Violet Ghosts

by Leah Thomas

  Her tears fell from her cheeks but never touched mine.

  Slowly, I pulled my duvet over my head and waited for her to disappear.

  FRAPPUCCINO

  The next day, I pulled Seiji aside as he lumbered past my locker.

  “Is it about my mother’s ghost?” Cutting straight to it, as usual.

  “It’s not that,” I said, with a pang of guilt.

  He listened to my request with a furrowed brow.

  “So you need a ride to the children’s hospital in Faylind.”

  “Not just me. Some of the ghosts, too.” It felt so strange to say it aloud.

  Seiji didn’t hesitate. “Should we leave now?”

  This boy was no asshole, no matter what Sarah said.

  In the end, we decided to make the journey to Faylind later in the evening, to give Seiji time to talk his aunt into letting him borrow the truck. I also suspected Patricia would need a little more time to steel herself.

  After school, Seiji attended to the iguanas and company, so I accepted a ride home from Corina of all people. I was pretty gimpy, and I suspected I couldn’t avoid her forever.

  We’d just pulled out of the parking lot when she blurted, “Are you and Seiji Grayson a thing now?”

  I sighed. “What do you think, Corina.”

  “I don’t know what to think. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Remember those crappy rumors you were so happy to tell me about, that day I fainted? About me being a lesbo? They’re not true exactly, but they’re not too far off. Go ahead and spread the gossip, if you want. I don’t care.”

  “I wouldn’t gossip about that!” she shrieked, almost spilling her bottled coffee. I glanced at her. She was angry. “I didn’t tell anyone about your bandages, and I won’t tell anyone if you’re a lesbian or anything else, either. Not if it’s the truth and you don’t want me to.”

  I was probably staring, so she continued, “My aunt’s trans. She used to be my uncle Joe, but now she’s Aunt Jo, and I love her. I’m not as shitty as you think I am.”

  I swallowed hard until my desire to cry had passed. We were almost to the motel when I asked, “Would you mind if I send your aunt a Christmas card?”

  “She’s Jewish,” Corina said, “but I’ll give you her email.”

  It wasn’t only Seiji I hadn’t seen clearly. Maybe I’d been too submerged in my own depths to see anyone else.

  THE THIEF

  As I entered the lobby, Sarah was lying on her stomach on the floor, staring at a closed book. I thought about telling her about the night screams, about Addy’s apparitions, about my cowardice.

  I thought about it, but I didn’t.

  “I think you have to open the book to read it.”

  She didn’t laugh, but didn’t roll her eyes, either. “I’m trying to make it levitate.”

  I bit my tongue. She rose to her knees and looked at me. “You told me Addy’s murderer lifted you all the way up to the ceiling.”

  Addy, on the ceiling. I shuddered.

  “Dani? That’s what you said, right?”

  “Yeah, he did, but I don’t know how he did that. He wasn’t like you, Sarah.”

  “But you can feel us, a little. I know you can feel me.”

  My cheeks flushed. “Yeah, but only like . . . ​you feel soft like felt.”

  “But that murderer left real bruises on your neck.”

  “Yeah, but I dunno, Sarah. It was like he was . . . ​powered by evil,” I finished lamely. “I don’t think all ghosts can do what he can.”

  “Do you know how many times folks told a girl she couldn’t do something?”

  I cringed. “I didn’t mean—”

  “If I couldn’t do all the things folks said I couldn’t, I’d be a potato in a sack.” She stared at the book again; there was a boy on the cover.

  “You seen Patricia?”

  Without taking her gaze off the book, Sarah jerked her thumb toward the counter. “Check the boxes.”

  I peered into every little mail cubby until I spied a small lump huddled on one of the tiny cardboard beds.

  I prodded the bed with my finger. Patricia lowered her hands from her minuscule face and sighed.

  “I’m acting like a child.”

  “I don’t think you are.”

  “You’d think ghosts wouldn’t be afraid of death, but I still am. Not of my own, but of all the other deaths in the world.” She wrapped her arms around her knees, looking more frail than I’d seen her in ages. “I’m still so afraid for the living.”

