made up, but things were still tense between them and she wasn’t sure what to expect.
“Probably a Christmas gift,” Jon called. “Food’s almost ready, though. You coming down for dinner?”
“Yeah,” she called back, mounting the stairs two at a time. “I’ll be right down.”
The box was compact and papered in old national geographic pages. Wendy lifted it and shook. There was a small rattling noise within, albeit muffled.
Careful of her fingers, Wendy used the nail file rattling around her pen cup to slice through the scotch tape layered around each edge of the box. The lid lifted off and fluffy cotton balls puffed over the edge of the box in a white cloud. Wendy set these aside.
“What the hell?” she murmured, shaking a seatbelt buckle and a piece of folded black construction paper out of the box. Holding the buckle up to the light, Wendy depressed the bright orange button on the front but the buckle appeared stuck in its clasp. The strap it had once been connected to was gone but a tough, thick beige thread was pinned within a crack in the clasp. The end of the thread was darker, rust colored, and stiff.
Running her fingers over the buckle, Wendy wished that she’d been there to greet Eddie when he’d brought this gift. She didn’t need to be told what it meant to him, or what lengths he’d probably gone to in order to get his hands on it after the accident. Instead Wendy turned the buckle over in her hands and tried to recall Mr. Barry’s face, the face she must have seen hundreds—if not thousands—of times before the accident.
“Oh Eddie,” Wendy sighed, squeezing the buckle tightly. “I’m so sorry.”
Eddie’s note was written in his familiar looping cursive—silver ink shone bright against the black paper:
Wendy,
I know you think it’s a joke, all the times I’ve said that I love you or that I’d do anything for you. But the thing is…it isn’t. I am in love with you. I have been for years. What’s not to love? You’re smart and funny and fun to hang out with. More importantly, you’re my best friend, my amigo, the only person who gets me and doesn’t think I’m some weird freak.
I know that Miss Manners would probably frown on a missive of undying affection added alongside a Christmas gift. It’s probably rude or something. But I’ve been wanting to say this stuff to you for years. And I have been. I’ve been saying it all along but you always blow me of for think I’m joking and the one time I got you to even halfway consider it, back at the start of school when I kissed you, you thought I was just blowing off steam cuz of the crap I said about your mom or the crap you said about my dad. Either way, you forgave me for the kiss. But the thing is… I didn’t want your forgiveness Wendy; I wanted you to kiss me back.
Because I love you.
So a few months ago I made this deal with myself. I said, “Self, if she doesn’t take you up on the next offer, say goodbye. Do your own thing for a while. See how she likes life without Eddie the Great hanging around, slobbering after her affection like a dog waiting for scraps.”
Well… you know the rest. I started dating Gina and you started falling apart. At first a big part of me was sort of thrilled—you loved me back, you just didn’t know it yet!—but then I realized that it wasn’t about me. Something else was going on. But by then it was too late. You weren’t answering my calls or texts and you were avoiding me at school.
I was a shitty friend, Wendy. I am so sorry about that. I decided to make up for it. I talked with the twins and we decided an intervention was in order. Obviously my declared love for you would heal you! This time I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. This time I was going to honestly figure out what was going on in your head without projecting all my hopes and wants onto you. This time I’d be a friend first and a wanna-be-boyfriend second.
It worked, sort of. You’d just started to open up and then WHAM, you had to go. So I waited. And waited. And waited. I expected you to be like normal when you came back to the car—tired, cranky, maybe angry, the way you normally are after a reap—but you weren’t. You were glowing, Wendy. And just like that, I knew.
You were in love… but not with me.
So all during that talk we had this morning at the diner, I knew. Every single time you said his name—Peter, all gooshy like—it was like you were stabbing me in the leg with your fork. Before, when you talked about your new “ghost friend” I figured you’d picked up a human equivalent of Jabberwocky, except not so grouchy, and probably around our age. But I had no idea you’d fallen in love.
Suddenly everything made sense. And I hated him. I don’t even know the guy but I wished him dead… again!
I’ll admit, Wendy, I love you but the idea of you being head over heels for some dead guy grosses me out a lot. I know, I know, it’s not like that, ghosts aren’t like their bodies, they’re not rotted or anything unless they’ve let themselves go bad, but still… honestly, Wendy, what do you know about this guy? I mean, you couldn’t even tell me when he freaking DIED. “He’s Russian,” that’s all you could say about who he was before. Is that a good basis for a relationship? He could be, like, Rasputin’s bastard stepson or something! He could have been some peasant farmer that beat his wife daily! He could have been a vodka-obsessed alcoholic…or worse!
I’m getting emotional. I’m sorry. Anyway, the point of all this is… hell, if you want to be with this Peter dude, I’m not going to stop you. I’m going to caution against it, I’m not going to like it, I might even tease you for it, but I’m not going to bother you about being with me anymore. You are my best friend. You are the most important person in my life. You were the only person who really got how tore up I was when my dad died, and you were the only person who knew exactly how much I loved Dad when he was around.
He was my hero, Wendy. And even though I’m still a little pissed at you… what I’m trying to say is that you’re my hero too. What you do, going out and helping the dead, it’s dangerous and it’s crazy and it’s not safe and part of me really, really wishes you wouldn’t do it anymore because you’re right, you could get hurt… but I’m also proud of you.
The world would be a sadder place without you in it, that’s all I’m trying to say. You’re amazing and wonderful and I’m always going to be deeply in love with you, but other than this note I’ll never mention it again.
I hope you can find happiness with this Peter dude. And if you ever doubt what you’re doing, if you ever think, “Huh, maybe I should stop,” I want you to hold that buckle. Because I know that if Dad were around he’d be proud of you. And I know that it was Dad’s death that started you down this path.
I love you, Wendy. Be happy. Merry Christmas.
Eddie
Dropping the note, Wendy wiped away the tears coursing down her cheeks.
It had been so long since Wendy had thought of Mr. Barry as anything more than the man who she’d seen die, the one whose death had unlocked something deep inside her and allowed her to see the dead. But before that he’d been a special man, her best friend’s father, and one of the few fun neighborhood dads. He’d had gentle eyes, she remembered, and a slow, kind smile. Eddie didn’t resemble him much, he took after his mother, but the eyes were the same, especially when something tickled him. Mr. Barry, like Eddie, had loved a good laugh.
She wondered what Mr. Barry would have done if she’d had to send him into the Light. Would he have fought it the way that girl’s grandmother had?
Wendy had a sneaking suspicion that, if Eddie were in trouble, he might have.
Learning that Piotr and his kind thought of her as a monster, well, that had been a rude awakening. Once upon a time her mother had claimed that all ghosts were glad to see her coming, that they welcomed the embrace of the Light. But her own experiences these past few months with the Walkers and the White Lady had taught Wendy differently. At the end, when they were bathed in the fiery Light, the Walkers struggled and cursed and it was only the sweep of siren song that kept them at her side as she went about the deadly business of tearing their essence apart.
The Shades though, and Specs, the ones who saw it coming…the few who knew their death in the Never was at hand, they saw the Light as a blessing. So which was it?
Now that she’d taken the time to think about it, to get to know Piotr, reaping without consent felt wrong. It was as if she were forcing herself on the ghosts, sneaking up on them unawares and sending them on without their blessing, but until now Wendy had never really considered stopping. Staying out late, roaming around town in a ceaseless hunt for the dead—until now Wendy had done as her mother had always instructed her to do, ambushing
