Shine

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  I brushed my teeth and hair, then changed into a sleep shirt—nothing too revealing, since I did want him to actually sleep. Then I got into bed and set my laptop next to me.

  I turned on the video chat but still had ten minutes left, so I opened a browser and ran a search on the Children of the Sun. I had to click through several pages of results that referred to a comic book by the same name. Annoying.

  Finally I came to an archived post on a blog called Druid Daily, entitled “Wannabe’s.” The blogger, according to the sidebar, was a “real Druid in the spirit of the ancients,” and the post spoke of the dangers of misconceptions about Druids.

  The third paragraph cited the Children of the Sun, making my heart race. The blogger claimed that a group of teenagers calling themselves by that name were running around County Meath, Ireland, committing acts of trespassing and simulated violence. They would perform “Druid rituals” (the quotes were the writer’s), using stage knives and fake blood to pretend-sacrifice one another to the gods. According to the blogger, real Druids had never done human sacrifices—those horror stories were rumors started by the conquering Romans.

  The video chat room dinged. I closed the browser and clicked answer.

  Zachary’s face appeared, this time horizontal. His room was dim, so I barely saw the contours of his head and shoulders. But the light of the laptop screen reflected off bare skin. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  “Hey,” I breathed. “Is that how you’re going to keep me awake for homework?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Being half-naked.”

  “Oh.” He chuckled. “What do you mean, ‘half’?”

  A wave of fire swept over me, and joy that his cheeky side was reappearing. “Are you kidding?”

  “Well.” He gave an agonizing pause. “Aye, I’ll not lie t’ya. I’m wearing boxers.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “You’ll see in less than four months.”

  “I wanna see now. Show me.”

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “Because you’re not really wearing any?”

  “I am, I swear.”

  “Prove it.”

  His hand snaked out from under the blanket, but only to tug it up over his bare shoulder. “Not yet. I’ve gone all . . . scrawny over the summer.”

  My smile faded as I realized that he felt self-conscious. Anger replaced my desire, a boiling fury toward those who had diminished his seductive swagger.

  “No pressure,” I said, “but you should know, I love your body, all of it. Skinny, fat, anywhere in between.”

  His fingers twitched. “You don’t make anything easy, do you?”

  “Nope.” I licked my lips. “I try to make everything hard.”

  Zachary groaned and rolled on his back. “Now I absolutely can’t show you, because it would be pornographic.”

  Every cell in my body wanted to urge him to show me everything, and let me do the same for him. But I sensed that what he truly needed was a place to feel safe.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” I said.

  “Aye.” He turned his head to face me, but stayed on his back. “You look beautiful.”

  I glanced at my live shot in the corner. My features were as dim as his. “You can barely see me in the dark.”

  “I don’t need to see you to know that you’re beautiful.”

  It was my turn to emit a whimper and twist the sheets. He could still slay me with the simplest statements.

  “Why don’t you try seeing the backs of your eyelids?” I said. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep, and then I’ll sign off. I promise.”

  “All right.” He closed his eyes. “Keep talking.”

  “About what?”

  “Something good, but boring.”

  The stuff I’d learned about the Children of the Sun wasn’t good or boring. “I went to an Orioles game a couple weeks ago.”

  “Baseball,” he murmured. “Nothing’s more boring than that.”

  I told him every play I could remember, and made up what I couldn’t. I explained the designated hitter rule and the intricacies of the unassisted triple play.

  Within minutes, Zachary’s hand went slack on the blanket, and he was asleep. Just to be sure, I kept talking until my mouth was dry and my throat was rough.

  My finger reached out to the laptop’s touch pad, guiding the cursor over the red hang-up button. Then I hesitated.

  It was wrong, but I wanted to watch Zachary sleep. I wanted to see if he thrashed and moaned, wanted to see evidence of the nightmares he denied. If he wouldn’t tell me what had happened, maybe I could steal the truth from his sleep. Only then could I help him heal.

