A Gift of Ghosts (Tassamara) (10 page)

Lovely. She’d just thrown a fifteen-year-old boy ghost who’d
been alone for years into close proximity with an extremely pretty girl ghost.
What a good idea that was. She put her hand up to cover her mouth, and the
smile that she couldn’t contain, and shook her head. Zane was looking at her,
waiting for a response. Rose was staring at her. Dillon was staring at Rose.
And the movers were still moving boxes and furniture into the house.

“Maybe we should all—I mean, maybe we should go into the
kitchen?” she said to Zane. “I could maybe make you some tea?”

“Tea?” His tone didn’t conceal his dismay at the idea. “Coffee?”
he suggested.

“Green tea is extremely good for you. Polyphenols,
antioxidants, lowers your cholesterol—and for a guy whose favorite meal is a
cheeseburger and fries, that’s probably a good idea.”

“It also tastes disgusting. Like drinking grass, and not the
entertaining kind.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll make you some nice mint tea, then.
It’ll taste like gum.”

“Can you see me?” Rose repeated urgently, ignoring the
conversation that Zane and Akira were having.

“Um, she can, yes,” Dillon answered, finally finding his
voice, while Akira turned and entered the house, Zane and the ghosts falling
into step behind her.

She shivered in the hallway when Rose burst through her,
calling for Henry. As they stepped into the kitchen, the older ghost was
tucking his newspaper under his arm, saying calmly, “Rose, now, honey, slow
down, you’re talking so fast I can’t understand a word.”

“She can see me, Henry, she can see me,” Rose burbled. “And
look, she brought one of us with her.” She gestured, wide-armed, at Dillon.

“Well, how do you do, son?” Henry reached out to Dillon but
his hand passed straight through Dillon’s. “Oh.” He looked surprised, but
Dillon was unconcerned, just turning the shake into a casual wave. He’d gotten
over his stunned amazement, Akira noticed, and was now bouncing on his toes
with excitement.

Akira looked around the kitchen, debating her next move. With
the movers in the house and Zane in the room, she shouldn’t talk to the ghosts.
Or maybe she should. Maybe it was time to see if Zane was really as nonchalant
about the idea as he acted. Then she imagined trying to open her mouth and say
hello to the ghosts with him watching, and her heart quailed. She bit her lip
uncertainly.

“Aha, a perfect test,” Zane said. He was looking around the
kitchen, oblivious to the ghostly conversation. The movers had stacked half a
dozen boxes on the floor next to the sink, and Zane crossed to them, walking
through Henry without blinking, although Akira winced. Running his hand down
the sides of the plain brown boxes, he stopped, crouching, at the bottom. “Always
the last one.”

Standing, he shifted the boxes, and then pulled out the one
he’d picked. He looked over his shoulder at Akira, and tilted the box, so that
she could see the label on top. In her own careful handwriting, it read “Kitchen,
Open First.”

“Convinced?” Zane said.

She smiled at him and her moment of uncertainty passed. “You
said it yourself; the one you want is always on the bottom.”

He was picking at the tape at the edge of the box, pulling it
loose. “And I suppose everyone knows that the first thing you need when you’ve
just moved is a way to make hot water taste like dirt?” He grinned up at her,
as he pulled the long strip of tape off. “If I was the one who’d packed, this
box would hold a bottle opener, a six pack of beer, and a way to play music.”

He tucked back the cardboard flaps. On the top of the box lay
her iPod speakers, carefully enclosed in bubble wrap.

“Half-right,” Akira said. She took out the speakers and handed
them to Zane, and then rummaged in the box for her tea kettle, mugs, and the
boxes of tea.

“Music?” asked Rose, peering over Zane’s shoulder. “Does that
play music?”

“It does,” Akira answered her, not bothering to explain the
part about connecting an iPod to it.

Zane, unwrapping the speakers, glanced at her. Akira took a
deep breath. Was she really going to do this? In front of a stranger?

