Between Seasons

by Aida Brassington

  “Don’t worry,” Megan added. “That was really unusual. Normally we get an inch or two here and there. Enjoy the fall while it’s here, though –it’ll get a lot colder than forty .”

  The picture of the barren landscape in winter came to Patrick’s mind. He hated looking outside and seeing everything dead. The trees were nothing but skeletal structures, and while he knew they were just hibernating, gathering energy to bloom again in the spring, it made him feel as though the entire world was just as destitute as he was –no hope, no joy. With spring this year had come Sara, and he knew joy like he’d never experienced. Now that fall approached , he wasn’t sure what Sara would really do. She was so scared all the time… so nervous.

  If she left him in the coming weeks, it would be terrible… but it would be appropriate. Entirely what Patrick had come to associate with the fall. He’d died in the fall, and he would die again if she abandoned him.

  It sounded melodramatic – and maybe it was – but he didn’t have anything except her. Death had stripped him of every pleasure and not given him anything in return but years of waiting for something else to happen. Sara provided warmth and comfort. Taking that away would be the cruelest thing. Being dead sucked. Being left behind sucked. Not having Sara would be torture.

  Megan stayed another thirty minutes, she and Sara discussing the issue of getting the house ready for the winter. Patrick kept his place in the corner, brooding about the possibility of life without Sara. Each breath he took rattle d in his dead lungs, pushing his chest uselessly to contract and expand. He ached for this woman. With each blink of his eyes, every movement of his body –she was everything , and to lose her would be worse than… anything.

  Maybe this was all part of the plan. Maybe he was meant to be a martyr, but his brief life hadn’t included enough suffering. In truth, he’d had it pretty easy, aside from breaking his neck on the stairs. Or… maybe he was God. Maybe he was some deity with a memory problem, and this house was really Heaven . Sara and Megan, Mrs. Stout… they were all dead and simply occupying his personal space from time to time while he figured it out.

  Patrick squeezed his eyes shut and considered commanding Sara to kiss him. He doubted that’s what a God would think about, and he didn’t feel very powerful. He blinked hard and pushed his thumbs into the corners of his eyes, wishing he really could make things the way he wanted. Of course, wishing never had done him a bit of good.

  Sara grabbed her keys and muttered something about going to the library. The breeze blew the desiccated leaves from the imagined branches in Patrick’s head, and the fall winds howled in his ear, and he shivered. It wasn’t cold, not yet... not that he could ever get cold. He stood at the front door as it closed behind her, letting in a gust of still-humid and hot August air. This life would end, and he would lose everything that meant something to him. His parents were already gone, along with his fantasy of meeting them in Heaven . His religious faith changed every other day. The only concrete thing he had just walked out the door.

  Patrick took a step and then another, wanting only to stop the longing and aching in his body, the perpetual winter numbess. His body felt stiff, like the starchy hay stuffed in a scarecrow, his joints frozen with ice from the pond where he used to ice skate. He pushed through the wood of the front door, determined… and then nothingness.

  It was the sunshine warm on his face that woke him. He hadn’t felt the heat on his skin this way in… longer than he could remember. The bed sheets rustled against him, tangling in his legs. It felt nice –the pillow under his cheek was cool, but something warm and soft pressed against his body.

  “Good morning, baby,” Sara whispered, lips curling against his ear.

  He rolled toward her, gathering her to push his nose into the crook of her neck, breathing in the close, sleepy smell. It was bliss. This was Heaven ; it had to be. She threw the covers off with her leg and slung her knee over his thighs, capturing him in a pretzel-like embrace.

  “Hey, angel. Whatdya wanna do today?” He clutched a handful of her hair and yanked playfully. It brushed against the palm of his hand, sliding through his fingers. He smiled and pulled her closer still , so giddy about the way she seemed to naturally fit against his side.

  “I don’t know.” Sara laughed, the sound rumbling through her skin and tickling his face. “We can stay in bed all day if you want.”

