by Brynn Stein
“Hi, Ben,” Elliot said over the phone and felt kind of silly. He knew Ben couldn’t answer him. Not in the conventional way, anyway. But he heard the clack of the laptop keys.
“Casper says, ‘What the hell is going on? You’ve been gone forever and no one is telling me what’s happening.’ Kinda pushy for a transparent squatter, isn’t he?”
Elliot felt like a kid on Christmas. Even this tenuous connection to Ben made him feel better. He was interrupted from his euphoria when he heard another crash. “You’re bringing that on yourself, Daniel. Stop messing with him.”
“Hey, how many times can you insult a ghost and get away with it? If he runs me off, I take the phone, and you, with me, so….”
“Well, stop it anyway. It’s not nice.” He pulled up enough of the tape off his hand that it was starting to hurt, so he went back to worrying the hole in the sheet.
“Maybe not, but it’s fun.”
Crash.
“Ben,” Elliot intervened. “At the very least, just spare the knickknacks, would you?”
“LOL? What the hell? Your ghost typed LOL.”
“Yep.” Elliot chuckled. “He does that. Wait till he starts with the emoticons.”
There was a pause. “Elliot, he stuck out his tongue at me.”
“I would too, if I could. Stop screwing around and let me tell Ben what happened.” Elliot gave Ben the short version of events and suddenly heard bangs and crashes almost exclusively. Then suddenly they stopped.
“Jesus, Elliot. He’s having a temper tantrum. I had to come back outside and shut the door.”
“Wait him out. Go back in when it’s quiet.” Elliot realized he’d made an irreparable hole in sheets that didn’t belong to him and wondered if they’d charge him for it. If hospitals billed seventy dollars for an aspirin, what was a sheet likely to cost?
It didn’t take long for it to get quiet, as reported by Daniel. Ben probably wanted to talk to Elliot more than he wanted to throw items around the house.
“Can a front door open itself sheepishly?” Daniel asked. “Because I swear this one just did.”
“Calmed down now, Ben?” Elliot decided to just pull the blanket up over the hole in the sheet and hope the nurses didn’t notice. At least there was no one in the other bed to have witnessed his crime. But he was still restless, so he went back to picking at the tape.
Daniel answered, “He says, ‘Only because I like the rest of the breakables too much.’”
“You have every right to be mad, Ben. I know I would be angry if the situation were reversed. And Ben, I thought of something I hadn’t thought of before I left SC. And if I remember correctly, you even tried to tell me about it, but I didn’t catch what you meant. When I was in that tree house, dying, or so I thought, the only thing that went through my mind was that I wouldn’t be able to get to you. I’d be stuck here because I wouldn’t want to cross over without you and you’re still waiting for Patrick. And I think Patrick’s stuck here too and I don’t know how to get you together.” He used the back of his right hand to wipe away the tears he felt welling up in his eyes. “It’s all so screwed up, Ben. I don’t have any answers. The best thing for both of you to do would be to cross over, then you’d be together on the other side. Wouldn’t you?”
Daniel took a long while to answer. “He says Patrick isn’t able to cross over yet, and he isn’t going to leave without him.”
Elliot sniffed again. “I get that, Ben. I do. I admire that kind of love. The problem is that I feel that for you. But you and Patrick belong together, so where does that leave me?”
Daniel’s voice answered long before Ben could have had time to type anything. “Shit, Elliot. Are you sure you want to have this conversation with me here? Wait until you get back to talk about this.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m sorry, Darrell. Did Ben answer?”
“No. Nothing. I think he agrees with me that you should wait and talk about it in private.” Daniel paused, then said in mock horror. “Holy shit. He agrees with me about something.” Another pause, then, “Oh wait, he’s typing.”
“Elliot, he typed nine lines of what appeared to be random symbols until he was finished. Your ghost just flipped me off.”
Elliot started to laugh, but pain exploded in his incision and he found himself gasping for breath instead. He said good-bye to Ben, told Daniel he could call again later, and pushed the button for more morphine.
