The Girl With the Ghost Machine

by Lauren DeStefano

  She leaned forward and touched Oliver’s hair. It was soft and warm, even though his face was white and still. His hair still smelled like him, she realized. His wool coat and his house and the pie-scented candles that his mother always had burning in the kitchen.

  All night her mind had been filled with the things she wished she had said to him while he could hear her, but now she couldn’t think of a single one. They’d all gone down the drain that led to an ocean too vast to search.

  She wasn’t even sure if her heart was still beating. She couldn’t feel it in her chest.

  Still holding on to her hand, Gully leaned forward and kissed his brother’s forehead. Emmaline had never seen him do that. “I love you,” he whispered. “I love you, I love you.” Emmaline had never heard him say that, either. Gully had said so many things to his brother—maybe this was the only thing left that he hadn’t.

  Gully was holding tight to her hand, as though she would leave him if he didn’t. Maybe she would have. She was finding it very difficult to breathe in this room, and very difficult not to run outside, where everything was covered by snow and time didn’t seem to exist and there were no good-byes to say.

  But she stayed. She listened to Monsieur and Madame DePaul whisper their good-byes, even though her mind had grown hazy and she couldn’t understand the words they were saying. She stayed when the doctor came. She stayed as the machine was turned off. She stayed and watched as Oliver put up no fight to live, because there was nothing left of him. Nothing but organs and skin and bones he had already abandoned, because they had failed to hold him. The whole world itself failed to hold him. She stayed even after his last breath was gone.

  In the silence that followed that last breath, Gully drew a breath of his own. The first breath to begin a lifetime without a twin. It looked like it hurt him, Emmaline thought.

  Madame DePaul was the first to break down. She crumpled and collapsed and wailed, and Monsieur DePaul caught her.

  Gully let go of Emmaline’s hand, and before she could even turn to face him, he had run from the room.

  She chased after him, but he was already gone by the time she’d reached the hallway. All that was left was the sound of Madame DePaul crying, and the nothingness where Oliver had once been.

  CHAPTER 12

  Emmaline didn’t get out of bed the next day. It was a Friday, but Julien didn’t remind her that she had school. He knocked on her door in the morning, and again when the clock struck twelve, and both times she didn’t answer. When he opened the door to check on her, she pulled the blankets over her head and rolled away from him.

  He had never seen her like this.

  When Emmaline’s mother died, that had been a grief she and Julien shared. They salted their tea with their tears and they shared memories. But Oliver was different. Children were the promise that life was long, and that it went on no matter how ugly and unfair it sometimes seemed.

  Julien did not try to offer his daughter some words to make sense of this. She was a smart-enough girl, and she knew more about it than anyone her age should. She knew that there was no sense to be made.

  The black lace dress that Emmaline had worn to her mother’s funeral no longer fit. Time had passed since then, and the pain had scabbed over, only to be torn wide open again with brand-new loss. The dress wasn’t supposed to fit anymore, and there wasn’t supposed to be another funeral.

  She took her red dress from the hanger. Oliver’s favorite color. She put a matching headband in her hair.

  It was Sunday, and so cold that it seeped through Emmaline’s wool coat. She felt that chill even as she entered the warmth of the church.

  “Do you want to sit up front with the DePauls?” her father asked.

  Emmaline shook her head. She felt so weak. Even from the door, she could see Gully in the front pew, seated between his mother and father. There was an empty space beside him, as though the DePauls didn’t know how to be three; they only knew how to make room for four.

  There were so many people in the church whom Emmaline had never met. Aunts, cousins, friends of the DePauls, and some classmates. Emmaline didn’t look closely at any of them. She stared at her hands, and her black lace glove, which she now wore for both her mother and Oliver.

  When the prayers had been muttered and words had been spoken, Emmaline could not get outside fast enough. She ran out into the December air and down the church steps and all the way to the street before she realized that she had nowhere to go. Roads were splayed out before her, and they could take her anywhere in the world, but she didn’t know where to go.

