Wraith

by Lawson, Angel

  “Sure, hon,” she said, and told me to meet her in her office off the main room before we left.

  I went to find Ava and the two of us packed up the rest of our supplies before giving the children their ornaments to hang on the tree. The kids ran to the tree, fighting for the best spot to place their ornament. “They’re so cute. Thanks for asking me to do this.”

  Ava gave a thumbs up to a little boy hanging his star. “It was a lot of fun.”

  “It was, but it was also sad. I hate seeing all these kids without a home. I don’t know how they do it.”

  We stood beside a huge bulletin board covered in photographs. “There’s Jasmine,” Ava said, pointing at her picture.

  I spotted some of the other children currently in the room pinned to the board. So many of the children and their mothers looked scared and so small in these pictures. There were blank stares and angry frowns. It was hard to look at, and I wondered why they were even posted.

  An older girl walked over and pointed to her photo. “That’s me.”

  “I can tell,” I said kindly. “Does everyone here have a photo on the wall?”

  The girl, a year or so younger than me, although taller, said, “Yeah, once you check in Miss Stephanie takes your photo and hangs it up. These are all the different families that have come through here.”

  My eyes scanned the wall, taking in child after child, and mother after mother, not realizing the impact of battered women and children until that moment. All of these were people on the run from someone who abused them. I fought to suppress a shudder, but it was useless.

  Ava was now next to us, examining the wall of photos when she stopped and pointed to a picture. “Jane, isn’t that the guy from your drawing?”

  “Who?” I asked, but there was only one guy in my life that Ava could know about and only one drawing she had seen. My stomach dropped and I instinctively wrapped an arm around my waist.

  She made a face. “The guy, from your portrait, he looks just like this kid in this picture. Come here.”

  I stared at the picture. It was glossy and rectangular like all the others. It was a photo of four people. A woman with dark blonde hair, tied back at her neck. Purple bags hung under her eyes and her hair was a mess. There were two girls, elementary school-aged, one with dark hair, cut short, and another with a curly mass of blonde hair framing her face.

  And then there was the boy. Evan.

  I blinked, thinking if I looked away it wouldn’t be true but it was him. There was nothing different; his hair and face, even the jeans he wore were the same as the ones I had seen him in right before Ava picked me up. I stared at his holey knee.

  “That’s him, right?” Ava asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  I couldn’t stop staring at the photograph. “No. Weird, huh?” I said. “I mean…it looks like him, doesn’t it? But no. That’s not him.”

  My hands were clammy and I was hot—like I needed to take off my coat. What was he doing in that picture? Why was he here?

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. No. I, um…” I felt light-headed and my eyes kept returning to the photos and the picture of Evan…at the shelter. “I’m just feeling a little strange, you know? I forgot to eat lunch.” I held up my volunteer form. “Can we just get these signed and go?”

  Ava took the form from my hand and went into the office, leaving me standing next to the wall of photos. I didn’t even try to follow her. After only a minute Ava returned and handed me the signed form which I folded and shoved in my pocket. “Let’s go,” I said, already halfway across the room to the door.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Ava asked as I walked to the car door, and slipped inside.

  “I think that picture freaked me out,” I admitted.

  I pressed my head to the window, letting the glass cool off my forehead. I wasn’t okay. I didn’t know what was going on. Or who Evan really was, or who he was before he died. It made sense now why Evan fought me about coming to the shelter. He didn’t want me to know. What I did know was that Connor was right—Evan needed something from me. I ignored Ava’s questions and comments as she exited the parking lot. My mind tried to wrap around how to handle this and how to confront Evan about the truth. I also knew, as much as I feared it, there was only one person who could help me.

  Connor.

  AVA DROPPED ME OFF at the curb with wishes for a merry Christmas. Somehow, I found the words to offer her the same, even though every time I opened my mouth I wanted to vomit. The last thing I wanted to do at this point was alienate the one friend I had managed to make in the last six months.

  Well, the only one that didn’t involve an uneasy truce.

  I ran up the stairs to the porch, ignoring the cheery signs of my mother’s holiday decorations as I passed. Evan surely knew what happened at the shelter. I could barely breathe without him commenting on it some days, and I was well aware that even though I couldn’t always see him, that didn’t mean he couldn’t see me. He didn’t want me to go to that shelter for a reason, and now I knew why.

  My room was empty, as I had hoped, and it only took me a moment to find Connor’s number. I dialed the number on my cell with shaky hands before I lost my nerve. I sat at my desk chair and waited for him to pick up.

  “Hello.” Loud noise filled the background—a TV or radio, making it hard to hear him.

  “Connor?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hey, um, it’s Jane.”

  I heard some shuffling in the background and the noise disappeared. “Jane? Is everything okay?”

  The simple fact that he asked me caused the tears I’d held back in front of Ava to spill. “No…no. I’m not. Um…I found out something today and I’m freaking out and I don’t know what to do.” He was quiet; I could hear him breathing through the line while someone whispered in the background. “God. I’m sorry, um…I just, I found your number in the directory and you told me to call and I just…sorry—”

  I hung up.

