Shade Page 14

The curtains flew back into their proper place. The scattered papers lifted up, like flat paper airplanes that had never been folded, took off and flew back onto my desk. They landed in a neat pile. I swear Leotard Girl winked with a twinkle in her eye as she whipped past me.

  Feeling breathless and light-headed, I thought I was imagining it when a grandmotherly-looking cloud shape appeared before me. She had the same feathery, hazy appearance that Brandon had, except her substance was lit with bright light, kind of like when the sun shines through clouds. Her eyes were deep sky blue and sparkled like polished gems.

  She laid her hands on top of my head. I felt a warm glow begin at that spot and radiate throughout my body. I felt completely at peace with myself and the world.

  She spoke in a remarkably calm voice. “Hello, my child, how can I help you?”

  It took me a few seconds to regain enough composure to speak. “Who are you?”

  The cloud shape sat down on my couch. “Why, I’m Brandon’s grandmother, dear. Weren’t you both calling me?” She looked around the room, spotted the Ouija Board and added, “...through that board over there?”

  My brain felt completely muddled with confusion. “Well, yes. But you didn’t answer ... So, Brandon left.” I didn’t know if I should tell her that her grandson had popped into oblivion. I didn’t actually know what he had done or where he had gone. Had he just disappeared? Or had he destroyed himself, somehow? Was that even possible in the spirit world?

  His grandmother tapped her feathery fingers on the couch. “Oh, my. Brandon, Brandon, Brandon...” She stared off into space for what seemed like an eternity. Was she seeing something? Someone? Was she seeing Brandon? Communicating with him? Or just thinking? Did ghosts get lost in thought?

  I decided not to interrupt her.

  She turned her gaze back toward me. Those bright blue eyes were mesmerizing. She said to me, “Brandon has always been so impatient. Had he given his life time to straighten out, he would never have turned to drugs or killed himself. He never gave things time. And I see he hasn’t changed. A ghost can’t just call out to another ghost and think they can appear before them in an instant. I have other things to do and other people I’m watching over.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I felt self-conscious and awkward. I ventured a response, “I have no idea how this works. Are you assigned specific people to watch over? Do you see them all the time?”

  She laughed gently. “No, not exactly. Don’t feel badly. We ghosts on the other side don’t completely understand how everything works either. We watch over ... or I should say, I and some other spirits I’ve run into watch over ... several other beings. Sometimes we guide and protect the living; sometimes we’re responsible for guiding those who have died but are still at a lower level of spiritual actualization.”

  I interrupted her without thinking. “Spiritual actualization?”

  She laughed again. “My words, not a term in a handbook or anything. Now that I hear you repeat that phrase, it sounds like I’m referring to a self help guidebook for the deceased or something.” She stood up and gave me a hug. It was the most magnificently comforting hug in the world. In my soul, I felt like a baby swaddled in blankets. Surrounding Brandon’s grandmother was the scent of cookies baking, like in the kitchen of Annie’s home, but so much better.

  She told me, “I like you. I think you’re good for my grandson.”

  My soul danced a bit.

  She released me from the embrace and leaned back against the wall. The wonderful combined scent of vanilla-chocolate-butterscotch-and-sugar disappeared. I became acutely aware of the dirty-laundry-and-burned-out-candle smell of my attic.

  She continued explaining things to me. “You know how you know enough stuff about life and the world to function, but you don’t actually know how it all works?”

  I stared into the crystal blue lakes that were her eyes. “Yes.” Then I thought about it some more. “Well, I don’t actually know how most of the world works. I’m only a teenager.”

  She smiled. “Don’t let adults fool you. They think they know how the world works. But they don’t, actually. What happens as you grow up is that you choose paths ... lots and lots of paths. You decide on a career. You decide whether or not to marry, and whom to marry. Whether or not to have children, and how many. If you decide to have children, you choose names for them. You decide on a lifestyle. You choose your ‘look,’ what you will wear, how to fix your hair. You decide how to handle your money. You decide how to treat others. You choose your political affiliations. You make decisions regarding religion. You choose your friends and enemies. You develop biases. After a while, you’re so busy and hemmed in by your choices, you begin to define yourself by those choices and to live within them. You know only the microcosm of the larger world that you’ve chosen to live within. As an adult, you no longer care to know how the whole world works. And, in some ways, human beings just aren’t capable of understanding how the whole world works. Our brains can’t handle that much information and such huge numbers of contradictions and still allow us to function in our daily lives, to get done what we need to get done and make a safe place for ourselves in an unpredictable, chaotic and dangerous world.”

  She gazed straight ahead for a few seconds, then looked at me again and continued, “Well the afterlife seems to work like that, although there may be more order to it than there is to life on Earth, I’m not sure yet. But one thing that is the same as life back on Earth: you’re just plunged into it without directions and you just have to find your way. It seems to me that we enter the afterlife in different stages of spiritual development. Those of us a little bit farther on, but not far enough along to be floating around in our idea of Heaven, seem to find ourselves in the position of having an awareness of others in trouble whom we feel a deep need to help. In my case, that is Brandon and Neil and their parents—in other words, my son and his wife and their children.”

