“KRISTINA,” I WHISPERED, MY VOICE hoarse. I reached slowly and steadily for the candle and lighter on my desk. “Colonel. Don’t panic.”
The colonel cocked his head to the side, curious, and followed my gaze past his shoulders.
“Oh, apologies, Baylor,” he said with a hearty laugh. He had bright brown eyes that somehow seemed to shimmer vibrantly when he laughed, and Kristina always stared and smiled at him like she couldn’t get enough of looking at them. It was really annoying. “We should have mentioned this first thing. You have a visitor!”
He took a step to the side to reveal a short man with matted gray hair and the complexion of a wild mushroom that desperately needed to be cleaned. His stance was a bit lopsided and gave the impression he was in danger of falling over, as though his left leg was four inches too short. He was attempting a grin, but it looked more like he had some gas-related discomfort.
“Uhh,” I mumbled. “Hello?”
“Baylor Bosco,” he said, his voice at once smooth and raspy, like an old-fashioned jazz singer’s. “A pleasure to see ya.”
“I’m sure I’d like to say the same,” I said.
“Baylor,” Kristina said sharply. “This is your great-great-great-grandpa Charlie.”
“A bit long, that name, innit?” he said. A light accent that I couldn’t place lingered at the end of his words. “My friends—back when I was still walking around on your side, I mean—they always called me Ten-Buck Chuck.” He smiled proudly. “Always up for a ten-dollar bet. Wha’s ten bucks at the end of the day, really? Was a good way to pass the time on the docks, if anything.”
“I’d imagine it was a lot of money back when you were alive,” I said, shrugging. “Probably could have paid half your rent or something with it.”
“Nah, don’ be silly, Baylor,” he said, stepping past Kristina and the colonel. “Let me get a good look at ya in the light.”
“Okay?” I said, suddenly wondering what to do with my hands as he looked me up and down. “What are you doing here, uh, Ten-Buck Chuck?”
He chuckled. “Jus’ Charlie works fine too.” He seemed fixated on my legs. “We’ve gotten taller through the years, we O’Briens, haven’ we?” He nodded with approval. “Probably needed to jus’ survive in these big new cities. That Darwin knew what he was talking about. Won’ shut up about it these days, mind ya, and sometimes to rile him up, I’ll say, ‘Hey, Charles’—see, he’s a bit of a snot, goes by Charles and all—so I’ll say, ‘Hey Charles, isn’ it just a theory, though? Nothing actually proven, right?’ ” His eyes lit up and he slapped his hands together. “Ya should see his reaction! Blabbers on and on and on, as if any of us really care.”
I gawked at him, entirely speechless.
“Charlie decided to join us for Thanksgiving this year,” Kristina said through gritted teeth. “He is family, after all.”
He motioned as if he were tipping down the brim of a hat. “Might get some of the other family members to show up, too, but you never know on Thanksgiving. Busy travel day and all, things get crowded.”
“Crowded?” I scoffed. “You’re ghosts! What does that matter?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kristina said, glaring at Charlie, who smiled back at her in confusion.
“Wait, do you—?” I began, but Kristina cut me off.
“We have other things to discuss, Baylor,” she said quickly. “Namely the fact that you’re seeing the dreams of a couple random kids who are drifting somewhere thousands of miles away.”
I immediately thought of the grim scene with Helena and Archie, their weak, thin bodies battered by the sun and the waves.
“What’d you find out?”
“Well, it’s not particularly good since—”
“Baylor!” my mom shouted from downstairs. “Your uncle just called. They’re getting here early. Come down and help me set up the kitchen!”
“One second!” I shouted back. “Okay, go ahead, Kristina.”
“So they’re—”
“We do not have one second, Baylor Douglas Bosco!” she screamed up again. “Get your butt down here right now before I come up there and drag you to this kitchen by your ears.”
“Oh, I like her,” Charlie said. “Is she an O’Brien? She sounds like one.”
Kristina nodded.
“This is going to be a fun evening,” Charlie said.
I sighed. “Coming!”
I marched downstairs and found my mom whirling in the kitchen, my dad attempting to set up the long table, and my brother, who never returned to my room with a pillow, keeping Ella busy in the family room.
