Ever Near (Secret Affinity Book 1)

by Melissa MacVicar

  I raise my chin a little and peek up at him, cautiously.

  “I do, okay? I believe you.” His jaw is set, his eyes unwavering.

  “Really?” This seems too good to be true. To have Charlie know and believe is more than I could have hoped for.

  “Really.” He grins down at me and nods before pulling me into a loose hug. “We’ll figure something out. I know we will.”

  I wish I was as sure as him. I wish I had his confidence that this could be figured out.

  Chapter 19

  I bob and duck and dive through the surf. The waves are huge and as cold as icicles against my skin, but I’m refreshed by the frigid sensation. I allow the ocean’s strength to throw me around according to its own crazy sense of order.

  Charlie swims nearby. Every time we try to get closer, the current or the waves or both pull us apart. Eventually, we drift too far down the beach, away from our towels, and have to get out and walk back. Charlie runs ahead with Zeke and holds up my towel.

  “Thanks,” I tell him when I catch up and he wraps it around me.

  We’ve come to a tiny beach access point near Madequecham and Tom Nevers, a place we wouldn’t be likely to run into anyone we know. We had to drive over rutted dirt roads, bumping along in the jeep with Zeke panting and drooling on the console between us, but we lucked out. No one else is here but a few scattered tourists.

  We sit side by side, wrapped in our towels and warming in the heat of the sun. My mind still churns with all the things that are happening—Charlie sleeping in my bed, Charlie knowing about the ghosts, and both of us discovering the diary and letters about Lydia. On top of all that, being with Charlie is a constant adrenaline rush—my stomach in knots, my skin oddly electrified. Is this what being in love is like? Maybe. And on top of all that, I have an extremely depressed ghost berating me and hanging herself in front of me over and over.

  “Have you ever seen a ghost outside?” Charlie asks.

  “Yeah. One.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you tell me about them?”

  So I do. While he throws a frayed yellow tennis ball for Zeke, I tell him about every one of them—Strobe, Crypt Man, Soulja-Boy, and the others. A man with crushed legs at the Candle Factory. A little girl dripping with water at the Maria Mitchell house on Milk Street. Telling these stories to Charlie makes me think more about Soulja-Boy and something he said to me during our encounter my freshman year.

  The Valentine’s Rave was held at the American Legion Hall. I was dancing with Ally and some other friends. We’d decorated our arms and faces with neon body paint for the rave lights and donned our best skimpy clothes. The room pulsed with club music.

  I remember being shocked that some couples were grinding. Grinding is against the rules because the moves are like having sex on the dance floor, only with clothes on.

  I wondered how they were getting away with it, and I glanced toward the corner where the chaperones were handing out water bottles to see if they would notice the gyrating going on. But instead of a chaperone with a clue, Soulja-Boy stared back at me.

  Somehow, the ghosts always know what I can do. They can even pick me out of a crowd of writhing teenage bodies splattered in neon paint.

  By the look on his face, I knew this ghost would come after me. I headed for the restroom anyway, hoping and praying he wouldn’t follow. Half running, half limping along in my strappy high-heeled sandals, I didn’t look back. The restroom was packed with primping girls vying for position in front of one small mirror. I practically dived into an empty stall and latched the door. I waited a few seconds, listening and wondering what would happen next. When nothing did, I decided to use the opportunity to use the toilet. I sat there with my skirt hiked up, doing my business, when he appeared in the space between my knees and the stall door. I let out a yip of surprise.

  He laughed heartily. “Having fun?”

  His face partially melted into a pink goo before reforming in the blink of an eye. The threadbare wool of his dark blue uniform coat hung loosely on his form. His pants were lighter blue and tattered at the hems. He smelled like a day-old peanut butter and jelly sandwich just removed from its Ziploc. I fought the cold trickle of fear trying to worm its way into my chest and the stupid embarrassment that he was seeing me sitting on the toilet.

