Invisible Ghosts

by Robyn Schneider

  The song we were listening to ended, and some familiar bars came through the speakers.

  “Hold on,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the little cable I’d thought was a charger. “This is Hamilton. Since when do you like show tunes?”

  Jamie looked guilty.

  “Claudia maybe got me into it,” he admitted. “What? I didn’t know it was about the American Revolution! They actually rap about the constitution! I wish my History Day team had thought of that.”

  “History nerd,” I teased.

  “Theater geek,” he shot back.

  OF COURSE OUR friends were overjoyed when I joined them at lunch, sitting down on the little slope of grass and taking a bagel out of my backpack. Jamie sat next to me, and everyone stared at the two of us. For a moment, no one said anything. And then Darren pantomimed applause.

  “Next time you guys fight, Jamie’s the one who has to leave,” Sam announced, grinning.

  “I still think we all should have moved into the library,” Claudia said.

  “That close to all of those books?” Max shuddered. “I often think hell must be some kind of school library.”

  We all laughed.

  I watched as Jamie struggled to unzip his parka one-handed. He kicked off his loafers, even though it was, like, sixty degrees out, and tilted his face toward the sun.

  “Can someone tell NorCal that we actually do have seasons down here?” Sam joked.

  “‘In the depths of winter, I found within me an invincible summer,’” Jamie shot back.

  “That’s Albert Camus,” Abby said, and we all stared at her in shock. “What? I totally have that quote on my Pinterest.”

  JAMIE DROVE ME home from school that day, and when I asked if he wanted to come in, he shook his head.

  “You should spend some time with Logan,” he told me.

  I promised I would, and then I went into the living room and turned on an old episode of Doctor Who.

  Logan showed up halfway through the opening credits.

  “You’re home early,” he said.

  “Got a ride.”

  “From Jamie.” It wasn’t a question.

  I glanced over at Logan. He was upset, but trying to stay calm.

  “He’s not going away,” I said. “And I don’t want him to.”

  I needed Logan to understand. The two of us had spent so long together in our private version of Narnia. But I’d grown up, and I couldn’t stay here much longer. And that’s the part the children’s stories never tell you. They never explain that it’s okay to let go of things you once needed and find others to take their place.

  Logan sighed.

  “I get it,” he muttered. “He’s the Harry Potter to your Ginny Weasley.”

  “Wait,” I said. “How am I Ginny?”

  Logan shrugged, grinning.

  “No, you have to tell me,” I insisted. “How am I Ginny?”

  Logan just shook his head and unpaused the TV.

  We sat back and watched the episode, and he laughed at all the jokes he already knew, not because they were funny, but because they were familiar. I stayed quiet, because I kept finding far too many familiar things here, hidden in this show I’d seen a million times.

  There were memories tucked between the scenes, and I didn’t realize I’d put them there. Memories of my older brother tapping on my door on Saturday mornings, before our parents were awake. Memories of us sneaking down to the living room in our matching footy pajamas, pretending we had the house to ourselves. Of Mom bringing us waffles on plastic plates. Of Dad popping his head in, pointing his teaspoon in our direction, and yelling “Exterminate!” in his terrible Dalek voice.

  I remembered wishing that we really did live in a world like the one on our screen. A world where an oddly dressed time traveler would show up in the backyard, promising adventures, and staying the same age as I grew older. That my magical companion would be there whenever I needed it, offering me a chance to escape the real world and explore somewhere wonderful.

  Except Logan wasn’t a time lord with a magical spaceship. He was a ghost, and had been for years, and as long as I hung around with him, I was stuck in my own rerun instead of having new adventures with new companions.

  Jamie was my new companion. My new adventure. It just hadn’t started yet.

  The show was almost over, but I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Hey, Logan? Can I ask you something?”

  Logan’s eyes stayed glued to the TV.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  Logan turned toward me in surprise, and I realized I’d never asked him this. Not once.

