A Curious Tale of the In-Between (3 page)

“Felix!” Pram chased him counterclockwise around the pond, trying to be angry but laughing instead.

He
had an unfair advantage over her, being a ghost. He could have disappeared. But he let her catch him. He felt the full weight of her when she crashed into him and knocked him to the ground. He felt her bony knees on his stomach and her hands on his shoulders. She reminded him of what it had been like to be alive.

“Got you,” she said, and snatched her ribbon from his fist.

She hopped to her feet and fixed her ponytail while Felix lay in the grass, watching her.

“Pram!” Aunt Dee called from the doorstep. “Come in and wash up for dinner.”

“I have to go,” Pram told Felix. She didn’t even give him a chance to say good-bye before she ran off.

He watched her go. Her ponytail flew behind her like a kite made from a piece of sun.

“Did you have a nice time at school today?” one of the elders—Ms. Pruitt—asked as Pram splashed her cheeks at the kitchen sink.

“It wasn’t bad,” Pram said.

“I’m teaching advanced watercolors this year,” Ms. Pruitt said. “Come to my classroom and I’ll teach you everything you need to know.”

“I will, Ms. Pruitt,” Pram said. Pram knew that the
elders
lived in their own imaginary lands. She liked to pretend those imaginary lands were real, though, and that she was surrounded by artists and poets and professional jockeys. It made the house seem magical instead of sad.

At the dinner table that evening, there was minimal fussing from the elders. Aunt Nan, who usually had a scant few minutes to eat her own meal, had to get up only twice, to retrieve a thrown napkin and wipe a dribbly chin.

“Have you made any friends at school?” Aunt Nan asked.

“I don’t know if you’d call him a friend,” Pram said. “But there was one boy who was nice.”

“By this time next year, you’ll have a lovely shape,” Ms. Pruitt said. “You’ll be an early bloomer. I’ve drawn a lot of ladies, you know.”

Pram stared at her plate, blushing.

She’d been worried for some time about growing up. Hanging over the staircase was a black-and-white photo of her mother wearing a polka-dotted swimsuit that overlapped her thighs. She was angelic, with perfectly rolled bangs and a lemon-wedge smile. To go along with the picture, Pram’s aunts told her lots of nice stories about her mother. She was the fastest swimmer in her class; she had a good singing voice; she liked reading poetry. It was a lot of pressure for Pram to be her only legacy. She could never hope to be so pretty. Ms. Pruitt might have thought
Pram
would have a lovely shape, but she also thought she was an art teacher, and sometimes a radio announcer.

“Is he a handsome boy?” Aunt Dee asked, fixing Edgar’s oxygen tank.

“How should I know?” Pram said. “He was a boy, that’s all. I don’t even remember what he looked like.” But she was lying, of course.

“Hmm,” Aunt Dee said.

Aunt Nan sighed.

After dinner, Pram went upstairs to have her evening bath. As she reached the last stair, she heard Aunt Dee whisper, “I do hope this boy is real.”

CHAPTER

5

T
he following morning, Pram raced to the desk with C.B.’s initials carved into it. But Clarence had beaten her to it. He sat tall and proud, with his ankle crossed over his knee.

Pram tried not to sulk as she fell into the desk beside his. One of its legs was shorter than the other, and it wobbled when she leaned forward.

“You have to wake up pretty early to beat me,” he said.

“Indeed,” Pram said.

“But since you shared your cake with me yesterday, I have something for you. Look.”

Pram looked where he was pointing. Down and diagonal from his initials, he had carved
P.B.
into the desk.
Pram
Bellamy
. “I thought we could share it, since we both like sitting here so much,” he said.

“Thank you,” Pram said. She wanted to hug him, but she thought this would be too strange.

Every day for the next week, they sat together at lunch in the usual spot. The pity of Pram’s aunts had worn out by Tuesday, and instead of cake for lunch, they had given her a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Pram nibbled it slowly, careful not to let any of it stick to her teeth.

“I was thinking about what you said last week,” Clarence said. “About your mother.”

“I said only that she died,” Pram said, biting into her sandwich.

“Right. There’s a woman in town who can contact her. I haven’t been to her myself, but I see flyers on light posts all over, so she must be good.”

Pram considered this as she chewed, ever worrying about the peanut butter sticking to her teeth.

Her silence concerned Clarence. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said. “I’m sorry. Forget it.”

“She might be fake,” Pram said. “If she can speak to the dead, I’d think she’d want to keep it a secret.” Pram had never met another person who she believed could talk to ghosts. But she had seen several posters in town for spiritualists, and she’d heard radio ads with howling-wind sound effects and metallic thunder—all fakes, she suspected.
People
would pay good money to have access to the dead, and so it was a thriving business. Pram found it detestable that anyone would prey on such a cruel hope.

“Maybe,” Clarence agreed. “It’s just . . .” He trailed off.

“What?” Pram said.

He shook his head and gnawed pensively on his straw.

She stared at him until he answered.

“My mother died last October,” he said. “And since then, things have been disappearing from one place and reappearing in another. Some mornings when I wake up, the curtains are drawn. She used to do that to get me out of bed. I wonder if I’m being haunted.”

He probably wasn’t being haunted, Pram thought. Objects like curtains and hairbrushes and things failed to hold the interest of ghosts. Although Pram did recall having an argument with Felix once and going to bed only to discover one of her stuffed bears had been hidden.

