“It’s nice,” says Shelly, because she’s not sure what else to say. “Big.”
Estelle preens. “It’s perfect. Exactly what I wanted.”
Shelly remembers when Estelle told Grandma she wouldn’t leave until she saw her angel. “What are you going to do now?”
Estelle pauses. Her face is turned toward the statue. “I don’t know,” she says. “This was all I wanted. To make sure they did right by me. Set it up proper. There’s no telling with kids these days.”
The angel is at least twice as tall as Shelly. “I don’t think kids set up your headstone.”
Estelle snorts. “You’re all kids to me.” She reaches up to pat the banner in the angel’s hands. “I guess this is the end of the line. Time to go.”
Shelly should let Estelle go wherever the dead do when they move on. She should give Estelle the final nudge she needs to go into the unknown.
That’s what Shelly should do. Joseph said he didn’t want to see Shelly fade away. Shelly’s not sure she wants to make Estelle fade yet, either. Who knows what’s waiting for her on the other side.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” she says, reaching back to free her hair from her ponytail. “You could come with me instead.”
Estelle turns away from her statue, looking Shelly over. Grandma never explicitly told Shelly not to invite a ghost to stay past their time, but it’s such a breach of usual practice that Shelly knows she’s not supposed to make the offer. It’s obviously against the rules.
Estelle doesn’t know the rules, though, and Shelly gets the impression she wouldn’t care much about them if she did. “Why not?” she says. “I’m dead. It’s not like I’ve got a lot going on.”
13
Shelly carries Estelle back to the house tangled up in her hair. Having Estelle with her for the walk makes it less scary—the cold weight of another person’s soul traveling with her the whole way home is comforting, even if Estelle doesn’t talk too much. Ghosts tend to be disoriented when you move them from a place they’ve gotten used to. Estelle had been in the cemetery long enough to settle in.
The house is still dark when they get home. Shelly slides her key into the lock and opens the door slowly, trying not to make too much noise. Grandma stays asleep through Shelly locking the door, taking off her shoes and coat, and sneaking back down the hallway to her bedroom.
Shelly brushes Estelle out of her hair and looks at the new spirit haunting her room. “You can’t let my grandma know you’re here,” she says. “If she finds out, she’ll make you move on.”
“When I move on, I’m going to be with the angels. I’m not afraid,” Estelle says, peering around Shelly’s room. She talks a big game, but Shelly’s pretty sure she’s nervous about crossing over. Why wouldn’t she be? Nobody knows what’s on the other side. Not Grandma or Shelly or even Joseph, who’s been dead for a while now.
“Well, until you’re ready, you should keep quiet,” Shelly says. “Grandma will make you leave right away.”
“I can keep quiet, kid,” Estelle promises. “I know how to keep a secret. Shouldn’t you be sleeping? Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
It is. It’s almost two in the morning and Shelly’s tired from running around in the dark and bringing Estelle home, but she feels like she should be a good host. “I don’t have to sleep if you want company,” she says. “I can show you around the house for when you’re here by yourself.”
“It’s a small house,” says Estelle. “I think I can figure it out. Sleep, kid. You look exhausted. You look like me two weeks before I dropped dead, and trust me—I was tired.”
Shelly does feel dead on her feet. “Are you sure?”
Estelle shrugs. “I’ve got nothing but time. You on the other hand still need to get through the business of living. Enjoy it. Being dead isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a lot like being alive, except when you’re dead and people ignore you, you know it’s not just because they’re rude.”
Shelly laughs and climbs into bed. “Lots of people wish they could see ghosts,” she says. “They’d pay attention to you if they could.”
“Oh, I’m sure they think they would. If they could see me, I’d be old hat in a week. TV made me think being a ghost was more exciting than this.”
“TV gets most things about ghosts wrong,” says Shelly. “Trust me, you’d like it less if they were right.”
Joseph didn’t go along with her plan the way she thought he would—but things are still working out. Having Estelle in her room is nice. It’s not her mother’s ghost, but it’s company. It’s practice for when Shelly does find her mom and brings her home for good.