  “Me too,” I confessed, thinking of Seiji, of the things I could not begin to tell him. “But we’ll be there with you.”

  Sarah didn’t say anything, but put her back to us. I frowned.

  Patricia’s face was so little and so lost. “What will I say to my son?”

  “I don’t think he’ll be able to hear you . . .”

  “I still need to say something.” Patricia climbed out of the little bed. “To my son, and to my daughter-in-law. To my granddaughter, who might not even know how to speak. All my advice, all my education and experiences, they amounted to nothing. Look where they led me. I’m hiding in a mailbox.”

  “Nothing you did led you here,” Sarah called. She was still kneeling on the floor, staring at the book. “Don’t be stupid, Trish.”

  Patricia materialized beside me at her usual height, clutching her upper arms in her hands. “You say that. If I hadn’t gone jogging . . .”

  Sarah raised her voice. “If you hadn’t gone jogging! If you hadn’t walked alone at night! If you hadn’t made your own choices or lived your life! If you hadn’t been a woman! All those things—they aren’t a reason!” She threw up her hands and the book lifted from the ground and collapsed again, landing splayed open on its spine.

  At the same time, I staggered, as if the wind had been pulled from my chest. I leaned against the counter, dizzy, staring at the sudden color in Sarah’s cheeks.

  “Did you . . . the book—”

  “Holy shit,” Patricia cussed, then covered her mouth.

  “There you go,” Sarah breathed, eyes wide. Her face was victorious. I loved her, but I could not help but see her as ghoulish.

  “Moving things is not about being evil. It’s about getting furious.”

  We all stared at the fallen book, weighing the implications.

  “Tonight.” Patricia squirmed, looking at the walls and not at either of us. “Are you coming with us, Sarah?”

  Slowly Sarah straightened, and then she shook her head. “There’re three things you should say to your granddaughter. First, tell her she matters. You should also tell her you love her, obviously.” Sarah looked at me, and dread filled my stomach. “And finally, tell your dying baby granddaughter not to trust anyone, especially the people she loves.”

  “Sarah,” I chided, as Patricia crumpled.

  I strode out from behind the counter, forgetting my ankle in my anger. It was one thing for Sarah and me to argue, but another for her to attack Patricia on a day like this.

  Sarah was fading from view, but I reached for her hand.

  To my utter amazement, she felt almost real, as if that surge of anger had brought her closer to living, or me closer to dying. When I reached for her hand, there was something to grab, like the lightest silk handkerchief.

  “No, Sarah! That’s unfair. You don’t get to be cruel and then vanish! Apologize!”

  “Putting your hands on me now?” She tore her hand free, and I cried out—it felt like sandpaper scraping my palm. “I’m unfair? I’m trying to help these women. Maybe that means being angry—maybe it means killing their killers. But don’t call me unfair, when you’re using all of us, Daniela!”

  “Using you?” I sputtered, overwhelmed by her fury.

  “Daniela Miller spends all her time with ghosts because living people don’t care about her! Have you considered we don’t care, either?”

  “Stop this, you two,” Patricia began, but Sarah wasn’t f
inished.

  Her skin glowed fluorescent white. Pages rustled, furniture shook and broke.

  “Poor Daniela Miller, teased at school! Poor thing, crying about bullies on the shoulders of women who’ve been molested and murdered. But no, it’s unfair for us to be angry, because we should only care about Daniela and her stupid, constant, living angst.”

  “Stop it,” I gasped. “Stop calling me Daniela.”

  “Yes, because that’s what’s important right now. Me, calling you your actual name. Why are you so afraid to be yourself, Daniela? Are you afraid of being a girl? Do you think girls matter so little, that you can’t bear to be one?”

  “It’s not like that!” I couldn’t begin to say what it was like.

  “Maybe it’s not.” She began to fade, but her rage remained. “Maybe it’s not about being alive or dead. It’s about being selfish. If it weren’t for me, Patricia would still be in pain and alone. If it weren’t for me, would you even be thinking about trying to save another dead girl? Tell the truth. Would you be thinking about anyone but yourself?”

