by Glass, Debra
I stared. Not a day passed that I didn’t wish he attended school with me, that we could go on dates together, or do the other things boyfriends and girlfriends my age did together. And yet, as a ghost, we shared a closeness I could never know with a mortal man. In some morbid way, I longed to be like him, without the world intruding, forever free of the bonds of earth and other people, in a world where only the two of us existed.
And even though, only last summer, I would have gladly exchanged places with Kira, Jeremiah’s presence in my life gave me an appreciation for living I’d never realized before.
“I love you just the way you are,” I said, meaning it. A chilly breeze lifted my hair and swept it across my face. I brushed it away.
A tiny smile toyed with his lips. “Exactly what is it about me that you…love?”
Despite the cold, heat blazed in my cheeks. How could I confess that I loved the fact that I possessed him all to myself, that I found his paranormal existence darkly alluring?
“You aren’t like any of the other guys I’ve ever known,” I told him. “The others are all so immature.”
He let out a self-deprecating laugh. “If my ciphering is correct, given that I was born in 1844, I would be well over one-hundred-fifty years old.”
I laughed, staggering playfully against his arm as we walked. “That’s not what I mean.”
His expression turned serious. “The time in which I lived had a great deal of influence on my character.”
Sometimes, I found it easy to forget he’d lived in a time before cell phones, iPods, laptops and cars. I inhaled the fresh, cold air. We’d talked a lot about how we were alike, inadvertently avoiding the differences between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first.
“Some of the things you take for granted were things we struggled to have,” he continued. “Food, for instance. Cash money. Most of the things we had were made here at home. It was a rarity to pay for an item in currency.”
“How’d you get things?”
“Barter. We traded goods for services.”
“But your family was…wealthy.” A squirrel darted past me and climbed up the trunk of a barren tree.
“A man’s wealth was measured by the property he owned.” His gaze warmed as he looked at me. “But there are some things that never change.”
“Like what?”
“Love.” His eyes dropped briefly to my lips and then lifted once more to my eyes.
Despite the winter chill, delicious warmth settled on the back of my neck. “Did…did you have a sweetheart?”
He gave me a smile of mock reproach. “Did you?”
“Touche.” I stepped over a fallen branch that Jeremiah easily walked right through. “Of course I’ve dated. But that was…before…before the accident.”
He grew quiet as if collecting his thoughts before he finally spoke. “Wren, I truly think the reason you didn’t have suitors after your accident was because you didn’t want any.”
“What do you mean?” I hadn’t ever thought of it that way. I’d assumed boys didn’t want to date me because of my appearance.
His fingers laced tighter with mine. “You’ve closed yourself off to the rest of the world.”
“Not to you.”
“I’m dead.”
“Jeremiah!” I cried, shocked he would say such a thing.
“I’m…safe,” he corrected, cutting his gaze at me.
I wanted to be angry at his presumptuous accusations but he spoke the truth. “It’s because of you that I am able to face the world every day,” I told him. “Because of you, I’m able to make friends again. You’ve healed me.”
He gave me a wistful smile. “Don’t you see? You’ve healed yourself.”
I returned his smile. “If that’s what you need to believe,” I joked, although his words touched my soul. “Your turn, Ransom. I bet the local girls just ate you up.”
He pursed his lips. “There were two or three with whom I exchanged letters. Nothing serious.”
My shoulders sagged with relief.
“At least, not on my part,” he added.
I didn’t want to hear any more about girls liking him even though I’d been the one who’d brought it up. I surreptitiously changed the subject. “What was school like for you?”
Jeremiah seemed grateful that I had dropped the girlfriend talk. “For the most part, I was educated at home by tutors. In the case of my law studies, I trained under a local attorney.”
“A law degree is difficult to get nowadays,” I said. “You have to go to college for years and then pass the bar exam.”
Jeremiah snorted. “I’ll wager there are a good many more laws now than were during my lifetime.”
But my thoughts traitorously returned to the idea that he may have kissed—or even done more—with other girls before me. Then again, I’d always been the one who pressed him to go further. What must he think of me?
“People married and started families earlier,” he said. “Had I known you then, we would already be married.”
My stomach turned a somersault at the idea of being Mrs. Jeremiah Ransom.
Wren Ransom.
The thought of it warmed me straight down to my toes.
I would be eighteen in a few months. Before I’d moved to Columbia, I’d never entertained the idea of being married, especially as a teenager. Marriage had always been something that might or might not exist for me in the far, far future. But Jeremiah made me suddenly want it more than anything.
“Marriage is really just a legal document,” I ventured. “If I’m committed to you and you’re committed to me, can’t we just declare ourselves married and live together as man and wife?”
He laughed. “You would marry me? A ghost?”
Serious, I stared. “In a heartbeat.”
He stopped walking and turned to face me, holding both my hands in his. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Trembling, I held his gaze, squinting so that he appeared more solid. More real. “Yes, I do.”
His forehead furrowed. He seemed so…torn.
