Shift

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Excuse me,” said a voice to my right.

  I turned to see a young woman’s ghost loitering on our next-door neighbor’s porch. She wore what looked like a thigh-length wedding gown with a veil that fell only to her shoulders. Ghosts’ appearances are captured in the happiest moment of their lives, so there was no telling how old she’d been when she died. But the 1960s had clearly been her high point.

  “Looking for someone?” I asked her.

  “My husband. We lived here until 1978. He passed away in ’99.” She peered through my neighbor’s living room window. “I died just last week. My name’s Alice, by the way.”

  “Hi. I’m sorry, but ghosts can’t see each other.” She should know that, but pre-Shifters never listened to us.

  “I thought we’d be the exception,” ex-Alice said. “We were soul mates.”

  I forced a tight smile. Must be nice to believe in such things. “I’ve never seen a ghost at this house. How do you know your husband hasn’t passed on?”

  “My granddaughter saw him last month again, at our cabin at Deep Creek Lake.”

  I stepped up to the painted blue railing separating the two porches. “Maybe if you pass on, he’ll follow you. Maybe he’s been waiting for you to join him.”

  “Oh.” She brushed her veil off her cheek. “You could be right. I’ll just check a few more places.”

  “You can’t see him in this world.”

  “I have to try.” She started to turn away, then stopped. “Thank you for your help. You seem like a nice girl.” Ex-Alice vanished.

  “No,” I told the empty space she left behind. “I’m an asshole.”

  I knocked softly on my bedroom door, which made me feel like a stranger.

  “Come in,” Logan and Gina said.

  I opened the door to find them kneeling in front of my aunt’s Saint Peter’s altar, which she’d moved from downstairs. All three pillar candles were lit, and a rosary dangled from her hand.

  “Hi, hon.” Aunt Gina beamed up at me. “You’re home early.”

  “Hot date turn cold?” Logan said.

  I set down my purse. “How are you guys doing?”

  “He’s here? Thank God.” Gina crossed herself as she got up, her knees cracking. “Glad I wasn’t wasting my breath.” She glanced at the ceiling. “Not that prayer is ever a waste.”

  I pointed to Logan. “He was right next to you.”

  Instead of freaking out like most pre-Shifters would, she gave a satisfied smile. Before the Shift, Gina was one of the rare people who could see ghosts. I had a feeling she missed those days sometimes.

  “I’m going to get some cereal and catch up on paperwork.” She kissed my cheek. “Logan can stay for a few minutes, but then he goes downstairs—before you change your clothes.”

  Grimacing, I shut the door behind her, then went to my dresser.

  “What’s wrong?” Logan said.

  I opened my blue star-shaped keepsake box and placed Zachary’s knotted prom invitation inside. “I don’t want to talk about it.” I replaced the glass lid, which now sat askew.

  “If it has to do with Bagpipes, I don’t want to talk about it either.”

  I sat on my bed, exhausted from the fight with Zachary. “He might be able to help us.”

  Logan sat beside me. “How?”

  He seemed so calm. I wondered if his demeanor was from the praying or just having Gina with him. Knowing someone cared. Guilt tugged at me for leaving to go on a date.

  He listened, eyes bugging now and then, as I explained Zachary’s theory about the solstice and equinox.

  “But if that’s right,” he said, “why hasn’t it happened before? You’d think someone would have noticed by now that ghosts were popping in and out of shadedom on those days, or getting their bodies again.” He laid his hand over mine. “Hey, maybe we’re a special case because of our connection.”

  I returned his hopeful smile. “Maybe. But there’s a lot that people don’t know about ghosts. Maybe this happened before but wasn’t reported, or no one believed it.”

  “Or someone kept it secret, like the DMP.” Logan looked at the Starry Night poster on my wall. “That’s new. Where’d you get it?”

  I figured one more truth couldn’t make this night any worse. “Zachary gave it to me. His dad took him to New York to see the Van Gogh exhibit.” I didn’t mention that Zachary apparently had a matching poster in his own bedroom, which I’d never seen.