• • •
Shelly and Grandma eat cereal together in the morning and Grandma gives no hint of knowing that Shelly went out or that she brought a ghost back with her. Shelly feels like evidence of Estelle is written all over her face—like Grandma should take one look at her and just know.
But Grandma is distracted, poring over a list of jobs written on the back of a receipt. “I should get a planner,” she says. “Your mother was good at keeping track of her shifts. I think I’ve got a job at two, but I should still be home before school ends.”
Shelly prods soggy cornflakes with her spoon and tries not to think about Grandma and Estelle home alone together. “If you wait, I can go with you after school.”
Grandma looks up from her scribbled notes. Shelly can see the refusal in her eyes before Grandma even opens her mouth.
“You’re the one who told me I needed to know how to look after the dead,” Shelly says, before Grandma can speak.
“And you do,” says Grandma. “But you need to know how to look after yourself, too.”
Shelly knows how to look after herself just fine.
“I’m done,” she says, pushing her cereal bowl away and standing up. “I’m going to finish getting ready.”
Grandma calls after her when she leaves, but Shelly ignores her. She goes to her room and shuts the door firmly, leaning back against it.
“Have you got any crossword puzzles?” Estelle asks, adjusting the belt on her fuzzy bathrobe. “Or the TV Guide? You’ve got to have something to do around here that isn’t sitting and staring at the animals you’ve got plastered on the walls. I’m bored and the only books you’ve got are for kids.”
“I’m a kid,” Shelly says, though she hasn’t felt like one lately and hasn’t wanted to read much either.
Estelle waves a hand like she thinks Shelly’s age shouldn’t affect the reading material available to her. “I need something to do,” she says. “I thought this would be more interesting than the cemetery, but it’s more of the same—nothing to do.”
“I’m stuck here, too,” says Shelly. “Grandma won’t let me go ghost hunting anymore.”
“Smart lady, your grandma.” Estelle’s smile has a mean edge to it. “If I were her, I wouldn’t want my granddaughter wandering around with ghosts either. I’d want her to have real, human friends. Ones with beating hearts and warm blood who wouldn’t give her nightmares.”
“I’m not scared of ghosts,” Shelly says firmly. “What’s to be scared of? All you are is dead.”
“As a doornail,” Estelle agrees. “It’s boring as all get-out on this side of things. Come on, kid. Find me a crossword. Just a couple of puzzles to keep me entertained. I’m going to be here all day with nothing to do otherwise.”
“I’ll bring you something later.” Shelly picks up her backpack. “You need to stay in here. My grandma’s going to be home and if she sees you, she’ll try to convince you to move on to the other side.”
“I’ll stay hidden and keep quiet,” Estelle promises. “You just make sure you bring me something to entertain myself with tomorrow.”
You’re not supposed to take ghosts from graveyards. You’re not supposed to keep them around when i
t’s time for them to move on. Estelle should be fading away, except Shelly’s clinging to her now. Shelly’s keeping her locked away, haunting her bedroom. But Grandma—with her fees and her ban on Shelly going with her to learn more about their work—is also breaking rules. So if the rules don’t apply to Grandma anymore, why should Shelly follow them?
Ghosts are just part of life. They don’t scare Shelly, but what comes after ghosts is different. She doesn’t know what comes next—she doesn’t know where Estelle would go if Shelly helped her on her way. For all Grandma’s an expert at ghosts, even she can’t say what’s waiting on the other side.
Being a ghost is better than leaving everything you know behind. Estelle being bored in Shelly’s room is better than Estelle not being at all. Shelly’s just doing what Grandma always said they’re supposed to do—she’s helping.
14
The cat happens because Shelly sees it on her way home from school. It reminds her of the mice that haunted Mrs. Potts’s house. It’s a wispy thing—more the suggestion of a cat than anything else—but when Shelly approaches it, holding out her hand and clucking her tongue, it meows and lets her pet it. Touching its fur feels like running her hands over a snow bank, prickly and cold against her palm. Shelly can’t help the shiver that runs through her, but the cat is happy to be noticed and even happier to be petted.
