“Michael,” I said slowly, “do you have any idea what that felt like?”
He scratched behind his ear, embarrassed. “Yeah…um…it was kind of weird for me too.”
“That’s the understatement of the year. But, I hadn’t quite made up my mind to stay out of the bathroom until…” I stopped, trying to remember. Then it came flooding back.
“I had the strangest thought…” I murmured. “I thought, this is the part in the movie where the dumbass camper, me in this case, is attacked by Cletus the Ax-toting Freak—only I had no idea who the hell Cletus was, and…” I went on for another minute before realizing he’d stopped listening. When I looked up, I saw real terror in his eyes.
Then he started to fade.
“What?” I said quietly.
“H-h-how did you…?” He took a step back. He was fading fast.
“It’s okay,” I reassured him. “See? I’m fine.” I could see almost all of the detail in the bark of the tree behind him right through his chest.
“Michael! What’s wrong?” I called, but it was like he couldn’t hear me. After a few minutes, his coloring started to come back, and he nodded quietly. I wondered what I’d said that scared him so, and he was scared, terrified of something, but I let the subject drop. He had enough to worry about.
“Hey,” I said. “When did you first figure out who I was that first week of school?”
His eyes regained their focus, and then I think he actually blushed.
“What?” I said.
“Um…okay. Like I was hoping I would see you that morning, the first day of school that is, and that you hadn’t moved away. And I was pretty sure it was you when I walked past you on the bus. Your hair is kind of signature.”
I rolled my eyes, “Thanks.”
“Though…it’s all limp and flat today. Did you use one of those iron thingies on it?”
“It’s called a flat iron.” I couldn’t help grinning.
“Whatever, I like your hair better the other way.”
“Thanks. So you knew for sure it was me when you first saw me on the bus?”
“Um…no. Your friends called you Cate, and I remembered you as Catherine,” he admitted. I loved the way he said my name, all drawn out and familiar, like my mom said it, only way less annoyingly.
“What convinced you?”
He blushed again and cleared his throat. “Um, when you fell into my lap, I…”
“You what?”
“Um…snuck a peek down your—”
“You’re a pervert! I’m hanging out with a pervert ghost!”
“Wait! No! Listen! I was looking for your ring, stupid!”
I felt around inside my shirt and pulled out my silver chain. He moved in closer to see my ring, the one that was engraved with the letter “C.”
“That one,” he said simply, pointing.
Suddenly, I was way too warm. After all these years, he still remembered. It could have been so different. Should have been. But now he was dead and, feeling dizzy, I bent over with my hands on my knees, overwhelmed by my emotions. He dropped into a crouch beside me.
“Whoa…Catherine…” his voice came at me through a long dark tunnel. “…Catherine…” A tear dripped off the tip of my nose and splashed down into the pine needles. Michael lay down with his back on the ground so he could look up into my face.
“Hey…” he said quietly.
“Why did this have to happen to you?” I whispered.
He rolled his head to the side, his brows pulling together as he thought about it. Then he looked back up into my face. “I don’t know.” Then he reached a battered hand up as if he intended to wipe my tears away, but at that moment another teardrop rolled off my lashes and fell right through his fingers, as if they weren’t even there. We both watched as the tear continued its journey downward through his arm and then splashed untouched onto the ground.
Startled, my breath caught in my throat. How had I forgotten so easily what his death really meant? That he wasn’t really here. That he was trapped somewhere—other. I saw his jaw tense, and the fingers that he’d opened for me tightened back up into a fist.
“No more tears,” he said. “None.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and wiped them carelessly with the back of my hands. When I opened them again, he was gone. I stood up and whirled around.
“Michael?” I cried out to the empty forest.
His fragrance washed over me, and I stopped spinning.
“I won’t come back unless you promise me,” he warned. His hard-edged voice seemed to come from everywhere.
I shook my head. “I can’t! You deserve—”
“No more tears. Promise me.”
