Shine

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  When I told her that Logan hadn’t, in fact, passed on until a few hours ago, she refilled her half-empty glass.

  “Why do I have to drag every detail out of you?” she snapped. “Why can’t you just tell me the truth without being interrogated?”

  “Maybe it’s all the witness stands you’ve put me on.” I worked as a translator for ghosts in many of Gina’s wrongful-death suits. It was never boring, but often heartbreaking.

  “You could be right,” she said sadly. She set down her glass, went into the adjoining dining room, and returned with green votive candles and a book of matches. “We can have our own vigil here.”

  While Gina prayed, I stared at my candle’s fragile flame, holding my breath so it wouldn’t waver. The wax pooled around the wick, deep and green as Zachary’s eyes. I would never forget the way those eyes had searched for me before he passed through airport security. How they’d crinkled with his smile when he saw me.

  And I’d never forget our last moments together in the terminal, playing a goofy game to distract us from our impending separation.

  “A’right, then.” Leaning shoulder-to-shoulder with me against the wall opposite the security line, Zachary speaks in the low, smooth voice that gives me goose bumps. “Man with the gray backpack. Yank or Brit?”

  We’re too far to hear people’s accents, but close enough to see which passport they produce. I suck at this game.

  I check out the scuffed shoes of the guy in question. “Yank.”

  Zachary shakes his head, a wave of dark hair drifting over his temple. “Definitely Brit.”

  “He’s wearing sneakers.”

  “Meaningless, these days. Look at the slouch of his shoulders, the way he moves forward, head down. He keeps his hand luggage close by, out of other people’s way. What does that tell you?”

  “That you guys have bad posture and are paranoid about your stuff?”

  He chuckles. “Maybe, but it’s more that we’re very conscious about personal space.” He tilts down his chin to gesture to himself, arms and ankles crossed, elbows splayed. “It took months for me to stand like an American. Casual, at ease in my skin, taking up more room than I need.”

  Sure enough, the dude with the backpack pulls out a crimson United Kingdom passport instead of the navy blue design of the United States.

  “Give me an easy one,” I tell Zachary.

  “Blonde with the pink shorts.”

  I laugh and jab my elbow against him. “Figures you’d be looking at her. Definitely Yank. She has a Phillies decal on her carry-on.”

  “Good eye. Baseball definitely has no appeal over there.” He lowers his voice, serious now. “Promise me you’ll practice noticing small things about people.”

  “So I can beat you in Yank or Brit?”

  “So you can be safe. The DMP is always watching.” He takes my hand. “I wish I could show you more of the tricks I know. I wish I’d not wasted so much time.”

  “We both did. I’ll be careful, and I’ll watch everyone. I promise.”

  His lips tug into a hopeful smile, then he stands up straight. “There’s my parents in the queue. Almost time for me to go.”

  I want to drag him away where his mom and dad and our governments can never find him. “Give me one more. Tiebreaker.”

  “What about the next couple?”

  I study the two people in their late twenties approaching the head of the line, fingers entangled. No wedding rings.

  The woman bounces on her toes and tugs on the guy’s arm. He watches with affectionate amusement as she does a little dance, twirling her bright blue carry-on by the handle. Then he kisses her forehead and slides his arm around her back, touching her shoulder blade. His elbow doesn’t jut out, and he doesn’t place a possessive weight on her.

  “Trick question,” I tell Zachary. “She’s a Yank, he’s a Brit.”

  “Aye, I think so.”

  My heart twists as I watch them pull out their passports and prove me right. “I think it’s her first time going home with him.”

  “Aye, perhaps.” Zachary’s whisper is almost hoarse.

  “I think they’re really, really happy.”

  “Aye.” Zachary folds my hand between his large, strong ones, and his eyes fill with an unbearable sadness. “They should be.”

  Gina blew out her candle and wished me good night. I left the television on a low volume, listening to the experts expound and the families grieve.

