Shade

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “Aura.” His whisper seemed to be right at my ear. “Do you still love me?”

  It was the wrong question, because boy or ghost or shade, there would always be only one answer.

  “Yes.”

  Logan’s dark outline brightened to pure violet again, and I let myself breathe.

  “I love you, too.” He bounced on his toes. “So we’re cool, then? I’ll come over tomorrow after you put the other sheets on. You leave for your grandmom’s on Monday, right?”

  “I do, but—I don’t think you should come here … tomorrow night.” I cursed myself for wussing out at the end of the sentence. I’d never broken up with anyone before Logan. I’d never loved anyone before Logan.

  “When are you getting back from Philly?” he asked me. “I’ll stop by then.”

  “I—no. I don’t want you to come here.” I shuddered at the sound of my words. “I can’t see you anymore.”

  Logan went very still, as if caught in a freeze-frame. “You said you love me.”

  “I do love you.”

  “But you’re leaving me.”

  “It’s the only way to—”

  “I’ve lost you.” He stepped back and looked up and down the sidewalk. “Because I died, I’ve lost you.”

  “Logan, don’t—”

  “God, this isn’t happening. It was one thing to lose my life, but this.” He dragged his hands up his face, into his hair. “What can I do, Aura? Tell me what to do.”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “No!” He lunged through the iron gate into the yard, then stopped with a hiss, like something had pushed him back. “There’s got to be something. Got to be!”

  Black lightning shot through his body, ripping him apart.

  “Logan?” I reached for him. “Logan, don’t!”

  Something slithered over the back of my neck as I moved. The chain of the obsidian pendant. I wrenched my body to keep the stone inside my shirt, but it swung out, dangling in the air before him.

  Logan hurled a gurgling, staticky shriek. “THERE MUST BE SOMETHING!”

  My brain tilted. I grabbed for the edge of the roof, but my hands went in the wrong direction. Up was down and down was up.

  As the world dropped away, I saw Logan’s shadowy figure streak toward me.

  “AURA!”

  Then I was twisting, slipping, scrambling.

  And finally, falling.

  In the long, gray moments that followed, I heard Logan calling for help. He screamed my aunt’s name, but of course she couldn’t hear him. I lay on the cold concrete walkway, trying not to let the desperation in his voice make my own lungs seize. It hurt to breathe.

  “Aura.” Logan knelt beside me, sobbing. His voice had lost its crackle. “I’m gonna get Megan. I’ll be right back. Don’t move, okay?” When I didn’t respond, he shouted into my ear. “Aura! Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “Go.”

  His violet hands reached for me, but then he snatched them back as if I’d burned them. “Don’t move. And don’t fall asleep. Think of a song.”

  “A song?”

  “Something fast. Think of ‘Devil’s Dance Floor.’ Remember?”

  He blurted out the first line to jog my memory, then disappeared. A moment later I heard his voice from two blocks over, shouting Megan’s name again and again.

  I tried to turn my mind to the song, remembering how he would lock his gaze with mine on the first verse, how he would pull each musician into the interlude like a wizard coaxing the four elements, how he stoked the crowd through the frenzied finale, urging them to swing a little more on the devil’s dance floor.

  The song ended and he finally quieted, in both imagination and reality. I closed my eyes and let the gray turn to black.

  Chapter Twenty

  Wake up, dork.”

  I opened my eyes reluctantly to see the pockmarked tiles of the hospital room ceiling.

  “It’s been two hours already?” I asked Megan.

  “Yep. The nurse is on her way to check on you again. Figured you’d rather wake up to my pretty face than hers.”

  I tried to roll over in bed, but the sharp ache in my side stopped me. “Ow!”

  “More painkillers you need,” Megan said, using the new Yoda puppet she’d bought for my birthday.

  “Where’s Gina?”

  “In the lounge she is, her messages, she is checking.” Megan coughed and lowered the puppet. “It hurts to do that voice. How do you feel?”

  Once again my mind was slammed by the events of the previous night. Logan shimmering in pain. Logan raging over our breakup. Logan turning shade.

