For some reason, he couldn’t move.
Arms wrapped around him. Someone draped a coat over his shoulders. “What is it?” his mother said. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the lake; she had even closed the curtain of the kitchen window that overlooked it.
Logic came flooding back. Not everything he lost would turn up under the ice.
“Emmaline isn’t here.” His voice was broken. “I don’t know where she is.”
By the time the sun came up, Emmaline’s father had phoned the police. He felt as though a hand had reached through the sky and torn the breath from his lungs.
Madame and Monsieur DePaul had been searching for hours. They searched the school, and the trees, and the graveyard where Emmaline’s mother, and now Oliver, were buried.
Gully climbed trees for a better vantage point. He even knocked on all the neighbors’ doors—even the ones who didn’t like children and had told Emmaline more than once to keep to the sidewalk and stop cutting across their lawns.
By himself, he went to the grave of Emmaline’s mother, and then, steeling himself, he went to Oliver’s. He knew that this, too, was illogical, but he’d always gone to Oliver when he needed help. He didn’t know where else to turn.
“Please let her be all right,” he said, even though he knew he was only talking to a stone with his brother’s name engraved onto it. “I did something awful, Oliver, and I need to fix it.”
The stone with Oliver’s name on it didn’t answer. It couldn’t. Oliver existed only in memories now. The memory that haunted Gully the most as of late was of visiting Oliver in the hospital, with its shiny floors and somber rooms. After Oliver was gone—really, truly gone, and no longer breathing—he’d run through the hospital trying to get away from that feeling of death and stillness. As he ran, he’d been thinking, If Oliver were with me, where would he want to go?
That was when he’d smelled something that reminded him, just a little bit, of the pie-scented candles his mother burned in the kitchen. He’d followed it and found what turned out to be a tray of fresh pastries in the hospital cafeteria. It was the only room filled with people who were talking and moving as though they were still alive and still had hope. In that moment, he’d needed hope more than anything.
The shortest Allemand sister was the one who found Emmaline, and she hadn’t even been looking for her. She hadn’t even known that Emmaline was missing.
Emmaline was sitting in the hospital cafeteria, staring at the people who came and went. They bought coffee and tea, and sometimes stale-looking bread and sweets. She wondered if the people they were visiting would get better. She hoped that they would.
The shortest Allemand sister had come to the cafeteria for coffee (black with ten sugars), and she was just about to take a table alone by the window when she spotted the little Beaumont girl staring off into space. “What are you doing here?” the shortest Allemand sister asked her. “Is someone sick? Is it your father?”
Emmaline looked startled, as though she’d just been jarred out of a dream. “Huh?” Her vacant tone was most uncharacteristic of the bright and clever girl she was. “Oh. No. I’m not visiting anyone. I’m just watching.” She blinked as Mademoiselle Allemand sat across from her. “Why are you at the hospital?”
“Edith has an early appointment with her doctor.”
“Edith?” Emmaline asked.
The shortest Allemand sister smiled. “That’s my sister. The tall one.”
Emmaline had lived across the street from the sisters all her life, and now she realized that she had never learned any of their names.
“I’m Gretchen,” the shortest sister said. “Our other sister is Agnes.”
Emmaline tried to smile. “I hope your sister feels better.”
“Well, she is very old,” Mademoiselle Allemand said. “Not young like Agnes and me.” She laughed at her own joke.
Emmaline should have laughed. It was the polite thing to do. But her heart was hurting and she couldn’t muster it. “My friend Oliver was supposed to grow old,” she said. “He wanted to grow so old that he could hardly walk without a cane, and then he wanted to use the ghost machine one more time, to say hello after a lifetime of good-byes. He thought that would be nice.”
“Ah, yes, I heard about the little DePaul boy,” Mademoiselle Allemand said. “I know how close you were. I sent you flowers.”
“Thank you,” Emmaline said. “I’m sure they’re lovely, but I haven’t seen them yet. I haven’t been home for a while.”
“No?” Mademoiselle Allemand said. “Isn’t your father worried about you?”
Emmaline shook her head. “He doesn’t notice me. All he thinks about is his machine, and bringing my mother back.”
“We all have to say good-bye at some point,” Mademoiselle Allemand said. “But it’s harder for some than others.”
“Yes, but we have to say it,” Emmaline said. “My father refuses to.”
Mademoiselle Allemand put her hand on top of Emmaline’s, and Emmaline was surprised at how soft it was. Her many rings were cool against Emmaline’s skin. “Edith isn’t going to get better,” she said. “She’s been sick for quite a while, and we’ve been lucky to have her around for as long as we have, but her doctor tells us that this will be her last New Year.”
“Oh.” Emmaline’s voice softened. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Mademoiselle Allemand said. “She’s had a very long life, and thanks to you, she was able to see our dear Granville one more time.”
Emmaline considered. “It wasn’t painful to see him again? It didn’t confuse you?”
“Death is always confusing,” Mademoiselle Allemand said. “And it’s always painful. But what your friend Oliver said was true. It was very nice to say hello and good-bye. Granville died many years ago, and we got to tell him some of the things he had missed. We told him about his granddaughter, who has his eyes, and that his wife still dances to their favorite song.”
