On the Fringe

by Courtney King Walker

  A mental ghost with a grudge.

  His eyes narrowed, and he suddenly turned his focus to me. I begged for Claire’s attention by waving my hands in front of her eyes and trying to throw my arms around her, like a shield. But nothing worked. She was unreachable, under some kind of spell.

  I looked in her eyes. “Claire.” Her gaze went right through me...to him.

  He was laughing.

  I ignored him and concentrated on Claire. “You’re okay,” I said to her, trying to cup her face in my hands, wishing to be able to force her to look at me. I could almost feel her skin and even smell the subtle floral scent in her hair, like a garden.

  “That’s right,” the ghost whispered in her ear. “You’re scared of me, aren’t you Claire?”

  She sunk to the floor and started shaking, gripping her knees and squeezing her eyes shut as the ghost hovered over us both.

  “Claire,” I said again.

  She buried her head in her knees and released a muffled sob, her hands clenched into fists. The ghost then placed his index finger at the middle of Claire’s back and slowly dragged it up her spine, all the way to the nape of her neck. His hand tensed as he pressed harder, and I felt sick when I saw her hair move to the side. She screamed. I tried pulling her to me, but my arms slipped through her.

  “It’s me, Claire. Don’t look at him anymore. Stop listening to him. Think of me. Look at me. Remember last night?”

  Her eyes relaxed and she smiled for a second. The ghost drew backward a little and scowled at me. I wasn’t sure how my words were helping, but kept at it, convinced I was on to something. “Remember the carousel, Claire? Think of the music and the lights…think of me…how I held you. Remember that?”

  The ghost shot toward me, stopping right in front of my face. The darkness in his eyes raged like two black hurricanes. “Shut. UP,” he demanded before bringing his hands to his head and thrusting them through his hair.

  But Claire’s eyes had already popped open. She was wiping her tears, and we both turned to watch her take a deep breath as she pulled herself up. Without saying a word, she went directly to the doorway, flipped on the light switch, and then turned around and leapt to her bed, diving into the covers.

  Over by the window, the ghost glared. His words came out slow and calm, though they seemed to be filled with some kind of controlled rage that had been tempered over the years. “This is just the beginning,” he seethed, before disappearing through the wall.

  The room was quiet.

  I went to Claire, mouthing the words, “I’m sorry.”

  She looked exhausted. I wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, but had no idea if that was true.

  Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed as she fell asleep, wondering how I was going to stop this nightmare from happening to her again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TWENTY QUESTIONS

  Claire

  I awoke to the sound of Addie’s honking, and knew I was in trouble. Despite my insistence, she refused to leave without me. “You’ve been acting like a complete basket case for the past week, and I really doubt you can pull yourself together without my help.”

  Not true.

  But I kept my mouth shut and rushed to get ready while she drilled me with a million questions, asking me three times why I’d been acting so bizarre lately.

  She was overreacting. Sure, I was a little scatterbrained at the moment, but it wasn’t like I’d been ignoring her. We still hung out together every day, and I hadn’t stopped listening to all her worries or all the latest gossip. I was just a little more tired than usual, thanks to weeks of insomnia since my birthday—since Daniel came back.

  Even after all that ghost business, I still felt dizzy with excitement remembering Daniel’s kiss. I kept thinking about how his lips felt on mine, when his hands pulled through my hair and drew me into his chest…

  “Claire!” Addie had her hands on her hips, glaring at me.

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling my hair in a ponytail and grabbing my bag. Maybe Addie had a point. Maybe I did need her help.

  We were not horribly late—ten minutes definitely earned us a tardy (not my first), but at least I didn’t miss my first class. I also managed to stay awake the whole morning, even during Algebra.

  At lunch, Addie and I ate mostly in silence, probably because my snoring debacle yesterday had already trickled down the gossip line, and now she was embarrassed to be seen with me. After awhile she left me alone at our usual bench to dump her tray, and then stopped to talk to some other friends. I barely noticed her absence or return because I was still stuck inside my daydream, perfectly removed from reality.