“Help your father,” she said, her face covered in a bit of flour and some type of yellowish mashed vegetable. “He needs it.”
“I don’t need it,” he said through gritted teeth, “but I can’t get this thing to snap!” He was banging on one of the metal legs, trying to get a clasp to click into place.
“Let Baylor try,” she said.
I walked over and shook the table a little while the trio of ghosts lingered around us and looked over our shoulders.
“See?” Dad said triumphantly. “It’s stuck.”
“It looks like the left side is a bit dented, Baylor,” the colonel said, peering over the table, his body bent at the most awkward angle I’d ever seen any ghost attempt. Certainly no human could ever mimic it, at least not without sustaining serious injury; he was nearly at a perfect right angle, bending from the middle of his thighs as though they contained hinges. “Try pressing hard on that side while you pull it down.”
I followed his advice and the clasp snapped into place.
“It worked!” I yelped, and I smiled at the colonel, who was nodding his approval, before I coughed and looked away.
“Yeah, well, that’s because I sat here loosening it for ten minutes,” Dad grumbled, more to the clasp than to me.
“You tried, Doug,” Mom said. “Now put the tablecloths on, line up the runner down the middle—make sure it’s not crooked!—set the table, put out the flowers and candles, and then help me wipe down the counters.”
Dad and I looked at each other and sighed. “I wonder if we can escape unnoticed to the Kirkwoods for pizza?” I said quietly.
“Son,” he said just as quietly, “neither one of us is talented enough to pull one over on your mother.”
* * *
After a frantic hour of setting up and last-minute cleaning (“You checked behind the toilets, right, Baylor?” my mom had shrieked at one point), we heard Jack announce that Uncle Glenn’s car had pulled into the driveway.
“They’re here!” Mom yelled from the kitchen.
“Yeah, we know, Jack just said so,” I said, confused.
She turned my way, her face freshly cleaned of random kitchen residue, arched an eyebrow, and wordlessly assessed me, her eyes wide and threatening. I gulped, and she continued to stare for a few more seconds.
“Mom?” I said, wondering if I was about to get grounded for some unknown reason.
The sound of a knock pierced the air, and she suddenly smiled, the dark look disappearing from her face and the chaos and stress of the morning dissolving from her mind. “It’s Thanksgiving time!” she sang, her voice the cheeriest it had been all day. She rushed to the front door and opened it to find Uncle Glenn holding three large casserole dishes and a huge bag slung around his back. Next to him, my cousin Gillie smiled in a forced way, like someone had placed hooks in the corners of her mouth and pulled hard. Behind them, Aunt Cathy and my other cousin, Oli, were futzing with something in the backseat.
“Glenny!” Mom said, going in for a hug but realizing a second too late it was an impossible task with everything he was holding. She wound up tenderly caressing the aluminum foil of the casserole dishes before she stepped back and said, “Come in, come in!”
“Thanks, baby sis,” he said, crossing the threshold and disappearing into the kitchen. Gillie followed him, but Mom pulled her in for a hug, much to the dismay of Gillie, who stood motionless as my mom tightly squeezed her arms around her. For the second time in less than ten seconds, Mom appeared to be hugging an inanimate object, and she was fully aware of it.
She released Gillie after an awkward few seconds, clapped her hands together, and said, “How are you, my beautiful niece? Are you liking high school? Made lots of new friends?”
Gillie stared back at her, tugging at her straight, shiny brunette hair, but looking like she wanted to wrap it around her neck and pull until she didn’t have to talk anymore.
“It’s fine,” she said, her voice different than I remembered it, now a bit slower and higher. “You know. It’s . . . good.”
Mom nodded. “Great!” she said. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.” She looked at me and said, “Say hello to your cousin, Baylor!”
I looked from Mom to Gillie and was unsure of what to do. It seemed like a better idea to shake her hand or give her a casual pat on the back, but I knew my mom wouldn’t be happy with that, so I endured the same fate as my mom and found myself hugging what felt like a very thin, bony pole.
“Nice to see you, Gillie,” I said, letting go, my cheek feeling sort of greasy from where it’d touched her face, like a whole bottle of lotion had exploded on her skin. “Ready for our slumber party?”
