When They Fade (9 page)

“I'm glad to see you again,” Molly finally says. “Can we get in your car? I'm freezing.”

Of course she is. Tatum looks at the girl's thin blouse and sees the goose bumps rising on her skin. Can a ghost have goose bumps?

“Sure,” Tatum says.

They climb into the car. Molly doesn't say anything while Tatum turns it back on and puts the heat on high. She puts her hands against the vents to enjoy the warm air. Her fingers are long and elegant, the nails shaped into perfect ovals. After a minute or two, she stops shivering.

The silence fills the car. Neither girl says anything. Tatum opens her mouth twice, but uncertainty makes her stop each time. She's got to be wrong. Now that she's looking right at Molly, she's positive the girl has to be alive. She's too real-looking.

Finally Molly breaks the silence. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Tatum says. She stares at Molly's skin. It's so real. Shouldn't it be more shimmery or something? She's seen all those images on the Internet. The ghosts seem to glow. They don't usually appear so…solid.

“Your friends. Are they still giving you trouble?”

“Ex-friends. How do you know that?”

Molly shrugs. “I just know things. You should start driving. That's the way it has to work. If you don't drive, I don't know what might happen. Stupid rules, aren't they?”

“So it's true, then.” Tatum puts the car in gear and they start moving.

“What do you mean?”

“You. You're a…” There go those pesky words again, dying before Tatum can get them out.

“Yes,” Molly says. “I'm a ghost.”

She
certainly doesn't have problems saying it.

“You're not afraid?”

“No,” Tatum says. “Why? Should I be?”

“Not of me,” Molly says. “Never me. All I do is a disappearing act. Aside from freaking people out, I'm quite harmless. And you seem to be handling this well, so I guess there's no fear of you losing your mind.”

Tatum can't help herself. She reaches out and touches Molly's arm. Her fingers don't slip through air or pass through nothingness like one might expect when greeting a specter. No, Molly's skin is soft and cool. Very, very real. It's like touching her mother or even herself.

“You don't feel like one.”

“What are ghosts supposed to feel like?”

Molly's got her there. “I don't know. Not solid. Isn't that how they show ghosts in the movies? But you feel real. I mean, like a person.”

“So you'd feel more comfortable if you were able to stick your hand through my body?”

Tatum grins. “Yeah, no.”

“That's a relief to hear.” Molly puts her hands against the heating vent again. “That feels so good. It's cold tonight. I was afraid I might be stuck on the road for a long time. Cars don't always come right away. I once got stuck outside in a rainstorm for half an hour. When the car finally showed up, I looked like a wet dog. I remember the guy who picked me up. He had wandering hands. I hate it when they do that.”

Tatum pulls her arm back instantly and Molly laughs.

“You can touch me,” she says. “I don't mind. I'm really happy it was you. I've been thinking about you so much. But I've never gone back to the same person before. I thought I was too late with my warning.”

Tatum barely hears her words. “How? I mean, how did you die?” she asks.

Molly shrugs. She's still smiling. “Does it really matter? I'm more interested in you. I'm here to help.”

“I don't need help,” Tatum says, frowning in confusion.

“But my warning. I see things. I saw you. You're in trouble.”

“I'm fine. Nothing wrong.” Tatum wants nothing more but to direct the conversation away from herself. She doesn't want to spend the few minutes they have discussing the queen bitch Claudette and the living hell her life has become. “I want to know about you. What happened? Why are you haunting Frog Road? Have you been doing this a long time? Is it a curse? Something you need to do? I can help. If you give me enough information, I can find your body and put you to rest.”

“It doesn't work that way,” Molly says.

“Ghosts haunt places because they have unfinished business,” Tatum says. “I've been reading all about it. I can help. You have to tell me your story. How did you die? Is that too personal? Can you even tell me? Or does something prevent you? Oh God. Do you relive your death?”

Molly laughs, and the sound silences Tatum.

“That's a lot of questions. I'm more worried about you.”

“This isn't about me.” The conversation isn't going the way Tatum wants it to go. Tatum has an actual
ghost
in her car! The very thing that will make her forget all her problems.

“You're in trouble, Tatum. You need help yourself. Someone's planning to hurt you.”