  “Claire,” Addie’s voice butted in.

  “Huh?” I asked, my mouth still full.

  She frowned at me with an evil eye, immediately bringing me back to the present. “So?”

  “What?”

  She just stood there, waiting for a response. But what was I supposed to say? There was no way I could tell her about Daniel, even if I wanted to. The last time I brought him up only made her cry. Telling her the truth was definitely out of the question.

  “You’ve been acting kind of weird today. Are you mad at me, or what?”

  She was way off base for once. I started laughing, which turned into coughing after I inhaled a piece of granola bar. She rushed to my side and started patting my back until the hacking stopped.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, putting her arm around me. That was what I loved most about Addie—it was the best part of her. Although blunt and full of energy, she had a soft side that instantly connected to everyone around her. Most of the time she seemed so two-dimensional, and then out of the blue she would do or say something sweet and caring.

  “What?” she asked when I didn’t answer.

  “It’s nothing, really.” I wiped the tears from my eyes as she squeezed me again. I wanted so badly to tell her what was going on—to tell her something. But what? That I was with Daniel last night? That he was probably right here, right now?

  I looked in her bright, blue eyes, smiling at my best friend who knew everything about me, and nothing at all. “I...”

  “What?” she asked, smiling, like she already knew my secret and was just toying with me. It was hard to ignore Addie when she smiled like that. Just ask the whole school. “Are you in love?”

  What! How did she know?

  “Come on, Claire, it all makes sense now. Who is it?” She practically knocked me over, begging for information.

  “No! I’m not in love,” I lied, looking the other way.

  “Yeah, right.”

  Her protective wall reappeared, and she turned her back to me while combing through her purse, pretending to be looking for something she would never find. Surely I’d hurt her feelings, and now she was probably convinced I secretly had a crush on some boy at school and was probably even more furious at me for refusing to tell her who it was. Too bad I couldn’t just lie about it and say it was Drew or something. But I sucked at lying, at least to Addie.

  Thankfully, she let it drop. I never heard a word about it the rest of the day and hoped she’d forgotten about it altogether. With Addie, you never know.

  After school, the wind blew in a dreary cluster of charcoal-blotted clouds, obscuring the sun and putting me in the mood to ignore my homework. I wrapped myself in a blanket and vegged out on the back porch with my iPod, watching the rain pour down until the rushing sound drowned out my thoughts and carried me away where nothing could intrude....

  It was dark when I woke up, and I was guessing I’d been asleep for at least an hour. The air smelled musty and clean at the same time (was that even possible?), and it was still raining. I pulled out my earphones and threw off the blanket, ready to finally face my homework, no matter how torturous.

  “Hi, Hon,” Mom greeted me inside. She was taking off her heels and looked tired, like she’d just gotten home from work. “Where were you?” She gave me that worried look again.r />
  “Relax, Mom. I just took a nap on the back porch.”

  “A nap? Really?”

  My defenses were up and ready. “Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing.” Her eyes shifted from me to the counter, where a couple of paper bags lay. I was suddenly starving when I realized they contained my dinner, and as if on cue, my stomach growled.

  “Go ahead and eat,” she said, pushing the bags toward me, and heading down the hall. “I’m just going to change out of these clothes.”

  It seemed like I was eating by myself a lot lately, especially now that Dad was working on some huge acquisition or merger or something. I reached into one of the bags for the chicken burrito I could already smell, and plopped it onto a plate along with a handful of tortilla chips and a wedge of lime. I turned to sit down, and squealed, nearly dropping my dinner, because Daniel was sitting across from me at the table, silently strumming his fingers over the smooth surface, smiling at me like he had a secret.

  Mom rushed in half-dressed—one leg in, one leg out of a pair of jeans. “What’s wrong, Claire? Are you okay?”

