Mortal Ghost (45 page)

‘Where have you been all night?’ Finn asked again, but in a quieter tone of voice.

‘I’m sorry, I should have rung,’ Jesse said.

‘Damn right.’

Jesse raised his head and met Finn’s eyes, now clear, a touch astringent, but simple and uncomplicated. Glad.

‘I had some things to take care of,’ Jesse said.

‘In the middle of the night?’ Finn asked.

Meg intervened. ‘Go and wash up, Jesse. You look tired, and I daresay you’re hungry. There’ll be plenty of time to talk after you’ve got some coffee and toast inside you.’

Jesse nodded gratefully. At last his eyes slid towards Sarah, who was gripping the back of a kitchen chair, head lowered, face hidden by her morning hair. For a moment it seemed as if he’d speak, then his shoulders drooped and he left the kitchen.

‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ Finn said. ‘Go after him. You don’t need your father to tell you that, do you?’

Jesse was leaning his head against the cool glass of the mirror when Sarah knocked on the open door to his bathroom. He looked up, then without a word gathered her into his arms.

‘Sorry,’ they both said at the same time, almost as if they’d bumped heads. They laughed softly, relieved to have the moment over, then clung together, breathing in each other’s scent, tasting it through their pores: the lavender that Jesse had come to love, a certain sleepy musk, even the smell of coffee on her breath; the sharp male tang of soap and sweat and something else that Sarah would never be able to define but was unmistakably Jesse, something woodsy and smoky and honest.

‘I never want to own you in any way,’ Jesse said.

‘I know,’ said Sarah. ‘I don’t know what got into me. I said such awful things. Such stupid things.’

‘As long as you’re honest with me, you can say whatever you want. Whatever needs to be said.’

What’s he doing with me? Sarah thought, pushing her hair off her face. I’ll never be able to live up to his expectations. To keep up with him. Just wait till he realises I’m like ten thousand other girls. Till he gets bored.

As if reading her thoughts, Jesse put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her forward till her head rested against his collarbone. He ran his hands through her hair, again and again, only stopping when she drew back to speak.

‘Jesse, I’m nothing like you. I’m not especially clever or brave or good or anything. Don’t look for any miracles from me.’

‘Miracles?’ His mouth twisted. ‘I don’t want any miracles. Just—’ He faltered. ‘Just ordinary,’ he finished lamely, his eyes downcast. Why did it have to be so hard? Why did most people get to marry and have kids, a job, maybe a bit of money in the bank; and others were born disabled or ill or just plain unlucky—the big C before they were ten, parents who abused or abandoned them, an accident. Miracles? He’d give anything for normal, just fucking normal. But you didn’t get to choose, did you? Or

did you? You might be born with perfect pitch, but that didn’t mean you had to become a cellist. Or even sing in the school choir. No one
forced
you to use your gifts.

Jesse looked down at his hands, resting on Sarah’s shoulders. He couldn’t change the past, no one could, but maybe it wasn’t too late for a little sanity in his life. No more fires. No more deaths. And definitely no more Ayens. A future . . . He lifted his head and grinned his lopsided grin.

‘You’re a very special sort of ordinary,’ he said.

She snorted. ‘I’m not, though. You just don’t know me well enough.’

‘Then don’t tell me. I think I prefer my illusions.’

She kissed the tuck at the corner of his mouth, the one that always reminded her of brownies, then held his eyes without blinking. ‘I never thought it would be like this.’ He wasn’t one of the lads at school. If anyone could bear the truth, it was Jesse. ‘Loving someone. You.’ There. It was said.

The room was silent as they both struggled to find a way forward to the place where they might dance.

‘
Yes,’ he finally said.

Sarah remembered her mum’s words: give him time. With a small sigh she propelled Jesse gently towards the basin.

‘
Go on, brush your teeth,’ she said. ‘I’m so famished I could even eat a few rashers of bacon.’

~~~

Finn knocked at the door just as Jesse was thrusting his arms into a fresh T-shirt.

‘
Come in,’ Jesse called.

Finn came into the room, pulled out the desk chair, and straddled the seat so that his arms rested on the back. Jesse sat on the bed. There was no avoiding this confrontation. All right then.

‘
Are you worried about the new school?’ Finn asked.

‘
Get to the point,’ Jesse said. Then he looked down, ashamed of the sharpness in his voice. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

‘
For Christ’s sake, don’t treat me like a teacher or social worker. Some rudeness is healthy, you know. Better than cold showers, even. Clears out the, uh, sinuses.’

They grinned at each other, and Jesse yawned, hugely.

‘
Where were you last night?’ Finn asked.

‘
I guess you already know.’

‘
I was afraid of that.’

‘
Were you?’

‘
Was I what?’ Finn asked.

Jesse looked at him, then away. ‘Afraid? Afraid of me?’ The back of his throat suddenly felt scratchy, like a cold coming on.

Finn didn’t answer at first. Then he sighed and began to stroke his beard. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A bit.’

Jesse closed his eyes.

Finn came over and sat down on the bed, put his arm around Jesse’s shoulders. After a while some of the stiffness eked out of Jesse’s body, and he leaned into Finn’s bulk with the same feeling of warm dreamy lethargy that came after a long hard swim, after making love.

‘
Will you tell them?’ Jesse asked.

‘
Do you actually believe I’d hand you over to some narrow-minded fools who’d just as soon dissect you as not? Do you think so little of me? Do you
trust
me so little?’

‘
No, but—’

‘
Damn it, Jesse, there are no
buts
. Not now, not with you.’

‘
Because of Sarah?’

‘
Sarah’s part of it, yes. But there’s
you
. Can’t you get it through that weird wired skull of yours that we care about you, all of us.’ He took Jesse by the shoulders and forced him to meet his eyes. ‘We love you.’

Maybe ordinary was a kind of miracle too.

