"Uh huh. Yeah, there's a bit of Holy Water and oil in my bag... well, I wasn't about to come here without it. Sara still hasn't accepted that the divorce a well, no, of course not. Yes, I'll be careful. Okay, I love you too. Good night, sweetheart."
He found it a little strange this woman travelled with Holy Water, and he wasn't overly fond of the way she'd been talking about Sara either.
"Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest," Jules muttered, digging in her duffel bag. She drew out two small vials, and Patrick raised his eyebrow as she crawled out of bed and walked around the room.
She wiped something on the front door and along the sill of the windows and said, "I anoint this house with oil and place it under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Oh God, use this house for your glory and post angels at each door and window."
"I think God's a little busy," Patrick said, trying not to laugh. "This house really isn't on his radar."
Jules opened the other vial and poured something into her hands, which she sprinkled onto the carpet, a few drops passing straight through Patrick. "I am countering any curse on this house or demon in it with the blood of Jesus Christ, and I take my authority from Him."
He waited to feel different, for Jules to prove him wrong. If he were a demon, shouldn't God have zapped him by now? Shouldn't he feel compelled to leave the house? He didn't even so much as have an itch on his arm, so he figured he was fine. Would this work to banish ghosts too? It didn't seem like it.
"I speak peace here in the name of Jesus," Jules intoned, scuttling toward the kitchen and keeping her voice low. "I invite you to come, Holy Spirit, and fill this place. Demon or ghost, leave."
For half a second Patrick considered moving something to freak her out, but there was nothing downstairs that was his, and he didn't feel like digging a book out of one of his hiding spaces. Plus, there was no telling what Sara's reaction would be to something like that, and he wanted to keep her around.
"Not that it would matter a I'm convinced the house would burn down, and I'd still be stuck here. But hey, at least I'd be outside. Well, maybe. I don't know. I'm not entirely convinced this house actually exists or that you exist."
"Amen," she finished, sprinkling more water or whatever it was on the floor. "There. That should protect my heathen sister."
She was as bad as Sara with talking out loud.
"Yeah, that worked great." Patrick shook his head and climbed the stairs.
As always, he checked on Sara; it was his nightly ritual now . Her door was closed, an unusual thing, but a light shined through the crack at the bottom. He took a running start to make the transition between dead air and the heavy quicksand feeling of the wood go faster, only feeling the uncomfortable sensation for a moment before stumbling into his parents' aSara's abedroom.
She smoothed the sheet over her legs and up around her waist, reaching for a "Hey, that's my book!" Patrick said, moving closer to the side of her bed. It felt odd to walk over the floor without the cushion of the plush carpeting his mother had loved so much.
Sara flipped the cover open and ran her fingers over the text. "Good choice." After thumbing past a few more pages , she read, "I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days afound myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake."
Patrick smiled along with her and recited the next sentence. "In this state of mind I spent the long hours of bumping, swinging coach that carried me to the stopping place at which I was to be met by a vehicle from the house."
He carefully settled himself onto the floor, leaning his back against the wall, and watched her read. He liked the way her face reacted to the words , forehead wrinkling and smoothing with each turn of the page. She looked less... haunted as she read, which even he could tell was kind of ironic.
A chapter later something fell out of the book into her lap.
"Shit!" Patrick heaved himself toward the bed, not quite stopping himself in time from touching the book. It tipped out of Sara's hands, and she froze before reaching for the book and then the photo. "God dammit!"
He'd completely forgotten he'd stashed a photo of himself with his parents in between the pages . It had been taken in Sea Isle City on the beach during one of their day trips. Patrick had been eighteen , and he remembered the smell of the salt air that day, coupled with how bad the top of his dad's bald head had burned. It peeled for a week afterward, and his mother had soothed aloe vera over the flaking skin while his dad sat on his mom's beloved green print couch. He'd also met a girl on the beach that day, kissing her on the boardwalk at 34th Street. Mary, her name had been. Cute girl ashe 'd had long, straight, red hair and freckles.
"Who's this?" Sara asked, holding the photo by its edges and moving closer to the light on her nightstand. "Oh, h ell o, tall, dark, and handsome. " Her fingertip touched the picture, just at the edge . "Are you the guy who used to live here?"
"Handsome, huh?" Patrick asked, grinning. He puffed out his chest and shifted his weight on his feet. "You're not so bad yourself."
"Your parents look sweet."
"Well, I wouldn't ever say that about Dad, but yeah, they were nice," Patrick said, moving around the bed and leaning over the lamp to study the faded photograph. "My mom was pretty great. She would have hated what you've done to the house, though."
"Hey, I bet my office was your room a you look tall. Those marks on the closet door are probably from you, right? Your mother looks just like the kind of mom who would force you to stand there and let her fuss over how tall you were getting ." She laughed, a quiet rumble , running her fingers over the photo again before setting it on the table next to her bed.