  I tried to iron out my smile in order to appear a little more serious for Mom, since she’d rushed back half-naked and all, but Daniel kept waving at me from the table, giving me a very cute, slightly cheesy grin. A stubborn giggle kept inching its way out of my mouth, almost spilling into total laughter. Mom just gaped at me, her bare leg still hanging out of her pants, like she was trying to figure out which swear word to throw at me. Daniel made a quick little motion with his fingers, which I took to interpret as a spider crawling across the table.

  Right, spider…good idea.

  “Sorry, Mom. I thought I saw a spider. A big one.”

  “What are you? Four? You scared me, Claire!” she barked at me while hopping into her jeans.

  I shrugged my shoulders, wondering why she was always so uptight. I felt like telling her to relax, but decided against it with Daniel right there.

  After getting situated at the table, I was about to take a bite of my dinner, when Mom sat across from me, right in Daniel’s lap. I tried not to laugh when he made a funny, distorted face and then faded away, only to reappear in the chair next to her.

  “Wazso funny?” she asked, her mouth full.

  “Nothing.” I immediately stuffed my mouth to keep from laughing.

  It was tough eating dinner and having a decent conversation with Mom while trying not to stare at Daniel, who seemed to be watching my every move. Talk about self-conscious. I tried telling him with my eyes to knock it off so I could eat in peace. But either he couldn’t understand, or he was ignoring me for fun.

  As was always the case, Mom bored me to death by talking office politics, which was, I think, when Daniel finally got the picture and drifted into the TV room. Being dead did have some perks—I wished I could float away when things got dull, too.

  My mind and eyes wandered all over the place while Mom did her talking. I took note of Daniel’s attire. Today he was wearing long black and grey plaid shorts and a white t-shirt. Gosh, he looked cute. Was he actually lying on the couch, or did it just look like it? Maybe it was a very controlled float…I made a mental note to ask him later.

  Eventually Mom ran out of things to say, and she started cleaning up while I dove into my homework. Was Algebra really that necessary? I could feel each one of my brain cells dying a slow death, and I gave up before even making it to the second problem. I needed my brain more than I needed math. Why did they insist on torturing us like this?

  I looked up from the table at Daniel, but he’d disappeared. Dang it. Now where’d he go?

  Mom settled into the sofa to watch some cheesy soap opera drama, and I headed to my room for some peace and quiet. When I opened the door, Daniel was sitting cross-legged on the floor at the foot of my bed. Curious, I walked right through him to my dresser, wondering how it would feel. Surprisingly, it felt like nothing.

  After pulling a fuzzy green sweater over my head, I joined him on the floor with my back against the wall and my knees pulled tight to my chest. He was kind of like a 3-D movie—directly in front of me, but without any substance. I couldn’t resist pulling my hand through him like a cloud.

  “So, now what?” I said, resting my hand in my lap, then nervously tucking my hair behind my ear.

  He responded by shaking his head slowly and deliberately, obviously trying to tell me something.

  “What?” I asked, confused. Then I thought I understood. “Oh, I get it… You’re kind of like a dog–”

  He wrinkled his brow in confusion.

  I laughed, explaining, “I mean, since I can’t hear you, I’ll ask you a question and then you nod yes or no…or wag your tail…or I can throw you a stick…you know.”

  He laughed.

  “Okay, then. But, talk about a one-sided relationship. It’s not fair,” I complained, settling down into a couple of purple pillows from off the bed. “First things first.” I tried not to laugh, but a smile kept slipping out. “Do you miss me?”

  He squinted his eyes and smiled while shaking his head. I threw a pillow at him, but he didn’t even flinch as it sailed right through him, smacking into the opposite wall.

  “Wow, you’re good,” I praised. “It must be nice not having to comb your hair or think about what to wear.”

  He laughed.

  “Okay. Time to get serious.”

  He nodded.

  I knew what I wanted to say, but was afraid to get right down to it. I pulled off my glasses and cleaned the lenses with a pillowcase while trying to think up the correct wording. I’d always been better at writing my ideas down on paper rather than speaking them out loud. It was so much easier when no one was looking at you, waiting on your every word.