  “Get out.” I wanted to scream the order, but my voice was barely audible. I couldn’t risk someone hearing me.

  “Why? Don’t you like company?” He chuckled and his face froze in a freaky smile.

  I had finished peeing but wasn’t sure it would be polite to reach for the toilet paper. Deciding to go for it, I grabbed at the roll. After a quick swipe, I stood up and yanked my skirt down. At least the skirt, even as short as it was, kept me mostly covered during this process. “I can’t help you,” I said.

  “No. You can’t. Others have already tried. I don’t want to go.”

  What did he mean, “Others had tried”? I was still contemplating what I should say to him when a rush of music and high-pitched laughter poured into the restroom from the opening door. The noise made Soulja-Boy disintegrate before my eyes. Just like that, he was gone, only wisps of smoke left behind.

  I sometimes think about going back there to try to talk to him, to find out about these alleged others. I’ve always chickened out, though, because I hate seeing ghosts more than I hate just about anything else in the world. Now I wonder if what he knows would help with Lacey. Maybe returning would be worth the risk.

  “I could go back to the Legion to try to talk to Soulja-Boy.” I offer this up, hoping Charlie will say no. If he says visiting is too dangerous, I won’t feel like I have to do it.

  Charlie glances at me, but I stare off at the water. He takes my hand and holds it loosely against his leg. “Do you want to?”

  “No. But he might give us some ideas. He wasn’t interested in me because he said he didn’t want to go. I’m not sure where he didn’t want to go to. Hell maybe? I don’t know, but he said someone already tried to help him.” I’m kind of fascinated by the way our hands look laced together—mocha and peach.

  “Could he hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll go with you. If you want.”

  “The Legion’s probably locked up anyway.”

  “The bar’s open.” Charlie smirks. “We used to have Boy Scout stuff there. A bunch of old dudes were always swilling in that back room.”

  I raise one eyebrow. “Boy Scouts?”

  “Yeah. Is that funny?” Charlie pulls me toward him with the hand holding mine while simultaneously reaching to tickle me with the other.

  We end up wrestling in the sand—for like two seconds—before he’s got me pinned. After all, the boy’s a giant, and he’s used to scrapping with his big brother. Once I’m subdued and he’s straddling my stomach, hovering in front of my face, I decide going to the beach with Charlie might be my new favorite thing to do in the whole world.

  We kiss. His weight rests perfectly on my body. The soft pressure of his lips drives me crazy, and I kiss him back harder because I might be the kind of girl who does that at the beach with her new boyfriend.

  “We should go back,” he says after a few minutes. He sort of breathes this against my cheek, but he doesn’t try to get up. His hands still hold mine above my head.

  “Okay,” I murmur.

  Instead of getting up, though, he kisses me again. And we don’t stop until Zeke comes and drops the disgusting tennis ball on our hands, making me squeal and Charlie roll off of me, laughing.

  Chapter 20

  Visiting the ghosts of my past is a little too Ebenezer Scrooge for me. I’m about as happy about my trip down memory lane as old Ebenezer was, too. I don’t think any of this is going to truly help my situatio
n with Lydia, but I don’t exactly have a ton of other options. The only reason I’m even considering going is that Charlie is coming along. Having Charlie with me makes the trip slightly less horrible. Knowing he could whisk me away if things get really crazy makes me feel marginally better. Plus, maybe Soulja-Boy will do something that makes Charlie believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m not insane and that the ghosts do in fact exist.

  I’m secretly hoping that’s what will happen when we’re driving home from the beach, and I say, “Lacey’s buried at the Old North Cemetery, where Crypt Man is. Maybe we should go there, too.”

  “You mean Lydia, right? We should call her that from now on. Since we know it’s her.”

  “Yeah… I guess…”

  “And yeah. If you think it’ll help, we should go.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We could do both tonight. Get it over with. We could say we’re going to a movie.”

