Violet Ghosts

by Leah Thomas

  “Why not?” I pointed at my most infamous feature. “You haven’t got a lazy eye.”

  He frowned. “Do you think your eye helps you see dead people?”

  “I have no clue. Why do you hate your handsome face?”

  “My face gets red really easily. It’s a genetic thing.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” I snickered. “I just thought you were drunk.”

  “Hey.”

  “Or maybe really, really cold.”

  “Hey.”

  “Seiji the red-faced pie man, had a very scary face,” I sang.

  “Hey.”

  “And if you ever saw it, he would pull down his bangs!”

  “You’re a bad singer,” he declared, glancing over his shoulder, his cheeks as red as roses.

  Now that I was getting to know him, he sounded mean when he was embarrassed. I wondered if that was coded in him like my back talk was.

  “Hey, how’s the kitten doing?”

  “I named her Chestnut.” I wondered if he realized how cute that was. “How’s . . . how are your ghosts?”

  “They aren’t pets, so I don’t know how to answer that.” I looked away. “But I’d say not so great.”

  I caught him eyeing my scarf. “Hey. About you helping me, with mine. My ghost.”

  “Oh.” To my shame, it had slipped my mind. “I mean. I can’t promise anything.”

  He nodded. “I’ll give you a ride to the shop after school on Monday. But you’ll have to wait for me a little while.”

  “Right. Because you’ve got detention after school.”

  Seiji blinked twice. “I haven’t had detention since middle school.”

  “But everyone says—”

  “Everyone says I’m in the yakuza. Everyone says you’re a lesbian.”

  “Point taken.”

  “I have to go back to work.” Seiji stood up, but I grabbed his hand.

  “Did you tell the Green House people to invite me and my mom?”

  He shrugged, which I thought meant yes. His shrugs could mean all sorts of things.

  “So why do you stay after school?”

  “To look after the iguanas in the bio lab.”

  He said this like it was the most obvious answer, and I was still chuckling when Mom came back to the table, looking harried.

  “Mr. Mueller says you set his place on fire, but I told him that was nuts and to shut up about it. What’s so funny?”

  “I wanna try karaoke. Can you put in a request for ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’?”

  Behind her, Sophie was scolding Seiji about his unruly hair and he begrudgingly pulled it off his forehead again.

  “Are you serious? Karaoke?”

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  “Okay.”

  Mom wheeled me to the dance floor. When my song started, I watched Seiji turn pale as they lowered the microphone. When he heard me singing the traditional lyrics, he flipped me the bird. The little girl on the dance floor was head-banging like there was no tomorrow while her mother tried to peel the candy cane from her hair.

  I didn’t feel the least bit haunted.

  THE HUSTLE

  By the time we left the hall, Mom was flushed from eggnog and dancing. I was woozy from the meds and the company, and frankly, all the singing. It turned out I had a secret desire to belt a dozen cheesy Christmas songs, and Mariah Carey wiped me out pretty quickly. As we left the little head-banger was snoring in her parents’ arms. Sophie gave us colossal hugs and helped us to the car.

  As Mom wheeled me into the apartment, she said, “I haven’t danced in years.”

  “I’m not sure doing the hustle counts as dancing anymore.”

  “Sorry I don’t know the cha-cha slide or whatever.”

  “Don’t be sorry; it sucks.”

  Her cackle set off her smoker’s lungs. Once the coughing cleared, she said, “That boy seems all right.”

  “I think he might be, Mom. But I told you, it’s not like that.”

  “Because you don’t like boys.” She spoke without inflection, careful as she’d rarely been. The lack of judgment in her tone left me reeling. That was only part of the story—but it was a start.

  “Fair to say yeah, I don’t like boys,” I agreed.

  “Okay,” she said, exhaling. “Okay.”

  “Is it okay?” I asked, heart in my throat.

  “Sure, honey.”

  I looked at her. Her expression was gentle, almost motherly. “I wish I didn’t like them, either.”

  I laughed, my body a thousand times lighter as she mussed my hair.

  “I’m gonna head to bed,” she said. “Back to work tomorrow, and you know Black Friday is hell.”

