In between the families strolling, the couples holding hands, the kids racing up the wooden planks, are some people who seem to be lit from within. They’re in Technicolor—it’s almost like I’m watching a movie where certain stars are in 3D while the others are flat. And the radiant ones . . . they share the moon mark. Their eyes reflect a mirror of placidity, an eerie calm.
“They’re dead,” I announce with certainty.
“Ghosts,” says Thatcher, nodding.
“They seem so tranquil.”
“They’re echoes of their former energy.”
“They glow,” I say. “And they have a . . .” I move my eyes to his neck. He bends his head and turns slightly. His skin looks soft and radiates warmth as I lean in, wondering how this dead boy can seem so alive. And I see it. He has one, too—a nearly full moon mark. Was I so drawn to his face that I didn’t notice it before?
He must decipher the question in my eyes, because he says, “You can’t usually see it when we’re in the Prism. Down here, though, the glow and the green moon are how we distinguish who’s living and who’s not.”
“But we can see the Living, too, right?” I ask, grabbing onto the first glimmer of hope I’ve had since waking up in the gray mist. “The people I see without the . . . the moon and the glow . . . they’re real?”
“They’re alive,” he says. “We’re all real.”
I don’t find that as comforting as he seems to expect me to. “And I have the mark, too?”
Thatcher looks down at my neck, and I pull back my hair. I can feel his eyes on my skin and it makes me shiver.
“Yours hasn’t shown up yet,” he says, backing away. “It will. Sometimes it takes a little while.”
“I always wanted a tattoo,” I say lightly.
Thatcher studies me curiously.
“It’s a joke.” I can’t believe I had to explain it to him. Nick would have gotten it immediately, but then he’s not uptight. He’s always finding the fun in any situation. Nick. I want to be with him. I want him comforting me. But then Thatcher gives me a small crooked smile, one side tipping up higher than the other, and locks of his blond hair fall over his forehead. I have a strange urge to reach up and comb them back. His face is like something out of an old painting—soft but serious, with strong angles and sharp lines. His eyes aren’t like the others’, though; they’re not dulled at all—they’re vibrant and . . . well, alive.
What must it be like to have to deal with the newly deceased all the time? In the beginning, does anyone truly accept this new reality?
A little white Westie comes bounding over, its purple leash trailing along behind it. It stops near our feet and starts sniffing around. Thatcher bends down and passes his fingers through its fur, over and over. But the fur doesn’t move.
“Can it see us?” I ask.
“No, but she can sense us. Animals are much more attuned to the unconscious mind than humans are. We tend to drown out our instincts with too much thought.”
I wonder about his instincts.
“Duchess, get over here!” A young woman rushes over and scoops the dog into her arms, continuing to scold her as she walks away.
Thatcher straightens, and for a just a moment he appears to be mourning.
“Could you feel her fur?”
He shakes his head. “Old habit.” His hand is clenched on his thigh.
“How long have you been here?” How long have you been without sensations?
He narrows his eyes. “A while.”
“Did you have a dog?”
He nods. “But he wasn’t a sissy dog like that. Griz was a black Lab. Got him when he was a pup. I miss him sometimes, the softness of his fur, the stink of his breath, the roughness of his tongue.” He releases a deep sigh, probably another habit, one of those muscle memories that you do without thinking and that I was told would fade in time. It’s a little comforting to realize he hasn’t totally let go.
He looks away, maybe embarrassed that he revealed all that. I can see him, roughhousing with a dog, tossing Frisbees for him to catch. I’m suddenly thinking of everything we can’t experience. I need the familiar.
“Can you take me to my father?” I ask. “We live at Two thirty-six Blossom Drive on the Ashley River.”
“We don’t need an address,” he says, relief reflected in his voice because I’m back on task. Maybe he needs the distraction from his momentary lapse, too. “The portals know where to go. They’ll take us where we’re needed—to the people who need you—and I’m sure your father will be on the list.”
My chin starts to tremble as the sadness engulfs me again. Imagining my father alone is unbearable. Without me, without . . .
“Where is my mother?” I can’t believe Mama wasn’t my first thought once I realized where I was. Why didn’t she greet me? If I can connect with her, maybe some of this awful emptiness consuming me will go away.
Thatcher clears his throat and narrows his eyes like he’s having a hard time reading the answer written on a blackboard somewhere.
“What’s the matter? Wasn’t this question covered in Ghost Guiding One-oh-one?” I ask.
He snaps his head around to glare at me. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“I think you have serious pretty well covered for both of us.”
“Callie—”
“Look, I just want to see my mom.”
“She’s not in the Prism anymore.”
I don’t know if I should be assured or worried.
“Where is she?” I ask. “Where did she go?”
“She moved on.”
“To where?”
“Beyond the Prism is a realm that’s something like what you probably imagine Heaven to be,” he says.
“Heaven.” I sigh. “So she’s happy? She’s okay.”
“She’s more than that,” says Thatcher, and when I give him a doubtful glance he adds, “Yes, she’s absolutely fine.”
The conviction reflected in his eyes assures me that he believes his words, and his certainty is a relief. A weight lifts from my shoulders, one that I didn’t even know was there. Mama is okay.
“But I can’t see her?” I ask, just to be sure.
“No,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Hmm, you’d think one perk of dying would be reuniting with people you love, right? Isn’t that what all the movies show?”
“It isn’t like in the movies, Callie,” says Thatcher, with the hint of a smile, a kindness in his face that eases some of the anxiety I’m feeling.
I study the slatted wood of the dock under my feet. The evening shadows are starting to fall now—the sky’s golden glow is giving way to a blue twilight, and the Living are heading back to their cars. I see the ghosts shuffling among them, too, slowly, calmly. “Did you know her?” I ask.
“Your mother?”
I nod.
His mouth sets in a tight line, like he’s trying to decide what to tell me. “She left just after I . . . arrived,” he says.
“So you met her,” I say.
“Briefly.”
“And then she left because . . .”
“Ghosts move on when they’ve completed their haunting,” he says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Let me show you. Walk with me.”
We head to the end of the pier, moving quietly side by side. I watch people pass us—mostly Living, but ghosts, too—sharing space and interacting with each other. A few of the glowing beings even nod at me and Thatcher, and I politely wave back. I’m confused, sad, maybe in shock. But I don’t feel like my life is over. It can’t be. And there was Ella with her family—sailing with them just as if she were alive.
“Everyone is so peaceful,” I say, thinking back on each scene I just witnessed and the ghosts I see now. “It’s not at all like the stories I’ve heard—the moaning and wailing and terrorizing that ghosts do.”