Liv, Forever (15 page)

I soared alongside Gabe as he marched across campus with a new purpose. It wasn’t until we were passing the Art Center that he’d calmed down enough for me to ask him where we were going.

“To the woods and the well,” he snapped.

“Why?”

“To look for clues. Anything.”

“Like?”

“They never found your phone. Maybe we can find it.”

“But you’ll go back to Malcolm later?”

“No, Liv. No, I will not.”

Right. Not the best time to try to push that agenda. Anyway, we did need to look in the woods. The police hadn’t known the “military operation” route I’d taken to the well. They probably hadn’t even looked along the path Malcolm had so carefully planned. And maybe there
would
be some kind of clue on my phone.

I led Gabe to the clearing where Malcolm and I had met. While he scoured around, I stretched out on the pine needles in the spot where Malcolm and I had been. I stared up at the sky. It was mid-afternoon so there were no stars, of course, but the leaves were every possible orange and the clouds were perfect puffs. I thought of the poem Malcolm had recited to me right in this spot, and I looked at the stars he’d drawn on my arm. It wasn’t that long ago, and yet everything had changed.

Wasn’t that me now? Isolated and watching, with eternal lids apart? I didn’t sleep, and time didn’t really exist anymore (at least not like it had when I was alive). I was separate from the world. I had become the star, hadn’t I? That tragic, lonely thing.

“Am I going to be stuck like this forever, Gabe? Here, at Wickham?”

“I don’t know. Seems like the others have been.”

“What if I don’t want to be?”

“One thing at a time. Step one: let’s try to make sure I don’t get locked up for the rest of my life, because I can’t be much help to you behind bars. Step two: we’ll figure the rest of it out.”

“Okay.”

He started into the tall pines. “You went this way?”

“Yep.” I followed him, a few paces behind. “No, to the right of that tree.”

He went right, his eyes pinned to the carpet of leaves and dead pine needles with laser focus. Suddenly he picked up his pace. “And bingo!”

“You’re kidding. You found it?!”

He picked my phone up. “Unless somebody else has
Starry Night
on their iPhone case.”

I laughed. It was my first laugh as a ghost. It felt good.

“Anything?” I asked Gabe.

He pushed the home button but the phone didn’t light up. “I don’t know. It’s dead,” he said, slipping the phone into his pocket. “We’ll have to charge it up and check it later.”

That’s when I saw her: sitting on a branch of the weeping willow tree several yards away, red hair still set in perfect curls and blackened blood still caked down the front of her beaded flapper dress. She looked off in the other direction, singing to herself. I shushed Gabe so I could hear the words; it sounded old and bluesy or jazzy or something like that. Gabe went pale.

She seemed at peace. In a strange way, I felt connected to her. I was like her, wasn’t I? But then she turned in our direction.

“Here you are,” she muttered.

Gabe was off and running before I could stop him. I followed right after.

GABE AND I TOOK
a little-used path back to the main campus so he’d feel safe talking to me.

“How can we find out more about Abigail?” I asked.

“All the student records are locked up in the Headmaster’s Quarters.”

“Malcolm has access to those places. He’s got a key.”

“I’m sure he does. He’s got a key to whatever he wants. The whole friggin’ world.”

“You have to talk to him.”

“I
won’t.
I think he’s part of all this.”

“He’s
not
!” I wanted to punch Gabe right then.

“Can you just leave me alone for a little bit? Just go away!” Clearly he wanted to punch me, too.

“No!” My mind was spinning. There was so much I needed to know. Pieces that needed to be put together. “Did you ever notice they’re all girls?”

“Who are?”

“The ghosts.”

“Can we not talk about them?” He lurched away from me, scowling.

“I’m one of them.”

“You’re different. I know you. You don’t taunt me.”

“We could try to talk to one of them,” I said hesitantly and, as expected, Gabe went ballistic.

“I lied. You
do
taunt me. Just go away!”

I wouldn’t go away. And he knew it. I did give up on
trying to get him to talk to one of the ghosts, but I would not give up on finding out more about Abigail.

MRS. MULFORD HAD IMPOUNDED
Gabe’s computer, so I convinced him to go to the library to research. He positioned himself in the most abandoned and farthest away corner next to a bank of old steam radiators. They hissed, spooking me, as he Googled “Abigail Steers.” He scoured her Facebook page, her Instagram, her Twitter. He even checked her criminal history—there was none. Yet.

Gabe was so engrossed he didn’t notice what I noticed: Malcolm approached the same deserted corner of the library. But when Malcolm saw Gabe, he quickly turned away from him and headed toward another vacant spot nearby. I wanted to follow him, but there was too much work to be done. We still hadn’t even looked at my phone, which was plugged in to the wall next to Gabe, charging.

Gabe got pretty deep into the Steers family history, discovering that Abigail and Kent were sixth-generation Wickies. Their relatives had been railroad barons, CEOs, US Ambassadors … billionaires.

“So, they’re rich and powerful. We already knew that. But come on, let’s look at my phone,” I urged.

Gabe grumbled as he turned his attention to my iPhone. He checked my emails first. Nothing unusual there. Then he scrolled over to the messages icon.

“You have one new one!” He selected it. “From Malcolm … from the night you died … at 2:07
A.M
.,” he said excitedly. He started to read the words of the text,
grunted, slammed the phone down, and turned back to the computer.

I leaned over and read the words myself.

you don’t have to say it back—just text back a single * if you want to be together. and then maybe someday you’ll say the three words. i’d wait for you, liv, forever.

