Some Assembly Required (12 page)

He plopped down next to her and steeled himself for whatever today’s yarn was, relaxing a bit when no shivers of unease ran down his spine as he took it from her. Happy yarn today, then.

Agnes didn’t look over, absorbed in her knitting and apparently trusting him to work through the snarled yarn himself. He started winding. “Find her parents?”

Benji didn’t bother to ask how she knew. Agnes seemed to know everything that went on in the store, which made it all the more puzzling that Patrick thought he could prank her. Surely Patrick realized that Agnes was
more
, didn’t he? Benji couldn’t put it into words, not even in his own head, so he’d never tried to talk about it with Patrick. Besides, he kind of liked the unique bond he and Agnes had. It was certainly better than the antagonistic one she shared with Patrick.

“Her mom. Pretty sure that will be the last time she wanders off. She was shaken up.”

Agnes nodded, looking up briefly from her knitting. “Something about it shook you up too.”

It had, but he hadn’t really noticed it until Agnes said something. He was always happy to reunite a missing kid with his or her parents, but it usually felt better than this. Today Benji just felt empty.

And really,
always
and
usually
? Benji wasn’t one for melodrama, even in his own inner monologues. Why was he using words that implied he’d been here years when it had been a month or two, tops? He needed to find a hobby or something.

“I wish Patrick would decide if he was avoiding me or not,” he said, because Patrick was kind of like having a hobby. If a hobby were rude and sarcastic and more often than not ended with Benji needing to regenerate in the ball pit with Agnes.

Agnes hummed. “Patrick has a lot more than that to decide,” she murmured. Her lips moved soundlessly as she counted her stitches, though the mass of finished rows on her lap followed no discernible pattern. Agnes’s knitting was as cryptic as her advice.

He started untangling the skein faster, since the clicking of Agnes’s knitting needles was picking up pace. There were tiny knots and whorls looped around themselves, and for a while at least, he could focus on the task in front of him instead of having to think. It was nice, and it was probably exactly what Agnes had intended when she’d beckoned him over to sit with her.

“Sometimes the best way to muddle through our own problems is to be outside ourselves untangling someone else’s for a while,” she said.

Her voice startled him, and he blinked a few times when he looked up, shocked to see that the store had emptied out. It must be past closing, which meant he’d spent hours here with Agnes and her yarn. The skein hadn’t looked very big at all, but it must have been deceptively large to have kept him busy all that time. Yet another puzzle for him to think about.

There was no sign of the piece Agnes had been working on, even though Benji still had the purple yarn in his hands. Her knitting needles had disappeared, like they always did when she wasn’t actively using them. Maybe they went to the same place Benji and the other ghosts did before they regenerated. Maybe they were just a figment of his imagination and never existed at all. The only thing Benji was sure about was the fact that he wouldn’t get any answers out of Agnes about it, even if he asked.

If he was lucky and caught her in an indulgent mood, she would open up a little about purgatory, and he hoped this was one of those times.

“Is whatever lets me talk to these lost kids the same thing that lets us communicate with the other ghosts?” he asked.

Agnes pursed her lips and held her hands out for the yarn. Benji gave it to her obediently and then waited patiently as she studied his face.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t know how you do that. It’s rather… vexing,” she said after a few long seconds. She seemed frustrated by it, which made sense. There wasn’t a whole lot that happened in purgatory that Agnes
didn’t
know, so he could see how this would be a point of contention.

“But to answer your question, no. I don’t think it’s directly related. The spirits here are different from you and Patrick. They’re less aware. Impressions, we call them. They’re more like memories of a person. Whereas you, and Patrick, and the others who think of themselves as ghosts, you’re a complete person. Your soul is intact. You think, you reason, you exist. The Impressions just exist in a loop until something breaks the cycle. In our case here, it’s saving someone from the same fate.”

Karin had gone over this when they’d had their heart-to-heart. Patrick jokingly called it an employee orientation, and he wasn’t all that off base. Constrained though they were to stay within the walls of CASA, Benji had learned that ghosts like them moved with a lot more freedom and autonomy than some of the other spirits in purgatory.

“Ghosts who are more sensitive to Impressions are called Guides,” Agnes continued.

