TAKEN FROM US TOO SOON.
YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
A broken rosebud was engraved at each side of his name. Tristan passed his thin long fingers across them, a secret smile on his lips.
“Broken rosebuds symbolize lives cut short, I was told,” he said, staring at the inscription, his gaze hooded with a strange emotion. Then he turned to look at me, his eyes searching for something in mine. I’d always thought of this as Tristan’s tomb – never realising that was literally the truth.
He climbed on his tomb, moving as gracefully as always, and extended a hand to help me climb up after him. When I was safely sitting by his side, he clasped both hands on his knees and stared at the distance as he asked me, “What do you wish to know?”
“I-I don’t know if it’s all right … I mean, I know it must be hard talking about your life … before,” I began tentatively.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not hard. It was a long time ago, you won’t upset me. Ask me anything you want,” he reassured me, turning to look at me with a soft smile.
“O-okay. Well, I was wondering how … how you died?”
“I died in a car crash. The last thing I remember before I died was a car hitting me. It didn’t hurt; I didn’t feel anything, actually. Just the impact, then darkness, then nothing.”
He turned to stare at the horizon.
“The memory is very hazy, like something out of a dream,” he continued. “I do remember I was confused and very scared. I didn’t understand what was happening at the time. My vision was all blurry and everything was so dark, but I saw someone standing far away, like they were waiting for me to get there, and I had this nagging feeling, gripping me on the spot, keeping me from moving. I knew there was something really important I needed to do, that I needed to stay where I was. That’s what I did. And then I woke up here, in this cemetery. And I’ve been here ever since,” he finished calmly.
“Do you think you have something unfinished to resolve? That’s why you didn’t, erm … pass over?” I asked curiously, grasping for the right words..
“Maybe. Yeah, I think so. Maybe this is it, what happened to us now. It feels like this could be it. Maybe I was supposed to have a second chance?” he said, looking at me for answers.
“Maybe you weren’t supposed to die the way you did, or when you did,” I suggested, grappling for some reason behind all this.
“Maybe,” he agreed, looking down, deep in thought.
“Are there any others like you here? I mean, other ghosts?” His face was all the answer I needed. “You said the ghosts always told you where you could find me in here. You weren’t kidding, were you?” I asked with sudden realization.
He chuckled at my startled face. “Yeah, it was the truth. There are a few others around who couldn’t move on, like me. Everybody has a different reason for staying, though. I’m so glad I can walk past those iron gates now. You have no idea how amazing is to be able to leave this place,” he said, exhaling in relief.
“You really couldn’t leave? What happened when you tried?”
“My feet got rooted to the floor. I couldn’t move or take a step forward at the edges of the entrance. I tried for many years before I finally gave up.”
“Oh, that’s horrible. So you’ve been trapped here for, what, sixty years or so?”
“Yeah, give or take. It doesn’t feel like it, though. Time passes … differently for ghosts, you see. It’s more like blurs of moments through the years. But I won’t lie to you, most of the time it was boring as heck, pardon my language!” He barked out a laugh. “Being dead is awful. You can’t feel anything – cold, heat, hunger, pain, nothing. But you sure can feel angry, and sad, and bored, though.
“I did make a few friends along the years, you don’t need to look at me like that!” he added in haste after seeing the pitiful look plastered all over my face. “There’s old Mr. Wakefield, he’s the one who told me about the spell and that old song. And little Joanne, such a sweet kid, she passed when she was only ten years old but she’s very smart and creative. I wasn’t completely alone,” he mused, taking a quick peek at me. “But the days I’ve spent with you here have been the best of my life. Or death. I don’t know. This is all very confusing.” He scratched the back of his head, a faint pink covering his cheeks as he averted his eyes.
“What about your family? Have you seen any of them here?” I asked, trying to change the topic a little and cover up my blushing face, but I instantly regretted it when I saw his eyes brimming with so much sadness.
“My mom came for a while, always bringing fresh lilies for my grave,” he murmured quietly. “It was just me and her, we had no other family left back then. My grandparents died when I was little. She cried a lot. I hated seeing her so sad because of me. And then she stopped. I guess it was probably around the time she died. I never got the chance to say goodbye, she just stopped coming. I think maybe I would’ve got to see her again, if I had walked to that person that was waiting for me when I died. But I can never be sure now. How can I know for sure?” he asked in anguish.
“I don’t know either, Tris. I’m so sorry,” I told him, putting my hand over his and trying to pretend the little jolt of electricity did not happen as we made contact. I also tried to pretend I wasn’t noticing the flurry of tiny butterfly wings inside my stomach as I held on to his hand. “I guess that’s enough of questions for today, eh?” I proposed, trying to lighten the mood a little.
He nodded and squeezed my hand ever so softly, before raising his sterling-silver eyes to meet mine. “Thank you for helping me through this, Joe. I will never forget it,” he vowed.
“Come on, let’s get your present and get out of here!” I urged him with a smile. “There’s a whole world outside for you to see now.”
The grin that spread across his face then was worth a thousand smiles. It made my heart beat so loud, I swear he could hear it.
“All right. I’ll be right back, miss.” He jumped off the tomb and disappeared behind it in a blink of an eye.
