Eternal (24 page)

A physical way.

I’d be out of high school in a matter of months. Surely Jeremiah recognized me as an adult capable of making adult decisions about love and devotion. Although I knew we could never have the kind of marriage that would be recognized by others, I knew we could pledge ourselves to each other and live as man and wife in every sense of the word.

As I followed Ella to the bus on our first day back to school after Christmas break, I realized my teeth clenched in frustration. Without Jeremiah to occupy me, I obsessed over how to make this crazy relationship work in the real world.

Laura waved from the breath-fogged bus window and I recalled our very first conversation. She’d told me about sad old Miss Polk who’d never married because she was in love with a ghost.

I could see myself like old Miss Polk. The local bat house crazy woman in love with a ghost…

I sighed.

After I boarded the bus, I didn’t have time to worry about my relationship with Jeremiah. Laura engaged me in conversation, telling me about all the cool things she’d gotten for Christmas and wanting to know what I’d received.

Ella had smuggled her new handheld game onto the bus—the same game Mom had forbidden her to bring to school. Recognizing the power of knowledge and well-timed blackmail, I leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder.

She whirled and tried in vain to hide her game system under her backpack. “What?” she demanded guiltily.

“Didn’t Mom tell you not to bring that thing to school?”

“I…I didn’t know it was in my backpack.” The little liar had the audacity to stare me straight in the eye.

I arched an eyebrow. “I’ll keep it a secret as long as you keep my secrets.”

Ella stared. “Like the one about the ghost that sleeps in your bed?”

Laura laughed outright but a blush flamed in my cheeks. “What ghost?” she asked.

“There’s no ghost,” I snapped. “She’s making it up.”

Laura’s hand encircled my wrist and panic surged as I realized she intended to get Ella to spill the beans on the ghost of Ransom’s Run.

“What ghost?” Laura asked Ella again.

Ella’s gaze swiveled to Laura triumphantly. “There’s a ghost in our house.”

“A scary ghost?”

By now, several people had turned in their seats. All eyes riveted to Ella. Everyone had already heard the rumors. I cringed and sank into my seat as the little twerp continued.

“No. He’s not scary at all,” Ella explained. “He’s a nice ghost.”

A red-headed, chunky, sophomore boy chuckled. “A nice ghost?”

Ella nodded. “His name is Jeremiah and he gave my sister that pin she’s wearing,” she announced, pointing to the sterling cardinal pin on the lapel of my dusky pink coat.

She delighted in the attention, elaborating as she told everything she knew and then some. I wished the bus itself would swallow me up. I wished could vanish on a whim just like Jeremiah.

“Really?” Laura asked. She flashed me a conspiratorial smile and I thought there was a glimmer of hope that everyone thought Ella was either exaggerating or making the whole thing up.

“So, you’ve seen him, too?” Laura asked me.

“No,” I said quickly.

“Liar!” Ella accused. “She’s got a picture of him beside her bed.”

Breathe. One…two…three…

“A picture?” the sophomore asked. “Of a ghost?”

“What does he look like?” Laura interjected.

“He’s tall and skinny,” Ella said and then sized up the sophomore. “Not like you. You’re a fat lard.”

Laura and I both suppressed giggles. “Ella!” I scolded.

“Well, he’s not!” Her bottom lip protruded at being reprimanded. “Jeremiah’s kind of cute. You think so, too.”

Accusation emanated from Laura’s gaze.

“I found an old photograph of the boy who died in the house during the Civil War,” I explained under my breath. “I thought it would be fun to spook Ella with a ghost story about him.”

Ella’s eyes narrowed into vicious slits. “You did not. I saw him. I’ve seen him in your room and I’ve seen him in the kitchen!” she exclaimed. “I even saw him kissing you behind the house.”

“Ella!”

“Well, I did.”

“That’s enough,” I retorted sharply, knowing my face was mottled with red splotches. “Turn around in your seat before I tell Mom you brought your game to school.”

In brazen defiance, she held my stare for several seconds before she relented and twisted in her seat to face forward once more. I silently let out a breath of relief.

“We were just having fun,” Laura said. “Why does it bother you?”

