Everything was dark as he waited for the next burst of lightning.
It had been Mercy, alright. Though he couldn’t really make out her eyes, they had seemed a little too far apart. The hair looked dirty blond, though darker than normal — probably from being soaked in the rain.
What in the world was Mercy Chalmers doing in his yard, in the middle of one of the worst storms Peter had ever seen?
He guiltily remembered telling her ‘no’ on the bus. He had been so mean and rude. Of course, he had felt awful, and had been deathly sick, but that was no excuse —
Or was it? He had told her no, he didn’t want to hang out with her at her house, and now she was outside his window in a rainstorm. Imagine what she might have wanted to do if he had said ‘yes.’
Peter shuddered.
She would have followed him everywhere.
Another burst of lightning, and the yard and forest were bright as noon.
But Mercy was gone.
9
Peter yawned as he walked to the bus stop the next morning. After Mercy disappeared last night, Peter hadn’t been able to fall asleep for the longest time. At one point he thought he heard a door open somewhere downstairs, and had imagined her climbing up the giant staircase, leaving a sopping wet trail behind her.
Peeeeeteeeeeeer…
But that was his imagination. She must have seen him in the window and, embarrassed to be found out, run home as fast as she could.
Which was kind of insane, because she lived over a mile away. Peter could imagine her trudging through the dark and creepy forest, the rain and wind lashing the trees around her.
Peter shivered.
She really was crazy.
Dill was already down at the corner, squatting on the sidewalk, furiously writing on a piece of paper.
“Hey, Dill!”
Dill looked up with a big smile. “Peter! You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Cool. You missed a lot of stuff.”
Peter shrugged. “I’ll make it up. Dude, you wouldn’t believe what happened last night.”
“Yeah, yeah, big thunderstorm — I live right next door, remember? No, dude, listen — ”
“Not the thunderstorm — Mercy Chalmers.”
Dill looked shocked. “You heard?”
“Heard? I saw her.”
Dill’s mouth opened like a surprised fish. “You saw her?”
“Yeah, down in my backyard. She was standing out behind the house in the middle of the storm! She’s crazy, man — she’s stalking me now!”
Dill stared at him. “When…when was this?”
“Uhhhh, last night? You were there, remember? Big thunderstorm?”
Dill shook his head, slowly, like something was just plain wrong. “That’s impossible, Peter.”
“I saw her! She was wearing different clothes than normal, but it was still that same jumper thing she always wears, just white. She was right outside in the yard, I swear!”
“Are you…okay, Peter? Are you sure you’re not still sick?”
Peter frowned. “Why are you acting like that? Don’t you believe me?”
“Dude…Mercy Chalmers is dead.”
Peter laughed once…and then stopped cold. This was a joke, right? Peter waited, knowing any second his friend would yell “Psych!” or “Did you know that ‘gullible’ isn’t in the dictionary?” or something else. It was a joke, it had to be.
But Dill looked pale and serious, with no indication that he was telling anything but the God’s honest truth.
Peter had never met anyone who had died. Except for his grandmother, but that was years ago, and he didn’t remember her very well.
He had seen it on TV plenty of times, yeah, but he had never known anyone who had died. And she had been out in the cold and the wet because of Peter.
“What…how did you find out so fast?” Peter asked.
Dill’s brow crinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“How do you know she’s dead? Did she get sick from running around in the storm? Did she die that way? How do you know?” Peter was talking loud now, but not out of anger. It was more like pleading. “You couldn’t have heard this quick — she can’t be dead — ”
“‘This quick’? Peter, she died last Wednesday. The funeral was last Friday.”
Peter’s knees trembled, but he held himself up. The whole word went still all around him. There was no sound except for Dill’s voice.
“You couldn’t have seen Mercy last night, man. She’s been dead almost a week.”
10
It had been sudden. No one knew for sure, but the story was that Mercy had fallen sick on Monday night, shortly after Peter. She hadn’t come to school on Tuesday. When the school called Wednesday night to check up on her, Mercy’s crying mother had answered. “She’s gone. My baby is gone,” was all she said.