Chapter 14
ELLIOT WANTED to put the phone on the bedside table so he could get to it more easily if he needed it later, but he knew the pain in his chest wouldn’t let him, so he simply laid it down beside him on the blanket. He’d long ago been cautioned against keeping his electronics too near the pacemaker, so no putting it in his shirt pocket, but he figured he’d been getting away with keeping it in his pants pocket all this time, so laying it on the bed near his hip should work too. He picked up the coat to lay it over the rail out of the way, knowing he’d eventually go to sleep or get very drowsy now that he’d dosed himself with pain meds. One side of the coat was considerably heavier than the other. He laid it back across his lap and unzipped the pocket.
“It’s the journal.”
“What journal?” Sheri asked as she entered the room carrying a coffee.
“This is why I was in the tree house. Patrick gave me dreams of where he had hidden the journal he’d kept throughout his teen years. Up until he and Ben went off to war.” Elliot patted the cover of the battered old journal. “Before they left, he wrote one last entry, then put it back in the lunch pail, sealed the top, and hid it back under the floorboard in the corner near the tree.” Elliot spared only a passing thought as to how he knew about that last entry. “Since it was in a corner, it was supported better on two sides, as well as on the bottom by the tree branch, so that part of the tree house managed to stay pretty solid, and the pail was still there.” Elliot ran a reverent fingertip across the surface of the book. “So I got the journal out and put it in my pocket right before… well, right before.”
Elliot opened it respectfully and started reading before he could tell himself to wait until later.
“You’re going to read it now?” Sheri teased as she placed her hand over his where it rested on the first page. “Just ignore your visitors and read a two-hundred-year-old diary?”
“Not quite two hundred years, Cher.” He covered her hand with his free one, not sure if he was trying to reassure her or simply move it so he could start reading again.
“Well, I was never any good in history.”
Elliot smiled, but addressed the question. “It’s important somehow. I’m not sure how or why, but Patrick wants me to know this. And somehow I know it has to do with Ben’s happiness.”
“Ellie—” She turned her hand over in his and gripped his top hand.
“Don’t, Cher,” Elliot interrupted and looked at their joined hands. “You know I love you, but I’m in love with Ben… in a way I can’t even describe. We fit together, like puzzle pieces, like I’m not complete without him. I know that’s how he felt about Patrick, so I’m not sure how all this is going to work. We’ve got the world’s weirdest love triangle going on here.” He paused, trying to think of all the angles. He patted her hand and, taking the hint, she moved it back into her own lap. “I don’t know if Patrick wants me to read his journal so I’ll know how to make Ben happy, or so I’ll know that only Patrick can. But either way, I love Ben enough to give him to Patrick if that’s what I need to do to make him happy, to bring him some peace, to help him cross over. I’m just not sure how to do that. I can’t talk to Patrick like I can to Ben, so I can’t simply tell them both to cross over and meet on the other side. Or rather, I can tell him, but I have no way of knowing what his response would be. And I’m not even certain it works like that. I don’t know anything for sure. I’m winging it and hoping everything turns out.” Elliot felt the morphine starting to affect him. He was getting sleepy, but even more importantly he
was getting chatty. Most likely he would not have said half of that to Sheri without the drug’s influence.
“Ellie.” Sheri started and paused for a moment, as if she expected to be interrupted again. When she wasn’t, she continued. “All I’m hearing is what Ben needs or what Patrick needs. What about what Elliot needs?”
Elliot didn’t even need to think about it. “I need Ben to be happy. For eternity. Not for a little while with me in the plantation house,” Elliot answered quietly, and Sheri knew him well enough to know that the conversation was over. The call of the morphine was finally too much for him, and he drifted off to sleep.
WHEN HE woke again, Sheri wasn’t there for once. He hoped she had finally gone back to the hotel for some much needed sleep. But what was he going to do all alone? He looked at the clock on his phone, which somehow managed to stay beside him while he slept, and saw it was the middle of the night. He didn’t want to call anyone.