  Taking a deep breath, I replaced my glasses then turned to face Daniel. At first, I found myself studying the fringe of his dark eyelashes, until the pull of his gaze drew me to his rich, chocolate eyes. They seemed so vivid, so alive, as they focused on mine, never blinking. It was impossible to keep the wave of my own self-consciousness at bay.

  “Okay, I’ve been thinking about you. A lot.” Because he couldn’t respond, it felt like I was talking to myself even though he was right in front of me. But I kept going, determined not to let my flushed cheeks or racing heart stop me. “About last night. I have a ton of questions, if that’s okay.”

  He was so attentive, his eyes never looking past me, or at the clock, or distracted by anything else.

  “Let’s see…” My mind felt all fuzzy and flustered, littered with a bunch of mental blockers strewn all over the place like an obstacle course. It was what usually happened when I had too much going on in my head all at once. “Can you hear my thoughts?” I asked, finally, stupidly. What a dumb question.

  No.

  I moved on to the next question, feeling a little more confident. “Are you actually sitting on the ground, like me, or are you floating on top, like a cloud?”

  He looked confused, and I realized I hadn’t stuck with yes or no.

  “I mean… can you feel anything when you’re sitting like that?”

  No.

  “Do you feel pressure?”

  No.

  “So, what? Do you just float? Without moving? Is that how you do it?"

  Yes.

  “Interesting.”

  Okay, now what? That wasn’t so bad, but it also wasn’t too deep, either.

  “Do you remember when you died?” I asked, afraid to jump to serious so quickly.

  Yes.

  I suddenly felt very melancholy. “Do you know who it was? You know, the guy who shot you? They never caught him.”

  He shook his head and closed his eyes for a second. I felt a lump of regret forming in my throat. What was I thinking?

  Daniel looked up again, staring straight ahead at the wall, and then he placed his hand over mine like he was trying to hold on. I got lost for a second while studying his profile, following the outline of his dis
tinct jaw—rugged, but strikingly beautiful. When he turned and caught me watching him, I felt embarrassed, and quickly refocused.

  Next question. “Do you ever watch other people? Like your family, or Addie?”

  Yes.

  “And, Matthew?”

  Yes.

  “How’s he doing?”

  Daniel half nodded, half shrugged. He must know about Matthew, about how he had pretty much disappeared. It depressed me even more, realizing how sad Daniel must feel about it, even more than the rest of us. But I pushed on, anxious to change the subject.

  “What is it like? I mean, are you happy where you are?”

  Yes.

  “Was it scary? Dying?”

  No.

  “Do you miss living?”

  No. Yes.

  “Did you whisper to me up at the planetarium?”

  He sat up with a look of surprise. I looked down at my fidgeting fingers, playing with my ring again, a little embarrassed, afraid to be wrong. But I was right. He didn’t deny it, and his surprised expression revealed the truth. I knew it.

  “I felt you there,” I confessed. “And I heard a voice tell me to move. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  Yes.

  As I stretched out across the floor, resting my head on one of the pillows, the questions kept coming. I couldn’t stop thinking, and I forgot to be nervous. It felt good.

  “Did you see that thing in my room last night?” I asked.

  He didn’t respond yes or no, but kept watching me closely, like he was trying to be careful.

  “Do you know what it was?” I finally asked, afraid for the answer.

  Yes.

  “What?” I demanded.

  He didn’t answer. He even seemed a little preoccupied.

  “Is it something horrible?” I re-phrased.

  No.

  “Well, okay. I guess that’s good, I think. Is it part of your world?”

  Yes.

  I hunted for the next question, trying to get to the bottom of my living nightmare. “Is it something I should be afraid of?”

  No.

  “No? Then why is it so scary?” I laughed nervously. But Daniel remained serious. If I didn’t need to be afraid, then why the long face?