Shade (13 page)

Then I don’t belong here,
I thought, realizing how crazy that sounded, even in my head.

“You need to help him understand that,” she continued, “so that he can move on.”

“What if he doesn’t want to?”

“He will.” She smoothed down her springy blond bangs. “He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s very angry. At himself, but also at the people who enabled this.”

I enabled this.

Aunt Gina dropped her hands in her lap, as if they were suddenly too heavy to hold up. “The Keeleys have asked me to file a wrongful death suit against Warrant Records.”

I felt my guts shrivel. “Logan will have to testify.” My head flashed hot as the worst part hit me. “About what happened right before he died!”

“Yes, and you’ll need to be one of the witnesses.”

“Are you kidding?” I sprang off the bed. “Do you have any clue what kind of story will come out? People are already gossiping about me and Logan.”

“And this will give you a chance to set the record straight. To tell the truth.”

“The truth is just as bad as the rumors.” I clasped my hands together. “Please don’t do this to us. I know you’re worried you won’t be able to afford my college, but—”

“You think this is about money?” She stood and wrapped her robe tight around herself. “This is about justice. That’s more important than a few nasty rumors that everyone will forget the moment some celebrity gets a hangnail.”

“Oh, so I’m
selfish
because I don’t want our private life splashed all over the world?”

“If you’re not thinking about the big picture, then yes, you are being selfish. You’re forgetting what’s at stake here.”

“Yeah, millions of dollars.”

“No. Logan’s eternal soul.”

I tried not to roll my eyes at her crusade. “He’ll pass on when he’s ready.”

“What if he
can’t
?” Gina shook a coral-painted fingertip at me. “What if he becomes a shade?”

“He wouldn’t.” My voice cracked with the desire to believe my own words. “Logan’s a good guy.”

“Plenty of good ghosts turn bad. They get bitter, watching the world go on without them. You know that better than I do.”

I looked past her at my bed, remembering the day Logan lay there with me. The afternoon sun had slanted through the blinds, glowing golden against his bare skin. The light had seemed so much a part of him, I’d imagined it shining from within his body and streaming
out
the window instead of in.

No one was further from shade than Logan.

“I’m filing tomorrow,” Gina said, “and we’ll see when the courts can put it on the docket. It could be months.” She came over and gripped my hand in her cool, soft one. “If we win, Logan will move on. He’ll be at peace.”

“And what if you lose?”

“Then it’s up to him. But at least we’ll have done everything we could.” She let go of me and went to the door. “If you think about it, you’ll realize what’s right.”

When she was gone, I changed my sheets at top speed. Wherever they came from, whoever had chosen them, their color was all that mattered. If Logan’s time with me was limited, then I couldn’t waste a single night without him by my side.

I picked out a deep purple button-down silk nightshirt that fell to the top of my thighs. It was something I usually wore in summer, not on a cold night like tonight. Logan’s voice would keep me warm.

I went to the bathroom, where I washed my face, took out my contacts, and brushed my hair for several minutes. Logan couldn’t touch it, but I wanted it to look soft. I even shaved my legs.

My footsteps slowed as I returned to my room. What if he forgot? What if the world had distracted him?

I stopped at the threshold, where my door stood slightly ajar. Holding my breath, I pushed it open.

Logan was sitting on the edge of my bed.

“Hi.” He stood quickly as I moved inside the room. “Did you think I’d forget?”

I shut the door behind me. “Do I look worried?” I whispered.

“You look as nervous as I feel.”

I went to the window, partly to hide my smile. If Logan could feel, he could live, sort of.

I lowered the blinds to block out the light from the street. In the total darkness, the details of Logan’s features shone bright.

“I’m glad you came,” I told him, hoping he grasped the force of my understatement.

“This is gonna be great.” Logan reclined on the bed, though the mattress didn’t compress with any weight. “Like when we were kids, remember? When we’d all camp out in our basement and pretend we were in the mountains?”