Uncle Glenn reappeared at the moment, free of dishes and bags, and Gillie looked at her dad, a flash of anger crossing her face.
“I thought you were joking about the sleeping bags,” she said, annoyed.
“Why would I kid about the sleeping bags?” he asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Gillie asked, her voice rising. “A sleeping bag on Baylor’s floor? That type of accommodation is not acceptable.”
Uncle Glenn turned his head a bit and stared at her, his expression eerily similar to mom’s from just moments ago. “You know what’s not acceptable, Gillie?” he said. “That snotty tone of yours. Say one more word about it and I’ll make sure you sleep on the kitchen floor with a dish towel for a pillow.”
She glared at him. “That’s child abuse.”
He smiled. “That’s parenting. Take your stuff up to Baylor’s room. Now.”
She stomped upstairs and he turned back to my mom, who looked at him with a face of admiration. “Happy Thanksgiving,” he said sarcastically, imitating Gillie’s voice. “I’m sooo thankful for high school. It’s, like, the best.”
Mom laughed and finally gave him a proper hug. “Everyone goes through it,” she said, her head on his shoulder. “I remember being a fourteen-year-old and feeling so insecure and trying to fit in. Girls are so mean, too.” She let go of him, frowned, and shook her head. “Much meaner than boys. It’s tough.”
I got a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I started high school next year, and seeing Gillie act like that and hearing Mom talk about it made me nervous.
“Yeah, well, things are different these days,” he said. “You didn’t have cell phones or computers or social media.” He made a face like he’d taken cough syrup. “She’s been in high school for less than three months and it’s like an alien spaceship sucked her up, messed with her brain, and spit down this creature I don’t recognize.” Mom looked at me quickly, a note of panic crossing her face, before turning back to her brother. He didn’t notice, though, because he’d turned to me. “Or, hey, maybe a demon’s haunting her, Baylor. Any chance you can perform an exorcism this weekend?”
I attempted a meek laugh. “Probably not,” I said. “I’ll go help Gillie with her bag.”
“Well, before you do that, would you mind helping your aunt with her stuff? Her father’s a bit of, uh, a handful,” he stammered, looking at my mom. “Sorry again about all that.”
“It’s fine,” she said, her tone breezy. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Yeah, but I know Doug—”
“It’s fine,” she said sharply, and it was clear they wouldn’t be discussing it again.
It took all the strength I had to shove the bubbling questions back down my throat. I looked at Kristina, who shrugged, just as stumped. Annoyed, I grabbed my jacket and headed out to the car.
Oli, a few years younger than me, was balancing a perilous stack of bags in his arms. “Hi, Baylor,” he said, enthusiasm bursting out of his pores.
“The boy’s aura is golden,” the colonel exclaimed. “Wow!”
“He’s obsessed with Baylor,” Kristina said, “and he fights with Jack because he’s so jealous Jack has an older brother.” She looked at me sadly. “Though it seems like Jack would be perfectly willing to trade places with Oli.”
“We’re going to fix that,” I whispered from the corner of my mouth before turning back to Oli. “Hey, Oli. Hey, Aunt Cathy,” I said.
Aunt Cathy didn’t respond because she was half inside the backseat of the car, fumbling around with something.
“What’s she doing?” I asked Oli.
“Grandpa’s fussing over his seat belt. Keeps saying it’s stuck.”
“Do they need help?”
“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “He’s just sitting on it and won’t move over to unbuckle it.”
“What’s his name again? Horty?”
“Yeah, lots of people call him Uncle Horty,” he said.
“Got it,” I said, eyeing his bags, which seemed to teeter left and right more and more with each passing second. “Those look heavy. Go inside; I’ll help your mom.”
Oli walked toward the house, and I went to the other side of the car, opened the door, and stuck my head in. Immediately an unwelcome cloud of pungent, spicy cologne invaded my nose. I covered my nose and mouth, hoping to filter the foul scent. Uncle Horty sat in the middle seat, his arms dangling helplessly as his daughter had her hands buried beneath his body.
“Aunt Cathy?” I said.
“Oh, hi, Baylor,” she said, looking up. “Sorry, just trying to help my dad with his seat belt. Dad, you remember Baylor, of course.” She forced an odd laugh. “And Baylor, feel free to call him Uncle Horty.”