  There was a long stretch of silence.

  “Mom and Dad told us to watch out for each other,” he said. I thought he wasn’t going to say anything else, but then he added, “And then I messed it up and ruined everything.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, confused. If anything, I’d been the one to mess it up.

  “That day you ran out to the preserve,” Logan went on. “You were so upset about the play, and I should have gone after you right away. But I’d just started watching a new episode, and I didn’t want to pause it. So I waited until it was over to come find you.”

  I stared at him in surprise.

  “I thought you were waiting for me to come back on my own,” I said.

  Logan shook his head, looking ashamed of himself.

  “I was on the sofa watching TV,” he admitted. “And then I realized Mom and Dad would kill me if anything happened to you, so I ran out there to make sure you were okay. And I was too lazy to go upstairs and grab my EpiPen, even though Rule Number One of having a life-threatening allergy is Always Remember Your EpiPen. So.”

  Logan shrugged, leaning back on the sofa, despite the presence of a particularly spiky throw pillow. I sat there processing what he’d just said, because it was so different from how I remembered that day.

  “But I said you had no friends,” I sputtered. “I was an unforgivable brat.”

  “You were twelve,” Logan reminded me. “I was fifteen. That’s old enough not to lose it over a stupid insult. And old enough to remember a fucking EpiPen.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, realizing Logan was right. I’d always blamed myself for how he’d died. But he was the one who’d gone out into the preserve without his meds. He hadn’t died of a beesting; he’d died because he’d forgotten to bring the antidote. And that wasn’t even a little bit my fault.

  When I opened my eyes, Logan was peering at me, looking concerned.

  “Rose, say something,” he said.

  “You’re such a dumbass,” I told him.

  “And you’re such a bummer,” Logan shot back. “‘Woe is me, the mean theater lady wouldn’t cast me in the play, now I can never act again.’”

  “Shut up!” I said, threatening him with a throw pillow.

  I meant it as a joke, but Logan’s eyes went dark, and his face contorted, and the coffee table flipped onto its side.

  Logan stared at it, horrified, his eyes returning to normal.

  “I keep losing control,” he said, his voice small. “I don’t know why.”

  “It’s because I grew up,” I said. “I’m sure of it. You can’t keep being a big brother if I’m the older sibling.”

  “This mess started when Jamie turned up,” Logan accused.

  “No, it didn’t,” I pointed out. “That’s a spurious correlation.”

  “A what?”

  “Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not important.”

  I fixed the coffee table while Logan hovered, embarrassed.

  “Are you guys going to exorcise me?” Logan blurted.

  I bit my lip, hating that he’d guessed.

  “Only if you want us to,” I promised.

  “You’re going away to college, aren’t you?” Logan mumbled, half to himself.

  “That’s the plan,” I said. “Oh, and I’m trying ou
t for the play next semester. Plus a bunch of us might take that SAT course Max did at the university.”

  “So we’re running out of time,” Logan said. “Either I go, or you leave me behind.”

  I nodded, facing the truth of it head-on. I owed Logan at least that much.

  “I think it’s better if I go,” he said.

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

  “Okay,” I said. “We can do that.”

  “We should do it soon,” Logan said. “Before I go all Hulk on you again. Because it might not be the coffee table next time.”

  “It’s a deal,” I promised.

  “There’s just one thing,” Logan said, his voice small. “I want to see Mom and Dad one last time.”

  I DON’T KNOW how Logan managed to do it, but he stuck around all afternoon, until our parents got home from work. Dad had picked up Chinese food again and was stubbornly trying to make Mom use chopsticks.

  “Not this again,” I groaned, shaking my head.

  Logan hovered near the stove, watching. I expected him to pipe up with some comment, distracting me, but he stayed out of it. I glanced over at him a few times, expecting an eye roll or a snarky comment, but he pretended not to notice.

  “Roger,” Mom said, laughing, “you know I’m terrible with these.”