  No sooner had I thought this than Zachary’s shoulder started to jerk. Then his jaw clenched, clacking his teeth together and grinding them hard. One fist clutched the edge of his sheet, and a low growl began in his throat.

  No. I’d promised to hang up once he dozed off. The DMP had taken so much from him—all Zachary had left was his pride. If I took that, too, he’d have nothing.

  I had to have faith that someday, he’d find the strength to speak.

  “I love you,” I whispered, and hung up.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  On the night of the fall equinox, Dylan, Megan, and I went to a wooded area bordering Loch Raven Reservoir, where no one would see us calling the shades. When we climbed out of the Keeleys’ car, I realized Dylan was wearing a dark-gray suit and blue striped tie.

  I waved my flashlight beam over his tall, lean frame. “What’s with the dress-up?”

  “I told my parents I was going to Career Night at school.” He took off the jacket and laid it carefully on the backseat. “Otherwise they’d never let me out this late on a weeknight.”

  I understood why Logan’s death had made Mr. and Mrs. Keeley overprotective of Dylan, but it sucked for him.

  He adjusted his tie. “Does it look that bad?”

  “Dylan, you dumb-ass.” Megan faced away from us, using her own flashlight to scan the trees around the small parking lot. “You have no clue that you can actually be cute. No wonder you’ve never gotten laid.”

  I waited for him to correct her delusion that he was a virgin. But he just tugged his collar, as if it had suddenly constricted. It reminded me of prom night and his discomfort with his stunning tuxedo.

  We took a short trail down to the reservoir shoreline, where we found a flat, dry area beside the water. The waning crescent moon, just past third quarter, shone silver on the placid man-made lake.

  I pulled the folded list of shades from my back jeans pocket. “Which should I call first?” I had to almost shout to be heard over the cacophony of crickets.

  “Start at the top of the alphabet,” Megan said.

  “Or the end of the alphabet,” Dylan argued. “Those people never get to go first.”

  “We’ll do random.” I counted the names. “Pick a number between one and twelve.”

  “Seven,” Dylan and Megan said together, then looked at each other.

  Huh. “Tell me when it’s eight forty-six.”

  We turned off our flashlights and went silent, listening to the plop and rustle of night creatures in the water and woods. The whoosh of cars on the Baltimore Beltway seemed both too close and too far away.

  “Okay.” Dylan watched his cell phone screen, fingers outstretched. “When it’s time, I’ll count down from five, silently.”

  “You don’t have to be quiet, it’s not—”

  “Shh.” Dylan waved his hand frantically, then folded down his five fingers. When he got to one, he pointed at me, like I was on camera at a news station.

  I took a deep breath. “Randall Madison! I can help you.” At least, I think I can. “This might be your only chance to be a ghost again. Your only chance to pass on.”

  Silence.

  Dylan’s voice startled me. “Logan said it was really loud being a shade. It’s probably hard for them to hear.”

  “Logan could h
ear me just fine at the spring equinox.” I tried again, louder. “Randall Madison! If you want to stop suffering, please find me.” That sounded weird, but honest.

  Still nothing.

  “Try another name,” Dylan said.

  I shouted the four names after Randall, but no shades appeared. The woods had fallen silent—my yelling had probably scared away the animals. “Maybe Logan only came because I called him. Maybe it has to be someone the shades know.”

  “But shades show up all the time around strangers,” Dylan said.

  “I’ll try again. Randall Madison—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, these are shades we’re dealing with.” Megan snatched the list and flashlight from my hands. “Hey, Randall, Paula, Sloan, Gavin, and Latisha! We know you dickweeds can hear us, so get your shady asses over here. Now!”

  Dylan cackled. “Awesome, but do you really think that’ll—”

  A screech shattered the night. It was joined by another, then another. The shades swarmed us from all sides, buzzing like crushed locusts. Megan and Dylan collapsed, hands to their ears.

  My head spun like it would twist off my neck. I knelt down on the reservoir bank so I wouldn’t stumble into the water, then forced my mouth open to speak, despite my nausea.