“Like Karin,” Benji murmured.

She nodded. “Like Patrick as well.”

Shock flooded through Benji, cool and unpleasant down his spine and then settling as heavy as a brick in his stomach. He’d thought Patrick was the same as him, just a ghost biding his time until the way out was shown to him. Was Patrick stuck here, like Karin and Agnes? Was that why he was so bitter and aloof?

It made sense, though. Benji could barely hear the Impressions. Most of the time their voices were whispers, fading in and out like a badly tuned radio. He could see them more often than not, but thinking back, he’d always been with Patrick when they appeared. And Patrick had always helped them.

Benji had been with him a few days ago when he’d helped one of them dissuade a woman from buying a box of SICUREZZA bandages because of an undiagnosed polyethylene allergy. Once they’d saved the customer, the impression of the man he’d been helping grew a lot stronger. He’d died of the same condition, and now that he had saved someone from the same fate, the man had been able to move on.

Benji’s throat went dry. “Does that mean Patrick knows what I have to do to move on?”

Try as he might, Benji hadn’t been able to remember his death. And while he wasn’t in a hurry to leave purgatory, especially now that he knew it probably meant leaving Patrick, he wanted to at least know what he’d need to do to make that possible. Had Patrick known all this time and just not told him? Was this all some big joke to him? Benji’s neck prickled, sweat he didn’t know he could still produce sprouting across his skin. Were he and Patrick even friends? Or was he just some long-running prank to keep Patrick entertained?

Agnes’s palm was cool and dry when she cupped his cheek. He felt some of the heat leach out of his angry flush, flowing out as Agnes’s energies flowed in, restoring him and calming him.

“No, child. You’re too tied up in his future for him to be able to see yours.”

As usual, Agnes’s words cleared up nothing. And also as usual, they calmed him anyway.

Patrick decided leaving Benji be was the best course of action for now. He had adapted well to life in CASA, easily settling into the rhythm of things. Patrick would go so far as to say Benji was having fun.

But Patrick refused to admit he was having fun too. Benji was
nice
. Nice in the way of ice-cold lemonade on a hot summer day. Patrick fought drinking the Kool-Aid.

Karin and Agnes had both taken a shine to Benji, and Patrick’s gut clenched. It was fun for a while, but now he wanted off the ride.

Benji had described their pranks as a memorable date, and he didn’t have an inkling of an idea how much those choice words made Patrick dig in his heels. Benji’s kindness and naïveté had been a welcome escape. Now Patrick was desperate to escape
them
.

He resumed his post in the café, in his usual chair across from old man Henry. The café was his safe space, and sitting with Henry made him concentrate on something else. Henry as usual stared into space in Patrick’s general direction and sipped his tea. The crossword puzzle book sat between them, a brand-new pen beside it. Henry slowly pushed the book toward Patrick’s side of the table as he stared off.

Patrick leaned forward. “Do you see me?” he asked softly, waving a hand in front of Henry’s blank gaze. “Work with me, Henry.” He clenched his fist, trying to banish Benji from his mind. “I really need you to work with me today.”

Instead, Henry scooted his mashed potatoes around his plate.

Patrick narrowed his eyes. Doubt and hesitation gave way to annoyance and then anger. “You need to let me in, Henry,” he growled. “I’m trying to help you. Help me help you.”

“You okay?” Benji said over his shoulder.

Patrick clenched his fists from the surprise. “Fine,” he said, not smiling.

“You know, fine doesn’t mean what you think it means,” Benji prodded him, rolling back and forth on his heels.

Had he let himself revert to the children he taught? Patrick slowly pushed his way from his seat. “Fine means exactly what I think it means,” he said tersely.

“You’re no closer to solving him, are you?” Benji asked as Patrick stepped away.

“That’s for me to know,” Patrick said as he headed into the showrooms.

Benji appeared next to him as if they had been walking side by side the entire time. Dammit. It seemed he’d mastered teleporting. Patrick was a little bummed he’d missed that. It had probably been a pretty good show, especially since he’d convinced Benji a while back that there was a real danger of leaving part of himself behind if he wasn’t completely focused. It had kept Benji from really trying, which had been amusing. Patrick wondered if Karin or Agnes had taken pity on Benji and told him the truth or if Benji had just gotten over it himself.
Ah, the things you miss when you’re putting all your energy into actively avoiding someone.