An almost stranger, she corrected herself. An almost stranger
who claimed to be psychic. An almost stranger who . . . she paused in her
thoughts, before she could go any farther. She wasn’t ready to think about him
in detail. Not now, not yet. The warm glow when she looked at him was enough of
an answer to her always question, was it safe? Yes. Yes, it was safe.

At least she hoped it was.

“I’m Akira,” she said to Rose and Henry. “And yes, I can see
and hear you.”

“But you’re living,” Rose protested.

“My heavens,” said Henry, rocking back a little and looking
startled. “I don’t know as we’ve ever met a real medium before.”

Akira sighed. Really? Did she have to keep having this
conversation? “I’m not a medium.”

“She just talks to ghosts,” Dillon contributed helpfully. “Not
all dead people.”

Zane had paused in his unwrapping, and was holding a speaker
in one hand, bubble wrap in the other. She could see him trying to follow her
gaze, but not seeing anyone.

“Thank you, Dillon,” Akira’s tone was dry. She supposed she
should appreciate his clarification.

“Now, that’s real interesting.” Henry seemed mildly pleased,
but Rose was looking dismayed.

Folding her arms across her chest, she stuck her chin in the
air. “Well, I’m not going.”

Akira eyed her warily. She didn’t like it when ghosts got
emotional. “Going where?”

“Aren’t you going to try to exorcise us?” Rose dropped her
arms, defiance melting away, and Akira relaxed.

“Uh, no, I wasn’t planning on it,” she answered. “I wouldn’t
know how. Besides, I thought Dillon might like the company.”

“Company!” Rose clapped her hands. “We have company, Henry.”

***

Zane watched Akira talking to empty space, and wondered what
it was like for her. What did they look like, the ghosts? Were they translucent
white shapes? Were they shadows? She’d talked about them being energy: did they
look like beings made of energy or did they look human?

Did they look dead? Ugh, that was a creepy thought.

He’d seen Dillon at the hospital. He’d looked gray and cold,
the color drained from his lips and skin. Did he look like that now? If he did,
Zane was just as glad he couldn’t see him. It was strange enough to think that
he was in the room, but that time hadn’t changed him, that he’d stayed frozen
at the moment of his death.

Zane could barely remember what Dillon was like when he died.
When he thought about him, he remembered all the stages: the baby Dillon,
wide-eyed and peaceful; the toddler Dillon, finally getting real hair after
months of wispy feathery strands; the six-year-old Dillon, driving cars up and
down the dirt in the garden for endless hours; the nine-year-old Dillon,
pontificating about the perfect strategy in some complicated card game. All
those Dillons, all those many Dillons, had already been gone the night the fifteen
year-old tried to jump start a psychic gift with an overdose of supposedly
hallucinogenic drugs.

The idiot.

He returned to unwrapping the speakers, still listening to
Akira’s one-sided conversation, but trying not to react. He’d seen her wary
glance at him. He knew she was uneasy, and he could guess that trust wasn’t
something she gave lightly. He wanted to be careful.

From their conversation in the car yesterday—maybe it could
even be called an argument—he knew that keeping her ability secret was important
to her. He didn’t really understand why. His mom had always insisted that they
keep their gifts private, but she saw them as a competitive business advantage,
more akin to the formula for Coca-Cola than skeletons in the closet. It wasn’t
danger that she worried about. But Akira had made it clear that she thought
letting people know she could see ghosts was dangerous.

Maybe she was right. Damn, but he wanted to know about those
broken bones. Still, from the way she’d responded yesterday, he wasn’t going to
get answers any time soon.

And he wasn’t going to push. He’d never met anyone who’d been
abused before, not that he knew of. Of course, he didn’t know for sure that he
had now, not really. Still, he knew that he didn’t want to do anything that would
hurt her. Not now, not ever.

And that meant not showing how absolutely, truly strange it
was to be standing here listening to her converse with invisible people.

The doorbell rang, and he put down the speakers. “Want me to
get that?”

But Meredith wasn’t waiting for a reply. “Hello?” she called
out from the front door. “You here, Akira?”

“In the kitchen,” Zane answered.

