Touch

by Michelle Sagara

  “How long has it been?”

  “I don’t know—I can’t exactly start Googling for details about his death while he’s on the computer.”

  “Go ask your mother if you can use hers.”

  “No way.”

  “Em—”

  “I’m not explaining why. She doesn’t want to know, but she’ll ask. I’m too tired to come up with a decent lie.”

  “Emma—”

  “She wants the dead to be dead,” Emma continued bitterly.

  “The dead are dead.”

  “Well, she wants them to be safely dead. And quiet. She doesn’t want to know that her only daughter is touching their ghosts.”

  “Emma, I’ll only say this once. What happens—or does not happen—between Mercy and me is none of your business. You are our child, but we’re not one person. I’m dead, and I accept it. So, finally, does she.”

  “But you’re here.”

  “Yes. And I shouldn’t be. You know that.” He nodded at Mark’s back. “I think your young guest has some suspicions.”

  Emma frowned and looked over her shoulder to see a familiar Google logo on the screen; the rest of the type was too small, at this distance, to read. She walked, quickly, to the desk and did something she hated: She stood over Mark’s shoulder, reading what his search had pulled up.

  Mark Rayner.

  She fished around in her pocket for her phone, pulled it out, and hit the first speed-dial button. Allison answered on the third ring.

  “Emma?”

  “Can you come here—with Michael—right now?”

  There was a small pause, and Emma glanced at the clock; it was 9:45. “Never mind,” she said. “I didn’t notice the time. Don’t come. Your mother will just worry at you.”

  “At me? I’m going to tell her it’s your fault.” She could almost see Allison’s grin.

  “No, Ally, I’m fine—”

  “You’re always fine. I’ll call Michael’s mother as well. We’ll be there soon.”

  * * *

  They arrived ten minutes later, which was fast enough Emma was instantly suspicious. Her suspicions were confirmed when she answered her mother’s up-the-stairs summons: Allison and Michael stood in the hall, which she’d expected; Eric stood behind them, his back to the door. He looked over their heads and up the stairs at Emma.

  Aware of her mother, Emma smiled a full-on Hall smile. “I’m sorry,” she said, heading down the stairs, her father and a young boy safely ensconced in her room. “I didn’t mean to drag you guys out so late.”

  “Eric drove,” Michael replied.

  Mercy Hall, like Eric, was looking at her daughter with question marks in her eyes. But she was a Hall as well; she kept them to herself while they had guests. Emma waited until shoes, boots, assorted mittens, scarves, and hats had been more or less closeted, and then led them all upstairs. “It’s a bit of a mess,” she told them before she opened her door. Petal joined the entourage, which guaranteed it would be even more of a mess in a handful of minutes.

  He was the first one through the door, because he didn’t wait for it to be fully open; he was also the first one on the bed, where he was technically not allowed to go. The duvet engulfed him, mostly because he was rolling in it. Allison and Michael walked in; Michael sat on the edge of the bed, nearest Petal; Allison sat on the ancient beanbag chair in the corner. Eric, however, stood in the center of the room, somewhere between Emma’s dad and her visitor.

  Emma took a deep breath, closed the door firmly behind her and glanced at Eric.

  “I have a visitor,” she said. She walked over to her computer; Mark was still seated in the chair, staring at a screen full of Google.

  “Would his name be Mark Rayner?” was Eric’s soft question.

  The child turned at the sound of his name, his eyes widening as he saw Emma’s friends. He had apparently failed to hear the door or see Petal, Allison, Michael, or Eric when they’d entered the room. It was almost as if he were a younger version of Michael. This impression was strengthened when he said, “Yes, I’m Mark Rayner,” before turning back to the computer screen.

  Eric raised a brow at his back. “Where did you find him?”

  “In the ravine,” Emma replied. She struggled with tone of voice, and lost. “I heard someone crying when we—when I was walking home.”

  “And you went into the ravine on your own in the dark to find him.” Said like that, it sounded like an accusation.

  The beanbag made its usual squeaking noises as Allison pushed herself out of it; Eric immediately fell silent.

  “I did. It took me a while to find him. He’s not supposed to speak to strangers, and I’m a stranger.”

  Michael stood as well. When Michael stood, it was generally a signal. “Emma, can I meet him?”

  She nodded. She approached the chair in which Mark sat, and knelt beside it, bringing her eyes in line with his. He didn’t look at her; he looked at the screen. His fingers hovered above the keyboard—or the mouse. Emma wasn’t certain how he could use either, and now didn’t seem like the right time to ask.

  “I want to go home,” Mark told her, without looking down to where she now crouched.

  Emma closed her eyes. “Can I introduce you to my friends, first?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to get down from the chair.”

  “Why?”

  She almost laughed. “It’s important, when meeting people who don’t know you and don’t understand you.”

  “Why?”

  “If you don’t, they’ll feel like you’re ignoring them.”

  “Oh.”

  Since it appeared that he was ignoring them, and since Eric clearly felt he was, Emma gently forced the chair around. He came with it; she hadn’t been certain he would. He frowned as she held out her hand. But after a long, silent minute, he placed his hand in reach of hers. “It feels different,” he told her, sliding off the chair, looking for all the world like a living boy.