  He twisted his nose to the side and kissed her chin. “That sounds like a gas.”

  “A gas?” She snickered and rubbed his hip. “We need to get you caught up.”

  “Oh, sure, make fun of your idiot boyfriend who loves you.”

  “I love you too,” she teased. “I do, you know?”

  “Love you too. So much.” He kissed her chin again, biting lightly at her jaw line. “Mmmm, this is good.”

  “Yeah. I never thought…”

  “Me neither,” he admitted, slipping his arm around her slight waist and pulling the covers back over her torso. “It’s…”

  “… a miracle,” she finished, grinning. “I do have a confession to make, though.”

  “What’s that?” He stroked the fiery skin of her back under the tank top she wore.

  “I think I might blow off writers’ group tonight.”

  Patrick’s forehead drew up in confusion, taking in the mischievous light in her eyes. So dark, those eyes, barely a hint of dark green at the pupil and a ring of solid black at the edges. “That’s hardly a confession.”

  “After the things I think I want to do to you, I might need one.” She waggled her eyebrows at him suggestively.

  He threw off the blankets, and tickled her, both of them laughing. “You’re going to turn into a Catholic yet!”

  She batted his hands away, grabbing at his forearm. “Come back to bed, Patrick.”

  He rolled over and groaned, snapping to awareness with a start. He wasn’t in a soft, warm bed with Sara snuggled up to him. It was the same as always –he hovered in the air in Sara’s office where his bed had been, and the second he thought it, he managed to right himself. The scent of butter and sugar eddied around him. The cold descended through his limbs again, the heaviness depressing. Maybe he should run back out the front door again… at the very least, maybe he could pick up in that dream where he left off.

  “Shit. That dream was so strange,” he muttered, noticing the way the light slanted through the window. It was getting later, maybe late afternoon.

  “Was it?”

  Patrick whipped around, nearly losing his balance. Sara sat at her desk, her back to him and laptop open in front of her.

  “Sorry, Sara.” Shit! He’d broken his promise to keep quiet, stay away.

  “What for?” She was distracted but calm, and Patrick wondered why she wasn’t freaking out. The nerves seemed gone, and in their place was this serenity and lightness he didn’t know what to do with.

  The room shimmered with tension, although as far as he could tell, it was all one sided – she seemed to be complete unaffected, simply continuing to type. His mouth opened and closed without any words pushing past his lips . Maybe he was still dreaming.

  “Uh, for… talking. I’ve been trying to –”

  “Yeah, I know,” she interrupted. “I asked you to give me time, and you did. I appreciate it.”

  She still hadn’t turned around. “Are you okay? I mean, earlier you seemed so, well, upset.”

  “I dug it up.”

  Patrick’s eyes went wide as she set a rusted coffee can on the desk to her side, the metal clinking dully on wood.

  “Oh.” He had no idea what else to say. She appeared to have come to some sort of peace with the idea of him, enough to speak to him without going nuts , but he didn’t know what that meant. For all he knew, she was going to announce she planned to sell the house.

  “And then I just wrote a scene. We were in bed together… I could see it in my head, Patrick. I could see it clear as day, except you didn’t look like you anymore… but I knew it was you bec
ause you called you me ‘angel’.”

  “You… I… wow. I was asleep. Dreaming, you know?”

  She laughed. “Ghosts can dream? Huh. I learn something new every day.”

  Something was definitely off. She was too laid back, too calm… not anywhere near the panicked girl she’d been the last time he’d seen her or spoken to her .

  “Not that I want you to go ape or anything, but why, uh, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I guess… digging up the can and, well, if I’m going crazy, I just… think I’m okay with it. I realized it’s not like I want to hurt myself because I’m imagining you. You’re nice. So what if you’re a figment of my imagination?”

  “Well, I’m not. A figment, I mean.”

  “Maybe. I mean, there is the can to consider. And the sea glass.”

  “You have my books and records too.”

