2
She’s a ghost, too.
That’s cool. I can handle that. But who is this girl? How did she get here? Ghosts can’t move from property to property. Can they? I can’t. If she can go anywhere, why come to this God-forsaken house in the middle of nowhere?
Is she going to stay?
The girl walks past me, toward the front porch. Her chin is up, her shoulders back. She looks almost snobby, except that her bottom lip trembles. I glide beside her. She’s wearing a purple checkered dress with short puffed sleeves and three large buttons down the front. She ought to have a picnic basket to complete the look.
Maybe she’s from a different era. An ancient ghost. But she looks so much like Charlotte, right down to the freckles, it’s eerie. The only difference is the eyes. The ghost girl’s eyes aren’t gray. They’re purple.
Not dark blue. Not violet.
Bright, artificial purple.
Like grape Jell-O, which, incidentally, I’d forgotten about until this very moment. My mother used to make it for dessert. I see her hands cutting squares in the pan. It wasn’t always grape. Sometimes, it was lime or lemon or cherry. I used to eat it all the time, until one day, I grew sick of it.
Memories.
They strike when you least expect it.
“What are you doing?”
The ghost girl gazes at me with her creepy purple eyes. Her head is tilted to the right, causing one braid to coil over her shoulder and another to slide down her neck.
I shake myself. “Uh…”
“Stop following me,” she says. “And don’t stare.”
“I can’t help it,” I say. “Your eyes are so… Are you wearing contacts?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“That can’t be your real color. How did you--?”
“Go away!” she hisses.
Where does she expect me to go?
“I can’t leave--” I begin when I hear a noise from the truck.
Charlotte and Dr. Lerner hoist out a bluish antique cabinet and lug it up the driveway. Charlotte leads the way, the woman coming up from the rear. Even though she’s sweating and her make-up is melting, the therapist seems to have an easier time carrying the case. Charlotte’s arms shake, and she can barely hold the cabinet up to her waist. She’s marching backwards, twisting her neck to look at the house.
I’m right in her path.
Part of me hopes she’ll walk through me and gasp in shock as my soul touches hers. But I know better. I can’t possess humans. I’ve tried, but they emit a forcefield that pushes me away. With Charlotte it feels like compressed air. I dance around her body, trying to make eye contact.
Please notice me.
Panting, Charlotte drops her end of the display case on the step. “Let’s rest for a second.”
So much for that idea.
I stand in the middle of the cabinet, bisecting it. Inanimate objects don’t bother me. They feel solid for a quarter of a second, and then they feel like nothing.
“Shall we put it in the living room?” the therapist asks.
“I don’t have the house keys. We’ll set it on the balcony.”
“The balcony?”
“The back end of the porch. We called it the balcony.” Charlotte’s voice lowers. “We used to play there when we were kids. She’ll like it.”
Charlotte looks directly at the purple-eyed girl.
“She can see you?” I yell.
The therapist heaves up the display case. I jump out of the way. The woman’s spirit crackles, and I have no desire to get zapped. The two struggle up the stairs, and I float over to the purple-eyed girl.
“How can Charlotte see you and not me?” I demand.
She brushes past me and stomps up the steps. It takes me a second to realize I’m being ignored. Deliberately.
I stand in amazement. Charlotte can’t see me, but she can see the purple-eyed ghost. The purple-eyed ghost can see me, but she won’t help. That doesn’t mean she can’t be of help. She said something about spending her last day with Charlotte. That means she’s going to cross over soon.
Do ghosts know when they’re going to cross over?
Can they plan for it?
Focus!
She’s going to cross over, which means I can see exactly how it’s done and perhaps glean what it is I’ve been doing wrong. Or, if I’m lucky and stand real close, I can hijack some of her mystical energy and beam up alongside her.
I fly through the house and pop up on the other side of the porch. My presence startles the purple-eyed girl. She jumps, and her face goes thunderous: her eyes squint, her nose wrinkles, and her lips tighten into a knot. Then she tosses her braids and turns her back to me.
Charlotte and Dr. Lerner prop the display case against the house.
“So much trash.” The therapist kicks a dirty candy wrapper. “I have a broom in my car.”
“I’m going to get my box,” Charlotte says.
They head back.