“They can't hurt me any more than they already have,” Tatum says. Her fingers drum impatiently on the steering wheel. How much time do they have before Molly poofs? Molly said it herself—they need to keep driving. How long before she disappears? A mile? Two? Tatum needs to keep this conversation on track. “How did you die?”

“I was murdered.”

“So is that it? Do I need to find your killer? Is he still alive? Or she?”

“I knew my killer,” Molly says. She reaches out and picks up a gas receipt from the cup holder. She studies it in the dark. “Wow,” she says more to herself than Tatum. “Julian used to earn less than that in a week.”

“You knew the person who murdered you?”

“Yes, he was Julian's friend. Walter. He was my friend too. Never thought in a million years he'd ever hurt me. He used to play guitar for us in the evenings. He had a beautiful voice. Funny, I trusted him completely. He was like a father to me.” It isn't hard to hear the bitterness in Molly's voice. She places her hands in her lap and stares at her fingers. They still look cold. On her left hand is a silver ring with a tiny diamond. An engagement ring? Tatum can't tell.

“Does Walter have a last name? I could track him down.”

“They caught him. If he's still alive, he's probably still in jail. He bragged to me that I wasn't his first. He'd probably been killing for years. He knew what he was doing. That's why he was good at it.”

So that can't be it. Tatum mentally crosses
Find killer
off her list. But maybe that's not quite true. Maybe Walter escaped prison or was paroled. It could still be Tatum's job to find him. And then what? Find a way to send him back to jail? Kill him herself? An eye for an eye?

“You're in danger, Tatum,” Molly says. She reaches over and presses her fingers against Tatum's arm. “Listen to me. There's not a lot of time left. I'll Fade again and I can't do that unless I know for sure you're going to be safe. Someone is plotting to hurt you. I saw it. A group of others. You know these people. They used to be your friends. And the things I see, I think they come true.”

“I'm fine, honest,” Tatum says. She briefly thinks of Claudette and then brushes the thought away. Claudette may be a bitch, but she wouldn't ever hurt Tatum. Stealing her clothes is about as low as she'd stoop. Even Graham and Levi with their nasty comments wouldn't actually do anything physical. She's known these people her entire life. She'd know if they were into killing puppies or torturing grandmothers on weekends.

It's Molly who needs help.

“What about your body?” Tatum asks.

“What about it?”

“If you're buried in a field, I can dig it up and put your soul at rest.”

Molly shakes her head. “You've been reading too many books. What I do, what I am—there's no way to stop it. I'm not the only ghost out there. If it were that simple to put me at rest, as you say, I'd like to think it would have happened to at least one of us.”

“So you're in some sort of purgatory?”

“You could call it that.”

“What's it like?”

“It's not important,” Molly says. She turns around in her seat, and Tatum can see the pleading look in her eyes. She looks terrified. Why? Ghosts have nothing to fear. They're already dead.

“It's important to me,” Tatum finally says. She glances at the road and sees that they've come to the end. She can see the town-limits sign not too far off in the distance.

“You. We need to talk about you.”

But whatever conversation Molly wants, it's not going to happen. Already she's beginning to turn transparent. Tatum reaches out to touch her again, and this time her fingers slide through Molly's body. Nothing but cold air where her arm is supposed to be. Molly leans forward to get Tatum's attention just before she completely disappears.

“Help yourself,” Molly says.

And then she's gone.

Tatum pulls the car over for the second time that night. She sits in the car for a while, letting the hot air build up inside until it feels like she's in a sauna.

The excitement spills over her, making it hard to think about anything except Molly. She's real. A ghost. How cool is that? There are thousands of people out there trying to prove spirits exist. There are entire television shows and people with silly degrees who use expensive equipment to try and find proof. She's seen these shows. Mostly they just run around in the dark and talk about how cold certain areas are. They pull out fancy machines and claim they're recording the voices of the dead. To Tatum, it sounds like static. Molly's voice is perfectly normal.

Tatum knows the truth.

Of course, she can't exactly scream it from the rooftops. People didn't believe her about Claudette; they certainly wouldn't believe her about Molly.

Not that it matters. Who cares?

Molly is her secret.

