A jazz band kicked into gear above them. Alex felt a zap of energy and noticed a hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “Care for a reading, young one?”
“Sorry?”
The cat-like mask only covered the eyes of the woman who spoke, and Alex watched the corners of her lips curl upward in an appropriately feline sort of way.
“No thanks.” Jonas yanked Alex’s hand and pulled her back into the street. “Stay away from those,” he hissed, jerking his head in the direction of the shop.
“Those what?”
“Aura readers. They’re like fortune tellers.”
“Oh.” She glimpsed back over her shoulder with interest.
“Don’t even think about it. They’re unreliable.”
The street forked, and Jonas steered Alex to the left, where the noise was less deafening. Puffy lollipop trees lined the road, their color fading in and out like blinking Christmas lights.
“How are they doing that?” Alex asked. Another spirit stole her mask, leaving her with shimmery feathers resembling angel wings.
“Too many feelings,” Jonas said. “They can’t decide.”
“This place is really confusing.”
“It’s kind of like how spirits are dressed around here. It’s just their mood affecting their appearance.” He waved his hand at the trees. “They have feelings too. Who would’ve guessed?”
He led her to a top of a hill where they found a clearer view of the fireworks popping in the sky around the moon, which sat idly like an eye without a pupil, a neglectful babysitter. A mob of spirits gathered on the hill, dancing underneath the bright colors, but Jonas didn’t stop. He continued through the crowd until they stood overlooking a valley.
The first thing Alex noticed was a ring of lights that circled the lower grounds like a halo. “What is that?”
Jonas grinned. “That’s the real field of dreams.”
It was a park with several playing fields, each one congested with spirits. Alex heard childish laughter rising from the fields like a vapor, and a glow emanated around it.
“Ballparks?” Alex asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “Really?”
“Why do you look so surprised?”
The scent of hot dogs and spring grass permeated the night. “You didn’t think this was crazy the first time you saw it?”
“Eh. Maybe just that court made of trampolines. What did you expect? Tombstones? We’re kids here. It’s like a giant playground. There’s even a skate park. Kids dream about something like this.”
“This isn’t a dream, though.”
“No, you’re right. It isn’t. It was made into reality.”
She studied the face behind his mask, baffled by how content he seemed, how un-Jonas-like. “What is that cloudy light down there?”
“Happiness.”
“I can see happiness?” she asked without hiding her skepticism.
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “Since there’s nothing to contain it out here in the open. What would have been the point of choosing this”—he motioned to the world around them—“if there wasn’t some enjoyment?”
As she watched the spirits flickering across the fields like fireflies, innocently free like children at play, Alex felt her throat tighten. A decade ago these spirits were probably still curled in the laps of their mothers, listening to bedtime stories and dreaming about what they’d grow up to be. She’d wager none of them would have said ghosts.
“It just seems so silly. Parties and … ” She fidgeted with her mask and kicked a stray ball back down the hill before muttering, “games.”
“Everything we do is a game. Life is a game. Death is a game.” He moved to allow several kids with skulls for masks to flip past them. Above, spirits released brightly lit balloons from the rooftops. The balloons fell like stars to the earth, only to be thrown back into the sky where they belonged. “This is just a different sort of play, although I guess I understand why Ellington thought it would scare you. Did it?” His eyes went to his arm, where Alex had been holding on to him, like she’d left traces there. He seemed to smile at it for a moment.
“It was just a little crazy. Unexpected.”
“Was it worth it?”
“For what?”
His voice dropped. “To get to them?” Jonas moved aside so she could see a group of spirits leaving the fields. Alex scanned the faces of the crowd, but they were each hidden behind a disguise. To whom was he referring?
“Where have you been?” one of them shouted to Jonas.
The familiarity of the voice warmed Alex’s heart. He was masked, sure, but he was unmistakably Kaleb Lasalle, and the curly-haired blonde next to him had to be Gabe. The square jawlines, the defined cheekbones, the roguish mouths that didn’t look right if they weren’t laughing. Their masks were simple and black, like two boys playing Zorro, like the games from her childhood, and Alex was suddenly filled with an overwhelming surge of nostalgia.
Chase’s brothers were here. Happy. In typical Lasalle fashion, they had defied death’s attempt to break their spirits and used their own tragedy to their advantage.
8
In life, the Lasalles did their best to protect her, but Alex’s illness was always a fascination for other children, another Parrish legend to explore. When she was young, Alex hardly minded the attention. It filled the void at home. To other little girls, she was a walking, talking porcelain doll with her large eyes, heart-shaped mouth, and snowy skin. But the years went by, and the attention developed as much as she did, which is to say, not at all. She was always classified as the sick girl. Perhaps this explained why she allied with Liv Frank, who had also been born into a predetermined stigma. During adolescence, images are as malleable as cement.
By the time she reached middle school, the constant company of the Lasalles was often torturous. They could effortlessly turn heads in their direction. Guys wanted to be them and girls wanted to be with them. They allowed their power to roll off their backs, while Alex was sentenced to the sidelines, where she felt stifled by it. The Lasalles became more mesmerizing the older they grew. On the contrary, as Alex aged, she only seemed smaller and weaker in comparison.
Parrish Day was the most important event of the year in their little town. While the Fourth of July meant family fun, fireworks, and corn on the cob, the eleventh of July was a day of guilty pleasures. It was a hazy, scorching mess of barbecue, beer bottles, beaches, and boat races. Every adult in the community drank too much, smoked too much, and laughed too hard to notice what the kids were doing, particularly at night during the beach bonfires.
On her thirteenth birthday, Alex sat sifting her toes through the cool sand, watching the tide stealing the grains like it was the world’s hourglass. She was finally old enough to recognize that her differences were hindrances. And she was becoming jealous of other girls, and not in the petty ways she always had—this wasn’t about playing sports or riding water slides. The other girls would get to grow up, and they would have children and grandchildren. They would get to live in ways she couldn’t.
The Lasalles dominated the volleyball sand, and the shimmering flames of the bonfire lit the scene, accentuating the definition of their muscles. They stood like four Adonises while their opponents were mutts, panting pathetically opposite them.
“Come on, guys, make this a little difficult for us!” Jonas taunted them.
“Alex, what’s the score?” Kaleb called, fanning himself with the football jersey he’d draped around his neck. “And don’t lie just because you feel sorry for those guys.”
“We only need one more point to win.” Chase turned and winked at Alex, and she felt her stomach flutter.