“Ghosts are peaceful beings,” says Thatcher. He furrows his brow like he’s thinking about what he just said. Then he adds, “For the most part.”
Five
THATCHER TRACES A PORTAL in front of us, using his hand to cut an opening through what was—only moments before—empty air. Hundreds of tiny points of light blaze into a glow like sunspots framing the portal. We walk through together. This time, I sense him with me in the space, traveling at a smooth speed almost like we’re two bullets lined up inside the chamber of a gun. I wonder what this would feel like if I were still alive, if my body were really here and hurtling through dimensions like this. I bet it would be the ultimate rush, but as a ghost, the motion feels natural and almost calm. It’s silent and effortless, and in some ways it seems instant, but I don’t trust my notion of time.
When we get to the other side, I take in a sharp breath.
It’s my bedroom, just as I left it. My middle dresser drawer is open, and a blue tank top hangs over its edge. Something inside me starts to crack. I’d considered bringing the tank top as part of my day-after-with-Nick outfit, but I went with a plain white T instead. Half a glass of lemonade rests on the nightstand—Carson’s, left behind after she helped me get ready for my night with Nick—and my pajama shorts are balled up next to my pillow. The bed, as always, is unmade.
This is my room, these are my things, this is what’s left from my life. But I’m absent. None of these objects means anything, really, but seeing them in this moment, they mean everything.
Thatcher is watching me carefully. He must read the heartbreak in my face, because he comes closer to me and says softly, “Tell me about them.” He points to the photos over my bed. “This one looks like it has a story.”
It’s a shot of me and Carson on a ski trip in the mountains of North Carolina. My gaze skips over to a collage of moments spent with Nick. But I can’t go there right now. I turn my attention back to Carson. Her left cheek is bright red because she’s just face-planted on a black diamond—it was more like ice skating than skiing that winter because it wasn’t cold enough for good snow.
“It was icy,” I say. “She’s actually a good skier.”
Thatcher eyes me disbelievingly. “Like all girls from South Carolina,” he says, and I laugh.
His face lights up at the sound, and I feel a flash of self-consciousness. But then he turns back to Carson’s picture and smiles, and I appreciate his kindness. I think about my best friend and how she was right about this “other side” all along.
“Is the Prism like limbo?” I ask. “Is that why there are all these ghosts here?”
He looks at me again, the smile replaced by a serious expression.
“The Prism is a stage that souls pass through before traveling to the next dimension. Beyond the Prism is the big, thumping heart at the center of the universe. It’s the place where we learn the true meaning of existence, once we merge with it. We call the heart of the universe Solus.”
He spells it for me. S-o-l-u-s. But the way he says it, it sounds like he’s saying solace. I was never really sure whether to believe in things like God or church or any of that. The way Thatcher’s talking, though—even as he says these official phrases that he’s obviously memorized and rehearsed—lets me know that he does believe. Like when you ask preachers about God and they give you a lot of information that sounds kind of made up, but they have so much faith in it that it all rings true, somehow.
“Giving the people we love a sense of peace around our deaths—that’s our goal,” he says. “Did you see how easily Ella walked alongside her family? That’s because they’re easing into acceptance of her passing.”
I nod as Thatcher talks, not because I completely understand what he’s telling me, but because I want him to keep talking. This room is filled with memories for me, pictures and objects and corners I could get caught up in—memories that could devastate me if I let them. But there’s something in the rumble of Thatcher’s deep voice that’s distracting and soothing, and after what I’ve been through—you know, dying—I could use some comfort.
As he explains more, my gaze lands on the framed photo of me and Mama that sits next to my bed. She’s wearing a big sun hat and smiling right at Dad, who took the photo. Sitting in her lap, I’m staring straight up at her face with an expression of total love. If your mom dies when you’re six, you never get to that time where you fight with her and go through all that hard stuff—you just get to the point of utter adoration. And that’s when she was taken from me.
I wait for Thatcher to pause, to stop explaining things about Solus, which I know is this huge, answers-to-all-the-questions-in-the-universe thing. It’s not that I don’t care; it’s just that I’m focused on something else. And when he finally does take a breath, I ask, “So you were going to tell me . . . why did my mother leave?”
“It was her time to merge with Solus,” he says carefully. “She fulfilled her purpose for being in the Prism, which was haunting her loved ones—you, your father . . . she stayed with you to help you accept what happened to her and move on.”
“So you mean my mother . . . she didn’t leave until . . .”
“Until you let her go,” says Thatcher, finishing my thought.
I sink down to sit on my bed.
Right after Mama died, Dad and I went to her tombstone in Magnolia Cemetery every day with fresh flowers. Dad stayed quiet, mostly, while I would tell Mama about what I’d done in school, because she used to always ask me about that when she was alive. After a while, though, we just went to her grave a few times a week, then only on Sundays after church. Eventually, we stopped with church altogether, and we stopped visiting the cemetery, too, except on her birthday.
But it wasn’t like I never thought about her. It wasn’t like that at all.
I whip my head around to glare at Thatcher. “I didn’t let her go,” I say, feeling defensive. “I wouldn’t ever—”
“It doesn’t mean that you forgot her,” he interrupts. “It just means that you had healed enough and accepted her death so that she could move on. It’s a good thing. It’s what I’m going to help you do for the people you love.”
Did I move on from Mama? I guess so. I found reasons to be happy again, moments of light. I even grew to love my life and all the potential that lay ahead. My mind flashes to Nick, my summer plans, maybe going away for college.
The knives of grief stab at me once more and slice into my heart, making me clutch at my chest as if I could protect it from their assault. The Future. The Possibilities. They’re gone. Involuntarily I shake my head no—back and forth, faster and faster—and I don’t know whether I’m trying to wake up from a nightmare or if I’m trying to clear away all the dreams I used to have. Everything I hoped for, all the experiences I never had, they’re in the past tense now, or some tense where things don’t even exist, they never did—they’re just what might have been.
When I meet Thatcher’s eyes, he turns away quickly like my sadness is an affront. He’s uncomfortable dealing with my pain. His shoulders tense up as mine slump and I crumple to the floor. No support, no kindness, no outreach from him and I’m flailing. It dawns on me that he’s trying to tell me that my purpose now—my future now—is to help everyone I love let me go. How can I possibly do that when I don’t have the strength to let them go?
A rustling outside catches my attention. Nick is pushing open my window.