Tatum now has more information. She's got the name of Molly's killer. Walter. And Julian. She mentioned the name Julian. That is helpful, but probably still not enough for her to uncover all the details she needs. What she needs is Molly's last name. Why didn't she think to ask?

She does a U-turn in the middle of Frog Road and heads back home. Sunday night she will head down to the coffee shop, and hopefully Scott will have talked to his grandmother.

Scott Bremer. She smiles at the thought. Is he just being nice to her, or does he actually want to help? Scott doesn't talk to Claudette; heck, he even straight-out turned her down when he first moved to town. Tatum doesn't think she's ever seen him at a house party or with Graham and his lackeys. Is it possible that Scott doesn't even know about all the crap that's become Tatum's life?

Not likely.

But maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he's heard everything and still wants to be her friend. He wouldn't have gone out of his way to be nice to her if he planned on brushing her off.

Sunday night. She can't wait.

“Dammit!”

I storm up and down the beach, kicking at pebbles, my bare feet barely making a mark on the sand. I've left my sandals somewhere back by the log, yanking them off in a fit of rage.

That girl. Tatum.

Parker and Mary sit on the log, watching me tromp back and forth. Both of them know better than to tell me to calm down. I can see it in Parker's eyes: he desperately wants me to stop. He can't understand why I'm getting so worked up by this. And I don't know the right words to make him care.

“How can anyone be that stupid? I practically hand her a warning on a silver platter, and she just shrugs it off? If someone had come up to me and warned me about Walter, I would have at least taken it into consideration. But no, she's got to get all weird about me being a ghost. Instead of worrying about herself, she's determined to put me to rest.”

“That's the living for you,” Mary says. “Bunch of gigglemugs if you ask me. Lucky you, though. They do tours in London where they found me body. You'd think at least one of those wankers would try and save my soul.”

“How do you even know that?” Parker asks.

“I've seen it, I'll have you know,” Mary says. “Got to scare the whole lot of 'em. Bloody idiots pulled out their cameras. I'll tell you, cats got better sense. At least they hiss and run away. Humans are dumb. They see danger and go rushing straight into it. They want the things that bump under their beds.”

“That's not always true,” Parker says. “I never went looking for trouble.”

“That's 'cause you're boring, love,” Mary says. “You never took a chance in your life, and now you're here. Even your afterlife is boring.”

“Better than the alternative,” he says mysteriously.

I let them bicker. My feet have sunk down into the sand. I remember being on the beach as a child. I used to stand right in the shallow water and wiggle my toes until they were covered. The moist sand was grainy and cushy against my skin. It made a wet sucking noise when I freed myself. Perfect for a hot day. Looking down at my ankles, I shimmy back and forth, trying to bury my feet and regain the sensation. But nothing happens. No wet sand squishing between my toes. No cool pressure against my skin. Not a single feeling. The lack of sensation only frustrates me. I shake myself free and continue to pace.

“You can't force someone to listen to you,” Mary says after watching me go up and down the beach three times. “She's fascinated by you. Can't blame her. Appearing out of nowhere, all magical and ghostly. I'm surprised she ain't asked for your autograph.”

“She wants to save me,” I say with a snort.
“Me.”
My voice is rising again, and I can't help it. I'm starting to get an audience. I can feel their eyes on my body. This is the sort of thing that never happens here. Loudness. Free speech. Reacting. Freaking out. All of this is unwanted. The invisible line we never cross.

“Did you explain that it's all nonsense? Fabrications?” Parker leans back, a soft smile on his face. Now I can't tell if he's being sincere or sarcastic.

“What do you think?” I snap. I turn toward the group, sitting in their eternal seats, and see several pairs of eyes turn away. So typical of them. Needing to mind their own business, sucked up in their own stupid afterlife. Heaven forbid they have to actually do or feel something. I can tell what they're thinking:
Why won't she just sit down? Stop making the living important. Be quiet and still. This is our afterlife too.

“I don't know what to do,” I finally admit. “I have to go to her again. Make her listen. I just need more time.”

“Maybe you'll Fade again,” Mary says. She still doesn't know about Parker's secret. I haven't had time to tell her, and she's forgotten to question me.

“It won't happen,” I say. “I was lucky enough to get a second chance. Do you really think I'll get a third?”

“Maybe. The high and mighty up-above powers obviously decided she needed to be told again.”

