A Gift of Ghosts (Tassamara) Read online

  Akira didn’t respond, but her happiness dimmed a little.

  “I wonder who you saw in there. Let’s see. Maybe I can figure out what you do. Maybe you were selling something? No. Maybe you’re a librarian? No.” The boy gloomily sank back into his seat and said, “This game’s not much fun when I’ll never know.”

  He looked out the window, and sighed. “Twenty-five minutes to the airport and then back to the parking lot.”

  Akira bit her lip. “So, what’s your name?”

  The boy’s eyes widened and he leaned forward again. “You can see me!”

  “Yeah, but don’t get all excited about it.”

  “Are you kidding? I haven’t spoken to anyone in months. I’m trapped in this car. I mostly sit in a parking lot. And you’re living!”

  “Again, don’t get all excited.” Akira knew exactly how this was going to go, and it wasn’t going to be fun. She probably should have just kept pretending she didn’t see him. But he’d looked so sad and she’d been so happy. She hadn’t been able to stay cold to him.

  “So, do you help me? Like, find a light or something?”

  “That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” Her voice was dry. “No, unfortunately, I don’t know anything about lights. And if you want me to go talk to any relatives—well, it never ends well. I’d really rather not.”

  “But isn’t that what you do?”

  “No, that’s just how it works on television.” Akira sighed and flipped her blinker on. The guard shack was just ahead, and she didn’t want to be seen talking to herself.

  “But . . . but you can see me!” She glanced back at him in the rear view mirror. Yes, she could see him, and he was quite a charmer, really. He must have been about fourteen or fifteen when he died, tall and gawky in that adolescent way, all arms and legs, with a shock of curly dark hair and intense blue eyes.

  She pulled out onto the busy street, and with the guard safely behind her, asked again, “Do you have a name?”

  “It’s Dillon. You mean you really can’t help me?”

  She shook her head. “Not so much, no.”

  “Man, that bites.” He flopped back against the seat again, looking disgusted. “I finally find someone who can see me, and she’s useless. Um, no offense.”

  Akira bit back her smile. She didn’t mind useless, actually. She’d heard worse. “I can listen,” she offered. “And I know a little.”

  “Do you know why I’m stuck?” he asked. “I mean this can’t happen to everyone. I met a guy at a gas station once, but it’s not like the roads are crowded with us.”

  “Oh, there’s a fair number of you on the highways, actually. It used to be quite a nightmare for me when I was first learning how to drive. I kept getting distracted. My dad would . . . never mind.” She shook that thought away.

  She glanced at her watch. “I don’t have to be at that airport for the trip back to Orlando for about five hours. Where do you want to go?”

  “You’re serious?” he asked.

  She nodded. “But no relatives, please.” She looked pained. “Honestly, it never works out well.”

  ***

  She’d been given clear instructions on where to drop off the car, but as she drove up to the parking lot, she couldn’t help worrying. Unlike the usual rental car experience, she’d been told she’d be met by someone who would collect the keys.

  “So you remember what I told you, right?” she asked Dillon.

  “Every word,” he assured her.

  “Work on stretching. I know the bounce-back is no fun, but if you practice, you’ll find that you’re able to get farther and farther away from the car. It’s like exercise, it’s going to be painful at first, but the rewards will be worth it.”

  “I will. Are you kidding? Being out of this car would be so great. I’ll practice every day.”

  “And avoid the ghosts with the red edges. If you see someone who looks like they’re outlined in red, go the other direction.”

  “I will,” he promised, but this time with less enthusiasm.

  “I’m serious. I know you’re lonely and you probably think any company is better than none, but it’s not. The red ghosts are bad news.”

  “I’m already dead. What can they do to me?”

  “Oh, sweetie.” She shook her head. “If you think boredom is the worst thing that can happen, then you didn’t watch nearly enough television while you were alive. Trust me on this one.” She turned and stared at him, eyes intent, knowing that she was probably the first person who’d looked directly at him since his death. “Stay away from ghosts with red edges.”