“Why?”
He reappeared several yards away. “Catherine…” he pleaded. “Can’t you understand? I’ve already caused enough…” He stopped and looked away. “I’d rather be nothing than—”
“Don’t say that!” I cried, remembering him being swallowed whole in my dream, tangled up in thorny roots. That’s not what was supposed to happen. That’s why I came back. “You can’t say that. You have to try to stay focused until we figure out how to get you…um…wherever you’re supposed to be.”
He laughed derisively. “What? Like Heaven? Hell? Do you really want to roll the dice and see where I end up? I haven’t exactly been an Angel since second grade.”
I remembered the rumors that spread like a cancer through the school. The rumors about drugs, and fights and running away. Surely they’d been exaggerated. Rumors always were. But did I really know anything about him? Anything at all? I tried to think of a way to reassure him. I did know one thing, something I’d seen with my own eyes, and I dragged it out as proof that he’d done something good while he was still alive. “Maybe you’re not an Angel, but I know Shawn would be dead if it weren’t for you. I saw you pull him back from the edge of the cliff.”
“Maybe not one of my brighter moves.”
“God had to have seen!”
“How can you really be so sure He exists anyway?” he shot back angrily. “I haven’t seen any evidence, and you’d think being dead might grant me a few perks like that.”
“He does,” I said quietly, but how could I possibly prove it when I wasn’t always sure myself?
“No more tears,” he said flatly.
“Okay.”
“Promise.”
“Fine…I promise,” I said, and he nodded, satisfied.
Just then we both turned at the sound of someone calling my name. Jason. Shit. I dug my phone out of my bag and checked the time. I wasn’t late.
“Who’s that?” Michael wanted to know. He came closer and stood next to me.
“Long story.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“My ex-boyfriend, okay? He brought me here today.”
“Didn’t you just turn sixteen and get your license?”
I flashed a guilty grin. “Grounded from the car.”
“In the first week? What’d you do?” he smiled, amused.
“First day actually. Someone kept me out past sunset last Friday.”
“Oh.” His smile faded a little, but his eyes still gleamed.
“I get my car privileges back next weekend.” Then I looked him hard in the eyes. “I’ll be back. Sunday. You be here,” I ordered. His smile faded a little more.
I dug the little plastic ring back out of my pocket and threaded it onto a tiny branch of the tree with the blackened lightning crack running from top to bottom. “Here. Wrap your head around that.” I heard Jason calling me again. “I have to go.”
He nodded, watching me as I backed out of the woods. I didn’t want to take my eyes off him either.
“Be here. You’re not meant to be nothing,” I said.
He rolled his eyes, but nodded again, and I turned around and headed toward the path. When I glanced back over my shoulder, he was gone.
I found Jason in the small stand of oaks above the cliff. He was wearing his he
avy basketball jacket half-zipped up over a ribbed crewneck sweater. His jeans had strategically placed rips near his knees and crotch. He smiled at me.
“Hey, Cate.”
“Why’d you come back so early?” I asked, trying to look calm, but I was having serious trouble stepping back into the real world. I walked away from him toward the overlook to give my expression a chance to normalize.
“It’s been a while since—” He stopped mid-sentence as he followed me. “What happened, Cate? You’re covered in pine needles.”
“Just…um… meditating, you know…”
He caught up with me and took in the look on my face. “Are you okay?”
“Uh huh,” I nodded briskly. “Hey! Let’s go see our initials.” I sped away from him along the cliff top trail, stopping in front of a gnarled oak tree that was clinging to the edge. The letters JK & CF were scored into its bark. Beyond it, another breathtaking view of the valley opened up.
“Okay, what’s going on?” he asked when he caught up with me again. He hated it when he didn’t understand something. I kept my eyes on the cliff in the distance and tried to keep my breathing steady.
“Nothing.”
He wrapped his fingers around my shoulders and turned me around. “Cate…look at me. Damn. You’re shaking.”