  But I watched only the candle as its green wax dripped over the edge onto the white ceramic plate. I tried to think of nothing but Zachary’s eyes. Not the British guy with the sneakers, not the Phillies fan in the pink shorts, not the woman in love who’d never see London.

  Somewhere out there, sleeping fitfully or staring at a bare ceiling, Zachary’s eyes were still full of life.

  And one day, they would rest on me again.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning I dressed in my hideous navy-blue suit and straightened my hair, pulling it back into a sleek ponytail—sleek until it hit the late June humidity, at least. A night of heavy crying and light sleep had left my cheeks feeling raw and my forehead, thick.

  “I ordered breakfast from Donna’s Café,” Gina said as I slumped into the passenger seat. “Can you run in and get it if I pull up in front?”

  “It’s six freaking o’clock. My stomach hasn’t woken up yet.” I put on my sunglasses, though the sun had barely risen.

  “We’ll hit DC traffic getting to DMP headquarters, so we won’t have time to stop later. We can not be late.”

  “I know.” I raised my voice to make up for its rasp. “I don’t have to be happy about it.”

  “Neither do I,” she snapped back.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.” She clicked on the radio and pulled into the street. I slouched, fidgeting with my skirt’s pinchy waistband. Bickering with Gina distracted me from my rising panic.

  Inside the usually cheery café, the staff were gathered in silence, watching the disaster news on the TV above the coffee bar. I wondered if the whole city had become as paralyzed as I felt.

  As the hostess rang up my order, I caught a glimpse of long blond hair streaming by on the way out. The girl stopped short.

  “Aura, hi! Wow, what a suit.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  Amy Koeller was Ridgewood High’s junior class president (and probably soon to be the senior class president). She looked her usual perky self, despite the brain-crunchingly early hour.

  “Isn’t it so sad about the crash?” Amy crumpled the top of her brown paper to-go bag. “One of the victims was a freshman at Ridgewood, Tammi Teller.”

  “I know. I never met her.”

  “Me neither. We should hold a memorial service. Or raise money for her little sister’s college fund. Or start a circle of understanding.” She spied the cardboard March of Dimes fund-raising display on the counter in front of me, and started digging in her pocket.

  “A circle of huh?”

  “Understanding. So people don’t give in to the hate.” She slid a dime into one of the charity coin slots. “If it was a terrorist attack, whoever did this must belong to some marginalized group that needs our compassion.”

  I blinked at her, feeling the full effects of a shitty night’s sleep. “Um, the memorial sounds good. But maybe not right away. Let the family have their time.”

  “Ooh, I know—we’ll do it after school starts. That way everyone can come. Aura, you’re brilliant!” She hugged me, then gasped. “Sorry I wrinkled your suit. Good luck with your job interview.”

  “It’s not a—okay, whatever.” I backed away with my coffees and bag of food, leaving Amy to jot something on a purple sticky-note pad she’d pulled from her pocket.

  Gina and I spent the next half hour rehearsing everything I was going to tell the DMP. Once we were satisfied I was ready, I reclined the seat, hoping to nap. To tune out Gina’s humming along to classical music, I put in my earbuds, i
n desperate need of my de-stress playlist.

  My eyes shut, and I drifted off.

  In my dream, I was in an airliner seat across the aisle from Zachary. His parents sat on the other side of him, his mom in the middle seat and his father at the window, both asleep. All three wore dapper white clothes, like they were going yachting.

  The plane began to taxi. The number 346 appeared above every window, in glaring red neon.

  “No.” I reached for Zachary, but my hand slipped through his arm like he was a ghost. “Get off the plane.”

  He didn’t look my way, only watched the flight attendant as she displayed the yellow safety card, like a kids’ librarian sharing a picture book. The front of the card showed a large picture of a plane cracking in half like a loaf of Italian bread.

  We taxied faster. I leaped from my seat. “Stop! Get off! Stop the plane!”

  The plane didn’t stop. It ascended.