  At that moment, I experienced a sensation not unlike a wasp stinging my heart. “What? You know where Neil is? And where their parents are? Does Brandon have any idea about this?”

  His grandmother shook her head. “How could he? He hasn’t even spoken to me yet. He finally called me through a Ouija Board, but then he disappeared before I could show up to answer him.”

  Tears of sadness and frustration streamed down my face. “I’ll talk to him if he shows up. Is he still alive?”

  Brandon’s grandmother gave me a funny look, like I had lost my marbles. “Alive? No, he’s dead, dear.”

  Without meaning to, I laughed. “No, I know that. I mean, is he still ... ummm ... like ... a being, a spiritual being, somewhere, or did he commit suicide in the afterlife?”

  Brandon’s grandmother chuckled. “Oh, no, dear, that isn’t even possible in the afterlife. It isn’t at all possible.”

  I sighed with relief. “Do you think he’ll show up here again? I don’t ever know with him what he’s going to do.”

  She asked, “Does he have an attachment to you?”

  Attached to me in a romantic way? Oh, God, this was too confusing.

  She continued, “You know, does he care about you? Are you good friends?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then he’ll return.” She smiled. “Now, I have some advice for you. You’ll know what I mean. Look more closely at the abandoned house where you and your friends are hanging out. The house number is 1052. Look at another abandoned house on that same street, house number 1044. Look very, very closely in order to find those students who are missing. Don’t necessarily go into house number 1044. I sense great danger there, but keep an eye on it.”

  And, with that, she popped into the air and disappeared. Like grandmother, like grandson. She had just disappeared. I had no idea what she was talking about. And she was gone! I felt so incredibly lost.

  Probably from all the exhaustion of communicating with ghosts, I wandered over to my bed and fell asleep on top of the covers.

  The next t
hing I knew, I was startled awake. You know that state where you’re suddenly woken up, but your brain doesn’t know it yet and is struggling to kick itself into gear and comprehend what’s going on?

  I sat up in bed and stared straight ahead. I couldn’t figure out where I was, what day it was, what time it was.

  I had the weird sensation that I was sitting on top a mountain made of cotton candy. My brain struggled with images as to whether the mountain was pink or blue or violet.

  Then I snapped to. I was at home. In bed. What had woken me?

  And then he floated down from wherever he had been. My ceiling?

  God, sometimes Brandon was so freaking annoying.

  I confronted him. “Did you just wake me up?”

  He looked upset. “Yeah. Probably. I mean, I tried. I tried to shake you awake, but my feathery hands didn’t actually wake you up. I floated to the ceiling. You woke up a few minutes later.”

  Furious, I sensed my cheeks turning red. “Well, I guess you woke me up. I was so tired, my brain probably tried fighting it, but had already been nudged into forcing me awake. Thanks, Brandon.”

  He looked so dejected, I felt sorry for him. His shoulders weren’t exactly slumped, but parts of his shoulders were coming away in wisps, making him appear slumped over. I took pity on him. “Hey, I have some important news for you.”

  He looked up. “Yeah? What? News about the missing girls?”

  “Well, not exactly. But your grandmother appeared to me. She actually answered our call through the Ouija Board.” I gave Brandon the happiest, widest smile I could muster in my sleep-confused state.

  With the sound of whistling wind, Brandon flew around the room, looking just like all the ghosts you see in movies about haunted houses. It was kind of menacing and I felt kind of freaked out. I covered my ears and shut my eyes. I waited for his temper tantrum or whatever it was to stop.

  Finally, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Stop it! Just stop it already! You’re making me miserable!”

  Brandon settled down on my window seat, but his color was frightening, a mix between a forest fire and a thunderstorm. Fiery red flashes inside the deepest black.

  He said, “Yeah? What do you really know about misery? Huh? I killed my little brother whom I loved to death.” He got a weird look in his eyes and laughed as though demon possessed. Then he continued, “Loved to death ... Yeah, I did that. And I killed my parents after that ... a slow and painful death.”

  I found the courage to fight him. “Stop it! Stop spouting all the self-pity! For God’s sake, stop it!”

  I expected something horrible to happen. For him to lash out somehow.

  He didn’t. He collapsed in a heap on the couch. The fire went out of his darkness. His eyes returned to the color of jade. In a defeated voice, he asked, “Self-pity?”

  I answered softly, “Yeah, self-pity. You keep agonizing over your own sense of guilt, punishing yourself, beating yourself up over a horrible thing you did when you were alive. But you’re in the afterlife now. You have another chance to concentrate on others, to stop being selfish and actually help others who could use your help.”

  Brandon smirked. God, was that how I looked half the time? Seeing it on someone else, I realized that serious smirking wasn’t all that attractive.

  He replied, “Selfish? Like who am I supposed to help right now? I’ve been trying to help you, but I have no idea how to do it. Sorry, this will come as a complete surprise to you; but I tried finding your friend Annie and the other missing girl, Misty, but I couldn’t see them at all. I’m coming to the conclusion that I’m not an especially gifted ghost. I’m certainly not capable of seeing through things and finding people back on Earth. Just can’t do it. I’m hopeless. I’m an idiot.”

