A Guide to the Other Side (12 page)

I HAD TO CARRY THE
talisman with me everywhere, just in case the Sheet Man appeared at a random time. That meant putting this strange wooden bowl into my backpack at school and trying to hide it from my classmates. The last thing I wanted was for people to know that the haunted band geek carried around a goofy-looking wooden bowl with an egg in it.

At school the next day, I had the pleasure of having both Kristina and Fleetwood following me around. My very own ghost entourage. Kristina was having the time of her life. She usually had to sit in silence and learn all the things she already knew, but today she and Fleetwood were basically having a party. They were going on and on in my English class about something hysterical Shakespeare had said to Hemingway, until finally I glared at Kristina, and she and the colonel went to wait outside.

“Sorry, Baylor,” she said as I walked out after the bell rang. “I forgot that you actually have to concentrate in class.”

“It's fine,” I said. “It's not like the ending of
Julius Caesar
is a big surprise.”

“It was to him,” Fleetwood said gravely. “He's still a touch bitter about it, even after all these years.”

  *  *  *  

After band practice I found my mom waiting for me outside. I was surprised to see her, since I'd planned for Aiden's mom to give me a ride home.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Hey, Jack. Hi, Ella.” Ella smiled at me with sheer delight while Jack waved feebly.

“It's your great-aunt's birthday, remember?” my mom said. “You forgot, didn't you?”

“I was in the hospital three days ago for a possible concussion, remember?” I said. “You forgot, didn't you?”

“Don't be smart with me, Baylor Bosco,” she said. “I've told you since the beginning of October about this dinner.”

“How old is she, anyway?”

“The woman's turning eighty-eight!”

“Why are we having this dinner? That's such a random number. If she were ninety, I'd understand.”

“Baylor, when you get to be eighty-eight years old, every year that you don't die is an accomplishment. I know that concept may be difficult for someone like you to grasp, but for the rest of us it's a big deal.”

“I guess I get it,” I said. “Where are we going?”

“Carrino's!” Jack said from the backseat.

I glanced at Jack, then turned my head slowly to my mom; she had her lips pursed, and her eyes were focused squarely in front of her, pretending like she didn't notice my glare.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I hissed. “If you had mentioned the name of the restaurant, I wouldn't have forgotten about the dinner. You are a sneaky, sneaky woman.”

“I'm sorry, Baylor, but it's her favorite restaurant, and it's
her
birthday. She's eighty-eight! What can I do?”

I shook my head, furious about the way this night was unfolding.

“Is there a problem with this establishment?” the colonel asked Kristina in the back.

“Baylor can't tune spirits out in Italian restaurants,” she said. “We don't know why. He thinks it's the garlic. I think it's because Italians are known for their personable energy. Whatever the reason, whenever we go to an Italian place, it's usually a disaster.”

“Dis-aws-ta,” Ella squeaked, banging her doll on the window.

“Oh, how precious!” Fleetwood said, waving at Ella. “The child understands us.”

“Come to think of it,” Kristina said slowly, “Ella's never been to an Italian restaurant. I wonder how she's going to react.”

  *  *  *  

My great-aunt Hilda had been married a long time ago, sometime in her thirties, but had never had children. Her husband had been a rich man, but no one seemed to talk about him much. I always got the impression he'd had ties to the mob, a suspicion that his early, mysterious demise seemed to confirm.

She had lived alone for the better of forty years, and since she had no other family, she nearly always joined our holiday celebrations, as well as any meaningful milestones, unfortunately for me.

The problem was that, despite being an agreeable lady in most other facets of her life, Aunt Hilda was a firm nonbeliever in my gift. It's not just that she didn't believe I could communicate with the dead, but that she was very vocal to anyone who would listen that her grandnephew was a charlatan who played on people's emotions and gave them a false sense of hope about whatever comes after death.

It didn't bother me that she didn't believe me, but it did bother me that she openly called me a liar in front of strangers and family alike. We eventually learned never to bring up my gift in front of her, and if she even hinted around to it, we would change the subject faster than you could blink.