  “You just need practice,” Dad insisted, setting them on her place mat.

  Mom frowned.

  “How about this,” I bargained. “You try the chopsticks for five minutes, and then you can have a fork.”

  Everyone stared at me in surprise.

  “How did you get so clever?” Dad asked as Mom doubtfully picked up the chopsticks.

  “It’s all that TV I watch,” I said, and Logan snorted.

  We dished out the egg rolls and rice, and Mom made good on our bargain, trying to use the chopsticks. Dad and I watched, laughing, as she struggled to pick up the egg roll.

  “I heard someone came by the house this morning to give you a ride,” she said, stabbing a single chopstick through her egg roll and eating it like a skewer.

  “Dad!” I accused.

  He shrugged guiltily.

  “Only for the rest of the semester,” I said. “Since he won’t have to stay late for rehearsal. Although I was thinking maybe I could try out for the spring play.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Mom said. “I used to love seeing you in all of those plays when you were little. You and Claudia, with those adorable braids in your hair.”

  “I’m sure we have photos somewhere,” Dad said.

  “You made the cutest pirate,” Mom went on, beaming.

  “Stop, I haven’t even auditioned yet,” I said, making a face.

  But my parents were smiling at each other across the dinner table, and for once, it wasn’t because I’d lied and said what they wanted to hear. It was because I’d told them the truth.

  I glanced over at Logan’s empty chair and then at where he was hovering in the doorway, watching us. He nodded, happy. And I realized I didn’t have to be enough to fill both of our chairs. I just had to be me. And that was all anyone had ever asked for.

  30

  THAT WEEKEND, I said good-bye to Logan in his bedroom.

  It seemed right, somehow. In all the times Logan had turned up after school, sprawling onto the sofa, or across the foot of my bed, I’d never once seen him there.

  Jamie came, because I wasn’t sure I could do it alone, and because he said I shouldn’t have to.

  “You’re sure it’s okay Jamie’s here?” I asked Logan for what had to be the fifth time. Logan sighed.

  “Well I don’t want you messing it up and splinching me in half,” he shot back.

  “I’d never do that!”

  “You backed Dad’s car into a pole,” he pointed out.

  “One time!” I insisted. “It was the one time! And there’s a super-creepy ghost in that parking lot!”

  Jamie coughed, looking guilty.

  “You didn’t!” I accused.

  “He wanted to move on,” Jamie said. “And besides, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to pick up groceries.”

  “Oh my god, I hate you guys.” Logan sulked. “How can you talk about Trader Joe’s at a time like this?”

  “You started it,” I pointed out. “And besides, we can always do this tomorrow.”

  “No way,” Logan said. “Tomorrow’s a full moon!”

  He looked so horrified that I couldn’t help it—I started laughing.

  “You don’t honestly still believe in that stuff?” I asked. “You’re dead.”

  “Exactly! That’s gotta be bad luck!” Logan said.

  “He has a point,” Jamie said, adjusting his sling. “Everyone ready?”

  Logan stood very still, squeezing his eyes shut, like we were about to inject him with an EpiPen.

  “I’m afraid it’s going to hurt,” he said, his voice small.

  “Nothing’s even going to touch you,” I said.

  “Not the exorcising part,” Logan explained. “The saying good-bye.”

  “I’ll give you a minute,” Jamie said, closing the door behind him.

  Logan opened his eyes and grinned, dropping the act.

  “You did that on purpose,” I accused.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “But now we get some alone time, so I can impart my great wisdom.”

  I snorted.

  “You’re fifteen,” I said. “How much wisdom can you possibly have?”

  “Depends. How many Buffy quotes do you have time for?”

  “One,” I said firmly. “So choose wisely.”

  Logan nodded, taking a moment to think.

  “Got it,” he said. “‘The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me.’”

  “That’s one of my favorites,” I said. “I’ll remember it.”

  “You better,” Logan said. “And you’ll have to remember to set a timer from now on, because I won’t be around to tell you when the cookies are done.”