  She stood there for a very long time, gasping, the wind freezing the tears so that they didn’t fall. She was grateful for that. She was tired of crying.

  The church doors opened, and some of the mourners stepped outside, while others stayed. Emmaline didn’t know how anyone could stay inside the church. Not with Oliver’s body inside a small white coffin with roses on the lid.

  She turned to face the doors, and she saw her father coming toward her. She hoped that Gully would be behind him. That he would come and try to make sense of all this. He was so good at that. He knew how many seconds it took to walk through the city, and how many stairs were in the school, and what time the sun rose and set depending on the day.

  But she couldn’t find him in the crowd.

  A week passed. Emmaline dialed the DePauls’ number every day, and the line was busy every time. Either there were well-wishers calling, or they had taken the phone off the hook.

  On the eighth day after the funeral, Emmaline waded through the snow and made her way to Gully and Oliver’s house. It had been three whole days since she’d cried, and she was hoping to make today the fourth, if she could bear it.

  Madame DePaul was the one to answer the door. She was wearing a long robe and her eyes were misty, but she smiled. The house was dark behind her, the curtains drawn and the radio playing softly. “Hello, Little Mademoiselle Emmaline,” she said.

  Emmaline knew what it was like for a child who lost a mother, but she had never seen a mother who lost a child. Somehow she knew that Madame DePaul’s sadness was even deeper and darker than her own.

  “Hi.” Emmaline’s voice was soft. “Is Gully home?”

  The question felt strange. She had never had to ask before. Usually one of the twins came to the door and let her in. And even when Emmaline called, she never asked for just one of them. She would say, “Is Gully or Oliver there?”

  Madame DePaul opened the door wider to let her in. “He’s up in his bedroom,” she said. “I know he’ll be glad to see you. Just—be patient with him.”

  Emmaline practically tiptoed up the stairs. The calm within the house felt so tentative, as though one creaky floorboard would cause the entire building to collapse.

  Gully and Oliver’s bedroom door was closed, and she knocked softly. “Gully? It’s me. It’s Emmy.”

  There was the sound of shuffling on the other side, and then Gully opened the door. He still looked pale and strange, but a bit more like himself than the last time she’d seen him.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “I’d like you to leave.”

  Her heart ached at that. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want anything to do with that machine.”

  “Well, I haven’t brought it with me,” Emmaline said. “See?” She turned her pockets inside out, hoping to coax a smile out of him. It didn’t work. “And I didn’t come to talk to you about that, Gully. Not at all.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If I think about you, I think about … that thing. And I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust that I …” His voice trailed. It wasn’t like him to struggle with words.

  “You’re afraid you’ll be tempted to use my father’s machine,” Emmaline said, understanding.

  He stared at her for a long and painful moment, then nodded. “I don’t want to lose a single memory of Oliver. Not a single one.”

  “
Then I won’t allow you to ask to use it,” she said. “If you even try to ask, if you even say the word ‘machine,’ I’ll slap you.”

  That made him laugh. And then as soon as the sound came out, his hand flew up to cover his mouth, as though this was forbidden. As though he should not be allowed to laugh so soon after his brother’s death.

  “Please let me in,” Emmaline said. “I’ve really missed you.”

  Gully stepped aside to make room for her.

  The room looked the same as it always had. Small and tidy, with two beds separated by a tall window that revealed a landscape of snow. Oliver’s bed was rumpled and unmade. Professor Rêver, Oliver’s teddy bear, was tossed against the blankets, presumably where Oliver had left him.

  Gully’s bed was also unmade, which was very peculiar, and Emmaline realized that he must have been spending his days in it. The twins’ bedroom overlooked the lake in the yard, and Emmaline worried for Gully. Knowing him, he was looking at that lake and the footprints that led out to it every day. He was remembering every detail.