  “I just want to sleep.”

  Megan’s eyes widened. “Uh-oh.”

  “No.” I gritted my teeth as I used my one good hand to help myself sit up. “I’m sleepy because I fell off my roof and got poked at by doctors until five a.m. I’m not sleepy because my brain is sloshed.”

  “Are you sure? I can ring the bell and have the nurse come quicker.”

  “I don’t feel sick. I’m actually kinda hungry.”

  “That’s supposed to be a good sign.” Megan straightened the thin knit blanket over the sheets. “You could totally use this head injury thing when school starts again. If you flunk a test, just say you had memory loss from your concussion.”

  Ha. If only the injury could clear the memories I dreaded most. But I knew I’d never get that lucky.

  The nurse came in then, and I understood Megan’s point about not wanting to wake up to that face. “Agatha” (according to her name tag) scowled at me as she took my blood pressure and checked my chart. She asked me several questions and seemed disappointed with my unremarkable answers.

  “The neurologist will be in shortly to examine you. Until then, don’t move.” Agatha shook her finger at Megan on her way out, like my friend might challenge me to a game of one-on-one.

  “Do you want me to call Zach for you?” Megan said. “You can’t use cell phones in hospital rooms.”

  “No. Give me the regular phone.” I picked up the receiver from the clunky contraption on my nightstand.

  She pressed on the hook to keep me from dialing. “What are you going to tell him?” she asked in a serious tone.

  “The truth.” One version of it, at least. “Why?”

  “Maybe you should leave out some of the details.”

  “Which details?”

  “The ones with Logan in them.” She placed the phone in my lap so I could dial, then slipped the puppet back on her hand. “Leave you alone I will. An idiot do not be.”

  When Zachary picked up, his voice was cautious, no doubt unfamiliar with the number on his caller ID. “Hello?”

  “It’s Aura.”

  “Good morning.” His warm tone gave me a shivery reminder of our time alone together. Then he said, “Wait, where are you?”

  “In the hospital. I kind of had an accident.”

  He drew in a sharp breath. “What happened? Are you all right? Do you want me to come over?”

  “Thanks, but I’m getting out tonight. I’m not hurt too bad.” I paused. “I fell off my porch roof while talking to Logan.”

  “Oh.”

  “When I got home, Gina had changed my sheets back to the red ones, and I didn’t take them off. So when he showed up, he was—” I fought to keep the fresh pain out of my voice. “It was bad.”

  “What did he do to you?” Zachary demanded.

  “Nothing.” I swallowed the truth—I couldn’t tell anyone about Logan’s shading, or he’d be locked up forever. “I broke up with him.”

  “Good. I mean, er—” He stammered a few incoherent syllables. “Wait, what’s that got to do with the roof ?”

  “Logan wanted to talk some more.”

  “Talk you out of it.”

  “Maybe. No, I’m getting it out of order. I broke up with him after I was on the roof. Then I guess I slipped.”

  “And your aunt found you?”


  “No, Logan had to get Megan, who got Gina.”

  “You sure you’re not badly hurt?”

  “I just sprained my wrist and my knee, and bruised some ribs.” I scratched my side through the thin blue hospital gown. “This bandage itches like crazy. Oh, and I blacked out.”

  “Christ.”

  “They admitted me so they could monitor my brain for swelling. Which means sadistically waking me up every two hours to see if I feel sick or dizzy. Pretty annoying.”

  “Not as annoying as dying in your sleep.”

  “True.” I tried to fluff my pillow. The scratchy pillowcase smelled of chlorine bleach. “Have you ever had a concussion?”

  “Head-butt at a football match. I won’t say who started the row.”

  He chuckled, but I didn’t join him. His reply had jolted my memory, back to a summer day when I was twelve.

  Logan had been teaching me how to ride a skateboard on our neighborhood sidewalks. I sucked, but he wouldn’t give up. He wanted me to hang out with him and the boys at the park, not sit on the curb with the other girls and watch.

