Mark nodded. Brendan Hall walked through the open door. Staring at the floor—or at his feet, Emma wasn’t certain which—Mark followed him out. She closed the door behind them and leaned back against it, thinking that bashing it a few times with the back of her head would actually feel good at this point.
Eric said, “You don’t want to do this.”
Emma and Allison both swiveled heads to look at him; Michael was in Michael-land. Allison gently pushed him into the chair she’d vacated. He sat without really paying attention, adjusting his posture in the same way.
They then moved toward the wall farthest away from Michael. Petal joined them for a bit, sniffing at their hands and whining like loud background noise. Emma scratched behind his ears because she could do that in her sleep; it didn’t require a lot of attention.
She wasn’t sleeping now.
“I told him I would,” she said, keeping her voice low. “He’s not wrong about that. I didn’t—I didn’t realize he was dead when I heard him the first time. He was crying; he sounded—” she bit her lip. “I didn’t want to leave him in the damn ravine in this weather at this time of night. I almost called 911—” She stopped, aware of how badly that would have ended. “But I told him I would take him home.”
Eric folded arms across his chest in silence.
“Don’t even think of telling me it’s not my business.”
“I won’t. I understand how you’ve made it your problem—” He held up a hand as Allison opened her mouth. “—And I sympathize. I don’t fault you for trying to rescue a lost child. You didn’t know he was dead, but Emma? Even if you’d known, you wouldn’t have done things differently.”
“I wouldn’t have promised to take him home.”
One dark brow rose. “Chase tells me I look stupid at least three times a day—but not even Chase would accuse me of being that stupid. If there was no other way to get him to come to you, you’d’ve done exactly what you did.”
“Not if I knew—”
“Knew what?”
Her hands were shaking. This time it wasn’t because of the cold, although the fact they weren’t both bunched in fists was. She didn’t want to say the words that were stuck in her throat.
Eric once again folded his arms across his chest.
Allison came to her rescue. “She wouldn’t have promised to take him home to a mother who’d left him there in the first place.” She now dropped her hands to her hips, the Allison equivalent of Eric’s crossed arms. “No child needs to know—” she stopped speaking.
“If you can’t even say it, how are you going to handle him while you’re there?” He let his arms drop. “Emma—this is not a good idea.”
“I know that. But I told him—”
“I know what you told him. I understand that you don’t want to be the person who breaks her word—I don’t usually consider that a bad thing. But in this case, what good will it do? This isn’t about Mark—or not only about him. It’s also about Emma Hall.”
“He knows what we know. Or suspects what we suspect. It’s already hard for him—if he wants to go home, how can I say no?”
“It’s a single syllable. I think you can manage it.”
“I don’t think—”
“Tell him that you didn’t know he was dead. He can’t live at home, anymore. He can’t live anywhere, period.”
The breadth and depth of Eric’s callousness robbed Emma of words for a long, long moment. The words that did come rushing in were words she was pretty sure she’d regret—sometime. At the moment, she was having a hard time seeing it. “Why do you think it’s a bad idea?” she managed to get out.
“He’s dead.”
“My dad is dead—but he’s here.”
“Yes. But your mother can’t see him. Only you can. He’s had to come to terms with his near invisibility and his death, and he’s had time to do that. Mark—from what I can tell—hasn’t. He’s had enough time to figure it out, but he didn’t take that time; I don’t think he was aware of the passage of time at all. What will home give him?”
“I don’t know—what does it give my dad?”
Eric closed his eyes. When he opened them, he’d smoothed the edges off his jaw and out of his voice. “Comfort. He wanted to know you—and your mother—were doing all right. You both are.”
“Maybe Mark—” But she couldn’t say it. “We don’t know what she said to him. We don’t know how it happened. We know nothing, Eric. All we really know is we have a very young eight year old who’s only just discovering he’s dead. He wants to see the world he knew. And I—I promised I would take him home.”
Eric slowly lowered his arms. “Emma—he’s not alive.”
“I know that—if he were, we wouldn’t be having this problem.”
“You’d have an entirely different problem.”
It was true, but Emma was too tired for what-ifs and theory. She was too tired to argue with Eric. “Maybe my dad will have some luck talking to Mark. Maybe Mark will decide he can’t—can’t go home.”
Silence. It wasn’t Nathan’s silence; it was built on accusation, anger, even guilt. Emma didn’t want it; she wanted—briefly, ferociously—to see Nathan.
“Where will he stay, if he doesn’t go home?” Allison finally asked.
Eric just shook his head. “Emma—I know you see the dead as people; you see them as more than dead. I understand that. But there’s no orphanage for dead children. There’s no place they gather—” he stopped.
Emma said, in a very soft voice, “The City of the Dead.”
“They don’t gather there by choice,” was his cold reply. “They don’t need food, clothing or shelter; they don’t need school. They don’t even need to take up space. Yes, they’re part of the world you now see—but you’re not trying to find a home for wind or rain.”