He thought of the journal and looked around for it, hoping no one put it in the drawer of the bedside table, which, with his incision, might as well be in the next state. But no, there it was, on his lap where he left it. He must have moved the blankets over it, but it was still there.
He picked it up and began to read.
January 1, 1857
I think I’ll start writing a journal. Our teacher talked about the importance of keeping track of our thoughts and feelings and suggested that since it’s a new year, we start writing in a journal. I know most of the boys thought it was something that only the girls should do. I don’t agree. I think it will do me good to have a place to put down thoughts I can’t even tell Ben.
I used to tell him everything. We’ve known each other since we were four. I can’t remember a time without him. I can’t remember a time I didn’t love him with my whole heart and soul. But, as we get older, there are different kinds of love, and I find that I feel that for Ben too.
The problem is… they say in Sunday School that this kind of love is wrong. That I should feel this kind of love only for a girl, well, a woman. And only a woman that I marry. And some of the ideas that go through my head, especially in my dreams? I really shouldn’t think those things about anyone I’m not married to. That’s what they say in church. But in my dreams….
I’ve talked to my father about dreams like that in general. I didn’t tell him that Ben was the star of them. He said they’re normal for fourteen-year-old boys to have, and it’s even normal for me to wake up with… I can’t even write it. It’s embarrassing. But it also feels good and not just physically. I think if anyone was in those dreams except Ben, it would feel wrong. Ben and I? We’re made for each other. Where one goes, the other follows. That’s what everyone says. But it’s not so much one following as the two of us moving in unison. I can’t imagine feeling that for anyone else.
Elliot felt like he was intruding, like he shouldn’t be reading this. But Patrick showed him where the journal was because he wanted him to read this. He was sure of that. So he continued reading as long as he could, which turned out not to be that long. He distantly realized that he was falling asleep and that he should put the journal down first, but he was gone before he realized whether or not he actually did.
“SO,” BEN says as we’re walking home from school, “Becky Fischer says she likes you.”
I’m surprised. I know Pa said that at almost fifteen, we’re all at an age where we’d start thinking about pairing up, not that we can do anything about it yet. He said we needed to wait until marriage. But I don’t feel like that about anyone but Ben. And I can’t tell him, or anyone, about that. I can only write about it in my journal.
“Did you hear me?” Ben repeats when I don’t answer.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’m not sure what to say about it.”
“Do you like her?” His voice sounds almost sad. Maybe he likes her and he’s jealous.
“Nah, Ben. Not like that. You’re free and clear if you want to court her.”
“I don’t want to court her. Where’d you get that?” He picks up a stick as we pass it and starts swinging it into the tall grass at the side of the road, as if it were a scythe. “I only asked you if you did.”
“Actually you only asked me if I liked her, not if I wanted to court her.”
“Well, you can’t do one without the other, can you?” He’s getting wound up for some reason, and the poor grass is paying the price. I’m just bratty enough to him at times that I’m going to play with him. “You can like her without courting her. That’s doing one without the other.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He throws the stick as far as he can, and the grass sighs as it rips through it.
“Of course I know it, but where would be the fun in answering seriously?”
“It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be serious.” He’s abusing rocks now. Kicking any that he sees as far down the road as possible.
I laugh and elbow him, waggling my eyebrows. “I’ve heard it’s supposed to be fun, Ben. Matthew from school? He’s eighteen and he’s been courting Cassandra for two years. He says it’s very fun.”
Ben is getting upset and I don’t know why. “Fine, go have fun with Becky.” He jogs off down the road and I have to run to catch him.
“Ben.” I finally get close enough to catch an arm and turn him around. “I don’t want to have fun with Becky.” I smile. “You and I have the only kind of fun I’m interested in right now, okay?” It isn’t exactly true. I’d like to have a different kind of fun… but only with Ben. So it is true where it counts.
