Chapter 14. Reed #2
“Well, there you go.” Hal’s eyes are full of sympathy as he looks at us both anew.
“When we ran into each other before, I was on my way to Bessie’s grave.
She’s buried out near the van der Born place, a beautiful little cemetery up on the hill.
I like to visit from time to time. I expect I’ll be out your way again before I decide to move on. ”
“What do you mean, move on?” I try to make myself comfortable on a small stool by the window, but it’s far too short to accommodate my legs, which bend at awkward angles.
Tessa tries to contain her smile, eyes darting away.
“You know, move on … go through the door.” Hal waves his hand dismissively.
“What door?” I ask. “The attic door?”
“The attic door?” Hal softly chuckles. “No, the door. The biggie. The one bordered in light with the timer. The one that showed up right after you died.”
Tessa shrugs at me.
“We don’t have a door like that,” I reply.
“Of course you have a door. Everyone gets a door. You got the phone, right, with the countdown clock?”
I pull our phone out of my pocket and flip it open. We haven’t spent much time looking at it since our game in the ballroom. The numbers are still ticking backward to who knows what.
“Exactly.” Hal snaps his fingers. “That’s the one. That’s how much time you have before your door disappears.”
“What happens if your door disappears?” I ask.
“Trust me, you don’t want to stay and find out.
” Hal must take pity when he catches our panicked expressions, because he sighs and continues, “You become one of them. Eventually. You waste away to nothingness. Those people who form out of the mist, they’re just poor souls who stayed after their doors vanished.
It’s like the life force keeping us here, it’s connected somehow to that door.
That’s why the longer you’re away from the site of your death, the emptier and more drained you feel. You must be noticing it by now.”
I raise an eyebrow at Tessa. It’s true that the longer we’ve lingered here, the more exhausted I’ve become. I thought it was from processing so much new information.
“Yeah.” Tessa nods, eyes locked on mine. “I do feel it. It’s like the moment a roller coaster plummets, and your stomach’s left behind.” She turns to Hal. “Does this mean we need to get out of here?”
“Nah, you have time. When you start to lose your solid form, that’s when you worry.” He waves his finger at her.
“It does explain a lot about ghosts and why they don’t wander far from the sites of their deaths. But what about people who die in a hospital, or the cyclist in the back of that ambulance earlier? Where would his door be?” I stretch my legs forward, trying to find a comfortable position.
“Well, not everyone stays, like I said. But your door is at the site where you died. So it’d be in the hospital for Bessie, if she had one, or in the case of that ambulance, it would be down on the street below. Occasionally, you do see them on the street.”
“How do you know all this?” Tessa hops up to wander around Hal’s attic bedroom, eyes flitting over the portraits on the walls, too antsy to sit.
“My mentor told me. Great man. Name of Jebediah Garfield. He was a preacher; he was called all his life to serve. Devoted his time here to that as well.”
“Can we meet him?” Tessa pauses, leaning against the bedpost.
Hal takes a moment to reply, lost in his memories.
“Sadly, no. Jeb wanted to stay, to help more people. So he chose to remain behind. I think he hoped that somehow his good deeds would save him, but I watched him fade away in spite of it all. Fades, I call ’em.
That’s why that creature grabbed you at your fence.
She sensed how full of life you still were.
She was desperate for a piece of it. Poor souls.
They cling here, searching in vain for a taste of something they can barely even remember anymore. ”
As Tessa makes her second pass around the attic, she reaches for my hand when she wanders by my perch.
My heart stutters out a staccato rhythm against my rib cage.
Why is she choosing to hold my hand again now?
Not that I’m complaining. I can use a little comfort.
Her hand feels so good wrapped around mine.
I like this. I run my thumb along the back of her knuckles to let her know.
I like this so much. Then I realize it’s not my hand she wants but the phone I’m clutching.
I can feel my cheeks go pink. She tugs it loose from my fingers, before flipping it open.
“1,903,038 … so, if that number’s in seconds …
” She takes a moment to run a calculation.
“That’s twenty-two days, thirty-seven minutes, and eighteen seconds remaining. Well, less seconds now.”
Tessa’s eyes rise to mine with a shared understanding of how brief that sounds. Twenty-two days until …
I break away from her gaze and whatever embarrassing exchange happened between us.