"I miss her," Patrick blurted. "I miss them both."
Sara reclined against her headboard again, picking up the book and rubbing her thumb along spine. A few moments later she swung her legs over the side of the bed, bare legs pale against the dark green sheets, and grabbed her typewriting machine before easing into the armchair in the corner. She pushed herself back and crossed her legs, flipping the top part up. She looked excited and too wide awake for the hour, and within minutes she typ ed frantically, muttering to herself about inspiration and memories.
Patrick crept up to the chair, laughing at himself about his instinct to still be stealthy when there was no chance anyone could hear him, hovering at her shoulder and reading her typed words out loud: The ocean was relatively calm, hardly a wind to blow the old blanket on the sand my mother spread on the sand , joking with my dad about sand crabs and warning him to put his hat on. Dad was balding, the horseshoe ring-pattern of his hair thinning even as I watched.
"Tommy," my mother chirped, turning to me and adjusting the straps of her burgundy bathing suit, "Did you r emember to pack the sandwiches?"
"Yeah, Ma. I grabbed two bologna for me and the tuna salad for you. Dad's got two salamis. Oh, and I packed a couple of Tabs." It had always been my responsibility to pack the cooler for the beach... at least since I turned fifteen ."
Patrick gaped at Sara as she continued typing. How was she doing it ? It was exactly what had happened that day. Aside from the name Tommy, it was as if she was reading his memories. He stood abruptly and skittered away from her, thoughts racing to figure out what the Hell was going on. Sara kept typing away, but he was afraid to see what else she wrote .
It wasn't possible.
He paced her bedroom, obsessively thinking about what else had happened that day. He remembered the lifeguards racing out to save some poor moron who had gotten caught in a riptide and the dolphins his mother had seen swimming beyond the big waves. On the ride home from the shore, his dad had insisted on stopping at some shack on the side of the road selling watermelon.
With great trepidation, he returned to Sara's side and looked over her shoulder. It was there. It was all there. Every detail of that day, typed out and staring at him, almost mocking him. She even wrote about Mary and her freckles, although Sara's version had renamed the girl Karen.
Sara stopped typing and read the words in a whisper. "Wow, that's not bad. Maybe I can use it as a short story ."
"What... the... Hell... Sara?" Patrick's eyes fought to escape his head, and he backed toward the door, wincing as the slow gel feeling of its surface hit him. He had to get away from her... from this. His mind was absolutely blown, and he had to find somewhere alone to think about what it meant.
He ended up in his bedroom... well, Sara's office now. The smooth walls of his room felt comforting against his back as he slumped into a corner, eyes still wide and staring. Despite all that he'd dealt with over the last several weeks adiscovering forty years had blown by, being told his parents were dead, getting used to all the changes Sara made to the house and sharing it with her ahe'd never felt more confused.
"I don't get it," he said, the heel of his hand pressing into his forehead. "My own parents could barely tell I was here, but somehow Sara magically writes a memory? Why are you doing this to me?" Patrick had no idea who he was talking to aGod, the universe, or something else.
The longer he thought about it, the more agitated he became. Eventually his eyelids drooped with fatigue, body sliding across the wall until he stretched out along the length of the baseboard. It was times like these he missed the comfort of his pillow and blankets and wished he'd had the forethought to try to hide those in the house before his parents moved. I t would have been nice to be able to punch his pillow into shape and feel the cool fabric against his cheek while breathing in his mother's fabric softener.
It was with his mom and dad on his mind that he fell asleep, but his dreams had nothing to do with his parents. He found himself in a park, the green grass vibrant and springy beneath his feet. He didn't think it was a place he'd ever been to before athe rolling hills and oblong lake didn't look familiar. What appeared to be a family picnic was in full swing under a wooden pavilion, about twenty people milling around tables.
"Well now, it's young Nate!" an old guy in a white shirt with the top button undone called. Patrick was sure the man spoke to him, although he had no idea how he knew.
"Hey, Grandpa," Patrick called back before he could stop himself, the smile on his face not feeling quite right. Lips too small for his mouth , and his skin stretched wrong across his cheekbones . The sweat rolling down his back from the humidity of the summer air seem ed foreign, although summer in Philly was always hot and sweaty.
"What's been going on with my favorite grandson?" The man's gnarled fingers patted Patrick's cheek before they fell into step with each other, walking toward a blue tub full of bottles and cans.
"I'm good. Work's been busy, but everything's good." Patrick reached into the tub and handed his dream grandfather a can of birch beer. "What about you?"
"Oh, you know, I can't complain... mostly because no one would listen." His grandfather chuckled and sat on a picnic bench.