The ghost girl stays. She leans over the balcony.
It’s a spectacular view. The house is built on a steep hill. The back porch, or balcony, juts over the incline, so that you can see the branches of the pines. It’s like being in a treehouse. As the land plummets, the trees follow, going down the dirt slope until they hit pond, the lowest point of the property. Then the land climbs again, to the orchard and the barbed wire fence.
I wonder if the purple-eyed ghost has seen this view before. Maybe that’s why she came back; this is her childhood home. Except, I don’t remember her. Granted, my memory is full of holes, but I recognized Charlotte. Why not this girl?
“…filled it with things that remind me of her.” Charlotte comes round the corner with a large shoebox under her arm. “Should I wait for you, or…?”
“No, why don’t you begin arranging them,” the shrink says. “I’ll just tidy up.”
Dr. Lerner grips a broom that’s lost its handle. She proceeds to wreak havoc on the pine needles, candy wrappers, and plastic bags that have accumulated on the porch. Her sweeps of fury send spiders fleeing for their lives.
Charlotte rummages through the shoebox. “Let’s see….”
I turn my attention to the display case. It’s a rectangular box with an arched glass door, about five feet tall. The pale blue paint is streaky, allowing the natural wood color to seep through. There are two shelves. Charlotte places two frames on the upper shelf, then crouches down to arrange knick-knacks on the narrow space of the bottom shelf.
I study the pictures.
The girl in the graduation gown is definitely Charlotte, but her hair is black. So are her lips, nails, and eyebrows. If not for the yellow tassel on her cap, I’d have seriously thought this was a black-and-white photograph. Charlotte is not smiling in the picture. She looks miserable.
The silver frame shows an ink sketch of a girl’s face. I’m pretty sure this is the ghost girl, because of the purple eyes, the only color in the picture. It’s very arty. Like a high school assignment. There’s a grade in the corner. “A-.” The title of the work sits on the bottom of the page, and though, the frame cuts it in half, I can still make out the word: Jenny.
“Jenny.” I swivel around. “Is that your name?”
The purple-eyed ghost walks over to Charlotte. Jenny--I’m going to call her Jenny--continues to act like I don’t exist, even though I’m hovering inches from her face.
Charlotte lifts a ragdoll out of the box.
“You remember this?” she whispers.
“I do,” Jenny says.
Charlotte looks at it a moment more. “It belongs with you.”
The doll is ugly. The white cloth of its face is stained a cat-pee yellow. With its purple button eyes, brown yarn braids, and mouth made of stitches, it reminds me of a voodoo doll. Charlotte tries to stand the ragdoll against the silver frame, but as soon she lifts her hand away, the doll topples. She tries twice more to no avail. Charlotte sweeps the knick-knacks off the bottom shelf and lies the doll flat on its back. She arranges the paper flowers on top.
It’s like a corpse at a wake.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe a spirit can only cross over once it’s had a proper send-off. Did I have a funeral? Was I buried? Is that why my soul is trapped in limbo?
“All done.” Dr. Lerner shoves the last of the trash through the rails and dusts off her hands. “Let’s see what you put together.”
That’s another thing. Why bring a therapist to a funeral? Why not a reverend or a priest or even a psychic? Someone who can talk to spirits, perhaps.
Dr. Lerner examines the display case. “It’s lovely.”
“Lovely,” Jenny echoes.
“Did you make those paper flowers yourself?”
“Yes. Out of old journal entries.” Charlotte stares at the blossoms. “I was going to burn them, but I thought, why not make them into something beautiful? Something for her. So I painted them and cut them into flowers.”
Jenny reaches to touch a petal but draws back as the therapist steps closer to Charlotte.
“I know she meant a lot to you,” Dr. Lerner says. “It’s okay to mourn.”
Charlotte clutches the shoebox to her chest. The therapist puts an arm around her in a sideways hug. Jenny stands behind them, looking like a lost third wheel.
The look on her face is so… how can I describe it? Her eyes crinkle and her lips pull into a thin line, but it’s more than that. It’s this… this yearning to belong… this wanting…. It shines from her face like a flashlight, it makes every feature brighter, like dew on a flower. She is vivid in her sadness. And I wonder, how long has it been since I wanted… anything?
