Ruby's Ghost (3 page)

“I can’t hear anything.” She crossed her arms and glared. “Are you still mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you. We broke up…” The pressure in his skull released. A wave of vertigo made him stumble.

Ruby screamed and lunged for him. Then his body jerked like he was a puppet on a string and he was standing on a road. A real road, and there was no mist.

Dawn was turning the sky pink. He grinned. Pink. Who’d have thought color could be so good. He turned around as he tried to work out where he was…the other question he had was more worrying. What was happening to him?

Up the road there was a police car and officers in reflective vests. He started walking toward them, but his steps slowed as he realized what they were doing. They were measuring skid marks and distances to a motorbike lying on its side. He read the number plate, and his stomach bottomed out. For a moment the world seemed unstable, as if it were spinning too fast. The bike lying on the ground was
his
bike.

Memories of the accident rushed back. He remembered the ambulance, the faces talking to him in the lights—they were explaining things. Surgery. He’d needed surgery for something. He looked at his arm, but it hadn’t been fixed. His head, they’d done something to his head. How could he be walking around if he was in surgery? Maybe he was dead. Maybe he’d died on the table.

No. He was in pain—that had to be a good sign. But while he felt the pain in his head and down his arm, it wasn’t quite right. Like an ache instead of agony. He used his good hand to lift his dangling arm. The pain didn’t change. If he was injured, he should be in hospital, not walking around.

So was he dreaming or a ghost?

He walked up to the cops and they ignored him, they were busy with their notes and conversation. They couldn’t see him.

“Hey, that’s my bike,” he yelled. No one looked at him.

Strike two. He didn’t like where this experiment was going. Pain, yes. Alive…yes? Visible, no. He grabbed for the handlebars with his good hand but it passed right through the metal. He shivered. He wasn’t real. No, that wasn’t right. He was real, he just wasn’t in his body.

Yeah, ’cause that made perfect sense.

The other option was that he was dreaming…but the sunrise looked real and the leaves on the trees trembled in the breeze. There was too much detail for him to be dreaming it. And the mist? That had felt more like a nightmare that he had to break free of. If he was sleeping then there was nothing he could do. If he was temporarily separated from his body, he needed to get back to it.

But how did he do that?

He tried to imagine himself back together. Dizziness rushed through him, and his next step slammed him facedown into dew-damp grass.

He pushed himself up with his good arm and found himself in the front yard of what had once been his family’s home. Back when they’d been a family. He dusted his hands off but found they weren’t wet or grassy. His jeans weren’t wet either. The dizziness was replaced by a slow crawling panic that started in his gut and crawled through his blood. What the hell was going on?

“Tate!” Ruby swore and spun around as if Tate would magically reappear behind her.

One moment he’d been in front of her and the next he was gone. He’d left her, again. There were so many things she wouldn’t get to do now; however, if Tate was with her, then being dead would be okay. They were meant for each other. All she had to do was convince him to let go of life.

But Tate had gone back to his body, which meant he was still hanging on. And she wasn’t sure how to find him. As she thought of him, her location shifted around her; from the open air to bland hospital walls. She glanced around, confused for a second, then she saw Tate lying on a bed.

Her throat constricted. He looked worse than when he’d been put in the ambulance. A bandage was wrapped around his head, and his body was connected to machines. On one side of him sat his father. He looked like he’d just come off shift, still in his fireman’s uniform. Tate’s father had tolerated her but had never liked her—not that he’d ever said anything, he was far too polite for that.

She sat on the other side and reached out to hold Tate’s hand. Her fingers slid through him. She tried again, wanting to feel him and hold him, but there was nothing to grab onto. She was a ghost and that was his body.

Her gaze flickered over him. He had tubes going in and out of him, and he looked pale, like he was a shell made of skin. She looked closer. Part of Tate was missing. The part she should be able to touch, his spirit. She’d spoken to him, but when he’d vanished, he hadn’t returned to his body.

Ruby frowned. Where was his spirit?

Tate walked down the footpath, not sure what to do. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, but he had no pulse when he searched his neck and wrist. His head ached, but he could find no reason why. Then there was his arm. He could use it fine, but it hung funny, and there was a hot pain in his left shoulder blade. Whatever surgery he’d been through hadn’t killed him. Dead shouldn’t hurt, and neither should dreaming, but he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

He walked up the footpath away from what had once been his home. The whole time he was dwelling on his predicament and the endless possibilities. None of them were good. He stopped walking and looked up. He was in front of his old house again. How was that possible? He’d been walking in a straight line.

He walked away again and the same thing happened.

Then he turned around and walked back to where the car had hit his bike. His bike was being loaded onto a tow truck. The road would be reopened soon and everything would go back to normal. Except him. He shouldn’t be like this, wandering around. People didn’t come unstuck…or maybe they did and they just didn’t remember so no one talked about it. He walked on. And ended up outside the house again.

Great, he was stuck on replay.

He hadn’t lived here for over a decade, so why did he keep ending up here? It didn’t seem to matter how far he walked—he either ended up here or at the accident scene. Tate shook his head and started walking again. He had to find his body. He didn’t like that he was separated from it. This time as he walked he kept his body firmly in his mind, hoping that if he thought about it he’d find his way back.

And then?

He didn’t know, but his body couldn’t be doing well if his spirit was wandering around lost. Maybe it was a bad sign and he was destined to end up in the mist. He had to get back into his body, but the farther he walked and the harder he concentrated, the worse the pain in his head became. He put his hands on his temples and forced himself to go another five steps before being forced to his knees by the agony. Thoughts of returning to his body scattered as he tried to fight through the pain, but once his mind was clear the blossoming headache receded.

