Newford Stories (13 page)

“I,” she announced, “am going to be a
ghost.”

I had a bad feeling, but nevertheless, I let
her lead me back to the apartment that Donald’s mother was haunting
as much as he was, and she wasn’t even dead.

* * *

Zia practiced making spooky noises the whole
way back to the ghost boy’s apartment, which didn’t inspire any
confidence in me, but once we were outside the building, she turned
serious again.

“Is she alone in the apartment?” she
asked.

“There’s the ghost boy.”

“I know. But is there anybody in there to
look after her? You made it sound like she’d need help to take care
of herself.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There was no one
else there last night. I suppose somebody could come by during the
day.”

“Well, let’s go see.”

We flew up to the fire escape outside her
kitchen window, lost our wings and feathers, and then stepped into
the between. A moment later we were standing inside the kitchen. I
could only sense the old woman’s presence—at least hers was the
only presence I could sense that was alive.

“Oh, Ghost Boy,” Zia called in a loud
whisper. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. If you come out, I
have a nice little…” She gave me a poke in the shoulder. “What do
ghosts like?”

“How should I know?”

She nodded, then called out again. “I have a
nice little piece of ghost cake for you, if you’ll just come out
now.”

Donald materialized in the kitchen by
walking through a wall. He pointed a finger at Zia.

“Who’s she?” he asked.

Zia looked at me.

“You didn’t say he was so rude,” she said
before turning back to Donald. “I’m right here, you know. You could
ask me.”

“You look like sisters.”

“And yet, we’re not.”

He ignored her, continuing to talk to me.
“Is she here to help?”

“There, he’s doing it again,” Zia said.

“This is Zia,” I said. “And Zia, this is
Donald.”

“I prefer Ghost Boy,” she said.

“Well, it’s not my name.”

“She’s here to help,” I said.

“Really? So far, all she’s been is rude and
making promises she can’t keep.”

Zia bristled at that. “What sort of promises
can’t I keep?”

He shrugged. “For starters, I’m here, but
where’s my cake?”

They held each other’s gaze for a long
moment, and it was hard to tell which of them was more annoyed with
the other. Then Zia’s cheek twitched, and Donald’s lips started to
curve upward, and they were both laughing. Of course, that set me
off too, and soon all three of us were giggling and snickering, Zia
and I with our hands over our mouths so that we wouldn’t wake Ghost
Boy’s mother.

Donald was the first to recover, but his
serious features only set us off again.

“Okay,” he said. “It wasn’t
that
funny. So why are you still laughing?”

“Because we can,” Zia told him.

“Because we can-can!” I added.

Then Zia and I put our arms around each
other’s waist and began to prance about the kitchen like Moulin
Rouge can-can dancers, kicking our legs up high in unison. It was
funny until my toe caught the edge of the table, which jolted a mug
full of spoons, knocking it over and sending silverware clattering
all over the floor.

Zia and I stopped dead and we all three
cocked our heads.

Sure enough, a querulous cry came from down
the hall.

“Who’s out there?” the old woman called. “Is
there somebody out there?”

That was followed a moment later by the
sound of her getting out of her bed and slowly shuffling down the
hall toward us. Long moments later, she was in the doorway and the
overhead light came on, a bright yellowy glare that sent the
shadows scurrying.

Zia and I had stepped into the between where
we could see without being seen, but Donald stayed where he was,
leaning against the kitchen counter, his arms folded across his
chest. He was frowning when his mother came into the kitchen, the
frown deepening when it became apparent that she wasn’t able to see
him.

We all watched as the old woman fussed
about, trying to gather up the spoons, which, with her poor
eyesight, she couldn’t really see. When she was done, there were
still errant spoons under the table and in front of the fridge, but
she put the mug back on the table, gave the kitchen a last puzzled
look, then switched off the overhead light and went back to her
bedroom.

