Apparition (28 page)

What I meant to say, Kip, was, I’ll never forget you
.

I stay with the horses until the tears are no longer flowing. When I’m finally together enough to risk going inside, I can hear Bob Marley singing “No Woman No Cry.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Joyce yells from the kitchen. She means about playing my new CD. “It’s been a while.”

I can smell the Christmas pizza in the oven. Right now, though, I don’t care about dinner. I head straight up to my room, feeling like somebody just turned up the dial on the earth’s gravity. My knees give out and I fall heavily onto my bed.

After about ten minutes of me sitting there paralyzed and quietly weeping, my cellphone rings. I take a deep breath, then another, and answer it with a weak “Hello?” It’s Jack, phoning from the land line downstairs.

“I’m in my room,” he says. “Can we talk?”

“Sure. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

I head for the washroom to rinse the tears from my face and check out my red eyes and nose in the mirror.
Who did you think Kip Dyson was, anyway? Your boyfriend? What an imagination!

Feeling numb, I tap on Jack’s bedroom door. I can see Ethan out of the corner of my eye, sitting in the living room in the dark with the Christmas lights on. Christmas blues, I guess. Jack tells me to come in and motions for me to close the door behind me.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Sure, fine. Just tired.”

“Okay. You look kind of pale and sick or something.” He’s sitting in his wheelchair at his desk, and I take a seat on his bed. “I wanted to talk to you about something and I don’t want Ethan to hear.” He looks irritated and lowers his voice to a whisper. “He asked me about the barn earlier today. Asked me if I ever plan to go back in. It worried me the way he said it. Too interested. I have a feeling he’s planning on going there himself.”

He’s picked up a large pencil from his desk and he’s twirling it between his fingers. There’s some kind of nervousness there that
seems out of character for him. Like Joyce when she’s wishing she could have a cigarette.

“Jack, is everything okay with you? I mean, are you settling back in? Are you feeling all right?”

“Gee, Amelia, let’s see. I’m walking with braces and canes. I can barely go upstairs to use the washroom. It takes me forever to get dressed or anything. What do you think?”

“I’m sorry. You’ve handled this so much better than anyone else would, you almost make it look easy. But I know it’s not.”

“Don’t mind me, I’m just grumpy. By the way, have you noticed any changes in Ethan lately? I mean, for one thing, he’s not blinking and wincing anymore. It’s like he’s suddenly gotten over that whole facial tic phase.”

“Now that you mention it, I thought something was different about him. He seems older. Maybe that experience last week had a psychological effect on him.”

“So what do we do about the fascination he seems to have with the barn?”

“I don’t know. Keep an eye on him? In case he has any ideas about going near it, I mean.” And then it hits me. “There’s no girlfriend who’s dumped him lately, is there? Broken his heart? Anything like that?”

“Not a chance, I’d say. But there is a major attitude shift going on. He’s not even interested in his video games this week.”

There’s a bang on the door that sends us both three inches off our seats. Only Joyce can knock like that.

“Christmas Eve pizza!” she yells. “Come and get it.”

“Coming!” Jack yells back.

“Where the hell are my matches?” I hear her complaining as she heads back to the kitchen. I immediately think of Ethan. What’s that little pyromaniac up to?

I
’ve probably cried a little every day since Christmas Eve. Not a waterfall or anything, just a quiet trickle. It’s like pressure keeps building and I have to release the valve. Afterwards I feel calmer. Or maybe more numb. Either way, it’s better than the alternative, which would be a total flood. Between me moping around with a long face and Ethan acting like someone out of
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
, Joyce was happy when the holidays were done, that was obvious.

School has been the hardest part. In the hallways between classes, everyone seems to be talking to someone else, chatting or listening or poking someone with a pen. Everyone seems close and connected. Everyone but me. I keep on the lookout for Morgan, a friendly face, but she’s always surrounded by other girls, especially Brittany, and I have to wonder if I sometimes get on her nerves. I know I kind of bring these feelings on myself, this sense of being a ghost among the living. It’s an old habit, and it’s hard to fight when there doesn’t seem to be anything worth fighting for.