The therapist pulls away, and Charlotte puts down her shoebox. She rummages through it and pulls out a paper.
“I wrote a few words. A goodbye.” Charlotte pauses. “But first I should probably light the candle.”
She sets a candle on the upper shelf and lights it. I half expect it to smell like grape juice or lavender--but no, it’s lemon. Charlotte opens the paper.
“Jenny,” she reads. “You were my sister.” Her bottom lip trembles. “The best sister I could have hoped for. While you were with me, you changed my life. You comforted me when I was sad. You were a beacon of hope in the dark times. You were my only friend. I wouldn’t be where I am, if not for you. So thank you. I wish you were alive, alive and real, but you aren’t, and I can’t change that. So I have to let you go.”
I’m not sure what a eulogy is supposed to sound like, but this isn’t it. Aren’t you supposed to, you know, talk about the dead person? Their interests, their dreams, their stories--stuff like that?
Charlotte clears her throat. “I know this is corny, but I found a poem by Emily Dickinson, and I want to read it.”
She takes a deep breath.
“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers--
“That perches in the soul--
“And sings the tune without the words--
“And never stops--at all.”
Jenny does seem rather bird-like right now. She leans forward, hands clasped under her chin, elbows sticking out like wings. She looks an angel preparing to ascend. I prepare to pounce at the first sound of trumpets.
“I’ve heard it in the chillest land--
“And on the strangest Sea--
“Yet--never--in Extremity
“It asked a crumb of me.”
Charlotte folds the paper in half. “That’s what you are to me, Jenny. Farewell.”
Nothing happens.
Jenny stands there, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Her spirit is still here, still as visibly translucent as ever. What went wrong?
“That was beautiful.” Dr. Lerner claps.
Charlotte continues to fold the paper, over and over, until it’s no bigger than a cigarette butt. She sticks it in an old perfume bottle, puts the bottle on the top shelf, and blows out the candle. Smoke curls off the burnt wick as she closes the glass door.
“How do you feel?” the therapist asks.
“Guilty,” Charlotte says.
“You did the right thing. The healthy thing.”
“I know.”
“Do you still see her?”
Charlotte cranes her neck. “No.”
Liar. She’s staring right at her! I can see them making eye contact.
Charlotte turns back to her therapist. “Dr. Lerner, can I have a moment alone?”
“Of course.”
The therapist leaves. Charlotte wanders casually over to the balcony. Jenny follows. Charlotte puts her arms on the railing. Jenny does the same. They both lean, side by side, and I want to scream, “What the hell is going on?” But I don’t. I have a feeling that if I interrupt this moment, Jenny will kill me for sure.
Which wouldn’t matter, except…
Well, if she isn’t crossing over…
…maybe she’s staying?
“That was nice,” Jenny says, after a moment.
“Thanks,” Charlotte replies.
“I liked the poem.”
“I thought you would.”
“I did. If--if you ever need me--”
“I won’t.”
“But if you do--”
“Jenny.” Charlotte shakes her head. “You know I can’t get better while you’re around.”
Jenny’s head falls. Her body goes as limp as a scarecrow on a post.
“You can’t stay,” Charlotte says.
“I know,” Jenny whispers in a hoarse voice.
“Goodbye.”
Abruptly, Charlotte turns and walks away. Her head is high, and her strides are brisk as she rounds the corner and disappears from view.
Jenny covers her mouth with both hands. Her forehead wrinkles, and tears spill from her eyes. She looks so real. So real and broken. Her back is hunched, her knees squeezed together, and she’s pitched forward, about to collapse. But she doesn’t. She’s frozen, like a porcelain figure on someone’s bathroom shelf.
Engines rumble.
They’re leaving.
My slim, hopeless chance.
If I really wanted, if I really cared, I would run toward the cars, screaming at the top of my metaphorical lungs. I would throw myself on the hood, pound my fists against the car horn, slam my soul into theirs, and do whatever it takes to get their attention.
But I don’t.
Because I don’t want. Not anymore.
Jenny utters a sob. This sound seems to tip the balance, and she falls. She rolls into herself like a pill bug, with her hands over her face and her face pressed flat to the ground. It’s like she’s praying. Praying they’ll remember her, praying they’ll come back.
They won’t, of course.
They never do.