  Tonight? In the dark? Eek! I hadn’t planned on that, but I’m inclined to agree with him because I sort of want to get it over with before I change my mind or before Charlie changes his. It’s a little bit like going to the dentist or getting ready to take a final in your worst subject, only more terrifying. I don’t know how bad it’ll be. Ghosts are so unpredictable.

  After dinner, I lie and say I’m going to meet Ally in town, and Charlie claims to be meeting Nick. I leave first and start walking, but he picks me up in the park at the end of Fair Street. We head up Main toward New Lane in the Pilot. The sun will be setting soon, so the cemetery will be our first stop.

  The Old North Cemetery could be used as set in a horror movie. Rows of white granite and black slate stones jut out of the ground, uneven from years of frost heaving the earth. Lichen covers them in green-and-yellow flowery patterns. The only place to park is in the middle of the one dirt road that runs down the center. Even scarier, the whole place is visible from New Lane. Someone seeing us here together and telling my mother makes me almost as nervous as seeking out Crypt Man.

  The brownish grass feels lumpy beneath my feet as we make our way to the Folger plot. A car goes by on the road. I keep my eyes down, praying no one will recognize us. We find the graves easily because I was able to look up where Lydia was buried in an online database. Lydia’s parents put her in their family plot despite her shameful suicide. I find her mother’s and father’s stones first, tall white markers with elaborate weeping willows carved into the arched tops. Beside them is a small stone for a child, apparently a sibling of Lydia’s: Samuel Job Our Little Angel, Died Age One Year, Two Months. Beside that is Lydia’s small slate stone. The inscription simply displays her name, Lydia Folger Chase, and the years of her life. No epitaph. No weeping willows. At least they got her a marker.

  “This is her,” I say as I crouch to examine her stone more closely.

  He stands off to the side as if waiting for me to work some mojo or figure out something important. I reach out and touch the smooth slate, running my fingers over her name. I’m wondering if Crypt Man is still here, when out of the corner of my eye, I see movement at the tree line, about fifty feet away.

  “You there! Who are you?”

  His voice booms as he trudges toward me. He looks just the way I remember, carrying the same club and wearing those rough work clothes. I stand and suck in a breath, trying to summon some courage. After the debacle with Maniac in Sconset, putting myself in contact with a ghost is more than a little frightening.

  When he’s a car length away, I manage to say, “Hello,” as if we’re having a perfectly normal meet-up.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to visit this grave. Lydia Chase. I know her.”

  “What’s going on, Jade?” Charlie whispers. He reaches to take my hand, squeezing it gently when he does.

  “The man,” I say out of the corner of my mouth. I raise my voice to ask Crypt Man, “Why are you here?”

  “Me?” His shape quivers like a flag in the wind.

  “Yes. Why do you stay here?”

  “For my wife. I’m waiting for my wife. Why do you see me? Does he see me?” He thrusts a bony finger in Charlie’s direction.

  “No. Just me. I’m not sure why. How can I help Lydia? She’s stuck at my house. I want to help her.”

  “She waits for someone too?”

  “Yes. But they aren’t coming. They’re already gone.”

  He shimmers, his body suddenly as thin as sheer curtains. “I don’t know. But I don’t like you here. Go away!” Despite his wispiness, he’s starting to lose his temper. Just as they always do. He waves his club in the air, and I don’t need to be told twice.

  “Let’s go,” I tell Charlie.

  Crypt Man’s arms whirl faster, as though he might take off and start flying across the graveyard like a ghostly helicopter. We hustle along, me leading the way. When we get to the car, Charlie waits until I climb into the passenger seat, then he shuts the door for me. But as soon as he steps away, the Crypt Man appears at my window. I let out a surprised yelp.

  “Have you seen her?” he screams. His face is in full-on meltdown mode—nuclear reactor bad—nasty and charred.

  Why do they always have to be like this? I kind of liked Crypt Man, but even he has to lose his shit. If I ever write a book, like Martin Fitzgerald, I’m going to call my story Crazy Town because that’s what the ghosts are really like—crazy and mean and demented.

