***
I was polishing off a cupcake for breakfast and trying to convince Amy it was a nutritious choice when another voice interceded in my brain. This time it wasn’t Jack. And this time, I could see her, standing in front of me. I’d just taken a bite and ended up dropping the rest on the floor, frosting side down. Wasn’t that always the way?
Hi Annabelle. It’s Tracy Smith. Do you remember me?
Her voice had more substance than Jack’s, less in my head and more in my ears. It was like that, the closer they were to life, the more corporeal they were. I inhaled a bite of cupcake and started choking. Amy rushed over to bang on my back and handed me a glass of juice.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I closed my eyes and opened them, but there she was. Still. A vapory 2D image of how she had looked on the night she had died, complete with short shorts and pink lip gloss.
It had only been about eight months since she had been hit and killed by a car while walking home from a party. It was a hit and run, and the culprit had never been found. If she was seeking me out, there could only be one reason.
“What are you looking at?” Amy would have been blind not to see me freaking out. Tracy walked toward me. Okay, so they did walk. I flinched in my chair as she got closer. “Annabelle!” Amy snapped her fingers in front of my face. “If you don’t tell me what’s going wrong, I’m telling Dad.” That snapped me out of it.
“There’s someone here to talk to me.” This was my code phrase.
“Who is it?” Tracy seemed to wait for me to explain to Amy.
“Her name’s Tracy. You remember from last summer?” I never knew if they’d get offended if I spoke about the circumstances surrounding their departure. I hadn’t gauged Tracy yet.
“She’s here?” Amy grabbed onto my arm. I had to pry her fingers loose and put her under my arm.
“Yeah, she’s right there.”
Amy started at the spot I pointed to, as if she was trying to squint Tracy out. Her body trembled under my arm. Regret flooded my veins, almost choking me. I’d tried so hard to protect her from this, and the one time she needed me, I’d failed.
“What can I do for you, Tracy?” I didn’t know why she had found me, but I had an inkling as to who sent her.
I need your help.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make any promises. She’s asking for help.” The last part I said to Amy. Her face was still all squinched up as she tried to see Tracy.
I need you to get them to forgive themselves. Her mouth moved when she talked, but the voice was in my head.
“Who?”
Everyone. The people at the party who let me leave, my sisters who were too busy and drunk to notice I was gone.
We’d all read the articles in the newspaper, heard the gossip. How the underage party had gotten out of control and all her friends were too wasted to notice she was gone. They hadn’t found her body until the next morning when someone saw her on the side of the road. A shame, everyone said. A Lesson in the Dangers of Underage Drinking. Just another statistic.
“What about the person who hit you?” That was what I really wanted to know about. Amy tried to say something, but I shushed her. We were going to be beyond late, but it didn’t matter. I’d forge Mom’s signature on a note.
It doesn’t matter. They will have to answer for it someday. My family wants revenge, but I just want them to have closure. And forgiveness.
I hadn’t really known Tracy that well. She was only a sophomore when she died, and we didn’t orbit the same group of people. She was the epitome of all-american girl. Tracy had the right blonde hair, the right clothes, the right friends, a boyfriend, a cute car, a good family. She had the world at her feet when it was taken in one moment. So it was going to be a task to get that message to them. In fact, I’d never had to deliver a message to anyone I’d known before. This was going to be interesting.
“Anna, we’re going to be late.” Amy wanted to get out of there. ASAP.
I rubbed her shoulder, trying to show her that it was okay. “Sorry Bug, why don’t you go out to the car? I’ll be right there.”
Grabbing her blue-flowered backpack she dashed out the door. Tracy stepped closer. I could see the silver earrings in each of her ears and the scar on her forehead that I’d never known how she’d gotten.
They can’t hear me; they can’t see me. But you can. And you can hear me, and they can hear you.
I felt another presence trying to creep up on me. Only he was about as subtle as a jet plane.
“Jack?”
I’m here.
“Was this your idea?”
Maybe.
I was going with yes. He wasn’t a very good liar, apparently.
“Tracy?”
It was easier to talk to her, because I could face her, but also more difficult, because I could face her. “I want to help you, but I don’t really know how. I’ve never really helped anyone I actually knew before.” I swiped my hand across my forehead. It was only Tuesday, and already I wanted the week to be over. Amy beeped the horn.
There is no one else to help me, and I can’t move on until I know they will be all right.
Smoke Hill, Maine was a small community, so the reverberations of Tracy’s death were going to echo for a long time. It was one thing for someone to die in their sleep at the age of ninety-one after a long and full life, but it was another for a sixteen-year-old to die alone in the middle of a dirt road. I shivered just remembering the photos of the crime scene.
