The Ghost and the Goth

“What did you figure out?” I asked, reminding myself to be patient.

She turned toward me, tucking one leg underneath her. “Okay, so I thought about what you said and…” She stopped, frowning. “Aren’t you worried about what people will think, seeing you out here talking to yourself?”

“Actually, I—”

She held up a hand. “Wait, never mind. I mean, they already think you’re crazy. Talking to yourself might be one of the more normal things you’d do.”

My jaw tight, I held up the cell phone in my hand. “Speakerphone.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You have speakerphone on that old thing?”

“No, but they”—I gestured to the people in the cars waiting to turn at the stop sign—“don’t know that.” Cell phones with speakerphone or, even better, Bluetooth were the best invention yet for disguising conversations with people no one else could see. It became so normal to see someone seemingly talking to the air that half the time I suspected people didn’t even think to check for the phone. Plus, it saved me the effort of coming up with a less believable lie. Back in sixth grade, I told my mother I was rehearsing lines for a play when she caught me. My dad knew better, but my mom kept asking, for the better part of the year, when the first show was and could she buy tickets.

“Oh.” Alona thought about it for a second. “Pretty smart.”

I bit back a sarcastic reply. For the moment, I needed her, and I didn’t want to run her off just yet. “So what were you saying about figuring it all out?”

“Oh, yeah.” She promptly became more animated. “So, I thought about what you said, about resolving my issues and moving on to the spirit world.” She emphasized her chosen term and leveled a warning glance at me.

I held up my hands, protesting innocence. If she didn’t want to be called a ghost, fine. Even if that’s what she was.

“Except it didn’t work out very well. I tried communicating. You know sending signs of my presence, tipping things over …”

My mouth fell open. “You tried haunting people?”

“No, I tried communicating. It’s not my fault if they got scared. Besides, it was only a few people, and they totally deserved it,” she said defensively.

“When did you do this?” I demanded.

“Yesterday when you were in la-la land.”

I rubbed my forehead. The fact that she was still here was a miracle, then. For ghosts, nothing drains their energy like trying to cause harm. And when their energy dips low enough, they disappear … for good. “What exactly did you do?”

“What does it matter to you?” she shot back.

“Just tell me.” I’d have to figure out damage control. If she was going to be sucked back up permanently any second now, then my plan was history.

She picked at the edge of her thumbnail. “Among others, I may have visited a former friend’s house and knocked over a few things while she was making out with”—she grimaced in distaste—“her new boyfriend.”

“Chris and Misty.” I sighed. “They’re not your unfinished business.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, unless I completely misunderstood what I saw, you didn’t even know about them until yesterday. As in three days after you were already dead and stuck here.” I could see she didn’t want to believe me. “Whatever. Did you scare them?”

A cocky smile emerged on her face. “Yeah, a little.” She hesitated and then leaned closer to me, excitement making her whole body tense. “It was so cool. I only knocked down pictures with me in them, right? That way they’d know it was me.” She frowned. “But there weren’t that many pictures of me up anymore, so really I only got to push down one, and they didn’t even notice because the music was so loud—”

“Alona,” I tried to interrupt. Even as she spoke, the tips of her fingers were turning translucent.

“But then I decided to find her yearbook because—”

“Alona!”

“What?” She looked over at me, decidedly irked.

I grabbed her wrist and held her disappearing hand up in front of her face.

Her green eyes grew wide. “Oh, crap, not again. It’s getting worse. Yesterday whenever I tried to communicate, I kept being pulled away … to that other place.” She shuddered. “The one I can’t remember.”

“Do you think that might have been a clue?” I muttered, releasing her wrist before it dissolved, too. “Say something nice,” I commanded.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “In your dreams.”

“It doesn’t have to be about me,” I said with some exasperation. “It’s probably better if it isn’t, because it has to be genuine.”

“What are you talking about?” She stared at me.

I resisted the urge to shake her. “Look, I don’t have time to go into a whole lot of explanation on this. Your ankles are already gone.”

She glanced down at her footless legs and squeaked in horror.

“Say something nice,” I repeated, feeling a growing sense of panic. If she’d been “communicating” all day yesterday, this might be it, her final visit to Middleground.

“Why are you helping me?” she asked with a frown.

“Why do you care?” I snapped. “Just do it.”

“Will? Is everything okay?” Joonie’s voice came from my right.

I looked over to find Joonie’s beat-up black VW Bug, requisite skull and crossbones etched in the paint on the driver’s side door, stopped in the road, just ahead of the stop sign. Joonie had her window rolled down, all the better to stare at me more clearly.

“What happened, the Dodge finally give out on you?” Joonie asked, her painfully thin black brows drawing together over her bloodshot blue eyes. I always wondered, with her eyebrow piercings, if it hurt for her to make certain expressions.

“Sort of.”

“What does saying something nice have to do with anything?” Alona, now a torso only, demanded.

“Are you waiting for a ride?” Joonie asked, disbelief coloring her tone. No wonder, considering I probably could have crawled to the school on my hands and knees and still made it on time.

“Tow truck?” I offered as a possible explanation, though when she saw my car in the lot later, it might trigger a few questions. “Do it, unless you want to be gone forever,” I said to Alona, out of the side of my mouth.

“This is bullshit,” Alona muttered. “Fine.” She took a deep breath and said loudly, “I’m happy to be here.” She threw up her arms, now missing from below the elbow. Nothing happened.

I fake coughed. “Has to be genuine.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Joonie frowned at me. “You seem a little … disconnected.”

“Stop being my mom, J. I get more than enough of that at home,” I said gently.

She stiffened, her mouth opening to rip me a new one, no doubt, when she caught herself. “Sorry,” she said with a forced grin. “You bring out the mama bird in me, I guess.” Her expression clouded. “Especially when I have to drag your half-conscious ass out of school the day before.”

“I’m fine. I promise.” Or, at least, I might be fine, if I could get Alona to say one genuinely positive thing.

“It’s a warm spring day, and that makes me happy,” she shouted angrily.

Riiight.

“Listen.” Joonie leaned out of her window. “I went by the hospital yesterday. Saw Lily.”

Next to me, Alona stopped shouting random and fake compliments to everyone (“Your friend’s tongue- piercing is very shiny”) and everything (“The tennis courts look really … green today”) and looked at me. I felt her gaze, but I kept my focus on Joonie, trying to maintain a neutral expression. Alona didn’t need any more ammunition against me. “Yeah?”

“We need to talk.”

I shifted uncomfortably. Joonie held herself responsible for Lily’s accident, for the fight that had, in theory,