The sophomore piped up. “Probably because Briar calls her the ghost chick.”

How did he know that? I wanted to slap the freckles off his face. Instead, I tried to ignore him. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.” I absentmindedly fingered my cardinal pin.

Laura eyed me but I was grateful she didn’t press the ghost thing any further.

I hadn’t given any thought to Briar in weeks and suddenly her dark presence pressed down on me, suffocating me in a way I couldn’t explain. The closer we got to school, the harder it was to breathe. I hoped I was having a reaction to Ella’s outing me about Jeremiah instead of experiencing another psychic hit.

The bus rocked to a stop in front of the school but before I stood to get off, a sharp pain stabbed straight into the center of my chest. I doubled over and clutched the seat in front of me.

“Wren?” Laura asked. “Are you all right?”

My mind raced as the pain intensified. This wasn’t a reaction to my bratty sister’s confession. This was something else. Something a thousand times worse. Mentally, I wished Jeremiah had his strong, comforting arms around me, especially when an overwhelming sense of fear crept up my body.

Laura slipped her arm around my shoulders. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to attune my energy with Jeremiah’s.

Nothing.

Maybe not being with him caused this crazy reaction. This panic. After all, during winter break, I’d become so accustomed to the encompassing, effervescent feeling of him, it was odd to be without him.

I willed the bad feeling to subside and drew in gulps of air. Laura helped me off the bus. The biting January wind whipped through my air, cooling my flushed cheeks and neck. I usually hated the cold. Right now, I welcomed it.

Laura swept a strand of my hair out of my face. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” Anxiety finally melting away, I shifted my backpack higher on my shoulder and trudged into school.

As soon as I got to homeroom, I dragged out a notebook and held a pen to paper. No swirling energy took hold of my hand. No messages of love spilled from my pen. Where was Jeremiah?

I tried to convince myself I was being silly. He couldn’t stay with me twenty-four seven. The first period bell buzzed and I moved trancelike to my government class, my mind consumed with my odd, impossible relationship with a ghost.

Jeremiah’s presence in my life had healed me in so many ways. Before him, guilt over Kira’s death had eaten me alive. Because of him, I understood the concept of choices and consequences. I comprehended that unfortunate things happened to good people and that those things might just be cosmic catalysts designed to teach life lessons that moved people toward their destinies.

I knew in my heart that Jeremiah was my destiny. My forever love.

He saw through me easier than I could see through him. Although he couldn’t read my thoughts, he interpreted my emotions and he loved me despite my shortcomings. Despite the fear and guilt that had scarred my life like the scar on my face. His love was unconditional and pure. It had taught me to trust, not only in others but in myself as well. Through his love, I’d learned I was desirable even with my faults.

And scars.

Most of my friends had found such solace through religion, their parents or their friends.

For me, it had taken the love from a boy who’d died over a century before my birth—a love that transcended time and the bonds of life and death.

I’d considered these things before but for the first time, I realized that I’d come to accept myself for who I was on the inside, scars and all. I was whole and beautiful and lovable to a soul I found just as perfect.

Frank slid into his desk and began an easy conversation with me. In spite of the episode on the bus, I felt like a new person. Vibrant. Alive.

For the first time in over a year, I felt like
myself
.

Frank and I continued to talk quietly about Christmas break while Mr. Daniels called roll. One name, however, snared my attention.

“Briar?” Mr. Daniels called. “Has anyone seen Briar this morning?”

The mere mention of Briar’s name turned my blood to ice.

“She went to the nurse,” one of Briar’s friends said. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

“I see.” Mr. Daniels’ tone was edged with sarcasm. “Maybe she’ll grace us with her presence before the pop quiz.”

A collective groan arose from the students.

“Not to fear,” he continued. “It is open book. However, one must be in attendance to take it.”

The teacher’s little dig at my sworn enemy did little to quell the uneasiness that began to rise inside me again.

* * * * *

Waylon waited for me outside the double doors to the lunchroom. “Laura’s been asking questions,” he said without a ‘welcome back from Christmas break’ segue. “I didn’t know how much you’d told her.”

“How much?” I squeaked.

