The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney

by Suzanne Harper

  I crossed my arms and stared at him. One of my great talents, I reminded myself, was a deep and abiding stubbornness.

  I opened my mouth to say no, absolutely not, no way, not a chance. . . .

  “Sparrow. I need to talk to my brother.”

  And I heard myself say, rather begrudgingly, “Yeah, all right, okay.”

  He smiled at me—a warm smile without a trace of mockery—and said quietly, “Thank you.”

  “What’s going on?” Jack was getting freaked out now. “Sparrow?”

  Then I explained to Jack what we were going to do.

  Ten minutes later Jack and I were sitting next to each other, our arms almost touching. Luke crouched in front of me.

  “Ready?” he asked calmly.

  I licked my lips nervously and nodded.

  He reached forward to touch my face. . . .

  The freezing cold came first. I caught my breath as my lungs went into shock. On the plus side, I could no longer feel the pain in my ankle. On the minus side, I couldn’t feel anything else either. I felt as though I had been turned into a frozen statue.

  Then came the fog. My eyes blurred. Everything around me—the fire, the stack of wood, the flashlight lying on the ground, the drifts of leaves in the corner of the cave—was just indistinct shapes. I vaguely knew that I was someone and that I was somewhere, but nothing else. I could hear the fire crackling, but the sound was far away, and I could no longer feel the heat of the flames or the cold air that blew in from the entrance to the cave. Maybe, a remote part of my mind thought, this is what it feels like to be a ghost.

  Then the fog lifted, and the cold went away, and I was looking at Jack, but it wasn’t me gazing out at the world through this pair of eyes. It was Luke. I was Luke. The part of me that I think of as me felt like a small bee, buzzing around inside my head, watching and listening, an observer inside my own body. That tiny part that was still me could see Jack, but he seemed impossibly distant, as if I were looking at him through the wrong end of a telescope.

  “Jack. It’s Luke.”

  Jack jerked away, looking more scared than ever.

  I didn’t blame him. Luke’s voice was coming out of my mouth. I found it more than a little disturbing too, but it was too late to back out now.

  “I did try to appear to you, you know. A couple of times I thought I was close, but in the end I just couldn’t get through.”

  Jack stopped looking quite so scared and started looking more interested. “When?” he asked.

  “That night you dreamed about me hiking through the woods? And I told you not to worry about me, that I was fine? That was supposed to be a clue.” Luke shrugged. “A little cryptic, I’ll admit. But I thought that when I kept moving that Luke Skywalker action figure around that you’d get the idea eventually. Especially since every time I was in your room, the temperature dropped by—well, by a lot. Didn’t you ever notice that it was freezing?”

  Jack looked stunned. “I thought I was just imagining things,” he whispered.

  Luke touched his shoulder. “It’s all right. That’s why I had to come up with another way to talk to you.”

  Jack moved away. Just a few inches, but it was enough. I could feel Luke’s reaction—sorrow, under-standing—and wondered what it was about. Jack looked even more apprehensive, a feat that I would have thought impossible. He seemed to be bracing himself, folding his arms tightly across his chest, clenching his jaw, and staring directly into Luke’s eyes with a slight air of defiance.

  “So, you’re here,” he said flatly. “Talk.”

  I swooped and buzzed a little more, out of sheer confusion. Only half an hour ago Jack had been upset that Luke hadn’t appeared to him. Now he sounded annoyed for some reason—and after I had agreed to have a ghost take over my body!

  I buzzed a little louder in indignation. Luke pressed his hand to his forehead, as if to calm me down. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “Just wait.”

  “What does that mean?” Jack was scowling.

  “I was talking to Sparrow,” Luke said. “She’s pissed.”

  Jack grinned and relaxed a tiny bit.

  “You know I was in a terrible mood that night. I would have fought with anybody who tried to stop me from leaving. You just happened to be in the way.”

  What was this? I buzzed around a little more. Luke ignored me. All his attention was focused on Jack.

  “We never had a fight before that night,” Jack muttered. “When you didn’t come back, I thought—”

  “None of this is your fault.” Luke’s voice got softer. “None of it.”