That’s cool. I can handle that. But who is this girl? How did she get here? Ghosts can’t move from property to property. Can they? I can’t. If she can go anywhere, why come to this God-forsaken house in the middle of nowhere?
Is she going to stay?
The girl walks past me, toward the front porch. Her chin is up, her shoulders back. She looks almost snobby, except that her bottom lip trembles. I glide beside her. She’s wearing a purple checkered dress with short puffed sleeves and three large buttons down the front. She ought to have a picnic basket to complete the look.
Maybe she’s from a different era. An ancient ghost. But she looks so much like Charlotte, right down to the freckles, it’s eerie. The only difference is the eyes. The ghost girl’s eyes aren’t gray. They’re purple.
Not dark blue. Not violet.
Bright, artificial purple.
Like grape Jell-O, which, incidentally, I’d forgotten about until this very moment. My mother used to make it for dessert. I see her hands cutting squares in the pan. It wasn’t always grape. Sometimes, it was lime or lemon or cherry. I used to eat it all the time, until one day, I grew sick of it.
Memories.
They strike when you least expect it.
“What are you doing?”
The ghost girl gazes at me with her creepy purple eyes. Her head is tilted to the right, causing one braid to coil over her shoulder and another to slide down her neck.
I shake myself. “Uh…”
“Stop following me,” she says. “And don’t stare.”
“I can’t help it,” I say. “Your eyes are so… Are you wearing contacts?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“That can’t be your real color. How did you--?”
“Go away!” she hisses.
Where does she expect me to go?
“I can’t leave--” I begin when I hear a noise from the truck.
Charlotte and Dr. Lerner hoist out a bluish antique cabinet and lug it up the driveway. Charlotte leads the way, the woman coming up from the rear. Even though she’s sweating and her make-up is melting, the therapist seems to have an easier time carrying the case. Charlotte’s arms shake, and she can barely hold the cabinet up to her waist. She’s marching backwards, twisting her neck to look at the house.
I’m right in her path.
Part of me hopes she’ll walk through me and gasp in shock as my soul touches hers. But I know better. I can’t possess humans. I’ve tried, but they emit a forcefield that pushes me away. With Charlotte it feels like compressed air. I dance around her body, trying to make eye contact.
Please notice me.
Panting, Charlotte drops her end of the display case on the step. “Let’s rest for a second.”
So much for that idea.
I stand in the middle of the cabinet, bisecting it. Inanimate objects don’t bother me. They feel solid for a quarter of a second, and then they feel like nothing.
“Shall we put it in the living room?” the therapist asks.
“I don’t have the house keys. We’ll set it on the balcony.”
“The balcony?”
“The back end of the porch. We called it the balcony.” Charlotte’s voice lowers. “We used to play there when we were kids. She’ll like it.”
Charlotte looks directly at the purple-eyed girl.
“She can see you?” I yell.
The therapist heaves up the display case. I jump out of the way. The woman’s spirit crackles, and I have no desire to get zapped. The two struggle up the stairs, and I float over to the purple-eyed girl.
“How can Charlotte see you and not me?” I demand.
She brushes past me and stomps up the steps. It takes me a second to realize I’m being ignored. Deliberately.
I stand in amazement. Charlotte can’t see me, but she can see the purple-eyed ghost. The purple-eyed ghost can see me, but she won’t help. That doesn’t mean she can’t be of help. She said something about spending her last day with Charlotte. That means she’s going to cross over soon.
Do ghosts know when they’re going to cross over?
Can they plan for it?
Focus!
She’s going to cross over, which means I can see exactly how it’s done and perhaps glean what it is I’ve been doing wrong. Or, if I’m lucky and stand real close, I can hijack some of her mystical energy and beam up alongside her.
I fly through the house and pop up on the other side of the porch. My presence startles the purple-eyed girl. She jumps, and her face goes thunderous: her eyes squint, her nose wrinkles, and her lips tighten into a knot. Then she tosses her braids and turns her back to me.
Charlotte and Dr. Lerner prop the display case against the house.
“So much trash.” The therapist kicks a dirty candy wrapper. “I have a broom in my car.”
“I’m going to get my box,” Charlotte says.
They head back.
The ghost girl stays. She leans over the balcony.