I reluctantly let the pressure of his fingers lift my chin, and he studied my face for a moment, his ice blue eyes filling with concern.
“You’re eyes are bloodshot…” He hesitated and then asked, “What did you and your friends do last night?”
So that’s what he thought? That we’d been drinking or smoking pot? “Jason, you know I’m not into that stuff. We were just up really late.” I turned back toward the cliff. Breathe normally.
“People change,” he murmured. Then he came up close behind me, and I could feel the warmth of his cheek radiating against mine as he looked out at the valley from over my shoulder. He was quiet for a while, and then he swept his hand out over the gorge, whispering:
“The world was before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering step and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.”
They were the last words of Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, the book we’d read together at Huntington Beach last summer. At the end of the book, God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden for eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge.
“I thought you hated that book,” I commented, taking a small step away from him. The memories of those warm summer days spent so close to him on the sand were picking up heat.
“Yeah, sure,” he recalled, “You can’t expect me to take seriously a book that tells the story of how an Archangel, Saint Michael no less, battled Satan and threw him out of heaven just so Satan could come back and ruin the lives of Adam and Eve. But it does raise the interesting question: If God were to exist, would it really be fair for Him to forbid Adam and Eve to seek knowledge and understanding? What could be wrong with that? Maybe Satan actually did them a favor. Maybe people need to stop looking to a conveniently absent God to solve all their problems.”
I rolled my eyes in response. Even though Jason’s parents had sent him to Catholic school for the past nine years, the ideas of God and Devil had yet to make much of an impression on him. Good thing he wasn’t dead, too. But I had to hand it to him, only Jason could figure out a way to root for the Devil, the lowest of underdogs.
He pointed to our initials and laughed softly, “Do you remember what we did after I carved that?” He took a step closer, his lips now just inches from mine, and reached up with his finger to loop a stray strand of my hair back over my ear. “I love your hair like this, so smooth…”
“Please tell me you didn’t date a guy who gets his eyebrows waxed.” The sarcasm and the sweet fragrance hit me at the same time. I jumped and spun around.
Jason reached out and grabbed my elbow, pulling me away from the edge. “What?” Jason asked, his gaze darting around to see what had startled me.
“Oh shit…sorry. That’s the second time I almost scared you off the cliff this weekend,” Michael chastised himself, though he was grinning. “He can’t see me, can he?” I looked back at Jason to see him still scanning the forest, oblivious. I obviously couldn’t answer Michael’s question. In fact, I really couldn’t even look at him without appearing completely insane. So I closed my eyes instead and counted to ten. When I opened them, Michael was circling Jason, looking him up and down.
“This is way too cool…” he murmured.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Cate?” Jason asked again.
“Yeah…I just…um…stayed up too late, like I said…” I rubbed my temples viciously.
“So who dumped who?” Michael wanted to know, coming to a stop in front of Jason’s right shoulder. Michael was a few inches shorter. “By the way he was looking at you, I’d guess it was you who dumped him. Am I right?” His eyes shone bright with humor. It was clear this was making his day.
“We should probably go, then,” Jason suggested. I nodded mutely, and Jason turned his back to me and started up the trail. Michael folded his arms over his chest and glanced in his direction.
“Basketball jock. Designer labels. He sounded kinda smart, too. I’ll give him props for that. But…I don’t like him; he likes your hair all flat,” he concluded. Then he wondered, “How much can he bench?”
I opened my eyes wide at Michael and motioned with my head that he should go away. “Are you crazy?” I whispered. I was close to losing it. How the hell was I supposed to balance two different…dimensions…at the same time?
“Yeah, probably. Being dead sort of pushes you over the edge,” he replied. Then he gave me an impish grin and a pleading look. “C’mon Catherine…I never have visitors that can actually see and talk to me.”
