I'd Rather Not Be Dead

by Andrea Brokaw

  “Don't know yourself very well either, do you?” she asks.

  “Who are you?”

  Her hand shoots out, offering itself to be shaken. “Gloriana Maria Lucinda Ramirez dela Cruz.” The names roll of her tongue in a series of artistic loops. I take her hand, even though I'd rather bat it away. “Call me Glory.”

  “Nice to meet you, Glory.” But not really. I let go of her hand as soon as I politely can and stuff both of mine into the pocket of my hoodie.

  She's silent but she seems to be laughing at me.

  As we turn onto Main Street, I wonder how to ditch Glory. I'd thought I wanted to find others like me, but now that I have I just want to be alone.

  Since the last time I walked down Main Street, someone's taped fliers to the lampposts warning that people who celebrate Halloween are destined for Hell. I don't need the Fort Jesus logo in the corner to know they're behind it, nor am I at all surprised to see the Crusade for Christ emblem next to it. Ricky Woodman probably got permission to cut school to hang them. Or made poor spineless Tanya do it.

  With a string of rapid Spanish, Glory rips the one I'm looking at off of the post. “The Day of the Dead is not Satanic. It is as Christian as any holy day.”

  As Christian as any holy day that existed centuries before Christ was born, at any rate.

  The flier flutters through Glory's hand and she sighs. “I wish I could take them all down.”

  I grab the one off of the ground, then take down the next six, balling them up and tossing them into the trash. Seven more go into the next trashcan. I stop after that, realizing Glory's fallen behind. Her mouth hangs open as she stares at me.

  “You trying to catch flies?” I ask. “Sorry I'm not recycling them, there aren't any bins near here.”

  “How are you doing this?” she whispers, her accent thick and her voice full of awe.

  “First, I grab the paper. Then, I rip it off the pole. Ball it up like this.” I crumple the paper in my hand and move on. “Then I repeat.”

  “But...” Shaking her head, she says something in Spanish. “You're so strong. You're new. You shouldn't be this strong. Fray said you were more powerful than the rest of us, but... You're like the living.”

  Fray talks about me? Tells people I'm strong? Is it good or bad that he's leading the town's dead population to gossip about me? Am I touched he would brag about knowing me or mad he'd talk about me behind my back?

  “What else did Fray say?” I ask, not too kindly, as I rip down another piece of trash.

  Her smile is a bit too knowing. “He's impressed with you. Fond of you. He said your temper can be like the lash of a studded whip, but he said it as an endearment. He also said you are very, very stubborn.” She laughs softly. “He sounded less pleased with that.”

  I toss the most recent bundle of fliers into the trash and give Glory a long look. “And when did he say all this?”

  She pales. As I thought, the answer isn't one I was supposed to have. “He... He said it...” She brings her chin up and looks me in the eyes. “He said it when I ran into him. Walking.”

  Right. Because it always takes a while to spit out that you randomly bumped into a friend. When I take the next flier down, I rip it in half before balling it up. “Was there a town meeting about me or are you part of some secret organization?”

  She doesn't answer until I stop and stare her down. “We were at court. The Shadow Lord... He called us to ask questions about you. He likes to know about newcomers.”

  There's more to it than that. I bet you a million dollars he doesn't usually bother summoning people who live near the new ghostie. I bet he's usually happy to get a report filed whenever the next census is taken. Why care so much about me?

  I tear the next flier to shreds thinking about it.

  “Don't be angry,” Glory begs. “Fray had no choice, you understand.”

  “Sure,” I mutter. This is just not a good day for me on the friends scale. In the last hour and a half, I've learned Cris gave me drugs without my consent on at least one occasion, Finn's been keeping that knowledge from me, and now Fray's handing the government intelligence about me. It's the sort of thing that leads people to questions like, “What's next?”

  What's next is that I suddenly start to feel very, very sleepy. Lovely.

  Flinging the ripped paper to the ground, I stalk into the nearest building, the county library, and charge through some guy by the entrance who looks more likely read a tractor manual than a work of literature. Glory doesn't follow me.

