Lu opened her eyes, staring toward the chair where I sat.
“It’s okay, love,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
Lu closed her eyes again.
“Can she hear you?” Stella asked.
“No. But we’ve been together for a long time. She knows…well, she knows.” I got to my feet and stretched, lifting my arms over my head and bending my elbow to pull at the catch between my shoulder blades.
Stella watched all that with interest. “You don’t really feel sore do you?”
“Yep.”
“But you are a…a…well, you’re not alive. You don’t have any muscles, blood, nerves left.”
“I know I must have one nerve left because you’re getting on it.”
Stella covered her mouth and laughed. “You did not just say that.”
I winked. “How about you show me that journal. If it’s as magic as you think, it might have something that will help us figure out how you get to talk to your sister.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes. Oh, yes, that’s a wonderful idea! Can you turn pages? I don’t have enough,” she wiggled her hands, “solidness to do it. I’ve tried. If I had even half a hand, I’d have written Dot a note. Maybe dragged a word or two across a foggy mirror like the ghosts in those TV shows. Do you watch TV? Ordidyou when you were alive?”
Lorde had lifted her head again, listening to the barrage of words.
Ghosts were talky. It was like they haven’t had anyone to talk to in a hundred years.
I tipped my chin at Lorde, and the dog got the hint and went back to lightly sleeping, her ears twitching at the subtle sounds of the old house settling in the sunlight, the brush and whisper of branches and leaves in the wind beyond the window.
“Or are you old enough to have only listened to radio? I can’t tell by your clothes, but maybe you can change yours? I’ve been stuck in this same dress and shoes since the day of the…since theday. But I’ve never felt sore or stiff. I can’t feel anything really.”
She frowned again and held out her hands, giving her fingers a wiggle. “I think it’s a memory of sensation. I remember what it’s like to touch something: fire’s hot, ice is cold, but actually touching something isn’t…it isn’t the same. Of course nothing is the same.”
“Where’s the journal?” I asked. I was beginning to think I would have preferred she just follow me around screaming instead of this non-stop babbling. No wonder she had something to say to her sister. Stella was a talker.
“What? Oh. This way.” She stepped through the exterior wall.
I followed, ignoring the house’s memories of sunshine and wind and snow piled up so high, it covered the windows.
Stella waited for me right there next to the pecan tree. “You gave me your word.”
“It hasn’t changed. I see the journal, you get to talk to Dot.”
She nodded, her sober eyes drinking down each word. “I’d forgotten… Well, I’ve forgotten a lot of things. You’d think with all the time I have, I’d be swimming in memories, but they seem to fade more and more. The journal wasn’t where I remembered putting it the last time I touched it. But a lot has happened since then. I died.”
She waited, so I nodded. “Do you remember that?” I asked.
“Every second.”
“White light calling you up?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “There were voices. Family, friends. My aunt Claire gave me a hug. She was…going to lead me, I think.”
“And?”
I’d always been curious about the dead who stayed behind. All of them had at least one peaceful happy thing happen when they’d breathed their last. Seeing a family member, a friend, a beloved pet just waiting to take them into that warm light.
Not me. I’d emptied my lungs and come out of cold blackness to the sound of Lu screaming.