All of this was hearsay, someone hearing it from someone who had heard it from someone else. Supposedly a kid had eavesdropped on Mrs. Cashew in the teacher’s lounge, but no one could say who that kid was. Somebody else claimed his parents were at the drug store when Mercy’s father rushed in, frantically searching the aisles for boxes of medicine, yelling at the pharmacist for help. All of it was whispers and rumors, a giant game of Telephone where the details differed depending on who was telling it.
But there was no mistaking the newspaper. Friday morning, a tiny notice in the obituaries said the following:
Miss Mercy Chalmers, age 10, passed away Wednesday, September 9th. The funeral will be privately held. Miss Chalmers is survived by her parents, Roald and Sabrina Chalmers. She was an only child.
An only child. Peter thought about if he died…about his little sister Beth, and how she would cry. She would be an only child, then, too…
It was so sad.
And not only had Peter been mean to Mercy two days before she died…he might have killed her, too.
11
“That’s ridiculous,” Dill said with a mouth stuffed full of baloney sandwich. “That’s totally ridiculous.”
They were sitting in the cafeteria at lunch. Hundreds of kids walked all around them, but the room was noticeably quieter than usual. The news of Mercy’s death had fallen like a fog on the school. It was hard to be a kid, just going on your way with other kids your age, and then suddenly one of them wasn’t there anymore. Someone you knew. Someone you’d stood in line next to, or sat behind them on the bus.
Or were good friends with. Agnes Smithouse sat in the corner of the room with Katie Brammelson. Their eyes were red and puffy. They had been friends with Mercy, playing hopscotch and jump rope at recess, passing notes in study period. Now they sat silently, side by side, barely touching their cafeteria food. Without warning, Agnes burst into tears as Peter walked by. He felt like crying himself, and hurried away so the girls wouldn’t see.
Now all Peter could do was pick miserably at his bagged lunch. “I got sick Monday. I was sick that morning with a sore throat. Mercy got sick that night…she probably caught it from me.”
“Okay, look, I’m no genius, but even I know that you don’t get sick that fast. Except maybe from that thing in Africa where you bleed from your eyes. What’s that called?” Dill got one look from Peter and pressed on. “Never mind. But people don’t sneeze on you and all of a sudden you got a cold. It takes a huge while. Like, days. You didn’t get Mercy sick, Peter.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe I was sick on Friday and she caught it then.”
Dill bit into a cupcake he peeled out of a foil pack. “I’m not sick. If you’re so contagious, how come I didn’t get sick? Nobody else got sick. You got it from somewhere, she got it from somewhere, but she didn’t get it from you. Quit blaming yourself.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Peter shook his head. “I swear I saw her last night…I swear it.”
“Dude, you were seeing things,” Dill said as he crunched on potato chips. “You were stupid in the head. If
I was you, I wouldn’t come back to school for, like, another six weeks. Maybe till just before Christmas vacation.”
Peter looked around, made sure no one was listening, and then leaned over the table. “Do you think — ”
“NO,” Dill interrupted.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Yes I do. NO.”
“Maybe it was her ghost.”
“Oh.” Dill considered. “Why didn’t she float up to see you, then?”
“I don’t know.” Peter frowned. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“I said we weren’t ever going to talk about that again,” Dill hissed.
“Dill, we can’t pretend it never happened.”
“Why not?!” Dill demanded.
“Because we gotta figure this Mercy thing out, that’s why! If there could be dead people out in the woods, why couldn’t there be a ghost, too?”
“I don’t know. I guess if she is a ghost, it’s a good thing.”
Bewildered, Peter asked, “How is a ghost a good thing?”
“Well, she likes you.”
Peter looked at Dill like, Yeah, AND?
“Well, it’d be bad if she hated your guts.”
“But I was really mean to her on the bus.”