  I find a corner in nonfiction that looks like it's been deserted for twenty years, curl up on the floor, and dream of fog and kings and betrayal.

  “No blocking the aisles!” someone fusses in a decidedly mean-spirited way.

  Groggily, I open my eyes.

  “This is not a bed and breakfast, young lady,” says a stern woman with hair pulled into a tight bun and tiny spectacles balanced on a beak-like nose. “Get up.”

  I sit, blinking at the woman as I try to wake up. She seems to be somewhere between forty and sixty years old, but the awakening wrinkles in her skin don't include laugh lines. Not a good sign. “You must be the librarian.”

  “And you must be the rude newcomer.” She glares at me. “Get up. Surely you weren't allowed to sleep in the stacks when you were alive.”

  “Um... No.” I pull myself to my feet. “But when I was alive, people couldn't walk through me.”

  The librarian sniffs. “They shouldn't have to now.”

  She turns on the heel of her granny boots and walks briskly away. I consider jogging after her, but she'd probably just complain about me running in a library. No wonder she's haunting this place. Bet she haunted it when she was alive too. She was one of the stereo-typical old school librarians, the ones who act as if they like books very much and like people even less. Her life revolved around glaring at patrons with her finger over her lips. I wonder if she even noticed when she died or if everything just went on the same way it always had.

  Poorly rested but capable of staying awake, I weave my way back to the populated section of the building to find out what time it is. The clock reads four thirty. It doesn't mention the date.

  The librarian at the circulation desk is the opposite of the ghost. She's smiling and cheerful. She seems to have something nice to say to everyone, is excited about the books being checked out, is as happy to see the books that are coming back as if they're friends of hers. She's got to drive the dead bitch absolutely insane.

  I smile at the thought of the crabby old librarian having to live with the constant annoyance of people who enjoy being here and turn to leave, nearly walking straight into my youngest sister as she comes in the door.

  “Rain,” I whisper.

  She stops and looks around. For an instant, I think she heard me and my heart starts to race with excitement. But she's just looking for the card catalog computers.

  I follow her to them. She's got something in her hair. Confetti maybe, although who knows how confetti could have gotten there. Rain's just the sort of person these things happen to. I pick it out, feeling guilty when she shivers from the draft of my touch.

  She types in a search string for books on feng shui, jots down the number for the one hit she gets on a piece of scrap paper.

  “Feng shui? You're kidding right?” But I know she isn't. Rain would believe in it, would sigh at me for rejecting something people have followed for thousands of years. She reads Tarot cards too and lights candles on an alter in her room. But, then, who ever heard of someone named Rain discovering a scientific principle or being the CEO of a major company? Compared to how many Rains are out there making crystal jewelry for New Age shops? The girl was doomed the second our parents named her, plain and simple.

  She finds the place the book should be in, but it's missing. The alternative religion section no longer exists. About a year ago, all the books in it vanished over the course of a week. We all know who took them, but nothing was ever don
e about it. Has the intolerance spread to spiritual decorative practices? Surely God doesn't care if you want a goldfish in your money corner. Or whichever corner you'd put a goldfish in.

  There are tears of frustration in my sister's eyes. She's thinking the same thing I am, that she's been censored again. Not even by the library or the community in general, but by one small group of jerks who think they have the right to dictate what the rest of us are interested in.

  Something catches my attention and I bend to look at a shelf three bellow and one stack over from where Rain is. “Beginning and Intermediate Feng Shui,” I read. It's just misfiled.

  Rain's turning, starting to leave. She's not going to find this. So, taking a deep breath, I slide it half-way out.

  She gasps, her eyes huge as saucers.

  “You always did believe in ghosts,” I say, letting go of the book.

  Squatting down, she looks at it, gasps again when she reads the title. Her hand trembles when she draws the book the rest of the way off the shelf. “Thank you,” she whispers. As she stands, the book cradled against her chest, her eyes dart frantically around the area. But she doesn't see me.