  “You don’t,” I complained. “You only tell me after they’re already burning.”

  “And Rose?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take care of Mom and Dad, okay?”

  I pretty much lost it at this point.

  “I promise,” I said, feeling a tear slide down my cheek.

  “And go somewhere really great for college. Even if it’s five thousand miles away,” he insisted. “And make friends, and go to parties, and see the world.”

  I nodded.

  “And when you’re alone in your room, and no one is around, pretend I’m there and tell me about all of it.”

  “I will,” I promised, sniffling.

  “Okay, I think you can get Jamie now,” Logan said.

  I went out into the hall, and Jamie wrapped his good arm around my shoulder, and together we walked back into Logan’s room.

  Jamie opened the window, and the chatter of little kids playing in the next yard drifted in, along with a blast of cold air. Summer was long gone, and the Santa Ana winds had finally made their retreat.

  “So, Logan,” Jamie said. “Tell me about your favorite memory.”

  “That time I made you fall out of a tree.” Logan grinned, floating upward.

  “Can you please take this seriously?” I asked.

  “Jeez, okay.” Logan went quiet a moment, thinking. “Um, I guess it’s when I was twelve, and Rose was eight. It was Christmas break, and we woke up early one morning to watch the Doctor Who special. And Rose complained that it never snows here, so we covered the entire living room with powdered sugar to pretend that it had.”

  I’d completely forgotten about that. But it all came rushing back to me. The way Logan had yanked the blankets off my bed because he knew it was the only way I’d get up while it was still dark outside. How he’d stubbed his toe as we ran down the stairs. His terrible bedhead. The embarrassing decorations Mom used to put up, paper dreidels I’d scribbled on in preschool,
the menorah made out of Logan’s tiny handprints.

  “Logan, keep going,” Jamie said. “This is great.”

  “Okay,” Logan said, “um, we made snow angels on the carpet. Mom came down to see what was going on and had a fit about the mess. There was sugar in our hair for days, and one of those guys had to come out with a giant carpet vacuum. He asked what had happened, and when Rose told him we made it snow sugar, he laughed like he was crying.”

  I closed my eyes, listening to Logan tell the story. And when I opened them again, Jamie and I were watching from a distance as the three of us stood in Logan’s old bedroom.

  “Count of three, we’re in the living room on Christmas morning,” Jamie whispered.

  I counted down, and suddenly everything shifted. There I was, watching a tiny me and a tiny Logan making snow angels in our matching pajamas.

  I watched as we reached into the bag, throwing handfuls of sugar into the air. Logan picked me up and swung me around, laughing. I was so much smaller than him. So much younger. His hair was dusted with white powder, and the rubber bands in his braces were neon blue, and he was so vividly alive.

  Logan was stuck more tightly to this place than I could have imagined. There were so many layers, so many years of things that bonded him here, to this house, this room. And to me.

  I hadn’t realized how tightly he was bonded to me.

  I could feel the places where some of the bonds had come loose, where I had begun to sever our connection. I just hadn’t done it all the way. I’d been afraid Jamie was the reason I hadn’t been able to see Logan sometimes, but he wasn’t.

  It was so many things: My first kiss. Falling in love. Experiencing the pain of a broken heart. I’d grown up. I’d become someone who didn’t need to be looked out for, because I could look out for myself.

  Gradually, Logan began to come unstuck. And I felt myself coming unstuck as well.

  “Rose,” Jamie whispered. “Look.”

  I opened my eyes.

  Logan had become soft around the edges and was fading fast.

  “Good-bye, Rose,” he said.

  “Logan—” I choked.

  But he was gone. And all that responded was the particular emptiness of a bedroom no one has slept in for years. Only moments before, a vital part of me had been here, but Logan’s ghost had disappeared without a trace. I stared at the wall as though it might contain one last message, some final piece of my brother. But it was just paint and sunlight and emptiness.