Shade

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Where had that come from?

  Zachary hesitated, like he was waiting for me to take it back, then shifted so he was sitting in front of me. He took my face in his hands—which actually were pretty big—and placed his thumbs under my cheekbones, his little fingers under the curve of my jaw. “Now say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Anything,” Zachary whispered.

  My brain scrambled for a sentence that was suitably seductive, or at least funny. But at that moment of supreme panic, the only thing whirling around my mind was the Gettysburg Address.

  “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty.”

  Zachary’s grip kept my mouth from opening too far. The r’s rolled out softly, tapped by my tongue with a gentle restraint.

  “And dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” I switched back to my regular accent. “I forget the rest.”

  “That was perfect.” He stared into my eyes, breaking our gaze only to glance at my lips. His warm hands still held my face, and the energy from his touch sent shocks zinging down my spine and out into my limbs.

  An extra-strong vibration came from my left side, near my heart. I closed my eyes and lifted my chin.

  “Aura.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Your, uh, your chest is humming.” He let go of me.

  “Huh?” I blinked at the sudden loss of his touch. “Oh, my phone!” I unzipped my jacket and fumbled in the inside pocket.

  It was my dear aunt and her impeccable timing.

  “What’s wrong?” I answered.

  “I’m just checking in,” Gina said. “Making sure you haven’t been eaten by wolves or hit by a stray bullet from a hunter.”

  “I’m on a farm, not in the Yukon.”

  “You know me. I have to be Turbo Godmother sometimes.”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “You sure? You sound out of breath.”

  “Yeah! I mean, we just moved our stuff because of the—uh, the smell. Of cows.”

  “Ew. Are you almost finished?”

  Zachary was already bent over our map, adding stars with a new urgency.

  “Yes,” I told her through gritted teeth. “I’ll be home soon.”

  When she said good-bye, I clicked off and put the phone back in my jacket.

  “I also found Mars,” Zachary said. “In Gemini.” He pointed to the southeast without looking at me. “See the reddish orange one? It’s barely risen.”

  “I see it.” I flipped the page in our book to a new quadrant of the sky, my hands still shaking. I hadn’t felt like this since the night Logan and I had first kissed, after his first concert a year ago.

  A year ago tomorrow, I realized. I’d almost kissed another guy a few hours from our anniversary. Shame flushed my cheeks and forehead.

  At least, I thought it was shame.

  The moment I pulled away from Zachary’s apartment building, I heard a voice beside me.

  “Late for a school night, isn’t it?”

  My foot jammed the brake pedal in reflex. “Damn it, Logan! Not while I’m driving.”

  “Sorry.” He laid his arm along the passenger-side window. “I got worried.”

  “You too? Gina thinks I’ll be eaten by boll weevils or something.” I got the car moving again. “I’m probably a lot safer there than I am on my own street.”

  “I bet it’s nice out in the country.”

  “It’s gorgeous. I can’t get over how quiet it is.”

  He snorted. “Mr. Ed doesn’t say much while you’re making your maps?”

  I squinted at him, not getting the joke. “Mr. Ed?”

  “I said, ‘Mr. Red.’ Your friend or whatever he is.”

  “Zachary? Why do you call him that?”

  “I can’t even look at him. Dude wears red shirts like they’re going out of style. Which unfortunately they never will,” he grumbled.

  “What are you talking about? Zach never wears red. He doesn’t have to, because he’s a pre-Shifter. I told you that.”

  “So now he’s ‘Zach’ to you? I never got a nickname.”

  I thought of several nicknames he wouldn’t like. “Watch it, Logan. The jealousy routine does not give me warm fuzzies.”

  “I don’t know anything about this guy. Maybe if you filled me in, I wouldn’t be so—I don’t know—”

  “Threatened?”

  “I’m not threatened.” His voice rose, and the edges of his form flickered and faded. The sight sent a chill ricocheting through me.

  I had to calm him down. “There’s not much to tell,” I said as I turned onto the parkway, which this late at night held none of its usual traffic. “He’s a junior, he’s in my history class. Oh, and he’s from Scotland.”