“I don't think so.”

I look at Parker for help, but he's gazing out over the water. His face is dark with worry. I can't tell if he's regretting telling me about the way out or if he's trying sincerely to find an answer in that mysterious brain of his. Either way, all this talk isn't solving anything. Too much time is passing in the real world, and every second here is agony.

Why am I so obsessed with this girl? What is it about her that makes me sick with worry? I've never cared about the people I've crossed paths with before. Sure, I've thought about them sometimes, wondered if they solved their problems. But none of it has ever kept me this revved up before.

Does Tatum remind me of myself? Is that it? Do I subconsciously believe that by saving her, I'll be making amends for my own death? Would I have reacted the same way Tatum did if someone had warned me? Would I have protected myself or looked at Walter and laughed? He'd seemed so harmless.

“She's helpless,” I say, more to myself than the others.

“Some things are beyond our control,” Parker says.

“Not everything,” I say.

“Especially everything.”

I turn toward Parker, mentally reminding myself to take it down a notch. Yelling isn't going to accomplish anything. “She's going to die,” I say. “And I can't make her understand. She's more interested in me. She doesn't get it. I'm already dead; I know what's waiting. What if one day she ends up here?” I pause and look around again, worried that my words may have already come true. More faces refuse to meet my eyes, but thankfully none of them are Tatum's. “I'll never forgive myself if that happens.”

“Not all bad deaths end up here,” Parker says.

“You don't know that,” I say. “We're stuck here. How do we know there aren't other lakes? Other places where more of us wait? Ours can't be the only afterlife. There could be thousands of them just like here.”

“There could be worse, too,” Parker says.

“Prove it.”

“I can't,” Parker says. “I can't tell you if heaven exists either. But by your own logic, if places like this exist, then other places do too.”

“I sure hope hell exists,” Mary says. “It's the perfect revenge for the arsehole who did this to me.” She places her hands over her throat. “Gutted me like a pig, he did.”

“Yes, Mary,” I say. “We all know. Your death was bad. So was mine. And Parker's. And that of every single person here. Get over it.”

“I'm just saying—”

“This girl is still
alive
,” I say. “Why can't we make it our business to try and keep it that way? Why does everything have to be about everyone else?” I turn and face the crowd again. “What's the matter with all of you? Isn't there someone out there you want to save? Why do you have to sit here, day in and day out, feeling sorry for yourselves?”

Parker gets up off his log and comes over to shush me. But I won't let him. I shake him off, twisting my body out of his reach so I can continue my angry speech.

“And how come none of you ever do anything?” My voice has grown dangerously loud. “Get up. Move around. Talk? Why does everything here have to be so quiet? There are no rules here. Who said we need to act like we're all dead?”

Because we are dead.
I see the answer on all their averted faces.

Parker's wrong. This is hell. It's just cleverly disguised.

“It doesn't have to be this way!” I scream. “This world. We can make it better. But we have to do it together.”

I'm greeted with silence. They're embarrassed by my outburst. It's so much easier to pretend I don't exist.

“Come on,” Parker says, and he grabs my hand. “Let's go for a walk.”

“And you,” I say. The tears are flowing down my face now. “How come you only touch me when you have no other choice?”

When Sweetwater took the stage on day one of Woodstock, Julian kissed me.

It wasn't magical or mind-blowing. We weren't gazing into one another's eyes in adoration. I wasn't chewing my cheek in anticipation, waiting for that moment that might never come. He simply placed his hands on my face and our lips met.

That's when the magic began. Everything around me stopped moving. The screaming crowds and rock and roll disappeared into a fog. Butterflies pulled my stomach in all directions, and my legs actually turned rubbery. Thankfully, the crowd pushing against us kept me standing.

I hadn't known a kiss could feel like that. Sure, I'd kissed boys before. In fourth grade, Josh Beaumont had cornered me by the swing set for my first. I can honestly say it never made my insides quiver. The kiss had been awkward, and two days later, thanks to Josh, everyone knew about it. I never did give him a second. There'd been more than a few since that, with other boys. But none of them had ever knocked the breath right out of my body. None of them had left me desperately hungry for more like this did.

