Seven #2
My scowl softens. I’m grateful she talks to herself as much as she does.
That soft “good morning” to herself when Esther wakes up and stretches is a bell pealing, bringing me back to myself after a night of silence, darkness and isolation.
My own personal long morning serenades, lasting from prime to compline.
Like Quasimodo’s bells, Esther’s voice gives me purpose and companionship.
“Thanks. Okay. Sorry.” The student—Syd, I think? They were supposed to be one of my advisees this year, if I’m not mistaken—takes a seat close to the door. The other person who entered the room with them lurks next to them, standing.
I scoff, annoyance flaring again. The student didn’t need to apologize either. Why does everyone apologize all the damn— Wait, why isn’t that person sitting down?
I try to look closer at the lurker. My vision might have become perfect in death, but unless Esther is involved, my concentration is shit. I pull myself to the edge of my spiritual tether, just to the edge of where the bond between Esther and I will yank me back, to get a closer look.
She’s a Black woman, wearing a white shift dress.
Like me. A white scarf wraps around her head like a turban.
The painted brick wall is visible through it.
Through all of her, really. Not like me.
At least, I don’t think like me. I look down, bending over to try and see through myself.
While I look opaque to me, I may be completely transparent.
I haven’t exactly been able to see myself to determine what my true opacity may be.
When I straighten up, I jump. The woman is smiling at me.
Or smiling through me perhaps? I look behind me to check, but no, it’s just a blank expanse of chalkboard.
Esther’s handwriting and allergies are both terrible.
She wouldn’t touch a chalkboard unless her job depended on it.
Esther should request a smartboard. And windows that open. And no mildew.
“Focus! This lady can see you!” It’s so hard to keep my mind off of whatever Esther is doing at all times, but this is important. This is so so so important. I turn back to look at the woman, unsure what to say. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
The woman smiles. Her teeth are as bright white as her shift against her translucent ebony skin.
While my skin has a pallid, ashy cast to it, hers is literally glowing.
Her light is faint, but it shines through her smoke-like skin.
“You must be new.” She eyes me up and down, her eyes soft. “You’re so bright.”
Am I glowing too? Why can’t I see it?
“You can see me?” I ask, desperate to confirm she’s actually talking to me, that isolation hasn’t driven me truly mad.
She nods. “How long you been here, hun?”
I rub my forehead. Or try. I really need to stop doing that. It gives me the willies every time my hand passes where my brain used to be. “Uh…I think two months, give or take a couple of weeks? It’s hard to tell.”
She laughs knowingly. “It really is, isn’t it?
If you want to keep track, always remember the day and year you passed.
It slips away the longer you’re here. Knowing when I am has gotten worlds easier since Sydney got a cell phone.
I used to have to rely solely on holiday decorations.
Lord knows her dad never bothered with calendars. ”
“Sydney?” I nod to the student she came in with. My brain is struggling to remember anything, but I think they’re a junior. A weird Black kid, just like I was. We bonded in a brief meeting last semester over the Poe statue I kept on my desk—a gift from Cash. Their favorite was The Tell-Tale Heart.
The woman nods. “Syd, I guess, not Sydney anymore. My daughter. Or, my child? Ah, damn. ‘Their dad,’ not ‘her dad.’” The woman covers her face in embarrassment. “Never thought I’d have to keep up with learning new things after I died, but here I am figuring out gender-neutral pronouns!”
I smile. “You’re trying. That’s more than a lot of living parents.”
She laughs again, and the sound makes me wish I could cry from the sheer relief.
I’m having a real conversation with someone.
A kind someone, who laughed at something I said.
When was the last time that happened? At least six weeks before I died, when the spring semester ended?
Was it longer than that? It feels longer.
It’s reassuring that other ghosts laugh, too.
Not that I ever truly imagined there was a wrong way to be a ghost. But I expected ghosts would be solemn and foreboding, not friendly, supportive moms. Perhaps I was too solemn in life, if I keep finding more reasons to laugh in death.
But if other ghosts laugh, too, then perhaps I’m not as strange as I assumed.
Or maybe we’re all weirdos.
“Their dad doesn’t even bother. Probably the main reason I try so hard.
If he’s not going to support her—Shit!” She smacks her forehead.