"Your hip's better?"
"Absolutely, my boy. I'm right as rain. I'm giving Mrs. Carsey a run for her money, that's for sure."
"Who's Mrs. Carsey a your new girlfriend?"
Patrick's grandfather fluted his lips, the delicate skin around them wrinkling, but there was a twinkle in his eye. "You don't call a woman of eighty-five a girl, now, would you? Although I daresay, that woman's got a young spirit about her. Good teeth, that one."
Patrick laughed and popped the cap off a bottle of beer he'd never heard of before... a brand called Dead Guy Ale, which he found kind of ironic. The beer ran cold and tart on his tongue, frosting his throat as it went down.
"Should you be drinking?" His grandfather watched him, his eyes resting on the beer bottle in his hand.
"Relax, Grandpa. It's all good - my medication is all worked out now. The doc said I could have the occasional beer as long as I don't get wasted. Moderation is key and all that."
His grandfather's shoulders relaxed a bit. "I'll take your word for that. I just worry a don't want to have another episode like the last time."
Patrick caught onto a memory, floating around him in a shimmery haze. It was him, but it wasn't. A man with short, dark curly hair paced frantically around a kitchen, his agitation clear. He shouted and thr ew glasses and plates, cutting his arms with shards of ceramic, while a woman in an apron huddled under the table shouting into a telephone for the police to hurry.
"Yeah, I don't want that either. Trust me on that one."
"You're a good boy, Nate."
The woman who'd been hiding under the table in his mind approached them and handed a plate piled high with potato salad and a hamburger to his grandfather.
"Glad you could make it, sweetie. How's Lori?"
He didn't have the heart to tell this woman... she felt like his mother... that he and Lori had broken up, so he simply said, "Everything is good, Mom. She says h ell o."
Another memory jerked behind his eyes, the image of him screaming at a petite, blonde woman. She'd been crying as he shook her by the shoulders, slamming her against the wall in a small apartment. It had happened just days earlier. He could tell something was very wrong, but the man he dreamed didn't feel anything at all.
Patrick woke with a start in the darkness, the air in the room close and stale . The house was quiet, only the humming of the street lamps outside to break the silence. He climbed to his feet and stared out the window, watching a lone car drive down the street, its lights casting a dim glow on the black road.
The house seemed to hold its breath as Patrick walked from room to room, first checking all the locks on the windows and doors anot that it would do him any good to find one that was unlocked. Really, what was he going to do about it? It wouldn't matter if a whole battalion of burglars broke into the house. All he would be able to do was stand there and watch or maybe throw a book. It pissed him off, but the futility of the exercise didn't stop him from making his rounds.
Jules sprawled out on the sofa bed, her snores echoing through the living room. She sounded like the loud, grating engine of the *66 Mustang engine he'd been working on just before he died. He didn't know how the owner had managed to screw up the torque induction starter, but he'd had to put shims in to pull it away from the block. Patrick was sure shims wouldn't work for Jules' snoring. Not even a pillow over her face would help muffle the snorting wheezes coming from the woman. He was surprised he hadn't been able to hear it upstairs in his room.
The last stop on his walk through the house was Sara's room. She'd kicked off her covers, and she shivered in her sleep. He reached for her comforter, cursing this whole ghost business as his fists sank through. He wanted to wrap her back up to stop her from being cold; he couldn't even do that for his new roommate, and it frustrated him.
Before leaving her, he put a fingertip to the air just above her cheekbone, wishing he could feel the fine hairs on the surface of her skin. She shivered, burrowing into her pillow, and murmured, "Soft."
CHAPTER FOUR.
Patrick tested out the idea that Sara could pick up on his thoughts as often as possible. The first time he'd chosen something simple to think about ahis first kiss. He figured maybe because he had such a perfect memory of it, she'd have no trouble seeing it if he concentrated hard enough. Nothing had worked over the last two weeks... not since the time in her bedroom .
Sara had settled into the armchair in his bedroom the next time he'd tried , crossing her legs under her after opening the window in the room as wide as the sash would allow. With her typewriter gadget situated on her lap, she stared at the blank space in front of her.
Patrick crouched next to the chair, fingers just centimeters from her arm. He closed his eyes and imagined Brenda Harper's red braids and freckles. He concentrated on the rainy day that fall in the sixth grade, the musty, damp scent of wet wool and vinyl rain slicker in his nose, and how much trouble he'd gotten in for not coming right home after school.
Maybe he wasn't concentrating enough. Or maybe he was doing something wrong. Whatever it was, Sara ended up writing about a dog. She wrinkled her nose after twenty-five minutes and put aside her typewriter, rubbing her eyes with her fists.
"God, that sucks. I clearly don't have any mojo today. You must be laughing your ass off."
