Let me try.” I sat at the computer with one of the unopened letters. “I’ll Google the address. Maybe I can find the name of the people who live there now.”

  “The Warners live there.”

  I glanced up from my computer. “Is there some kind of ghost network that lets you know who lives where?”

  “Ghost network? You are the strangest girl, Brazil. I used that big book with the yellow and white pages. A phone book is what they call it, I think.” His features relaxed. This new turn in the conversation seemed to draw him away from the dark spots dotting his memories.

  I squinted up at his image. He was serious. “Do you mean to tell me you searched that entire phone book until you found the address? And all the way until you got to the W’s, no less.”

  He floated above my bed now. “I have a bit of time on my hands.”

  I smiled. “Did my mom’s grandpa know you were here, in the house?”

  “I think he felt my presence occasionally, but you are the first person I’ve appeared before and spoken to.”

  “Lucky me.”

  He swished across the room leaving a cool trail of mist behind like a comet’s tail. He landed in his vulture imitation, perched on my windowsill. “I’m sorry if my presence is a nuisance.”

  “You’re not a nuisance. . . most of the time, but it is a little hard getting used to the idea of having you burst in and out of my life. So do you know anything about the Warners?”

  “I’m afraid the phone book and one phone call were about the limits of my sleuthing powers. I called one time but didn’t speak, of course. At the time a teenage boy or young man answered. So I think there may be a boy at your school. It’s a small town. There is only one high school.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure I can figure out if there is a Warner at the school. I’ll see what I can do. Maybe I can charm the guy into falling in love with me so he invites me over.” I smiled but my ghost did not return the grin.

  “You don’t think I can attract a boy, do you? I know you think I look like a rabbit.”

  “A rabbit with the mouth of a dock worker.” He smiled faintly or at least it looked like he had. Sometimes his expressions were too fluid to know for sure.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, turned away from him, and walked toward the window. His words had actually hurt. “Maybe you got everything you deserved.”

  For the first time, I sensed that he had moved. He was right behind me. A shiver vibrated my body and that chilling static electricity surrounded me. “You are incredible, Brazil. Surely, you must know that. It’s why I chose you.” His words lingered in the charged air and every hair on my body stood at attention.

  The sound of Mom’s distinctive, lyrical laugh floated up from the beach below. It dissipated the energy surrounding me. I twisted around, but Sebastian was gone.

  My gaze shot back down to the beach. Mom was leaning against our ramshackle fence with her back to the house. A stick went flying past her on the beach. Darcy raced after it. Who was on the other end of the stick? “Dad!”

  I flew down the steep steps at a dangerous pace and pushed through the back screen door.

  Mom stood and turned as she heard the back door slam. “Brazil, we have a visitor.”

  This time Darcy returned with the stick and the stick thrower. It was Seth.

  “Hey,” I said trying to hide the disappointment in my face. My breathing slowed and I smiled. Seth was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. Simple outfit but it looked exceptionally good on him.

  “Were you out beachcombing or looking for really big dogs to play catch with?” I asked.

  “I’m going to take this salt-water soaked monster up to the house,” Mom said as she headed past me. “He’s cute,” she whispered. She glanced over her shoulder. “You can stay for dinner if you like, Seth. I’m making burgers.” With the long piece of driftwood in her mouth,

  Darcy lumbered behind Mom at first then stopped to look at Seth once more. The dog was actually considering not following my mom.

  “You’ve been replaced, Mom.”

  Mom stopped then spun around and walked confidently to the house. Darcy raced after her.

  “Cool mom,” Seth said. “Cool dog, too.”

  I shrugged. “Cool some of the time.”

  “Who, the mom or the dog?” he asked with that dangerous smile.

  “Both I guess.”

  “I don’t get to see my mom that much, but when I do, she’s always awesome.” He sat on the sand covered steps that led from our yard to the beach.

  I plopped down next to him. “Are your parents divorced too?”

  “No. We all live in the same house. My mom works the graveyard shift at a clinic, so she sleeps during the day.”

  “I guess that doesn’t help the whole vampire rumor thing, does it?”

