Kissing Midnight (9 page)

But I can’t actually invite him to do something, can I? Not after the way he flirted at the library. He’ll think I’m asking him out. And I’m not… right? Because that would be too complicated.

Dev’s blue eyes meet mine expectantly.

“Well,” I say, “listen. At least let me take you out to coffee or something to thank you.”

His face lights up. “Really?”

“Well,” I say, “I did stab you.”

His laugh is full of relief, his smile so genuine I wonder if I pegged him wrong when I said he was a player. Right now, Dev seems like a good guy, a sheep in wolf’s clothing. “Actually,” he says, “I was feeling a little weird about not having anything to do Christmas eve. I was hoping to ask you out today at the library — you know, before we were so rudely interrupted.” His smile widens. “I would love to go out, but you have to let me choose the place. I want to surprise you.”

Frankly, I’ve had enough of surprises today. In fact, it’s enough of a surprise, just to think Dev had been planning to ask me out. So, he really was flirting with me. At least one thing today wasn’t my imagination. “Okay,” I say cautiously, “I’ll let you choose.”

“Excellent.” Dev pulls the wolf mask back down over his face, so his blue eyes shine through the eye holes and the wolf’s smile echoes his own. “Tomorrow night, we’re on.”

Jesse

Where is she, I wonder? For the past two days, ever since the girl saw me, I’ve been desperate to see her again, but so far our paths haven’t crossed. I hope a fresh vantage point might help, so I sit on the stone arch that spans the path outside the humanities building. I don’t usually climb stuff (heights bug me—go figure), but this arch isn’t too high, so I use it as a lookout a lot. Usually, I’ll admit it, I’m girl-watching, which maybe makes me sound creepy, but what else am I supposed to do? It’s not like the girls notice—they just look right through me, oblivious.

Which, come to think of it, is pretty much what girls used to do when I was alive. The difference now is that I can look at them openly, rather than just stealing glances. I consider it making up for a whole childhood of trying not to watch pretty girls. It’s one of the few perks of being a ghost. It’s especially fun in the late spring when the weather is nice and they all come out and spread their blankets and do their homework in the sun in their tank tops and cut-offs. Then it’s nice.

The weather’s not like that now, though. Not that I can feel weather like I did when I was alive. I mean, I feel it, but not as intensely as I did. It’s all sort of muted, the hot not as hot and the cold not as cold—which is good, I guess, because I’m not exactly dressed for cold, am I, since I have this jean jacket on year round? But I can tell it’s cold now just by looking at the students passing under my arch, at the way they rush from building to building with their heads bent and their scarves pulled up over their noses.

There aren’t many students around. I think it must be holiday break, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what date or day of the week. I’m generally bad with time. I tend to fade out and disappear, which is sort of like passing out drunk, or maybe like having narcolepsy. When I come back, I’m never quite sure how much time has passed. I avoid looking at the clock tower as a rule, so I rely on the sun and the general coming and going of people to classes and meals to tell me the time and day. Is it before Christmas? Or after? Did I miss it? The trees by the registrar’s office are still covered in lights. There are paper snowflakes in the windows of the library, and there’s a wreath hanging from the center of the arch I’m sitting on now. If I concentrated, I could probably kick it and make it swing.

But I’m busy concentrating on other things. I scan the commons for the girl’s long, dark hair and puffy, sky-blue jacket. I don’t see her anywhere.

Over on the curb, though, I see a few students loading duffle bags into a car. They’re probably headed home, or going on some road trip. Usually this would fill me with a wistful sort of envy, but today it makes me worried, too. What if the girl went home for Christmas? The thought of her being gone until January makes my heart constrict. How will I endure not seeing her, now that she’s seen me?

Although, I have to admit, being seen comes with a certain amount of pressure. I mean, I’m desperate to talk to her, but what would I say? And what would she think of me? For the thousandth time today, I try to flatten the sticky-uppy part of my hair in back and to scoop my unruly bangs out of my eyes. I even try to wet it down with snow (which doesn’t work, of course.) God, I regret cutting my hair. You would think someone who jumped to her death would have bigger things to regret—and I do—but drunkenly cutting my hair myself still ranks pretty high on the list.

I look like a dork.