  “Do you want to go for a walk?” Emmaline said.

  “It’s too cold,” he replied. Usually he liked the cold. But now he returned to his bed and lay on top of the unmade covers and curled onto his side. Away from her.

  “Do you want to talk about your memories?” she tried hesitantly. “Since you’ve decided to keep them all.”

  Gully didn’t answer, and since he hadn’t invited Emmaline to sit, she stood between the two beds. “I have one,” she went on. “I remember when Oliver fell out of the tree in the school yard because he’d wanted to get a look at the bird nest we’d spotted there. He landed in the rosebush and one of the thorns cut him under his left eye, and it ended up leaving a scar. He didn’t even mind—do you remember?—because now that he had a scar, people wouldn’t always get the two of you confused.”

  Emmaline blinked and found herself standing in the twins’ bedroom. The memory had felt so real that for a moment she’d forgotten it had happened such a long time ago.

  Oliver’s teddy bear stared at her with great interest. Gully curled up tighter. “It was kind of you to stop by, but you should go now.”

  “Gully—”

  “Go.” His tone was sharp, and Emmaline went rigid, feeling as though she’d just been slapped.

  She saw Gully reach under his pillow and gather something into his arms. Something red. Oliver’s scarf. He held on tightly, but a scarf was not a person, and his arms were filled with so much empty space.

  “Oh, Gully.” She walked closer to his bed. Her hand hovered over his shoulder, but she didn’t touch him. She wanted him to know that she was there, and if he needed to hold on to someone, he could hold on to her. But she couldn’t get the words out.

  He buried his face in the scarf. “Go away, Emmaline. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  Her throat was dry. “Not ever?”

  He turned onto his stomach and pulled the blankets over his head. “Don’t come back here. I can’t be your friend anymore.”

  “Because of the machine?” The words sounded breathless. “Gully, I wasn’t going to use it. I wouldn’t.”

  “Go away.” His voice broke.

  A bit of the red scarf still peeked out from under the blankets. Emmaline imagined the scarf falling into the machine. She imagined losing that memory of Oliver being pulled from the ice. There would be a black space in her mind where that awful image had been. And in exchange, she would get to spend a few seconds with Oliver again. She would get to see his sweet smile and hold his hands and tell him that she loved him. That was what she should have said to him in the hospital, but she’d been unable to think clearly.

  Oliver. She looked to his bed. He was gone. He wasn’t going to come home. She would do anything to bring him back, even for one minute.

  No, she told herself. Not anything.

  Emmaline ran the entire way home. She ran through the front door and barreled through the kitchen, past her father, who was making tea at the stove, and a bouquet of flowers and a card that someone had sent along with their condolences. She ran down the basement steps, and it seemed as though the house shook from the weight of her footsteps.

  She ran until she reached the machine, and then she stared at it, gasping, her teeth gritted and fists clenched. She kicked it. It didn’t even dent. She kicked it again, harder that time, and then began hitting it with her fists.

  “Emmaline!” Her father was pulling her away, but she was still trying to kick at the machine. She was grunting and shouting that she hated it, that it had ruined everything, that she should have done a better job destroying it the first time she’d tried.

  “Emmaline. Emmaline!” Her father did not let go of her until she had exhausted herself. And then he grabbed her shoulders and knelt down to face her. There were tears in her eyes by then, and her entire face was red. She swiped at her runny nose. “What is this about?” he said.

  “ ‘What is this about?’ ” she bit back. “Oliver is dead. We had to let go of Oliver forever, and you can’t even let go of a machine. You won’t even unplug it.”

  “If I unplug the machine, I don’t know what that will do,” her father said. “It may change things. It may mean that it never works again.”

  “Good!” Emmaline sobbed. “It’s ruined everything. It’s ruined all our lives.”

  Her father frowned. He brushed away her tears with his thumb and said, “You don’t want to see Oliver right now, but someday that may change. It could be years from now, when you feel like you need him.”