  “Ah.” Logan clenched his hands together in his lap. “Good colors, at least.”

  “That’s why it’s there.” The painting’s violets, blues, and blacks were the most soothing for a ghost. I’d rid my room of red while Logan was a shade, to make it easier for him to return.

  “Speaking of stars,” I said, “our research project might help us figure out your solstice-equinox issue.”

  “The stargazing thing?”

  “That’s the busywork part.” I held back a groan as I realized Zachary and I had our next sky-mapping session on Wednesday. At least we’d finish our work fast, since we wouldn’t be wasting time flirting—or talking, for that matter.

  I started to explain the rest of our project, but Logan wasn’t listening. He had that same look he had when he was getting an idea for a song. As if something was speaking to him from another world, and if he held absolutely still for another second, the right words or tune would reveal themselves.

  I waited for him to notice I’d stopped talking.

  “Aura,” he said slowly. “Do you realize what this means? If I can change on the solstice and equinox, then maybe in three more months, I could have a body again.”

  “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure if I wanted that for him. To be corporeal for a mere fifteen minutes almost seemed worse than not at all.

  “And oh my God, think about it!” Logan leaped to his feet and paced, trembling. “I changed from shade to ghost last night, and the ghostness stuck. What if next time, I turn solid and it sticks?” He stopped and turned to me. “Aura . . . I could come back to life.”

  The world tilted for the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours. “Logan, that’s impossible.”

  “We thought a lot of things were impossible.” He spread his arms. “Maybe nothing is impossible.”

  “That’s crazy talk. Dead people don’t come back to life.”

  “There are a million examples in the Bible. Jesus, Lazarus, that dude in the chariot.”

  “That’s not a million. Who was in a chariot?”

  “Old Testament guy.” He snapped his fingers without sound. “Elijah. He brought a kid back to life, I think. The point is, miracles happen. If freaky shit went on with your mom at Newgrange, then maybe there’s something special about you.” He angled his chin. “I mean, besides being hot and smart and generally amazing.”

  I rolled my eyes at his flattery. “I’m not Jesus, and neither are you.”

  “We don’t have to be Jesus. We just have to be us.”

  I had a sudden urge to flip on the light, so I wouldn’t see that manic hope in his eyes.

  “One thing at a time.” I stood and moved back to my dresser, unclasping my necklace. Luckily, he hadn’t noticed it was the same one I’d worn to Homecoming. “Since I’m home early, we should talk to Gina about what to say to your family tomorrow.” I opened the door of my cabinet-style jewelry box. “When they come over after Mickey and Siobhan’s gig?” I prompted when he didn’t answer.

  I looked over my shoulder to see him facing me, the altar’s candlelight shining through him from the other side.

  “And then what?” He gestured to the bed. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

  “You were cool with staying downstairs last night.”

  “Last night I was a shady wreck. Now I’m totally together.”

  True, I hadn’t seen his form crackle or shadow the entire day. But that wasn’t the point.

  “I can handle anything,” he said, “even—you know.” He slid his gaze do
wn my body. “If you want.”

  I turned away, cheeks burning, gripping the edge of the dresser for support.

  “Gina won’t know I’m in your room.” Logan’s voice was closer, behind my shoulder. “Somehow you always stayed quiet.” He laid his hands beside each of mine, so that if he’d been solid, I would’ve been pinned between his body and the dresser. “Remember?”

  I closed my eyes. I’d never forget our nights of soft cries and whispered urgings. After touching Logan for real again, part of me wanted to relive those moments more than ever. At least it would be something more than nothing.

  “I love you, Aura,” Logan whispered. “Body or not, as long as I’m in this world, I want to be with you.”

  I opened my eyes to see our faces reflected in the jewelry box mirror. Mine was barely visible through the forest of necklaces, but Logan’s glow shone around their edges, bright as the moon on a clear winter night.

  I slid off my wrap, then reached back to unzip my dress.

  My gaze fell on the overstuffed keepsake box, where Zachary’s note peeked out from under the lid. Buried in the note’s twists and folds was a hope for the future.