Mostly, though, grief made people misplace things. She’d seen it happen to the elders, and to her, when she was thinking about her father. She might forget to cap the toothpaste or set her shoes in a different place because her mind was elsewhere.

“She’ll cost money,” Pram said.

“I’ve got that,” Clarence said.

Pram took another bite of her sandwich and swallowed hard. “Okay,” she said. “When?”

“
Friday. We can go there after school.”

“I’ll have to ask my aunts,” she said, though she didn’t think it would be a problem. They would be happy she’d made a friend.

“I can introduce myself,” he said.

“Good idea,” she said. They might believe he was imaginary otherwise, the way they believed Felix was imaginary.

On Friday, Clarence rode home with Pram on the bus. He didn’t have to ask her which seat she preferred; he went straight to the back and let her take the seat by the window. They didn’t talk, and Pram wondered if he’d noticed her hair. That morning, Aunt Dee had walked in on Pram’s clumsy attempt at a braid, and with a sympathetic laugh, she’d fixed it into two perfectly braided pigtails with mismatched ribbons.

She spotted Felix as the bus drove past the pond. He was swinging from a tree branch and propelling himself into the water. For months he’d been trying to get her to climb with him, but she’d refused.

Clarence followed her gaze to the pond. “What are you staring at?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing at all?”

“
No.”

They got off the bus and didn’t talk during most of the short walk to Pram’s house. It was a chilly September day, and Pram knew that if she were to touch Felix’s skin, it would be chilly as well. But she wondered what it would be like to touch a living boy—if he’d be warmer.

“Where do you live?” Clarence asked.

“In that house over there,” Pram said, nodding ahead. Hers was the only house in sight, with crumbling white paint and a rusted red star on the front door.

“‘Aging’ is spelled wrong,” Clarence said.

“I know.”

They climbed the front steps, and Pram pushed open the front door and said, “I’m home! I’ve brought the boy I told you about.” She hesitated to say “friend” because that was a powerful word, and she didn’t want to scare him off.

“Hello,” he said to the room of milling elders, who paid them no mind. He had no way of knowing that none of the female elders were Pram’s aunts. For all he knew, she lived among them, caring for them as a sort of youthful queen.

Aunt Nan came out of the kitchen, wringing her hands on a dishcloth. “So you did,” she said excitedly. “Dee, Pram’s brought home a friend.”

Pram waited nervously to see if Clarence would object to being called her friend. He didn’t.

Aunt
Dee bounded down the stairs, trying in vain to smooth her hair back against its gray bun. “I see that,” she said, grinning like a madwoman. “Hello, welcome, would you like something to eat?”

“We aren’t staying,” Pram said. “We’re going to walk into town.”

The smile faded from Aunt Dee’s face. “Town? What for?”

“To see a show,” Clarence said smoothly. It wasn’t a lie; the spiritualist was performing a show, which was one of the many reasons Pram thought she was a fake.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Aunt Nan said.

“My father will drive us home. He’ll be off from work by then,” Clarence said. “I could give you his phone number if you’d like.”

Pram’s aunts looked at each other, clearly taken aback by this boy who spoke so politely. They had raised Pram to be just as polite, but they functioned under the belief that other children were about as formal as wolves. They couldn’t decide if this level of politeness made them feel delighted or nervous.

Aunt Dee handed Clarence a blank recipe card and the pen they used to write down phone messages.

“Edmund Blue,” he wrote in the practiced handwriting Pram admired. Below that, he wrote his father’s phone number.

“
‘Edmund Blue,’” Aunt Nan read aloud. “Not the one who owns the refinery?”

“The very same,” Clarence said.

Pram didn’t know what was so remarkable about the refinery or why it mattered who owned it.

“Be back by six thirty,” Aunt Dee said. “We’ll keep dinner warm for you.”

“Okay,” Pram said.

Once she and Clarence were outside, she glanced back at her aunts, who were huddled together behind the window, watching her.

“How did they know about your father?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” Clarence said. “Forget it.”

As they walked into the horizon, they passed Felix, who was hiding in the pond despite Pram’s warning that it wasn’t for swimming. And Pram couldn’t know the fuss her new friend had caused at the house. She couldn’t know that Clarence Blue was the son of the wealthiest man for miles.

They walked for half a mile, until the sidewalk turned to a cobblestone path, lit up by the windows of tiny shops. Pram stopped to admire a mannequin adorned in lace and stripes in the dress shop window. Clarence watched her, thinking there was something magical about the way that most ordinary light touched her face.

He didn’t know how to tell her this, so he bought
ice-
cream cones from a cart that was just about to close. The man in the striped shirt charged him only half price because it was the end of the day.

Pram thought the chocolate-raspberry swirl was heavenly. But all she said were “Thank you” and “Where are we going?”

“Around the block,” Clarence said. “I’ve been by it a few times, but I was never brave enough to go inside. I’d have needed tickets anyway.”

“Can I see the tickets?” Pram asked, biting into her ice-cream cone to hear it crunch.

Clarence reached into his shirt pocket and retrieved the tickets. Though they were brand-new, the coloring made them look like antiques, Pram thought. People took more stock in things that were old.
LADY SAVANT’S SPIRIT SHOW–ADMIT ONE
was printed on each ticket.

“Clarence,” she said, and paused as she thought of a delicate way to word things. “What is it you’re hoping Lady Savant can tell you?”