Have I been reading her signals all wrong?
Like her wanting to stay downstairs with me last night, or her hand brushing against mine as we walked to the precinct?
Am I only seeing what I want to see? “How long did you get?” I ask Hal instead.
“Six months.”
“How is that fair?” Tessa throws her arms in the air.
“Who says it’s fair? When’s the system ever been fair?” Hal shakes his head dismissively.
“Shouldn’t this system be fair?” she counters, sitting beside him on the bed.
“Meh. Maybe it is.” He shrugs. “Who knows why some people get the time they get? Jebediah got fourteen months. It depends. Besides, why should death make more sense than life? Good people die young.” He waves his hands at us, exhibit A.
“And terrible people live a long time. Life’s a great mystery, with everything either fated or up to some divine luck of the lottery, so why should death be any different? ”
“It seems wrong,” she mumbles.
“Jeb suspected we’re given the amount of time to accomplish whatever we need to accomplish here—or learn whatever we need to learn—before we can move on.
But take it from me, don’t let the fear of what comes next keep you here too long, no matter how much time you’re afforded.
I only have a few days left myself.” He shudders at the thought and glances longingly toward the attic door as little voices can be heard thundering up and down the stairs below.
“I’m cutting it close. Mind you, each time you walk through a person or do anything that breaks through the planes between the two worlds, you lose a full day off the clock.
It’s a deterrent, see? A slap on the wrist to keep you from revealing our world.
We’re not supposed to interfere with the living.
That’s what Jeb believed, anyway. He thought we’d only scratched the surface of what was possible to do as ghosts. So, you best be careful out there.”
“Have we lost time?” Tessa asks, though I haven’t been keeping track enough to know.
“We must have. We just weren’t paying attention before.”
“Well, it happens. People blow through you now and again. So watch yourselves and keep an eye on your remaining time,” Hal cautions us.
“Why don’t you go, if you’re cutting it so close?” I ask.
“Reed.” Tessa shushes me. “You don’t have to tell us, Hal.”
Hal merely chuckles, a warm sound that reverberates through his chest. I bet he made a great father and grandfather.
“I’m working up to it, but I don’t know.
I’m afraid to stay and afraid to leave. Without Jeb here, I’ve been lonely and a little lost.” His expression darkens as he fiddles with his fingers on his lap.
“I guess … I worry that Bessie’s still here somewhere, and we have to find each other.
I scoped out the hospital and found a number of doors, but never discovered if any belonged to her.
She was suffering from dementia pretty badly at the end.
I’ve no idea if that can follow a person here, but if so, she might be confused and unable to find her way back.
She needs me. I’ve been searching for her all over town.
I check the fades out, too, whenever I see them, in case …
” He shivers. “In case she’s become one of them. ”
I feel terrible for Hal, having to worry if his wife’s lost or trapped or become one of those things in the mist. “You think she could still be here, then?” Though I’m looking at Hal, my mind is spiraling about what this all means for my father.
Maybe he did stay, for a while anyway. But even if he did remain, surely he’d be gone by now, all these years later.
All hope of finding him leaches out of me. It isn’t until this moment that I realize I’ve been holding on to the wish that he was out here—that it wasn’t too late to be reunited—that somehow, I could still apologize for the tragic night that sealed his fate and mine.
But if he’s gone, then who knows if I’ll ever get the chance?
“Maybe she’s here. Or maybe not. It could all be an excuse. I can’t accept that she’s gone and I’m not ready to go myself. I don’t know how to move on without her.” Hal pulls his glasses off and dabs his eyes.
“We’re here now. If it helps to have someone stay with you when you go through,” Tessa offers.
Hal puts his glasses back on and lets his warm gaze fall on her. “Thanks, kid. You’re good souls, both of ya, and you don’t deserve the fate you were dealt.”
Tessa’s eyes brim with tears. “Sorry. You just … remind me of my dad.”
My heart breaks for her. I’m not the only one with family to miss.
“Now, now, don’t worry about me.” He pats her back gently. “I’ll spend my last days enjoying the grandkids, reliving the happy memories we built together. Maybe I’ll travel out your way to visit Bessie’s grave again. Just work my way up to saying goodbye to it all.”