Ghosts

by Robertson, David A. ;

  “I feel conflict in your heart,” Choch said.

  “Okay.” Cole shook his head, trying not to smile despite himself. “I get it, the whole Jedi thing. Choch as force ghost. But can you talk like Choch, please?”

  “Pretty cool though, right?”

  Cole took a deep breath, then let it go. In the brief moment of annoyance, he realized how much he’d missed Choch.

  “Awwwww. Oh and feel free to get annoyed even though you missed me, like, soooo much,” Choch said. “After all, what would there be to miss, if our relationship suddenly changed?”

  “I’m still mad at you though,” Cole said.

  “As you should be.”

  “Do you have to be…” Cole moved both his hands through Choch’s body now. “…you know. I mean, you’re not really…”

  “First off, that tickles,” Choch said. “Second off, my heart was literally ripped out of my chest. You get this last visit, and then I’ve got to head back.”

  “You’re not…what do you mean? You’re not coming back?”

  “It’s not exactly my choice,” Choch grumbled, “but it is what it is. Such is the cycle of life.”

  “But you’re not human.”

  “Pffft. Details.” Choch waved the notion away. “Now, where were we?”

  “I was saying, to myself, how I didn’t think I could do this,” Cole said. “I mean, I want to end it, I want to do this because they’re right; the facility has to go, but I don’t know if I can do what needs to be done, if I have to do it this way.”

  “Okay wait,” Choch said, “let me try to make sense of your very long sentence.” He held up a finger and appeared thoughtful. “You know, long sentences in YA fiction are just…”

  “Can you not do the whole book stuff?” Cole asked. “Please?”

  “But don’t you think that it’s really quite poetic…” I mean, sorry to point this out, because I’m sure Robertson had this grand plan all along, to end things how they began, and also that I’m ruining the whole “show don’t tell thing,” but it fits for the scene, so sue me. “…that this all started with a fire, and now it has to end with fire.”

  “Not from my point of view,” Cole said. “All I can see now is fire, everywhere I look.”

  “Cole, you’re going to find that many of the truths that we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view,” Choch said.

  “Choch, I’ve seen Jedi like a million times, so could you please not quote it?” Cole said. “Just talk to me.”

  Choch put a hand on each knee and leaned forward. “Whether it’s poetic or not, or frightening or not, if that’s the way it has to end, then that’s what you need to do.”

  Cole leaned forward too, elbows to knees. Stared at the ground between his feet. “You’re right. It’s not about me. I know that. I came back to finish this, and now I’m being a—”

  “Whoa, even though I’m a ghost, it doesn’t mean the whole swearing thing can start up again,” Choch said. “I know you snuck one in while I was dying, but nobody swore when I was away, did they? Tell me the truth.”

  “You’ll be amazed to know that I didn’t take inventory of everybody’s dialogue since your heart was ripped out.”

  “Awww! You talked like this is a story. You’re so sweet.”

  Cole tried to get the conversation back on track. “I thought I was over…I just thought I was different. And since we’ve left the clinic, I feel like the same old Cole. I wanted to be, I don’t know, more.”

  Choch laughed, put a hand on Cole’s back, and Cole felt it, like a little breath of cold air against his skin. “Cole, do you know why I chose you to do this?”

  “Why you tricked me?” Cole said, still staring at the ground.

  “I could’ve tricked anybody,” Choch said. “That’s my whole thing.”

  Cole sat up straight, turned to the spirit being. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”

  “Because you’re Cole Harper,” Choch said. “Think about it.”

  “I don’t have to be badass,” Cole said.

  “I mean, you are badass,” Choch said. “But in your own anxiety-riddled, overthinking, caring, passionate, self-doubting way.”

  “I…”

  “And don’t you ever change,” Choch said as though Cole were two years old, and even reached forward and pretended to pinch his cheek.

  “Thanks,” Cole said.