  “You think I don’t want to see Oliver?” Her voice was tight with tears and anger. “I want to see him every day. I need him every day. But he’s gone. I can’t have him back.”

  “Emmaline—”

  “Please unplug the machine, Papa,” she croaked. “Before it takes away anything else. Please.”

  “You know I can’t do that, Emmy.”

  “Of course you can’t.” She shook her head. “You’ll never do it. But if I die, don’t try to bring me back. I don’t want anything to do with that thing. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  Before she could register her father’s wounded expression, she hurried back up the stairs. She couldn’t be in this house anymore. Every room held the humming of the ghost machine, and she was so tired of hearing it.

  She went back outside into the cold afternoon air.

  Once again, she realized that she didn’t know where she was going. The only ones who could comfort her now were either dead, or had told her to go away.

  CHAPTER 13

  It was well past midnight when Gully heard the knock at the door. He hadn’t been sleeping, and now he sat up in bed.

  There was a nervous feeling in his stomach. Nobody came to the door this late unless it was important, and with Oliver gone, what could possibly be important?

  He climbed out of bed and stood at the top of the stairs. For a few seconds, he thought that somehow it would be Oliver. That the hospital had made a mistake, and he wasn’t dead at all.

  But when Gully’s father answered the door, with his mother behind him, he saw Emmaline’s father standing on the front steps. His hair was disheveled, his face more serious than it had ever been.

  “I’m sorry to call on you so late at night,” Monsieur Beaumont said, “but I was hoping Emmaline would be here. She hasn’t come home.”

  Gully began walking down the stairs, and he moved slowly, as though afraid of what would happen when he reached the last step. “Emmaline is gone?”

  Gully’s parents turned to face him. His mother pushed some of the messy curls from his forehead. “Gully?” she said. “Do you know where Emmaline could be?”

  Even though it was illogical, Gully imagined Emmaline falling through the ice, too. His chest felt tight. “She was here this afternoon.”

  Monsieur Beaumont was looking at Gully as though Gully held all the hope in the world. “Did she say anything? Anything at all?
”

  It hurt to breathe, suddenly. “She invited me to go for a walk.” He looked helplessly between his mother and father, too ashamed to look at Monsieur Beaumont. “I told her I didn’t want to be her friend anymore. I told her to leave. I—I thought she would just go home.”

  Even now, telling the story, he didn’t recognize the boy who had said such a thing. He was surprised that he could even be so cruel. “I didn’t mean it,” he said.

  “It’s all right, Gully, it’s all right,” his mother said. He doubted there was anything in the world he could do to make her scold him now that Oliver was gone. “Can you think about where she’d be?”

  Gully didn’t answer, because he was already hurrying toward the back door. Even without bothering to grab his coat, he ran into the yard.

  The moonlight cast a sheen across the snow. The footsteps were all still there: His and Oliver’s coming from the back door out into the frozen lake, and Emmaline’s coming from the side gate when she’d joined them. And his mother’s tracks as she ran when Emmaline screamed for her. And beside those, the mess of footsteps all crossing into one another as they’d scrambled back to the house: his and his mother’s and Emmaline’s (who had still been wearing her skates), but not Oliver’s.

  No one had been in the yard since the day Oliver drowned. He knew this. There was proof. But logic had not been as reliable as he’d once believed. There were ghosts in machines and memories that disappeared, and if those things were possible, then it was also possible that Emmaline was trapped under the ice.

  He ran across the yard, creating a fresh set of tracks. He heard his parents calling for him, but their voices felt miles away.

  He made it all the way to the edge of the lake, and he stopped, gasping. The cold air stabbed at his lungs. He saw the hole where the ice had been too weak, and Oliver had fallen through so suddenly that he didn’t even get the chance to call for help before he went under.

  The water was black and bottomless, and from where he stood, he looked for Emmaline’s light hair. Her white gloves.