  When she gets back to the front, she goes to the computer again and asks it about local ghosts. I smile. “I don't think I'm in any of the books yet, kiddo.”

  She checks out a few things from the local lore section anyway, things I might should get around to reading sometime. It would be interesting to see if any of the real local spirits are mentioned or if the tales are all fiction.

  Rain and I run into myself as I'm walking her home. The other me's making out with Cris in his front yard and seeing them makes my stomach churn with conflicting emotions. I miss Cris like crazy, despite hating him. That sickens me as much as anything does.

  “Gross,” Rain pronounces. “Do you have to be exhibitionists?”

  TOM rolls her eyes in disgust. “Screw you, flower child.”

  “He wishes.”

  Zing. I smile at the kid, although TOM's expression is much less amused.

  “I'll see you later, baby.” Cris gives TOM's ass a squeeze. “You get the little one home safe. We wouldn't want her eaten by a big, bad wolf.”

  She kisses him again, then trots after Rain, but I stay behind. I know exactly what their conversation will be. Rain'll say she doesn't see what I see in the loser and Tom will insist Cris isn't a loser, that he's just misunderstood. I don't have the heart for it.

  Instead, I sit down on Cris's front steps. He's pulled out his shiny new phone and dialed a number from its memory. “Hey, there gorgeous.”

  Something inside me gives up on life.

  I'd almost managed to convince myself he'd ditched the other girl. Stupid, stupid me. My body shakes as I stare at him. There aren't strong enough curses in the world to convey how I'm feeling.

  A Mustang pulls into the driveway and Cris turns the phone off, stuffing it into his pocket as he saunters over to the car. The girl who rises from the red sports car is tall, leggy. She wears an emerald and blue plaid miniskirt and a pale green sweater set.

  I could vomit. He's having an affair with someone wearing a sweater set.

  The other me hasn't been gone more than five minutes and already he has his tongue down someone else's throat, his hand up someone else's skirt. Someone who wears sweater sets.

  I don't have the willpower to bother bursting windows or breaking cell phones. I don't throw rocks at them. I don't punch him. I just leave, feeling sick and somehow dirty, as if I were the one cheating.

  Not cheating, I remind myself. We were never dating.

  Semantics.

  “Drew?”

  My name drifts through the cloud of despair and I look up. Finn's watching me, his eyes neither brown nor green, but equal parts of both. The other girl was wearing green.

  Without a word, Finn grabs my arm and leads me into his house. He tosses the mail he was outside collecting onto a side table and sits me on the stairs. “Drew?”

  I whimper.

  “Drew, I am so sorry.”

  I squint at him. “What?”

  “I'm sorry.” And he does look apologetic. And miserable. And a lot like a person who hasn't been sleeping very well lately, but has spent a lot of time figuratively pulling his hair out. But what's he sorry about? “I can't tell you how sorry. I should have told you earlier. And not like that. That wasn't the way to tell you.”

  It takes me a few seconds to decipher what he's going on about.

  Mad laughter fills the room. It seems to be coming from me.

  “That was at least three heartbreaks ago, Finn.”

  His eyes narrow in concern. “What do you mean?” The words are gentle, kind. He watches me closely, eyes narrowed and lips parted in curiosity, but he doesn't rush me.

  I shake my head. The tears in my eyes aren't falling. There's too much pain for me to cry. “I didn't believe you anyway,” I say, choosing not to elaborate on the rest. “Or, the other me didn't. After I heard what he said to you, I didn't have much choice.”

  “Still...” Finn sits beside me on the stairs, not in danger of touching me, yet closer than he's usually been willing to get before. “If I'd told you as soon as I knew, at least I would have tried.”

  I smile very weakly. “For all the good it would have done.”

  The wood beneath us creaks as Finn shifts his weight. “But that's not what you're upset about?”

  “No.” I stare down at the thin line of carpet running up the middle of the stairs. It's pink. “Truthfully... If he'd offered it to me, I'd have taken it.”

  Now Finn's the one staring at the carpet.

  “I was just scared,” I go on. “Not really unwilling. So...”

