Chapter 11 #2
“Yeah, they’re a pain in the ass though.” Toby just nodded and added, “Sometimes they talk to you, bug you, and want things from you.”
“So, what are you thinking they are?” Devon asked cautiously.
“They’re ghosts of course,” Toby snapped, casting a caustic look in her direction.
She didn’t say anything. Inside she was floored that something she had been so surprised about hadn’t surprised the kids at all. They appeared to be completely nonchalant about it. “I’ve been seeing them since we moved here,” she shared, “but I didn’t realize you had too.”
“What? Do you think you’re special?” Toby asked, cranking up the attitude. She glared at him, and he shrugged. “Of course we see them. But we used to see them before—in the hospital. Didn’t we?” he asked, turning to his sister.
She nodded and grimaced. “Yeah, the hospital was creepy. That’s one of the reasons we really didn’t want to be there all the time. All those dead people? … We couldn’t avoid them. Yet the only dead person we wanted to see and to speak to,” she shared, “we can’t seem to.”
There weren’t quite tears in her tone, but something was odd. Devon frowned at her and asked, “Did you ever try? To talk to her?”
“We did, but there was nothing,” Tabby replied. “It’s as if she was gone, really gone, which is how I would expect her to be,” she explained pointedly. “Still, I figured, if we saw other ghosts, maybe we would see her.”
“Some are bigger than others too,” Toby added. “Some are, … I don’t know, stronger, maybe?”
“I don’t think that’s quite the right word, but some are definitely clearer,” Tabby noted.
Just then Camden turned off the mower, then pushed it toward them. Tabby walked down the steps of the deck and asked, “Can you show me how to run it first?”
He nodded. “Sure.” As soon as he had her set up, he walked beside her for a little bit and then let her go on her own.
Devon now knew it was a simple process, and yet it wasn’t that simple if you’d never even seen it done before. Camden hopped up onto the deck beside Devon, and she whispered, “Thank you.”
He nodded, then looked over at Toby and asked, “You up for the next turn?”
Toby grunted and then muttered, “If I have to.”
“Everybody has to pitch in,” Camden replied.
Toby shrugged. “Sometimes pitching in sucks.”
At that, Camden nodded. “Sometimes it does.”
Toby went inside just then.
Devon looked over at Camden and explained what Tabby had said about Toby being scared of bugs, plus what the kids had just told her about ghosts.
He turned and stared at her. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yeah. They’ve been seeing our daily visitor the whole time.”
“Interesting.”
“Oh, and they tried to contact their mother,” she added, “but got no response.”
“Of course,” he noted. “Trying to contact their mom would make total sense. I mean, if you lose somebody special, and you’re seeing other people’s ghosts out there, trying to reach the person you are missing is pretty logical.”
She nodded. “I haven’t spoken to them very much about losing their mom.
I guess I’m relying on the shrink to handle that.
So I didn’t really know what to do with the conversation at that point.
” As she watched, Tabby mowed right through the space where the energy was.
It wiggled and disappeared, but she just laughed and kept on going.
“I don’t understand how they are so casual about it,” Devon whispered. “It seems to be second nature to them, so I presume they’ve been seeing ghosts for a long time.”
“Did they have anything to do with this stuff before, with their mother?”
“I don’t know,” Devon replied. “I would have said no, since we’d have discussed it, and she was my best friend, but now I’m rethinking a lot of things.”
He didn’t say anything, just nodded. Then his gaze narrowed. “This energy, whoever and whatever it is, seems to be comfortable around Tabby.”
“I was just thinking that,” Devon confirmed, “and that makes me feel a little disturbed too.”
“I’m not so much disturbed by it,” Camden clarified, “as I’m wondering why it’s so comfortable around her.”
Devon didn’t know what to say to that. Even as she watched, her gaze was caught by something at the far side of the yard. She tapped Camden’s shoulder and pointed.
He turned to look at a second energy that had just arrived. “Interesting,” he murmured. “I wonder if they’re coming because of the kids.”
Devon stiffened at that. “Maybe, but why?”
He shook his head and muttered, “You’re asking questions I can’t answer.”
It wasn’t long before Tabby had completed the second round with the mower. Camden went down to empty the bag, raked up some clippings he’d spilled, then dropped the mower deck again and called for Toby, who didn’t respond.
Devon groaned, went inside, and hollered for him.
She headed upstairs, calling out for him, “Toby, it’s your turn to learn the lawn mower.” But there was no sign of him. As she went through his bedroom, it had an odd smell to it.
She wasn’t sure what she smelled, then all of a sudden, she sensed this weird, almost burning smell. She headed to the bathroom between the kids’ bedrooms.
Nothing was there, but she leaned out the window and yelled, “Camden, can you come up here, please?” He came running, and so did Tabby. As they burst into the bedroom, she shook her head. “I can’t find him.”
“And I don’t know what the hell I’m smelling.” Camden lifted his nose to smell it again.
Tabby stated, “He’s taken off.”
“Where?” Devon asked, looking at her.
She shrugged. “He has some new friends.”
“Oh, crap,” Devon muttered.
Tabby nodded. “He just met them, but he thinks they’re pretty cool.” Then she hesitated and added, “They’re also ghosts.”
“What the hell?” Devon cried out, turning to her. “And you guys weren’t going to tell me?”
“We didn’t even know you could see them, so, as far as we were concerned, it was just us.”
“So, where are these new friends of his? And why is he hanging out with ghosts in the first place?”
“Because he’s having trouble with real people,” she replied in exasperation.
There wasn’t any time to delve into that at the moment, but Devon needed to have a serious talk with these kids. “Okay, Tabby, where would he go?”
Tabby hesitated, then shrugged. “He’ll get mad.”
“Yeah, well, he might, but right now? I really want to know that he’s safe,” she snapped, staring at her.
Her mind was reeling, trying to process the reality that, all of a sudden, the kids she had been trying to keep out of danger and unaware of this ghostly mess were already right in the middle of it.
“While you’re at it, I want to know if this has anything to do with why these things are showing up in our backyard. ”
Tabby shrugged. “Probably … because he’s been calling them.”
Devon’s heart leaped in her throat.
“He found a spot close by the school but not quite there,” Tabby shared, “and he often goes there and talks to them.”
“When you say, often, what does that mean?”
Tabby looked down at her shoes, now stained bright green from the grass, then looked up and shared, “Like every day.”
“Do you know why?” Devon asked, pushing, but not really understanding why. Suddenly she realized that Camden was right beside her, probably hoping that she would push a whole lot harder. “Tabby, I really need you to tell me the truth.”
She looked up, miserable, with tears in her eyes. “He’s trying to contact Mom.”
*
Camden was cursing himself for not having thought of that in the first place. And yet, for whatever reason, he thought if one of them had been looking to contact their mother, it would have been Tabby. And yet it had been Toby.
Now here he was, driving around with Devon, trying to find Toby. They had already checked out the spot that Tabby had told them about but found nothing there. Tabby was sticking around the house, in case Toby came back. If so, Tabby would let them know.