  “I can help you! You can be a ghost again.” I reached for the closest shade, remembering what Logan had told Dylan about their ability to choose. “It’s your decision.”

  Three shades hovered near the branches above me, making a gnashing noise that gnawed my brain. The other two floated in front, over the water.

  “Aura, hurry!” Megan gagged. Dylan lay on his side in the mud, every muscle spasming.

  In the middle of the maelstrom, I thought of Logan, and suddenly I knew what to say. I spoke softly into the whirlwind. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

  The shades screamed louder—in protest or assent, I couldn’t tell.

  I lifted my arms, opening my body to them. “Now!”

  Two shades zoomed forward. Their dark energy entered my gut, then left through the small of my back, fast as a bullet.

  My muscles turned to jelly. I fell forward, raising my hands too late to break my fall. My cheekbone hit a rock, sending a gong of pain ricocheting through my head. The other shades gave squealing laughs and swooped closer. It felt like they would devour me.

  “Aura!” Dylan and Megan shouted from the ground nearby. The shades filled me with dark vibrations, until I felt ripped apart atom by atom. I couldn’t see through the blackness as I started to vomit.

  Someone grabbed my shoulders and propped me up, while another pair of hands held my hair back. My body shuddered and spasmed, trying to rid itself of the shades’ bitter rage.

  “Unhhh.” I pushed myself back from the water’s edge. My throat burned, liked I’d puked a mix of grapefruit juice and hot pepper sauce.

  “Here.” Breathing hard, Dylan held out his tie, which he’d removed. When I gave him an odd look, he said, “It’s either this or my undershirt.”

  “Thanks, this is fine.” I wiped my clammy forehead, then my mouth, with the soft silk. “Is there a ‘Kill me, I’m stupid’ sign taped to my back?”

  “You were trying to help them.” Megan was sitting beside me, holding her stomach. “You know what’s weird? As soon as they went through you, I started feeling better.”

  I looked around, though turning my head made it feel like it would split open. “Does that mean it worked? Did the shades turn into ghosts?”

  “They disappeared,” Dylan said. “Flew through you and came out the other side. They were violet for, like, a millisecond, and then they were gone.”

  “That’s what I saw, too,” Megan added. “I remember seeing violet reflected in the water.”

  My heart leaped. Whatever happened with Logan wasn’t just a Logan thing. Shading didn’t have to be a one-way trip to hell. Unless . . .

  “Why’d they disappear? Did they turn back into shades and go somewhere else?”

  “Oh.” Dylan looked at Megan. “Maybe.”

  I groaned at the uncertainty, then saw the mess I’d made of myself. “Ugh, I can’t go home like this. Gina will think I got drunk.”

  “I brought a change of clothes, because of this stupid suit.” Dylan knelt beside me and draped one of my arms over his shoulder. “Megan, get her other side.”

  We wobbled up the trail to the car, where Dylan gave me a T-shirt and a pair of jeans that were about a foot too long. The back of Dylan’s dress shirt was muddy, but he put on his jacket to cover the stains. Megan had managed to fall down on the driest part of the reservoir bank, so she’d suffered only a scraped elbow.

  The closest bathroom was at a Dairy Queen on York Road. I changed and washed up while Megan and Dylan ordered food we probably couldn’t stomach.

  I staggered out into the fluorescent light, holding up Dylan’s jeans at my waist, the cuffs rolled to my knees. His Spiderman T-shirt fell halfway down my thighs. Dylan and Megan sat hunched side by side at a table next to the condiment stand.

  Megan’s eyes glinted at me as I approached. “Aura, guess what? We—oh, wow, you look, um. Really, not too bad.”

  “No worse than a refugee camp reject.” I sat across from them and rested my head against the back of the booth. “What’s up?”

  “We were thinking,” Dylan said, chowing down on a burger despite having nearly had a seizure half an hour ago.

  “I was thinking,” Megan corrected. “Shades can go anywhere, but ghosts can only go where they went during their lives, right? Remember that time Logan disappeared from the car when we drove down a street where he’d never been?”