~~~

‘
How the hell did you do it?’ Finn asked.

Jesse took his time before answering. ‘I made sure all of them could get out of the building. No one was injured.’

‘
Ayen said. Thank god for that.’

‘
She saw me, I reckon.’

‘
Yeah, but she was the only one. There’s a good chance that nobody else will ask about you. I’ve planted a couple of seeds in Ayen’s mind. She’s a very smart, very slick woman. I doubt that she’s going to do anything to jeopardise her standing with the right agencies. Nor her professional reputation. Scientists are a pretty conservative lot, for the most part.’

‘
A cover-up, you mean?’

‘
Think of it rather as a retouching job. Or sleight-of-hand, like producing a rabbit from a hat.’

Jesse picked up Peter’s top, frowning slightly. He turned it over and over in his hand.

‘
What is it?’ Finn asked.

The little toy felt warm, as if it had been lying in a patch of sunlight. It was vibrating faintly—a low hum, like the sound a small electronic device might make, or the quivering of a frightened animal—those baby rabbits he’d once found in the orchard, some dead already, others trembling in his hand, his father had run over them in the high grass with the mower, they’d tried to see if any others were left inside the hole. Not much difference between alive and dead, a moment’s inattention, mere particles atoms molecules whirring and spinning through an illusion of substance. If you just reached in and—

‘
Jesse?’

—
so much empty space, seconds and seconds of space to cross—

‘
Jesse!’

Jesse jerked back from the rabbit hole. He stared at Finn, but his eyes were still focused on the supersymmetry of that beautiful infinite tunnel.

‘
Your eyes—’ Finn said. The brilliant blue of a cyanotype print overlaid with silver—thick, distant silver.

‘
Sorry. What did you ask?’

Jesse tilted his head, and the reflection—if that’s what it had been—was gone.

‘
I asked how you destroyed an entire top-secret underground complex with nothing more than a couple of coins and some cigarettes in your pocket?’

‘
I—’ Jesse began. He stopped and looked sheepish. ‘I have no idea. Not really.’

‘
Did you
walk
there?’

‘
Sort of.’

‘
Could you be a touch more specific?’ Finn asked drily.

‘
It wasn’t too hard to get a lift most of the way.’

‘
The site isn’t on any map. You must have an exceptional sense of direction.’

A hint of a smile. ‘Sort of.’

‘
I see. Another sort of.’ Finn glanced sidelong at the photograph he’d recently hung above Jesse’s desk, a platinum print of a bat suspended from a tree branch in summer. There was an ethereal quality to the moonlight, as though the scene had been frosted with ice.

Jesse noticed the direction of Finn’s gaze. ‘I don’t suppose a bat has any idea how it navigates either, but it does.’

‘
Perhaps in time you’ll come to understand it better,’ Finn said.

‘
Yeah.’ This time Jesse gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘Maybe.’

The room was quiet till Finn shook his head. ‘And maybe it doesn’t matter all that much.’

‘
Like those who are blind
preferring
their blindness?’ Jesse asked with heavy sarcasm.

‘
You’re not suggesting that if bats understood how their radar worked, it would help them to fly better? To live better?’

‘
I suppose not.’ Arms folded, Jesse stared at the bat as though it might swoop for his head if he dared to speak. Suddenly he cried out, ‘But how do I live with
this
?’ And then was glad he’d said it.

Jesse held out a hand, palm up. The top rose into the air, spun rapidly for a few seconds, and disappeared.

Finn’s eyes swept the room. ‘Where did it go?’

‘
Into the game.’

‘
What are you talking about? Which game?’

‘
Come and look.’

Finn went with Jesse to his desk, where he pressed the
enter
key on the laptop. Almost immediately the screen showed the interior of a room. This room—Jesse’s. Jesse fiddled with the mouse, and with a dizzying sweep the window swung into view, where on the sill lay the little top. Finn whirled to face the window. And there it was: the top resting in plain sight, no more subversive than a wooden bauble. Like one of those hand-carved figures Meg hung on their tree at Christmas.

‘
It wasn’t there before,’ Finn said rather stupidly. ‘I’d have noticed.’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
Is it real?’

Jesse snorted. ‘You tell me what’s real.’ He walked over to the window, picked up the top, and tossed it to Finn, who caught it easily in his hand. He looked back at the monitor. The top had disappeared from view.

‘
I see,’ Finn said. Though of course he didn’t.

‘
Then for god’s sake explain it to me. I’m going crazy mad trying to make sense of what’s happening.’

Jesse came across the room and lowered the cover of the laptop. His shoulders sloping with fatigue, he remained with his back to Finn, who regarded the two small knobs of ridged scar tissue protruding above the neckline of Jesse’s T-shirt. It was a struggle to keep from touching them.

‘
Jesse, look at me.’

Jesse turned.

‘
Real is Sarah, baking brownies for you in the kitchen. Real is a home and school and family. Real is even those scars of yours, because they’ll help to remind you that no one is perfect. As to the rest, I doubt that you’ll get an answer, at least none that’ll satisfy you. This is a helluva strange garden we’ve been granted. Vast. Complex. Incomprehensible. Indifferent. Cruel. Scary. But utterly wonderful.’