“I seriously don’t know what I can do, but I’ll try.”
I slung my bag over my shoulder and ran to the car, sliding a little in the spring muck that was half-snow half water.
That’s all I ask. Thank you.
“We have to go!” Amy shrieked as I gunned the car out of the driveway.
“I know, I know. I’ll write you a note. It will be okay. I swear.”
“Are you sure?” Her legs jiggled up and down, an anxious movement, which, in turn, made me nervous.
“Yes, yes.” I hit the gas, and broke a few speeding laws and might have burned a few tire marks just outside of the school zone. Amy flew out of the car with a hastily scribbled not from “Mom” about her tardiness. The bell rang just as the door slammed behind her.
“Why did you do that to me?” I snapped at the spirit that had vaporized into my car.
Do what?
“Bring her here, and then ambush me. A little warning would have been nice.”
She found me. There wasn’t time to warn you. Besides, would you have refused to help her?
“Of course not.”
There you go.
I wanted to protest, but I really couldn’t.
“Still, you could have warned me.”
I will try to do better next time.
“Let’s make a deal. If I help her, you promise not to do this to me again. Enough of them find me by accident, and I can’t help all of them. I just can’t.” Anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000 people died per day in the world. Even if only a fraction of them found me, I could never help that many. There was a pause. I guessed he was thinking.
Deal.
I was late for school, but I went to the office and sweet talked Mrs. Finch, the secretary and she let me have a late pass. When you were an honor student, in the National Honor Society and taking a bunch of AP classes, you could pretty much get away with anything. Felicity was one of the worst offenders of playing hooky I had ever met. But what teacher would punish someone who had a 4.0 and had gotten into Yale?
I’m sorry about throwing Tracy at you.
Jack had stayed silent most of the morning, but I was tucked into my favorite library corner so we could chat.
“It’s okay.” I was on edge, constantly listening to see if someone could overhear me. I didn’t need any rumors getting started about me talking to myself. Then I had an idea. Taking out my phone, I typed a question.
Of course I can read that. I am dead, not blind. Wow, he’d used the D word.
I typed another message. Touchy much?
Only sometimes.
Are you sure you don’t have anywhere else to be?
Not at the moment. There will be times I am called away to do other things.
Like what? I’d never heard of that before.
I’m like a... facilitator. I don’t just float around and haunt people.
So I’m not special. Aw, that breaks my heart.
Somehow I find that hard to believe.
What’s a facilitator, anyway? He paused for a really long second. I almost held my breath. What did that mean?
It’s nothing you need to worry about.
Does it mean you have super powers?
Not exactly. Let’s say that I have the ability to make things appear. Objects. For a brief amount of time.
I’ve never heard of that before. It wasn’t one of the normal things spirits could do. But the more I learned about Jack, the more I suspected he wasn’t your average spirit. He was something more. Something powerful.
What kind of objects? Can you show me?
Wait and see.
He was as interesting as he was frustrating. I decided to ask the question I wanted an answer to the most.
Have you met anyone else who could talk to you?
Yes.
I made a weird sound that was kind of like a cough. I’d never heard of anyone else who could do what I could. But I’d never really left Smoke Hill. It was also impossible to walk up to a person and ask them if they could talk to spirits. You’d get carted away faster than you could say ghost.
Who?
No one you know.
How do you know? It was impossible for me to explain to him how much I’d always wanted to meet someone else who could do what I could. Anyone. Just one other person on the planet that would know.
I know a lot of things.
That was all I was going to get out of him right now. Disappointment runs hot and cold through me. I was relieved he couldn’t read my mind. Just speak to it.
Do you know why I can see her?
The only explanation I can think of is that you were meant to.
Fate? You believe in fate?
I believe that some things are supposed to happen.
A spirit who believed in fate. He was getting more interesting by the minute.
If you’re a facilitator, what are you doing here with me? Part of me wished I was speaking aloud so he could hear the sarcasm when I said ‘facilitator.’
I don’t really know. I go where the wind takes me.
He sounded like a poet. I decided to change the subject.
The bell rang, signaling the end of my chat with him. I glanced at my pile of unfinished work.
I can help you with calculus tonight. If you want.
Will you be nicer this time?
Maybe. Maybe not. I am not very nice in general.
I couldn’t argue with him there. But he hadn’t been a total jerk.
You were nice to Tracy. To tell her about me. What made you decide to help her?
It was the right thing to do. I have not done the right thing in a long time. I have a lot to make up for.
I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I shut my phone and walked to English, thinking about Jack and who the heck he could be. And what he could be.