Shelly’s mom always said no when Shelly asked for a pet before. If she still feels the same about pets now that she’s dead, she can put her foot down when Shelly finds her and brings her home.
Shelly unbraids her hair and bundles the ghost into it, winding the cat up in the long strands and tucking it away inside her shirt. Maybe Grandma won’t notice she’s bringing a ghost—another ghost—into the house.
Grandma is in the kitchen, frying fish at the stove, when Shelly arrives. “I’m home,” Shelly says, not stopping as she heads to her room. “I have some homework.”
“Dinner will be done soon,” says Grandma, flipping fish in the pan. It’s early, but Grandma likes to eat early. “Fried fish with rice and peas—No Frills had a special on. Wash up and come eat, and then do your homework.”
“Okay!” Shelly calls back, wondering if ghost cats would hunt ghost fish.
She pushes open her bedroom door and makes sure it’s shut tight before reaching for the comb on her dresser so she can free the cat from her hair. It lands on the carpet just as Estelle pokes her head out of the closet.
“What’s that?” Estelle asks. “A cat?”
Shelly raises a finger to her lips. “We can’t talk too loud,” she says. “Grandma might hear. I thought you could use some company. It’s cute, isn’t it?”
Estelle and the cat eye each other with equal wariness.
“A cat’s not exactly a crossword puzzle,” Estelle says, as the cat begins to circle the room, investigating. “A cat’s a responsibility.”
“It’s a ghost cat,” says Shelly. “It can’t die a second time.”
Estelle lets out a throaty cackle of a laugh that startles both Shelly and the cat. “You’re right. There are worse starter pets to have. I’m not going to take care of this thing on my own, though. I’m not a cat person. I like dogs.”
Shelly reaches down to pet the cat and it meows at her. It sounds like it’s meowing from the other end of a long hallway. Shelly smiles at the cat and its edges blur even further as it starts to purr, its whole being vibrating.
“Okay,” Shelly says, an idea forming in the back of her mind as the cat crawls onto her lap. “That’s fine. I like dogs, too.”
“Shelly!” Grandma calls from the kitchen. “Dinner!”
Shelly leaves Estelle and the cat. She can tell she was just playing with a ghost. The chill that follows the dead lingers on her skin.
Grandma looks up from plating the fish and frowns. Shelly freezes. Grandma’s more sensitive than she is, even if she missed Shelly bringing Estelle home. “Shelly,” she says. “You’ve been around ghosts.”
Shelly could lie and try to turn this back on her grandma, who has cobwebs in her gray hair and looks tired, the same way Shelly’s mom used to when she came home and made dinner after working all day. She could say Grandma’s just confused. Bending the truth seems more practical.
“I went to the graveyard,” she says. “I talked to Joseph.”
Grandma gives her a sad look, setting her skillet back down on the stove. “Shelly, I’d like to see her, too, but your mother isn’t—”
“I just went to see Joseph!” Shelly insists. “I like him.”
Grandma pulls out her chair and takes a seat. The kitchen table always feels empty now. “I’m sure Joseph likes you, too, but Shelly, the graveyard is a long way away. You need to tell me where you’re going. You have to ask if you’re going that far on your own.”
Shelly looks away. She doesn’t like lying and she doesn’t like going behind Grandma’s back, but she’s on a mission. “Sorry,” she says. “I’ll ask next time.”
“Maybe next time we can go together,” Grandma offers. “I’m sure Joseph enjoyed your visit. He likes company. Do you want to hear about the job I did today?”
Shelly doesn’t, but she nods because maybe it’ll distract Grandma until the ghost fades from Shelly’s skin, and Grandma tells her about the old house that needed to be cleared of all sorts of small ghosts, rats and mice and spiders.