  I shook my head, eyes welling, throat swelling.

  The screaming in the walls, the voice that haunted me.

  “Right. So don’t you dare act like a saint now.” She turned on me. “And for fuck’s sake, I’ll vanish whenever I damn well please.”

  She did.

  I couldn’t say . . . ​I couldn’t say anything, and neither could Patricia, who waited for the walls and furniture to settle, staring only at the carpet.

  CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

  In the face of Sarah’s explosion and Patricia’s fear, my nerves about revealing the lobby to Seiji had all but evaporated. I opened the hidden door and let him into the cluttered space. He couldn’t see Patricia, but he made an effort to seem friendly, an effort that might have made me laugh on any other day.

  “HELLO, GHOSTS,” Seiji announced in a booming voice. “MY NAME IS SEIJI GRAYSON, AND I COME IN PEACE.”

  Patricia smiled wanly. “You can’t say he isn’t trying.”

  “Seiji, you don’t have to yell. She’s right next to you.”

  Seiji looked left and right but to his credit didn’t flinch.

  “Tell him I’m grateful for his help.”

  I relayed the message, and Seiji addressed the air in a whisper. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry about your granddaughter.”

  “. . . thank you.”

  Because it was after dark, and because she was not alone, for the first time since she’d come to us, Patricia walked freely out into the night. She paused on the precipice, but not for very long, and then let the moonlight graze her.

  Seiji kept looking over his shoulder as if he might catch a glimpse of them. I didn’t tell him Patricia was beside him. He held the door to his truck open for a minute before I told him that they’d already phased through the side.

  “Don’t mind the soil,” he said awkwardly, and we hit the road.

  As soon we left Main Street behind, snow began falling in gentle puffs of white.

  “You’re upset?” Seiji asked, as we approached the I-75 north on-ramp.

  “I’m not.”

  Seiji glanced at the rearview mirror. “Dani’s upset, isn’t he?”

  “Definitely,” Patricia replied.

  “The ghost agrees with me, I bet,” he said. “Is it because of where we’re going?”

  “Seiji . . . do you think I’m selfish?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  “Okay. Wow.”

  “But I’m selfish, too. Everyone is selfish. Some people just hide it better.”

  “That’s a pessimistic perspective.”

  “Not really.” Seiji signaled left and entered the fast lane. “It’s reality. Humanity survives by being selfish. It isn’t necessarily bad. I used to be angry about my mother being selfish, not telling us she was sick. And then about my father being selfish, leaving us behind.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “But I realize they were trying to survive. And also, in a way, being selfish made them want to be greedy about their problems to protect me. In a way, that was kind of selfless.”

  “That’s either nonsense,” I said, “or very deep wisdom.”

  “Nothing is simple.”

  “I used to think you were,” I observed. “I thought most people were.”

  The snow continued to flurry around us, clumps like ghosts hitting the windshield as we sped toward the hospital.

  HIGHLIGHTS FOR CHILDREN

  The snow fell thicker as we traversed the Faylind Children’s Hospital parking lot. Patricia hadn’t spoken again during the trip. I reached back as if I could hold her hand while Seiji pulled up in front of the main entrance. Through the glass doors, I spotted a Christmas tree decorated in green and red and gold. It was December. I felt my chest hollow out.

  Little Patricia had almost made it to her third Christmas.

  “I’ll drop you off and go find parking.”

  “We’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  Seiji touched my arm. “Should I be here? I can wait outside.”

  “No, please come in with us.” I pulled a stack of Get Well cards from my backpack. “I have a plan to get us in, and it’ll be more convincing if you’re there, too.”

  Seiji turned around in his seat. “Is that okay with you, Ms. Patricia?

  To my immense relief, Patricia nodded. “Yes, it is, young man.”

  “She says it’s fine.”

  Waiting in the lobby with an invisible woman beside me, I must have looked pretty lost. I tried not to speak to her, to appear like a normal kid on crutches.

  A nurse seemed surprised when I said I was there as a visitor.

