Chapter 2
When I was sixteen years old, I fell eighty feet off the side of a cliff while hiking at Cranberry Falls State Park. My sister Teal had jumped up on the wooden rail we’d just been hiking alongside, and dared me to do the same.
I remember how crisp the air was, as though it had sharpened into a blade sometime between morning and afternoon.
How dark it had gotten when we’d hiked deeper and deeper into the woods, the canopy overhead coloring us in shades of green and gray shadows like we had stepped into a monochromatic painting.
I remember stepping up with my long legs, staring down at the railing under my feet, thinking that it hadn’t seemed quite so wobbly when Teal was just on it.
And then there was the slip. The look of panic and horror on Teal’s face. Me, opening my mouth to reassure her—we weren’t that close to the edge. Or so I’d thought.
I don’t remember what happened after that.
I can only imagine it, based on the firsthand accounts: that of Teal, obviously.
That of my sister Sage, who found me eight years later, in the same woods.
And that of my great-aunt Nadia, who keeps the oral records of our ancestral tales—specifically the ones involving the old gods.
The old gods are supposed to be humanoid and immortal, well, gods, and they live in the most wild of places—places thick with trees, thick with creatures, thick with spirits.
Nadia says our matriarchs moved here, to the Virginia coast, specifically to Cranberry, because they had sensed that this land was still wild enough that it felt like the sort the old gods would inhabit.
When I’d asked her if the gods of our ancestors had come to Virginia first, or followed us here after we’d migrated, Nadia just gave me her annoying, warm, knowing smile and said simply: “Both.”
Anyway, all this to say that, now my own story—my falling—has been added to the family lore of the old gods.
Because after I fell, those old gods picked me up—or maybe levitated me, or perhaps pushed me as though I were a rolling pin—to an ancient oak tree, where they cared for me as though I were Sleeping Beauty in a long, long slumber.
Believe it or not, that wasn’t the worst part of the ordeal.
Losing eight years of full-on life due to a long-ass, supernatural hibernation? Meh.
But during those eight years, I—my consciousness—became a ghost, separated from my body through espanto, the name for the phenomenon our precolonial ancestors understood.
When someone experiences a traumatic event that makes them feel enough fear, their spirit splits and begins to wander this realm all on its own.
The spirit is essentially untethered and can cause what colonizers have named symptoms of PTSD, or depression, or those of other mental health crises.
Our ancestors would call upon a curandera to sing the spirit back to the wounded person.
To make them whole again. But that’s only if you know you’ve got espanto to start with—if you know that you are actually still alive. Which I did not.
As far as I knew, I had died when I fell.
None of us were aware, not even me, that my very-much-living body was tucked into an old tree, being tended to by ancestral deities.
My ghost was bound to my eldest sister Sage through her tears.
When she cried, my form got stronger, and she could see me.
She said it was as though I were really right in front of her, made all the more horrifying when she tried to touch me and her hand would simply slip right through my body.
When Sage didn’t cry—and believe me, that woman is really good at suppressing tears—I became fuzzy, like how the fog comes over the sea sometimes, slithering and shadowy and opaque, and nothing felt real.
It was horrible. Like living in the grayest of dreams, in which edges went in and out of focus, in which everything became as dull as the inside of my grandmother Sonya’s colorless mini-mansion.
Even sound became dull echoes, as though someone were calling for me but they were too far for me to sense, over and over again.
I thought if I could get Sage to make up with Teal, who she had a falling out with over my “death,” then I could move on to some afterlife that was better than the cloudy blob I’d been experiencing. But something else happened instead.
Sage found me—my body—asleep in the woods, inside the hollow of an ancient oak tree.
Light sparkled over me from between the leaves above.
And below me were leaves, arranged as though someone had woven together a cottagecore bed.
Step in, Nadia had told me, the ghost. And I did.
I stepped in, and I returned to this world, the World of the Living, rather than the World of What Is In Between.
It was startling. Correction: It still startles me, being back to this realm.
Colors are so bright, I sometimes spend whole days marveling at the way the sky is a living watercolor painting, turning from indigo to gray to blue, violet and hot pink and clementine, and sometimes all these colors at once.
Dotted with clouds that shapeshift like Nadia says some of our most magical ancestors used to: from a rabbit with spotted ears to running cats to two humans, kissing and kissing like they would die if they stopped.
All to dissipate and become formless once more.
Once as I watched the sky like this, I swear I felt an old god nearby.
I might’ve even heard him say: This is just like creation.
But when I turned my head, there was no one there but late-afternoon shadows spilled across Nadia’s garden.
In a way, things have been amazing ever since returning.
I can eat again. Nadia’s flan, and her enchiladas, oozing with all kinds of cheese.
Big slices of pizza the size of my head from downtown pizzerias, their crusts just the slightest bit charred, dipped in garlic butter.
Fresh papaya, orange as sunset, sliced up with lime squeezed all over it, eaten with my bare hands while surrounded by lavender bubbles in the bath.
But some things really suck, too. I made the mistake of telling the police, the first responders who had shown up the day I returned, that I’d simply lost my memory. That one moment I fell, and the next, I woke up still in the woods—just eight years had passed.
I felt comfortable with that version of events because…well. It’s true. One moment I fell, the next I awoke in the woods. These are all literal facts, and that doesn’t change just because I left out eight years of living as a ghost in a fathomless, foggy void.
But I guess the facts were simply not enough, because ever since, the entire town, save like two people, treat me like I’m a lying freak.