He stood up carefully and looked around. In front of him was his old house. Again. He’d rather be at his dad’s place. That he could understand. It was home. But it hadn’t felt that way when he’d first lived there. After his mother had left all he’d wanted was to come back here and be a family again.

He glanced up the road toward the accident scene—the only other place he seemed to be able to go. Given the choice he’d rather be here. At least the house was filled with happy memories.

But it wasn’t his home anymore. Someone else lived here, and he couldn’t just walk in, could he? He looked at his hands. He seemed real, but the cops at the accident scene hadn’t seen him. No one could see him. Maybe he could have a look around and see how the place had changed. It was that or sit out in front on the lawn.

Tate hesitated then strode forward. He walked up the path and almost knocked, then he shrugged and put his hand against the door. It went straight through, so he followed with a small smile forming on his lips. No one could see him, so it didn’t matter what he did. He could drift in and out like a ghost, but he wasn’t, and it didn’t feel right to walk in uninvited. He was invading someone else’s home. That wiped the smile away. How would he feel if a ghost was wandering around his house? Would he even notice? Probably not, so was there any harm in a quick look?

He walked through the entrance and drew in a breath as memories rushed at him like floodwater filled with debris of another life. He’d never seen anything wrong between his parents until the day they announced they were divorcing. He knew now it had been years in the making. His father claimed his mother had chosen career over family, yet she had never acted like she resented having a child. But she hadn’t wanted Tate to live with her either. Twelve months after the divorce she’d moved across the country. Now she lived in Germany.

The house that had been his childhood home had changed. The paint was different, the furniture was newer and in different places. But it was here he’d felt safe, as if nothing could ever go wrong. Of course at ten his world view had centered around himself. Something brushed against his hand. Tate looked down but saw nothing. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling someone was holding his hand. The heat on his skin, the pressure and the roughness. His father.

Tate paused at the bottom of the staircase and closed his eyes. At first he heard nothing except whispers of his name that made him shiver. Then he heard it clearly—his father was talking. While he couldn’t make out the words, they were warm. He hadn’t realized he’d been cold. He tried to will himself there, to tell his father he was okay, but nothing happened except the pain in his head that came whenever he tried to get back to his body. He touched his skull to reassure himself that it wasn’t broken. He didn’t know what the doctors had done in the operation but it hadn’t fixed the dull throbbing.

The stairs didn’t creak as he went up them. They used to. He’d gotten told off many times for sliding down the banister. His mother had worried he’d break his arm. What would she say now? What was his father saying?

There were so many things he hadn’t said to either of his parents. His throat tightened. He would get back to his body and wake up—the alternative was too awful to contemplate. What if he never woke up and remained in a coma? Is that what his parents thought now? Was that why he was wandering around? Was he that badly hurt?

Panic fluttered in his stomach, or where his stomach should be. The accident hadn’t been that bad. He didn’t feel too mangled. Then he realized it was the headache that was serious. Had his brain been damaged? How would he know? There was no one he could ask. He needed to know how badly he was hurt. What were his odds of survival? And that would change what? Would that help him? Probably not.

What about Ruby? Was she alive? Her spirit wandering like his? Maybe when they both woke up they’d be able to compare notes on what it was like to be caught in between life and death. And the mist? He must have dreamed it. He needed to believe she was fine, because even though he didn’t love her anymore he couldn’t imagine not seeing her around. He should never have given her the lift home.

He went up the stairs, not sure what he was looking for, only that he had to keep moving instead of thinking. The answer to getting back to his body might be here. If it wasn’t, he’d be stuck haunting the place and spying on someone else’s happy family. The door to his old bedroom was open so he glanced inside, keen to see who was now using his house.

The bedside light was on, but the woman in the bed was sleeping. Her dark hair was spread over the pillow. He took a step closer. She looked familiar. The room looked familiar, and not just because it had once been his. Memories flickered past in rapid succession. The accident, the lights, the darkness, this room. Realization hollowed his stomach. He’d come here after the accident.

In a few steps he crossed the room and stood in the middle where he had stood last night, confused and hurting. Nothing much had changed in those few hours. He turned slowly, taking in the whole of the room until he faced the bed and the young woman. She’d spoken to him last night.

She’d seen him.

And now she was sleeping with the light on. Tate tilted his head. Had he scared her?

Of course he had. A strange man in her room. A strange
ghost
in her room. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

He should go, yet he didn’t move. This woman had been able to see him. Maybe she could help him. Or maybe she’d scream and tell him to leave. Is that what had happened last night?

The woman stirred and opened her eyes with a snap as if she could sense him. Her gaze settled on him immediately and she sat up. “You’re back.”

Chapter Three

Eloise wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear his reply over the pounding of her blood in her ears. She reached out a hand to the salt she’d put on the bedside table. After seeing him the first time she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. She’d listened to the sirens, and eventually she’d gotten up, got some salt—not sure if it would work in real life the way it did on TV—and put it around her bed. She must have fallen asleep with the light on. Not that she needed it on now; sunlight was spilling into her room and through the injured ghost man. He hadn’t moved.

“What do you want?” she said with more bravery than she felt as she fingered the salt, ready to throw it at him if he tried something. “Why are you here?” Was he haunting her?

He seemed to swallow before speaking. Did ghosts swallow? Or was it a reflex left over from living?

“I don’t know.” This time he wasn’t flickering. He seemed more solid.

She glanced at the carpet; he wasn’t dripping ghostly blood either. But she didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. “Why did you come back?”

“I used to live here, a bit more than ten years ago. This was my room.”

“Oh.” She looked at him again, a frown forming. He seemed familiar, like she should know him.

“You’ve seen me before.”

Eloise blinked and glanced away. Was he reading her mind? She swung her legs around so she sat on the edge of her bed, well aware she was in her comfy PJs and her hair probably looked awful.
He is a ghost. Like it matters.