The Ghost and the Goth

“You’re going to deny us our one chance to make things right for ourselves?” he asked. “People like Will, the special ones, they don’t come along very often.”

I felt a twinge of guilt. No one had mentioned this part of the bodyguard job. “You don’t even know if he can help you. He said he doesn’t know what makes one person get stuck and another get pulled into the light.”

“But you won’t even let us try,” Grandpa Brewster pointed out.

“Why does it have to be me?” I tried to sound petulant instead of whiny. Trust me, there’s a very fine but important difference between the two.

“What are you going to do instead?” Grandpa demanded. “Spy on the living? That gets old real quick.”

“No, I have other things to do. I have a life. An afterlife.”

“Like what?” Grandpa asked, amused. “Knocking stuff down, making scary sounds to frighten the bejesus out of the living?”

“How did you know that?” I demanded.

“Trust me, honey, if anyone has that vindictive look, it’s you.”

“Oh. Thanks?”

“You know pulling those shenanigans will turn you into nothing faster than just about anything else,” Grandpa advised.

“I know that… now.” I plopped back down on the bench, not even taking care to cross my legs just right so the little fat dimple on the side of my left thigh wouldn’t show. I was too depressed. All of this was depressing.

“Help your boy help us,” Grandpa urged. “It’s better than sitting around staring at the living. Besides, it’ll count as a good deed. Maybe you just need a big one to catch their attention upstairs, so they’ll send the light for you.”

I looked up at him. “I thought Liesel said—”

He waved his hand impatiently. “Don’t listen to her. She meets one former spirit guide while she’s stuck with Claire on vacation in Puerto Rico, and she thinks she’s an expert. None of us had ever met one of the ghost-talkers before yesterday. Nobody knows how it works. Everything we know is based on rumors that keep circulating here on this side of things. Plus whatever we see on television.” He shrugged. “You may have a shot to help yourself out, kid. Don’t blow it.”

I sighed. “All right, all right. I’ll try. What do I have to do?”

12 Will

Normally, being trapped in the tiny, overheated, and infrequently used special ed room with Brewster coming in and out every ten minutes would have been a nightmare. Especially with Grandpa Brewster and the others knowing who I was and what they could do to get my attention. After the first fifteen minutes, I’d have been huddled under my desk, trying to protect myself from their shoves and pinches, and that would not have gone over well with Brewster.

But this morning … it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was quiet in the little room, which I suspected used to be a supply closet from the lack of windows and the holes in the wall where shelves used to be, and I was alone. Really and truly alone. Not a single ghost popped through to bitch and moan or try to trick me into talking.

Brewster stopped by midway through the morning and tossed Marcie at me. I probably should have been mad that he didn’t return her first thing, like he was supposed to. But no way was I using Marcie until I’d completely disinfected her headphones or bought new ones, and besides, I didn’t need the music. At times, the complete and utter silence around me actually made my ears ring. It was great. Whatever Alona was doing, it was working.

Then lunch happened.

Mrs. Piaget stopped by a little before noon. “I’ve got cafeteria duty today. Mr. Brewster is meeting with the superintendent at the regional office now, but he says you can come with me to get some food. You have to come back here to eat, though.” She gave me an apologetic smile.

“Okay.” I pushed back from my desk, stood up, and stretched. It felt good to be able to sit still and concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing instead of putting so much energy into blocking everything else out.

“You seem better today,” Mrs. Piaget said when I joined her in the main hallway.

“Not getting expelled really agrees with me.”

“I can see that,” she said with a startled laugh.

I followed her down the hall to the caf. Joonie, with her ratty old book bag strapped across her chest, waited right outside the doors, near the start of the serving line. She straightened up when she saw me, but her gaze flicked to Mrs. Piaget and she didn’t come any closer.

Mrs. Piaget hesitated and then turned to me. “Remember, food and then back to the room. Don’t give him any excuses.” No need to specify the “him” in this situation, I guess.

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Mrs. Piaget disappeared through the doors to the caf, and I approached Joonie. This close up, I could see something was clearly wrong. Purple shadows of exhaustion looked like bruises under her eyes, dark streaks of makeup were smeared on her cheeks, and one of the holes in her lip was empty and flaked with dried blood.

I resisted the urge to touch my own lip in reflexive sympathy. “What’s going on? Are you—”

From down the hall, a group of rowdy freshman surged toward us. Joonie grabbed my arm and yanked me into the caf, off to the side.

“They’re going to let her die.”

Who, the word came to the tip of my tongue, but I shut my mouth in time. I knew who, of course. “What are you talking about?”

She fiddled with the strap of her bag, plucking at one of the buttons she’d pinned to it. This one read, Let’s just say I have a problem with authority. It was a gift from Lily last year before everything went south.

“I went to visit Lily after school yesterday, and I heard some of the nurses talking.” She shifted her weight back and forth, pacing without taking a step. “It’s about her parents’ insurance or something. They’re going to take her feeding tube out and let her starve to death….” Her breath caught in her throat and she had to stop, choking on her emotion. “Or, they’re going to take her away, put her in some more permanent facility back in Indiana somewhere.”

I took an involuntary step back, her words like a slap out of nowhere. I knew, at some point, this day would come. I just hadn’t realized it would be today.

Her eyes welled with tears. “What are we going to do?”

Joonie and I had been there, visiting Lily, since the first day it was allowed. I’d touched her hand, seen her eyes. She was gone. The essence of whatever made Lily Lily had moved on a long time ago. She hadn’t even stuck around long enough to haunt her hospital room. Or the place where her car had crashed. I’d checked there, too. Just to be sure. So, there was nothing left to do. “Joonie, we can’t—” I tried.

“You don’t understand. It’s my fault she was there in the first place.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“Why, because you guys had a fight months before and she stopped talking to us?”

I’d figured Joonie and Lily would work their issues out, and didn’t think a whole lot more about it. Until Joonie and I’d arrived for the first day of our senior year, Lily’s junior year, and watched as Lily, dressed in a short skirt and tottering unsteadily on high heels, clung to the fringes of the junior-class elite. She’d walked past us like she didn’t know us, her nose up in the air. Two and half weeks later, she’d lost control of her mom’s station wagon and wrapped it around a tree.

I shook my head. “J, don’t do this to yourself. You tried to apologize for whatever happened, and she