  Her hand should have been numb at this point, but it wasn’t, and the cold of his small palm burned.

  “Mark, this is Allison, my best friend.”

  Mark nodded.

  “This is Michael. I think Michael and you might have a lot in common. That’s Eric.”

  Mark frowned as he looked at Michael. “Are you normal?” he asked.

  It wasn’t the question that anyone expected, but Michael was seldom floored by questions that weren’t laced with anger or pain. “I’m normal for me.”

  “I’m not,” Mark said quietly, staring at a fixed point on the floor. “I’m not normal.”

  * * *

  A long silence followed. Emma had to resist the urge to put her arms around the child; she also had to resist the urge to ask him who’d told him this and, more important, why they’d said it. “No one is normal,” she told him instead.

  “Other people are normal.”

  “But you’re not other people,” Michael said, which was good; Emma was silent for a moment, struggling with a sudden surge of protective anger. Michael spoke calmly because he was stating simple, irrefutable fact.

  Mark nodded, but he added, “If I were other people, if I were like other people, people would like me.”

  Allison’s expression mirrored Emma’s feelings; Ally had never been as good at the Hall face.

  “Do you like dogs?” Mark asked.

  Michael nodded.

  “I don’t like the smell. And their breath. I don’t like the sound the lights make.” These two statements were not connected. Mark really did remind Emma of Michael as a child.

  “He doesn’t smell bad, to me. He smells like dogs smell.” Michael thought for a minute and then asked, “Do cats smell bad to you?”

  “Not
all cats. Some cats.”

  “Do these lights make bad noises?”

  Mark frowned. He looked at Emma’s hand, still entangled with his, and then tilted his head to one side. “No.” He looked confused. “Emma’s hand doesn’t hurt. The lights here are quiet.”

  “Maybe it’s different,” Michael said, as Emma opened her mouth to speak, “because you’re dead now.”

  * * *

  Silence.

  Mark proved that he was not like Emma, not like Allison, and not like other children. He blinked, then frowned. “Am I dead?” he asked Michael.

  Michael nodded.

  “Oh.” He looked down at his hands, one of which was still wrapped in Emma’s. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said. He sounded surprised. “Am I a ghost?”

  Michael nodded again. “We can’t see you if Emma’s not holding your hand.”

  “Oh.” Pause. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Emma,” he added, “can see dead people. But most of us can’t.”

  “Why can Emma see dead people?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He turned to Emma. “Why can you see dead people?”

  “I’m sorry, Mark, but I don’t know, either. I can’t—I can’t always tell they’re dead. They don’t really look like ghosts look in stories or on television. I didn’t know you were—”

  “Dead?”

  She nodded. “I could hear you—but I couldn’t tell until I saw you.”

  “But you said—”

  “When I could see your eyes, I knew.”

  “My eyes look dead?”

  She shook her head. “It’s their color.” She paused, and then said, “My dad’s dead, as well.”

  “Did you find him, too?”

  “No.” She hesitated, then looked at her father, who had been standing in the room the whole time. “No, he found me.”

  Mark’s blank expression probably meant confusion; it’s what it often meant on Michael’s face.

  “My father wasn’t lost. He was dead, but he knew where he was.”

  “Oh. How did he know?”

  “You’ll have to ask him. You can see him, right?”

  Mark nodded.

  “Michael and Allison can’t. They know he’s there because I’ve told them, but they won’t be able to speak with him until I hold his hand. I’m like a—like a window.”

  Allison shook her head. “Emma is alive, but Emma can see the dead, and when she touches the dead, she makes them visible for the rest of us.”

  Mark was silent for a full minute. Emma’s father was watching him, hands in his pockets, his brow creased in concern.

  “I want,” Mark finally said, “to go home.”

  * * *

  The silence was awkward, but there was no way to avoid that. Allison didn’t exactly break it, but she did move toward Emma’s computer. “Mark, what is the last date you remember?”

  He frowned.

  She tried again. “What was the date yesterday?” When he failed to answer, she said, “The day before yesterday?” She waited for another minute before she sat in the chair.

  Ally moved to occupy the space in front of Emma’s computer. The resultant sound of keys and mouse-clicks were audible.

  Emma’s hand was numb. Her lower arm was heading that way as well, but at the moment, the cold was painful. Eric was painful in a different way. Throughout the entire discussion he’d said nothing; he’d watched Mark and Michael in a stiff silence. Petal was agitating for Milk-Bones, and slathering Michael’s hand in dog germs; Michael didn’t appear to notice—hard, when a rottweiler was sitting on your feet.

  “Three years ago,” Allison finally said, into a lot of silence.

  Emma, hand in Mark’s, looked over her shoulder. She wasn’t certain how much she could or should ask, given that Mark was in the room. But if Mark was like Michael, it wouldn’t matter. “Exactly three years?”

  “Three years in two months. He was eight years old, but on the small side for his age. He went out for a walk during the day and failed to come home. They mobilized most of a police division searching for him, but they didn’t find him for two and a half weeks.”

  “Hypothermia?”