It doesn’t help that I basically live in the woods, and the only time I see people other than my family, it’s because I’ve startled them while they were hiking. Maybe or maybe not while holding several baby foxes in my arms.
One of the people who treats me like I’m human would be my neighbor, William. Whose front door I am currently standing in front of, with a heavy covered ceramic dish balanced in my hands.
I use my elbow to tap the doorbell, but there’s no answer. I then use the tip of my leather shoe to “knock.”
Finally, the door rattles, and there William is, in all his grumpy, bedhead, cardigan glory. “About time,” he grumbles, opening the door wide to let me in.
“Excuse me, but I’ve been here for five whole minutes.
” I shut the door behind me with my hip, a little difficult to do in my narrow tweed pencil skirt.
I have the evening shift at the library tonight, so I’m dressed for work.
Black Mary Janes, small fishnet stockings, the aforementioned pencil skirt, and a cream, button-down silk top.
Teal helped me with fine-tuning this style, the one she calls “sexy librarian.” I have to admit, I do feel sexy when I get dressed up for work.
It’s too bad there is no one else to appreciate it besides my sisters and my boss.
Not even William gives me a second glance, instead opting to point at the dish in my hands. “Lasagna?”
“Yes, sir. Should only take a few minutes to preheat in the microwave. And you can have the leftovers if you want, as usual.”
He makes an old-man-grump sound in response, but I can tell he’s pleased. He isn’t the sort of guy who will go all out and make a homemade lasagna just for himself.
Back during my ghost days, I snooped on my neighbors a lot.
Ethical? Maybe not. Okay, definitely not.
But I had literally nothing else going on.
I’d spend my time frolicking from house to house, cutting through backyards filled with overgrown switchgrass and dandelions, or paved brick pathways, hopping over firepits and barking dogs (who sensed I was there but I don’t think could ever actually see me).
I could slide into anyone’s home through the doors, walls, windows, and once, I walked right through an upright washer and dryer unit.
Eventually, I kinda found myself zoning in on William, who we used to call Old Man Noemi back when we were little kids.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned about people from my time as a ghost. People often, if not always, say things they don’t mean.
They will dance around their words till I’m damn dizzy from trying to follow conversations.
They will compliment how “confident” you are, but the second you turn your head, they will give knowing smirks to their friends, implying that you should be ashamed.
They will say they’re “fine” but look as upset as a baby bird who tried to fly just a touch too early and swooped to the forest floor with a plop.
You know what doesn’t lie, though? Objects. The myriad of things people surround themselves with and use and collect.
Down the street, Mr. and Mrs. Garcia seemed like the perfect couple—she would smile wide-eyed smiles as he told everyone about his promotion and new car and how they were saving up for a bigger house by the beach.
When I entered their home, though, the objects told the truth.
The surplus of first-aid supplies she kept for when he lost his temper and took it out on her.
The divorce attorney’s number, scrawled on a tiny piece of paper, hidden in the pages of an old family Bible.
Eventually, and thankfully, their lives revealed the truths inherent in these objects—Mr. Garcia lives alone in that big, dusty house, and he yells at the television each evening instead of Mrs. Garcia.
And now she rents a little bungalow near downtown, enamored with her newest companions: two fuzzy gray and white kittens named Possum and Squirrel.
With William’s house, I walked in as my ghostly form and saw that he’d been living on Hungry-Man frozen dinners, their packages piled in neat little rows in the recycling bin in the garage.
There was a tiny wooden container of handwritten recipes in the kitchen, shoved behind the toaster.
I knew his late wife, Emmie, must’ve written them, because there were little notes on a few of the cards—things like William’s favorite and William’s birthday dinner.
William would never tell anyone that he hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in years, but the objects in his home told the truth better than he ever could. So after I adjusted to the Land of the Living…I began bringing him food, once a week.
“I’m not a damn charity case!” he’d grumped that first time I’d shown up with a pot filled with picadillo and rice.
“Of course you’re not,” I’d responded. “But we have too much food. Are you really the kind of person to let it go to waste?”
He narrowed his eyes at the pot and opened the door wide before disappearing into the kitchen without a word. I could barely hide my smile when I walked in and he was setting the table with paper plates and plastic cutlery.
And so began our tradition. Friday nights for Sky Flores were not for partying, or going with groups of friends to the movies, or climbing trees to take naps with black bears. They were for William, who I’ve come to think of as a grandfather of sorts.
“You caught me about to fill up the bird feeder,” he tells me, lifting a bag of black oil sunflower seeds leaning by the back door. “I’ll be two minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll get everything set up.”
He nods and disappears into the backyard.
I pull the dollar store paper plates from the cupboard, stacking two on top of one another for each of us, since these things are thinner than paper, and Nadia’s lasagna is no match for dollar store anything.
I’m pouring iced tea from the fridge into two identical blue melamine cups when I’m startled by the gruff voice of a man behind me.
“Who the hell are you?”
It’s not William, who I can see through the window is currently cursing out the bird feeder’s lid that won’t pop back on without a fight.
And William has only one person who could be visiting. One person who has ever visited since I could remember.
When I turn, I narrow my eyes when I see I am correct.
Standing in front of me is a tall, gorgeous man. Thirty-five years of age. Former journalist for The New York Times. Wearing a green flannel button-down with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of light-wash gray jeans. Barefoot and looking angry as all hell to see me in his grandfather’s kitchen.
Adam Noemi. William’s grandson.
The once-love-of-my-life turned to just-another-town-bully.