Summer 2007 (28 page)

She slid down the banister and plonked herself on the
bottom step.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

“It started out when I went looking for you and your
store, but then I got distracted…”

* * *

“And now I feel like I’m forgetting what it’s like to be
happy,” I said, finishing up. “It’s like that stupid ghost boy stole all my
happiness away, and now, ever since I talked to him, all I meet are unhappy
people with very good reasons to be unhappy, and that makes me wonder, how
could I ever have been happy? And what is being happy, anyway?”

Zia gave a glum nod. “I think it might be catching,
because now I’m feeling the same way.”

“You see? That’s just what I mean. Why is it so easy to
spread sadness and so hard to spread happiness?”

“I guess,” Zia said, “because there’s so much more
sadness.”

“Or maybe,” I said, “it’s that there’s so much of it
that nobody can do anything about.”

“But we can do something about this, can’t we?”

“What could we possibly do?

“Make the mother remember.”

I shook my head. “Humans are very good at not
remembering,” I said. “It might be impossible for her to remember him now. She
might not even remember him when she’s dead herself and her whole life goes by
in front of her eyes.”

“Supposedly.”

“Well, yes. If you’re going to get precise, nobody knows
if that’s what really happens. But if it did, she probably wouldn’t remember.”

“And you can’t just kill her to find out,” Zia said.

“Of course not.” I sighed. “So what am I going to do? I
promised Donald I’d help him, but there’s nothing I can do.”

“I have an idea,” Zia said, a mischievous gleam in her
eye.

“This is serious–” I began, but she laid a finger
across my lips.

“I know. So we’re going to be serious. But we’re also
going to make her remember.”

“How?”

Zia grinned. “That’s easy.”

She stood up and slapped a hand against her chest.

“I,” she announced, “am going to be a ghost.”

I had a bad feeling, but nevertheless, I let her lead me
back to the apartment that Donald’s mother was haunting as much as he was, and
she wasn’t even dead.

* * *

Zia practiced making spooky noises the whole way back to
the ghost boy’s apartment, which really didn’t inspire any confidence in me,
but once we were outside the building, she turned serious again.

“Is she alone in the apartment?” she asked me.

“There’s the ghost boy.”

“I know. But is there anybody in there to look after
her? You made it sound like she’d need help to take care of herself.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There was no one else there
last night. I suppose somebody could come by during the day.”

“Well, let’s go see.”

We flew up to the fire escape outside her kitchen
window, lost our wings and feathers, and then stepped into the between. A
moment later we were standing inside the kitchen. I could only sense the old
woman’s presence–at least she was the only presence I could sense that
was alive.

“Oh, Ghost Boy,” Zia called in a loud whisper. “Come
out, come out, wherever you are. If you come out, I have a nice little…” She
gave me a poke in the shoulder. “What do ghosts like?”

“How should I know?”

She nodded, then called out again. “I have a nice little
piece of ghost cake for you, if you’ll just come out now.”

Donald materialized in the kitchen by walking through a
wall. He pointed a finger at Zia.

“Who’s she?” he asked.

Zia looked at me.

“You didn’t say he was so rude,” she said before turning
back to Donald. “I’m right here, you know. You could ask me.”

“You look like sisters.”

“And yet, we’re not.”

He ignored her, continuing to talk to me. “Is she here
to help?”

“There, he’s doing it again,” Zia said.

“This is Zia,” I said. “And Zia, this is Donald.”

“I prefer Ghost Boy,” she said.

“Well, it’s not my name.”

“She’s here to help,” I said.

“Really? So far, all she’s been is rude and making
promises she can’t keep.”

Zia bristled at that. “What sort of promises can’t I
keep?”

He shrugged. “For starters, I’m here, but where’s my
cake?”

They held each other’s gaze for a long moment, and it
was hard to tell which one of them was more annoyed with the other. Then Zia’s
cheek twitched, and Donald’s lips started to curve upward, and they were both
laughing. Of course that set me off and soon all three of us were giggling and
snickering, Zia and I with our hands over our mouths so that we wouldn’t wake
Ghost Boy’s mother.

Donald was the first to recover, but his serious
features only set us off again.

“Okay,” he said. “It wasn’t
that
funny. So why
are you still laughing?”

“Because we can,” Zia told him.

“Because we can-can!” I added.

Then Zia and I put our arms around each other’s waist
and began to prance about the kitchen like Moulin Rouge can-can dancers,
kicking our legs up high in unison. It was funny until my toe caught the edge
of the table, which jolted a mug full of spoons, knocking it over and sending
silverware clattering all over the floor.

Zia and I stopped dead and we all three cocked our
heads.

Sure enough, a querulous cry came from down the hall.

“Who’s out there?” the old woman called. “Is there
somebody out there?”

That was followed a moment later by the sound of her
getting out of her bed and slowly shuffling down the hall towards us. Long
moments later, she was in the doorway and the overhead light came on, a bright
yellowy glare that sent the shadows scurrying.

Zia and I had stepped into the between, where we could
see without being seen, but Donald stayed where he was, leaning against the
kitchen counter, his arms folded across his chest. He was frowning when his
mother came into the kitchen, the frown deepening when it became apparent that
she wasn’t able to see him.

We all watched as the old woman fussed about, trying to
gather up the spoons that, with her poor eyesight, she couldn’t really see.
When she was done, there were still errant spoons–under the table, in
front of the fridge–but she put the mug back on the table, gave the
kitchen a last puzzled look, then switched off the overhead light and went back
to her bedroom.