  He smiled and kicked flat a pile of sand that had obviously been some kid’s castle earlier that day. “Hank and his family have sand for brains.”

  “I have to say he is completely revolting. I can’t imagine any girl ever liking him.”

  “You’d be surprised. But he usually goes after the freshmen,” he looked pointedly at me, “or the new meat. Anyone who hasn’t figured out yet that he’s an ass.” Again he looked at me. “Of course, it didn’t take you long.”

  “That’s because I’m not a freshman.” I thought back to my inane crush on Blake and how much time I’d wasted pining over him. “I guess you could say I’m a seasoned veteran. I know a jerk when I see one.” We trudged through the deep, uneven sand for a while before my curiosity got the best of me. “Where’s Gina?” My question was badly timed since I’d just been bragging about my jerk radar.

  We stopped and faced the waves. They were rolling in rapidly. Seth dug a hole in the sand with the heel of his shoe. “I left my Siamese twin at her own house today. To tell you the truth, I needed a break from her.” He picked up a rock and hurled it toward the water. “I decided to come see you, but I have to say, you seemed disappointed to see me.”

  I would never make a good politician or poker player. My facial expressions always betrayed me. “It wasn’t disappointment in seeing you. It was disappointment in not seeing my dad. I heard my mom laugh and thought he’d come to visit.”

  He tucked his long black hair behind his ears and nodded. “So have you seen any ghosts yet?” He glanced back at the house.

  His question caught me off guard at first, almost as if he’d been reading my thoughts. I contemplated telling him yes for a moment but that idea faded quickly. “Oh, so that’s why you showed up here. You wanted to see our resident ghouls.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. The sound of it was incredibly sexy. He stopped and glanced down at me from under long, black lashes. “Well, has blood dripped down the stairs yet or anything good like that?” There was the slightest indentation on his right cheek that looked like a very shallow dimple.

  “You sound exactly like my brothers. Only Raymond was sure the blood would drip from the walls.” I got up and trudged toward the water. Seth followed. “No blood yet.”

  “Too bad.” He reached down and picked up a half buried shell. It was one of those shells that looked beautiful and complete, but when you plucked it out of the sand, you realized the other half was not buried, it was never there in the first place. He thr
ew the broken shell into the waves.

  The cold water hit my bare feet, and I stepped back directly on Seth’s shoe. His hand grabbed me as I tipped sideways, but it was too late. He held my arm as we both tumbled into the wet sand.

  For a silent, intense moment, we both stared at each other. Then the tide returned. I screamed, and we shot to our feet as the frothy water surrounded our legs.

  He stared down at his half soaked jeans then looked up at me. We laughed. He grabbed my hand and pulled me up to drier land. We stopped and faced each other, but we didn’t move closer. He had an amazing face even without the smile. I definitely would have let him kiss me, but he had his cute little girlfriend, and Seth didn’t seem like the type who would cheat. It’s probably one of the things that attracted me to him, but this time, I would have preferred the kiss.

  For a second his face moved closer to mine and my lips parted in anticipation. Then he drew back and stared down at his feet. “I’ll have to drive home barefoot.” He bent over to take off his wet shoes.

  “That’s what you get for strolling on the beach in your shoes and socks.” My voice cracked slightly because I was still reeling about the possibility of being kissed by him.

  He slammed the bottoms of his shoes together and clumps of wet sand fell out. “I am kind of a geek, I guess.”

  If this is what geeks had become then they had a whole new definition. “I think the guy was murdered.” I don’t know why I said it, but since Sebastian had told me his story, it weighed heavily on my mind. Something evil happened in this house a hundred years ago, and it had nothing to do with ghosts. “I found some of his letters.”

  Seth’s eyes widened. “Are you talking about the guy who went crazy in there? My great grandfather used to tell my grandfather stories. He said it was some rich kid. His uncle had come to town and became very powerful. He became mayor at one point. Horrible guy, supposedly. Used to beat the kid so badly, people wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time.”

  His last words made my throat ache. I blinked into the wind hoping the cold air would evaporate the tears that were forming on my lashes. “How come nobody stopped the uncle?” My words were barely audible.