  My eyes were damp as I limped to my bedroom.

  Sarah was waiting for me. Not on my bed, but sitting in my desk chair, staring at the ground. I wondered if she’d heard Mom and me talking. I wondered whether it mattered.

  “Sarah. Hey.” I swallowed at the sight of her. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve been avoiding you,” she said bluntly.

  “I figured.”

  She glanced at me. Her eyes seemed a little hollow, and her skull was showing more than usual through her translucent skin. “What else was I supposed to do?”

  “It’s casual.” I plopped down on the bed, setting my crutches beside me. “It’s not like I went looking for you, either. I . . . ​I get it.”

  “You don’t get it. You’re still alive, Dani.”

  I sighed. “Every time you folks pull the ‘we’re super dead’ card, how am I supposed to win an argument? Just—you don’t have to worry about it. Patricia talked to me.”

  “She talked to me, too.” Sarah watched me. “I should never have done that.”

  “Done what, Sarah?”

  For once, Sarah couldn’t seem to speak her mind.

  “What, Sarah?”

  She shrank two sizes. “Kissed you.”

  The tension in the air was another person in the room, like we were putting on a performance.

  “Sarah. It’s okay. There was a lot happening.”

  “Tell me something, because I can’t seem to remember.” The blackness of her eye hollows spread like fetid moss. “Did you kiss me back?”

  “No, Sarah. I love you. But not like that.”

  “No,” she says, shaking her head. “You kissed me back. I know you did.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well, maybe you did! Maybe it was an accident!” she cried, and the lights flickered. “Didn’t you ever kiss your father back, by accident?”

  That was a blow I’d never expected, and it left me reeling.

  Sarah backpedaled, but the words had been said, a taint like poison in the air. “I know it’s not the same. I know you didn’t—I mean. I don’t know why I said that.”

  “Stop.” I felt emptied, horrified at the implications. But more horrifying to me was the confusion on her face, a sense of loss I’d never seen in her. Maybe I was finally more mature than Sarah was. Maybe I had been for a while, but hadn’t noticed.

  “Sarah, you are nothing like him. You weren’t trying to hurt me.”

  “Can you be sure?” She trembled. “You’ve seen how malicious ghosts can be.”

  “Sarah. Stop that. We’re good. Okay?”

  “It’s casual,” she said, and it had never sounded so false.

  “It’s not. You’re upset. I’m upset.” I hesitated. “Maybe there are secrets we both should have been sharing. We could talk about them? Like we used to?”

  For an instant, I think I’m about to hear her whole story, her life and her death and her feelings and thoughts, and maybe she’ll hear mine, and we’ll be closer than ever—but then her eyes shutter.

  “I hardly think this compares to a folder full of magazine clippings of boy bands. Besides, you couldn’t even talk about that. So what do you mean, ‘used to’?” She laughed bitterly, fading to a fog, a girl-shaped distortion that twisted my bedspread and wallpa
per together. “No. The moment we start telling each other the truth, there’s no reason for us to be together.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Her tone was more than disparaging. “Oh come on, Dani. What would we have in common, if our fathers hadn’t hurt us?”

  Heat filled my eyes. “You’re my best friend.”

  “I’m just another dead girl, an itch that won’t go away.”

  This all felt so wrong. I struggled for normalcy, to spark our usual banter, but came up dry. “Sarah . . . please . . .”

  “On my map. There are other ghosts. Other murderers to exorcise, other dead girls out there waiting for help.”

  “But . . . ​we haven’t . . .” I bit my tongue, bit down the vision of Addy. “I don’t think I’m ready to face that.”

  “Really? Didn’t you just heroically save a tortured ghost?”

  “I . . .”

  “You did save her, right?” Her gaze was intent. “Because that’s what you told us.”

  “Yes, I did!” I blurted. “Yes. But . . . ​now I’m worse for wear.”

  “So?” She shrugged, feigning indifference. “Dani, while you’re hung up on your twisted foot, there’s always going to be more of us. Girls like me are just ten-a-fucking-penny.”