“Them. Sorry, I don’t talk about them much.
I should practice. He doesn’t support their gender identity.
He is a little too old school. That’s what I get for marrying an older man, but it made sense at the time.
” With a wince she rushes to clarify, “Overall, he’s a good dad!
He stepped up when I ‘left him’ to raise a baby on his own.
He’s doing the best he can. This is all just new to him. ”
“Baby?” I ask, looking between her and the young person sitting at the desk. They look the same age, like they could be twins. If I have any control left over my nonexistent eyebrows, I’m sure they are raised in surprise. “Damn, how long you been dead?”
She laughs again. “Well, Syd just turned twenty-two, so twenty-one years, roughly.” With a polite nod of her head, she waves at me. “I’m Harriet, by the way.”
“Lucy. I’d say nice to meet you, but under the circumstances, I’m sure we’d both rather be somewhere else.
” I let out a halfhearted chuckle as I wave back, in awe of how normal Harriet seems, after so long.
The idea of being trapped in this shell of an existence for years, decades…
I shudder, forcing a smile as I quip, “Like alive.”
Harriet shakes her head sadly. “Oh, hun, you don’t have to pretend.
I haven’t met a spirit yet who would rather be alive.
I’ve met all kinds of folk in the past two decades, and that’s the only truth I’ve learned in all my years of being here.
Every one of us gave up on living, except for the one person keeping us here.
The only reason I haven’t moved on is because I haven’t found the strength to give up my Tie. ”
“Your tie?” I ask, focusing on the vocabulary of being a ghost, instead of how this stranger read me with heartbreaking accuracy so quickly. Instead of imagining how little of myself will be left, if I’m here for as long as Harriet.
“Sydney. They’re my last Tie to life. Most of us move on pretty quick.
A few weeks sometimes. A year or two for the ones who want to stick around.
There’s only been one other spirit I’ve met who lasted longer than a couple of years.
He was Tied to his dog, if you can believe it.
” Harriet smiles at me, leaning in to gossip.
“He didn’t trust his husband to take care of his prized Yorkie.
Between you and I, I personally thought the dog was happier as a lap dog than a show dog.
Once the dog passed, he presumably moved on, too. ”
She sighs, and my heart lurches at the raw grief that crosses her face.
Harriet blinks, and she covers it with a smirk.
“He was a snobby son of a bitch, but I miss his company. We ran into each other at the park on and off for about five years.” She smiles then, kind and genuine as she leans back to take in my appearance again.
“I say, it is so nice to have someone to talk to again. I love Syd beyond death, but sometimes you just want to have a two-sided conversation. And you’re so bright!
It’s like I’m practically talking to someone alive. ”
With a heavy swallow, I force myself to return her smile.
I’ve been struggling with not having anyone to talk to for the couple of months I’ve been haunting Esther.
Tied to Esther, if I can adopt Harriet’s lingo?
I don’t want to imagine decades with only the occasional ghost to talk to.
Which is odd, because I never spoke with many people when I was alive.
But now that I can’t, I regret not talking more often.
Here’s my chance.
“Bright?” I ask, cursing myself for the one word question. Old habits.
Harriet shrugs. “There’s probably a more accurate word.
Solid? Opaque? I can tell you’re pretty new.
You haven’t started letting go of your Tie yet.
Some of these spirits, you can barely see.
Just an outline and a whisper of a veil if you look at them just right.
Like that one!” Harriet points across the room.
There’s no one but living students where she’s pointing. “Where?”
“Oh, it’s probably harder for you to see since you’re still bright. Unfocus your eyes a bit. They’re near the back. Look for the wisp of white from the shroud.”
How do I even unfocus my eyes? I don’t have eyes. I try anyway, and after a few minutes of staring, I can just make out a wispy outline of shoulders, draped in white, lurking behind a white boy nodding off in the back row. A translucent hand appears from thin air and smacks through his head.
The boy sits up with a shudder, wide awake.
“How’d they do that?” I ask. “Esther can’t tell when she runs into me.”
“If you’re determined, you can kind of touch things.” She claps her hands to demonstrate. They smack together, though the sound is flat, like our voices. Even a muted clap is enviable; I’m so tired of passing through myself. “Practice grounding yourself to start, and it’ll come.”