“You told me so that night in my room. You said that if you were in body, you would make me…your…wife.” I heard my own voice. It sounded miserably desperate and some part of me knew I grasped at anything to keep him with me. For the first time since I’d met him, I realized how utterly selfish I acted. “Jeremiah…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t press you.”
He opened his mouth to speak but, instead, he took my hand and began walking again. Although we held hands, the red, Tennessee sunset glowed visibly through his transparent body, sometimes so brilliantly that it obliterated him from my view altogether and I only had the ethereal feel of his hand to confirm his presence next to me.
As we neared the rusted iron fencing surrounding the Ransom family plot, he stopped again. “What about school?” he asked.
Oh my God. He was considering my offer to commit to him. My heart soared. “None of that has to stop. I can still go to college.”
His eyes searched mine. “What about children? Don’t you want children?”
I shook my head. “I want…you.”
His black expression softened and he touched my face, gently caressing the scar everyone else avoided. My heart fluttered wildly as I took a step toward him.
“Wren,” he said carefully. “I can’t be everything to you.”
“But you are.” My earlier joy came crashing down around me with sickening force. “Don’t…don’t you…love me?”
“So much I would do anything for you.” He slipped his hand around my waist.
My first urge was to beg him to stay with me forever but I didn’t. Instead, I moved even closer, relishing the effervescent feel of his energy around me. “Then, kiss me.”
* * * * *
“Help me!”
The desperate voice rattled me awake. I bolted upright in my bed.
“Wren?” Jeremiah asked sleepily.
My response froze on my lips. Standing a
t the side of my bed, was the woman I’d seen in the hospital—the woman who’d died.
She lunged toward me. I scrambled backward, half-climbing over Jeremiah who’d obviously been sleeping next to me.
“What is it, Wren?” he asked.
I pointed. “Don’t you see her?”
He peered into the darkness. “See who?”
Distraught, the woman came even closer. Her mouth moved eerily but no sound came out. I shook.
“What is it? What do you see?” Jeremiah demanded.
My gaze darted back and forth between the woman and Jeremiah. “A woman. Can’t you see her?”
Jeremiah stared at me as if I’d lost my mind but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the woman’s ghost. Her mouth moved in a silent scream. Her arms gestured wildly.
I forced myself to regain some semblance of calm. “I can’t hear you,” I told her.
Stricken, she gaped and then she pointed to the ceiling.
I bit my bottom lip in confusion. “I can’t understand you. I’m sorry.”
Her round face reddened and twisted furiously before she vanished with a little pop.
I exhaled roughly.
“What did you see?” Jeremiah asked. “Were you having another nightmare?”
“No.” I drew the covers around my chilled arms. “I saw a woman.” My gaze found Jeremiah’s. “I’d seen her before. She died a few weeks ago.”
“What did she want?” He rose from the bed to search the room.
“That’s just it,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“Did she threaten you?” he asked.
“No. But she was mad about something. More like…frustrated.” I racked my brain. What could she have wanted from me? The last time I’d seen her, she was refusing to go to the Light and begging her husband to help her son.
Shaken, I settled back down in my bed. There was nothing I could do right now. I couldn’t very well trudge downstairs, awaken David and tell him a woman who’d died on his watch had appeared in my bedroom.
Apparently satisfied the spirit was gone, Jeremiah returned to bed. He slid under the covers beside me and folded me into his arms. I inhaled, breathing in his familiar scent.
“What do you think she wanted?” I asked softly.
He pursed his sensuous lips and inhaled. “Are you positive it wasn’t a dream?”
I tensed. “Jeremiah, I saw her. I was talking to you and I saw her standing right there!” I pointed to the spot where the woman had been only a minute ago.
He swept his palm over my hair. “It doesn’t matter. She’s gone now.”
I snuggled against him, curling my fingers into his shirt. “She looked so…upset.”
“How did you know her?”
“I saw her at the hospital, the…the day you and I first…kissed. She, her son and her husband had been brought in. She was dead on arrival. The man died later and as far as I know, the boy is still in a coma.”
“She must have…lingered,” Jeremiah mused aloud.
I shuddered. “I know she did.” My mind fled back to that day. I’d been so concerned Briar had done something to Jeremiah, I really hadn’t given a lot of thought to the idea that the woman had stayed behind or even what it meant.
“I saw her refuse to go. The Light appeared. She looked at it for a minute and then she stayed with her son,” I explained. “Because she didn’t go, does that mean she’s…stuck…here?”
“That’s how it works,” he drawled.
I mulled over what he’d said. “Can…can someone force you to go?”
He averted his gaze. “No one has ever tried.”
“That day…in the hallway at school,” I whispered hesitantly. “Did you talk to…to Briar?”
I immediately regretted asking the question. Everything had been so good I did not want to destroy it by bringing up Briar.
His gaze slid back to mine. “Yes.”
Panic welled to the surface and I began to shake in his arms. “W-what happened?”
His fingers threaded through my hair and he drew me toward him. He pressed a sweet kiss to my forehead. “Nothing about which you should be concerned.”
Every part of me wanted to remain in his arms and pretend he was right but I couldn’t. I wrenched away. “No. If you talked to her, it concerns me. Don’t patronize me.”