“Oh yeaaaaah…I forgot about that. Oh, man, you’re screwed. You got a ghost P.O.’d at you.”
“Dill, I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“Serious about what?” someone asked.
It was Susie Wong, a girl from class. She and Andrew Micklethorpe walked up with their cafeteria trays and sat down next to Peter and Dill.
“Uh, nothing,” Peter said.
“Serious about what?” Susie asked again. Her eyes were piercing beneath the level fringe of her black bangs.
Neither Peter nor Dill said anything.
“Serious about WHAT?” she repeated forcefully.
“Fractions,” Dill answered through a mouthful of cupcake.
“Fractions?!” Andrew said. He had on a white starched shirt and a sweater vest. Peter and Dill might not have been popular at school, but they weren’t nerds. With his coke–bottom glasses and tousled hair, Andrew was every inch the nerd. So was Susie, although she didn’t look nearly as geeky as Andrew.
“Heck yeah, fractions. I hate fractions. I’m SERIOUS. Serious as a heart attack.” Dill went back to munching on several potato chips at once.
“I like fractions,” Susie chirped. “It’s like a pie. If you think about it, you can slice a pie into any number of pieces you like.”
“I like pie, too,” Dill said. “Cherry, strawberry, banana cream pie — ”
“I’m talking about fractions,” Susie protested.
“Well I’m talking about pie.”
“Hey, hey, guys — 3.14159265!” Andrew shouted.
Susie and Andrew both laughed. Peter and Dill looked at the two of them like aliens had just grown out of their foreheads.
“What?” Peter asked.
“I’m talking about pi, too!” Andrew beamed.
Dill shook his head back and forth rapidly. “What?”
“Pi…it’s a number,” Susie explained.
“No, it’s a dessert,” Dill said.
“No — pi — 3.141592 — ”
Dill got up from the table. “Yeah, yeah. Bye, pie guys.” He jerked his head, and Peter followed.
“See you in class,” Peter said.
“Bye,” Susie and Andrew called out, somewhat sadly.
“You shouldn’t make math jokes around them,” Peter heard Susie whisper as he walked off.
“That was kind of rude,” Peter said as caught up with Dill.
“Look who’s talking. At least I’m not rude to dead people.” Dill saw Peter’s face and immediately backpedaled. “Sorry, sorry, look — sorry. They’re just nerdy, man.”
“Well, people say we’re weirdoes.”
Dill looked surprised. “Who says that?”
Peter shrugged. “I don’t know. They sure act like it, though.”
“Well, you don’t get less weirdo–y by hanging out with nerds, so forget it.”
Dill dumped his garbage in the trashcan and stacked his tray. Peter followed suit and they walked outside.
“Look, what do I do about the ghost?”
“I don’t know. Apologize, I guess.”
“For being mean?”
“Yeah, man, you don’t want a ghost P.O.’d at you.” Dill shook his head and exhaled. “I sure wouldn’t.”
12
It was a long drive back on the school bus. Peter was very aware of Mercy’s absence in the seat behind him. It was highlighted even more when the school bus paused at Mercy’s house…and then sped away quickly, as though the school bus driver was embarrassed she had forgotten. For a few seconds, Peter thought he might cry as the Chalmers’ lonely little house receded in the distance.
“Why couldn’t she come back during the day?” Peter asked as he and Dill got off the school bus and walked home.
“Duh. Ghosts don’t come out in the day.”
“Yeah they do. I heard about this dead sailor that tourists saw on a boat in San Diego during the day.”
“That was a tourist ghost. Real ghosts don’t come out in the day.”
“Why?”
“Ghosts don’t like light. They’re not made out of anything, so they can’t…you know…they don’t like the light, okay?”
“But why?”
“Look, you want explanations, I’ll go get Andrew for you. THEY DON’T LIKE THE LIGHT. Everybody knows that.”
“So if she’s mad at me…I should shine a light on her?”
“I don’t know. You gotta be careful, man.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just don’t make her any madder than she already is.”