  That day, a white delivery truck was double-parked in front of the Indian restaurant on the corner, flashers blinking. I didn’t see the car swerve around it, into the opposing lane, because I was finally staying on the board for three, four, five, six (!!) sections of sidewalk. I was even steering a little by shifting my weight. I was flying.

  When the sidewalk ended, I didn’t want to stop. I put out my arms and guided the board in front of the van toward the empty side of the street.

  “Logan, I’m doing it! Look at—”

  I had no time to scream at the oncoming car before something slammed my body backward. Brakes screeched, mixing with my shriek of pain as the blacktop tore the skin of my back. It all ended with a thunk! and a groan.

  Logan was lying on top of me. His eyes were dazed, and his forehead was red where he’d hit it on the bumper of the parked delivery truck.

  “Careful,” he said, then slumped unconscious.

  If Logan hadn’t saved my life that day, I realized now, I wouldn’t have become his girlfriend. I wouldn’t have called him stupid just after midnight on October nineteenth. If Logan hadn’t saved my life, maybe he’d still be alive.

  “Aura?” came a new voice in my ear. Zachary’s.

  “Sorry. What did you say?”

  There was a short silence. “I’ll be right over.”

  “Those are beautiful!” Aunt Gina tossed aside her Sudoku book and hugged Zachary as he entered my hospital room. “I’ll see if the nurse’s station has a vase.” She hustled out the door.

  “Hello.” Zachary shuffled over, his eyes on the aluminum crutch propped against the side of the bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Useless.” I held up my right hand in the beige splint. “But the doctor said my wrist wasn’t too bad, so in a week I should be able to use both crutches.” I eyed the bouquet of roses he held by his side. “Are those for me or are you making another stop?”

  “Oh, sorry. Here.” He offered them to my good hand.

  “Thank you, they’re gorgeous. The red and yellow look so pretty together.” I counted: six of each color. Their sweet scent eased the ache in my head. “I’m so glad I got hurt,” I added with a grin.

  “Er, yeah.” He smoothed the sides of his trousers, then sat in the metal-framed chair my aunt had vacated. “The man at the flower shop said that yellow was for friendship and red was for, well, more than friendship.”

  “Does this mean we’re both?”

  He looked down at his hands. “It means I don’t know which we are.”

  I froze, my nose inside one of the red blooms. “But last night—”

  “Last night I was less confused.”

  My stomach flipped. “Confused about whether you want to be with me?”

  “No!” Zachary put his palms out. “I know I want to be with you. But not if you’re in love with someone else.”

  “I’m not,” I whispered, wishing I could sound more convincing. “I broke up with Logan, remember?”

  “And it almost killed you.”

  “The roof was only ten feet up or so.”

  “Not just literally.” He pointed to the phone. “I could hear it in your voice—it hurts you just to say his name. And I can see it in your eyes right now. You’re not over him.”

  I tried to look straight at Zachary and swear that I was, but the image of Logan shading seared my memory. I ended up staring into the roses. “I’m working on it.”

  Zachary sighed and sat forward, elbows on his knees. “Aura, I’m really patient, but I’m not a bloody saint.”

  “Here we go!” Aunt Gina clacked in on her platform heels, carrying a green glass vase full of water, which she set on the tray stand in front of me. She hummed “Deck the Halls” as she ripped open the package of flower food and poured the powdery contents into the vase.

  I watched the process as if it fascinated me. Anything was better than looking at the regret on Zachary’s face.

  Suddenly Gina glanced between us. “Is this a bad time?”

  We both shrugged halfheartedly.

  She hurried to place the roses in the vase, still in their wrapper. “That’s good for now. We’ll arrange them better when we get home tonight.” She left the vase on the tray stand and picked up her handbag. “I’ll be in the cafeteria. You need anything?”

  I shook my head. She kissed my cheek, then on her way out patted Zachary’s shoulder in a way that said, If you upset Aura in her weakened state, I will end you.