I hurried over to the other side of the bed, almost skipping in my giddiness. “Didn’t we play ‘doctor’ for the first time on one of those camping trips?”

Logan laughed. “Yeah, that was before I found out about girl cooties.”

I slipped under the covers next to him. He rolled onto his side to face me.

“Nice sheets,” he said, and before he could see my guilt, his gaze traveled down the front of my shirt. “Nice outfit, too.”

I felt suddenly shy. “Thanks.”

“How was your sky gazing?”

“I wasn’t sky gazing.” I faked a playful punch. “I was working.”

“Did he make you see stars?”

I suppressed a cackle. “Don’t be a dick. And don’t make me laugh, or Gina’ll hear.”

“Sorry.” Logan bent his arm and rested his cheek on it. “I’ll do the talking, so you don’t get in trouble.”

I nodded, swallowing a squeak of excitement. Logan was here. In my bed. He could talk the whole night about guitar strings and amp brands, for all I cared. I just wanted to hear his voice.

The lines of his face smoothed solemn. “I’m so sorry about Friday night. Not just for dying, but for getting so wasted we couldn’t make love. It’s like that Dead Kennedys song, ‘Too Drunk to Fuck.’ That’s been running through my head all day.”

“I’m glad you didn’t ask for it to be played at the funeral luncheon.”

He snorted. “What’d you think of my picks?”

“It was a kick-ass mix. Except for ‘The Parting Glass.’”

“Hey, that’s a traditional Irish funeral song.”

“And drinking song,” I snapped back. “Considering it was alcohol that killed you—”

“The cocaine killed me.”

“It probably wouldn’t have if you weren’t so drunk. That’s what the paramedics said. It was the interaction that made your heart go haywire.”

“Oh. Wow.”

I closed my eyes and held back a groan. Logan had made a mistake that had taken his life, and all he could say was “Wow”?

“Dylan told me Mom and Dad are suing the record company.”

“I know.” I kept my eyes shut, worried I would reveal my own hopes and fears.

“I can’t get up on that stand and tell them everything. I don’t care about my own reputation—I’m dead, after all—but you have to deal with the people who’ll talk shit about you.”

“My aunt said it would help you move on.”

“
I’ll
decide when I move on.” Logan’s voice snapped like a firecracker. “I don’t have to listen to anyone now. I can do what I want.”

As long as what he wanted didn’t involve touching anything, or going anywhere he’d never been before.

“Hey, did you get to see my corpse?”

I opened my eyes. “I wish I hadn’t.”

“Was I still splotchy? I thought they could fix that.”

“No, your color was fine.”

“So how did I look?”

“You looked handsome.”

His lip curled. “Handsome?”

“Yeah.” I giggled. “Like a handsome shoe salesman.”

“Aww, man.” He rolled onto his back and covered his face. “They put me in that dark blue suit, didn’t they?”

“That wasn’t the worst part.” I pushed out the words. “They dyed your hair.”

Logan jerked to face me. “Like what Mickey did to his hair?”

“I don’t know whose idea it was.”

“I’ll ask Dylan. If it was Mickey, I’ll kill him.”

“Just let it go. He’s mad enough at himself as it is. So’s Siobhan.”

“No.” Logan pounded a fist against the mattress and uttered a groan that wasn’t quite human. “It’s not their fault, and it’s not your fault. I’ll make it up to all of you. Somehow.”

The words caught in my throat, the words I knew my aunt wanted me to speak. That the only way he could make things right was to move on, set his soul to rest.

But the thought of losing him again, this time forever, smothered all the words. I started to cry.

“Aura, please don’t.” Logan reached for my cheek. “Jeez, I can’t even comfort you anymore. I’m so fucking helpless.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” His whisper grew sharp and urgent. “I’m out there on the streets at night, and I see folks in some serious shit. Homeless people dying in alleys, hookers getting the crap beaten out of them, ten-year-olds dealing crack. And that’s not even in the really bad neighborhoods, since I can’t go into those.” He swept his hand toward the window. “You see this on the news, and you forget about it, because really, what can any of us do, and we all have our own problems, right? But there was so much I could’ve done, compared to now. I could’ve made a difference.”