  TEEN SPIRIT

  I woke to violent screaming, followed by a high-pitched wail that resonated through the walls and set my veins shivering.

  “Sarah?”

  But it wasn’t her voice. I stumbled out of bed, forgetting my busted ankle, and cried out as I fell against my dresser, knocking deodorant and lotions to the floor.

  Somewhere in the near distance the piercing shriek continued, muffled now, as though someone had clapped a hand over the screamer’s mouth.

  The air pressure in my room suddenly increased, as though I were underwater, and the act of breathing suddenly felt like a burden. My wrists stung like they’d been burned, and I felt my arms being pulled apart, spread like wings, like I was being tied down. Something invisible weighed on me, some experience that wasn’t mine.

  “Addy?”

  The air fell still, like a balloon had been punctured, and my arms fells slack.

  I turned around.

  Addy was on my bed, tears streaming, wrists bound.

  She stared at me, eyes wide, shook her head, and then was gone.

  Her parting sob echoed in my head until the morning.

  SHARPIE FINE POINT (REPRISE)

  When I returned to school, the holiday weekend, the news of the apartment fire, and the sight of my crutches eclipsed the news of my binding debacle. If Corina had spread rumors, they’d been buried in the other drama.

  Coach Ma found me in the hallway at breakfast. “Look, I’d already let you quit the team. You didn’t need to go out and twist your ankle to convince me, Dani.”

  “Sorry, Coach.” I smiled tightly.

  “Don’t apologize for things that happen to you. Got that?”

  “Right.”

  “And if you want to tag along and play water boy at regionals, I could use an assistant coach. Think about it.” She clapped me on the shoulder, almost knocking my crutches out from under my arms.

  “Hey, Dani!” Charley said with his cheerful smile. Had it always been that false and horrible? “Heard about the fire! Glad you’re okay!”

  “Are you glad?” I asked. “Or are you saying that because there are people watching you right now, and you like to look like a good person when really you’re the absolute fucking worst, Charley?”

  One of the kids behind him said, “Damn!” and another one whistled.

  I stared at Charley until his grin slipped off his face and he walked away.

  When I started down the hallway, Seiji was there, towering over me with all that black hair in his eyes. “If I offer to carry your books for you, are you going to yell at me?”

  “I probably won’t yell.” I tapped my turtleneck. “Hate to strain my throat.”

  “Too risky.” Seiji pivoted away with his hands in his pocket, and got halfway down the hall before I laughed and called him back.

  “Fine, fine! I definitely won’t yell.”

  “Very kind of you,” Seiji grumbled, taking my bag from me.

  I bit my tongue before I could rightbackatcha him.

  ———

  School passed without any disasters of note. I sat with a few classmates at lunch, and despite Corina’s and Charley’s whispers, they asked to sign my cast and talked about their Thanksgiving vacations. I’d thought our friendships were shallow, but being distant meant they didn’t hold grudges, or care much about whatever whispers trailed me. I hadn’t seen that as an advantage before.

  But when Seiji approached our table and wedged himself between me and Liz Fay, the entire table went quiet. Seiji didn’t seem to notice.

  “Are you still coming over tonight?” he asked.

  “Oh my god,” said Maryanne, laughing. Liz elbowed her and started a new conversation in a futile attempt to distract from the presence of the giant at our table.

  “Sure. Where should I wait for you?”

  “Come help me with the iguanas,” he said, and then stood up to leave. I grabbed his sleeve, almost snorting.

  “Is that code? What iguanas?”

  “I told you. At the bio lab. Mr. Carson’s classroom. They need their lettuce.”

  Maryanne laughed again. This time Liz just put her head in her hands.

  GREEN GIANT

  It turned out Seiji’s after-school activity was actually more like what I imagined Care of Magical Creatures class to be, except that these creatures were less magical and more unlovable.

  I watched Seiji throw heaps of greens at wide-eyed iguanas named Jerry and Banana, then watched him dodge sharp yellow teeth in a bid to refill the water bottle of a red-eyed rat named Santa, then watched him promise a delicious mouse to an enormous one-nostriled snake named the Long Man.