  Finn moves his stare from the carpet to me and I struggle not to cower in fear from it. “I can't believe you're defending him.”

  My insides churn. “I'm not. It's just his crime... It wasn't rape. It was something less horrible.”

  He moves his eyes away from me. “Whatever.”

  The pain inside me stabs and rips.

  “Would it make you feel better if I told you what he's doing now?” I ask.

  “Why?” Finn tilts his gaze toward me. The dangerous glint is still in his eyes, which are solid brown.

  Taking a breath, I try to tell him. But I can't. The words just won't come. So, instead I whimper and breathe as though I'm crying, even though there are no tears.

  Finn's hands have knotted into fists. Something pulses in his throat. When he speaks, the words are gritted out from clenched teeth. “What is he doing?”

  “More of a who,” I whisper, my heart continuing to fall into little pieces. “She was wearing a sweater set.”

  His anger switches to sympathy like someone flipped a switch. And then he does something that confuses me so much I stop feeling hurt while I try to figure out what's happening. His arms are around me. His hand strokes my hair. He's making wordless, soothing noises. Cooper Finnegan is comforting me.

  My heart shatters and my tears finally come, releasing themselves in huge waves as I sob against Finn's shoulder and he holds me tight. An eternity later, when I finally stop, he gives me a soft smile.

  “I'm sorry,” I say, feeling like a fool for the thousandth time today. My hand wipes at my face, trying to dry my cheeks.

  Finn runs a gentle finger along the side of my nose, removing a line of moisture I'd missed. “It's alright. It's one thing to be a cheating bastard, but cheating with a girl who'd wear sweater sets...”

  I laugh, my chest opening up a little. “Exactly. I mean, if she'd been cooler than me... Had purple hair and lots of tattoos, that would have been one thing. But...” I shake my head with a rueful near-smile. Cooper Finnegan understands. What were the odds?

  “Come on.” Standing, he holds a hand out to help me up. “I was about to let the ferrets out. They liked you.”

  He doesn't say anything about how I stormed off last time I saw the ferrets. It's something I'd just as soon not men
tion either.

  “They're cute,” I offer. It was just plain creepy the way they could see me and everything, but Finn's way too fond of them for me to say anything like that while he's being so unbelievably nice to me.

  Why is he being so nice? He doesn't let go of my hand as we walk up the stairs, merely shifts his grip to make walking easier. The world seems so surreal right now that I'm glad he doesn't. If he let go of me, maybe I'd float away in a Lucy in the Sky sequence.

  Entering his room, he turns on the lights. The stereo comes on too this time, playing Social Distortion.

  “Your friends allow you to listen to Social D?” I tease. Blending rockabilly with punk isn't something folks do in Pine Ridge. It's probably the work of the devil.

  Finn drops my hand, but he's smiling as he shakes his head and goes to the ferret house. He chatters at Juliet but sings along with the music rather than quoting the bard at her. Folding his legs, he sits in front of the cage and Juliet scrambles up to his shoulder. She looks at me with an emotion I can't interpret. If she were human I'd call it jealousy.

  Her brother eases his way out and crawls onto Finn's leg, then looks down at the ground nervously, perhaps wondering if a fall of a few inches could kill him. Finn pets him with a light, gentle stroke, much like the one he used on me earlier. “Yes, Drew is back,” he tells the critters. “Try not to scare her off this time, huh?”

  He smiles at the reference to last time I was here, which I guess he does remember. There must be something wrong with me, because I don't assure him it wasn't the ferrets that made me run away.

  The surreal feeling stays with the evening as we play with the ferrets. They really are cute now I've gotten used to the idea of weasel mediums. “So, do you have them because they can see dead people or can they see dead people because you have them?”

  “No idea.” Finn shrugs, then grins, the greens in his eyes flaring. “They scare the hell out of my grandfather though.”

  Dangling a ball on a string in front of Juliet, I watch Finn from the corner of my eye. “I met his girlfriend today.”

  “Glory?” There's a hint of nervousness in his voice. My teeth grind together.