Akira looked anxious, her dark eyes worried. “I didn’t have
time to talk about this,” she said, hurriedly. “But please don’t—” and then, as
Meredith walked into the kitchen carrying a tin-foil wrapped tray, she fell
silent.

Please don’t? Hmm, what did she not want him to do?

“Akira, hello, good to see your movers found the place. And Zane,
hi, haven’t seen you in ages.” The currently red-headed real estate agent
greeted them cheerfully.

“Hey, Mer.” Zane stepped forward and dropped a kiss on her
upturned cheek. “How’s your mom?”

“Oh, good days and bad, you know how it goes,” Meredith
replied. “Your dad dropped by for a visit last week, filled her in on all the
latest gossip. Did you hear that the youngest Terrell kid got into Yale?”

“Yep.” Zane waited for it.

“She’s the only one in that family with the brains God gave a
squirrel.” Meredith sniffed. Zane rubbed his chin to hide his smile. Meredith
always had been one to hold a grudge.

But then Meredith frowned. “But what are you doing here, Zane?”
she asked. She looked from him to Akira and back again, and Zane could see the
moment that she realized that Akira wasn’t just a scientist. “Does Akira work
for you?” she asked, with a hint of smugness in her smile as if she’d known all
along.

Oops.

Lying would be useless: gossip traveled in Tassamara at
slightly faster than light speed and if Smithson hadn’t already been complaining
to anyone who would listen that Zane was usurping his prerogatives, Zane didn’t
know the man. So Zane shrugged, and said, “Yep.”

Meredith paused, as if waiting for more, but when he didn’t
say anything else and Akira just looked puzzled, she quirked an eyebrow, and
then continued smoothly, “Well, I just dropped by to bring you this, Akira. A
little housewarming present, compliments of Maggie down at the bistro. She said
to tell you she’s real glad you’ve moved to town.”

“Thank you.” Akira took the tray that Meredith handed her
uncertainly. Zane wondered what was in it. Maggie liked cooking weird food; she
must be happy to have found an appreciative audience.

“Apparently you’re more interesting than the rest of us,”
Meredith said with a laugh.

“I haven’t met Maggie yet?” Akira’s words were half-question,
half-statement, and she glanced at Zane. He could see that she was wondering
why Maggie would take an interest in her and he smiled to reassure her. Maggie
didn’t like being interrupted while she was cooking or they would have
introduced her last night. But meeting Maggie was almost beside the point: if
you walked in the door of the bistro, she knew what you wanted to eat.

“No?” Meredith raised one shoulder. “That never troubles
Maggie. Although if you liked the same food as this one here,” she said,
gesturing to Zane, “she probably wouldn’t be bothering to cook for you.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with burgers and fries,” Zane protested
mildly. “And I like Maggie’s meatloaf.”

Meredith rolled her eyes. “Maggie told me what it was, but I
can’t say as I recall exactly. Aloo-something.”

Akira peeked under the tinfoil. “Aloo gobi. Yum.”

It didn’t sound yum. It sounded spicy.

“Well, you enjoy. Let me know if you need anything, Akira,
and I’ll see both of you later.” In a typical whirl, Meredith was gone.

“What did that mean?” Akira asked him immediately, setting
the dish down on the kitchen counter.

“What?” he asked, cursing silently. “That Maggie likes to
cook weird stuff? What’s in that?” He poked at the dish.

“No, that I work for you.”

Oh, man. She was going to be pissed, he just knew it. He
needed to think of a way to phrase his explanation carefully.

“Special affairs? What does that mean?” she continued.

But he hadn’t said anything. He frowned.

“I—what?” Akira grabbed at her hair as if she was going to pull
it out. “You’re not serious. But that means that everyone will know that I have
a, a, a quirk!”

Zane finally figured it out. “Hush up, Dillon,” he ordered. His
ghostly nephew was obviously answering Akira’s questions, and not carefully.

“This is terrible.” Akira glared at him. She looked better
when she was mad than when she was worried, he noted. That anxious look was
gone, replaced by pink cheeks.