by Sarah Wynde
Akira shook her head, still smiling. He was so accepting. It must have come from growing up in his family: if your older brother could read your mind and your older sister could tell your future, maybe you just became imperturbable from an early age. Zane talked to Dillon as if he was a physical presence, albeit one who couldn’t talk back, and Dillon loved the company and conversation.
She turned onto her side and looked at the clock. Jeremiah’s was over by the highway, at least twenty minutes away. And Zane might want her to wait right here, but she wasn’t going to spend forty minutes in bed staring at the fan. She’d just do a quick load of laundry, she decided, and maybe make some iced tea.
With the washer running, she put the kettle on to boil, humming softly.
“Now there’s a cheerful sound,” Henry said from his seat at the table. “It’s a fine day, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” Akira agreed, turning to face him and leaning back against the counter while she waited for the water. She loved chatting with Henry. He was such a kindly presence, always pleasant, always warm.
But her smile faded as she looked at him, really looked at him. Was it the light? She glanced at the window, at the sunlight streaming in. She was usually at General Directions during the day, of course, and Zane was an annoyingly early riser: they were often out of the house by this time. But she’d never noticed the light making a difference to how she perceived other ghosts.
“Something wrong?” Henry asked, noticing her expression and looking concerned.
“No. No.” Akira shook her head, and turned back to the tea. But her hands fumbled as she put the leaves into the strainer.
She could see through Henry. Not a lot, just a little. But he was definitely translucent.
And he’d never been translucent before.
Outside the kitchen window, she could see the boys, faint and almost transparent, running over the pool as if it didn’t exist, playing in the heat as if it was spring instead of midsummer.
They were faders. Just memories of the people they’d once been.
She glanced over her shoulder. Henry had turned back to his newspaper, the ghostly paper that he read over and over again. And yes, she could definitely see beyond him to the wall on the other side of him.
That meant that Henry . . . Henry was a fader, too.
***
Tea made and poured over ice, Akira took the glass and slipped into the seat across from Henry.
She’d been thinking hard while her tea steeped. She hated questioning ghosts. It was impossible to know what might set them off, what careless phrase could change a peaceful encounter into a nightmare.
When her father had been alive, he’d been furious if he even caught her speaking to a ghost. As far as he was concerned, she was safest if she never even acknowledged that they existed, and he’d punished her harshly, trying to teach her that lesson. But living that way had proved impossible for Akira. And by now, she knew Henry. Or at least she thought she did.
“Anything interesting in the news?” she asked, voice casual.
“Oh, same old, same old,” he answered, folding up his paper, and tucking it under his arm. “Hot enough for you today?”
Akira didn’t answer. She was frowning into her glass, trying to decide how best to approach the subject. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions, Henry?” Maybe if she had his permission, he’d be less likely to get upset.
“Why, no. You go right ahead.” He sounded surprised, and she understood why. They’d shared a table for months. Months in which they’d talked about the weather, the garden, the food she ate, her plans for the day, but never once anything personal.
“Do you remember how you died?”
“Of course.” His answer was matter-of-fact. He leaned back in his chair, putting the folded newspaper on his lap. “It was cancer.”
“Cancer? But—” Akira’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“I’d had it for quite some time. Fought the good fight for a good few years. But in the end—eh, I think I just got tired. I was ready to let go.”
Akira frowned. Most ghosts died quickly. Unexpectedly. Often violently. Akira didn’t know whether she’d ever met one who’d anticipated his or her death before.
“I wasn’t a young man. It wasn’t a tragedy.” Henry reached out a hand, as if to pat hers comfortingly, before pulling it back before it could sizzle its way through her skin.
Akira took a sip of her tea. She put the glass down, precisely on top of the ring of moisture it had already left on the table, and then rotated the glass with her fingers.
“What else would you like to know?” Henry prompted her.
“How did you wind up here?” Akira asked. She gestured around her, indicating the shabby kitchen. “Here, I mean. Rose once said that you’d never lived in the house, but it must have been important to you.”
