On the Fringe (6 page)

Bits of rocks and dust followed after her in a stream of bubbles as she reached the bottom. She tilted her head forward and looked at me, confused, like she knew I was there, like she could see me.
Could she?
I reached for her, but watched my hands pass right through her body. I was useless; her arms just bobbed up and down in the water through me.

As her eyes closed, I thought she looked peaceful, maybe even beautiful. It reminded me of that day months ago at the rope swing, when I’d first realized I liked her. I could admit it now, but of course confessing my feelings did nothing for her.

What was I thinking?

There it was again—that same burning sensation radiating from my chest like the last time we talked, just before I died. I could remember it now. She’d asked me something, but I hadn’t really paid attention because I’d been trying to figure out what I was going to do about her—about us. And then Matthew appeared, and I’d left her standing by the porch…

Now, something else was happening inside me, right where my heart should be. I didn’t know what it was or where it came from, but it felt like a sharp jolt of electricity, followed by a pounding in my mind that directed me to reach for her again. The water suddenly felt thicker, like syrup, and I fought through it, touching the very tips of Claire’s fingers. Somehow, I could feel the cold, smooth surface of her skin; it was like I was
alive
again. Grasping her hands in mine as another explosive current shot through us, reminding me to
move,
I pulled her to me and shot up through the water, breaking through with surprising force. The air felt light and warm as I dragged her out of the lake to the muddy shore. There, I knelt beside her, trying to ignore the pulsing waves of voltage burning through me.

I seemed to be jumping with electricity, but at the same time felt distracted, overwhelmed and confused. Yet, somehow my mind knew what to do. Ileaned over Claire and brushed the hair away from her face, letting my lips touch hers while blowing air into her mouth. Despite the strange feeling of my own breath, I pushed aside my runaway emotions, and blew again. After the third breath, I waited and watched.

Nothing.

Her skin was turning blue and she still wasn’t moving.

“Claire.” I shook her. “Claire,” I said a little louder.

She stirred briefly, turning her head from side to side, and then her eyelids fluttered. I held my breath—amazed I had breath to hold. Then she squeezed my hand and looked up at me with surprisingly bright eyes. I smiled, just in case she could see me. But her eyelids fell and she was still again. I didn’t move, for fear of breaking her. She seemed to be on the edge, and I didn’t know which way she was going to fall.

Her eyes flew open again and she gasped for air. I released her hands and held her head, instead. She reached up toward my face, her fingers running down my neck to my arm, her fingertips digging into my skin, gripping so hard it almost hurt.

I
loved
the feel of her touch.

And then it was like someone snapped their fingers, and everything between us melted. Claire let go of me at the same time my hands fell through her body to the ground, the electric connection vanished, just like that. She looked up and all around, then turned over to her knees and started coughing up lake water. I thought she might never stop.

As the lingering electricity inside me fizzled out, along with my mortality, I withdrew into the shadows. Claire tried to sit, but was too weak, and fell back into the grass where she lay staring into the darkness, like she was looking for something.

Maybe me?

“Claire,” I said, hoping. But she didn’t seem to hear me.

“Claire!” a deep voice called from somewhere up the hill.

Claire turned her head toward the voice. “Dad,” she said, her own voice weak, just louder than a whisper. But her dad had heard, and was already running down the hill. He pulled Claire into his arms and carried her up the hill. As the mortal world took care of her like they were supposed to, I drifted across the lake to the edge of the dock, wondering if that was even something I was supposed to do—interfere with life and death like that?

If only someone had interfered for me.

Wading into the shallow water, I ached to feel the cold on my ankles, wishing more than anything to be able to pick up a rock and skip it across the lake like Matthew and I used to do.

I suddenly felt so alone, missing everyone: Matthew, my parents and Addie.

And now I missedClaire even more.

Claire

At first there was only black…and then a soft light starting around the edges of my vision, spreading inward as the night around me seemed to vanish. I could feel myself dying, like I was being torn in two. One part of me floated to a bright, quiet place, while another could still feel the sensation of being pulled out of the lake and carried along through the mush to the shore.

“Claire.”

Who was saying my name?

I was in some faraway place where nothing was pressing or hurried, and I adored this newfound sense of peace so different from everything I was used to. It was a total sense of freedom, like I was alive through every living thing; I could feel, breathe, think, hear and see everything in the universe all at once.

Watching from above, I saw Daniel leaning over me. His eyes looked tired and heavy, like he was having a hard time keeping them open. I remembered how happy and carefree he had always been when he was alive, and sensed the weight of his worry. I even thought about going back down there to let him know everything was okay, that I was perfectly fine—except, my mind and body didn’t feel connected.

Daniel cradled my limp body in his arms, brushing away the mop of wet hair covering my face. His tenderness sent chills through my heart. When he grasped my fingers, I tried to go to him, to feel his strong hands squeezing mine like I used to only imagine. But some sort of invisible barricade prevented me from reaching him. Daniel was right there, but it felt like a whole planet separated us.

“Claire,” I heard his soothing voice whisper in my ears, sending icy tingles through me, even up here.
His voice
. I had not heard Daniel’s voice in months.

“Daniel,” I called out to him, but my own voice was silent.

I wanted to feel his arms around me and even felt some kind of twisted jealousy toward my own body as he held it there in his arms.
I
wanted to feel his touch, not just hover up there and watch from above
.

I wanted to be with Daniel
.

As soon as those thoughts left me, I sensed a loss of control as the light ebbed, and I floated like a feather down to my body.

Down…down…down….

Soon, everything felt warm, limp and foreign, although a sense of sadness lingered inside me—until I realized Daniel was still holding me. My heart jumped. I opened my eyes to find him inches away, his dark eyes above that familiar, dimpled smile, and I nearly blacked out again in intoxicating relief.

