Shade

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  His touch was lighting up my whole arm. I had to concentrate to keep my words in the right order.“ ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’ is definitely cool enough,” I told him.

  “See? You judged. What if I’d named something less cool?” At the corner of his jaw, a tiny muscle twitched. “In the dark at least I wouldn’t have had to see you laugh.”

  I wanted to laugh right then, to keep calm—and keep from throwing myself at him. “I think it’s cute that you were trying to impress me.”

  “I wasn’t. If I were, I’d have just named a song I knew you liked. One where you couldn’t analyze every line and wonder if it was about us.”

  I locked my gaze on his green eyes. “Is it?”

  “Not the stalker part.” He lifted my hand toward his lips. “Just the part where he gets the girl.”

  I closed my eyes as he kissed the pulse at my wrist, wondering if I should point out that in the song, the guy doesn’t get the girl. But surely Zachary knew that, and it wasn’t the point. The point was the wanting and the waiting.

  The point was the “Will.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aunt Gina and I didn’t speak much on the short drive home. I was still kind of pissed from our argument, and besides, I was too busy thinking to talk. My mind sorted through the day’s events, trying to sift them into categories: the good (kissing Zachary), the bad (chased by dumpers), and the ugly (shade attack).

  But each of the good parts had some bad and ugly mixed in, and vice versa. I wasn’t sure how I felt about any of it. I only knew I felt roughly ten thousand miles from sleep.

  When we entered the house, Gina took my arm with a gentle tug. “I’m sorry if I upset you with what I said about your father. I just want you to be happy.”

  “I know. It’s been a crazy day,” I added, to dismiss the subject.

  “Speaking of the day.” Gina led me into the dining room, where a small box sat wrapped in metallic blue paper with a purple bow (she knew I hated getting birthday presents in Christmas wrapping). “I wanted to give this to you alone. I hope you didn’t think I forgot.”

  “Of course not.” I gave her a quick hug, then opened the card and scanned the affectionate message, waiting a polite amount of time before I could dig into the gift. “Thank you, that’s really sweet.” I picked up the wrapped box and shook it. “Ooh, jewelry?”

  “I’m sorry there’s only one gift. I was surprised how much these things cost, but you said last year your heart was set on having one.”

  I gave her an eager glance, clueless as to what I had wanted for my sixteenth birthday. That felt like a century ago.

  I unveiled a white box from my favorite local jeweler—they did super-funky, one-of-a-kind items—and bounced on my toes, savoring the last few moments of anticipation.

  I opened the box and swept off the layer of cotton protecting the … oh God. My stomach sank slowly, lying down in surrender.

  “Do you like it?” Gina asked. “We can exchange it if you want a different length.”

  I lifted the necklace from the box. The eighteen-karat gold chain and setting gleamed in the chandelier’s glow. But the teardrop-shaped stone reflected no light at all.

  Obsidian.

  “When did you buy this?” I whispered.

  “I ordered it last month,” she said in a quiet but firm voice. “Right before Thanksgiving.”

  Last month. After Logan’s death.

  I laid the stone in the center of my palm. It was solid black, but if I stared hard enough, I could see red flecks deep within.

  Every muscle in my face went rigid. I had to say something, anything nice to keep from screaming. “It’s beautiful.” Not a lie. But tornados were beautiful too.

  “Sweetie, you probably feel like you don’t want that right now. But please keep it. You’ll want it soon enough.”

  I wanted to hurl it across the room. But instead I handed it to Gina, then turned my back and lifted my hair so she could put it on me. The sooner it was on, the sooner I could take it off.

  “The clasp is stubborn.” She gave a little grunt. “We might have to ask them to loosen it.” She looped it around my neck, where the stone thudded against my chest. A click came from behind my head. “There. Let’s see how it looks.”

  We went to the mirror. The fake Christmas pine boughs draped over it made a frame for our faces. I smiled to please Gina, but my eyes fixed on the dead cold black of the obsidian.

  Aunt Gina hugged me. “Happy birthday.”