It’s a spectacular view. The house is built on a steep hill. The back porch, or balcony, juts over the incline, so that you can see the branches of the pines. It’s like being in a treehouse. As the land plummets, the trees follow, going down the dirt slope until they hit pond, the lowest point of the property. Then the land climbs again, to the orchard and the barbed wire fence.
I wonder if the purple-eyed ghost has seen this view before. Maybe that’s why she came back; this is her childhood home. Except, I don’t remember her. Granted, my memory is full of holes, but I recognized Charlotte. Why not this girl?
“…filled it with things that remind me of her.” Charlotte comes round the corner with a large shoebox under her arm. “Should I wait for you, or…?”
“No, why don’t you begin arranging them,” the shrink says. “I’ll just tidy up.”
Dr. Lerner grips a broom that’s lost its handle. She proceeds to wreak havoc on the pine needles, candy wrappers, and plastic bags that have accumulated on the porch. Her sweeps of fury send spiders fleeing for their lives.
Charlotte rummages through the shoebox. “Let’s see….”
I turn my attention to the display case. It’s a rectangular box with an arched glass door, about five feet tall. The pale blue paint is streaky, allowing the natural wood color to seep through. There are two shelves. Charlotte places two frames on the upper shelf, then crouches down to arrange knick-knacks on the narrow space of the bottom shelf.
I study the pictures.
The girl in the graduation gown is definitely Charlotte, but her hair is black. So are her lips, nails, and eyebrows. If not for the yellow tassel on her cap, I’d have seriously thought this was a black-and-white photograph. Charlotte is not smiling in the picture. She looks miserable.
The silver frame shows an ink sketch of a girl’s face. I’m pretty sure this is the ghost girl, because of the purple eyes, the only color in the picture. It’s very arty. Like a high school assignment. There’s a grade in the corner. “A-.” The title of the work sits on the bottom of the page, and though, the frame cuts it in half, I can still make out the word: Jenny.
“Jenny.” I swivel around. “Is that your name?”
The purple-eyed ghost walks over to Charlotte. Jenny--I’m going to call her Jenny--continues to act like I don’t exist, even though I’m hovering inches from her face.
Charlotte lifts a ragdoll out of the box.
“You remember this?” she whispers.
“I do,” Jenny says.
Charlotte looks at it a moment more. “It belongs with you.”
The doll is ugly. The white cloth of its face is stained a cat-pee yellow. With its purple button eyes, brown yarn braids, and mouth made of stitches, it reminds me of a voodoo doll. Charlotte tries to stand the ragdoll against the silver frame, but as soon she lifts her hand away, the doll topples. She tries twice more to no avail. Charlotte sweeps the knick-knacks off the bottom shelf and lies the doll flat on its back. She arranges the paper flowers on top.
It’s like a corpse at a wake.
And maybe that’s the point. Maybe a spirit can only cross over once it’s had a proper send-off. Did I have a funeral? Was I buried? Is that why my soul is trapped in limbo?
“All done.” Dr. Lerner shoves the last of the trash through the rails and dusts off her hands. “Let’s see what you put together.”
That’s another thing. Why bring a therapist to a funeral? Why not a reverend or a priest or even a psychic? Someone who can talk to spirits, perhaps.
Dr. Lerner examines the display case. “It’s lovely.”
“Lovely,” Jenny echoes.
“Did you make those paper flowers yourself?”
“Yes. Out of old journal entries.” Charlotte stares at the blossoms. “I was going to burn them, but I thought, why not make them into something beautiful? Something for her. So I painted them and cut them into flowers.”
Jenny reaches to touch a petal but draws back as the therapist steps closer to Charlotte.
“I know she meant a lot to you,” Dr. Lerner says. “It’s okay to mourn.”
Charlotte clutches the shoebox to her chest. The therapist puts an arm around her in a sideways hug. Jenny stands behind them, looking like a lost third wheel.
The look on her face is so… how can I describe it? Her eyes crinkle and her lips pull into a thin line, but it’s more than that. It’s this… this yearning to belong… this wanting…. It shines from her face like a flashlight, it makes every feature brighter, like dew on a flower. She is vivid in her sadness. And I wonder, how long has it been since I wanted… anything?