  “Now,” Choch said, “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m actually really enjoying the whole dancing thing up there. There’s this one ribbon, and they’re totally into me, and…”

  “Okay, Choch.” Cole smiled. “I didn’t miss you that much. You can go now.”

  “Kick ass,” Choch said, and faded away, leaving a glowing blue translucent robe behind.

  After several moments, it remained, and Cole just kept staring at it.

  I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not naked. I’m a ribbon, remember? Pull your head out of the gutter.

  24

  HOW IT’S GOING TO BE

  “WHO’RE YOU TALKING TO?” Michael asked, walking into the clearing from Blackwood Forest.

  Cole went to shove the ghost-robe off the rock, but it was already gone. “Nobody, just myself. Thinking out loud.”

  Michael sat on the rock, right where Choch had been. He surveyed the clearing. “It’s getting late.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said. “Think it’s a great idea to be walking around in Blackwood? There could be guards in the area. They’ll eventually find this place if they don’t give up.”

  “You probably bought us a couple days. You and Lauren.”

  “There’d be nothing to protect, if you and the others hadn’t got everybody to the cabin.”

  “I always wanted to be a part of the team,” Michael said. “With you and Brady and Eva.”

  “You are now,” Cole said. “That’s all that counts.”

  They didn’t talk for a long while. They sat together on the rock, cloaked in the mist and the calm of the clearing. The brook sounded like whispers.

  “I was just walking around, trying to get some fresh air,” Michael said, “thinking about, I don’t know. Thinking how much everything’s changed, so fast. You think your life’s going to turn out one way, and then…”

  “Yeah.” Cole picked up a tiny stone and threw it at the brook. It hit the surface and disappeared. Life was going one way for Michael, then he lost Alex, and like Eva had said, then he lost her. Cole still had everybody close to him. At least, everybody he’d had for the last ten years, he’d still had for the last month and a half. “We’re okay, right?”

  “We’re okay,” Michael said. “Of course, we’re okay.” He looked at Cole. “I’m just glad you’re back, so that we can be.”

  “Me too. Whatever happens, we’re family. All of us.”

  Michael picked up a rock and threw it at the brook. “No matter what happens.”

  Eva was sleeping. She was on her side, facing the fire, curled up into a ball, knees to chest. Her hands were clasped together under her cheek. Cole didn’t try to wake her. He just lay down on his side and faced the fire. He curled up into a ball, knees to chest. He got close enough to Eva that the top of his head touched hers. He measured his own breathing, as he listened to her breaths. He counted the seconds as he drew a breath in, and he counted the seconds as he let a breath out.

  He did this until he fell asleep.

  “Cole!”

  Elder Mariah’s voice startled Cole awake. Both he and Eva sat up quickly and looked at each other, confused. The Elder’s voice was desperate.

  “Somebody die?” Cole asked Eva.

  “I don’t know.” Eva sounded desperate, too, as though the feeling had been carried through the air, caught like a virus. She stood up and tossed a sweater over her t-shirt.

  Elder Mariah, and somebody else, started slapping on the exterior of the tent.

  “Cole! Get out here, now!” Dr. Captain said.

  “Coming!”

  Cole
and Eva ran out of the tent.

  “What’s going on?” Eva asked.

  Cole examined their faces. They looked how they sounded, but with a side of tired. Somebody had to have died. He would’ve known if the guards had found their hiding spot. It wouldn’t have been rustling his tent, it would’ve been gunshots and screaming.

  “Brady,” Elder Mariah said. “He’s…”

  “He’s what?” Cole asked.

  “And Michael,” Dr. Captain said.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Eva asked.

  “They’re gone,” Elder Mariah said.

  “They’re what?” Cole asked. “What do you mean they’re gone?”

  “I woke up early to check on the patients,” Elder Mariah said, “and he wasn’t there. He sleeps in the same spot every night, on the floor beside my cot.”

  “And Michael has been staying with me,” Dr. Captain said. “He’s missing too.”

  “Have you looked in the forest?” Cole asked. “Last night, Mike was out for a walk.”