  “You too,” I said absently, then realized what she’d said. “I mean, thanks.” I kissed her cheek and tucked the pendant inside my sweater. “I’m gonna go to bed early, okay?”

  “Wait.” She blinked rapidly. “There’s something you should know.”

  You changed my sheets.

  “Mr. Keeley called today,” Gina said. “Apparently Logan plans to leave this world before the trial.” She paused, as if waiting for me to confirm the information. “But the Keeleys want to push forward with the lawsuit, even in his absence.”

  “Are you kidding?” I steadied myself with the table edge. “I thought the whole point was to get Logan to move on, to save his soul. If he finds peace, why not drop the case?”

  “It’s become their crusade.” She swiped a tired hand across her forehead. “I’ve seen this happen with other clients. They lose a loved one, and the only way they can find meaning in that death is to prevent others like it.”

  “How does suing the record company keep other musicians from snorting coke?”

  “If it makes these men think twice before luring ambitious kids with free drugs, it’ll be a moral victory. Even if we lose.”

  “Without Logan, you will lose. The whole case depends on proving he didn’t know what he was doing when he took the drugs.”

  “We’ll still have your testimony as to his state of mind. We’ll also have Logan’s deposition, which the jury can read. It’s not as effective as hearing his testimony, so to speak, but it’s better than nothing.” She clenched her fists. “If only the state had passed that drug dealer liability law, Warrant would’ve settled out of court weeks ago.”

  I turned away from her, my mind spinning. If it was already too late to avoid the shame of the trial, Logan might as well stay indefinitely. But did I want him to? The choice was ours again.

  I pressed the heels of my hands to my cheekbones. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Gina pulled out two of the dining room chairs. “Aura, I’m about to tell you something I’ve never told anyone but Father Rotella.”

  I dropped my hands. I was right when I’d told Zachary my birthday could become more crap.

  When we sat down, Gina smoothed the crease in the green-and-gold tablecloth. “You know that before the Shift, I was able to see ghosts. But what you don’t know is that I was once in love with a man who—” She pursed her glossy pink lips. “He died and became a ghost. Just like Logan.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” My voice pitched an octave higher than usual.

  “Because I was married at the time, but not to him. We had an affair.” Gina rotated one of the brass candlestick holders flanking the centerpiece, avoiding my gaze. “To make matters worse, your mother had a mad crush on him. Then again, your mother had a mad crush on just about every man she ever saw,” she added with a tender smile. “But I knew it would hurt her if she found out.” She rubbed her thumb against a spot of wax on the candlestick holder, smudging it. “Then he died in an accident and came back to haunt me. I was so distraught, I left my husband. I never told him why, just that I didn’t love him anymore.”

  I thought of my reaction to Zachary’s kiss, how it had made me miss Logan more than ever.

  The candle toppled out of the holder. Gina set it aside. “It was probably true in that moment,” she said, “but leaving him was the stupidest thing I ever did. By the time I realized my mistake, he’d gotten over me, found someone else.”

  “
That’s horrible.” I’d known Gina had been married before I was born, but the family never discussed her ex-husband. “What about the ghost? Did he pass on?”

  “I think so. He said good-bye, and I never saw him again.” She swept her blond bangs off her forehead as if the room had turned hot. “After you were born, I never saw any ghosts again.”

  “So you get it,” I said gently. “You know what I’m going through.”

  “More than anyone.” She lifted her heavy gaze to mine. “I also know how futile it is to chase a ghost, how they can break your heart.” Gina placed a cool hand against my cheek. “Zachary seems like a good guy.”

  I fought the urge to pull away. “I’m sorry about—about that man.” She hadn’t mentioned his name, maybe because it would make her cry. I couldn’t bear to see that, so I didn’t ask. “And your husband, too.”

  “Thank you.” Gina sat back with a sigh. “Ah, well, maybe it was all for the best. Being single freed me up to move here to take care of you and your mother when she got sick.”