The other day in the cafeteria, Brittany decided to have some fun with me. She asked if I’d had any word from Kip lately, and I noticed that Morgan shot her an annoyed look. It was painful, especially coming from Brittany, because she so enjoys knowing how I screwed up with him. I had to say in front of everybody that he was back at university in Chicago and busy with new classes.
He has a really heavy workload
, I said with emphasis, trying to make the point that he had important stuff to attend to. It wasn’t like he left town so he could hang out and do nothing somewhere else.

“I had him figured out,” declared Brittany, seemingly uninterested in everything I had to say. “You could tell just looking at him how bored he was. He wasn’t getting enough action. I mean, that’s a guy who is used to having fun, you know?” She smiled at Morgan, a very smug look on her face. “Now, I would have got him to hang out here a little longer.” A couple of the other girls at the table laughed and said things like “Oh, Brittany, you’re
sooo
bad.” Morgan smirked but then flicked a guilty glance my way.

“I don’t know. I think there was more to Kip than that. Another side of him that maybe you didn’t see.” I was relieved that my voice didn’t shake or crack.

“No, I’m pretty sure I checked out both sides thoroughly when you brought him to my place last fall. He was pretty hot from every angle.” Everyone laughed at that. Who knew Brittany could be so witty?

The thing is, Morgan knows how I feel about Kip. I pretty much told her the truth when we went shopping at the mall last week. She was looking for January sales and I decided to buy some makeup. I’d been thinking that maybe I needed a new face—to give off less of a “weird sister” vibe—and she was thrilled to hear it. She insisted on taking control—comes from watching so many makeover shows on TV.

Morgan was suspicious about my timing, though. I tried to tell her that I was just bored with myself, which is true, but she didn’t buy it. She asked if I was gearing up to make a move on Kip, and I had to tell her it was a little late for that. She thought that was tragic, of course.

“I got the feeling he was yours if you wanted him,” she said. “He was waiting for you to give him a sign.” She gave me a sympathetic smile when she saw my eyes filling up. “It isn’t still Matthew, is it?” she asked. All I could do was shrug, like I didn’t know. “That explains it.” Then she told me all about what happened to her aunt after her uncle died in a boating accident. She never remarried, and Morgan’s mom said it was because she could never let go of her first husband. No other guy could ever live up to the memory of him, and the older the memory got, the more perfect he became. “I know it sounds harsh,” she told me, “but sooner or later you’re going to have to let Matthew go. He’s the one who died, not you. Don’t let him keep you from having a life. Seriously.”

In the end I kind of lost my nerve, so there was no big transformation. I only bought some lip gloss and mascara. Hardly enough for “before and after” photos. I told her I couldn’t afford to spend more than that, but really I just felt crappy because I lose everyone I care about, sooner or later.

I haven’t been back to the Telford barn since the rope dream. And even though Morris and I talk about once a week, we keep it short, and the only news he’s passed on is that he spoke with Telford’s daughter about knocking down the barn and she didn’t take his advice very well. She said they couldn’t afford to take it down unless it was done professionally, so they could recycle the old barnboard, and for that they would have to wait for better weather. He said she asked him to keep out of their business—nicely, of course.

I didn’t say it to Morris, but I’m relieved the Telfords aren’t in a rush. I still don’t know what to do about Matthew, but I can’t just abandon him to fate. And even if I don’t know what it means on any realistic level, at least Matthew says he wants me. Kip only wants to be friends. But then again, Kip has so many more options than Matthew. Matthew only has me.

After Brittany said those things in the cafeteria, I was overwhelmed with sadness and regret about Kip. I kept asking myself if she was right, if things would have gone better if I’d acted differently. If I’d been more fun to be with. But then I’d remind myself that I would have embarrassed myself even more if I’d tried harder. Kip was always out of my league. End of story.

Morgan texted me after my run-in with Brittany. She said she felt bad for me and encouraged me to write to Kip.
Just send him a friendly little e-mail. What have you got to lose? Do it! Do it! DO IT!
Well, she had a point. Not much.

Dear Kip. I hope you are well. Sister Amelia
.

I can’t believe I just hit send. What a loser!

Ethan spends most of his time in his room now, and when he comes out he hardly talks. I think it’s a weird puberty phase but Joyce has her eye on him, just in case. He’d better watch out. She’s probably still got Dr. Krantz on speed-dial.