“Do you need help?” Benji asked with a bright smile.

His plan not to engage wasn’t working. Benji was worse than a stray dog. Patrick pressed his lips into a line and secretly ground his teeth. “Are you always this full of questions?”

“What’s eating you today?” Benji asked in a chipper tone. He was trying to be cute, trying to mimic Patrick’s devil-may-care ways, but Patrick was in no mood for it. Not today. Not ever again.

“I’m fine,” Patrick said firmly, hoping Benji would let it drop. “Come on. It’s a busy day.”

He was slipping, and he knew the only way to save himself was to grab on with both hands and let himself accept what he was feeling. Patrick’s nonexistent heart thumped. No. Benji just got under his skin with his joke. Yes. That’s all it was.

But why did it feel so real? Something Patrick could settle into comfortably? Such things weren’t for him.

Patrick stood a little taller as a woman in Housewares screamed for help—not in the terror that sometimes comes with thinking one has gone insane, but instead….

“I need some help here!” she yelled over the crowd of oblivious shoppers. “I need some help coordinating curtain rods and lighting, preferably by someone with higher than a high-school education.”

Together, Patrick and Benji halted across the aisle. Benji tilted his head like a dog hearing a high-pitched whistle. Patrick smirked.

Perfect. Just the thing to get him back into his groove.

He clapped a hand on Benji’s shoulder and forced him into stillness. “I got this,” Patrick commanded.

“But…,” Benji said, uncertain.

“I got it.” He grunted each word like a wolf defending his territory.

Tossing up his hands, Benji sighed. “Whatever.”

Patrick didn’t respond and slipped through the aisle as the customers shifted around him like a river current over a fallen log. They shivered and shuddered from the chill in his aura. He was expending too much from his mood alone and had to keep his cool. It was already evident to anyone in a ten-mile radius that his mood had gone to garbage.

The woman perked up as Patrick approached, and her predatory, flirtatious smile signaled he’d be in for a long day. Damned cougars that couldn’t take a hint. He hadn’t even liked the Mrs. Robinson act when he’d been a graduate student. The hair on his arm stood up as he shivered from the intrusive thoughts. He wasn’t a graduate student anymore, and CERN would never be in his reach.

“Thank God,” she said, her shoulders slumping in a piss-poor attempt at coyness. “A six-two attractive man who can lift heavy boxes to my car.” She winked. “It’s a Benz, by the way.”

Patrick forced himself to smile. She was the perfect challenge to put him right again. Something to toughen him up and stop this self-indulgent pleasure with Benji.

“I’m sure it is, ma’am,” Patrick said, smiling brighter. “How can I help?”

“You’re not colorblind, are you?” She cast a dismissive glance around the showrooms. “This place is a vomit of white, black, and beige.”

“Hey…,” Benji said in indignation.

Patrick shot him a warning glare. Benji furrowed his brow and retreated a half step. Patrick returned his attention to the woman and flashed his cheesiest helpful-employee grin. “I’m sure we can find you a pop of color. You said you needed to color coordinate drapes? How about you check out our fine selection of carpets?”

He tossed her back a taste of her own medicine with a wink.

Her eyelashes fluttered, and Patrick internally cringed. She held out her hand in that irritatingly dainty Southern belle fashion. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” she said, her voice dripping saccharine in an attempt to be seductive.

“Of course, Miss DuBois,” he said, taking her hand. “Right this way.” Patrick swept out his arm with a graceful extension of his back.

The woman giggled like an excited schoolgirl. “Oh, call me Blanche.”

Because you’re two cans shy of a six pack?
Patrick wanted to say, but kept it light and easygoing as they strolled to the vastness of Home Décor.

As they passed by Benji, Patrick made eye contact as he tried to mentally drill into his head to stay out of it. He’d work this one alone. He had to. Anything to make himself want to scrub down with sandpaper and bleach later. Patrick would take great delight in exfoliating off all three layers of skin—if that were possible for the deceased.