  “Of course we did,” she said.

  “We’ve been looking all morning,” Elder Mariah said.

  “Why didn’t you wake us earlier?” Eva asked.

  “We weren’t worried earlier,” Dr. Captain said.

  “I thought Brady might’ve gone to check the tents without me, to let me rest,” Elder Mariah said.

  “That sounds like Brady,” Cole said. “But you’ve been through all the tents?”

  “If we’ve checked the forest…” Dr. Captain started.

  “We’ve looked everywhere,” Elder Mariah said.

  “So where else could they be?” Eva asked. “Did Mihko find us? Did they take them?”

  Cole shook his head. “They would’ve taken everybody.”

  Nobody said anything. Each one of them was trying to think about where Michael and Brady could’ve gone to, but the silence spread thick.

  “Cole. You there? Cole?” Michael called out. His words were followed by static and a click.

  “Michael?” Dr. Captain called out.

  “He’s not here,” Cole said. “That’s…” he was already gone before he could finish the sentence, following the sound to where Michael and Dr. Captain had been sleeping while the others followed him. He went into the tent and searched through Michael’s belongings until he found a long-range radio.

  “Michael?” Cole said into the receiver.

  He took it outside. By then, Eva, Dr. Captain, and Elder Mariah had followed him.

  “Cole,” Michael said. “You there?”

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I have Brady,” Michael said.

  Cole breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. What happened?”

  “He’s okay,” Michael said.

  “Where are they?” Dr. Captain whispered to Cole.

  “Where are you guys?” Cole relayed to Michael.

  “Wounded Sky.”

  “Wounded Sky? Are you crazy? Why’d you guys go back there?”

  “I brought Brady here.”

  “You took Brady to…Mike, what are you doing? Why would you do that?”

  “I brought him to the facility. I’m sorry. They—”

  “No matter what happens.” Cole breathed out the words Michael had said to him last night. “Mike, you have to bring him back. You have to come back here.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, the radio clicked back to life.

  Michael’s voice was shaky.

  “They…they want you to come get him.”

  The radio fell the ground, and Cole dropped to his knees. He cupped his hands behind his head and tried to breathe. Five seconds in and seven seconds out. He couldn’t. He punched the ground as hard as he could and just stared at the imprint of his knuckles in the dirt.

  “He couldn’t do something like that,” Dr. Captain said. “I know my son.”

  “He wouldn’t,” Elder Mariah said. “Not if he had a choice.”

  “They want Cole to come get him,” Eva said. “Mihko. They’re doing this. Somehow, they got Michael to take Brady.”

  “That’s what’s been wrong with him.” Cole stood. “That’s why he’s looked so off. They’re making him do this. Kidnap Brady or else…” “Or else what?” Eva said.

  “Does it matter?” Cole asked. “Brady’s gone, and it’s as much my fault as it is his.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Elder Mariah said.

  “They only took Brady to get to me,” Cole protested. “Is there another way to see it? They need me for something, or they want me dead.”

  “There has to be another way,” Dr. Captain said. “You can’t just go back to Wounded Sky. They’ll be waiting for you.”

  “No, there isn’t another way,” Cole said. “They took Brady because they know I’m going to get him. I’m going to get both of them.”

  “And if we lose all three of you?” Elder Mariah asked.

  “I was always going to go back,” Cole said.

  Dr. Captain picked up the radio and spoke into it. “Michael. Michael. Pick up. Michael!” She waited, but there was no response. She tossed the radio back to the ground. Stood there, hands on her hips, staring at it. “I can’t lose both my kids.”

  “Nobody’s losing anybody,” Cole said. “As soon as it’s dark, I’ll leave. It won’t take me long to run there.”

  “You better leave sooner than that,” Eva said.

  “Why?” Cole asked. “They’ll see me if I do. They’re not Stormtroopers, you know. They can actually hit targets.”

  “You’re an idiot,” she said.

  “An idiot? Why? Do you think I should stay here and hope Mike just decides to bring Brady back in a crisis of conscience?”