When we arrived at Carrino's that night, I was not in a good mood. I had Colonel British McBad-Teeth clinging to my twin, I knew I wasn't going to be able to tune out any of the spirits inside, and I would have to act like none of it was bothering me, all because my crazy great-aunt had decided to live another year.

Carrino's had big glass doors for the entryway, and from the outside I couldn't see or hear any spirits. It was one of the best Italian spots in town, though, so I knew it was going to be busy even on a random Thursday night. I walked up to the doors, took one final breath, and shot one last nasty glance at my mom, who was following me with Ella in her arms and a worried frown on her face.

With my eyes closed, I opened the doors and was immediately overcome by the noise. It was a small restaurant, and everything was amplified by the picture-frame-covered walls.

When I opened my eyes, I couldn't even see the tables anymore. It was like leaving the stadium after a Patriots game and getting caught in the middle of a million people taking half steps toward the exit, hoping not to get trampled by the crowd.

The difference was that I could tune out the ghosts at stadiums. At the restaurant it was so packed I couldn't tell who was dead or alive. I motioned for my mom to pass me so I could follow her lead. Otherwise, I'd be running into people I thought were dead, and I'd be awkwardly scooting around and saying “Excuse me” to people I could walk right through.

But she wouldn't go, because as soon as she walked by me with Ella, the baby began to scream one of those deep-from-the-gut, almost primal screams. The kind where you know something is really wrong.

“Ella!” my mom said. “What's wrong, Ella-Bella? You were fine just a second ago.”

“It's packed, Mom,” I said. “It's packed, and it's loud.”

My mom tilted her head and frowned, walking back outside as a high-pitched voice chirped from behind me.

“Um, we're actually not packed at all,” the tiny hostess said from her stand as a man with a thick black mustache leaned over and tried to smell her. She didn't mind, though, since he was dead. “We have plenty of available tables for your party if you'd like to sit.”

“I, uh, that's not actually what I meant,” I said, fumbling for words, trying to catch the spirit's eye over her shoulder so he'd know I could see him. “We actually have reservations for a birthday dinner.”

“Oh, are you with Renee O'Brien's party?”

“Yeah, that's my grandma,” I said, still focusing on the area just to the left of the hostess, where the man was now rubbing the girl's shoulder with his hands. She frowned at me, but then I saw her shiver. She could sense the man's presence but had no idea what was going on.

Luckily, Kristina turned her attention away from the colonel to realize what was happening, and she zapped him with her blue energy.

“It was just getting good!” he wailed as he faded into nothing.

“Ugh!” Kristina groaned.

“Follow me,” said the hostess, and once she turned her back, I grimaced at Kristina, who, along with the colonel, smiled encouragingly.

“I daresay you've got this under control, lad,” the colonel said. “At least you're not charging onto a battlefield on a cold, wintry morning, knowing that it will soon be smeared with your blood, and the blood of all the fine gentlemen you're leading.”

“You are not helping right now, Fleetwood,” I muttered as we passed a group of people I could only assume were alive. They turned and stared, and I raised my eyebrows at them awkwardly, not wanting to respond in case they were really dead. It would only make the people sitting at the next table feel uncomfortable.

“You're right here,” the hostess said, sitting us down at the eight-seat table. We were the first ones to arrive, thankfully, so I took my seat at the end, and Jack sat right across from me. It was the sort of restaurant that put white paper on top of the tables to serve as both a tablecloth and a canvas for kids to draw on. The hostess set down crayons, and Jack went right to work.

As he was writing his name in awkward cursive letters, he leaned forward and whispered, “See anyone?”

“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Lots.”

He drew a sharp breath. “This isn't going to be very fun.”

“Nope.”

My mom got to the table a few minutes later. She'd managed to calm Ella down, but the girl was fidgeting, and it was obvious that she was like a leaky gas pipe just one spark away from an explosion.