“Well what happens if I do?!”
Dill shrugged helplessly. “I don’t do ghosts, man.”
Dill wished him luck and they parted ways. Dill didn’t offer to hang out, and Peter wouldn’t have felt like it anyhow. He did his homework dutifully up in his room, looking out the window every five minutes to see if a small figure in white was out on the lawn.
Nothing. Just long green grass, unkempt rose bushes, and the shadows of oak trees.
Dinner was eggplant casserole. Peter would have ordinarily complained, but tonight he ate just enough to avoid any comments from his mother. She had her hands full with Beth, anyway, who ended up with more eggplant in her hair than in her mouth.
His grandfather, as usual, was absent from the table. Peter wondered if he should ask the old man anything, then thought better of it. He remembered being shouted out of the study — and all for nothing: Mrs. Cashew never asked him for his F history paper. Even she seemed to have fallen into a fog at school, and Peter noticed she avoided looking at Mercy’s empty desk.
After dinner, Peter got a flashlight out of the laundry room and went up to bed.
“Are you feeling okay, Peter?” his mother asked, concerned.
“Just tired…g’night.”
In his room, Peter sat at the desk next to the window, as far away from the glass as he could get while still being able to see the lawn outside. He clicked the flashlight on, then off. On, and off. And he waited. Waited as the sun went down and the shadows grew.
13
Peter woke with a start, drool dribbling down his cheek. He was still at his desk. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked over at the alarm clock. 11:20.
Something had woken him up. Had it been a dream? Someone had been calling his name, from far away…
Peeeeeeteeeeeeeer…
Not a dream.
It was coming from outside.
“Peeeeeteeeeeeeeeer…”
A lump rose in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He shuffled his hand to find the flashlight, but bumped it off the desktop in the darkness, then jumped when it clattered on the floor.
“Peee
eeteeeeeeeeeer…”
He left the flashlight and instead inched towards the window. Slowly he came up to the perch and looked outside.
The moon was out. Everything was visible in its gentle glow, though shadows dotted the landscape. Trees rustled in a light wind, grass sighed in the breeze.
A little girl dressed in white stood out on the lawn.
Mercy.
There she stood, 50 feet away from the house.
She was looking up at Peter’s window.
No…she was looking up at Peter.
Peter fell and scrambled backwards again, just like last night, but this time he kept his wits about him.
Get the flashlight. Turn it on. If she’s a ghost, she won’t like the light, right? Or it’ll shine through her, right?
God, please don’t let her float up here…please don’t let her come inside…
Peter clicked on the flashlight, and a comforting yellow circle appeared on the wall. All he had to do was shine it on her, and she wouldn’t like it, and she would leave him alone. He turned towards the window. The beam followed along the wall. All he had to do was point it out there on the lawn and she would go away, because ghosts don’t like light —
Except Mercy wasn’t out on the lawn.
She was on the other side of the window. Outside his room.
The yellow circle of light swept across her face.
14
“AAAAAAAAAAGHHH!” Peter screamed. He dropped the flashlight again. It clattered several feet away, no longer pointing anywhere Peter could see it.
Mercy stayed at the window, her feet on the small slope of roof outside. She was bathed in soft light from the moon. Her face was the color of milk. Shadows filled her sockets, so that he couldn’t see her eyes. But she looked gentle…not mad, at least.
Peter backed up against the bed. His eyes never left her face.
“Peeeeteeeeeeer…” she said softly.
“M…Mercy?” he whispered.
She raised her hands to the window and pressed her palms against the glass.
“Peeeteeeer, let me in.”
“Mercy, you’re…you’re dead,” Peter whispered.
“No I’m not, silly. See? I’m fine.”
Mercy waved one hand and smiled. Goosebumps ran up and down Peter’s back.
“They said you were. In the newspaper. They said you died.”
“They were wrong. Peeeteeeeeer, let me in, it’s cold out here.”
“You’re…you’re not a ghost?”