All at once I was aching. The pain was different than the burning sensation I had when I crossed with objects, but it was no less terrible. I did want to be together, I did! And now he’d never know. Not possible. Not fair! I refused to accept it. I had to respond. I had to let him know I was there. It doesn’t take much force to push an iPhone key. I had to try. I knew if I was too forceful my hand would go right through the phone, so I tried to focus instead. Of course the * key wasn’t right there on the initial keyboard screen (thanks, Apple). First I had to press the
?123
key. I reached for it, strong and steady. I’d never even noticed that key before, but in that moment, it was the only thing that existed in the world.

“Holy shit! Their grandfather was Secretary of State!” Gabe blurted out. Then more silence as he kept reading.

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t break my focus. I made my finger rigid, as if that would make it more solid, and stared at that key, concentrating as hard as I could while I pressed it. It burned but it worked! The numbers screen popped up. It was only then I realized the * key is on yet another screen.
Oh, Malcolm, of all keys, why the * key?
Of course, I knew why.

Once again I focused, this time on that #+= key, praying that’s where the * was hiding. Once again, my fingertip scalded, but a new screen popped up—this one with the *
key, that beautiful, bright * hanging aloft! I focused again, trying to ignore the pain in my fingertip and the weakness I was beginning to feel all over my body. I only had two more buttons to press. I pushed both in one swift, focused effort—the * key and then send. As the phone chimed, indicating the text had gone through, I collapsed on the chair next to Gabe, completely drained. I felt sick and weak, like I had a high fever.

Gabe heard the chime and looked down to the phone and saw the sent text. “Was that you?” he whispered, glancing around.

“Yes,” I murmured.

“Not a good idea, not at all.” He banged the cubicle desk. “Why didn’t you ask me?!”

“I had to do it. Why does it matter?”

“You reached into the real world. Who knows what doing something like that means? How it affects you? How it affects us?!”

I looked down at my hands and saw he was right. Gabe couldn’t see me in this spot, but I could see what I’d done had made me—my consistency—a little more faint. I was dwindling. I recalled those girls telling me to save my strength, first when I was trying to lift the leaf outside my dorm that first night, and then again when I was pushing the investigator’s table. I was
changing
every time I affected the real world.

“And now we have to get rid of the phone!” He snatched it up and shoved it into his pocket. “What if they trace it back to me? I would—” He broke off.

Malcolm appeared from around the corner of the
cubicle,
livid.
He grabbed Gabe by the shirt. “Did you do that, you psycho?”

“No,” Gabe croaked.

“Where is it?” Malcolm was possessed. He dumped Gabe’s bag out on the floor. “Where’s the phone?!”

Malcolm seized Gabe’s left arm and twisted it behind his back, then started patting down his pockets. Immediately he felt the phone. Gabe tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but Malcolm got it out of his pocket. Shoving Gabe aside, he clutched it with trembling hands, certain it was proof that Gabe had sent the text.

“
She
did it,” Gabe insisted.

Malcolm paused and looked at Gabe with horror. “You’re cruel.”

“And you’re evil.”

That set Malcolm off. He pushed Gabe again, hard. But Gabe—far scrawnier—did not withdraw. He straightened. “I’m not cruel. I’m not messing with you. She’s here. Right now in fact!”

“Stop!”

Gabe shook his head. “It’s true.”

“Tell him about the ring,” I said, desperate. “He gave me a ring that last night.”

“You gave her a ring that last night,” he echoed.

Malcolm paused.

I continued, “From his great-great-great-grandfather Balthazar.”

Gabe repeated the information: “From his great-great-great-grandfather Balthazar. I mean—from
your
 … you know what I mean.”

Malcolm blinked.

I started spewing memories at Gabe. “Tell him about the drawing on his chest. It said
VAPOR
and
INVISIBLE.
The angel. And he drew in green, like my eyes, on my arm—the stars. That night. It was a military mission. And the painting in the tomb at the cemetery. I drew over it. And jumping off the cliff, with our clothes on and …”

Gabe struggled to keep up, spewing these random moments Malcolm and I had shared. “See, she’s here, telling me these things. That proves it!”

Malcolm’s face flushed with rage. “All that proves is that you’re a pathetic stalker!”

I looked around, desperate, and noticed the steam forming on the window nearby. I whisked over to the window and climbed atop the wheezing heater.

“Tell him to watch.”

“She says watch. She’s somewhere over there.” Gabe gestured over to the bank of windows.

I put all my focus on my hand, reaching out to the steamy glass. Focus, not fury, I reminded myself. Focus, not strength.
Calm, pure focus.
Malcolm
had
to know. He
had
to believe us.

I touched the glass and moved my finger through the thin film of moisture. It burned, but I was able to ignore the searing pain because I could see it! It was working! The excitement broke my focus, and my finger stopped working. I calmed down. I swallowed my thrill. I concentrated once again on moving the steam. It hurt, but I went on. I had to.

I drew the very same angel I’d drawn on Malcolm’s chest—kneeling, with one wing pulled into herself. When I finished, completely drained, I leaned against the wall, turned to Malcolm. I found him approaching me, slowly, cautiously with awe and fear.

He stepped up onto the heater, quivering, and focused on the marks with the same intensity that I’d drawn them. He lifted his own finger up and made a mark in the steam. I summoned my strength and copied his mark.

It was only then that he smiled.

And then, for a moment, we drew together—a duet of lines and strokes. For an instant I felt as if he could see me, as if I were alive.

“You’re really here,” Malcolm said. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. He finally believed. Gabe nodded.

But I had to stop. It hurt too much. It took too much from me. I collapsed onto the heater. I looked at my limbs, and I was definitely fainter. I still didn’t know the rules. Would I eventually end up like the others—barely visible? Powerless? Angry? Haunted? I had no way of knowing.

Malcolm turned to Gabe, shaking his head, still trying to absorb the unbelievable truth. He had no words. There were no words. After a long silence, Malcolm went to Gabe and gently patted him on the back, silently apologizing.