  “Yeah, but,” she said, swiveling the chair and continuing to talk as it spun, “that stuff –oh, my God!” She stared in his direction , a horrified but fascinated expression on her face.

  “What?” Patrick turned and looked behind him, expecting to see a spider or something on the wall.

  She stood, the sea glass pinched between her index finger and thumb, and took a halting step forward. “Patrick?”

  “Yeah.”

  Another step in his direction. “I can… see you.”

  His mind went completely blank, a dull roar ringing in his ears. It... wasn’t possible. There was nowhere to look that made sense –Sara’s face was too composed, the room too familiar. If he was surprised at her words, he was flabbergasted at his.

  “I don’t look all gross or anything, do I?” Patrick asked, pressing his hands into tight bundles. The thoughts now swirling in his head were nonsensical –just because he saw himself as his very normal-looking nineteen -year-old self in the mirror didn’t mean Sara did… and maybe that was why she’d been a spaz when she saw him in the mirror that one time. She’d never mentioned it, and he never thought to wonder about it until now. It would be a real shame to have his skin hanging off or be all gross and skeletal like Mrs. Bates or something.

  Sara peered at him, eyebrows drawing together. “No, no boogers or anything. Do ghosts get boogers?”

  He threw his head back and laughed, the sound startling loud. “That wasn’t what I was ta –you know what? Never mind.” Without even thinking about it, his hands went to his hair, smoothing the feathered sides. “So… you can really see me?” Some semblance of rational thought returned to him, calming his shifting eyes and clenched fists.

  Her fingers arced through the air between them. “Yeah,” she answered, her voice halfway between wonder and excitement. Her hand jutted forward, touching his arm. They both gasped and sprang apart.

  “Whoa!” Her fingers hadn’t actually passed through him, although it didn’t feel the same as a regular touch. It was lighter, more delicate, like the flutter of eyelashes against his cheek. And he could feel the warmth of her skin even though his shirt. “That’s…”

  “… different,” she finished, taking a step forward and touching his hair. “You know you’re in style again.”

  “Huh?” he asked, staring, his jaw hanging open. He could barely think of anything except for the feel of her hands stroking his hair. It felt… freaking amazing.

  “Your, uh… your hair. It’s… well, you look like every emo boy in the world.” Her grin stretched across her face.

  “What’s an emo boy?”

  “Oh, just… it’s a hipster.”

  “Hipster?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Sara, what is going on? Why are you being so… and why can I feel you?” Patrick’s mind was blown, shattered into a million pieces, and each piece seemed to be shouting a different question. Maybe he was still dreaming? He’d had fantasies about Sara like this, but he had never been a ghost when she ran her fingers over the planes of his face, like she did now. He’d been a man, flesh and blood.

  “Beats the Hell out of me. Are you afraid of me? You look… like you’re going to shit your pants.”

  “My pants?”

  “Yeah, you know, those things covering your legs?” She smirked and ran her hand over his shoulders. “And yeah, I’m convinced I’m full-on, loony bin, butterfly net nuts, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just going to ride it until someone figures it out and has me committed. I seem to be functioning fine on every other level.”

  “Can I… ?” Patrick’s own hands shook as he reached for her, ignoring her confession because he had no idea what to say to that, and Sara watched in fascination as his palm drifted across the space between them.

  She glanced up at him in shock as he cupped her cheek, rubbing his thumb softly over her cheekbone. The feeling of her jolted up his arm. This was... unbelievable. His eyes widened further as she sighed and tilted her head, putting more pressure on his hand.

  “So weird,” she mumbled. “You’re not solid.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Yeah, not entirely, anyway. You feel… well, fuzzy.”

  The corners of his mouth turned up. Nothing about this moment seemed real. “Like a stuffed animal?”

  She chuckled. “Uh, no. I mean, everything about you feels light, like if I push too hard, my hands will go right through you.”

  He pulled his hand back. “Does it feel gross?”