A smile stole across my face. “I’ll see you next week,” I whispered, but even as I said it, I saw worry creep back into his eyes, and I wondered how I would last a whole week away from him, not sure if he was safe. Would he still be here after seven days adrift with no one to talk to? Or would he fade away into inky nothingness? The thought sent a ripple of fear down my spine. The nightmare had made it clear that I was supposed to help him, but I had no idea how. Maybe if I knew what really happened that day on the cliff last August, maybe if I knew what he’d been through during the years he was gone, maybe then I could help him overcome whatever had trapped him here. But with no faith in God, where would he go once he was free?
“Are you coming, Cate?” Jason called. He’d just noticed I wasn’t behind him and had turned back around.
“Coming. Yeah. Sure.” I jogged to catch up, glancing over my shoulder one last time to see Michael leaning against a tree studying his tattoo. His faith in God had been strong at one point. The tattoo proved that. I just needed to help him find it again.
ELEVEN
THE HITMAN
WHEN SPENCER HOBBLED toward the Demon on his crutches the next morning, struggling to hold onto his backpack and a newspaper at the same time, Cici hopped out of the car to help him. While her back was to me, he gave me a peace sign.
“Determined little shit…” I mumbled as I narrowed my eyes and peace signed him back.
“Hi, Cate,” he said when they reached the car. “Cici just offered to come to the gym after school to help me with my physical therapy exercises.”
“Isn’t she sweet,” I said, smiling back and gunning the engine. My dad looked at me sideways and raised his eyebrows. He’d decided mercifully that my grounding from the car didn’t apply when he was in the car with me. I ran my hands over the slender steering wheel, feeling the car’s powerful vibrations through my fingertips. That’s right, baby, you go right ahead and growl for mama.
Once on the road, Spencer cleared his throat and unfolded the newspaper. “Um…hey, so did you see today’s paper, Cate?”
Out of th
e corner of my eye, I saw my dad shoot him a pained look. “Now’s not a good time, Spencer,” he said.
“You didn’t tell her, Mr. Forsythe? All the kids at school are going to be talking about it,” he pointed out, thrusting the paper onto my dad’s lap.
“Tell me what?” I asked, trying to see the paper and keep the car in my lane at the same time.
“Spencer,” my dad groaned.
“Um, Mr. Forsythe? Wouldn’t you rather her know before she gets to school?”
“Know what?” The car swerved.
“Pull over, Caty. NOW.” My dad wasn’t messing around. “We’ll switch, and you can read it for yourself.”
I let the car coast to a stop near the curb and then reached out and snatched the paper off his lap. My hand fumbled with the driver’s side door latch while my eyes took in the headline of the Metro section:
Drugs Involved in Tragic Death of Local Teen
I looked back at Spencer, and he ran his fingers though his shaggy hair uncomfortably.
“I’m sorry, Cate. But I thought you’d rather hear it from…” I tuned him out and got out of the car. Traffic was blasting by a few feet to my left, buffeting the paper and making it impossible to read. My dad led me back around to the passenger side and made me get in. Then I dug hungrily into the article while my stomach flipped its contents up into my throat. I could hear Spencer whispering to Cici and Claire in the backseat, filling them in.
Drugs Involved in Tragic Death of Local Teen
According to the coroner’s report released yesterday, no drugs were found in the body of Michael Casey, a student at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic High School, who fell to his death from a cliff last August.
“Thank you, God,” I whispered. Michael hadn’t been on drugs when he died after all.
However, police have now confirmed that a half-empty bottle of Ritalin was found near the victim. The medication was prescribed to a former foster child of Bill and Suzanne Gardiner of 342 Snowdrop Way, who were Casey’s foster parents at the time of his death.
Shawn Fowler, also a student at Saint Joan of Arc Catholic High School, who was hiking with Casey when he fell, stated that Casey had taken the pills from the Gardiner’s medicine cabinet and brought them to the park intending to share them with him. Fowler said, “Michael got really angry when I refused. Then we went for a hike, and he got too close to the edge and slipped.”
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