  “Ugh,” I moaned as I sat back against the chair. What an idiot. Why had I called him? I mean, he said to call but he never actually gave me his number. Plus, there were other people around, he had a life…he was busy. I was sure he didn’t want his friends to know about our ‘relationship.’ The feeling was mutual.

  Restless and embarrassed I tidied my room, stashing the paper I’d wrapped gifts in the night before and cleaning off my art table. Anything to distract myself. Evan had never told me that his family was in a shelter or that his mother had been abused. His death had been near the time of the photograph since he was wearing the same pants and he looked about the same age. How did I not know this? Why had I never encouraged him to tell me more? He knew everything about me and it seemed that I knew very little about him in return.

  I rummaged through my drawers and dug out a pair of scissors. With the scissors in one hand and a fistful of hair in the other I leaned into the mirror. One snip and the stress would melt away. Just one, I thought. No one would notice, no one alive that is. Evan would.

  “Stupid Evan!” I said out loud. All this time Evan had been my one true confidant and now it seemed that wasn’t entirely true. Why didn’t he just tell me? “Come out, come out, wherever you are…coward,” I said. I shoved the scissors back in the drawer, pushing them under a notebook.

  I stole another glance at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were red with tears and I had a smear of gold paint from earlier on my chin. I tugged my sweater over my head, making my hair slip out of the barrette that held it back. Pulling my T-shirt down, I gathered other clothes for a shower to prepare myself for my family for later. I stopped when I heard heavy steps on the stairs. Wiping my face, I ran my fingers though my hair, bracing myself to talk to my mother. My mind raced through cover stories when she knocked.

  “Come in.”

  In a last-ditch effort to avoid eye contact, I flipped open a magazine on the desk top and pretended to read. The old door opened with a creak and I waited for the
onslaught of chatter.

  It never came.

  Instead, I heard the feet pause in the doorway and I glanced up. Connor stood there, fists shoved deep into his pockets. He was disheveled, as usual, in a ratty thermal shirt and stocking cap. Imposing and large in my small, angled room, he seemed out of place.

  “What are you doing here?” I managed to get the question out in a calm voice. In reality I was freaking out at the sight of him in my room, especially when I looked like this.

  “You called me.” He arched his eyebrow. “And hung up on me. I was worried.”

  Heat flared up my cheeks. “Sorry. You didn’t have to come.”

  Connor sighed and closed the door behind him. “Yeah, Jane, I did. What’s going on?”

  After a couple of heavy breaths, I told him. I verbally vomited everything that had happened that afternoon at the shelter, including Evan’s weird behavior beforehand and his discouragement of even going in the first place. Connor stood at the door, never fully walking into the room, and listened intently to every word I said, not even interrupting to ask questions. I cried more than once and could only imagine how horrible I looked. I wasn’t a pretty crier. I was one of those blotchy-faced, red-eyed, ugly criers.

  “Who let you in?” I asked when I finished.

  “Your mom.”

  “She told you to come up here?” I was surprised. I’d never had a boy visit before, and I was stunned she would just send him up to my room.

  “I can be very charming when I put my mind to it.”

  I snorted—I actually snorted. It went along with the tears and the snotty, crying, puffy face. I may as well repulse him all at once.

  He didn’t seem repulsed though. He looked amused and worried and definitely a little awkward standing in the doorway, hunched because of the low, slanted ceiling.

  I stood up. “Here, sit down,” offering him my desk chair because there was no way I could manage looking at him on my bed. He sat, spreading his long legs across the floor, and picked up a pen from the desk. I watched as he worked it though his fingers.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I still wasn’t sure. I was more hurt than anything else. “Why is Evan doing this to me?” I hoped I didn’t sound as devastated as I was.

  Connor rested his elbow on the desk, took his cap off and ran his hand over his forehead and eyes. “I think—like I told you before—your ghost needs something.”

  I didn’t like how he wouldn’t call Evan by his name. Even though I’d been the one to call him, I didn’t like how he assumed he knew more than I did. I wrapped my arms around my waist.

  “Do you want to hear about my first ghost?” His voice was quiet, the confidence slipping.

  “Yes.”

  “It was this woman. She was beautiful. She had long, golden hair and the prettiest face.” He stretched his legs out, crossing one over the other. “I thought she was an angel. I really did. She was so beautiful.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was fourteen.” Again, he kept his eyes from mine and fingered the pen. I tried to picture Connor at fourteen. Ava and Julia both commented on his growth and changed beauty since he returned. I imagined his long legs and arms on less broad shoulders, gawky and awkward.

  “The first time she appeared to me I was in bed—sleeping. I thought she may have been a dream, I mean, I was fourteen and girls were definitely on my mind,” he blushed. “But I saw her again and she was suddenly just…everywhere. At first, she didn’t speak to me. I’m not sure if she knew she could, but one day I was alone in the kitchen and she just walked in and sat at the table and began talking.” I watched as Connor’s thumb traced over the edge of the desk, following the sharp edge from one side to the other.

  “What did she say?”

  “She said that she was lost and that they were searching, but not in the right place. And that she needed my help to get her back home.”