Zia and I stepped out of the between, back
into the kitchen. Our sudden appearance startled Donald, which was
kind of funny, seeing how he was the ghost and ghosts usually did
the startling. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to
set us all off again—or at least it would be enough to set Zia and
me off. I could feel that chemical imbalance spilling through me
because she was so near—a sudden giddy need to turn sense into
nonsense for the sheer fun of it—but I reminded myself why I was
here. How, if I didn’t fulfill my promise, I’d be beholden to a
ghost for the rest of my days, and if there’s one thing that
cousins can’t abide, it’s the unpaid debt, the unfulfilled promise.
That’s like flying with a long chain dangling from your foot.

“How did you do that?” Donald asked.

Zia gave him a puzzled look. “Do what?”

“Disappear, then just reappear out of
nowhere.”

“We didn’t disappear,” she told him. “We
were just in the between.”

I thought he was going to ask her to explain
that, but he changed the subject to what was obviously more often
on his mind than it wasn’t.

“Did you see?” he asked us. “She was
standing right in front of me and she didn’t even notice me. Dead
or alive, she’s never paid any attention to me.”

“Well, you
are
a ghost,” Zia
said.

I nodded. “And humans can’t usually see
ghosts.”

“A mother should be able to see her own
son,” he said, “whether he’s a ghost or not.”

“The world is full of shoulds,” Zia said,
“but that doesn’t make them happen.”

It took him a moment to work through that.
When he did, he gave a slow nod.

“Here’s another should,” he said. “I should
never have gotten my hopes up that anyone would help me.”

“We didn’t say we wouldn’t or that we
couldn’t,” Zia said.

I nodded. “I made you a promise.”

“And cousins don’t break promises,” Zia
added. “It’s all we have for coin and what would it be worth if our
word had no value?”

“So you’re cousins,” he said.

He didn’t mean it the way we did. He was
thinking of familial ties, while for us it was just an easy way to
differentiate humans from people like us, whose genetic roots went
back to the first days in the long ago—people who weren’t bound to
the one shape the way regular humans and animals are.

Instead of explaining, I just nodded.

“Show me your sister’s room,” Zia said.

Donald led us down the hall to Madeline’s
bedroom. He walked through the closed door, but I stopped to open
it before Zia and I followed him inside.

“It’s very girly,” Zia said as she took in
the all the lace and dolls and the bright frothy colours. Then she
pointed to the pennants and trophies. “But sporty, too.”

“Not to mention clean,” Donald said. “You
should see my room. Mother closed the door the day I died and it
hasn’t been opened since.”

“
I’ve
been in there,” I said.

“But Maddy’s room,” he went on as though I
hadn’t spoken. “Mother makes sure the cleaning lady sees to it
every week—before she tackles any other room in the apartment.”

“Why do you think that is?” Zia asked.

“Because so far as my mother was concerned,
the sun and moon rose and set on my sister Maddy.”

“But
why
did she think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You told me something the last time I was
here,” I said. “Something about how maybe you reminded her too much
of your father….”

“Who abandoned us,” he finished. “That’s
just something Maddy thought.”

Zia nodded. “Well, let’s find out. Did your
sister call you Donald?”

“What?”

“Your sister. What did she call you?”

“Donnie.”

“Okay, good. That’s all I needed.”

“Hey, wait!” Donald said as she pulled back
the covers and got into the bed.

Zia pretended he hadn’t spoken.

“You two should hide,” she said.

“But—”

“We don’t want your mother to see anybody
but me.”

“Like she could see me.”

That was true. But the mother
could
see me.

I didn’t know what Zia was up to, but I went
over to the closet and opened the door, pulling it almost closed it
again so that I was standing in the dark in a press of dresses and
skirts and tops with just a crack to peer through. Donald let out a
long theatrical sigh, but after a moment he joined me.

“Mama, Mama!” Zia cried from the bed, her
voice the high and frightened sound of a young girl waking from a
bad dream.

Faster than she’d come into the kitchen
earlier, the mother appeared in the doorway and crossed the room to
the bed. She hesitated beside it, staring down at where Zia was
sitting up with her arms held out for comfort. I could see the
confusion in the old woman’s half-blind gaze, but all it took was
for Zia to call “Mama” one more time, and a mother’s instinct took
over. She sat on the edge of the bed, taking Zia in her arms.