But it will be worth being seen as a dork, if only I can see her again. I turn around on the archway, my foot setting the wreath swinging, and gaze out over the arts center to the playing fields.

And that’s when I see her.

No, not the girl I’m looking for. Someone else completely. Someone who shouldn’t be there at all.

I can tell right away she’s a ghost. For one thing, she’s semi-transparent like me. I can see right through her to the brick building beyond, like looking through fog.

For another thing, she isn’t dressed right. Her long copper-colored dress looks like the sort they wore about a hundred years ago. It has a fitted bodice and a full skirt thick with petticoats. She has no coat, and her hair hangs down her back in ringlets, the color of a polished penny. Her dress is too long to let me see her feet, but I’m betting they don’t touch the ground because she glides when she moves. She passes through a group of students like a swan through a flock of ducks, her head a few inches above theirs, her chin raised disdainfully.

I stare at her, dumbstruck. I can count on one hand the number of ghosts I’ve seen since I died. I mean, you might think we would be everywhere, but as far as I can tell I’m the only dead person in the neighborhood. And now there’s another ghost here, just a few days after a living person saw me? It seems too strange to be a coincidence.

Which can only mean one thing.

Maybe this ghost knows something about my girl.

In a second, I’m clambering over the side of the arch and sprinting down the path. I don’t glide, just for the record, maybe because I was never very graceful in life, and I can’t fly or anything like that, but I’m a fast runner and I catch up with her pretty quick. “Hey!” I call, “Excuse me! You in the dress!”

She stops, letting the student behind her walk right through her. I shudder at the sight; I hate the feeling of a living person passing through me. They’re warmer than I am and, not to be gross, but it feels like stepping in the warm spot where somebody pissed in the pool.

The girl turns slowly. Her face is beautiful but pale, her lips thin and unsmiling. Up close like this I can see that, severe though she looks, she isn’t much older than me. I mean, she
is
older—like a century older, from the look of her clothes—but she wasn’t any older when she died. She looks nineteen or twenty at the most. She stares at me, silent.

“Hi!” I give her what I hope is a friendly smile. “I couldn’t help noticing you.” I sound like I’m coming on to her, and now I
really
feel like a dork, but I can’t stop. ‘I mean, I saw you walking and…I’ve never seen you before, so…” My laugh sounds too loud. “It’s just been so long since I talked to someone.” I pause. “You can talk, right?”

She purses her lips even tighter. “If someone allows me to get a word in, yes.” I can tell by her expression she wants to add
but I don’t talk to people like you.

“I just know some of us can’t talk. I mean, not that I’ve met many of us. And not to say you’re necessarily…” My voice trails off. I’m not sure of the etiquette here. Is it like outing someone, to assume they’re a ghost? Can I say it, or do I have to wait for her to tell me? “That is…If you are…are you…?”

“Dead?” she says. “Yes.”

I sigh in relief. “Good! I mean,” I add quickly, “not good that you’re dead, but good as in, good, I was right.” I blow my bangs out of my face. “I’m Jesse, by the way.”

She presses her lips a little tighter. “Jesse is a boy’s name.” She looks me up and down, from my short hair to my dirty kicks. “Are you not a girl?”

“No. I mean, yes, I’m a girl.” It’s not the first time someone has been confused on that particular point. I take a certain amount of baby-butch pride in being mistaken for a guy from time to time, even though I’m not tall or muscled enough to really pass.

But clearly I’m confusing this girl, so I say, “It’s Jessica, technically, but I go by Jesse, spelled the guy way.” I feel my cheeks heat up when I say it. Admitting my name is Jessica always makes me feel like I’ve been pantsed wearing frilly underwear. “So, you can call me Jesse.” Awkwardly, I hold out my hand.

The girl still looks like she just licked a lemon, but she’s too well-brought-up to ignore my outstretched hand completely. Her own hand is slim and white. She holds it limply, as if she expects me to kiss her pretty gold ring. “Charlotte Croft,” she says, with a little extra emphasis on the “Croft,” as if she thinks it should means something to me. I take her hand and pump it lamely a few times before she snatches it back. She draws a monogrammed hankie out of her sleeve like a magician and wipes her palm.