  Sara took his hand, their fingers twining between them. “No.”

  A tense silence developed, both staring at each other. Patrick’s attention may have been on Sara’s face (and the strangeness of the entire situation), but every nerve in his body fully concentrated on the sensation of holding her hand. Something bubbled up in him, a longing years in the making. Someone was touching him. Touching him! It was a miracle, and in that moment he didn’t care if there was a God or if he ever got to Heaven . As far he was concerned, this was Heaven .

  “I want to… that is...” Sara took another step toward him and released his hand before clearing her throat. “I feel like I know you.”

  “Probably not as well as I know you.” His words came out in a rush, falling over one another in his haste to tell her… anything. “Geez, Sara, I’ve spent every day with you, getting to know everything about you. You’re everything –my whole life is you.”

  Without a word, Sara rose on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, just once, before settling back to the floor again. Patrick’s eyes had closed of their own volition as she kissed him, and the second she finished they blinked open again in shock.

  “You kissed me!” he accused, his hand immediately touching the corner of his mouth.

  “Yep.” Sara smiled up at him, a giddy giggle escaping. “First time I’ve ever kissed a ghost. It was nice. Good lips.”

  He pressed his tongue against the sharp point of his incisor, willing himself to wake up from this very good dream. “Well, as long as you’re insane , and I’m dreaming…” Patrick wrapped his hands gently around Sara’s hips and lowered his head to hers, angling his face to bring his lips down swiftly but firmly.

  Her mouth moved with his, hands drifting up to anchor to his biceps. It was bliss… so much better than he remembered kissing when he’d been alive. The feeling of her moist lips and the little breathy sounds ; it was almost too much but definitely not enough. This time his eyes wouldn’t close because he didn’t want to miss a single moment –she was blurry this close up, and yet still insanely beautiful. His Sara, his angel.

  He kissed her until she was breathless, tilting her head to the side to suck in air. Patrick’s reluctance to let her go for fear he’d wake up made him grip her even tighter. Everything felt so real, and he wanted this to last forever.

  “I have questions,” she said when they broke apart.

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  * * * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The weight of Sara’s new-found ability to touch him overtook Patrick in seconds, and he retreated a few steps. This changed everyth
ing, and yet it changed nothing.

  “Maybe you should sit down.” Patrick gestured toward the chair at her desk.

  “Are you going to sit with me?”

  He grinned wryly. “I can’t. Not unless you’re hiding a chair from my old room somewhere in the house.” Collapsing seemed like an attractive option, though; the shock of feeling her lips, of being kissed , was enough to knock him flat on his back. “I’m pretty sure my mom took all the furniture,” he added as an afterthought.

  “What?” Sara cocked her head to the side, eyes questioning.

  In that moment it seemed as if Sara could have been talking to a normal person –the two of them could have been any other man and woman getting to know each other, feeling each other out, except it was far from typical. There could be no courtship. No real dates.

  Her hips still felt firm under his palms, and it was the only thing grounding him, the only thing keeping his brain from shorting out.

  “There are… rules, I guess. Things I can and can’t do.”

  “And you can’t sit?” Her eyebrows drew together, and one side of her mouth cocked up in amusement.

  He smirked and rubbed his thumbs over the rough denim of her shorts. Every nerve in his body fizzled and shouted at the sensation of something new, something different.

  “I can’t sit on anything that’s not original to the house,” he corrected. “Even then, if I want to lean against a wall or something, I have to concentrate on it, or I’ll fall through.”

  “Hmmm. Okay. I guess that makes as much sense as anything else does.”

  “I suppose.”

  There was little about his life that made sense. A live person being able to hear him, let alone yank the sleeve of his shirt, seemed insane - yet that was exactly what was going on. He inhaled, slow and steady, hoping to get a grip the emotions galloping through his brain .

  Her hands drifted down his arms, barely touching, stopping to circle his wrists with her thin hands; her fingers felt as feathery as a butterfly’s wings.