  “Did you know bagpipes were actually invented in Ireland?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Logan snickered. “Yeah, we gave them to Scotland as a practical joke. They still haven’t figured it out.”

  I chuckled, if only to indulge him. I couldn’t expect him not to be jealous—after all, Zachary could touch me, and Logan couldn’t. All I had to do to get rid of Logan, even now, was take a turn down a new road. If I were standing in his shoes—his violet high-top Vans, to be exact—I’d be exploding with fear and frustration.

  We reached a stoplight. “Logan, do you ever think about plans?”

  “Plans for what?”

  “For the future. Beyond next week or next month.”

  He didn’t reply at first. The traffic light turned green before he spoke.

  “I do have a plan,” he said quietly, but didn’t elaborate.

  “Can you tell me?”

  “I don’t want to ruin the time we have together. Can we just enjoy this for now?”

  My fingers grew cold on the steering wheel. “What are you planning? Are you going to—change?”

  “Huh?” Logan sounded genuinely confused. “Change how?”

  “I don’t know.” I turned onto my street a little too fast, and the tires made a tiny squeal. “Into a shade?”

  “What?” Logan’s shout echoed in the car. “Are you kidding? Aura, I would never in a million years. That’s insane.” He leaned toward me, his glow almost burning my eyes. “How can you even think it? Why would I want to be a”—his voice plummeted to a whisper—“shade?”

  “Then you could go anywhere you wanted. You could hide in the dark.”

  “And lose any chance of going to heaven. I might not be in a hurry to leave this world, but when I do, I want to be at peace.” He slumped back in his seat. “I must be acting like a total asshole for you to think I could shade out.”

  “Not with me.” I bit my lip at my impending betrayal. “With your brother. He’s worried.”

  “Shit.” Logan rubbed his face hard with both hands, as if he was trying to wipe away his whole self. “I probably have been a jerk around him lately.”

  “He says you make him sick. Literally.”

  “Oh God,” Logan whispered.

  I focused on the road so I wouldn’t see the fear on his face. The street sweepers were coming early the next morning, so I had to park around the block, near the Keeleys’ old house.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Logan said. “I swear.”

  His remorse dug claws into my heart. “Maybe you’re not shading. Maybe Dylan felt sick and dizzy because he was upset. Maybe he needs some antianxiety medication.”

  “Great, I’m driving my little brother crazy. I am so going to hell.”

  “You are not. Only dictators and stuff go to hell.”

  “Dictators and shades. If being stuck here forever counts as eternal damnation.”

  A grunt was my only response as I concentrated on parallel parking. Logan’s glow was destroying my night vision, so I had trouble seeing the exact position of the other cars, but I didn’t want to ask him to get out, not in his current state of mind.

  When we were
parked, I turned off the car but didn’t open the door.

  Logan looked at me, his posture hunched. “You said I don’t make you sick, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So you still want me to come to bed with you?”

  I looked at the dashboard clock. One hour and three minutes until our anniversary. “If I say yes, will you tell me your plan?”

  “Not yet, but you’ll be the first to know.” He held out his hand, flat with fingers spread. “Spider-swear.”

  I slipped my solid fingers between his ethereal ones. My skin reflected his violet glow, which for tonight, at least, was strong and steady and seemed like it would never fade.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The heavy rain made the cemetery dark enough to see ghosts, and there were more than I’d expected. When Aunt Gina and I pulled up behind the Keeleys’ SUV, half a dozen violet spirits lingered around the graves of their loved ones (or hated ones), but they didn’t look at us, much less approach.

  Most importantly, there was no Logan.

  Before we got out of the car, Gina spoke to me in a gentle voice. “I think this’ll be good for you, sweetie. Give you some closure, like you said.”

  When did I said that? I pulled up the hood of my windbreaker, grabbed the flower wreath between my knees, and opened the door.