  Zachary leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and simply said, “Bye.”

  The world ripped apart in fire and fear.

  I jolted awake mid-scream, seizing the door handle.

  “Bad dream, hon?” Gina peered at me.

  “Unh.” I took a sip of coffee to clear my brain, not caring that it was lukewarm. We were stuck in traffic on the Capital Beltway. Ahead, the Mormon temple’s golden spire gleamed in the bright sunlight, but the dream dulled my vision with despair.

  “—break in the case of Flight 346.”

  My hand shot out to turn up the radio’s volume.

  The newscaster’s voice was calm and smooth, as if reading a weather report.

  “Scotland Yard has uncovered an online posting from one of Flight 346’s passengers, a British national. The post announced the young man’s intention to suicide-bomb the flight.”

  My heart froze. Did they mean Zachary? Had someone framed him for this disaster?

  “The suspect, aged sixteen, died in the crash.”

  Oh, thank God. Not that he died, but that it wasn’t Zachary.

  The newscaster continued, “The online announcement, which has been removed from its social networking site, indicated that the suspect had been convinced by a ghost to carry out the terrorist attack.”

  “What?” Gina exclaimed.

  “Shh.” I turned the volume up more.

  “—intention was to create hundreds of new ghosts, thereby raising awareness among the living of their own potential for ghosthood. This in turn, he believed, would trigger compassion for the dead spirits among us.”

  “That’s crazy,” I whispered. Get people to like ghosts by making more of them?

  “A full investigation is underway, but local authorities have reported the suspect’s history of mental illness. Still no word on the name or exact origin of the suspected terrorist.”

  “This is bull.” Gina said. “Get my phone. I need to call the office.”

  I picked up her purse, my stomach somersaulting. If the FBI had another suspect, maybe they’d release Zachary and his parents. On the other hand, if a ghost supposedly inspired the terrorist, and it was revealed that Zachary had talked to Logan before avoiding Flight 346, it would look really, really suspicious. People could say Logan was the bomb instigator and that he’d warned Zachary for my sake.

  I found Gina’s metallic-pink cell phone but held on to it. “If I tell the DMP that Logan was fully human at the concert, do you think they’ll make it public? Will they say an actual ghost could’ve planted that bomb?”

  “No,” Gina said. “The last thing they want is hysteria. The DMP wants the public to be afraid of something they can protect them from.”

  “You mean ghosts.”

  “Ghosts as we’ve known them—harmless and incorporeal. They don’t want people panicking over something the DMP can’t protect them from—ghosts that can turn solid, even if only for a few minutes on four days out of the year.”

  That made sense, I thought, as I gave Gina her phone and watched her speed-dial the law office. Such a revelation would take away the DMP’s illusion of power.

  Still, I was more nervous than ever. It didn’t matter that there was no evidence against Zachary and me. Once the media and the DMP were done with us, the world would know our biggest secret:

  As a pre-Shifter, Zachary shouldn’t be able to talk to ghosts. He actually repelled ghosts on sight, a unique power even his own father didn’t know about. But for a few hours after we kissed, he took my ability to see ghosts, and in return gave me his ability to repel them.

  If anyone ever found out, Zachary and I would be permanent lab rats.

  By the time we arrived at the DMP’s Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, Gina’s paralegal had called back with a list of ghost-inspired crimes.

  Most were vandalism or destruction of property, post-Shifters removing or deactivating “BlackBox” technology. These layers of charged obsidian were installed in the walls of rooms or buildings to keep ghosts in or out. By destroying the BlackBox, sympathizers felt like they were “liberating” ghosts.

  Some crimes were more serious, such as assault and battery, where the ghost had a vendetta against the victim. There were even a handful of post-Shifter murderers who’d been egged on by the dead.

  But were ghosts a real threat to society, or were these criminals simply wackos who would wreak havoc anyway?