  I’d never forget that. He’d stood there in the intersection, forlorn and violet, while the car behind us drove right through him.

  “Those shades tonight,” Dylan added. “When they were alive, I bet they never went to that reservoir.”

  “So if they’d turned back into ghosts,” Megan blurted, “they would’ve disappeared.”

  “Gone back to someplace they’d been before,” Dylan finished.

  Megan reached across the table and grabbed my wrist. “Aura, you can cure shades,” she hissed. “Not just Logan. Any shade.”

  I pulled my soda closer, desperate for sugar and caffeine. “We can’t know for sure unless someone sees one of those ex-shades as a ghost again.” My mind fought the lingering dizziness. “Wait—could we try to call them as ghosts?”

  “Yes!” Megan pulled out the list of shade names. “I bet some of their obituaries are online, and if they died here in Maryland, they’ll be in the state medical examiner’s database.” She shimmied her shoulders in a triumphant dance. “Which I have access to at the funeral home.”

  “Awesome.” Dylan picked up my burger. “Are you gonna eat this?”

  I shook my head and sipped my soda, my stomach roiling.

  Did I want to be the Secret Savior of Shades? After hearing firsthand of Logan’s hellish ordeal, how could I not help them?

  Besides, this experiment wasn’t just charity work. Tonight had given me a big piece of the “Who Am I?” puzzle. One I planned to finally solve in Ireland, with Zachary.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Early the next evening, Megan got the scoop on one of our hopefully ex-shades, the ghost of a woman who’d lived in Baltimore and worked in Annapolis. We decided to try to reach her in the capital city next Friday night instead of screaming her name outside her old house.

  I told Zachary all about it in that night’s video chat.

  “If this worked,” I said in conclusion, “if I did change a shade to a ghost, I want to try it again on the winter solstice when we’re in Ireland. Is that okay? I know we’re supposed to be on vacation.”

  “It’s not just a vacation.” He typed on his keyboard, his eyes searching the screen beside me. “This year the solstice is at two fifteen a.m. Ireland time on the twenty-second. We’ll find somewhere private for you to call the shades.”

  I
grinned, relieved I hadn’t had to convince him. “So how are you?”

  Zachary waved his hand without answering, as always. “Thanks very much for the biscuits.” He reached to the side, then lifted a cardboard box so I could see it. “From your grandmother’s bakery, right? My mum loves them. She doesn’t have as much time to bake, what with taking care of Dad.”

  “I like your parents. They seem to really love each other.”

  “Aye.” He took a bite of almond cookie and chewed while he pondered. “They come from such different backgrounds. He’s working-class Glasgow, and she’s boarding-school south England. They’re like, em, what’s that Disney movie about the dogs?”

  “101 Dalmatians?”

  “No, the one with the cocker spaniel and the spaghetti. At the Italian restaurant, where the waiter sings ‘Bella Notte.’ ”

  “Lady and the Tramp?”

  “That’s it. They’re Lady and the Tramp.”

  I laughed. “When they had puppies, some of them were little Ladys and some were little Tramps. Which are you?”

  “Well, I’m no’ a lady, that’s for sure.”

  The way Zachary looked at me made me wish we were sharing a single strand of spaghetti, like the dogs in the movie. Not that we would need that as an excuse to kiss.

  “Did you see a lot of Disney movies growing up?”

  “I loved them.” His eyes grew as animated as the films he was talking about. “I thought that’s what America must be like. Bright colors, singing and dancing. Heroes and villains easy to tell apart.”

  I smiled, both at his words and at my realization that his face looked less gaunt than before. “Was America like you imagined?”

  “It was almost as colorful. And God knows, people sing and dance on television constantly. But the good guys and bad guys weren’t as clear as I thought they’d be.”

  His gaze shadowed, and I waited for him to tell me what the DMP had done to him.

  Instead he brightened and dusted the sugar off his hands. “We’ve had a bit of drama, too. Martin, my best mate from round here—” He cut himself off and spoke bitterly. “My only mate now. He’s moved in with us.”