MoonRise
Page 23
Chapter 22
At the end of another frustrating day I opened up the newspaper. Yes, Knightsbridge still had one in real print, delivered by real paperboys on real bicycles, in the afternoon. I was taking my life in my hands being the first to see it, because Elle liked to sit down to dinner and be the first, but I figured I could roll it up again and put the rubber band around it with no one the wiser.
I wish I hadn’t.
The Gazette offered up a one-two punch with an article about Jeanetta Macdonald’s Animal Rights Commission and their ties to the local animal shelter. Below the byline was a picture of a miniature Schnauzer and although I tried to keep it from my sister, the sixth sense she had didn’t let me get that far before she questioned me about what I was hiding behind my back.
Reluctantly, I showed her. “It’s not Spanky,” I said. “It just looks like him. Will and I already went over to look.”
“They’re rubbing it in our faces, Ash! What the hell are we going to do?” She looked at me with puffy accusing eyes.
“Something I should have done long ago,” I told her, and grabbed the keys to the pickup I’d borrowed. Will hadn’t shown up from work yet, so I didn’t have to fend him off. I wasn’t going to drag him up for a supernatural rendezvous; at least, not yet.
I headed up the Canyon as night fell and a sliver of the new moon showed above. Fortunately I didn’t have to worry about being dragged into a change. Lovers’ Leap looked just like I left it ten years ago.
Shane Macdonald was still waiting.
“Hello Ash.” His ghostly form took solidity as he leaned against the rock, crossing his arms.
“Hey Shane. Been waiting long?” I asked, and then grimaced. What was I thinking? I still wasn’t used to this “I see dead people” thing and though I saw ghosts from time to time, I never investigated, never talked to them.
Until now.
Shane laughed sadly. “Seven years too long. Or is it eight? I’m kinda losing track.”
“It’s been ten. You’re my second, you know,” I told him.
“Second what?”
“Second real ghost I’ve talked to. But the other one is Mom, so I guess you’re my first non-family haunting.”
“How did you know I would be here?” he asked.
“I…I just knew. I’ve always known you were waiting, not at peace,” I said. “If it’s any consolation, I’m really sorry I chickened out of coming up here before. Oh, and that I killed you.”
“Oh that…no biggie,” he said. “So, Ash. Now that you’re here, we really need to talk.”
“I know why I need to talk to you, Shane. To, pardon the pun, lay some ghosts to rest. Why do you need to talk to me?”
“Same reason, except the ghost is me.”
“Same reason?”
“Yeah. You need to forgive yourself, Ashlee.”
“I know that!” I pounded the heels of my hands lightly against my head. “In my brain I know that, but in my heart…a hell of a lot easier said than done.”
“At least you’re facing up to the problem now, instead of running away.”
“Yeah. I am, amen’t I?”
“Amen’t isn’t a word, Ash,” Shane said with a flash of that smile.
“It is now. I write for a living, so I should know.”
“You run away for a living, Ash. You write for a paycheck.”
“Yee-ouch. And how do you know all these things? Have you been haunting me?”
Shane smiled. “Now and again. When you do something near enough to here. The farther away, the harder it is to go there.”
“That makes sense. Maybe I should become a ghost writer. Interview the spirits.”
“Funny. That’s what I always liked about you, you know. Your sense of humor. Too bad your sister is losing hers.”
I sighed and ran my fingers through my irritatingly short hair. “It’s not her fault. Like Mom said, she feels responsible for everything, and she hasn’t run. I ran, and now that I’ve come back, I kinda know what that’s like. Feeling responsible, I mean.”
“Like for my death. But you weren’t responsible. It was your first change. How could you know?” Shane put his ghostly arms around me and I could almost feel them.
“If not me, then who?”
“Nobody, maybe. Sometimes in life shit just happens.”
I grunted. “Tell that to your sister.”
“I’ve tried. She won’t let it go. Jeanetta hates me, she hates you and she hates herself. In fact, she hates everything around her. I can’t even get near her anymore, there’s so much black energy coming off her. I don’t know what she’s gotten herself into but it’s not good.”
I turned around and Shane’s arms blew away into wispy mist before reforming where they were supposed to. “What about Spanky?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Elle and Amber’s dog.”
“Oh. I have no idea.”
“Dammit!” I rubbed my arms as the wind started to pick up across the plateau. “Can you find out?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Not really.”
“Why not?” I snapped, then realized how selfish that sounded. “I mean, I would really appreciate it if you could.”
“Because I’m at peace now, Ash. I’m leaving tonight.”
“What? You can’t be! What about me forgiving myself and all that?”
“You’re on your way, Ash, and the other side is calling me. I have to face up to my own ghosts and their judgment now.”
My mind whirled, and I wanted to ask him a thousand questions about everything ghosts knew – the afterlife, and souls, and God and stuff like that – but it was too late. Shane had already started to fade. His fingertips brushed my cheek, and this time I did feel them as tears flowed down my face.
“Goodbye, Shane. Forgive me.”
“I did. I do,” were the last words I heard from him.
Now there’s irony for you.