  I had no idea what I was expecting, but that wasn’t so bad. Did Evan need my help finding something or someone? I could do that. “Did you help her?”

  Hair flopped in his eyes as he shook it. “Not at first,” he looked at me expectantly, “I was only fourteen. I had no idea what she was talking about, in fact, my dad chose that moment to walk in and I asked him who the woman was at the table.”

  My eyes widened in horror and my hand moved to my mouth. “You didn’t!”

  “I did. Of course, he couldn’t see anything and I was so freaked out I just insisted she was there, over and over. Eventually, I broke down. I was so angry and confused. My parents put me to bed. They were worried. That prompted my first trip to the doctor.”

  “Yeah, that sucks.”

  He laughed, a genuine laugh that traveled to his eyes. “They thought…well, it doesn’t matter what they thought. She came back again asking for help. I remember lying on my bed, the desk lamp was on because I no longer could sleep with the lights off, and I saw her in my room. Standing by the window. Still beautiful, but so scary. I closed my eyes and asked her what she wanted, how could I make her go away. She told me what to do and I stopped fighting.”

  I noticed that Connor’s shoulders slumped a little and he appeared almost guilty. “Did it work? How did you do it?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know, because I definitely knew I didn’t want Evan to leave.

  “She told me her name. I snuck down to the family room and got on the computer and Googled her,” he said with a shrug. “It was easy.”

  I stared at him. It had never even occurred to me to find out more about Evan. Truthfully, I had become so dependent on him so quickly. He was insistent this was a mutual relationship. I’d never even considered looking into his past beyond what he told me; until now I’d had no reason to doubt what he said, that it was an accident. A horrible accident.

  “So you Googled her and found out what?” I asked, a little confused.

  “I found out she had been missing for a couple weeks. That she had been last seen hiking on some trails outside of the city and that everyone was searching for her—her roommate and family.”

  “Oh my God, what happened to her?”

  “After I found this out, I went to her and explained this. She said she had fallen on the trail and hit her head. That she just wanted to go back home.” He leaned back in the chair, causing it to creak under his weight. “I don’t think she knew she was dead. Not really. So I had her explain to me where she was and how to find her. Then I looked up her family and found their information. They had been all over the news, searching for her. I called and told them how to find her.”

  “And they did?” I asked. He was a tough kid. I doubted I would have made that call.

  “Yeah, they found her—right where I told them to. Of course, the police and the family were sure I was involved.” He rubbed his hand on his beard, causing it to make scratchy noises in the otherwise quiet room. “There was no way I could have done it. I was too young, and the accident happened too far away from my house. My whereabouts were accounted for. I think in the end, the police and doctors and my family all just thought it was one of those random, unexplained things. But I felt bitter and angry that there was doubt, that I was somehow a liar.”

  I could relate. You tell the truth and are punished. You tell a lie and everyone feels better but yourself. It was horrible. “So she went away?” I asked, wanting him to finish the story.

  He chuckled darkly. “Yeah, she went away, but then the next one came. And he wasn’t as pretty or nice. And I was definitely on my own—I couldn’t tell anyone. Once he left there was another and then one day there were two at once and I just lost it, Jane. I totally and completely lost my shit.”

  I leaned forward. “What? What did you do?” I knew what I had done and it was under less extreme circumstances. I glanced at the drawer holding the scissors.

  “I started using drugs to dull everything. Weed made everything less of a hassle. The ghosts seemed to have a hard time getting through the
haze. When they started following me to school I just ditched and stayed home to get high. My parents thought I was becoming a stoner, a dropout, and to them this was better than me being a kid who saw things.” Connor shrugged. “A druggie is better than crazy, I guess.”

  “Is that when you started the fire?”

  A look of pain crossed his face. “Later?”

  I bit my bottom lip. “Okay.” I got off the bed, the springs creaking as I stood, and walked over to my dresser, pulling open the top drawer. Underwear and a purple bra fell out of the overstuffed drawer. Awesome.

  To his credit, he kept his mouth shut and I focused on what I was looking for, not the fact I had just opened my underwear drawer in front of him. I needed a better hiding place.

  I unearthed a wooden box, long and slender, and closed the drawer. I held it out to Connor, trying to steady my shaking hand.

  “Open it.”

  He took the box from my hands. “What is it?”

  I sat back down and took a deep breath. “After I broke down the first time, the time it all hit the fan, I came home and cut off all my hair.”

  His eyes flicked to my head, but otherwise he kept his emotions in check. “All of it?”

  “Not all of it, I guess, but most of it.” I waited for him to open it and then I shut my eyes. I heard the soft creak of the metal hinges as it opened. “Evan and I got in a fight at school-a loud, public one. Mrs. Crawford was making referrals, my parents were in denial, and I just picked up the scissors and started hacking. With every piece that hit the floor, I relaxed.”

  Connor was silent for a minute, staring into the box, until I heard the top close with a sharp snap.

  “Jane…”

  “Don’t say anything,” I interrupted. “Just understand that although sometimes I act like I’m strong and brave and better than you, I’m not. From what you’re telling me, I’ve had it way easier and I still cracked.”