I try hard not to take offense, but there’s no ignoring the pained expression on her face as she surveys my clothes. “I died in 1993,” I say, by way of excuse. Then, to change the subject, “I’ve never seen you here before. Are you new here?”

“My parents own The Vanguard.”

I’ve never heard of it. I give an apologetic shrug.

“The Vanguard? The hotel?” She sighs dramatically at my blank expression. “Well, they did own it, back when it was still standing, and in those days everyone knew it.” She looks sad, and I feel suddenly feel sorry for her, in spite of her rich clothes and her haughty attitude. “The Crofts?” she says pleadingly, “The Greenwood Avenue Crofts?”

“Oh!” That does ring a bell. If there’s anything I’ve had time to do in the last twenty years, it’s audit college classes, including a few on local history. “Greenwood’s the historic district. Big Victorian houses.” It’s easy to picture her there.

“Yes! That’s where I grew up.” She smiles and looks about ten times prettier. But the smile only lasts a moment. “I’ve been away from it for a long time.”

“Where have you been?”

She looks away from me, out over the playing fields. “I am not at liberty to say.”

From her pained expression, I can tell she wants to tell me, but something is stopping her. “But you have been somewhere?” I press, “I mean, you can go places? Because I can’t go more than a few blocks off campus. The farthest I’ve gotten is Xenon Street.”

I’m afraid she’ll ask why, and I’ll have to explain the horrible feeling I get when I come to the edge of campus, like a thread is being pulled in my soul and I’m about to come unraveled.

Luckily, though, she just nods. “The rules are different for everyone, aren’t they? Some can leave the place they died, others are bound to it. Some look as they looked in life, others as they looked in death. Some are free to do as they please, others are forced to replay their last moments over and over.”

I scuff the snow with my sneaker. It doesn’t leave a mark. “Yeah,” I say, “I learned that the hard way a few years back. I saw one of us near the bus stop by the dining hall—a middle-aged guy. Looked like he was from India. I went to talk to him, but he must have been caught up in the memory of his last day because he just kept asking what time it was and then when a taxi came, he threw himself in front of it.” I shudder at the memory. “He didn’t just do it once, either. He did it to every taxi that passed. The cab drivers couldn’t see him, of course, but I could, just like it was happening right then.” I remember the crunch of the cab hitting him, the wet thunk of his head connecting with the pavement. “I couldn’t take it anymore, so I left, and eventually he disappeared.”

I want to ask Charlotte where she thinks he went to. Heaven? Hell? Some other part of the city? Or did he simply stop existing? I’ve spent a lot of time in the library, reading over the shoulders of the living, and I’ve listened in on every religious studies class I can find, but I’m still not sure what I think. I want to ask her, but I’m afraid it’s not a topic of polite conversation.

Besides, what if she knows? I’m not sure I’m ready for the answer.

Charlotte is losing patience with me. Her eyes roam the campus hungrily. “I really should go.”

“Why, if you don’t mind my asking?” It seems funny for a ghost to rush off. If there’s anything we’ve got, it’s time.

“I’m looking for someone.” She takes a step away from me, but I’m not ready for her to go. It has been so long since I’ve talked to anyone! I’d rather talk to the living girl— my girl—but talking to Charlotte is way better than being alone.

I take a step in front of her. “Who are you looking for?”

“A man.”

“Young or old?”

Her expression darkens. “Both.”

Both
?
What does that mean? “Is he living or dead?”

Her voice is cold. “Oh, he’s very much alive.”

“And what does he look like?”

“He’s extremely handsome.” Her tone is wistful and resentful all at once. “He has ginger hair and bright blue eyes. His name is Deveraux Renard.”

Ginger hair and bright blue eyes. Instantly I think of the boy in the student union, the one who was talking to the girl who saw me. I almost say something, but the look on Charlotte’s face stops me. Her expression has gone cold and hard. “What will you do when you find him?”

“Oh,” she says, “We can’t do anything at all. Not to him.”

“We?” I ask nervously, “You mean, you and me?”

“No.” A cold wind is blowing off the playing fields. Snow flutters through her. “My sisters and I.”

“Oh!” I brighten a little. Maybe one of her sisters will be friendly. “How many sisters do you have?”