“She said something about you telling her about a photograph of Jeremiah Ransom,” Waylon explained as we walked into the lunchroom.

Sick dread seeped from my head down to my toes. “What did
you
tell
her
?”

“She…she asked me if I knew about the ghost,” he said. “Wren, you’ve got to know I would never betray you.”

I squeezed my lunch tray to keep my hands from shaking. “I know.” Already, I wondered who else Laura had told.

Ella’s piping voice echoed in my head.
I even saw him kissing you behind the house.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I thought you’d told her. She knew…things.”

“My bratty little sister told her,” I ground out.

“Wren, Laura’s your friend,” Waylon said, trying to console me. “I think it’d be good for you to talk to somebody about Jeremiah.”

“You’re right,” I conceded, remembering how nice it had been to confide in Waylon, to unburden myself when I’d felt as if I was going to overflow. Still, he’d believed me because he’d had an encounter with Jeremiah. Laura had not. “But I don’t want my best friend thinking I’m a nutcase.”

Waylon laughed. “Oh, I told her about the day he ran me off. If she thinks you’re a nutcase then the same goes for me. Besides, that picture of him standing next to you in your upstairs hall doesn’t lie.”

Relieved at that, I laughed.

When Laura saw me headed toward our table, she didn’t go to the line. Instead, she rushed straight over and hurtled into her seat. “It’s true, isn’t it, Wren?”

“I…uh…well…yes.” My cheeks heated. I knew I must be red-faced.

Her eyes rounded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I…I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“Believe you?” she exclaimed. “This is the coolest thing ever! Can I meet him?”

I exchanged a worried glance with Waylon. “It didn’t go too well when Waylon met him.”

“He thought I was trying to steal his girl,” Waylon joked. “I don’t think a Southern gentleman would extend the same hostile treatment to a lady.”

“Please!” Laura bounced up and down in her seat.

“I suppose it would be all right,” I said. “But let me ask him first.”

Laura giggled excitedly.

“But you have to promise not to tell anybody,” I said.

She held up her little finger. “Pinky swear.”

Although I knew everything
should
be all right now, I still sensed a shadow of dread. Briar remained absent from her usual lunch table. I couldn’t help but think she had something to do with the panic that simmered, hidden just beneath the false calm of my exterior.

We agreed not to mention Jeremiah to Holly or Frank. Holly was too concerned with her college boyfriend and Frank would never believe in Jeremiah’s existence no matter what proof or witnesses I had.

When Frank joined us, I read the disappointment in Laura’s face. The concept of Jeremiah’s ghost excited her. I didn’t have to tap my intuition to know she wanted to ask me about what Ella had said on the bus that morning.

As soon as lunch ended, Laura walked with me toward the one class of the day we shared. “What was it like?” she asked as soon as we were out of earshot of the others.

“What was what like?”

“Kissing a ghost?” she whispered. Her blue eyes shone with wonder.

Joy sparkled inside me. “It was…”

“No wait,” she said. “I want to hear the whole story from the beginning. Have you seen him?”

“Yes.”

Her mouth fell open. “Weren’t you scared?”

I laughed. “Yes.”

She hung on every word. “How did he…die?”

“He was killed during the Civil War.” Just saying the words drove the fact home hard that I was involved with a dead man.

Involved.

I was more than involved. I was in love with him.

“Is he the son who was brought back to the house to die?”

I nodded, fighting off the dark chill that washed over me. Jeremiah’s spirit was as vibrant as any living person’s and even though that fact comforted me, the thought of him once being alive and dying a soldier’s death, forever separating him from those he loved, tugged at a place deep in my heart.

“Did he really give you that pin?” Laura gestured at the cardinal on my lapel.

Instinctively, I fingered it. “Yes.”

“How?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It just sort of fell into my lap.”

She stared, incredulous. “I’ve heard the Bell Witch dropped gifts into Mrs. Bell’s lap.”

Even though the poltergeist known as the Bell Witch haunted the Tennessee family of John Bell two hundred years ago, stories steeped in truth and legend remained popular amongst Maury County students, passed down and still repeated with wide eyes and whispering voices. I shuddered. That was one ghost I didn’t want to ever run across.