  To win Zachary back would take a fight—a fight that maybe I deserved to lose. And no matter what, in three months he’d be gone across the ocean. But I had to try.

  I dropped my hands. “I can’t, Logan. I’m sorry. Please go downstairs.”

  After the span of a breath, he stepped away, gingerly, as if his violet form might shatter if he made a sudden move.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he said, and disappeared.

  The last Jamaican ginger ale.” I slid the green bottle ahead of me as I sat in the booth beside Dylan. “You’re welcome.”

  Logan’s younger brother intercepted the soda before it crashed into the Green Derby’s appetizer menu. He made a face at the bottle’s label. “They didn’t have extra spicy?”

  “Picky little princess,” Megan sang across the table, wielding her red plastic straw like a conductor’s baton before plunging it into her Coke. “Why do you guys always face away from the stage? Don’t you want to see Mickey and Siobhan sing?”

  Dylan and I exchanged a look. Like me, he could barely stand to be in the same room where Logan had shaded out, much less stare at the exact spot. I could only imagine what it was like for Mickey and Siobhan to play in the midst of such memories.

  But their pain would end tonight. The Keeleys had agreed to come back to our house for dessert after the show, where Gina would gently break the good news about Logan’s return. Then Logan would come downstairs, so that at least Dylan, who was sixteen, could witness him in all his ghostly glory. I couldn’t wait to see their faces when they realized his shady torment was over.

  The pub in downtown Towson was crowded, even for a Saturday night. Mickey and Siobhan were making a name for themselves with their acoustic Irish folk act, the Keeleys (not to be confused with the Keeley Brothers, the punk band they’d shared with Logan and two friends).

  “Here they come. Yay!” Megan slammed down her glass and stood to applaud twice as loud as anyone else.

  I turned to see Mickey and Siobhan mount the small platform at the far end of the bar. The twins’ understated entrance was a funeral march compared to the way the Keeley Brothers would explode onstage with Logan as their front man.

  Siobhan gave the hooting crowd a nod and a shy wave. But Mickey might as well have been alone in the room.

  They took their seats before the microphones and did a quick tuning. I looked at their parents, who sat at a nearby table with my aunt Gina. Mr. and Mrs. Keeley clutched hands across the table, white-knuckle tight, as if fearing they’d lose two more children on that stage.

  Mickey pulled the mic to his lips and regarded the quieting room. The brim of his cap shadowed his eyes and pressed a wave of brown hair over his right brow. His stillness held as much power as Logan’s hyperanimation.

  “Good evening. We’re the Keeleys, and this first one, as always, is for Logan.”

  Mickey closed his eyes and began to sing a cappella, clear and soft and incomprehensible, the Gaelic syllables rolling off his tongue. Siobhan joined in on the chorus, her own voice high and sweet, with a keening edge that reminded me of how she’d wailed when Logan died.

  I rubbed the spot in the center of my chest that ached whenever I thought of that night. The joy of Logan’s return from shade could never erase the pain of his death. I didn’t dare hope, like Logan did, that the summer solstice would bring him back to life. Some things couldn’t be overturned by love or hope or the blindest of faith.

  On the second verse, Mickey softly strummed his guitar, and Siobhan’s fiddle began to croon. The mournful strains sliced my gut. Irish ballads had a way of dredging up everything I’d ever been sad about—my parents, Logan, and now Zachary—and shoving it to the front of my mind for maximum brooding.

  Across the table, Megan watched Mickey with glistening eyes. Beside me, Dylan shifted his ginger ale in an imaginary square, the cardboard coaster stuck to the bottle. A clump of straight brown hair swooped over his temple, obscuring his eyes. I stirred the ice in my Diet Coke and wished for a stronger drink.

  Though the mood of the music changed as the show went on, Dylan and I stayed put—not watching, not dancing, despite Megan’s pleas. I knew I could wipe away the gloom on Dylan’s face with one sentence—“Your brother’s a ghost again”—but it would spoil the careful plan that Logan, Gina, and I had created. I kept checking my watch and counting down the minutes until we could leave.