“There are my sweet grandchildren!” Grandma said, barreling through a group of ghosts.

“Grandma!” Jack said, throwing down his crayon and jumping up to hug her.

“Hi, Wacky Jacky,” she said. “Did you have a good day at school?”

“Yeah, I played four square today and only lost twice.”

“I'm so impressed!” She turned to me and hesitated for a moment, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “Sorry, Baylor, but she insisted.”

I got up and hugged her. “It's all right. It's just for a couple of hours. Honestly, Ella's the one you're going to have to worry about. She can see them everywhere.”

She looked at Ella, and her jaw dropped upon seeing her granddaughter squirming in her seat, her head twisting around every few seconds as she looked at all the passing spirits.

“Oh my . . . ,” she said. “Maybe I should have tried a little harder to make my dear sister change her mind.”

Speak of the devil, Aunt Hilda crossed through the group of ghosts she would never believe I could see, gently led by Grandpa By (his longtime nickname since being cruelly christened Byron O'Brien).

I was the first one she saw, and if she was already annoyed with me, it wasn't apparent.

“Baylor, come help your ancient auntie get into her chair, will ya?” she said.

I grabbed on to her other arm and pulled the chair out for her. She plopped into it, reaching up to grab my neck and pull me down for a kiss. “It's good to see ya, kid. Can you believe this broad is eighty-eight?”

“You don't look a day over one hundred, Aunt Hilda,” I said.

She threw her head back, clutching the half-heart necklace she always wore, the laughter croaking out of her mouth like an ad campaign against smoking, and said, “You slay me. Jacky boy, come here and give me a kiss.”

As Jack clambered up from his seat again, Grandpa By pulled me aside and said, “You doing okay?”

I nodded. “They're everywhere. And they're loud. Ella sees them too.”

“I told Renee not to come here. I said to her, ‘
Renee
, you remember what happened last time we went to an Italian joint?' And she says to me—get this—she says, ‘Yeah, By, but Hilda's eighty-eight years old, how many more chances is she gonna have to eat some Italian food?'” He threw his hands up. “If tonight goes poorly, let me tell you, it's gonna be her last time, I'll say that much. I'll say that much.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “And you with the hospital visit this week, and the weird appearances from things I don't like to imagine too much, and the bad Halloween experience. How could it not go poorly?”

I shook my head. “You're reading my mind, Grandpa.”

“Don't say that, kid,” he said. “With you it could come true. I'll tell you, it's going to be a fiasco. But the lady is eighty-eight, and we're here, so we will deal with it, grandson, we will
deal
with it as all O'Brien men do. I know your last name is that Bosco nonsense, but I like to pretend it's O'Brien sometimes, you know?”

My dad arrived shortly after, and dinner finally got under way.

Right from the start everything went wrong. A ghost pretending to be the waiter came right up to me, introduced himself as Charlie, and asked what I'd like to drink.

“Uh, do you have hot chocolate?” I said, looking up at him and not realizing anything was wrong. “I'm sort of cold.”

“Oh my word, he's already starting it,” Aunt Hilda groaned. I looked at her and then looked back at the ghost, who was now lit up with blue and fading away. Kristina had zapped him, but the damage was already done.

“Oh, ha, ha, I was just, uh, practicing my Italian for when the waiter comes, Aunt Hilda,” I said. “You didn't give me a chance to finish.”

Everyone at the table was staring at me expectantly.

“Make something up,” Kristina whispered. “Just say some gibberish, she'll never know.”

“
Fl-flomargo deechay en la . . . en la dulce
,” I said, doing my best Mario and Luigi impression. My mom put her hand up to her forehead and shut her eyes, while my dad laughed silently behind his napkin.
“Encardo la noche de dudo! Bravo!”

A brutal moment of silence passed, until finally Grandpa spoke up.

“Well, that was just amazing,” he said sincerely. “I didn't know you've been learning Italian.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down, my cheeks probably the color of the tomato sauce I'd be eating soon. “Getting pretty good at it.”