  Jack’s jaw tightened. He shook his head and said flatly, “I threw a punch at your head.”

  “I ducked,” his brother said.

  “I tried to smash you to the floor! With a double-leg takedown!”

  “Yeah.” Luke smirked. “Like you actually had a shot at making that work.”

  Jack grinned a little. Then his smile faded, and he looked away. “I said—” He hesitated. “I said I hated you.”

  “I didn’t believe you,” Luke said firmly. “Not for a second.”

  “Oh. Well. Good. Because, you know . . .” Jack’s voice trailed off.

  “Yeah, I know.” I watched from far away as my hand reached forward to touch his shoulder. “So listen. I’ll still be looking out for you, okay?”

  Jack gave a quick nod. “And when I offer a little brotherly advice, I expect you to take it, all right?” I could feel Luke being secretly amused about something.

  Jack smiled faintly. Then he looked down to stare intently at a spider that was crawling toward his foot.

  “Dude, you’re not going to cry on me, are you?” Luke’s voice was rough, teasing. “’Cause you know what happens when you cry. First, I get all choked up—”

  Jack glanced up, his hair falling into his eyes. “—and then your voice starts quivering,” he said in a mock-weary voice.

  “—and before you know it, I’ll be crying, too—” Luke continued.

  “—just like a girl.” They finished together.

  “I know,” Jack said, smiling. “You are such a loser.”

  Luke put his arms around Jack and whispered in his ear, “I love you too.”

  Then I was myself again, back in my body, kneeling on the ground with Jack in my arms.

  He had his arms around me too and was holding on as if he didn’t want to let go.

  So he didn’t, and I didn’t, and we stayed that way until morning.

  Chapter 29

  I opened my eyes in the hospital to see a ring of faces staring down at me. I blinked. They stood silent for so long—and Dove and Wren looked so tragic—that I finally snapped, “I’m not lying in my coffin, you know.”

  Everyone relaxed.

  “It’s about time you woke up,” Raven grumbled. “We’ve been here for hours. I haven’t even had any coffee yet.”

  Lark and Linnet gave me a long-suffering look at that, and I bit back a smile.

  “We were so worried!” Dove said, tears (of course) in her eyes. Oriole nodded wordlessly and patted my leg. (Her lip gloss glistened perfectly and her eye shadow was flawless, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sincere.)

  “I told you she’d be fine,” Grandma Bee said stoutly. “After all, she’s inherited my wilderness survival skills.”

  I suddenly smelled the odd yet comforting combination of liniment, cinnamon, and incense. I looked past my toes to see Professor Trimble, Floyd, and Prajeet standing at the end of my bed.

  “Indeed,” the professor said complacently. “This entire situation has been resolved in a most satisfactory way.”

  “I always knew you would be a great medium,” Prajeet said.

  Floyd nodded. “You just had to get over that little doubt in your mind that you could do it.”

  Wren straightened my pillow and tucked a corner of the sheet in a little more tightly. “You could have died,” she said softly, as if still stunned by the realization. “Do you k
now that?”

  “But you didn’t,” Lark said quickly.

  “And your rescue will look great on TV,” Linnet said. “Very dramatic!”

  “TV?” A horrible suspicion filled my mind. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, didn’t you notice the cameras waiting at the bottom of the mountain when the park rangers brought you out?” Linnet went on blithely. “You were all over the morning news!”

  I groaned and closed my eyes.

  “Your friend Fiona called—” Dove said.

  “Five times!” Lark said. “She said she’s ‘so so so so so sorry’ she didn’t believe you!”

  Linnet giggled. “And can you ever ever in a million trillion years forgive her?”

  Dove quelled them with a look. “She sounds like a very caring and supportive friend. Anyway, she said to give her a call. When you feel like it.”

  I felt a little cheerier at the thought of finally being able to tell Fiona—well, everything. Now that I didn’t have any secrets to hide, I had a feeling that I was going to really like having a friend who was so so so interested in my life.