“I…I was so scared, Mama,” Zia said. “I
dreamed I was dead.”

The old woman stiffened. I saw a shiver run
from her shoulders all the way down her arms and back. Then she
pressed her face into Zia’s hair.

“Oh, Maddy, Maddy,” she said, her voice a
bare whisper. “I wish it
was
a dream.”

Zia pulled back from her, but took hold of
her hands.

“I
am
dead, Mama,” she said. “Aren’t
I?”

The old woman nodded.

“But then why am I here?” Zia asked. “What
keeps me here?”

“M-maybe I…I just can’t let you go….”

“But you don’t keep Donnie here. Why did you
let him go and not me?’

“Oh, Maddy, sweetheart. Don’t talk about
him.”

“I don’t understand. Why not? He’s my
brother. I loved him. Didn’t you love him?”

The old woman looked down at her lap.

“Mama?” Zia asked.

The old woman finally lifted her head. “I…I
think I loved him too much,” she said.

The ghost boy had no physical presence,
standing beside me here in the closet, but I could feel his sudden
tension as though he were flesh and blood—a prickling flood of
interest and shock and pure confusion.

“I still don’t understand,” Zia said.

The old woman was quiet for so long I didn’t
think she was going to explain. But she finally looked away from
Zia, across the room, her gaze seeing into the past rather than
what lay in front of her.

“Donnie was a good boy,” she said. “Too good
for this world, I guess, because he was taken from it while he was
still so young. I knew he’d grow up to make me proud—at least I
thought I did. My eyesight’s bad now, sweetheart, but I think I was
blinder back then because I never saw that he wouldn’t get the
chance to grow up at all.”

Her gaze returned to Zia before Zia could
speak.

“But you,” the old woman said. “Oh, I could
see trouble in you. You were too much like your father. Left to
your own devices, I could see you turning into a little hellion.
That you could be as bad as he was, if you were given half a
chance. So I kept you busy—too busy to get into trouble, I
thought—but I didn’t do any better of a job raising you than I did
him.

“You were both taken so young and I can’t
help but feel that the blame for that lay with me.”

She fell silent, but I knew Zia wasn’t going
to let it go, even though we had what we needed.

The ghost boy’s mother
did
remember
him.

She
had
loved him.

I’d fulfilled my part of the bargain and I
wanted to tell Zia to stop. I almost pushed open the closet door.
I’d already raised my hand and laid my palm against the wood
paneling, but Donald stopped me before I could actually give it a
push.

“I need to hear this,” he said. “I…I just
really do.”

I let my hand fall back to my side.

“But why don’t you ever talk about Donnie?”
Zia asked. “Why is his room closed up and forgotten and mine’s like
I just stepped out for a soda?”

“When I let him die,” the old woman said,
after another long moment of silence, “all by himself, swelled up
and choking from that bee sting…” She shook her head. “I was so
ashamed. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about
it…about him…but I keep it locked away inside. It’s my terrible
secret. Better to let the world not know that I ever had a son,
than that I let him die the way he did.”

“Except you didn’t kill him.”

“No. But I did neglect him. If I’d been here
instead of driving you to some piano class or gym meet or whatever
it was that day, he’d still be alive.”

“So it’s my fault….”

“Oh no, honey. Don’t even think such a
thing. I was the one who made all the wrong choices. I was the one
who thought he didn’t need attention, but that you did. Except I
was wrong about that, too. Look what happened to Donnie. And look
how you turned out before…before…”

“I died.”

She nodded. “You were a good girl. You were
the best daughter a mother could have had. I was so proud of you,
of all you’d achieved.”

“And my room…”

“I keep it and your memory alive because
it’s the only thing left in this world that can give me any pride.
It’s the light that burns into the darkness and lets me forget my
shame. Not always. Not for long. But even the few moments I can
steal free of my shame are a blessed respite.”