When Julian pulled his lips away, it took all my strength not to straight-out attack him. With my arms wrapped tightly around his waist, all I wanted to do was pull him closer. He looked down at me with his sparkling brown eyes, his hair tickling my cheeks.

Slowly I became aware of the noise around us. Someone slammed against me, sending me closer into Julian's embrace. The band's guitars wailed chords, and the bass beat a rhythm that vibrated across the fields and up into my feet. I was aware that Andrea stood a few feet away, probably watching us, dying to get me alone so she could grill me for all the glorious details.

“You're beautiful,” Julian said. His words were soft, but I had no trouble hearing him over the noise. “I've never met anyone like you. I never want to let you go.”

Everything was going so fast, like a big, gigantic blur. I couldn't keep up. Part of me was terrified; the other part wanted to run headfirst into everything. My father's lectures crept into my head, but I pushed them away. I knew that love meant getting to know someone better and that it didn't happen with a bang. I'd heard him tell me about how he waited three months before asking out my mother. And how they dated for four years before he asked for her hand in marriage. My father believed in taking his time, in making sure he made all the right moves. He constantly warned me about the dangers of going too fast.

But even with all his faithful patience, he'd still lost my mother. Who knew how love really worked? I certainly wasn't an expert.

I'd only known Julian for two days, but it felt like a lifetime. Even when I look back on it, all these years later, it still feels right. In fact, nothing in my life had ever made so much sense. It was as if every single thing I'd done until then had been pushing me toward Julian. I would follow him anywhere if it meant never leaving his side. If the feminists and their pamphlets could have read my mind, they would have tried to drag me away.

Terrifying. But oh so right.

“Come on, you lovebirds!” Andrea shouted. “You're missing the show.” Guitars rang out, and the singer's voice came through the microphone. “Oh man, that's my favorite song!”

Julian's hand trailed down my side, his fingers brushing against my arm, sending millions of sensations throughout my body. Taking my hand in his, he squeezed gently, his eyes never leaving mine.

I was in love. Completely, totally, helplessly in love. It had snuck up on me when I wasn't looking, and I was happily freaked. I didn't understand how such feelings could exist so quickly, but I wasn't about to complain.

We stayed together for a couple more sets. The musicians kept coming and coming. Finally, Andrea suggested we head off to find something to drink. The heat from the crowd was staggering, and we were all thirsty.

Andrea was the queen of moving through a crowd. She was short, barely five feet tall, but she had no trouble maneuvering herself around the masses. I trailed behind her, my hand still tightly in Julian's. I looked up at the sky, wondering if the people were right. The weather stations were forecasting rain.

“No more water,” the lady said when we reached the closest stall. Her eyes were red and bleary from all the smoke, her hair piled on top of her head in frizzy knots. “We got nothing. Totally sold out. Try some of the cars down the road. They might still have stuff.”

“Okay, thanks,” Andrea said.

But no one had anything. We walked almost all the way back to our car, and everything was gone. Even the watermelon vendor had nothing but a pile of rinds. The crowds had depleted their sources. Everything was sold out.

“Great,” Andrea said. “We've got food in the car, but no water. Who would have thought they'd run out of that?” There were small ponds over in the distance, and she gazed at them fondly. Even from afar, we could make out people skinny-dipping. “If we get desperate enough, there's always that.”

I watched a group of naked children running down the hill toward the water. “Yeah, no,” I said.

“Come on,” Julian said. “I'll introduce you to my family. They're like pack rats. They may sell the clothes off their back, but they'll have plenty of water.”

“You're here with your folks?” Andrea seemed impressed.

“Not my actual kin,” Julian said. “They're on a farm in Idaho. This is my traveling family. I met up with them a few years ago and I've been cruising around ever since.”

“Lucky,” Andrea said.

“Why'd you leave?” I asked.

Julian looked down at me, and those pesky butterflies came back with a vengeance. “I didn't want to be a farmer,” he said. “That was good enough for my father and my brothers, but I always knew I was meant to do something different. I wanted to get out and see the world. I met Walter when his van broke down on the highway, and they took me in. There's a whole group of us. Twenty, twenty-five. Some people come and go. We settle down for the winter in a different town so the little ones can go to school, but we spend our summers touring around. Selling stuff we make. It's a great life.”