“This place?” Henry looked around the room, too. “I don’t think so. Why I don’t recall as I’d ever been inside the Harris place before I passed on.”
Akira blinked. That made no sense at all. Ghosts who were tied to a place were always tied to a location that was important to them. Dillon was the only one she’d met who was linked to a car, but she’d encountered plenty of ghosts who were stuck in the place where they’d died. “But why are you here then?”
“I was looking for Rose,” Henry answered. He picked up the newspaper from his lap, and unfolded it, opening it and flipping through the pages.
Akira waited, as Henry found what he was looking for. Smoothing down the paper, he folded it back up, this time with an article from a back page prominently exposed, and turned it, holding it out to her so that she could read it.
Akira glanced at the date at the top of the paper first. October 17, 1957. Her eyes skimmed down the page until she reached the tiny article that Henry’s finger was pointing at. Rose Amelia Harris, in bold type, was followed by “age 19, died after a brief illness, on October 12. She is survived by . . .” but Akira stopped reading. She looked up at Henry.
“Your newspaper is about Rose?”
“From the day of her obituary, yes.” Henry nodded, and took the newspaper back. He glanced down at the article, tracing over it with one finger. “I never knew what had happened to her. Her family didn’t talk about it. Not to anyone. Her mama became almost a recluse after. And her little sister—well, Daisy left Tassamara just as soon as she could get away and she never came back. Not once.”
“But Henry, that was decades ago,” Akira protested.
“I never forgot her,” Henry said. “Oh, I moved on. Got married. Had two fine boys. But Rose was my first love.”
“And so when you died . . .” Akira prompted him.
“Right after is a bit fuzzy,” Henry said reflectively. “There was this light.”
Akira’s eyes went wide. “A white light?”
“No, no. I’m not sure I’d call it white. No.” Henry frowned, looking thoughtful. “Well, maybe. It was more like being in a cloud. But not a real cloud, not like fog, and not cold and wet. No, it was just . . . well, it’s hard to describe. Can’t say as I know the words to do it justice.”
No ghost had ever told Akira anything like the story Henry was telling her. She was mystified. Was this what happened to people who didn’t become ghosts?
“It was a pleasant enough place, but I was looking for Rose. I thought about her quite a bit at the end. I’d always wondered, always wanted to know. I’d been looking forward to seeing her. But I couldn’t find her. And then, here I was. And here Rose was.” Henry smiled. “It wasn’t quite how I’d imagined meeting her again.” He patted his belly ruefully. “If I’d known, I might have tried a little harder to lose a little weight before the end.”
Akira smiled but she knew the expression didn’t quite make it to her eyes. Henry must have recognized it, too, because he cocked his head to one side and asked, “Why did you want to know?”
Akira took a breath. “You’re fading.”
He shook his head, just slightly, as if to say he didn’t understand.
“You’re becoming like the boys.” She gestured to the backyard. “Getting paler, more translucent. You’re disappearing, Henry.”
“Ah.” He nodded, eyes turned to the window. “I see.” He looked back at her. “There are worse fates, I suppose.”
“Henry,” Akira asked, a little desperately. “Is there a door? Or a passageway? A place where you should be going? A way back to that cloud? Because I think if you fade, it means . . . I think it means you’re gone forever.” Putting words to the fear for the first time was almost a relief.
Back before Daniel, she’d accepted the idea that ghosts were energy. Left-over energy. She thought of herself as a pragmatic scientist: she didn’t believe in life after death, just that some people, perhaps with some kind of a unique quality to their body’s electrical impulses, experienced a temporary transformation.
But Daniel and his father had gone somewhere, she was sure of it. And that meant that there was somewhere to go. Somewhere Henry ought to go, before he faded any further.
“Oh, yes,” Henry said readily.
“Yes?” Although it was the response she hoped for, Akira was startled.