  She looked at the photo on the wall next to the mirror, of her and Mom on the Philadelphia waterfront, mugging for the camera with their arms around each other. Gina was seventeen, sleek and blond; my mother was still a tomboy at twelve, her frizzy dark hair coming loose from her ponytail.

  Gina laid her hand on mine. “It will always be the most important thing I’ve ever done.” Her eyes went round and wet. “Whatever you decide—about Logan, about your future—I want you to know that I’m very proud of you. Your mother would have been proud too, to see what you’ve become.”

  My eyes heated. I don’t know what I’ve become.

  “Thank you.” I fidgeted with the obsidian pendant through my sweater. I suddenly remembered why I’d wanted one for my sixteenth birthday—I’d just had my first encounter with a shade, at the Arundel Mills Mall before a movie. They’d had to shut down the theater for the night, so many customers were sick. I’d heard that one kid had passed out and fallen down the escalator.

  “Back when you could see ghosts,” I asked Gina, “were any of them shades?”

  She shook her head emphatically, swinging her dangly gold earrings. “It’s all different now. Ghosts were in full color, as you know, not in violet, and they just looked like wispy versions of live persons. Some of them were angry, but they never looked like dark shadows or made me feel sick and dizzy.”

  “I wonder why no one ever saw any shades until the last couple of years.”

  “My theory? It’s that BlackBox technology. When the ghosts can’t haunt the places and people they love, they get bitter.” She held up a finger. “Mark my words, one day studies will show it twists them into shades, and by then it’ll be too late. Everything’ll be BlackBoxed.”

  I touched the chain around my neck. “If you think that stuff is so bad, why did you give me this?”

  “Because I’m a hypocrite, and I love you.” She touched my wrist. “I want you to be safe, Aura.”

  “I love you, too.” I smiled at her, but my gaze tripped past her to the stairs.

  “Well, I have some work to do, and I know you’re tired, so …” Gina stood and drew my head to her chest so she could kiss the top of it. “Happy birthday, sweetie,” she whispered. Her hand tightened on my shoulder, enough to make me wince.

  “Good night.” I dragged myself to my feet, then trudged upstairs, feeling incredibly old. The obsidian around my neck seemed to weigh twenty pounds.

  I opened my bedroom door. No Logan.

  I tiptoed inside and softly dropped my purse on the floor, as if trying not to wake someone, then switched on the nightstand lamp.

  Red sheets.

  The soft fleece felt warm against my palm as I stroked my pillow. I reached across the bed and touched Logan’s pillow, the place where he’d laid his head, once for real and many times unreal.

  The pillow was cold. Instinctively I drew it into my lap. I clutched it against my chest and rubbed my chin over the seam of the flannel case.

  His name caught in my throat. If I called to Logan and he came, the red would hurt him. I’d be nothing but bait for a trap of pain.

  But maybe I already was. Logan could see and hear me, but never touch me. How long could we pretend? How long could we forget the world?

  My fingers dug into the soft material, sinking and stroking the way they could never do with his skin again.

  Then I noticed that my laundry hamper’s lid was slightly askew, as if the bin were overstuffed. I slid off the edge of the bed and crept over to it, still clutching the pillow.

  I lifted the lid. Purple-black sheets. Aunt Gina had left them here on purpose, letting me choose.

  I pulled out the fitted sheet. It would’ve taken only two or three minutes to switch the sheets back and make the bedroom a safe, happy place for Logan on my birthday.

  But I used that much time, maybe twice as much, to stand there thinking.

  Thinking how Logan’s fingers clenched when he talked about his guitar. Thinking how Mrs. Keeley’s back had stooped when she stood by Logan’s grave—a grave that might as well be empty.

  Thinking how Zachary’s lips had felt on mine.

  Thinking. Deciding. Choosing.

  I stuffed the sheet back into the hamper and tamped it down so that the lid would close.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my face already damp. I was tired of tears, tired of the constant heat behind my eyes, tired of my cheeks feeling stretched and dry.