“They’re not forces of nature, Eric. They’re people. They have feelings, and they’re the same feelings we have. I don’t know where he’s going to stay,” she added, looking around her room. “But there are worse places than this one.”
Eric said nothing.
“My dad’s here. My dad’s great with kids. If Mark’s parents are alive, why can’t he stay with my dad?”
“You don’t even know where your dad is, most of the time.”
“I don’t need to know—Mark does. But my dad would do that, for him.”
“Or for you?”
It was her turn to cross her arms. “For him.”
“Fine. Maybe it’s genetic. I hope your dad can talk him into staying here, for your sake.”
* * *
Michael rose, leaving the computer and the keyboard behind.
Emma glanced at the time; it was already past late. “Michael and Allison have to get home.”
“I’ll drive them. But Emma? Don’t take him tonight. You’re exhausted. It’s late. If you have to go, go during the day, and take me with you.”
Given his attitude tonight, she was absolutely certain she didn’t want him there.
“. . . Or take Allison and Michael if you won’t have me.”
“I highly doubt his mother is a Necromancer.”
“So do I. If I thought she was, I’d approach it differently. Michael?”
Michael stood in the open door, one foot over the threshold, as if stuck there. He swiveled. “Emma promised,” he said quietly.
“You heard that?”
Michael looked confused, but he nodded. “It’s important. To keep your promises.” But he looked at Emma and Allison and said, “I don’t understand what happened.”
They exchanged a glance. “Neither do we,” Emma told him.
“Why did she take him to the ravine? Why did she lie to the police?”
“Michael—we don’t know. We d
on’t know what happened.”
“We can ask Mark.”
Emma felt a little like the floor had suddenly dropped out from under her. She swallowed. “Sometimes it’s upsetting to be asked—”
“It’s not more upsetting than being left in the ravine in January,” he pointed out. His eyes were starting to rapid-blink. Allison walked over to him, put an arm around his shoulders. He leaned back into it.
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we can ask him. But, Michael—if he doesn’t want to talk about it, we can’t force him.”
Since this seemed self-evident to Michael, he ignored it. Allison pulled him out the door. Eric watched them leave, and then turned to Emma with an expression she couldn’t interpret on his face. “I’m sorry, Emma,” he said. It didn’t sound like he was apologizing for their argument.
“Send Chase to Siberia and we’ll talk,” she replied.
He laughed. Laughter, as Nathan had said, was better than pain.
* * *
“I went home.”
Emma turned as Nathan appeared in her room. He was leaning against the back wall, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted up in a way that exposed his neck. She wanted to hold him. Or to be held by him.
“I went home,” he repeated, “and I saw my mom. My dad. It was a totally different house. Do you know what she’s done to my room?”
“She hasn’t turned it into a guest room.”
“No—it’s like a small shrine. There’s a picture of me on my pillow. The bed is made. All of my stuff is still on my shelves—but it’s really, really tidy, now.” He laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh. “She goes to my grave every day. She gets up in the morning before work. She stops by after work. If work was closer, she’d be there at lunch.” He took his hands out of his pockets, lifting them in something that was like a shrug, but heavier. “She marks my calendar, Em.
“I can’t talk to her. I can’t touch her. I can’t tell her I’m not in pain, I’m all right. She cries,” he added, looking at the ceiling again. “I think she’s driving Dad nuts.”
“She did that anyway,” Emma pointed out, and Nathan did laugh.
“True.” The laughter faded. “It’s not home. It’s not home the way it is—everything in it is a reminder that I’m dead.”
“That’s not what she’s trying to do—”
“I know. I know she wants to remember that I did live, I was there. But—I can’t make her laugh, anymore. I can’t stop the tears.” He shoved his hands back into his pockets and looked directly at Emma. “But I don’t know how I’d feel if there was no sign of her grief. I don’t know how I’d feel if she was happy all the time. I don’t know what I’d want if I—”
“If you were Mark.”
He nodded. “It’s different, for your dad. I think, right now, I want what he wants—I want my mom to be happy. I know that she loved me. I know that she misses me. I know that if her death could bring me back, she’d kill herself in a heartbeat. But it won’t—and if it could, and she did, I would hate being alive.
“But I can think this and feel this because, right now, it’s so clear that I was the center of her universe.”
“You were the center of mine.”
He actually winced. “I was only one of the foundations. You had Allison, you had Michael, and they both needed you at least as much as I thought I did. My mother—”
“Lived for you.”
“Lived for me. I’ve gutted her life, and I hate it. But—”
“If she hadn’t cared at all, you’d have hated that as well?”
“People are contrary. Yeah, I’d’ve hated it—if no one missed me at all, what would the point of my life have been?” A pained, quiet smile rippled across the stillness of his expression. “I don’t want her to suffer,” he said.
“But love causes suffering?”
He laughed. “Only when it ends.”