  “Who named these animals?” I asked, but I already knew. “Okay, never mind. Tell me why you named the rat ‘Santa.’ ”

  Seiji remained deadpan. “It’s an anagram of Satan.”

  “Of course it is. Have you done this all year? Looked after the beasts?”

  “I’ve done it since junior high.” Seiji pulled on a pair of thick gloves and plucked an angry gray mouse from a small, isolated cage labeled Billy the Squeak.

  “You’ve been hiking over to the high school laboratories since junior high?”

  Seiji lifted the lid of the Long Man’s terrarium. “I like animals.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “I like animals.” He set the mouse into the cage and closed the lid again. “And my mother died and my dad left around the same time. People at school didn’t like me. All of those things were happening at once, so I started coming here.”

  My chest constricted. Before Seiji’s suspension, a lot of people had liked him. That gaggle of laughing boys. Maybe they were assholes, but they were his friends.

  “Seiji. I’ve never apologized—for the time I faked that black eye.”

  “And you still haven’t,” he observed, watching the Long Man unfurl and inch toward a scurrying Billy the Squeak.

  “I know. But—look, I was so angry about the ‘whore’ thing. I had just moved here, and I was poor and I didn’t know anyone, and that was my introduction to Rochdale. How could you call an eleven-year-old a whore?”

  “I told you, I never did.” Seiji looked at me over his shoulder. “My mother met my father while she was working as an escort. A lot of people are sex workers; it’s just a job. I never wrote that word on your desk.”

  Behind him, the sluggish red-tailed boa began to unwind itself.

  I felt so ashamed, smaller than the mice in the plastic cage beside me. Of course I knew what he said was true, and of course I knew Addy was more than her job, too. There was nothing I could say, apart from what I’d been withholding.

  “I’m sorry, Seiji. I didn’t realize.”


  “And I didn’t realize you had dead friends.”

  “I guess we’ve really misunderstood each other.”

  Behind him the Long Man snapped and wound its body around the screeching mouse. Seiji closed his eyes, looking truly pained.

  “I don’t like to watch,” he murmured, “but snakes have to eat, too.”

  NESPRESSO

  The sun was setting by the time Seiji pulled his truck into a small parking lot behind the Main Street businesses. We climbed out and our boots hit the snow-covered pavement with a crunch. The sky glowed a fiery red.

  “It’s going to be dark soon,” he observed, leading the way to a windowless door.

  “That’s good. Ghosts don’t come out in daylight.”

  “I thought that was a vampire thing.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I used to think that, too. But I don’t think vampires exist.”

  Seiji frowned, jangling his keys. “Are you certain?”

  “I’m not. But I’ve never met one.”

  “I’ve never met Keanu Reeves, but I know he exists.”

  “Huh.” Did Seiji realize he was vaguely hilarious? His expression never seemed to say so.

  He propped open the door, and we stepped inside what looked like a storage room. The smell of flowers hit me like a tangible force, a wall of unseen petals crushing my nostrils.

  “I’ll go tell Aunt Lavonne we’re here.”

  “Should I come, too? To introduce myself?”

  Seiji considered this. “She’s weird.”

  “Who isn’t? That’s not an answer.”

  “Oh. Are you Christian?”

  “No,” I said, thinking of that useless Bible. “I mean, I’ve never thought about it either way. Are you?”

  “I don’t know. But if she asks you about the lord, just smile and ask about her flower arrangements instead.” He paused, then doubled back. “Also. Don’t tell her I’m gay.”

  Abruptly anxious, I followed Seiji past stacks of boxes and rolls of cellophane and shelves of ribbon. An industrial silver-colored table occupied the length of one wall, lined with vases and flowerpots and yet more ribbon, bottles of glitter, brushes, and paint.

  Seiji pushed open a swinging door and we stepped into a space between the storefront and the storage room. I gaped, sorry I hadn’t been there before. The room was warm and damp. Where I assumed there’d be a roof, there was a ceiling composed of several glass skylights. The walls of that long, narrow space were lined with blooming planters and pots on tables, blossoms in colors precious, rare, and unknown to autumn.