My fingertips brushed his face below his dimples then drew a line down his neck, along his arm, my fingers pressing into his skin. His eyes followed the movement of my hands, lingering on the spot where I gripped his arm.

In the distance, voices called my name, all echoing from different directions. I kept quiet, though, unable to stop staring at Daniel’s face. Daniel was
alive
—right next to me—holding me. I wanted to speak to him, but was afraid to interrupt whatever dream I might be having.

“Claire,” he said, holding my hand, his fingers intertwined with mine.

Something electric pulsed between us, and a surge of water exploded from inside of me. I coughed and sputtered until my aching lungs starting working again, but then realized I could no longer feel Daniel holding me. He was still there, still in front of me, but his hands had disappeared through mine. We stared at each other, his eyes mirroring the confusion I felt.

Dad’s voice was getting closer. I looked up the hill, weakly calling out to him, and when I turned around, Daniel was gone.

What was happening?

I tried to stand, but my body was uncooperative. The dark sky swirled in circles above me, little white stars shooting through the sky, and I lay back down in the muddy grass, waiting.

Dad rushed to my side. I looked around again, replaying in my mind what had just happened, trying to understand. Daniel
had
been there. I knew it. But where was
there?

Daniel

After her dad carried her away from the lake, I followed Claire to and from the hospital. Once they’d been home for almost an hour, I left her alone and drifted down by the lake to a spot beneath the creaking eucalyptus tree. It was my haunt, I suppose—where I liked to hang out and keep an eye on everything.

Hours passed, light changed. I never moved. Time was nothing to me now, and I had since learned patience. That was how the days usually passed for me.

Usually
.

A thick, summer fog started creeping in from the bay and spreading across the lawn, its ghost-like movement almost putting me to sleep. Then I remembered I didn’t sleep anymore, and snapped myself out of it just as the pin-pricked sensation of spiky goose bumps erupted all over me like a fever, making me restless.

I began roaming through the neighborhood to scope the place out, drifting up the hill and across the lawn to Claire’s front porch, and then back again to the end of the dock. The chills seemed to come and go, making me feel foolish, like I was playing hide-and-seek with someone who wasn’t even there. A few months ago, I’d have said I didn’t have time for this…but, as it so happened, I had all the time in the world.

When I drifted back to my familiar spot under the tree, the chills came back even stronger, like ice water on the back of my neck. A wispy thread of fog started circling up my legs and spiraling around my throat, like it was trying to choke me. I gasped and brushed it off, then shifted away from the tree, out to the dock. The sounds of crickets and lapping water broke the silence as I turned in circles at the edge of the lake, my eyes scanning the darkness.

Who was out there?
What
was out there?

“Hello?” I called.

Something came up behind me.

I spun around to find the small, black eyes of a ghostly intruder watching me, just inches away. I held my non-existent breath.

“We finally meet,” he said with a deep, but surprisingly soft, voice.

At first glance, he didn’t look much older than eighteen or nineteen. He was unbelievably pale (like
growing-up-in-a-cave
pale), with a mass of black hair piled on top of his head like a Mohawk. His black eyes kept darting back and forth, like he was trying to focus on my face, but didn’t know how. I immediately sized him up, and figured he wasn’t any bigger or stronger than me (from what I could tell in the dark, the fog, and without a mirror for a decent comparison). Although I wasn’t scared of him, there was still something about him that gave me the creeps.

“I’ve been waiting so long for this,” he spoke again, pointing a finger at me.

I leaned away from the offending gesture and kept my mouth shut, but watched him curiously, since this happened to be the one and only time another ghost had ever spoken to me. I probably should’ve been taken aback, but was mostly just confused.

He crossed his arms in an apparent display of machismo.“Twelve years is a long time. As a matter of fact, do you realize you and I both died at the same age?”

Okay…

He paused, looking at me like he wanted me to say something, then started up again. “Are you bewildered and confused? Does that simple mind of yours run helter-skelter with possibilities you didn’t know existed? You want to know how you came to be here on the Fringe?”

He shoved his head through mine, our foreheads obscenely overlapping.
Whoa
. Everything seemed to meld together into one dark blur, bringing on a bizarre claustrophobia. I felt like throwing up.

“Fringe?” I said, pulling away from him before the dry heaves started.

But he was already onto the next subject. “Do you want to know how I found you?”

I wasn’t sure if I should ask, having not taken the class on
crazy
yet. Hoping the guy would get the hint and leave me alone, I turned away from him and floated out over the dark lake.

“Don’t you know who I am?” I could hear him calling after me, almost desperately.

Of course I didn’t listen to my gut and just disappear. No…I stopped halfway across the lake and turned around. I
did
want to know who he was, and took the bait.

“Who are you?” I asked, trying to throw in a little attitude, attempting to act tough.

“Come
on
. I don’t look familiar to you?
At all?
”

I cruised back and studied him more closely, but nothing was ringing a bell. I shook my head, wondering what I was missing. Just as I opened my mouth to respond, he rushed at me, his face scowling like he was struggling to suppress a scream or a laugh. I suddenly felt like a character in a Batman movie, face to face with the Joker. He stopped within inches of me, and I jerked back at the intrusion. Personal space is all you can call your own around here.

“Look at me!” he yelled, shoving his hands through the mound of hair on his head. “Don’t you remember when I died? Come on! Dig into that thick mind of yours for once.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

He threw his arms high into the air, and then stiffly drew them back to his sides. “How could you forget? There was thick, red blood everywhere. After you killed me, you LOOKED. You stood there and stared at me wide-eyed just like you’re doing now. You laughed inside when you saw what you did. DIDN’T you? I SAW YOU there. YOU KILLED ME!”

His eyes were bulging, and I considered the possibility that he may very well fold in on himself and cease to exist.