“It’s not really a door,” Henry said. “It’s more like an opening. Like a hole almost.”
“Like a tunnel?” Akira asked.
“Oh, could be.” Henry appeared to be looking at something over her shoulder and Akira couldn’t help turning to look. She saw nothing. She turned back to Henry as he shrugged. “I don’t think I’d call it a tunnel, exactly. More just . . . a place. An entry.”
“An air lock?” Akira asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Henry’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t think it’s an alien spaceship,” he said. “It’s not something from one of those movies Rose likes.”
“Mystery Science Theater?”
“That’s the show,” Henry sighed. “I didn’t think those movies were all that good the first time around. I don’t really see why Rose needs to watch them again.
Akira had to smile, as Henry shook out his newspaper as if he was going to start reading again. “But Henry,” she said hastily. “If there’s a door, why don’t you go through? It’s got to be better than wasting away.”
“Not without Rose.” Henry turned a page of the paper.
“But Henry—” Akira began to protest. Didn’t he understand?
“Not without Rose.” Henry’s answer was firm. “I’m not leaving her. Not again.”
Akira frowned, then got up and went to the base of the stairs. “Rose!” she called up the stairs. Rose would be watching television, of course, but she never minded being interrupted. “Can you come down here, please?”
She returned to the table and took her seat again. Henry’s newspaper was up, hiding his face, and Akira brushed her hand through it impatiently, shivering when the energy tingled her skin. She couldn’t move the paper, the way she’d be able to if it was physical, but he’d be able to see her hand. “You can’t hide,” she said. “We’re going to talk about this.”
“Yes, Akira? What is it?” Rose popped into the room. “Are you going to say yes? Please? Pretty please?”
Akira sighed even as she smiled. “I’ve told you, Rose, I don’t know enough people here to have a party.”
“Just a little one,” Rose suggested. “A little dinner party. You could make fried chicken. My mama’s recipe is really good. I’ll teach you.”
Akira shook her head. “I’ll think about it,” she promised, as she did every time Rose brought up the subject. “But we have a bigger issue right now, and I need your help.”
“Ooh, I get to help you?” Rose sounded surprised, but pleased. “What can I do?”
“You need to tell Henry that it’s time to move on.” Akira waved her hand through his newspaper again. “Put the paper down, Henry.”
Rose’s smile had faded. She stood in the center of the kitchen, looking uncertainly at the table where they were seated. “What do you mean?”
“Henry’s fading,” Akira told her, still looking at Henry. He was ignoring her. “But he says that he can see a way to go somewhere else. You need to tell him to go.”
“But I don’t want him to go!” Rose protested, planting her hands on her hips and glaring at Akira.
The room turned abruptly cooler, as if a breeze had just blown through. Oh, hell. Akira had been so focused on Henry that she hadn’t thought about how Rose was going to react. She took a careful breath.
“Henry,” she said cautiously. “Will you explain to Rose, please?”
Perhaps Henry could hear the note of fear in her voice, because he heaved a ghostly breath and put his paper down. Standing, he crossed to Rose and said mildly, “Now, Rose. Don’t get all upset. I’m not going to leave you.” He moved to put a comforting arm around her, but it passed right through her. She looked startled as he shook his head, and said, “Ah, right. Forgot.”
“Henry?” Rose reached out to touch his face, but her hand just kept moving as if he wasn’t there. She whirled to face Akira, snapping, “What have you done to him?”
Damn. Akira shivered. Rose was drawing in so much energy that the room was getting cold. The breeze had become a crisp winter wind. Akira measured the distance to the door with her eyes. She’d have to go straight through Rose to get there. Instead she pushed her chair back, a little closer to the wall.
“Hush, Rose,” Henry interjected. “She hasn’t done a thing. I’ve been like this for a while. You just haven’t noticed.”
“I—I didn’t notice?” Rose’s voice was tragic, her blue eyes wide. “Not notice you? Oh, Henry.” Her lip wobbled, as if she was a child on the verge of tears.