  Ahead of us, Mr. Keeley retrieved a giant blue golfing umbrella from the back of the SUV, then went to the passenger door and helped his wife step out onto the wet grass. She slipped a little in her high heels. My aunt hurried over to them, her own black umbrella wobbling on her shoulder.

  This cemetery was smaller, with more trees, than the one my mother was buried in outside of Philadelphia. I always visited my mom when I went up there, and tried to go alone or with someone other than Gina, so that I could cry without making my aunt feel bad, as if she weren’t a good enough substitute.

  Like me, the remaining Keeley brothers and Siobhan had dressed for the weather, in jackets and rain shoes.

  “I miss you.” Siobhan hugged me hard. “The house feels so empty without you and Logan.”

  “I didn’t know if I was welcome.”

  She kissed my temple. “Consider this an open invitation. And speaking of invitations.” She fished in her purse and brought out a folded neon green paper. “Our next gig.”

  My stomach sank. How could the Keeley Brothers go on without Logan? I unfolded the flyer.

  THE KEELEYS, it said, with a picture of Siobhan and Mickey. The venue was the Green Derby, a tiny Irish pub in Towson, and the date was mid-January. Right after the trial.

  “We’re doing acoustic sets now,” Mickey added over her shoulder. “More traditional stuff.”

  “Nothing big,” Siobhan said. “Just something to fill the time between now and college.”

  “No record companies.” Mickey tugged his hood down over his face. “Never again.”

  Siobhan glanced at Aunt Gina, who was several feet away, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Keeley. “Can you make it? It’s a bar, but you have a fake ID, right?”

  I nodded. “I’ve been there before.” So had Logan, which meant he’d probably show up if he hadn’t passed on yet.

  “We’re dedicating our first show to him.” The corners of her eyes drooped. “And probably our second show, and all the rest.”

  Mickey tapped her elbow. “They’re ready.”

  They headed off for the grave, and I followed, falling into step beside Dylan.

  “You must have talked to Logan,” he said. “He’s been less of a dick this week.”

  “Only less of one?”

  “Okay, not at all. It’s been cool.”

  “No more hot flashes or fainting spells?”

  “Shut up,” he snorted. “You make me sound like an old lady.” He stopped and turned to me. “I’m telling you, that sick feeling was real. Logan was shading.”

  “And how many shades have you seen that you can be so sure?”

  “Three. You don’t forget the way they screw with your brain.”

  “I know.” I’d only seen two in my life, and none until the past year. Sometimes I wondered if they’d always existed or if they’d evolved recently. In the month of November alone, four sixteen-year-olds had died in shade-related car accidents across the state.

  “And then one time there was this really shady ghost,” Dylan said, “at the GameStop in the Towson mall, before it was BlackBoxed? I think he was only a kid when he died. Anyway, he was almost totally black, hardly any violet left at all.”

  “What was the ghost doing?”

  “That’s the funny part. He was screaming about wanting the new Nintendo 64. My friend Kyle and I were like, dude, that came out a million years ago. Which just pissed him off. So then the Obsidians showed up and detained him.”

  “How did they do it?”

  Dylan made an O with his hand. “They used this crystal disc thingie. I guess it was like bait.”

  “The summoner. We use them in court to get the ghosts to the witness stand. It lets them go places they never went during their lives.”

  He scoffed. “You mean places like a little black box?”

  “Is that where they put that kid’s ghost?”

  “Yeah. It was about the size of a remote control.” Dylan fidgeted with the Velcro pocket of his windbreaker, ripping it open and smoothing it closed. “He was still screaming when they locked it.”

  “Whoa.”

  “It was pretty close.” Rip. Smooth. “I think he was about to shade all the way, and then they never could’ve caught him.” Rip. Smooth. “Afterward the Obsidian guys talked to us and let us play with some of their equipment. It was cool.”

  “Cool?” I rolled my eyes. “It’s called recruitment. And I bet one day the dumpers won’t bother anymore. They’ll make us work for them whether we want to or not. Like a draft.”