  He nodded.

  “And stretch.” She pointed a finger at him and smiled, and he smiled back, a mix of emotions fighting for precedence on his face.

  She spotted someone approaching through the back window, and said hastily, “Gotta go. You take care.”

  Stepping out of the car, she greeted the young woman. As she handed over the keys, she impulsively said, “I’m going to be moving to this area in a few weeks and I’ll need to lease a car. Is there any chance that this one might be available?”

  The girl looked startled. She glanced from the car to Akira and back to the car again, before saying, “This car? But . . . um, well, I guess. I mean, I don’t know. I can ask.” Her tone was doubtful.

  “That would be great,” Akira said. “Do you have a number or something I could call when I get back?”

  “Sure. Yeah. You could ask at GD. Ask Grace.” The girl nodded, her uncertainty disappearing. “Grace will know. She’ll be able to help you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Akira had decided that Florida was creepy. She was beginning to doubt her decision to move here. Again. For only the hundredth time.

  She hadn’t even gotten out of the car at the first house Meredith, the realtor, had shown her, despite Meredith’s protesting, “Oh, but it’s a darling little house. Recently remodeled, fully updated inside, the latest appliances, and the rent is very reasonable.”

  Akira had just sighed and said, “It’s not right for me.” The cranky old woman ghost on the front porch had waved her fist at them as they drove away, although Akira was sure that the faint “good riddance” she heard was her imagination.

  At the second house, Akira stopped at the bedroom door and swallowed hard. It was unfurnished, the walls freshly-painted a light off-white. Meredith strode in, talking about the adjoining bathroom as if the translucent weeping girl on the floor, holding a baby, and rocking back and forth, was invisible. Which, of course, she was—to the realtor. Suicide? Akira thought dispassionately. Maybe natural causes for the baby, and then mom’s grief drove her to kill herself? Or perhaps a post-partum depression murder-suicide?

  “Aren’t you going to come look? It’s really quite lovely.” Meredith had a chirpy voice. Akira was beginning to dislike it.

  “No, thank you,” Akira said calmly. “I don’t think it’s right for me.” Turning, she marched out of the house and straight to the car. By the time Meredith caught up, she was already seated and buckled in the passenger-side seat, staring straight ahead.

  “You’re going to fit right in around here,” Meredith said, as she slid the key into the ignition and pulled away from the curb. Akira shot her a curious look. Now what did that mean?

  Meredith smiled at her, a little wryly. “Now this next house is big for you, but it’s in your price range, and Dr. Latimer suggested that you might be interested in it.”

  “Dr. Latimer? Is that Zane Latimer?”

  “No, no, it was Max Latimer. He was the one who set up your appointment.”

  Akira frowned. She’d tried to research the company from California, but it was almost invisible. Oh, it had a web site, a completely unrevealing web site. The copywriter who wrote the text had been a master of saying nothing in many, many words. Apart from that, the name was too generic. The phrase “general directions” had 14 million hits on Google, most of them maps. Akira had deduced that the company was privately
owned, but that was about as far as she’d gotten.

  “I don’t believe I met him,” she told Meredith.

  “No?” Meredith’s voice was casual. She tucked a strand of long red hair behind one ear as she ostentatiously paid attention to traffic, of which there was none.

  “Is there something I ought to know about him?” Akira asked, exasperated. She was getting a bit tired of the mystery. Over the course of the past month, she’d given notice at the college, rented out her house, packed up her belongings, putting some in storage and arranging for the rest to be shipped to Florida, said good-bye to everyone and everything she knew, and flown to Orlando.

  This time there was no private plane to deliver her almost straight to General Directions, so she’d made the long, slow, winding drive north in a rental car. She’d gotten to Tassamara expecting to check into a hotel and start work immediately. Instead, Grace told her to take her time getting settled and introduced her to Meredith, a pretty mid-30s redhead who would “show her everything important.” As far as Akira could tell, though, there was nothing important in Tassamara. She wasn’t even sure she’d seen the town yet. It seemed to be a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spot on the map.