“Wren, everything is fine. She hasn’t bothered you, has she? No more hateful looks? No more threats?”
“No,” I said weakly, desperately wanting to ignore my intuition—needing to trust Jeremiah.
“Has she?” he reiterated, stronger this time.
“No.”
He inhaled and then cocked his head to the side. He studied my face. “I would do anything to see you safe,” he said so softly I wasn’t sure if I had heard the words correctly.
My heavy eyelids blinked slowly and I nestled back into his embrace, wanting, needing, to believe everything was okay.
But I knew as soon as I awakened the next morning, I planned to learn all I could about sending spirits to the Other Side.
* * * * *
David’s voice drifted from the kitchen. “The aunt just didn’t want to keep him in that state. As his next of kin, it was her call.”
I stopped in the hallway to listen.
“I still think it’s awful.” Mom’s whisper was just loud enough for me to hear. “He was Wren’s age.”
So, the boy had been taken off life support and allowed to die. A combination of relief and sadness swept through me. At least now, he dwelled in a happier place. I hoped. But his death also explained his mother’s presence in my room last night.
My lips parted in realization. Was she now separated from him? And did she think I could help her cross over to the Other Side?
“We’re lucky we didn’t have to make that decision,” David continued calmly. “I’m certain it wasn’t an easy one.”
Mom sighed.
Heart pounding as the conversation switched to me, I stayed put in the hallway.
“Don’t you think it’s time she started driving again?” David asked guardedly.
Mom’s retort came quickly. “She’s not ready.”
“She’s not ready or you’re not ready?”
I hadn’t even considered driving. David was being unfair to Mom.
“Come on, babe,” David added. “All she does is sit alone in her room when she’s at home. She doesn’t have friends over. She doesn’t go out.”
I held my breath. They just didn’t know. I wasn’t alone. I spent my time with Jeremiah but how could I ever explain him to my parents?
“I have noticed that she seems withdrawn, even more since we moved,” Mom said. “But when I told her you were prepared to move back, she didn’t want go. In fact, she seemed really upset at the idea of leaving Columbia.”
David heaved a sigh. “Do what you think is best but in my opinion, she needs to get back in counseling.”
Silently, I let my head fall back against the wall. Counseling was the last thing I needed or wanted. I debated telling them about Jeremiah but they’d just think I was even crazier than before.
“I suppose you’re right,” Mom said.
My pulse accelerated.
Somehow, I had to convince them I was all right. Maybe I did need to try driving again, even just to the end of the driveway and back.
Ella’s shuffling footsteps in the hallway startled me. I didn’t want Mom or David to know I’d been eavesdropping, so I coughed and started into the kitchen. What I saw made me gasp.
Jeremiah stood in the corner of the kitchen, his face grim. He’d been listening, too.
“Morning, Wren.” David turned to refill his coffee cup, just inches from where Jeremiah stood.
My gaze locked with Jeremiah’s and I had to tear it away before anyone noticed.
“Did you sleep well?” Mom asked.
I nodded but the memory of the woman’s ghost loomed fresh in my thoughts.
Ella burst into the kitc
hen clad in a fuzzy robe adorned with pictures of happy sock monkeys. A little smile crept across her face and I realized she saw Jeremiah, too.
I stared, stunned as he winked at her. Ella gave him a little wave and climbed onto her stool while Mom prepared her breakfast. How could she see him? And more importantly, why didn’t the little cretin blurt it out to Mom and David that a ghost stood in the kitchen?
Jeremiah’s eyes met mine again but I found his stare dark. Unreadable. When he vanished, a sense of doom crept over me.
* * * * *
That morning, the dead woman practically dogged my every step. I tingled with her energy. Unlike Jeremiah’s soft, warm energy, hers crackled, like ants crawling up the back of my neck whenever she was nearby. Her image emerged in my peripheral vision but every time I turned to look directly at her, she disappeared.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hear her. Our lack of communication skills frustrated us both.
Grateful for my Internet service, I fired up my laptop and sat down to investigate earthbound spirits. In addition to finding out how to help the woman, I wanted to know if someone could force a spirit to leave the earth plane—someone like Briar. At the same time, I didn’t want Jeremiah to think I felt as if he was keeping something from me.
Ninety-two thousand entries popped up as a result of my search for earthbound spirits. Most detailed regional ghost hunting groups, all of which looked to me like copy cats of those cheesy ghost hunter shows on television.
I yawned as I clicked on yet another site classifying earthbound spirits as demonic beings or someone who did not know he or she was dead. Where did these people come up with this hogwash?
Jeremiah certainly knew he was dead and obviously had from the beginning. Had I chosen not to come back to my body, I would have known I was dead.
I suppose there might be cases where the spirit lacked awareness it had left the body but those had to be rare.
One site stated that earthbound spirits could be found only in cemeteries. Based on my experience, unless Jeremiah went with me to the family plot, no other ghosts lurked there. Another site alleged that earthbound spirits were really aliens.
One religious zealot thought ghosts were the devil come to steal people’s souls. I rolled my eyes.
Jeremiah was about as far from evil as a person could be.