Zia and I stepped out of the between, back into the
kitchen. Our sudden appearance startled Donald, which was kind of funny, seeing
how he was the ghost and ghosts usually did the startling. But I didn’t say
anything because I didn’t want to set us all off again–or at least it
would be enough to set Zia and me off. I could feel that chemical imbalance
spilling through me because she was so near–a sudden giddy need to turn
sense into nonsense for the sheer fun of it–but I reminded myself why I
was here. How if I didn’t fulfill my promise, I’d be beholden to a ghost for
the rest of my days, and if there’s one thing that cousins can’t abide, it’s
the unpaid debt, the unfulfilled promise. That’s like flying with a long chain
dangling from your foot.

“How did you do that?” Donald asked.

Zia gave him a puzzled look. “Do what?”

“Disappear, then just reappear out of nowhere.”

“We didn’t disappear,” she told him. “We were just in
the between.”

I thought he was going to ask her to explain that, but
he changed the subject to what was obviously more often on his mind than it
wasn’t.

“Did you see?” he asked us. “She was standing right in
front of me and she didn’t even notice me. Dead or alive, she’s never paid any
attention to me.”

“Well, you
are
a ghost,” Zia said.

I nodded. “And humans can’t usually see ghosts.”

“A mother should be able to see her own son,” he said,
“whether he’s a ghost or not.”

“The world is full of shoulds,” Zia said, “but that
doesn’t make them happen.”

It took him a moment to work through that. When he did,
he gave a slow nod.

“Here’s another should,” he said. “I should never have
gotten my hopes up that anyone would help me.”

“We didn’t say we wouldn’t or that we couldn’t,” Zia
said.

I nodded. “I made you a promise.”

“And cousins don’t break promises,” Zia added. “It’s all
we have for coin and what would it be worth if our word had no value?”

“So you’re cousins,” he said.

He didn’t mean it the way we did. He was thinking of
familial ties, while for us it was just an easy way to differentiate humans
from people like us whose genetic roots went back to the first days in the long
ago, people who weren’t bound to the one shape the way regular humans and
animals are.

Instead of explaining, I just nodded.

“Show me your sister’s room,” Zia said.

Donald led us down the hall to Madeline’s bedroom. He
walked through the closed door, but I stopped to open it before Zia and I
followed him inside.

“It’s very girly,” Zia said as she took in the all the
lace and dolls and the bright frothy colours. Then she pointed to the pennants
and trophies. “But sporty, too.”

“Not to mention clean,” Donald said. “You should see my
room. Mother closed the door the day I died and it hasn’t been opened since.”

“
I’ve
been in there,” I said.

“But Maddy’s room,” he went on as though I hadn’t
spoken. “Mother makes sure the cleaning lady sees to it every week–before
she tackles any other room in the apartment.”

“Why do you think that is?” Zia asked.

“Because so far as my mother was concerned, the sun and
moon rose and set on my sister Maddy.”

“But
why
did she think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You told me something the last time I was here,” I
said. “Something about how maybe you reminded her too much of your father…”

“Who abandoned us,” he finished. “That’s just something
Maddy thought.”

Zia nodded. “Well, let’s find out. Did your sister call
you Donald?”

“What?”

“Your sister. What did she call you?”

“Donnie.”

“Okay, good. That’s all I needed.”

“Hey, wait!” Donald said as she pulled back the covers
and got into the bed.

Zia pretended he hadn’t spoken.

“You two should hide,” she said.

“But–”

“We don’t want your mother to see anybody but me.”

“Like she could see me.”

That was true. But the mother
could
see me.

I didn’t know what Zia was up to, but I went over to the
closet and opened the door, pulling it almost closed it again so that I was
standing in the dark in a press of dresses and skirts and tops with just a
crack to peer through. Donald let out a long theatrical sigh, but after a
moment he joined me.

“Mama, mama!” Zia cried from the bed, her voice the high
and frightened sound of a young girl waking from a bad dream.

Faster than she’d come into the kitchen earlier, the
mother appeared in the doorway and crossed the room to the bed. She hesitated
beside it, staring down at where Zia was sitting up with her arms held out for
comfort. I could see the confusion in the old woman’s half-blind gaze, but all
it took was for Zia to call “Mama” one more time and a mother’s instinct took
over. She sat on the edge of the bed, taking Zia in her arms.

“I…I was so scared, Mama,” Zia said. “I dreamed I was
dead.”

The old woman stiffened. I saw a shiver run from her
shoulders, all the way down her arms and back. Then she pressed her face into
Zia’s hair.

“Oh, Maddy, Maddy,” she said, her voice a bare whisper.
“I wish it
was
a dream.”

Zia pulled back from her, but took hold of her hands.

“I am dead, Mama,” she said. “Aren’t I?”

The old woman nodded.

“But then why am I here?” Zia asked. “What keeps me
here?”

“M-maybe I…I just can’t let you go…”

“But you don’t keep Donnie here. Why did you let him go
and not me?’

“Oh, Maddy, sweetheart. Don’t talk about him.”

“I don’t understand. Why not? He’s my brother. I loved
him. Didn’t you love him?”

The old woman looked down at her lap.

“Mama?” Zia asked.

The old woman finally lifted her head.

“I…I think I loved him too much,” she said.

The ghost boy had no physical presence, standing beside
me, here in the closet, but I could feel his sudden tension as though he was
flesh and blood–a prickling flood of interest and shock and pure
confusion.