“He wants us to see something. He led us here.”
I looked around again at our little brother’s toys. The watery footsteps—could someone have faked those, too? The ball had stopped rolling and was wedged in the corner. Nothing moved or made a sound. I could see no message, no pattern. Just a child’s playthings that announced,I am here.
I wanted to believe it. If it was really Ben, was that what he was trying to tell us? That he was here?
My gaze caught on something and I stepped forward, picked it up. A glider made of balsam wood in the shape of an airplane. It was a kit in which you took the pieces of balsam and slid them together, the slender parts fitting into the notches in the other pieces. Ben had put it together, but he’d done it wrong, with the wings upside down, opposite of the tail. “It won’t fly,” I’d explained to him as I’d gently pried the pieces apart again, trying not to break the thin wood. “If the wings and the tail are opposite like that, the airplane won’t fly.”
Ben had watched my hands as they worked, and then his gaze had trailed away, bored. He was rarely bored, but mechanical things did it. He was the unusual little boy who had no fascination for play dump trucks or police cars or fire trucks. The airplane, with its painted stripes and painted windows for pretend balsam wood passengers, interested him not at all.
“You’ll see,” I’d told him. “When we fly it, you’ll see.”
That was the morning of hide-and-seek day. I’d taken the planeapart, but we hadn’t reassembled it. Ben’s interest had moved on, and we’d left the pieces in a pile and played other games instead.
A few hours later, my little brother was gone forever.
I picked up the airplane where it sat now, on top of a dusty box. I remembered picking up the pieces and packing them away, my head throbbing, my eyes watering.
The airplane was assembled now. I ran my fingertip over the wing, which was assembled the wrong way. Then down to the tail.
I held the airplane that wouldn’t fly, listened to the rush in my ears, and tried to breathe.
—
In the kitchen, I took the milk from the fridge, then opened the cupboard, looking for the chocolate Quik I’d bought. I poured two glasses of milk and found a spoon. My hand had almost stopped shaking.
Dodie dropped into a kitchen chair, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright in a way that was a danger warning. “He wasthere,” she said. “Ben wasthere, Vail. He was there.”
I spooned chocolate into her glass of milk and stirred.
“I never thought—I never.” She shook her head, her gaze far away. “I thought he was gone. I thought he’d blinked out into nothingness, that I’d never see him again. For the rest of my life. Until Idied.”
“You might not see him.” I kept my voice level and careful. I put her glass in front of her on the table. “Drink this.”
“I’m going to see him,” she said, her voice hushed. “His little face. The smell of his hair. Do you remember the smell of his hair?”
“Of course I do.”
“I believed it was over,” she said. “I thought that this was my life now. Ben was gone, and this is my life. What if that isn’t my life?”
“Drink your milk,” I said. There was no point speculating about tricks, not when she was in this mindset. I’d talk to Violet about it.“You believe he stopped existing, when you know the things that Violet can see?”
Dodie took a deep sip of her chocolate milk, so she was listening to me at least a little. Her throat worked as she swallowed, and the flush on her cheeks faded. I should probably find something for her to eat that wasn’t pâté. “Violet sees shadows, ghosts. Like old sepia photographs. People who died a long time ago. And Violet stayed here last night with us, and she didn’t see him.” She looked at me, her gaze focusing from wherever it had been. “He showed himself tous, Vail. Not Violet.”
I nodded, sipping my milk. I had to maintain the illusion that this was a normal conversation. If I caught any of Dodie’s excitement, it would feed back to her and she would start to spiral. There would be tears. Or she’d pick up that glass of milk and smash it in sudden anger. Where the hell was Violet? She was better at calming Dodie than I was.
I was still trying to think of the right thing to say when Dodie reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out crayons, dropping them onto the kitchen table. Three of them—red, yellow, blue, all well used. They clicked softly as they landed. I felt a brief spurt of outrage that she’d picked the crayons up, but I swallowed it. Dodie could not be yelled at right now.
“I thought you didn’t want to touch anything,” I said in a level voice.
“He wanted me to take these,” she said, her tone a challenge. She gave me a look that dared me to argue with her.
“All right,” I said.
“I’m going to leave them here.” Her hand hovered over the crayons, and I could see that it was shaking, just like mine had been. “Don’ttouchthem.”
I shrugged like it was no big deal. “Do what you want. I’m done with this for now. I’m going to see if I can fix the TV signal.”
My little sister’s hand wavered for another moment. Her gaze dropped, and then she glanced at the wall clock, which had stopped working sometime in the last twenty years. “I don’t even know what time it is,” she mused.