  “Yes.”

  And he’d been there ever since.

  * * *

  “Are you cold?” Emma asked.

  Mark frowned. He was wearing a simple ski jacket and equally simple shoes, neither of which he’d tried to remove on arrival. The shoes were in no way appropriate for tonight’s weather—and it wasn’t January yet, which was usually colder. “I’m not cold,” he finally said. “But I’m not warm, either. My hand doesn’t hurt,” he added, looking at hers. “And the lights are quiet.” He let go of Emma’s hand, or tried; when he pulled her hand followed.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. “My hands—they get really, really cold when I’m touching a ghost, and my fingers get numb enough I can’t really feel them.”

  “That’s not good,” he replied, as she pried her fingers free. He walked toward where Allison was still reading the computer screen, and stood to the left of her, reading as well. “I wasn’t alone,” he told them. Only Emma could hear.

  Emma stiffened. “When, Mark?”

  “I didn’t go out alone. That part’s wrong.”

  Emma turned; so did her father and Eric. She reached out and caught Mark’s hand, and he allowed it, now that he was beside the computer.

  “Mark didn’t—didn’t go out alone,” Emma told Allison.

  Allison’s hands froze for a second. She turned to look at Mark, who was standing beside her. “You went to the ravine with friends?”

  Mark seemed to shrink at that. “. . . I don’t have any friends.”

  Allison’s lips compressed. Emma started to say everyone has friends, but managed to stop those words as well. It didn’t matter what she thought, after all; it was the truth as Mark saw it. It was just so hard to hear from the mouth of a child, especially a dead one; the urge to comfort him was visceral. But . . . when had meaningless, hopeful words been much of a comfort in her own life? Even with the best of intentions behind them?

  Michael said, in all the wrong tone of voice for Michael, “Who took you to the ravine?”

  Mark hesitated, and then said, “My mom.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  EMMA HAD SUFFERED AWKWARD SILENCES BEFORE; this one was charged. She took refuge, for a moment, in confusion. She wanted to cling to it. She might have even managed, but Michael was there, and Michael now walked to the computer. He was almost twitching, which was never a good sign. He looked over Allison’s shoulder as if she weren’t there, and didn’t appear to notice when she moved, surrendering both mouse and keyboard.

  He knew—they all knew—that not everything reported in the papers was exact; editors changed little things—like, for instance, dialogue—in the name of saving space. Why they did this for articles that were on the web, no one understood. Space wasn’t an issue—maybe attention span was. But almost every article Allison had managed to find contained a quote from the grieving mother, and in each, she clearly stated that she had come home to find Mark had gone out.

  Emma wanted to speak with her father, but she had Mark by the hand, and she couldn’t think of a way to detach herself. She sent her father an imploring look and froze at his expression; he wasn’t looking at her. He was, like the rest of the people in the room, looking at the computer.

  “Mark,” Emma finally said, “I don’t think going home is a good idea.”

  He looked up at her. “You promised.”

  “I—” She swallowed. What was she going to say? She hadn’t known he was dead? Her father approached Mark as she struggled to find useful words, and crouched—in much the same way Emma had when she
’d coaxed Mark out of the ravine.

  “Mark, why don’t you come for a walk with me? You can show me where your house is.”

  Mark hesitated.

  “He won’t hurt you,” Emma told the young boy.

  “He can’t,” Michael added.

  “My father lives in America,” Mark told them. “Because of me.”

  Emma wanted to scream. “Sometimes my dad thought I was frustrating. We used to argue about Petal—that’s my dog’s name.”

  Brendan Hall chuckled. He didn’t hold out a hand; he did rise. “I haven’t been outside in a while. Let’s take a walk.” Glancing at Emma, he added, “Emma’s not very good at reading maps. If she tried to find your house without help, she’d probably get lost for hours.”

  It was true. Emma didn’t even mind that he’d said it. She wanted Mark to go with her father because she didn’t want him to hear anything she had to say. What will you be protecting him from? she thought. He’s already dead.

  But dead, he was an eight-year-old boy who looked like he was six and spoke as if he were four. Dead, he’d been crying in the ravine for—for how long? He didn’t have a body; he couldn’t be murdered. He could no longer freeze to death, because according to Google, he’d already done that. But he could be afraid. He could be lonely.

  He could definitely be hurt in all the ways that didn’t actually kill you. Some of those, Emma thought, death was supposed to end. Clearly, it hadn’t.

  Mark still hesitated, and her father said, “I need to be able to find your house so I can tell Emma exactly how to get there from here. You don’t want to be lost for hours, do you?”

  Mark shook his head. “I want to go home,” he whispered.

  Emma knew her father would have picked Mark up if he could; he would have hugged him, or put him on his shoulders, or any of the things he used to do with Emma’s friends when he was alive. He didn’t try that with this one; she wasn’t even certain he could. He couldn’t touch the living—were there rules that governed the way the dead interacted?

  Probably, she thought grimly. She had a good idea of who’d made those rules. She headed to the door and opened it, although it wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary. “He’ll bring you back,” she told Mark, “if you want to come back. He won’t leave you, and he won’t lose you.”