“That night … How did you manage to hold the photo anyway?” I asked loudly, thinking about it for the first time. Could a ghost move stuff around?
He chuckled from somewhere behind the headstone. “It wasn’t an easy feat, I tell you! It took me all night and part of the morning to do it. The stone you put it on was a grievance. But ghosts have a sort of wind trick. Huff and puff long enough, you’ll get things moving,” he said as he returned with the photo in his hand, beaming happily.
“Here it is. We can go now.” He put the photo in his back pocket and extended his hand to help me down from the tomb, like the true gentleman he was.
“I knew you weren’t that rude, that time you didn’t even try to help me get up after I fell down!” I chuckled, accepting his aid.
He blushed vividly, coughing in embarrassment. “Sorry about that, by the way. I was truly mortified about it, but I couldn’t let you know I was … well, dead. Sorry.”
“That’s water under the bridge now. Come on!” I said, pulling at his hand.
We walked briskly to the front gates, but as we were about to cross the boundary I felt this eerie feeling creeping over me, like I should be hurrying to get out of there right away. Something deep in my guts told me to stay away from that cemetery from now on, but for what reason, I had no idea.
I suddenly remembered the strange dream I’d had that night, about the goth-looking girl, warning me about someone. Someone who was looking for me. Someone that shouldn’t find me.
When we got back home, I still felt apprehensive, though I didn’t feel able to confide in Tristan. I drew all the curtains and locked all the windows. After that day, I could never totally shake that feeling of unease.
Chapter Ten
Fade to Gray
The rest of the week passed in a blur.
Mom was at work first thing in the mornings, and left us by ourselves all day long. Sometimes she called to check up on things. She had Trista
n’s admission and paperwork situation almost resolved now but there were still a few tricky things to work on, so she ended up arriving back pretty late most nights.
For Tristan, the week was kind of a massive, super-fast, twenty-first-century training program. For a kid from the fifties, he had a lot to learn to get up to date.
I spent every day trying to explain how stuff worked in the modern world. He picked up on things pretty fast. Amazingly fast. He was incredibly smart.
He thought everything was very modern and “swell”. On that point, I had to advise him to never, ever, say that word again. I remembered he had used it before and it definitely had to go. I presented him the current “awesome”, “cool” and “wicked”. He’d pick up on more teen slang later.
I thoroughly instructed him about computers and let him play for a while on my laptop. He was flabbergasted by Google Earth! He could not believe mankind was able to come up with an invention that made it possible to travel anywhere on the planet without leaving the house. That and the internet kept him distracted for days.
And then I introduced him to my iPod. He fell instantly and completely in love with modern music. I could see it in his eyes, all the awe, reverence and excitement. So I downloaded a bunch of songs from different periods of time, and let Tristan keep it for the time being. From that day on, whenever Tristan was too quiet, you could look for him and he’d be sitting with music blasting on high though his earphones, happiness flashing inside his eyes like battery charges.
Then I taught him about cell phones, texting, ringtones, GPS, the cell gadgets. I knew it was a lot to take in, and that he was only absorbing a little of all the information I was giving him, but as I said, he was a fast learner. He’d have plenty of time to fill in the gaps later.
One day I took him to the nearby mall.
He still tried to comb his hair way too formal for my taste, so I messed it all up before we stepped foot outside the house, despite his frowning, disapproving scowl. We walked aimlessly round the mall for a while, so he could get a feel for the place and the people around. His eyes showed a mix of excitement, caution and flickering attention. The first thing he noticed was some girls sauntering past us, wearing jeans and loose sweaters, same look as mine.
“Now I understand why you’re always dressed like a boy, Joey,” he said. “Look, there’s some girls here dressed just like you! Is it a modern uniform for girls these days?” he asked curiously.
I looked at him in surprise. “Uh, no. It’s not a uniform. But not all girls dress this way,” I mumbled, embarrassed.
He thought I dressed like a boy?
But in his defense, I guess I did. A very sloppy, untidy, unattractive one. It served me right for being such a tomboy! Me and my I have to wear comfortable clothes all the time rule. My mood went a little sour after that, but I don’t think he even noticed.
He soon realized some girls of today also wear really short skirts, really high heels and really tight tank-tops. I had to punch him in the arm every time a short skirt passed by and I could see his eyes wide open and his mouth twitching slightly in a playful smirk. That was a modern thing he was learning to enjoy quite a lot.
My mood also dipped a few more degrees when I saw the reaction Tristan was getting from his female audience. Girls were twisting their necks and turning around to have a second look at him. There were giggles, whisperings, admiring looks and flashing smiles.
What did I expect? I’d always thought he was … well, very handsome, but the girls at the mall were acting like he was a younger, hotter Brad freaking Pitt! I don’t think he realized, though. There was just too much to absorb; he was overdosing on information and missing a lot of the subtleties. Although some of those girls were hardly subtle!
I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me. It shouldn’t bother me! He was just my friend. I needed to stop feeling jealous and focus on helping him adjust to his new life. This whole situation with him being back in the land of the living was so insane, and everything was happening so fast, it was kind of scary for me. It was best we remain just friends anyway. That way we could both adjust better to this new reality filled with magic, spells and resurrections.