  When Charlie gets behind the wheel, I say, “Drive,” and bury my face in my hands to keep from seeing Crypt Man. When I feel the car get onto the asphalt, I dare to look back. Crypt Man’s form is receding. He’s limping off toward the scraggly scrub oaks that line the back of the cemetery.

  “What did he say?” Charlie asks.

  “He’s waiting for his wife. He doesn’t know anything about Lydia.”

  “Waiting? At the cemetery?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  Charlie frowns. When he stops at the next intersection, Madaket and Main, he doesn’t drive through it. He idles at the stop sign, even though there are no other cars.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, tracing the circle at the top of my key charm with one finger.

  “Nothing.” A few seconds later, he takes a right down Quaker Road instead of going straight on Main.

  “Where’re we going?” I ask.

  “I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He takes another right at the next intersection and then a quick left. A few seconds later, he steers the Pilot into the Prospect Hill cemetery. I peek over at his profile as he drives, and I suddenly know where he’s taking me. I instantly wonder how he could possibly think this is a good idea. Taking me to his mother’s grave without asking is insane, a horrible move that he clearly made in a split second back at the last intersection. What if she’s there? What am I going to tell him? My pulse throbs in my temples, and my stomach churns.

  Charlie stops the car in the middle of the dirt road. The sun is setting in the distance, a bright pink ball in the cloudless sky. Without a word, he gets out and strides down a path beside a row of newish stones. He stops at a gray and white one, its polished granite surface not yet sullied by lichen. He sits on a small metal bench beside it that’s only big enough for one person.

  Seeing him there, looking so serious and determined, I feel a surge of anger replace my fear. Does he secretly want her to be a miserable ghost so he can talk to her again? Does he want to use me to make this happen, knowing how bad they can be?

  He raises his eyes and searches my face, trying to see if anyone is here, if anything is happening. I fling open my door and stomp down the incline, anger and fear churning in my stomach. Charlie just watches, waiting to see if his freak girlfriend sees anything. I look all arou
nd and even spin to see behind me, but there’s no one here.

  I step closer to examine her name carved in bold lettering—Rebecca Jean Walcott Dowler—along with the dates of her life. “She’s not here.” My voice is ice cold, as cold as the ocean was earlier. I wrap my arms around my waist and kick a lump of grass with my flip flop.

  “Are you sure?” His eyes plead with me for something, any bit of information to reassure him.

  “Yes, and you should have asked. I need to be prepared. Especially after Martin.”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead, he stares at her name.

  “And you should be happy. Being a ghost is terrible. Can’t you tell from the way they act with me?”

  “I know. I am glad. I’m so glad. I just… I needed to know. After the Crypt Man… since she’s not at the house…”

  “I’m sure she’s where she’s supposed to be.”

  Thankfully, there are no ghosts here right now, not his mom, not anyone. Why aren’t there more ghosts wandering around? I guess most people make it where they’re supposed to go, and this knowledge is sort of comforting to me. I turn to head back to the car because I don’t want to keep berating him at his mother’s graveside.

  “Did you ever meet her?” The crack in his voice makes me turn and look at his face, which is half hidden by his baseball cap. His massive form slumps on the bench, a fisted hand coming up to wipe his cheek.

  “No.”

  He nods and sucks in a breath that sounds suspiciously like a sob—not a full-on, body-wracking one but a sob nonetheless. And when I see more cheek wiping happening, I know he’s crying, and I instantly regret being so annoyed with him.

  Getting to him takes a few steps, and I place my hands on his shoulders. He glances up at me from under his hat, and I move closer, between his legs, pulling his head toward my chest. I don’t even care that he’ll be pressed into my boobs. I want to hug him, and I know he needs it. His arms wrap around me, and I pull off his hat, so the brim isn’t bumping into me. He lets out a loud sigh, squeezing me tightly as I hold his head against me. I want to say something, but nothing good is forming in my brain.