  Siobhan and Mickey ended with “The Parting Glass,” the song Logan had performed on that stage before shading. Everyone stood to toast and sing—everyone but Dylan and me.

  “I wish they wouldn’t play this every time,” he said as he scratched the last shred of label from his ginger ale bottle.

  “It’s how they deal.”

  “They only deal with Logan through the music.” He pushed the label tatters into a pile, using the side of his hand like a snowplow. “They never talk about him, not even with me.”

  I looked up at Megan, standing beside our booth. A corner of her mouth angled down. “Me neither,” she said. “Maybe we should take up the guitar.”

  He smirked. “I was thinking didgeridoo.”

  I laughed at the image, which eased the pain of the song’s last chorus. Hearing anyone but Logan sing “Good night and joy be with you all” sent an imaginary shard of glass through me.

  “Oh my God,” Megan squeaked. Her eyes went round as Ping-Pong balls.

  I turned to the stage to see Logan sitting in the back corner, behind his brother and sister, applauding without sound.

  My heart leaped at the sight of him, then sank when I realized the shit storm that was about to strike, in three. . .

  “What’s wrong?” Dylan craned his neck to look over the back of the booth.

  Two . . .

  “Holy fuck!” He shoved at my arm. “Aura, move. It’s Logan!”

  One.

  Mrs. Keeley’s shriek pierced the room like a microphone’s feedback. “Logan?! Where?”

  “Mom, he’s a ghost again!” Dylan pushed past me as I slipped out of the seat, rubbing my ears. “Logan!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Keeley’s chairs clattered as they lurched from their table toward the stage. They followed close behind Dylan, who was parting the crowd like a running back, elbows splayed.

  The dozens of pre-Shifters started to catch on. Everyone spoke at once, louder and louder, murmuring words like “shade” and “ghost” and “impossible.”

  It wasn’t just the wall of noise that made me want to flee the pub. Logan had thrown our entire world—my entire world—into chaos.

  I pushed past a pair of confused onlookers to get to Gina’s table.

  She glared up at me. “Did you know he would show up here?”

  “No, I swear! I would’ve tried to talk him out of it.” Not that it would’ve worked. “How could he do this to us?”
/>
  “Us? Think about his family. He’ll give his father another heart attack.”

  “That was the whole point of waiting until later, so they wouldn’t freak out. Now everyone is freaking out.”

  We watched Logan give Megan and Dylan virtual high fives, while Mickey stood against the back wall, Siobhan clinging to his shirtsleeve. The eyes of the older Keeley siblings raked the stage for the brother they would never see.

  “What do we do now?” I asked Gina.

  She scanned the pub, worry lines creasing her forehead. “I think that you, Megan, and Dylan are the only post-Shifters here. That means we can control the message.”

  “Message?”

  “The media are bound to arrive any minute, like they did when Logan shaded. This is an even bigger story.”

  “Oh God.” Not more reporters. I had a lot more secrets now than I’d had at the trial. After all, I’d witnessed, maybe enabled, the world’s first shade-to-ghost transformation.

  Way to go, Logan. Fury rose in my throat. If you weren’t dead, I’d kill you.

  “We have to play this carefully.” Gina ran her trimmed nails over the edges of her pale pink lips. “We want the world to know that shades aren’t hopeless, but we don’t want anyone to think you had something to do with his return.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with it!”

  She frowned at me. “I know you didn’t. Calm down.”

  “Okay, okay.” I smoothed the sleeves of my dark green cardigan, swallowing my anger and panic. “So when the reporters grill him, I should translate, so I can censor anything he says about me.”

  “Exactly. I don’t know how long it’ll work, but hiding him now will only make people suspicious.”

  My brief calm evaporated. “‘People’? Like the DMP? Will they try to take Logan again?” And maybe me, too, for questioning? I’d heard rumors about humans who got “dumped” and weren’t seen for days.

  “No one’s taking Logan. I have his protective order right here.” She patted her bag, tucked tight under her arm.