  “So maybe it’s better to volunteer. At least that way we get free college. And probably sweeter assignments.” Dylan wiped a rivulet of rain off the bridge of his nose. “In this Vietnam game I played once, all the draftees—that was the lowest level—got deployed to these hard-ass jungles really far from the towns where they could get hookers and stuff. But when you had enough points to re-enlist, you got more weapons and better armor.” He shoved his hands into the front pouch of his windbreaker, pulling the hood low over his forehead. “So maybe if the DMP drafts you, you end up at some crap-basket in the Middle East where you can’t have alcohol, but if you sign up, maybe you get to work where it’s air-conditioned.”

  I didn’t even try to follow his pinball imagination. “Just be careful, Dylan.”

  “You coming?” Mickey called to us, bellowing over the roar of rain on hundreds of granite slabs.

  We waved at him. “At least Logan remembered my birthday today,” Dylan said.

  “Oh! Happy birth—” I cut myself off as I realized it was anything but happy. “I’m sorry. And it’s your sixteenth, too. Have you gotten any presents?”

  “Shyeah, right. No one’s even said anything.” He shrugged and turned away. “Come on.”

  Grass hadn’t grown on Logan’s grave yet, so it still looked fresh, except for divots where puddles had formed over the last few rainy weeks.

  The Keeleys stepped aside so I could place my heart-shaped wreath of red and white roses next to the bigger one they had just laid at his grave. The soft, spongy earth gave way easily as I pushed the thin stakes into the ground.

  “I love you, Logan,” I whispered, below the rush of rain. A lock of my hair fell out from underneath my hood and was instantly soaked.

  Logan’s headstone was the standard gray granite. Under his name and dates of birth and death, it simply read, FOR WHAT IS SEEN IS TEMPORARY, BUT WHAT IS UNSEEN IS ETERNAL. I remembered that same Bible verse from his funeral Mass. It made me shiver, thinking of shades.

  I took a step back, into a puddle in the waterlogged grass. Cold rain seeped over the top of my right shoe.

  “What does he say
to you?”

  I realized Mrs. Keeley was speaking to me.

  I cleared my throat. “When?”

  “Whenever. Dylan won’t tell us anymore.” She clasped Mr. Keeley’s arm beside her. “We think he’s holding back.”

  Dylan scuffed his feet against the grass. “Mom …”

  “The house is so quiet.” Mrs. Keeley shifted her black leather gloves from hand to hand. “I never realized how much Logan talked until he was gone. His grandmother always called him her little chatter-bug.” She glanced at each of her other children. “He never hid anything from us.”

  “Except that tattoo,” Mr. Keeley added. He showed a hint of a smile, as if he admired Logan’s little rebellion.

  “Yes, there was that.” Mrs. Keeley narrowed her eyes at him, and when she looked back at me, some of that hostility remained. “Can you tell us anything? How does he spend his time? Where does he go? Is he—” She dropped one of her gloves. “Oh.”

  Mr. Keeley grunted as he tried to bend over to get the glove without smacking her with the umbrella.

  “I got it.” Mickey stepped around the end of the grave and picked up the glove.

  Instead of taking it from him, Mrs. Keeley grasped Mickey’s arm and tucked him close to her side. He winced at the grip on his biceps.

  “This one’s muter than a mime,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I expect he’ll be joining a monastery soon and make his vow of silence official.”

  Mickey’s mouth drew into a tight straight line, as if to prove her point.

  “Aura,” she said, “is Logan searching for peace?”

  “Um … I don’t know,” was my brilliant response.

  “How can we help him find it? Besides the trial, I mean. It rips us apart to think of Logan in this purgatory.”

  I wanted to scream at Mr. and Mrs. Keeley to drop the case, but at the same time I was relieved they were speaking to me again. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to upset you.”

  “He never wanted to upset anyone,” Siobhan murmured. “That’s why he always upset everyone.”

  Dylan snorted again, louder.

  “What?” his sister snapped at him. “You think I’m full of it?”

  “No, I just hate when you talk about him like he’s gone.”