  “I think we should leave Sparrow alone to rest, my darlings,” Mother said. As everyone began to troop out of the room, she leaned over to kiss me on the forehead. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Sparrow, but you did give us all quite a scare. And your poor father would have been devastated if anything had happened to you while he was away.”

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered.

  “Yes, well . . . the doctor said we could take you home tonight. And then you and I”—she gave me a stern look over her glasses—“we are going to have a very serious discussion about this, understand?”

  “Yes,” I said meekly.

  “All right.” She started to go, then turned back at the door. “Last night, after we realized you were gone and we had to wait for all those hours until the rangers could look for you—” She paused for a moment, then went on. “Fortunately Mrs. Witherspoon popped in to tell me that you were being protected by the Other Side. But still, I must tell you, I was quite cross with you. Quite cross indeed.”

  Then she came back to my bedside to kiss me again, before slipping out of the room.

  The rangers found the skeleton the next day. A few days later the Dawsons held a memorial service in Collins, where Luke had grown up. I still hadn’t gone back to school—the doctor said I needed a few days off to recover, and I fervently agreed—but my mother drove me to the church and sat with me as hymns were sung, eulogies were given, and prayers were said. I spent the entire hour staring at the large photo of Luke that had been placed on an easel near the pulpit, not hearing a word.

  When it was all over, a crowd of friends and neighbors surrounded Jack and his parents. We slipped out the door and drove home in silence.

  “Do you want some hot chocolate?” my mother asked tentatively as we pulled into the garage. “Or a cup of tea?”

  “I think I’ll just sit outside for a while.”

  She looked doubtful. “Are you sure? It’s gotten rather chilly—”

  “Just for a few minutes,” I said. “Then I’ll come inside and have some tea.”

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” she said, and drifted toward the house.

  I limped my way through the bushes, even more overgrown now, until I reached the spot where Luke and I used to sit under the maple tree.

  It’s all over. I felt little pinpricks under my eyelids and squeezed them tightly to keep the tears from falling. I helped Luke, and so he’s gone away, and now . . .

  “I can’t believe I’ll never see you again,” I said out loud.

  Then I heard a familiar voice say, “I wouldn’t say that, Sparrow.”

  I opened my eyes and saw Luke leaning against the Late Lamented’s headstone, smiling at me.

  A moment later: “Now don’t cry.”

  “I’m not.” I sniffed. “I never cry.”

  “I won’t be far away.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, not in cosmic terms anyway,” he said, adding casually, “Edna told me I could still check in on you once in a while. Strictly on a need-to-know basis, of course, but still—”

  Edna? For a second I was puzzled. Then the light dawned. “Do you mean Professor Trimble?”

  “Yep. She’s my guide on the Other Side. She met me when I first Crossed Over.” He gave me a knowing look. “She’s pretty, um, formidable, isn’t she?”

  “That’s an understatement.” I was surprised to find myself feeling a little jealous. “You call her Edna?”

  “She asked me to.” He gave me a sly look. “And then she suggested that I could help you, er, find your path.”

  “You mean she sent you to do her dirty work,” I said baldly.

  “Apparently you accused her of not understanding you? Because she’s not young anymore?”

  I blushed as I remembered that argument. Not my best moment, I must admit.

  “Once she got over being really, really pissed—” He tilted his head, as if listening to someone, and chuckled. “Excuse me. Once she got over being livid with anger, she realized that you may have had a point. That’s when she asked me to step in and help you choose the direction you needed to take—”

  “You were the guy at the crossroads!” I said. “The one Mrs. Winkle saw in her vision!”

  “The one who was watching over you,” he agreed. “Still is, as a matter of fact.”

  He started to shimmer.

  “Wait,” I cried. “Don’t go! Not yet—”

  “I have to, Sparrow.” Even his voice was getting fainter. “Even though—”

  “What?” I whispered. “What?”

  But for the last time he was gone.

  When I heard the leaves rustle behind me, I jumped up.

  “Oh,” I said.

  Jack was standing there, looking crestfallen at my greeting.

  “I’m sorry. I thought you might be—” I waved my hand in the air, and he caught my meaning.

