Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
KENNEDY
Claudia is staring at me like…well, like she’s seen a ghost. Right now, the look on her face tells me she’s trying to remember if she actually buried me or not.
With her mouth open wide and eyelids blinking in double-time, she stutters out, “Wh-what? How are…? B-but you—”
I forgive my sister for not being able to form complete sentences, because right now, I’m struggling to do the same. I haven’t managed any words at all. I’m still processing the fact that my sister has been in Shadow Hills since the moment I arrived, and I had no idea.
The first words I let out are probably not the best, but it’s all I can manage.
“Don’t worry. I’m still dead,” I tell her flatly.
Claudia’s face pales so much it matches the little doilies on the counter.
It may have been a bomb but dropping that little nugget of information will at least keep her from questioning her sanity. Hopefully.
“Then how are you…here?” My sister’s hand grips the counter to her left as she slouches against the wall.
She appears to be on the verge of collapse, and I would catch her if I weren’t too tired to appear fully corporeal right now. Parts of my body flicker in and out of focus as I try to hold on to what energy I have left.
“Umm, so you see, after I died,” I cringe, still not used to the sentiment, “my spirit appeared here, in Shadow Hills.” I gesture to the streets outside.
“I wasn’t able to stay put for very long, so for a few days, I just popped in and out of places around town.
But eventually, the witches were able to tether me to a house, so I can control it now. ”
Claudia slowly nods her head, but her expression hasn’t changed, so I can’t be sure she’s absorbed any of what I just said.
I take a deep breath and shift fully into my spirit form. At once, that familiar sense of weight lifting from my shoulders takes hold, and once again I’m just a transparent figment of myself. “I’m a ghost, Claudia.”
Jaw no longer hanging to the floor, her gaze softens as she steadies herself. She stands straight as she slowly lets go of the counter and approaches me.
“Holy shit,” she says breathily. “You’re a ghost.”
I press my lips together. “Yep.”
Claudia shakes her head and slaps her hand over her mouth. Her eyes are back to the size of dinner plates. “Oh my god!” she exclaims. “I heard there was a new ghost in town, but I had no idea… It was you!”
I push myself across the floor and stop just in front of her, keeping enough space between us so as not to scare her. “I had no idea you lived here,” I tell her. “I just found out.” I look away. “I saw the blueberries.”
The hand over her mouth turns into a fist and she bashfully bites down on it.
“I did that for you. I haven’t wanted to bake since I got back from your funeral, but I had the idea to decorate some of the desserts with blueberries last night.
” She pauses and glances away. “I had a dream about you, and now,” she looks back to me, “you’re here. ”
My chest tightens and my shoulders instinctively draw up. “I didn’t know you baked,” I confess with a frown.
It’s my own fault for distancing myself over the past few years. I should have kept in touch more. If I had, I would have known this about her.
My sister likes to bake.
Her head dips, and for a moment, we share our guilt. I never knew how she felt about my absence, because I never asked, but now I can see that it clearly hurt her just as much as it hurt me.
Then she looks back up. I notice her fingers twitching at her sides.
“Can I touch you?” she asks carefully.
I'm exhausted, but I want her to know I’m real.
I pull every last ounce of energy I have left into channeling my body.
Her eyebrows lift as she watches the transformation, then after both of my feet are planted firmly back to the floor, she reaches out a hand.
I take it without question, and she rushes to hug me.
The feel of my sister’s arms around me breaks me.
Suddenly all the grief I feel for my old life comes crashing down and I can’t stand it.
I purge every tear that forms and let them stream down my face.
I hate this feeling, but I know I have to experience it in order to move on.
Claudia holds me tighter when she hears my sobs.
I feel her body shaking and know she’s crying too.
My fingers grip her back, tangling in the long strands of blond hair I used to be so jealous of.
For so long, I wanted to be just like my sister—dozens of wishes on shooting stars were for me to switch places with her—but now, all I want is to stand beside her.
I shouldn’t have wasted so much time being jealous of her successes.
I should have spent that time cheering her on instead.
I let our mom get between us, when we should have been on the same side.
But it’s not too late. Coming back as a ghost has given me a second chance at being a good sister, and this time I’m not going to let her down.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” she cries into my shoulder, her voice muffled against my sweater.
I sniff and wipe away the rest of my tears. “Me too.”
We pull apart and share silly grins, then we squeeze each other one more time.
When we finally separate, Claudia rolls her eyes animatedly and says, “There wasn’t anyone better for you to haunt, huh?”