“It never ends, Nathan. You’re dead, but I still love you.”
“You can talk to me.”
“How do you think I know what your mother does? How do you think I know what she does for your grave? I was there. Not at the same time as your mother—but after. I saw the flowers she left, and the notes, and the Game Boy. Maybe she thought it would reach you somehow. She still loves you, Nathan—we both do. The fact that you died doesn’t change that. It only changes—” she stopped. “She’s never going to stop. I’m never going to stop.”
“I don’t want her to stop. I want her to move on.”
“That’s not your decision to make.” She turned away.
“Emma.”
“Yes?” She began to straighten her duvet, which was hard because Petal was flopped out in the middle of it and didn’t want to move.
“Could you—could you let her—”
“Talk to you?”
“Yes.”
“I could. If you want, I will.” But she hesitated, and he caught it—he’d always noticed everything.
“You don’t want to do it.”
“I do want to do it,” was her low, low reply. She bent a moment over the bed as the world became blurry. “I want to do it for her because it’s what I would want. I’d want that last chance to say good-bye. I’d want to tell you all the things I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know it would be the last day. I’d want it, Nathan, because it would be peace.”
“You don’t think it would be peace for my mother.”
“I do—but . . .” She looked down at her hands; they were shaking. “But if I knew that you could be called when I needed to—wanted to—see you, I don’t think I’d ever let go. If she knows it’s because of me, she’ll be here. Maybe not the day after, but the week after, and every week after. She’ll ask questions I can’t answer—and she’ll ask questions I can answer, but they’ll put her life in danger.
“And I’ll hate it—but I’ll do it because I’ll understand what she needs. I’m—I’m lucky. I can talk to you. I can touch you.”
“Not without cost.”
She laughed. It sounded like crying. “I don’t want to deny her anything because what she feels—it’s the closest to what I feel. My friends worry for me; Michael misses you. But they don’t feel the loss the same way because they didn’t—”
“Love me.”
“Not like I did.”
His smile was hesitant. If you didn’t know him, it would have looked shy. Emma knew him. “Am I wrong?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“But?”
He laughed. “But you were so angry at Allison for saying almost the same thing about your mom.”
“I wasn’t. She didn’t say the same thing—”
“You were, Emma. It just didn’t sound the same to you because you were talking about your mother, not mine. You don’t want to give my mother hope when you can’t guarantee you can carry it—but you want it for yours, anyway.”
“It’s not the same,” she finally said, voice heavier. “Your mom wants to see you. I’m certain it’s the only things she wants. My mom—”
He lifted a hand and touched her lips with his cold, cold fingers. “Don’t. Don’t say it.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Not everything true deserves to be said.”
“I’ll do it, though. If you think it’ll help her.”
“It’s not just what I think that counts here.”
* * *
An argument was hovering in the air between them, growing denser and thicker as the silence stretched. Emma wanted to avoid it, but it loomed so large it was almost impossible to speak around it. It would have helped if she’d understood why; the last thing she wanted—the last thing she’d’ve said she wanted—was to fight with Nathan.
It was with some relief that she saw her fa
ther flow through the closed door and come to rest with his back against it. Her father looked aged and tired, even if the dead didn’t change.
“Dad? Where’s Mark?”
“He’s outside.”
“Outside the house?”
“Yes.” The way he answered made it clear that it wasn’t outside this one.
“What happened?”
Nathan had fallen silent, but he remained in the room; his hands were in his pockets, in fists.
“We went to his house,” Brendan Hall replied. He left the door and walked toward the curtained windows, staring in the direction of the veiled sky. Back turned to Emma, he said, “If at all possible, Em, I think you should avoid this.”
“How?”
“It’s not—it’s not like the last time. I don’t think there’s anything you can do at that house that will help Mark.”
“Dad—” She knew it was bad; he kept his back toward her as she approached. She had to touch him before he would turn, and his elbow—the closest thing to her hand—was cold. To her surprise, he reached out and hugged her tightly; if his elbow had been cold, his hug wasn’t. “I’m not telling you not to care,” he told her. “I don’t think you’ll get rid of Mark any time soon; he’s just come in from the—the cold; he needs company.
“But that part of his life is over. Maybe he can come back to it later—but not now.”
“Then why is he there, Dad? Why didn’t he come home with you?”
Her father’s grip tightened for a moment; it was his only answer.
* * *
In the dark, Petal snoring on the foot of the bed—where foot, in this case, meant the entire lower half—Emma could hear the dead. She could hear them the way haunted people in movies did: they wailed, they cried, their words were stretched and attenuated. There was a hunger in their voices that distorted them so much they were barely recognizable as human. Emma knew; she tried.
One glance at the clock told her it was 2:30 in the morning, East Coast time. Sitting up, Emma slid her foot out from under Petal and swiveled on the bed. She had two tests tomorrow—tonight was not the night to listen to the wailing dead if she wanted better than a bare pass in either.