“None of that, now.” Henry waved a firm finger at her. “I don’t mind so much. I’m sorry I can’t touch you, but it’s not so bad.”
“He’s fading,” Akira said in a quiet voice. She didn’t want to call Rose’s attention to her, but Rose needed to know. “Like the boys in the backyard.”
“The boys?” Rose looked to the door. “But they never come inside anymore. They used to be so much fun, but now—they never talk, they never even answer.” She looked back to Henry. “Will you be like that?”
He shrugged. “Might could be. Can’t say as I know, dear.” Moving slowly, he returned to the table, his paper back in his hands.
Rose watched him, and then, subdued, said to Akira, “What can I do?”
“He has a way to go somewhere. A door. You need to convince him to take it.”
“That thing?” Rose made a face.
“You see it, too?” Akira asked, surprised. “Why don’t you use it?”
“Pfft.” Rose waved off the suggestion. “It’s been here ever since Henry got here, but I’m not going through that. I know what’s over there. No, thank you.” But then she paused and bit her lip. “But you should go, Henry,” she said, sliding into a seat at the table, as Akira hastily shifted farther away. “It’s different for you.”
“Not without you, dear,” he said, opening up his paper.
“That’s just silly,” Rose told him. “Why, Henry, on the other side of the door for you is heaven. St. Peter, pearly gates, streets of gold.”
“Pearls,” Henry said thoughtfully. He looked at Akira. “That’s what that light was like. That color inside seashells, sort of white but real colorful at the same time.”
Akira tried to imagine it, but picturing herself inside a seashell wasn’t easy. She wanted to ask more questions—was it hard and shiny? He’d said it was like a cloud before. How could a seashell be misty? But it wasn’t as important as what was happening to Henry. “You’re changing the subject, Henry. You need to move on. Otherwise, you’re going to fade away. Either way, you’ll be gone.”
“I’m not leaving without Rose,” he repeated stubbornly, not looking at either of them.
“Heaven, Henry,” Rose told him again. “Eternal bliss. That’s
a lot better than fading away to nothing.”
“We talked about this before, Rose. Back when I first passed. I’ll go if you come with me. If not, I’m waiting right here until you’re ready.”
For the next few minutes, Rose and Henry argued. Or rather Rose tried to argue, and Henry repeated himself patiently. Finally, Rose seemed to give up. The pretty ghost was frowning, her face worried, but she didn’t seem to have anything further to say. The three of them sat in silence.
Akira turned her glass a few times, studying it thoughtfully, before finally saying, in as gentle a voice as she could manage, “Rose? If you think it’s heaven on the other side of the door, why don’t you want to go there?”
“It won’t be heaven for me,” Rose said flatly. “Sinners burn in a pit of fire.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Akira didn’t know what she believed anymore. Pits of fire sounded implausible to her, but then so did ghosts. Still, eternal damnation seemed awfully extreme for anything Rose could or would have done.
Henry must have felt the same way, because he didn’t even pause before rejecting Rose’s words. “God wouldn’t damn you, Rose. Never. There’s nothing you could do that his love isn’t strong enough to forgive.”
She looked at him, and her mouth twisted, and for a moment, it seemed as if she would stay silent. And then she said, “Pennyroyal tea.”
The words meant nothing to Akira, but Henry looked taken aback. “Oh.” He paused, then, with a reluctant curiosity, asked, “Who?”
“Tommy Shaw.”
“Tommy!” Henry protested, almost recoiling. “He put a snake in your lunchbox!”
“I know that,” Rose said, crossing her arms over her chest and looking defensive. “It wasn’t even—I didn’t—it wasn’t—it had nothing to do with him, really.”
“Well, why, then?” Henry sounded perplexed, his wrinkled face creasing into worried lines.
Rose sighed, giving a one-shouldered shrug. “I was just mad at my parents. They’d said such mean things to me about seeing you, I guess I figured I’d show them.”