I thought of how one day, when post-Shifters became cops, ghosts really could make a difference. They would be the ultimate Neighborhood Watch. I was about to point that out when Logan spoke again.

“Aura,” he whispered, “I wish I could wipe away just one of your
tears. Then I’d feel like a person again. Like I’m something more than a bunch of light.”

“You can.” I reached into the space between our bodies. “Just follow me.”

He placed his left hand behind my right hand, creating a violet shadow. Together, slowly, we touched my face. The wetness soaked into the tip of my middle finger.

“I love you so much,” he said. “I wish you never had to be sad.”

The tear my finger had taken was replaced by another. “Let me cry, Logan. I need to.”

He brought his face near mine, so bright I had to squint, and placed his head on my pillow, close enough that if he’d had breath, it would have caressed my eyelashes. “I’ll stay until you sleep, and I’ll come back tomorrow. If you want.”

I nodded, then shut my eyes against his light.

Logan spent every night with me for the next month. Not until morning, of course. He would leave after I dozed off, because to him, watching me sleep was (a) boring and (b) creepy.

If I called for him, he’d return, but I didn’t unless I’d had a bad dream. It was enough to know he’d come again the following night.

Usually we listened to music together. Since Logan couldn’t use earbuds anymore, I’d pull my MP3 docking station under the covers and play it at low volume. Or we’d read books or magazines by the light of his glow. If I had a test, he’d help me study, but since he couldn’t turn the pages, this didn’t always work.

When I got tired, Logan would sing me to sleep, sometimes a painfully appropriate song like Flogging Molly’s “If I Ever Leave This World Alive” or Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars.” Sometimes he’d pick a lilting Irish lullaby, or even a song he’d written himself.

But never the song he’d meant to sing for me the night he died. Even Logan had his limits.

Mostly we talked. It felt like we were kids again, with a sleepover every night. When I laughed too much, Aunt Gina would knock on the door to see what was up, but I always told her I was watching a funny video. It wasn’t like she could ever prove Logan was there.

Every Sunday morning before Gina did laundry, I changed my sheets back to red and hid the dark purple ones in a secret compartment under my bottom drawer. I spilled drops of soda and scattered cracker crumbs over the red sheets so they’d look used.

Even if she had suspected, how could she complain? I was happy. My boyfriend was dead, but in a way, he was with me more than ever.

During the day he haunted his younger brother Dylan, and some of our other friends, especially if they were having a party. But the nights were all ours, and Logan was all mine.

Zachary and I waited for Eowyn in her office before our second meeting. No tea was on the little table, so we sat in padded wooden chairs in front of the desk. The book fort was gone, replaced with uneven stacks of papers, a scattering of gnawed pencils, and a pair of laptop computers.

“Almost ten minutes late,” Zachary said. His cell phone went off with a text message—I’d been around him enough to know his assigned ring tones—and his expression brightened. “Excuse me for a second?” He flipped open the phone and started texting. At least he was polite about it.

To occupy myself, I pulled my folders out of my book bag and
started flipping through their contents. As always, I started with the purple folder, the one containing the journal and photos my mother had left.

The second page of that day’s entry had been torn out mid-sentence. I ran my finger over the jagged edge left behind.

“Sorry I’m late!” Eowyn swept in, her shoes scuffing the carpet.
She had dark circles under her eyes, and her long blond curls were swept back in a glittery blue scarf. But her face looked bright, like it had just been splashed with cold water.

“Ooh, you brought me a present.” She untied our portfolio, then opened our first star map and spread it on the desk before her. I placed my purple folder under the yellow one on my lap. My plan was to advance my research without telling anyone my exact theory. Not until I was sure I was right, and maybe even then it wouldn’t be safe.