  Patricia stood very still, fading in and out of focus beside the Christmas tree.

  When Seiji rejoined us, shaking snowflakes from his hair, we approached the garland-draped reception desk.

  “How can I help you?” The receptionist wore festive cotton scrubs.

  “We’re here to see Patricia Lyttle.”

  “It’s past visiting hours, and the family has asked for privacy.”

  I glanced at Patricia, but her eyes were closed and her face was drawn.

  “Please, won’t you call Mr. Lyttle? We’re students from his class.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the stack of dollar-store cards that I’d filled with illustrations and well wishes. “We brought prayers from our classroom.”

  “You kids just keep coming. He must be some teacher.” I could see her relenting. “Let me call and check with him. Can I have your names?”

  Somehow I hadn’t prepared for this, hadn’t thought she’d verify our answers.

  Patricia spoke up. “Say that you’re Sammy Wallace and Dan Roanoke.”

  I repeated Patricia’s words. Seiji’s impassive face was good in a pinch, because he didn’t look the least bit surprised by his new name.

  “He says you’re welcome to go up. It’s room 624, in the hospice ward. Go to the end of the first hallway and turn right. There’s a reception area where he’ll meet you.”

  In the elevator, I could hear Patricia breathing. She didn’t need to, but maybe the inhaling and exhaling was steadying her. I stopped glancing at her, because it seemed to make her breathing louder, and staring never helped anyone.

  As we left the elevator and walked down the teal hallway, Patricia’s breathing became more staggered.

  My doubts resurfaced when we reached the second lobby. All the chairs were occupied by children and adults. All strangers but not entirely—I didn’t recognize their faces exactly, but some of them had Patricia’s features, and I did recognize their defeated expressions.

  Patricia freed her hand and stepped forward. She walked quietly among them, peering at their faces with one hand over her mouth. She brushed her fingers in their hair and touched their shoulders softly as she passed.

  The people didn’t notice her, but they did notice Seiji and me. Patricia’s family treated us to expressi
ons of anger, confusion, or a numb nothingness.

  It suddenly felt very wrong to be there, like we were staring at a car accident.

  I took a small step back and felt my spine hit Seiji’s chest. He put his big, warm hands on my shoulders.

  “This trip is not selfish,” he said.

  I nodded and stepped forward, holding aloft the forged cards. “Excuse me. Are you the Lyttle family? I’ve brought cards for you and baby Patricia.”

  “I hope they aren’t get-well cards,” snapped an older woman. “That’d be tactless.”

  “Um, no. They’re just . . . cards.”

  “You aren’t my students,” said a weary voice behind us, “and you definitely aren’t my childhood friends Dan and Sammy. Who are you, and what do you want?”

  We turned and there he stood: Patricia’s son, Gary Lyttle. It looked as though he’d aged a decade since that video interview I’d seen in the library.

  Patricia walked toward him, shoulders rising and falling, her breathing louder than ever, so that it seemed to echo like another respirator or monitor. I made the grave mistake of looking at her face: love and pain in equal measure. I can’t imagine how she felt when her son looked right through her.

  “As if she were a ghost,” I mumbled to myself. I’d accepted the surreal for so long that seeing my friends discounted in person, treated as shadows, not the fascinating people they were, felt like a slap.

  Seiji said, “You don’t know us, but we need to talk to you.”

  “I’m not in the mood. Please, leave my family in peace.”

  I couldn’t think of where to go from there. Just behind her son, I saw Patricia’s trembling shoulders, her hair and clothes in disarray again.

  “Your mother sent us here,” Seiji said, as the blood left my face.

  I’d known he was blunt but I wasn’t expecting that.

  Gary’s face shut down.

  “My mother is dead,” he said angrily. “Go, please. Now.”

  Seiji pointed at me. “This is Dani, and Dani sees ghosts. She brought your mother here to see you.”

  “You’re despicable!” an eavesdropping old woman declared.

  “Sorry, Gran,” Gary said, and he beckoned us to follow him. When we were several yards from the lobby he spun on us.