  “Oh, right.”

  “I mean, he came to say good-bye, so I don’t know why I thought . . . I guess I just . . .” My voice trailed off.

  I hadn’t seen Jack since the park rangers had helped us down off the mountain and put us in separate ambulances. Now we stood a careful distance apart. I studiously examined the moss on the side of the maple tree. Jack looked down and moved one foot back and forth in the fallen leaves.

  After a few seconds of silence, I glanced over. Just then he raised his eyes and looked directly at me. I blushed, and one corner of his mouth lifted.

  I blinked, but I didn’t look away. “You’re not wearing your army jacket.”

  He nodded and shrugged a little. “I don’t think I need it as much,” he said. “To feel that Luke is still around, you know? So, um, thanks.” Then he gave me such a sweet smile that I smiled back.

  “I saw you at the service,” he said. “I wanted to come say hello and see how you were doing, but you left before I— Anyway, I thought I’d stop by.” He gave me a rueful look. “Of course I had to get special dispensation from the pope.”

  “Grounded, huh?” He nodded. “Me too.”

  “Yeah. So. Anyway.“ There was another silence as it became clear that we had exhausted the topic of being grounded. Jack looked around the backyard, as if hoping that he’d spot a clue to what he should say next under a nearby bush. “When are you coming back to school?”

  “Oh. Um, Monday, I think.” Another silence. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He had his hands thrust in his pockets and was frowning at the ground.

  “Hurry up, you laggards!” Grandma Bee’s voice rang out from the back door. She was dressed in her karate uniform and had a bandanna tied around her forehead in a businesslike fashion. She marched over to the side lawn, trailed by Lark and Linnet, who were dragging their feet as if they were being led to an execution. “I don’t know where I got such cowardly granddaughters! It must come from your father’s side of the
family.”

  Jack looked over at me and raised his eyebrows. “Who’s that?”

  “My grandmother. And two of my sisters.” I paused, then added, “I have six of them, you know.”

  “Wow.” He took a second to absorb this, then asked, “So, when we were driving up, I noticed . . . are those skulls on the front porch?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Baboon skulls, actually,” I said, and braced myself.

  But Jack surprised me. “Cool.”

  I looked at him shyly, not sure whether he was making fun of me or not. “Really?”

  “Absolutely.” He grinned. “And I meant to tell you, hot-wiring your car was really awesome.”

  I grinned back. Now that several days had gone by, all the fear and worry of that night on the mountain were fading into memory. Pretty soon it would all seem like some kind of crazy dream—

  “—this crazy dream,” Jack was saying.

  I came back to the present. “What?”

  “I was saying I had a dream last night. About Luke.” He half shrugged, not looking at me. “So . . . remember how Luke said that if he gave me some brotherly advice, I had to take it?”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly.

  Jack took a step closer to me and looked directly into my eyes. “Well, all I’m saying is that this is what Luke told me to do in the dream, okay? So if you get mad”—he took a deep breath—“get mad at him, not me. Okay?”

  I looked at him, puzzled. “Okay—”

  And then he kissed me.

  Some time later I heard Lark screaming, and Grandma Bee shouting, “She’s fine! She’s fine!” and a window banging open and Raven yelling, “Should I call nine-one-one?” and a door slamming as my mother hurried toward the latest disaster.

  Jack glanced toward the house. “Um, it sounds like they might need you—”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They can wait.”

  Then I kissed him back.

  Author’s Note

  Lily Dale, New York, really exists. It was founded as a Spiritualist community, in 1879. Every summer, roughly thirty thousand people visit the town to attend message services and to have readings with the mediums who live there.

  But this is a novel, so I did tweak reality a bit. For example, most mediums do not see or talk to ghosts as clearly as Sparrow does. Although some do see spirits, others pick up spirit messages through smells, tastes, or physical sensations. Mediums usually meet one-on-one with each visitor who wants a reading, rather than hold group readings as the Delaneys often do. And although some mediums can sense pets who have Passed On, I haven’t heard of anyone who could channel animals’ messages as accurately as Miss Robertson!