“The family was very grateful,” she says. “They tried to tip, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept that. I didn’t tell them what was haunting them. They didn’t seem like spider people.” Grandma laughs. “Their dog kept barking at the rats. They were certain it was the ghost of some kind of axe murderer come to get them in their sleep.”
Normally Shelly would laugh, too, but she hasn’t felt as much like laughing lately. Especially since Grandma’s even keeping her away from normal jobs now, things she wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing Shelly along to before her mom died. It’s not like there are that many axe murderers out there, but everyone always thinks that’s what they’re being haunted by—axe murderers or their victims. Nobody wants to admit that death is something that eventually happens to everyone. Shelly understands that better now than she did before. The idea that her mom could be trapped somewhere else, with people who think she’s scary, who misunderstand her the way everyone always misunderstands ghosts, hurts so much she can hardly swallow the rest of her fish.
• • •
The cat was unintentional, but Shelly goes looking for the dog. Estelle needs something to do during the day—some company—and the dog can be a friend for the cat, too. Shelly takes a winding route home from school each day, scanning the sidewalks and the streets, and on the fourth day she finds it.
The dog is big, but its bark is like the cat’s meow—it sounds like an echo coming from far away. It’s friendly. Shelly winds her hair around its neck like a leash and walks it back to the house. The dog is harder to smuggle inside. Shelly crosses her fingers and opens the door as quietly as possible. The smell of roasting meat hits her right away. The dog sniffs the air curiously, tail wagging.
Grandma isn’t in the kitchen, though—Mrs. Potts is. She turns and smiles at Shelly. “Your grandma asked me to come over and cook dinner,” she says. “Jenny asked her to take a look at a case. We’ll all have dinner together. Pot roast should be done in a couple hours. How was school, dear?”
Shelly is grateful Grandma’s not home but mad, too—mad Grandma didn’t tell her, mad she’s been left out again.
“It was fine,” she says, keeping a firm hold of the dog. With Mrs. Potts standing right there she can’t exactly tell the dog he can’t eat anymore.
It licks her cheek, its tongue icy on her skin like getting hit with a splash of cold water. Shelly has to grit her teeth to keep from reacting so Mrs. Potts doesn’t think something strange is going on.
“How long until Gr
andma’s home?”
“Not long,” says Mrs. Potts. “Would you like me to—”
“Homework!” Shelly says, and heads toward her room, tugging the dog along with her.
When she gets to her room, Estelle is sitting on the bed with the cat in her lap. Shelly pulls the dog inside and shuts the door.
“A dog is still not a crossword puzzle.” Estelle lets the cat off her lap and gets to her feet so the dog can sniff her hand. “You’re going to crowd us out of your room, kid, make it hard to stay. If you’re bringing more ghosts in, could you at least bring me someone I could talk to? Someone who can hold up their end of the conversation.”
“I’ll think about it.” Shelly kicks a pile of clothes aside on the way to her bed then throws herself onto it.
The dog and the cat and even Estelle are like a test. Can Grandma tell she’s been gathering ghosts? Will she say something? If so, when? What’s the limit? Will she come and clear the dead from Shelly’s bedroom even though Shelly wants them?
Shelly feels like the fingerprints of the dead are all over her, like everyone should be able to tell, just by looking at her, that she’s different. That she’s marked by them, becoming one of them. Except if she were a ghost, Grandma would have to pay attention to her. So far, nobody’s noticed, or at least nobody cares, that she’s collecting ghosts in her room. They should. Somebody should say something. Should stop being so distracted by bills and clients and work and see her.
When Grandma and Jenny make it back home, they both look tired. Grandma smiles at Shelly and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Sorry,” Grandma says. “I feel like I’ve been drowning in the dead.”
Shelly gives Grandma her best smile and then she lies to her face. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
15
The next day goes by slowly. Shelly is more focused on the ghosts slowly piling up in her bedroom and on finding her mom than on school. School is a place she has to go during the day, but she sits quietly and does her homework and ignores the way everyone ignores her.
The Ghost Collector Page 7