The therapist pulls away, and Charlotte puts down her shoebox. She rummages through it and pulls out a paper.
“I wrote a few words. A goodbye.” Charlotte pauses. “But first I should probably light the candle.”
She sets a candle on the upper shelf and lights it. I half expect it to smell like grape juice or lavender--but no, it’s lemon. Charlotte opens the paper.
“Jenny,” she reads. “You were my sister.” Her bottom lip trembles. “The best sister I could have hoped for. While you were with me, you changed my life. You comforted me when I was sad. You were a beacon of hope in the dark times. You were my only friend. I wouldn’t be where I am, if not for you. So thank you. I wish you were alive, alive and real, but you aren’t, and I can’t change that. So I have to let you go.”
I’m not sure what a eulogy is supposed to sound like, but this isn’t it. Aren’t you supposed to, you know, talk about the dead person? Their interests, their dreams, their stories--stuff like that?
Charlotte clears her throat. “I know this is corny, but I found a poem by Emily Dickinson, and I want to read it.”
She takes a deep breath.
“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers--
“That perches in the soul--
“And sings the tune without the words--
“And never stops--at all.”
Jenny does seem rather bird-like right now. She leans forward, hands clasped under her chin, elbows sticking out like wings. She looks an angel preparing to ascend. I prepare to pounce at the first sound of trumpets.
“I’ve heard it in the chillest land--
“And on the strangest Sea--
“Yet--never--in Extremity
“It asked a crumb of me.”
Charlotte folds the paper in half. “That’s what you are to me, Jenny. Farewell.”
Nothing happens.
Jenny stands there, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Her spirit is still here, still as visibly translucent as ever. What went wrong?
“That was beautiful.” Dr. Lerner claps.
Charlotte continues to fold the paper, over and over, until it’s no bigger than a cigarette butt. She sticks it in an old perfume bottle, puts the bottle on the top shelf, and blows out the candle. Smoke curls off the burnt wick as she closes the glass door.
“How do you feel?” the therapist asks.
“Guilty,” Charlotte says.
“You did the right thing. The healthy thing.”
“I know.”
“Do you still see her?”
Charlotte cranes her neck. “No.”
Liar. She’s staring right at her! I can see them making eye contact.
Charlotte turns back to her therapist. “Dr. Lerner, can I have a moment alone?”
“Of course.”
The therapist leaves. Charlotte wanders casually over to the balcony. Jenny follows. Charlotte puts her arms on the railing. Jenny does the same. They both lean, side by side, and I want to scream, “What the hell is going on?” But I don’t. I have a feeling that if I interrupt this moment, Jenny will kill me for sure.
Which wouldn’t matter, except…
Well, if she isn’t crossing over…
…maybe she’s staying?
“That was nice,” Jenny says, after a moment.
“Thanks,” Charlotte replies.
“I liked the poem.”
“I thought you would.”
“I did. If--if you ever need me--”
“I won’t.”
“But if you do--”
“Jenny.” Charlotte shakes her head. “You know I can’t get better while you’re around.”
Jenny’s head falls. Her body goes as limp as a scarecrow on a post.
“You can’t stay,” Charlotte says.
“I know,” Jenny whispers in a hoarse voice.
“Goodbye.”
Abruptly, Charlotte turns and walks away. Her head is high, and her strides are brisk as she rounds the corner and disappears from view.
Jenny covers her mouth with both hands. Her forehead wrinkles, and tears spill from her eyes. She looks so real. So real and broken. Her back is hunched, her knees squeezed together, and she’s pitched forward, about to collapse. But she doesn’t. She’s frozen, like a porcelain figure on someone’s bathroom shelf.
Engines rumble.
They’re leaving.
My slim, hopeless chance.
If I really wanted, if I really cared, I would run toward the cars, screaming at the top of my metaphorical lungs. I would throw myself on the hood, pound my fists against the car horn, slam my soul into theirs, and do whatever it takes to get their attention.
But I don’t.
Because I don’t want. Not anymore.
Jenny utters a sob. This sound seems to tip the balance, and she falls. She rolls into herself like a pill bug, with her hands over her face and her face pressed flat to the ground. It’s like she’s praying. Praying they’ll remember her, praying they’ll come back.
They won’t, of course.
They never do.