  “Most of the people in Tassamara work for him either directly or indirectly,” Meredith finally said. “GD is the only company in town.”

  “Which means what? He runs the place like an old-time mining town? What he says goes?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Meredith chuckled. “You’ll like him, I’m sure. Everyone does. He’s just . . . well, you’ll see.” She pulled to the side of the road and parked.

  Akira didn’t move to get out. “He’s just what? Pick a word, any word. I’ve moved here all the way from California, I don’t know anybody, and if I’ve made a huge mistake, then the sooner I figure it out, the better.” She knew she was being too blunt, but she couldn’t help herself.

  Taking a job so far away from home had been an act of denying imagination: she’d convinced herself to do it by focusing on the lab and the work. She hadn’t tried to picture what her life would be like, where she’d live or buy her groceries or go for walks, who her friends would be or what she’d do on weekends. She had very deliberately not thought about the challenges of navigating unfamiliar places, strange houses, unknown landscapes. If she had thought about all those things . . . well, she would have been working at the 7-11 down the street from her house in California and going hungry to pay the bills rather than braving all of this uncertainty.

  It wasn’t that she was a coward, she assured herself. But her challenges were different than those of most other people, and she had to be careful in a way that most people wouldn’t understand. Okay, and maybe she was a little bit of a coward.

  Meredith smiled at her. “Eccentric. Dr. Latimer is eccentric. But really, I think you’re going to fit right in in Tassamara. It’s a quirky little town.” She gestured at the house behind Akira. “That’s the place. You should take a look.”

  Quirky? Akira didn’t feel better. But she turned and looked. The house was two stories, white frame, with a wraparound porch and a turret. She glanced back at Meredith in surprise. Was she kidding? “There’s only me, you know. I’m not bringing a family.”

  Meredith was already getting out of the car. “Come take a look. Like I said, it’s a little big, but Dr. Latimer thought you might like it.”

  Akira followed her up the short walkway. The house was close to the street, and she looked around curiously at the neighboring houses. “Are we near the town?”

  “Yes, Millard Street is the main drag, and it’s about two blocks that way. An easy walk, if you don’t like to drive.”

  Akira didn’t mind driving, although being able to walk for small errands would be pleasant. But the mention of driving reminded her of the black Taurus and Dillon. She’d asked Grace if she could lease the car that she’d driven the first day, with no idea what she’d answer when Grace asked why. After all, it was just a generic car, several years old, nothing special about it if you couldn’t see the ghost boy inhabiting the back seat, and no reason to want that car rather than some nice new model.

  But Grace hadn’t asked why. She’d paused and her face had stilled, then she’d turned away and busied herself with some files, before turning back, smiling cheerfully, and saying, “I think that can be arranged. I’ll have it waiting at the airport.”

  Akira still wasn’t sure whether she’d seen something on Grace’s face—sadness? worry?—or whether it had been her imagination. But she’d been too relieved that Grace hadn’t asked her any hard questions to try to decipher Grace’s response.

  Meredith unlocked the door, gave a hard push, and shoved it open. “Door’s a little sticky, we might need to get someone out to take care of that.” She stepped into the house and Akira followed, feeling wary.

  The first two rooms were empty and echoing. Hardwood floors were worn and battered, showing signs of hard use, and the fireplace in the front room was blackened with years of smoke. But the light was nice and the ceilings were high, with overhead fans. A narrow staircase led upstairs to a hallway that extended in both directions. Another hallway led to the back of the house.

  Meredith chatted about paint colors and furniture, but Akira wasn’t really listening. She turned slowly, looking around. The house had a feeling. But not a bad feeling. It should have felt abandoned, alone, the way houses that were uninhabited always did. But this house, despite its emptiness, felt lively. Akira’s wariness increased. Was this town simply infested with ghosts?

  She followed Meredith down the hallway, passing a small bathroom, and into the kitchen.