I feel the dynamic between us sliding back into place like a missing puzzle piece, and I laugh. “Well, I couldn’t haunt Mom. She would have saged the house to shit and banished me.”
“Oh, she’s got a preacher boyfriend to do that for her now.”
I freeze. “You’re kidding,” I say with disbelief.
Claudia nods proudly. “Oh yeah. She goes to church every Sunday now. You would think Jesus came back and invited her himself. She’s completely turned a new leaf. I just haven’t figured out whether or not it’s for the better.”
I burst out laughing. “But we’ve never been religious!”
“She is now,” Claudia says, stifling her scoff.
There’s so much I missed while I was holding on to my grudge, but I hope with this second chance I’ve been given that I can catch up on some of it.
“Does she ever visit you?” I ask. “In Shadow Hills?”
“I think she’s only been to the house once. That was when I was dating that Grant guy, but we’ve been broken up for a couple of years. But I go to her house about once a month. We have dinner. It’s nice.”
I chew on my lip. “Is she still in the same place?”
“Yep,” she confirms. “After I quit dancing, I asked if she wanted to move back to Shadow Hills, but she said she was too old to start over again.”
I can’t contain the gasp that leaves me. “You quit dancing? When?”
Claudia sighs. “I was twenty-two. My back became a big problem. I couldn’t keep up with the demand it had on my body anymore.”
This hurts to hear, knowing my sister lost out on her dream and I wasn’t there with her. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay!” she insists, then she looks at me seriously. “You know it was never my idea to start dancing, right? That was all Mom.”
My stomach drops. “What do you mean?”
All this time, I thought the only reason Claudia put up with my mother’s strict demands of her was because she wanted it too.
“She put us both in those classes when we were little, remember?” Claudia says. “Neither one of us wanted to keep up with it, but the teacher told mom I had natural skill, or something like that, so she convinced me to keep going.”
“I… I forgot about that.” Now I remember telling my mom I didn’t want to go to the class anymore. But I thought for sure Claudia had asked to continue. “Why did you stick with it for so long?” I ask.
Claudia’s face appears stricken. “It made her happy.”
Mom. It made Mom happy.
I know that desire all too well; I shared it for the longest time. Until I finally realized there was nothing I could do to please her, and I gave up.
“But what about you?” she demands, shaking my shoulders. “When we got the call...I thought I’d never see you again. I had so much to say.”
“There’s plenty of time for that,” I tell her, feeling all the more confident in the place my spirit chose to rest. “I want to hear about this bakery.”
Claudia grins and her tone regains its levity.
“I started baking after I stopped dancing. I needed something to fill my time, and it’s been really therapeutic for me.
I find it calms my mind and gives me something productive to do with my hands.
Plus, I get to share it with others.” She smiles knowingly to herself.
“Seeing someone react to something I made gives me that same feeling I had when I was performing. I guess I like feeding people,” she says with a reserved shrug of her shoulders.
I love seeing my sister this sure of herself. Even when she was dancing, I remember her questioning herself over the smallest mistakes. She never thought she was good enough. Now I know why.
Claudia reaches for my hands and squeezes them lightly. “You said you’re tethered to a house. Is that where you’re staying?”
I shuffle my shoes atop the tiled flooring.
It’s not that I’m embarrassed by Theodore’s house—it’s a literal haunted house, most people would expect there to be a few cobwebs—I just don’t know how my sister will react.
Knowing her, she’ll offer her own home in an instant, but something about that feels wrong.
It would mean leaving Theodore alone again.
I may not have witnessed it, but if what Raegan told me is true, Theodore went decades without speaking to another soul.
Thinking about that makes my heart sink.
I struggled just a few days without anyone being able to see me.
I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to spend every minute of every day alone in that house, never knowing if he’d talk to anyone again.
“Yes,” I say, answering Claudia’s question. “I’m currently staying at the Vanderbilt house. Do you know it?”
She furrows her brow. “The haunted house?”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Yes. That’s exactly it.”
“Are you okay out there? It’s so secluded. And that other ghost…I’ve heard he’s a real Boo Radley.”
Though the comparison is accurate, I want to preserve just the smallest bit of Theo’s character. “He’s helped me,” I tell her. “I would still be floating through the void without him.”
The truth of that statement sinks in, and suddenly I feel the need to repay him somehow.
It may have been Simone and Calliope that performed the spell, but without a place to tether me, it might not have worked.
Theodore offered his home to me. There’s got to be something I can do for him in return.
Another one of Raegan’s comments comes to mind: he could really use a friend. Maybe she was on to something. If we’re going to be spending time together in that house anyway, why can’t that friend be me?