The Lost Boys (41 page)

“Of course, you can trust us, Joey!” Sam said seriously.

“Always,” Josh added, and Harry nodded reassuringly as well.

“Okay. Good. I’m glad you are coping well with this,” Tristan said, smiling at the room. “Because now comes the really big revelation.” He made me sit by his side.

And then he told them about our history, the same way he had done with Seth and Tiffany by the oak tree. He told them everything. The whole truth.

At first they looked at us incredulously, making funny remarks and joking around. They weren’t believing any of what Tristan was telling them. Harry kept glancing at us and then at Seth to see his reaction, and when Seth stared back solemnly, he was left all confused about what to think.

After a while they realized we weren’t laughing. Then they started throwing questions at us, and we tried to answer them the best we could. The truth was, there were lots of things we didn’t know how to explain and some parts of the story were still a mystery to us as well. The only thing Tristan didn’t tell them about was about my ability to tell if someone was lying. I guess he thought it was my secret and not his to tell. I was glad he hadn’t told them. I couldn’t bear my friends being afraid to look me in the eyes.

But even so, Tristan glanced at me and I could read the question in his eyes. He wanted me to check how the boys were feeling. I surveyed the room. They wanted to believe, but the whole story was too fantastical for their skeptical minds to cope with. I looked at Tristan sadly and shook my head in a negative gesture. He sighed heavily and stood up. “Okay. I reckon this supernatural stuff is a little hard to swallow. I may have to do something more drastic to make you believe. This is just a special ‘treat’ I got to bring from Dead Land. It’s a ghost trick of sorts.” He walked to the middle of the room, so everybody could see him properly.

What was he talking abou— Oh no! He wasn’t! Before I could say anything, he faded out of sight.

Chapter Thirty-One

Finding Death

Well, at least for the people in the room he did. For me, Tristan turned into that partially faded state, like he was part of the background somehow. But if I focused a little, I could discern his form clearly. Not for the first time I wondered why I was the only one able to see him like that. Was it yet another peculiar quirk of our magic bond? But even before the spell, when he was still a ghost, I was always able to see Tristan, even though I couldn’t see the other ghosts in the cemetery. Maybe Tristan and I shared something deeper than a magic spell: an ancient connection? Maybe our souls were linked and I would always be able to see him, no matter what.

The second he disappeared out of sight, Harry let out a small yelp. Sam stood up fast, ready to sprint for the door if he needed to; and Josh, his eyes wide, blurted out a disbelieving,
“What the hell?”
Tiffany just held Seth’s arms in a deadly grip, frozen in fear. Even Seth looked surprised. He and Tiff had previously accepted Tristan’s story unconditionally and without proof, but now they were able to see
for real
what Tristan had been talking about all along. While our friends stood in this half-frozen, half-ready-to-flee stance, Tristan walked towards me and turned his fading off as he sat down by my side.

“Holy crap!” Harry was first to speak.

“Almost had a heart attack here, but definitely believing it now, dude.” Sam was sitting slowly back down on my bed, gasping with his hand over his chest.

“This. Is. So. Freakin’. Cool,” was Josh’s reaction. “Seriously, how did you NOT tell us that you can do this before, man? It’s like you’re one of the X-Men, or something! Does anybody else here have any superpowers they haven’t been telling us about?” He glared at the rest of the boys.

“Nope. Not that I know about,” Sam said. “Wait! Does super-human good looks count? Cos I’m certainly guilty of that one!” Sam winked playfully at Josh, who just rolled his eyes at him.

“And Harry has his freaky ‘super-hook-up-radar thing’,” he added thoughtfully.

“Yeah. That is freaky,” Seth agreed with Sam. “He’s never once got it wrong …”

Everybody turned their heads suspiciously towards Harry, who just reclined against the headboard, shrugging. “Don’t hate me cos I’m special,” he said mockingly.

Everybody laughed at Harry’s theatrics and seemed to relax again. After that little display of supernatural powers, a new round of questions was launched at Tristan. He tried to answer the best he could, but most of his replies were along the lines of
“Don’t really know”
or
“Can’t really say”
and sometimes “
I’m not sure
.”