  I set the pillow carefully on the bed, then changed into a mismatched pair of flannel pajamas. I just wanted to be warm.

  The sheets pressed heavy against my skin when I slid between them, my back to the window. I shivered as my own heat wrapped around me like a cocoon in the dark. Like the arms of a real live boy.

  The tears came harder, but for the first time, they felt something less than endless.

  “Aura.” Logan’s voice was strained.

  I rolled on my back. He stood by the window, shimmering.

  “Aunt Gina knows,” I told him. “She changed the sheets.”

  “Can you change them back?” he asked quickly.

  “Um …” I fumbled for an answer. “The thing is—”

  “Happy birthday,” he said. “I’m sorry I don’t have a gift or a card or anything.”

  “You have a good excuse.”

  He gave a labored laugh. “True. I guess you heard about the trial. There’s no way we can stop it now. Everyone will know what happened.” He staggered forward, his mouth twisting like he was walking on hot coals. “I hate my parents.”

  His pain and rage made my heart fold inward. “You can still leave. Save yourself.”

  “No! I won’t let you go through it alone.” Logan’s outline flickered again. “We’ll do this together. We’ll have each other’s backs, like always. I may be dead, but I’m still your boyfriend.” He took another heavy step. “Right?”

  Every word I needed to say jumbled up inside my head. Words like “breakup” and “over” and “good-bye.” But how could I hurt him when he was such a wreck?

  I sat up and reached for him. “Listen—”

  He ducked, as if from a punch. “Shit, the red is so much worse than before. Feels like I’m disintegrating.” He tried to straighten up again and failed. “We need to talk. Come outside.”

  Logan disappeared. I threw back the covers. Outside, where he wasn’t in pain, I could tell him it was over, that he had to move on without me, for both of us. But the thought of breaking up with Logan made my insides twist and tangle like a set of earbud wires.

  I put on a cardigan and sneakers, then opened my bedroom door. Down the hall, Aunt Gina’s door was ajar. The sounds of shuffling papers and tapping laptop keys came from her room. Who else would be working at eleven o’clock on a Saturday night?

  I closed the door, then opened my window. Logan was pacing in front of the house, his form slightly faded in the glow from the streetlights.

  “Hey.” I s
poke quietly. “She’s still up, so I can’t come out through the door.” I hoisted myself through the window and set my foot on the gentle slope of the porch roof we shared with our next-door neighbor.

  “Be careful,” Logan said.

  “I’ve done this a hundred times, remember?”

  “I know, but I can’t catch you anymore.”

  I peered over. It was too far down to jump, and even if I could, I’d be locked out of the house. So I swung my legs over to sit on the edge of the roof above the front walkway.

  “How was your birthday?” Logan shifted his nonexistent weight from one foot to the other. “Did you guys have dinner?”

  “We did.” My fingers tightened on the shingles as I realized he could have shown up at the restaurant tonight. He’d taken me there before the homecoming dance, so it would be part of his ghostly habitat. “But not at Chiapparelli’s.”

  “I know. I looked for you. Where did you go?”

  “To someone’s house.”

  “I went everywhere I could think of.” Logan flailed his arms. “The whole day, I looked all the places you could’ve gone, but whenever I tried to get to you, something freaky would happen.”

  My pulse skipped. “Really?”

  “Yeah, really.” He swaggered up to the edge of the grass. “It’s that guy, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t—”

  “What is his deal?” Logan’s voice crackled. “Why is he so fucking bright I can’t look at him?”

  I shook my head, but the motion made me so dizzy, I had to blink hard to clear my vision.

  “Is that why you like him, Aura? He’s all red and shiny?” The edges of Logan’s image fizzled black, like he was being swarmed by a thousand gnats. “Or is it the accent? I mean, what’s he got that I don’t—no, don’t answer that. Duh. A body.”

  “Logan, please calm down.”

  “Are you going to change the sheets or not?” He looked at the front door, then up at me. “Do you want me to come back?”

  I stared into his eyes for a long moment. I could almost imagine them blue as a September sky.