  As Gina and I crossed the parking lot toward the dirt-brown DMP headquarters building, I had a sudden thought. “People never become ghosts after a suicide, right? Death has to be sudden and unexpected. So if this alleged suicide bomber becomes a ghost, that’ll prove it wasn’t him.”

  “Good point. But if he didn’t become a ghost, that doesn’t prove it was him.”

  True. Not everyone whose death is a surprise becomes a ghost, and some who do, pass on within seconds or minutes.

  In the lobby, we showed our IDs and signed in to get our visitors’ badges. I noticed several names on the visitors list ahead of me, all from a company called “SecuriLab.”

  “Aura!” came a familiar voice across the lobby.

  Oh no. I tried to hide my dismay at the sight of Nicola Hughes, DMP flack.

  She hurried over, her stylish heels clicking on the polished floor. I’d last seen Nicola on Friday night when she’d fast-talked the media into believing our story that Logan’s transformation had been nothing but a magic trick. As grateful as I was for her help, Nicola set me on edge.

  She grabbed my elbow and squeed like we were long-lost BFFs. Nicola was maybe ten years older than I was, but sometimes acted like she was in high school. Her bubbliness felt out of place amid the tragedy and Zachary’s detainment.

  “I’m so glad I saw you!” She tucked her flip-curled dark-brown hair behind her ear. “I’m on my way to a press conference. Things have been insane here since we found out a ghost was behind the bombing. Can you believe it?”

  “No,” I said flatly.

  Nicola offered Gina a wide, perfect smile. “How are you holding up? Things are going to get busy for you, I imagine.”

  Gina gave her a suspicious look. “How do you mean?”

  “At your practice, with this wave of ghost violence. But you probably have Aura to help out full-time this summer.”

  Gina tensed. I’d tried to find a second job, rather than work forty hours a week at the law office. I got along with my aunt, but no way did I want to spend every day and night around her. In the end, my lack of a car kept me from finding nonfamily employment.

  “Not quite,” I told Nicola. “Just thirty hours a week.”

  “Oh! Well, as you probably know, the DMP has a limited number of paid summer internships for high school students. Most fill up by February. But my office will gladly open another internship under me for you. Because of your obvious value.”

  Because I was the First, no doubt.

  “Sorry,” I told her. “No car.” And no desire to be evil.

  “Our Baltimore office is on the Light Rail line. And the pay is pretty sweet.”
She delivered the last word in a singsong manner.

  “Aura’s not interested,” Gina said firmly.

  “Consider it and call me. About anything. I’m here to help.” Nicola gave me her business card as her grin faded into a more genuine expression. “Aura, I know you think the DMP is the enemy, and I admit, a lot of agents are pretty heavy-handed. But we’re not the bad guys. Our mission is the same as yours: to understand ghosts. If we work together, we’ll find the answers.”

  I hesitated. The DMP’s theories about the Shift would always be imprecise, because they didn’t know my father was a ghost. But the knowledge they did have could be useful.

  I tucked Nicola’s business card into my suit pocket. “I’ll think about it.”

  Chapter Six

  Though your interview was previously scheduled,” Agent Ritter said, closing the door of our sparse, claustrophobic interrogation room, “obviously there have been significant developments. Last night’s tragedy was a game changer.”

  I tried not to show my disgust at his word choice. This wasn’t a game to me, or to the families who’d lost loved ones.

  “Of course,” he continued, “with this morning’s news about the ghost-provoked terrorist act, we can no longer afford to take chances with the dead. The country is feeling a new urgency to protect the living.”

  The DMP agent sat across the scratched-up linoleum table from me and Gina, heaving the kind of sigh that seems reserved for adults over forty. As he scanned my file, he tapped his ballpoint pen against his temple, where his sandy hair was thinning.

  “So.” Agent Ritter set a small black digital recorder on the table. “Your aunt says you’re ready to discuss what happened at Friday night’s concert. We appreciate your cooperation, and we understand it’s not easy for you to reveal things about those you love.”