  “Rose! We have visitors.” An old man was folding his newspaper and standing up as Akira walked into the room. She glanced quickly at Meredith. No reaction. Okay, so he was a ghost. Akira kept her eyes off him, not wanting him to realize she could see him, but she tried to steal looks from the corner of her eye, as she murmured something in response to Meredith’s running commentary.

  He looked like a kindly grandpa. Not her kindly grandpa—she’d never met any of her grandparents—but like a television version of a kindly grandpa, with white hair and laugh lines and a little more belly than had probably been good for him. He was wearing what she thought of as golf clothes: a collared, short-sleeved shirt, with a sweater vest, and plain light-colored pants.

  “Oh, yay!” A whirlwind came barreling through a doorway that Akira hadn’t noticed and she had to concentrate hard on Meredith’s face to keep from staring openly. The young woman clapped her hands, and twirled in the center of the room, her peach skirts flaring around her. “Maybe she’ll get cable. Maybe she’ll love that music show. Quick, what can we do to keep her? I know, let’s make it smell like chocolate-chip cookies.”

  The old man chuckled. “Now there’s a nice idea. You’ll have to work on that. It’d be right pleasant if you could make that happen.”

  “Oh, I do hope she stays. Should we call the boys in?” Rose danced her way to the back door, within Akira’s line of sight, and pressed against it, peering out the window. Tall, willowy, with long blond curls, she was dressed in the full skirts and sleeveless top of the 1950s.

  “Now, Rose, you know it’s been ages since they’ve come inside. You leave them be. They’re fine.”

  Rose turned and Akira hastily directed her attention to Meredith. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”

  Meredith was watching her, a curious look on her face. “Some people think this house is haunted.” She made the statement calmly, almost casually, without even a hint of thrill in her voice.

  “Noooo!” Rose wailed. “Don’t do that. You’ll scare her off.”

  “Oh, dear, that’s bad,” the old man murmured. “That must be why we’ve been empty for so long.”

  “It was that last lady, the one who lit that smelly stuff, and tried to talk to us. But she couldn’t hear a thing.” Rose actually stamped her foot.

  “They say the ghosts are friendly, though.” M
eredith was smiling, but her look was too intent, too expectant.

  “We are, we are friendly,” Rose burst out. “We like people. Oh, please live here. I miss television. I miss music. It’s just too quiet without people.”

  “And do you believe in friendly ghosts?” Akira tried to infuse her tone with skepticism.

  “In Tassamara, believing in six impossible things before breakfast is taken for granted. But let’s move on. As you can see, the kitchen is nice, nothing special, but a good layout. The appliances all stay, including the refrigerator, and there’s a washer and dryer over here in what used to be the pantry.” Meredith opened the back door and stepped outside. “The back yard is fully enclosed and spacious for this area of town. There’s a small pool and maintenance is included in the rent.”

  Akira followed her, but she was still puzzling over Meredith’s first words. What impossible things? But as she looked out into the backyard, her thoughts derailed.

  It was a pocket paradise. Flowering plants and lush bushes created a scenic border to a small yard where an oval pool, surrounded by brick pavers, played center stage. Two ghost boys ran and played as if the pool didn’t exist.

  They were the kind of ghosts that Akira thought of as faders. Unlike the ghosts in the kitchen, the boys were translucent to her, their colors dimmed and pale. But she could hear their laughter, and she couldn’t help but smile in response.

  “This is beautiful.”

  “Two citrus trees. You’ll love the smell of the orange blossoms in another few weeks and the fruit would be yours, of course. Let me show you the upstairs.” Meredith had reverted to a business-like realtor mode, and as Akira followed her back into the house and up the back staircase, she wondered what the realtor was thinking.

  Upstairs, Meredith paused at the first door. “Four bedrooms, so as I said, it’s big but you’ll be able to pick which one you like and perhaps use another as an office. And lots of storage, of course. The rent is very reasonable, despite the size.”