  Despite my best intentions to be supportive, I rolled my eyes. Brandon was being as annoying as my mother, and that’s saying a lot. I interrupted his pity party. “There you go again, Brandon, concentrating on yourself ... You’re so hopeless, you’re such an idiot. Who cares, really? Do you plan on spending all eternity punishing yourself?”

  Suddenly, I had an insight. A rare shiny, sparkling, tantalizing, fireworks kind of insight. I looked Brandon directly in his beautiful green eyes. “Brandon, maybe that’s it! Maybe Purgatory ends when you stop punishing yourself and believe in yourself to accomplish what you need to accomplish to move on out of there. Maybe you decide when your time in Purgatory is done.”

  Brandon wasn’t impressed. He rolled his eyes, which struck me as kind of funny because I hadn’t realized that ghosts could do that.

  I suppressed a chuckle.

  Brandon gave off his slumped-over impression again. He said, “Uh-huh. So I just stop punishing myself and the solution to how to help you and Neil will just magically appear?”

  I thought about sitting down on the couch next to him, but decided that being that close to him with what I planned to say next might not be the best idea. Remaining on my bed, I said, “Funny you should mention Neil...”

  Brandon’s eyes filled with anguish. “What? What do you know?”

  I tried to look as friendly and warm and nonthreatening as possible. I wished I had the ability to produce that instant-comfort vanilla-chocolate-butterscotch-and-sugar scent that his Grandmother Harper Yates carried around with her.

  Maybe a deodorant. Man, my brain was on fire. I was full of ideas that day. New deodorant to soothe anxious humans: Your Grandmother’s Vanilla-and-Chocolate-and-Butterscotch-and-Sugar Scent.

  Ummm, clearly my marketing skills sucked. Just what every teenager wants: to smell like their grandparent. Eeeeewww. OK, leave off the Grandmother part. You still have one mouthful of a title. Maybe Cookie Scent. Nope. Too weird for a deodorant name. I had nothin’ in the marketing department.

  While my brain chugged away, sucked into the process of naming an imaginary deodorant, Brandon must have been feeling increasingly agitated. He finally blurted out, “Are you going to answer me or what?”

  I stopped thinking about scents and deodorants. “Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about something. OK, so like I said, your grandmother appeared to me today...”

  Brandon jumped up from the couch, some of his cloud substance moving more quickly than trailing wisps catching up seconds later. He started to cry. It was kind of amazing. His tears were the most beautiful shade of turquoise, clear as liquid glass. He sat back down, put his head in his hands and sobbed.

  I thought about trying to comfort him the way in which his grandmother had comforted me, by putting my hands on his head. I wasn’t that brave. I stayed where I was. I waited for him to speak.

  He finally did. He asked me, “Did she talk to you?”

  I answered in an honest and straightforward manner. I felt Brandon needed to hear this. “Yes. She told me some things that may upset you. If you want me to share them with you, you need to remain calm and not freak out, OK?”

  He argued with me. “But she’s my grandmother. What right do you have to keep secrets from me about things she’s said?”

  “There you go again, Brandon, being completely selfish. If you’re not going to be nice to me, why would I tell you things?”

  Brandon looked incredibly glum, but agreed to my terms. “All right. I’ll stay calm. I promise. Just tell me what my grandmother said.”

  I told him everything. I told him how impatient and impulsive his grandmother felt he was and had always been. I told him that she knew where Neil and his parents were.

  Brandon broke down again and sobbed.

  When he recovered, I told him about his grandmother’s advice. I repeated her exact words that had left an indelible impression in my memory: “Look more closely at the abandoned house where you and your friends are hanging out. The house number is 1052. Look at another abandoned house on that same street, house number 1044. Look very, very closely in order to find those students who are missing. Don’t necessarily go into house number 1044. I sense great danger there, but keep an eye on it.”
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  Brandon’s eyes filled with light. He said, “That’s it. That’s exactly what we need to do. You need to use your journalism skills and I need to use my otherworldly superpowers, whatever those might be, to find the missing girls. We can do it if we try. My grandmother’s with us! She’s giving us clues.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The next week, I started working at The Daily Buzz. My hours were from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays and, when they needed me, some Saturday mornings. Pay was only minimum wage, but I didn’t care. I mostly just wanted to work in a newspaper office.

  My job probably wouldn’t seem very exciting to anyone not interested in journalism. I got to write little announcements for the paper: wedding, birth, death announcements, things like that. Every day when I came into the office, Ms. Eleanor Sims handed me a list of people and what had happened in their lives to merit an announcement in The Daily Buzz. Being assigned to a local paper for a small town, I didn’t get any exciting or impressive announcements like So-and-So-Astronaut Prepares for Outer Space or So-and-So-Smarty-Pants Wins Pulitzer Prize, or anything like that. I wrote summaries of everyday events in the lives of people in our town. Sadly, some people’s announcements were only about their death. First chance they had for small-town fame and it was just ’cause their chance for real fame had expired.