At one point, Tristan asked me about the other boys. He had noticed a lot of tattoos, piercings and guys with strange-colored hair – and messed up hairstyles like the one I’d given him. I guess it was all quite shocking for a guy from the 1950s. I tried to explain that it was just the latest fashion trend. It was considered a “good look” now. He seemed mystified about the modern concept of good looks.
After that he just walked by my side with his hands behind his back, fiercely observing everything around him. When we got home he was in a silent, thoughtful mood.
Then came entertainment instruction day!
I browsed through some channels, talking briefly about current TV shows. Then I had to turn the TV off fast to explain special effects to him because he had seen some alien show while I was channel-hopping, and he looked shocked and scared. So that took a while for me to explain. I only turned the TV back on again when I was certain he wasn’t going to freak out at the special effects any more.
After the initial scare, he seemed to enjoy modern TV. He exclaimed a lot, glued to the couch as he watched things blow up, aliens get shot and people flying. As my special treat of the day, I made him watch my favorite movie of all time: Jurassic Park! That was a blast! He kept asking me if I was absolutely sure that “those things” weren’t real. We got popcorn and sodas, and laid out a bunch of junk food. We watched old movies all day long and part of the night too. Well, old movies for me; they were all brand new for Tristan!
I had a great time that day – and I laughed a lot. It almost felt like a date. But it wasn’t, and I kept telling myself we were just good friends hanging out.
And then the week was over, and on Saturday my mom announced I was going to school the next day to get my things settled in my dorm room, with no more delays. And Tristan would stay back for a while to sort out his papers. He still needed to get his ID certified. My mother had made some underground contacts through her job as a lawyer, and managed to get him a fake birth certificate and other documents he needed. She wasn’t happy breaking the law like that, but in her defense, it wasn’t like she could tell everyone she had a ghost boy back from the dead living with her now. They would think she was nuts!
She gave me The Look after informing me of my departure for school the next day, and I knew it was no use trying to dissuade her. I sighed heavily and went to my room to start packing. After a while, I heard Tristan calling out my name downstairs. I left my suitcase open on my bed and went to find him. He wasn’t in the living room, so I headed for my mom’s ex-office, now Tristan’s bedroom, and stopped by the door.
At first glance I couldn’t see him anywhere, but then I caught sight of him sitting on his bed, his legs crossed in a relaxed position, looking directly at me. There was something different about him, though. It was hard to explain. He seemed faded, engulfed by his surroundings, like he was a part of the background. My eyes registered his presence and sending that message to my brain, but I could hardly see him. And my brain was starting to poke me, to certify which data was correct. Was he there? Was he not? Which one? Make up your mind already!
I frowned and squinted my eyes, looking straight at him. “Tris? What’s going on? What are you doing?”
He looked a little surprised by my reaction. “You know I’m here? That’s … odd.” He scratched his head. “I’m a little confused now. Maybe … maybe it’s only you.”
“Only me what?” I asked, waiting for him to make any sense.
“Okay. Watch this. I’m going to call your mom here, but when you understand, don’t let her know, okay?” he said.
“Let her know what?” I asked, but he cut me off, calling out for Mom just like he had done to me a few minutes ago. Mom walked by and stopped by the door, looking around the room. Tristan was right in front of her, but she didn’t see
m to notice him there.
“Oh, hi, honey.” she greeted me “Do you know where Tristan is? I heard him calling me …”
I turned to look at Tristan, and then back at her. And then back at him again. She couldn’t see him! That’s what was going on! To me he seemed faded, but for her he had faded away. How was that possible?
“Joey, hello! Space to planet Earth! Have you seen Tristan?” my mother asked loudly.
“Uh. No. Yes. Hum … yeah, I already took care of it. He needed help with … the … um …” I looked around in a panic, trying to come up with some lame excuse, but I couldn’t find any. I was still in shock from my discovery. Then I turned to Tristan and watched him pointing to the alarm clock on the desk.
“Alarm clock? Yes! The alarm clock. That’s what it was. The alarm went off! Yeah, and he didn’t know how to turn it off. But it’s all good now, Mom. You can go, don’t worry!” I said, smiling at her in relief.
She looked at me suspiciously, but then just shrugged her shoulders and walked back to her room upstairs.
“Tristan, what the hell?” I whispered to him, worried that my mom might still hear us.
He smiled and relaxed, and I felt him coming back to normal, standing out from the background again.
“See? Weird, right?” he said, gesturing for me to come and sit next to him on the bed.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, sitting down by his side.
“I don’t know. I was getting dressed in here earlier, and I forgot to close the door. Then your mom bustled in. I guess it took me by surprise, I was embarrassed and I reacted by doing … that. She took some papers off her desk, and didn’t even acknowledge me naked inside the room. I thought … well, that it was odd. So I tested it again a couple more times and it worked every time. She never sees me when I’m in this … state. I don’t know what to call it. I don’t even know what it is that I’m doing!” he said excitedly.
“And then you guinea-pigged me too.”
“Well … yeah. But it didn’t work on you, though, so … I don’t get it.”
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