  After she was gone, I picked at the florist’s gold label on the roses’ wrapper. “So, back to breaking up with me …”

  “I’m no’ breaking up with you.” Zachary intertwined his fingers, elbows still on his knees. “How can I, when we’re not really together?”

  We’re not? “It’s complicated.”

  “I know it’s complicated. I’ve had a front-row seat for two months, and it still hasn’t been enough time. I want to give you that time, so that when you’re ready, we can just be the two of us.” Zachary sat up straight and put his hands on the chair arms. “Time and space.”

  “Space?” My head started to pound worse than ever. “So we can’t even see each other?”

  “At least not until after the trial. Then you can decide.”

  “But I already decided.” My hazy mind fumbled for proof. “I could’ve switched the sheets back to purple last night, but I didn’t. I chose you.”

  “It wasn’t you choosing me. It was circumstance choosing me for you.”

  “Whatever! I’m glad about it.” I wanted to reach for him but knew he would turn away. “What are you so afraid of ?”

  His fingers curled as his green eyes bore into me. “I’m afraid that someday you’ll hate me for making you take a shortcut.”

  “No shortcuts. I’m ready to move on.” At least, I wanted to be ready.

  “Moving on doesn’t mean moving on to me.” He tapped his chest. “I don’t want you to want me just because I’m here and alive.”

  “What if I never saw Logan again? What if he leaves forever? Would that be enough for you?”

  “If he left now, he’d take a piece of you with him.”

  My life force seemed to drain out of me. Exhausted, I sank back onto the flimsy pillow and closed my eyes.

  Zachary was right. I wanted to move on, but I couldn’t ask him to settle for half of me.

  “But that piece won’t be gone forever.” Zachary came to stand next to my bed. “One day you’ll be ready. We’ll both know when that happens.”

  I noticed he said “when,” not “if.” It reminded me of his favorite song, his confidence that he would possess my heart.

  “You’re not staying forever,” I said. “You’re going home in June.”

  Zachary reached out and laced his fingers with mine. “Well, then, there’s your deadline.”

  When I got home that night, I settled on the living room couch—
my temporary bed until I could use both crutches to get upstairs. Beside me on the coffee table lay my stack of books for our history thesis. Now that classes were out for two weeks, I finally had time to explore the mysteries of Newgrange, and meeting Ian Moore had whetted my appetite for answers. Zachary had offered to do this month’s star map alone—partly because of my injuries and partly, no doubt, to avoid me.

  As always, I lingered on the photos my mother had taken. Their edges were wrinkled and their corners nearly rounded from the dozens of times I had handled them.

  But my favorite one I never touched at all. I kept the candid Polaroid of my mother in a sealed plastic bag.

  In the picture, Mom stands on a hillside, squinting off into the morning sun, which casts a long shadow behind her. A breeze flaps the tails of her open gray raincoat and fans her long dark curls.

  The sticky note on the back read, “Taken by some Irish guy who claimed I looked ‘mystical’ gazing out at the River Boyne. (Really I was just trying to figure out which road would take me to a breakfast place.)”

  As always, I gave the photo a quick kiss through the bag before returning it to the folder.

  My second favorite picture was the one of the dark burial chamber doorway, surrounded by blinding white quartz and fronted by a large threshold stone carved in swirling spirals. Above the door sat a smaller rectangular opening that allowed light in only once a year—at the winter solstice sunrise.

  I flipped open my mother’s journal—what was left of it. After the December 26 entry, more and more pages had been torn out, leaving only mundane details about what she’d eaten and where she’d stayed. Based on these bits, I could trace her dwindling budget.

  The last entry was complete, for all the good it did me.

  “About time Gina went to bed.”

  I almost dropped the journal. “You scared me!” I hissed at Logan.

  The lamplight was so bright I couldn’t see more than his vague violet outline next to the couch. I switched off the lamp. The white lights of the Christmas tree cast the room in a soft glow.

  “Sorry I didn’t come earlier,” Logan said. “Your aunt was freaked enough without finding out I was here.” He sat on the coffee table. “I was afraid to come at all, after the way I was last night. I could’ve killed you.”