  “You need to leave soon,” she said calmly, and slowly, like he wouldn’t understand her otherwise, “because I’m not as fast as you are.”

  “Eva, no, you’re not coming,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. What if something happens to Brady and you? Then what will I do?”

  “After all the shit we’ve been through, you still don’t know that you need me?” she asked. “You still don’t know that we’re in this together?” Her eyes narrowed. “Tell me that I can’t come. Just try it. This is how it’s going to be.”

  It was in her posture, it was in her face, but more than that, she was just right. Cole knew it. And there was no talking her out of it. Maybe he didn’t want to. He did need her. So did Brady.

  “Alright,” he said, “we better leave earlier.”

  Eva and Cole took time to smudge with Elder Mariah. Cole smudged last, and when he took the smoke, he showered his body with it. Cupped it in his hands, and ran it through his hair, over his face, against his chest, into his heart. Elder Mariah prayed in Cree, and Cole understood some of it. She asked Creator to watch over them, to give them strength and resolve for the task that lay ahead.

  “Ekosani,” Cole and Eva said in unison, after the prayer was finished.

  Then, they set off to save their friend. But Cole knew it was more than that. It wasn’t just to save Brady, it was to save them all.

  He knew, with each step closer to their home community, that this was why he’d come home.

  25

  FIGHT OR FLIGHT

  COLE AND EVA MADE THEIR WAY THROUGH BLACKWOOD FOREST. Eva’s face became stuck in a scowl, her eyebrows collapsed inward, her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched. Thinking, worrying, calculating, all at once. But she didn’t talk. Not until Cole asked, “What’s up?”

  “Have you thought about the fact that we saved twelve people, and there were about twenty missing?”

  “I haven’t really had the chance.”

  “I have. Like, if Pam was getting transferred to the facility, why? Were the others already taken there?”

  “Maybe,” Cole said. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  “And if they’re there, how are we going to get them out? There’s just two of us.”

  “Brady makes three. We han
dled about that many, three each, moving people out of the clinic.”

  “If the building’s destroyed, and Mihko’s gone, we won’t have to bring them to the cabin at least. Elder Mariah and Dr. Captain could treat them in Wounded Sky.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, “I guess.”

  “You guess,” Eva said. “What’s that all about?”

  “What’s what all about?”

  They separated to pass around a large tree and came back together on the other side. The sun was beginning to set. They’d been walking for hours.

  “Don’t keep anything from me, okay?”

  “It’s just,” Cole said, “Pam was already so sick, and by the time they were going to transfer her, she would’ve been even sicker. Maybe dead.”

  “So there might not be anybody to get out.”

  “Maybe, I don’t know.” Cole pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe they’re doing something with their bodies.”

  “Cole…” Eva said in disbelief.

  “Like they haven’t done worse?”

  “I wish I could say that you’re wrong.”

  “It’s a…pretty shitty thought. Sorry.”

  “I told you to tell me,” she said. “And I don’t know where else they could be.”

  Cole took Eva’s hand, held it tight, and they walked together like that, closer to Wounded Sky with each step. Eva wondering where the others could be, that missing eight, got Cole thinking. If not at the facility, then where? What if they had never been at the clinic at all? What if their absence wasn’t related to the other twelve? Cole shuddered.

  “What’s wrong?” Eva asked. She traced his palm with her fingers. “You’re sweating.”

  There was no point keeping it from her. “I didn’t tell you much about Reynold’s place. About Reynold. When I fought him, before I got shot, it hardly looked like him anymore. He was changing, just like the stories.”

  “I know,” she said. “I never believed them before, until all of this.”

  “There wasn’t anything human left. He was like this…like an ice giant or something. He couldn’t even stand straight in his house. Like a giant, but just skin and bones. I know…” Cole did one set of his breathing as his body rebelled. “…I know when it gets that far, Upayokwitigo, they aren’t eating animals anymore. They need something bigger.”