I thought about mentioning to Joyce that he’s been stealing cigarettes and smoking out back, but why start a war with him? He’s got plenty on me too. And he keeps giving me odd stares, like he knows even more than I think. It makes me want to booby-trap my room to see if he’s been sneaking in and rifling through my stuff. Yesterday, apparently, he asked Jack if he knew what a Molotov cocktail was. Joyce overheard him and yelled, “Well, it’s not something you drink.”

I’ve been spending a lot more time out back with the horses. When Joyce isn’t around, that is. It’s because of something that happened the day Kip said goodbye. When I was stroking Marley’s nose, I remembered how much I used to love horses when I was a little girl. I have a memory of my dad—and I don’t remember much about him—hoisting me up on one of them when I was about four. That was when Joyce lived farther away, and we visited only once in a while. Soon after that, my dad had the car accident. Strange, but I don’t remember anything about him at all but his big, strong hands lifting me up and setting me on the back of the horse. That’s it. And I remember the horse, which was huge and gentle, standing perfectly still in Joyce’s fenced field.

My problem with Joyce’s horses came some years after that. I think it was when I was in grade six. Mom made me and Jack spend a few weeks on the farm one summer, and Joyce took us to work with her. It was brutal. I couldn’t believe how many hours she spent each day taking care of those horses—cleaning up after them, grooming and all. It was like a slave camp, and I really resented it. That’s when it first hit me how Joyce was such a drill sergeant. Jack didn’t mind as much, ’cause he was a good rider, so he thought the work was worth it. But I fell off twice that summer, and I wasn’t keen to feel that again, even though something was lost when I stopped riding. Some feeling I half remember when I see Joyce out back with Marley and Ponyboy. I guess, deep down, I do understand why she goes to so much trouble.

This afternoon I have coffee with Morris. His idea. He tells me he’s got a dozen other ghost mysteries to investigate with my help, if I’m game for another adventure. “What do you say? Are you still interested?”

I feel less than enthusiastic. “It’s just that I feel like we’ve got unfinished business in the Telford barn, so it’s hard to think about moving on to another mystery.”

“I get it, but I think we’ve gone as far as we can there. It’s out of our hands now.”

We talk a little longer. He says he’s got a lot of ghost-tracking leads to follow up. Reported sightings in Grey County he’d love to investigate with me, to see if I can pick up anything supernatural. “No pressure,” he says, “but it’s what your mom and I started. I mean, we went on only a half-dozen outings or so before she decided she wasn’t feeling up to it anymore. It was pretty amazing while it lasted, though. She was able to connect with a few ghosts and find out things I couldn’t have uncovered in any other way.”

Wow! I try to imagine Morris and my mom hanging out in haunted houses. It’s so strange. Then he changes the subject, starts asking me about my long-term plans. Almost like he’s my surrogate father or something.

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like university. You’re intelligent, Amelia,” he says. “You’ve got to start considering the next big phase of your life.” And then he adds—a little cautiously, it seems—that I should probably be thinking about getting out of town, for a few years at least. Studying somewhere exotic and exciting. On an old university campus known for its ghosts, he suggests. In an old city.

I can’t tell if he’s serious. And I can’t help wondering what the University of Chicago campus looks like.

I finally get up the nerve to ask him about Kip, trying to sound like a normal human being and not an emotional mess.

“You haven’t heard from him?” He seems surprised. Then I remember that Kip said Morris thought it was a good idea for him to head back to Chicago.

“I hope you don’t think I’m rude to ask, but did you encourage Kip to leave?” I swear he looks a little uncomfortable. He mumbles
something about Kip getting in too deep.
Too deep?
I don’t know what he means by that. Deep into what? The ghost thing? Or me? And what’s wrong with deep, anyway?

As I sit upstairs this evening, wasting time on the Internet and enjoying some peace and quiet before Joyce gets home, the smoke alarm goes off again. This time, I run downstairs to see what’s going on. I meet Jack in the hallway, moving fast in his leg braces and crutches toward the kitchen. When we get there, we stare in shock at Ethan, who’s standing at the sink, facing the window curtains. They’re on fire!