Patrick sighed. "Why can't I figure this out? Do you need a photo? I don't have any pictures of Brenda."
He threw up his hands. Of course he couldn't get it right. He hadn't been able to come up with the answers to much of anything when it came to being dead. He had a million theories but nothing brilliant. Nothing that unlocked the secret of making it to Heaven . Maybe being dead was just a joke. One big, long practical joke.
He tried again a few days later with the same memory on a day that reminded him of that moment a it was gray outside and pissing down rain . It was the wrong season, but it didn't matter. He had the sound of Brenda's voice firmly fixed in his mind, along with other details he'd been thinking about: the way she'd scuffed her sneaker in the grass as she waited for him to kiss her, the way their teeth had clinked together, and the surprising warmth of her mouth.
Sara sat at her desk this time, back straight against the blue chair and fingers drumming against the dark wood of the desk. She'd dragged Patrick's record player into her office the day prior and, much to his delight, had been listening to his Neil Young album for the last twenty minutes, and they both sang along to "Cinnamon Girl."
He stood behind her, hips not quite touching the chair. This was going to work; he could feel it. Today was different. He crossed his arms over his chest and glanced outside, remembering the coat he'd been wearing that day, when he suddenly heard Sara's fingers tapping away at the keys. He refused to look at what she wrote , instead thinking about how the shed behind which he'd kissed the girl that had been rusted.
It certainly hadn't been the best kiss he'd ever had, but it was certainly the most memorable. It blew the doors off most of the other firsts in his life. Well, except the first time he died. He had a feeling he wouldn't get a second chance at that.
Sara laughed, the sound of it carrying over another song, and he caved, leaning over to sneak a peek at the words she'd written.
"Oh, I love this," she said, her voice hardly more than a breathy murmur. "Where did this come from?"
She read it over again, and Patrick grinned, eyes skimming over the words too.
I grabbed her hand after the first bell, walking her down the sidewalk. She was pretty, always turning pink when someone embarrassed her , and it made me want to kiss her. My heart raced, but kissing was something I'd never done with a girl. Well, I 'd kissed my mother, of course, but this wasn't the same. Not at all.
Puddles dotted the sidewalk, and our arms stretched but stayed connected at the fingers as we walked around them. Where could I go? It seemed wrong to kiss her in the middle of the neighborhood , particula rly if I stank at it. She might laugh at me, and then I'd be humiliated where everyone could see.
My friend Chris had told me he'd made out with Karen Lisken behind the shed next to his house last week, and that was on the next block. Maybe that would be a good spot. Private. No one would see me deliver the worst kiss in the world... you know, if I did, and I wasn't so sure I wouldn't.
"Where are we going?" Brenda asked, toying with one long braid. Was some sort of signal, a sig n she wanted me to kiss her too?
"I don't know," I answered, trying to pretend I wasn't nervous about it inside. "Do you want to go hang out somewhere?"
"Uh, okay. But I need to get home."
"Well, can I, um, walk you?" She only lived a couple blocks away. If I could get her alone and kiss her, I could have her back to her house pretty quick.
The shed was just off the alley that ran to the rear of Chris' house, situated in a section of long, yellowing grass. My sneakers stuck in the mud, the sound of my soles getting sucked down squeaking with each step. Brenda leaned against the thin, rusted metal, hair shockingly bright against the dull, white shed behind her head.
"So, uh..." she said, twisting the toe of her sneaker against the grass and sliding the pull of her coat zipper up and down.
I shoved my hands in the pockets of my pants and glanced down, trying to ignore the churning in my guts. Before I could chicken out, I leaned forward and put my lips on hers, just like I'd seen Paul Varjak do to Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffa n y's anot that I'd ever admit to seeing such a girly movie. Her lips parted slightly, and our teeth clinked together.
Everything stopped. My stomach turned over, and I thought I might puke for a second, but Brenda's hands touched my shoulders, pulling me out of my nervousness long enough to enjoy the feel of her mouth. Still, it was weird. I wondered about the germs in her spit aI could feel it on my lips, and as I pulled back, a thin string of saliva connected us.
Patrick couldn't believe it worked. He didn't know what he'd done differently or what about this moment made it so special, but he was overwhelmed by the sheer bizarreness of it. For the first time in forty years, he'd managed to actually communicate with someone intentionally. It was so heavy. His mind sped in circles, wondering if he could do it with anyone or if it was just Sara.
"That is... wow, that's so sweet." Sara's voice was surprised, and Patrick could tell she was rereading it, her hands still on the arms of her desk chair.
"Sara, will you invite someone over? Maybe Megan or Mrs. Stout... oh, but neither of them are writers. How would I know if they could hear me or feel me or whatever the Hell I'm doing? Shit."