Chapter 6 #2
Before she left, she turned and said, “Until next time, Gibson.”
I nodded politely. Next time? How many times was I going to play hostess to my weird great-aunt’s best friend?
She added, “It’s just that I’d love to catch up with my old friend.”
“What?”
She looked over my shoulder at the bookshelves, before glancing back and clearing her throat. “ My Old Friend . It’s a book I borrowed from your great-aunt. I’ll bring it next time.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“Have a lovely evening,” Miranda said, blowing a kiss over her shoulder as she left. “Both of you.”
“Wait . . .” I turned.
Behind me, visible and waving, was Annabelle.
“Wait, you knew?” I shouted. “You knew !”
But she was halfway down the walk and either didn’t hear or pretended not to.
***
While cooking dinner, Annabelle hummed a tune.
She swayed her hips as she sang under her breath.
Shoving down memories of my mother singing arias at my father over the breakfast table, I couldn’t help but laugh when I recognized the song.
Annabelle was singing a badly out-of-tune rendition of “Daydream Believer.” I was sitting in an old house listening to The Monkees while a ghost cooked for me.
When was the last time someone made dinner specifically for me? Not since Jesse. God, that was so long ago. And even then, we fought over every little thing. I couldn’t even salt the damn food well enough to please her.
“Here you are!” Annabelle said with a smile, setting a full plate of pasta in front of me.
“I don’t know how you did that with the sketchy-ass appliances in here.” I gave the stove the stink eye. No way I was going to use that thing. I’d probably leave the gas on somehow and die in my sleep. Maybe I’d haunt the house, too. God, what a depressing thought.
“Nothing to it,” she said. She sat next to me and leaned over my plate, taking a deep breath in.
“That stove may be almost sixty years old, but I’m over two hundred!
” She chuckled to herself as if she’d personally put one over on the stove.
She looked so pleased that I would never cook again if asking Annabelle to do it would put that look on her face.
“Try it, please.”
I took a bite. The pasta was rich and creamy, cooked to the perfect firmness. “Mmm. It’s so good.”
“And? The texture? Tell me about the flavor.”
“Creamy. And just the right amount of pepper.”
She sat back, satisfied. “Oh, good.” The look on her face was dreamy—as if she’d been the one savoring the meal. “Glad to know I haven’t lost my touch. Although it’s hard to go wrong when you add that much butter.”
I nodded, unsure what to say that wouldn’t make me sound like an idiot who had no idea how to describe pasta. I could write B2B marketing copy all day, but if I tried to imitate Anthony Bourdain and describe food to a pretty girl, my tongue tied itself in knots.
“’S really good, Marley. Thank you.”
Annabelle smiled that brilliant smile at me again, and I had to look away from the intensity of it.
“You’re most welcome, my dear.”
We sat in amiable silence while I ate, trading smiles.
Annabelle sat very close, leaning in every now and then to smell the food.
I knew it wasn’t about me—she was vicariously enjoying the meal through my consumption of it.
But I had a hard time convincing my heart to slow down anyway.
She watched me eat with an intensity that would’ve been scary if she’d been any other ghost. She set her elbows on the table and leaned forward, as close as she could get without sitting in my lap.
The thought of that made me squirm—not in a bad way.
After a few moments of silence, I had to break it or I’d burst. “Chives!”
“What?”
“Chives. Would go good on this. With this. Not that it’s not perfect as is, I mean.” I paused to wrestle control over the sounds coming out of my mouth. “Do you know if there’s any in the garden?”
“There might be,” Annabelle murmured. There was a look on her face I couldn’t interpret, and she’d gone a little fuzzy around the edges.
I got up from the table and put on rubber gloves to do the dishes.
This earned me a suggestive side-eye from Annabelle that caused me to flush in return.
I swallowed and turned to the sink, listening while she chatted about nothing in particular.
The kitchen, once a source of anxiety, now felt like a bubble removed from the rest of reality.
It felt like as long as I stayed in the moment, with me washing up after a meal Annabelle had cooked, the rawness of the outside world was held at bay.
It wouldn’t last. I’d always found a way to mess up any safe space I was a part of.
I brought a bottle of wine out to the table and dusted off two chairs.
Then I remembered that Annabelle’s butt wouldn’t mind a bit of dust, since it wasn’t there.
I stared out at the darkening sky. The garden was already mostly shades of blueish gray.
The moon was but a sliver of silver light and stars were coming out to watch over us.
Curious, I went back in the house and found a flashlight.
With its help, I poked around in the vegetable bed at the corner of the lot.
There were so many bugs. The remnants of decaying plants I couldn’t identify were rotting in the bed, having gone through at least one cycle of the seasons without human interference, maybe more.
I found an onion, still alive and happy, tucked among decaying greens.
Pulling out the bulb, I said, “Aha!” and returned to the table.
Annabelle was sitting on the chair I’d dusted. Up close, I could see her face clearly even in the dim light of the twilit evening. She seemed to glow faintly with an evanescence I couldn’t stop marveling at. Again, I was struck by how beautiful she was.
I cleared my throat. “Look what I’ve got!” I held up the onion, which wasn’t much more than a mangled mess of dirt and rotten vegetable matter. I plunked it down on the table between us and poured myself more wine.