“You say that now. But Samuel says we’re growing up, and there’ll be girls for each of us, and we won’t stay this close.”
“Is that what this is all about?” I smile but he doesn’t. I slap his shoulder. “Samuel’s your big brother. He’s supposed to make your life miserable. But he’s not right about everything. He’s certainly not right about this. We’ll be together forever, Ben. Where you go, I go. Always.” I pull his chin up to make him look at me because he’s suddenly become very interested in his shoes. “Don’t worry about girls coming between us, okay? It’s not going to happen.”
He tries to smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. I don’t know what else to do to convince him. My dreams come to my mind, but I certainly can’t do anything we get up to in those, and I’m not sure that would help anyway. So we walk home the rest of the way in silence.
ELLIOT WOKE a little disoriented, not knowing where he was at first. Steady beeping to his right brought back the knowledge of being in the hospital. Again. He was really getting tired of hospitals. They were all the same. South Carolina or Pennsylvania didn’t seem to make any difference. He always seemed to be in a semiprivate room with no roommate. The room smelled of antiseptic and stale air, and usually urine, at least part of the time. In his personal experience that was because the nurses gave him urinals to use but didn’t always empty them promptly. One hung on his railing right now, almost full. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do if he had to relieve himself again before they came to get rid of the current contents.
He could almost hear the two teenaged boys from his dream giggling at the thought of trying to pee into a mostly full bottle and teasing each other mercilessly when it undoubtedly overflowed and got all over their bed… and them. He still wasn’t sure how Patrick was able to give him those dreams here in the hospital. Then he looked down at his lap and noticed the still-open journal lying there.
Spirits can be attached to objects too, can’t they?
As soon as Sheri got there for the day, he asked her before she even got seated in her personal torture device.
“How would I know, Ellie? I mean, they can on Supernatural. But then again there are demons and werewolves and vampires on that TV show too.”
“Which is totally why you watch it so religiously.” Elliot leered sarcastically, shifting in the bed to be able to see her better. He absently realized that it wasn’t as agonizi
ng to move today, not that it didn’t still hurt around his incision. “Because you completely believe in those things.”
“Hell no,” Sheri shot back. “I’m just in lust with Jensen Ackles. That’s why I’m saying I have no insight to give you on what does or does not bind ghosts. You know I don’t believe in any of that crap.”
Elliot chuckled but decided he must have been mistaken about his lessened discomfort a minute ago, as his incision pulled and twanged and generally got pissed off about his twisting around in the bed, even the slightest bit. “I know. Your biggest belief system has to do with feeding the libido.”
“Damned straight.” She grinned. “Well, in your case we would make it bi, if you were ever interested.”
He blushed. He was never sure how much she was teasing when she said shit like that. Then again, he was pretty sure he’d go along with the suggestion if he was even remotely bi. Which he wasn’t. He continued to grin.
“So,” Sheri continued the original conversation. “Let me get this straight. Now the theory is that Patrick is attached to the journal. A book he left in the tree house when he went off to war. Where he died, like seven or eight hundred miles away.”
“Yeah, but if the connection is strong enough—” He rubbed at his chest to try to apologize for making it hurt.
“But Ben is stuck in the house where he died and can’t even go out to the backyard.” Sheri leaned forward slightly each time she made another point.
“Yeah, but Ben is choosing to stay there to wait for Patrick.” Even to Elliot’s ears, that sounded thin.
“So, if you tell Ben that Patrick is here, he should be able to choose to come here now? Why doesn’t he come here for you? He’s really pissed that he can’t be with you. Daniel dodged flying furniture for like an hour when we sent him out there, poor boy.”
“He was not there for an hour.” Elliot addressed the off-topic point first, then dropped his hand to his side because rubbing his incision was only ticking it off more. “And maybe Ben doesn’t realize he can do it. Or maybe he had to make that decision at the time of death and after that they’re stuck? I don’t know.” He waved his arm and hand in an unsure gesture.