After that the boys stopped their interrogation and switched to high praise for his superpower special ability thing. He just listened to the boys joking around, and smiled contentedly at their excited faces. I could see sincere affection in Tristan’s eyes, how much he cared for our friends. And the rest of The Lost Boys clearly felt the same about him. I couldn’t help but smile. Not in a million years would I have imagined myself being part of such an amazing group of friends, and part of a band with them, too. How cool was that? I felt Tristan’s hand squeezing mine softly, and I turned to look at him. Once again I was blown away by the intensity of his piercing gaze. He grasped my chin lightly with the tip of his fingers, making me tilt my head up a little, and leaned in to give me a soft kiss. I was so engulfed by his kiss that I completely forgot about anything else. I could happily spend all eternity lost in his kisses. They made me forget about the rest of the world.

But then Sam’s voice cut in sharply, startling us and making us part.

“Hey! You two, cut it out! Some of us still haven’t adjusted to this new relationship yet!” Sam shouted from my bed. “So no kissing for at least the next twenty-four hours!” he said, frowning and making a parting gesture with his arms.

Tristan chuckled and leaned back on his headboard, pulling me with him and wrapping his arms around my waist. “How about hugging. Is that allowed?” he asked, resting his chin on my shoulder.

Sam pondered the question for a second and sniffed loudly. “I suppose a little hugging is acceptable. But please keep the lovey-dovey stuff to a minimum. It’s very unsettling,” he said, making everybody crack up laughing all over again.

The boys started pondering the many ways of turning Tristan’s fading ability to their advantage, suggesting he could sneak inside the staff room and have a quick look at test sheets.

Tristan chuckled lightly at their absurd requests but shook his head at all suggestions thrown his way.

I laughed hard at his refusals. It was like trying to convince Superman to do something against the law. It just wasn’t going to happen. Not in a million years.

Seth was apparently the only one on Tristan’s side. “You’re right, man. Don’t do it! With great power comes great responsibility!” Seth said, quoting the famous line from
Spider-Man
. He was such a geek. And so was I, because I knew where that line came from.

“Could you be more lame, dude?” Harry scoffed.

“How do you put up with him being so nerdy, Tiffany?” Josh asked, shaking his head vigorously.

Tiffany paused, looking at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Oh, I tolerate all his geekiness because he is so good in bed, you know?” she said, smiling sexily.

Seth choked and turned all red in the face, taken completely by surprise at Tiffany’s out-of-the-blue confession.

Everybody in the room, including myself, gawked at her. Tiffany loved seeing Seth blush. And he was so pale and blond; it was true entertainment seeing his face turning full-on beet red in a matter of seconds. Seth got a round of applause and compliments from the guys after that, making him turn an even darker shade of red. It was hilarious to watch!

We kept talking for a long time in our room after that. The boys also offered to help us by researching Tristan’s situation online and in the school library. I was overwhelmed by their support: they were determined to do whatever was necessary to help us get through this. They were confident about finding a way out of this deadline deal. I felt confidence rising inside of me as well. We could do this! We could find a way!

In the middle of the afternoon, Harry offered to get everybody some snacks and sodas from the cafeteria, and I volunteered to help him carry the food. I had been watching Harry for a while, and there was something he was trying to hide, something that was bothering him, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I took the opportunity to ask him while we were walking through the school corridors.

He glanced quickly at me and then went back to staring right ahead. “No. Nothing’s wrong,” he said, but the smile never reached his green eyes.

“Come on, Harry. You can tell me. You look upset … and sad,” I said, reading it in his eyes.

He stopped slowly and turned to me. “I guess I’m still a little surprised, that’s all. I just need some time to let it all sink in.”

“I’m sorry to drop the bomb on you guys like that. We should have told you little by little.”

“Nah, that’s okay. I’m glad you told us everything.” He shuffled his feet “So … you and Tristan, huh? I should have seen it, the way you two looked at each other. It’s so obvious now,” he mused. There it was again. The hint of sadness behind his eyes. “And here I was thinking he was just a jealous brother, when he was in fact a jealous boyfriend.” He chuckled lightly.