“Is that an onion, or are you just happy to see me, darling?”
Darling.
The word dropped through my chest like a stone down a well, clanging against the sides of my ribs as it fell. It was nothing but a figure of speech. Annabelle spoke like a character from a Dickens novel—she was Marley, after all. It didn’t mean anything.
And yet, when she smiled at me, the effervescent glow seemed to extend out from her to envelop me, too.
“Agatha was a gardener, then, I take it?”
“Well,” Annabelle said, her smile still lingering, “she grew vegetables and a few herbs. But mostly she was interested in the ingredients she needed for her potions.”
“Potions? Yeah, we are going to have to circle back to the potion thing.”
Annabelle heaved a put-upon sigh. “I have no doubt. Though I’d much rather not think of them again. Stinkweed is ever so stinky.”
I laughed again, and that feeling of something floating free in my chest grew stronger. “You don’t strike me as the green thumb sort, either, Marley,” I said. She was far too posh. “No offense.”
It was meant as a tease, but instead of reciprocating, Annabelle stilled. She looked out at the dark shapes of the trees and shrubs, lurking, lit by the glow from the kitchen window. Their shadows played games with the mind, becoming monsters ready to strike. Or to dance.
“No. You’ll have to tend to the gardens yourself, Gibson. I won’t be able to help you.” The way she said this was delicate. There was more she could have said, but she chose not to.
Then Annabelle reached out as if to pick up the onion, but her hand passed right through it. “I generally cook with dried herbs and spices,” she said. “Fresh ingredients are hit and miss; it all depends on how long they’ve been out of the ground.”
“I don’t understand.”
She repeated, “When I touch living beings, they’re like water running through my hands. That includes your onion, so long as it’s still alive.”
“Oh,” I said. “Marley, I—”
I wasn’t sure what to say. It’s not like I was a gardener myself.
Before escaping to the city, I grew up in the desert, where watching things shrivel was just a part of life.
But I had the power to try. Annabelle could only watch.
Earlier, I had thought of her smile as a lighthouse beacon.
But I hadn’t considered how hard it would be to keep smiling while looking out on a world you couldn’t touch.
“It’s all right, dear.” She gave me a small, pained smile, then looked out at the darkness. From somewhere nearby, a horse whinnied, then fell quiet.
The features on her face slowly set into a bland smile.
She would have had two hundred years to practice using it to hide her real feelings.
How often did she have to make herself disappear?
How often had the occupants of this house been unwelcoming?
Or afraid of her like I had been at first?
Annabelle tried so hard to keep her face neutral, but something always gave her away.
Whether it was a nervous fluttering of her hands or her twinkling eyes, Annabelle had a hard time hiding her feelings—a strange deficit for an old ghost.
I wished I had my guitar. I’d play her all the things I couldn’t seem to say.
“Wait a second—” I got up and dashed back into the house. “Don’t go anywhere!”
“I quite literally can’t,” she replied.
Grabbing my phone, I cursed the fact that I hadn’t brought proper speakers with me.
I opened my music app anyway and scrolled through my usual favorites as I returned to the deck.
It took a while to get to something that wasn’t screamy or intensely sad.
None of my usual genres would fit the moment, but somehow, I figured that Annabelle might appreciate the blues.
I selected a song and turned up the volume.
Nina Simone’s soulful voice entered the night air.
Annabelle brightened, sitting up straight and listening intently. Even the terrible sound coming out of my phone speakers couldn’t ruin the magic of Nina’s powerful voice.
“Did you always live here?” I asked. “In the house?”
Annabelle didn’t look at me, staring at the back fence instead.
“For many years, I moved more freely about the island. Before it was a house, this was a meadow. I walked among the trees and didn’t need to worry about startling anyone with my appearance.
Then things kept changing, and I found that as they did, I wasn’t able to stay . .. solid. Not unless I was here.”
“Do you remember . . . before?”
“When I was alive, you mean?”
I nodded. The humidity of the quiet night enveloped us in a silky embrace.
“I believe so, yes. But it’s far away. I know some things with certainty, but other memories are .
..” Her face went through a complicated series of emotions, then settled on an expression of sad reserve.
“It’s as if there’s a fog in between me and the life I used to have.
Sometimes I can see things clearly, but most of the time, my memory is hazy.
Even the brightest light won’t pierce through to the other side and let me fully remember.
” Her eyes were sad, but she smiled nonetheless.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, my dear.” Annabelle reached out a hand and placed it carefully on top of mine. She held it just above my skin, not passing through and not touching. It made the nerves on the top of my fingers sing with an electric hum.
She shook herself. When she moved her hand away, I missed it immediately.
“My goodness, you’ve got me speaking in an overwrought metaphor. Imagine! A ghost talking about bright lights—how derivative.”
I snorted. “It’s not derivative, Marley. Just a metaphor.”
“Yes, but it’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?”
We both chuckled.
I watched the shadows of the garden settle into flat darkness.
My tailbone ached from sitting so long on the hard surface of a wooden patio chair.
Splinters worked their way into my butt cheeks, but I didn’t care.
Annabelle’s edges ebbed and flowed as we continued chatting, the sound of soul behind us, until long after midnight.