“And that was enough?” Emmaline said. “You don’t want to see him over and over again?”
“Once was enough,” Mademoiselle Allemand said. “It’s more than most people get.”
Emmaline looked up. The morning windows were full of sun, so bright as it reflected off of the white and the ice. She could almost believe that Oliver was out there in a heaven made of snow. But then she began to make out the edges of buildings, and the people walking through the streets. None of those people were him.
“I’m very glad that the machine could help you,” Emmaline said. “But I think it’s long past time for it to be put away.”
“Emmaline!” Gully was running through the doorway, and his volume attracted more than a few chiding stares from nearby adults.
Emmaline stood, and before she could say a word, he had pulled her into a hug so tight that her feet rose from the ground for a second. “Where have you been?” He drew back and held her by her forearms. “We’ve been out looking for you all night.”
She blinked. “You have?”
“Of course,” he cried. “You can’t just disappear like that.”
“But you said you didn’t want to be my friend anymore. I thought—”
“I was acting stupid. I felt guilty, because seeing you yesterday made me feel better, and I don’t have any right to be happy without Oliver.” There was so much pain on his face. He was no longer pale. There were no longer veins under his eyes. He no longer resembled Oliver after he’d been pulled from the ice. And Emmaline understood how much this must have hurt him, to see himself in the mirror and know that he was left to live on. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Emmaline threw her arms around him, and he held on just as tightly. “I’m sorry, too,” she said. “I’m sorry about the machine. I’m sorry I led us off of the ice. I’m sorry for all of it.”
When Emmaline thought to look to Mademoiselle Allemand to tell her good-bye, she found that Mademoiselle Allemand was gone.
“You shouldn’t be sorry,�
�� Gully said. “I’m the one who said we should go skating. It was my fault. And then I scolded him, and that was the last thing I ever got to say to him. I think about it the second I wake up, and it never goes away.”
When they finally let go of each other, Emmaline petted his cheek, the way that Oliver would have. And it was like he was there with them. “You do deserve to be happy, Gully. He wouldn’t want us to blame ourselves.”
“No.” Gully sniffled. “He would want us to make flower crowns and dance all the way home like carnival clowns.”
Emmaline laughed. “Well,” she said, “there are no flowers left on the ground, but there is plenty of room for us to dance.”
CHAPTER 14
When Emmaline and Gully returned to her house, Emmaline’s father knelt to her height and gathered her into his arms even before she was able to unbutton her coat. “Never do that again.” His voice was muffled as he held on to her. “Never, never do that again.”
“I didn’t think you would notice I was gone,” Emmaline said. It was the truth, and now she felt guilty to know that she had been wrong.
Madame and Monsieur DePaul were there, and they pulled Gully close, grateful still for the child who was able to come home to them.
While Emmaline and her father were still holding tight to each other, the DePauls left quietly and closed the door behind them.
“What were you thinking, staying out all night like that?” Emmaline’s father didn’t sound angry, though. He sounded relieved. “Where were you?”
“I went to the hospital,” Emmaline said. “I wanted to see that sometimes people get better. It feels like everyone I care about is dying. It feels like all anyone ever wants to talk to me about is ghosts.”
Emmaline’s father looked at her. “We have talked about ghosts a lot, haven’t we?” he said. “But I thought that you would want to see Oliver again, even if it was as a ghost. And maybe Gully would, too, once you’d had the time to think about it. I didn’t tell Madame and Monsieur DePaul that the machine is working, but one day, I thought you might like for them to know.”
Emmaline shook her head. “I don’t want to see him as a ghost. I want to remember what he was like while he was alive.” A stab of pain in her chest surprised her. No matter how many times she reminded herself that Oliver was no longer alive, it never got easier. “Gully said that he didn’t want to be my friend anymore, because he was so afraid that he’d be tempted to use the machine. And—I—I wish you would just turn it off. I listen to it humming and it almost makes me forget that memories are more important than ghosts.”
Her father smiled sadly. “Okay, Emmy.”
He stood, and she looked up at him, confused. “Okay?”
Her father went to the hall closet, and he took the scarf that had belonged to Emmaline’s mother off of its hook. “Come with me,” he said. “I want to tell you something.”
He opened the basement door, and Emmaline followed him.
The machine was still emitting its purple glow, humming against the basement wall. For a thing made almost entirely out of scrap metal and spare parts and rusty screws, it was surprisingly indestructible. There were no dents or scuffs from where Emmaline had attacked it the night before.
Emmaline stopped halfway down the stairs, her heart caught in her mouth. That machine could bring Oliver back. She knew that, of course, but now it really hit her. That machine would allow her to see him, even hug him. All the things she wished she had said to him came rushing through her mind:
I’m sorry I stormed off to feel sorry for myself, Oliver. I was just jealous.
You’ve always made me see the good in things, and I’ll remember that for the rest of my life.
I love you.
She took a deep breath, and descended the rest of the stairs.
Her father sat on the bottom step, and Emmaline took the space beside him. He was holding the silk scarf in his hands, and the perfume was still strong enough that Emmaline could almost believe her mother was there beside them.