“Harry,” I said, smiling softly at him, and then I saw it. Love and hope and then defeat and resignation. He was giving up on the possibility that something might happen between us. I truly hated my gift of empathy then. I didn’t want to violate his private feelings like that. I wished I hadn’t seen the secrets in his eyes. “Harry … I-I hope you know how much you mean to me,” I managed to say. “You’re one of my best friends and I love you so much. Your friendship means the world to me.”

He smiled in response and I threw my arms around him, hugging him tight. He tensed in surprise first, but then he slowly relaxed and hugged me back. “Of course, Joe,” he said quietly, and then he quickly broke away and coughed, slightly embarrassed. “Come on, you’re way too emotional today, Joey. You’re almost acting like a girl! Let’s go get these snacks, okay?” he teased, walking ahead of me.

I followed him with a heavy heart, and after that day I never once mentioned what I’d seen in Harry’s eyes, to anyone.

That night I slept in Tristan’s arms and dreamed I was walking through the cemetery lanes, back in Esperanza. Everything looked familiar, but at the same time strange. There were still the angel statues and big heavy-stoned crosses, a few scattered trees between graves and the usual grass and weeds growing between the cracks in the paving. But when I started to look more carefully, some things were out of proportion and bent in wrong angles. The light seemed weird too, too foggy to be identified as any particular time of the day. It was the kind of light you only get in dreams.

As soon as I realized I was dreaming, I tensed up. It was Vigil’s favorite place to try to contact me. As soon as this thought popped in my head, I saw his slim figure hunched on the nearest wooden bench. He looked sideways at me, not daring to stare directly. He was trying out a nonchalant, non-threatening pose.

My first instinctive reaction was to shut my eyes tight and try my
“wakeupwakeupwakeup”
mantra, to break Vigil’s connection. But then I remembered we needed to gather as much information about Tristan’s situation as possible. The library and internet were all well and good, but who would know more than Vigil himself? So instead of shutting myself off from him, I walked straight over and sat on his bench, but as far away from him as I could, just to be on the safe side.

He looked startled at my approach and was even more shocked when I started up a conversation with him.

“Go ahead, Vigil, talk,” I said a little too sharply.

“E-excuse me?”

“You obviously want to talk to me. You have been trying to contact me in my dreams for a long time now. If you wanted to do something to hurt me, you would probably have done it by now, so I gather you won’t, or perhaps you can’t. So. Talk. I’m all ears,” I stated.

“I-I do wish to talk with you,” he said, a little uncertain.

“Yes, Captain Obvious,” I retorted sarcastically.

He frowned, not understanding me.

I was starting to notice Vigil didn’t grasp sarcasm very well. I needed to be more straightforward when I was talking to him. “I mean, yes, I know that. Go on,” I corrected myself, and waited for him to continue.

He eyed me suspiciously, a little fearfully, as if I was about to strike him again. I was also starting to notice I could read him more easily now. The first times we had met, I could barely detect a smidgen of emotion coming from him. But with each encounter, he seemed to be letting more show.

“I want you to know that it is not my intention to hurt anyone. As I’ve told you, I am just trying to make things right. Is that such a bad thing?” he stated calmly.

I tried to follow his line of reasoning. “Your job is to send Tristan back to being a ghost, or worse. Who says that is the right thing to do?” I questioned.

“I do.” he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “It is my job to know this.”

“And if you’re wrong? What if he belongs here, with me. With the living, I mean,” I said, correcting myself just in time.

“I am never wrong.”

“What if you are this time?”

“I am not. This is what I need to do.”

I sighed, frustrated. “Is there anything I can do to make you change your mind?” I asked. It was worth to try. “I can help you, you know, with your job? You said it’s your job to fix things, to put things back in their right places. I gather you must have to deal with a lot of problems, a lot of … unexpected things,” I said.

From what I could observe, Vigil was a sucker for rules, a control-freak. And dealing with unexpected events all over the universe must require being adaptable. Something he lacked big time. I continued my proposal. “I could help you with that; I could be your ‘human adviser’ for unpredictable matters. I could help you understand.”