Talia
Kitty falls asleep on the sofa in the middle of a conversation. One minute we’re looking through Shivam’s magic book for anything we can use to bring Matt back, and the next, she’s snoring gently, her head cricked back at an odd angle. My face feels warm when I smile. It’s an involuntary thing that creeps up on me and floods me, and I can’t remember the last time I smiled like this.
I lift her feet up onto the sofa, and she mumbles and slides down onto the pile of throw cushions she seems to collect. She tucks her hands together under her cheek like a wee cartoon character. It’s adorable.
It strikes me that I can’t sit there for the rest of the afternoon watching her sleep. I may be socially inept, but I know that much. I stand like I’ve been burnt and…now what?
The silence is oppressive. I’m used to paper-thin walls with shouts and fights and laughter, both in Glasgow and Oxford, but here, it’s like a ghost town. A door opening and shutting in a flat somewhere else in the block, footsteps on the floor above my head. Nothing more, and I find myself wandering around the flat on tiptoe, freezing at every noise I make, the silence strangely important.
As the boredom grows, I look in every cupboard and shelf that’s not in a bedroom. I flick through the books on the shelves, look at the pictures on the walls. I find young Kitty and baby Sam, teenage Kitty and Matt, Sam with a group of kids his age. There are pictures of a beautiful woman with Kitty’s high cheekbones and a wide, confident smile, and I recognise her mum, Madeline. She looks exactly like she did in the grey place, a different hippy skirt swishing around her ankles. I think I’d believe she was a witch even if I hadn’t seen her materialise a sofa out of thin air.
There’s even a framed newspaper clipping, black and white pictures of a group of people leaning over the side of a ship. I can only just read the name, Empire Windrush, two names circled in blue biro in the caption below. My eyebrows rise. I wonder if that’s Kitty’s nan and maybe her grandpa arriving in England. I wonder if Ma’s got pictures of her own parents somewhere, black and white photos of post-war Glasgow. Would she have framed them? Displayed them? I don’t remember ever seeing any link to my past like this.
I poke at the kitchen cupboards, read the instructions on the back of a packet of noodles, the ingredients of a pot of seasoning. There are spices I’ve never heard of, and I lean against the counter to pop the lid and smell them.
Matt tuts from the doorway. I jump so hard, I nearly spill the allspice. I’m lucky it’s half-empty. I click the lid shut and press my hand against my chest as if it’ll somehow slow my racing heart. “You’re such a bastard.”
He smirks and hops onto the counter. “Says the one sneaking through my best mate’s cupboards.”
I put the jar back in the cupboard and close it, my blush heating my cheeks. “I was bored,” I say, and it sounds defensive even to my ears.
Matt doesn’t seem to care anymore. He’s staring toward the window, I guess beyond, toward his dad’s house. “How was it?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Dad was asleep when I got there. Then he went to work like ten minutes after waking up.”
He falls silent, and I assume that’s it. He got bored of being there, made his way back. But he puts his hand up to his face, wipes his cheek. “He looked tired,” he says.
I raise my eyebrows, on alert again. What do I know about being comforting?
Matt sniffs and swipes his hand across his nose. “He never sleeps in so late. He works really long hours, but he’s always up at the crack of sparrow’s fart unless he’s sick.”
“Maybe he is?”
Matt seems to give up on his posture and slumps with a damp sigh, pressing his hands to his face. “I don’t want him to feel like this. I don’t want him to be so sad.”
It takes a lot for me to approach him, put my hand above his knee where I know it would feel the warmth of his body if he were alive. Every moment, I’m expecting to be shoved off, pushed backward, unwelcome in the circle of his vulnerability. “He’s sad because he misses you. Because he loves you.”
Matt’s breath shudders as he inhales. “I wish I could make him forget me.”
“He wouldn’t want that,” I say firmly, and it’s funny how the words come so smoothly, like I’m not thinking anymore. “I bet he couldn’t bear to not remember you.”
“It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not.”
The silence of the house is broken by his soft sobs, and I feel my eyes prickling too. I want to hold him together physically while he falls apart in front of me. Nothing is fucking fair. I hate it all.
“Look, we’ve just got to hope Kitty can find a way to bring you back—”
“I don’t know if I want that anymore,” he says, his hands falling from his face, red-rimmed eyes boring into me. “What if she has to exchange someone’s life to bring me back? What if…” He swallows, then looks at me, his eyes bleak. “She told me some things back then, when I was alive, you know? The things some of her cases said. How they were so bowed down with grief and how relieved they were when it went right, and they could bring their loved ones home. What if that’s my dad? What if my dad wants to exchange his life for me?”
“He would,” I say softly.
“I don’t want him to,” he says, his voice childish and afraid. “I couldn’t accept that. I couldn’t live knowing my dad had exchanged his life for me. How could I? I don’t want anyone to die for me.”
I bow my head. I can’t help it. I can’t keep looking at him like an equal right now.
“Shit,” he says. “Talia, shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I didn’t mean that, I was…”
“It’s okay,” I say.
“No, it’s different. It was different for you. It wasn’t your dad, was it?”
I laugh and step back, leaning against the opposite counter and crossing my arms, a sorry version of a hug. “I doubt it,” I say. “I never knew my da. But he was someone’s.”
Matt’s quiet, chewing his lip. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” I laugh, and it’s a sad, bitter sound. “This is all a fucking shit show.”
“Yeah, it is.” Matt takes a long, deep breath, force of habit, I suppose. “I think I’m coming to terms with it, though. Being dead. I’m not frantic to find some sort of solution to all this. I mean, yeah, it sucks. Fuck, it sucks so bad. But we’ve looked and looked, and we haven’t found any clues that might help, you know? And that’s okay.” He looks at me and smiles, and it hurts under my ribs with a sort of anger and grief. “I can ‘live’ like this.”
I want to say something. I want to tease him, wind him up. I want to hold on to him and tell him not to give up.
Kitty yawns and shifts on the sofa, her arm appearing as she stretches. Matt grins and jumps down from the counter, vaulting over and landing on her. She squeals and sits up. “You git!”
“Wakey wakey,” he says, his grin just this side of manic as he puts his ghostly hands through her face. She shrieks and giggles and flaps at him.
All of a sudden, I’m overwhelmed by the concentration of life and joy in these two people. I feel like the ghost, like I’ve brought the grey place back with me, cold mist swirling from my feet outward, and I want to run as much as I want to stay and soak up their warmth. “Hey, I’m gonna go,” I say. I’m not sure I’ve said it loud enough, and the thought of saying it again horrifies me, my heart starting to beat faster, my ribs curling in on themselves.
“Oh, really?” Kitty sounds disappointed, or I’m deluding myself. I smile at her anyway. She stands, passing through Matt, who yells at her. “You’ll come back, though, right?”
I blink at her.
“You said you’d think about it,” she says in a singsong. “C’mon, stay the holidays.”
It feels like a trick, too good to be true. She clasps her hands under her chin and makes goofy puppy eyes at me. I laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. You sure?”
“Yes,” she says, laughing. “It’s definitely totally fine.”
I think I walk downstairs on a cloud of confused, fizzing excitement and anxiety. When I get to my car, I realise the skeleton leaf is still behind my ear.