“The first month after you were born,” her father said, “we didn’t know what we were doing. It seemed like we got everything wrong, and all we managed to do was make you cry.”
“Really?” Emmaline said.
“One night, it was raining pretty heavily. It was windy, and the electricity went out, and we couldn’t find the candles. The thunder woke you, and you started to cry. You cried and cried and just wouldn’t stop. Your mother sat down in the rocking chair with you in her arms, and she started crying, too.”
The idea of a baby making an adult cry was so absurd that Emmaline giggled. “Did you cry, too?”
Emmaline’s father laughed. “I wanted to. We felt like such awful parents. We couldn’t even find the candles—how were we going to take care of a baby if we couldn’t even get some light in the room? That was what we were thinking.”
“You were great parents,” Emmaline said, still laughing just a little. “And the candles are under the kitchen sink.”
“Well, now they are,” her father said. “Back then we didn’t have anything organized. We learned that as we went. And that night we couldn’t find the candles, we also ran out of diapers.”
Emmaline was trying not to laugh anymore, but the idea of her parents scrambling so frantically to take care of her was funny, because it didn’t sound like them at all. They had always seemed to know just what they were doing—before the machine was invented, that is.
“So I went out in the rain and the wind, and I walked to the store on the corner to buy diapers,” her father said. “It was the only place still open so late at night.”
“Belgarde’s?” Emmaline asked.
“Yes, Belgarde’s. You know how they sell little trinkets by the pharmacy. Earrings and wind-up toys and things. And that night, I saw a display of silk scarves. This one reminded me of her eyes. It was such a small, silly thing, but I thought maybe it would cheer her up.”
Emmaline smiled at that. “Did it?”
“More than I could have imagined,” he said. “She kept it for the rest of her life. She wore it to parties, and to dinners, and when we went for long walks in the evenings.”
“I remember that,” Emmaline said.
Her father sighed, and his expression became melancholy. “This scarf holds a lot of memories.”
“They’re good ones,” Emmaline said. “That one you just told me—it was nice. I didn’t know about it.”
Her father looked at the machine, glowing in his wife’s favorite shade of purple.
“Do you want to see her again?” he asked.
Emmaline put her hand on his. “I just did,” she said. “In that story you told me. I want to see her again that way.”
“I do have lots of stories,” he said.
“Maybe you could tell them to me more often,” Emmaline said.
When her father looked at her, she could see that something had changed. “When I couldn’t find you last night, I wasn’t even thinking about the machine. It was the first time in two years that it didn’t matter to me at all.”
“I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
“It was for the best,” he said. “I don’t need ghosts. I have my memories, and I have you.”
Emmaline felt hope bubble up in her chest. “Is it time to unplug the machine?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s time.”
Together, they stood and walked to the machine. Its hum was louder from behind, and Emmaline felt a warm gust of air from all the electricity and the metal fans working to keep the circuits from overheating. There were more than a dozen plugs connected to extension cords tangled together, all of which led to a single plug in the wall.
Julien stooped and unplugged the machine.
The basement turned dark, save for the thin cracks of sunlight streaming in through the covered window.
Emmaline dragged the chair to the window so that she could reach the cardboard barricading it and let in the mornin
g sun.
The house was so quiet. Quieter than it had been in two years. There was no machine to work on. No clatter of tools. No humming of circuits or clanging of gears. There was only the world, and everything still alive within it.
CHAPTER 15
Gully didn’t return to school the following week, but when Emmaline walked past his house, she would look to the living room window and find him waiting for her. He would raise his hand and uncurl his fingers one at a time in a little wave. He couldn’t quite bring himself to smile, though she could see that he was considering it.
On Saturday, when she came to see him, Gully wouldn’t come to the door. “He just can’t seem to move today,” Madame DePaul said. “Come back tomorrow. Maybe then.”
On Sunday, when Emmaline came back, she convinced him to get out of bed and go for a walk. “You don’t even have to change out of your pajamas or brush your hair,” she said. “I don’t mind.” And so he wore his pinstriped pajamas and his gray wool slippers as he followed her outside. He was also wearing both scarves—the red and the green—and he didn’t say anything as they began walking toward the café.
Emmaline noted the familiar studiousness coming out behind the sorrow in his expression, and she knew that he was counting the seconds between the sidewalk cracks.
“How much longer until we get there?” she asked him.
“At this pace, only one more minute.”
They lapsed back into silence. He was having a very hard time, Emmaline knew, and she didn’t want to scare him off. Or worse, make him cry. She felt as though they were walking on a tightrope, and one wrong step would cause it to snap, and they’d both fall into a bottomless pit.
She let him go on counting.
Gully stopped when they reached the café. His breaths were coming out a little faster, sending bursts of white into the cold air. Breaths he took without Oliver there to match them.
“Do you think it’s all right,” he finally said, “to go inside? Without him?”
Emmaline realized in that moment that she’d expected Oliver to be waiting for them at a table by the window. Some piece of her was still trying to find him, as though he kept turning the corners too fast for her to reach him, but one day she would catch up.
The Girl With the Ghost Machine Page 9