Uncle Horty’s body looked like a collection of rectangles and squares. He had broad, sharp shoulders that blended seamlessly with his wide torso, and his legs stuck out on both sides of the middle console at a perfect perpendicular angle. His head was oddly small compared to the rest of his body, but it was just as sharp and angular, like it had been sculpted using a shoe box as a guide.
“Hello, Baylor,” he said, his voice higher than I thought it was going to be. “I’d shake your hand, but we’re a little preoccupied at the moment.”
“Dad, all you have to do is scoot forward a little and I can unbuckle it,” Aunt Cathy said, her exasperation more than evident. It sounded like that was the twentieth time she’d repeated the same sentence.
“Cathy, dear, it’s stuck,” he said, enunciating the last word slowly and condescendingly.
“Oh, this is just pathetic,” Kristina said, watching from the passenger seat as Charlie and the colonel stood nearby.
“It’s not stuck,” Aunt Cathy said. “You’re just not used to these new cars with small middle seats. If you’d just sat in the front like I’d asked you to, this wouldn’t have been a problem.”
“I like the backseat,” he said simply. “I get a good view of the road and can help the driver out.”
“Yes, and while Glenn thoroughly appreciated your desire to help, it’s probably best to just let the driver drive next time.”
“Oh no, you can never be too careful, Cathy, not these days,” he said with all the concern of a doctor explaining that the bubonic plague had returned and we were all doomed. “You never know what pyschos are out on the roads anymore, swerving left and right, drunk at ten in the morning, wreaking havoc on the innocents of the world.”
Cathy sighed. “You’re going to be stuck here all day if you don’t sit up,” she said. “We’re not going to cut this seat belt just because you don’t understand how it works.”
“Maybe we should call a mechanic,” he suggested.
“Baylor,” she said suddenly, jerking her head in my direction, her short hair flying waywardly around her head, “give me your belt.”
“What?”
“Your belt,” she said. “Take it off and give it to me.”
Uncle Horty and I looked at each other in confusion as I took off the belt. Was she about to choke him to death? If that were the case, I wouldn’t let her go through with it, of course, but I was semicurious to see her make the attempt.
“Bet she chokes him,” Charlie said with delight. “Any takers?”
She grabbed my belt, fastened it around her dad’s legs, and told me to come to her side. She grabbed my shoulders and leaned forward as her dad hummed helplessly from the inside the car.
“I’m going to hoist him up in a second, and you’re going to dig in there, find the buckle, and click it,” she said in a way that suggested she might morph into a snake and swallow me whole if I didn’t succeed the first time.
“Got it,” I said. We turned to the car, squeezed in, and got into position, my body angled awkwardly under hers. She pulled up on the belt, shifting her father up and away from the seat. I shoved my hands under his legs, searching for the buckle, hoping beyond hope he hadn’t had an accident or something during the car ride. My right hand found the end of the belt, and I yelped with excitement as I plunged my finger into the red button and the belt suddenly loosened and zoomed against the seat.
Aunt Cathy let go of the belt and Uncle Horty landed hard on the seat, as did my hands, which were unfortunately still on the buckle. We both screamed at the same time—he in pain, and me because my hands were touching an old man’s butt. I yanked my hands away, forgetting Aunt Cathy was positioned awkwardly over me, and I accidentally elbowed her in the face.
She screamed as well, and we both fell backward out of the car and onto the pavement in a heap.
“Are you okay?” I asked, lifting myself off her.
“I think so,” she said, clutching her eyebrow as my mom, dad, and uncle ran out of the house to see what was going on after hearing three separate screams. “Just missed my eye, thankfully.”
“What happened?” my dad asked, the first to arrive, surveying the scene.
“These modern cars,” Uncle Horty said, sliding gracefully out of the car and stepping over Aunt Cathy and me. “Only a fool would believe they’re safer than ever. Clearly not.” He pointed to us on the ground as if to prove his point.
My dad bent down to help us get on our feet.
“Oh, Cathy, you’re bleeding,” he groaned. His hands awkwardly hovered over a cut just above her eyebrow, unsure of what to do.
“See?” Uncle Horty said. “This never would have happened in the seventies.”
“Oh, really, Horty?” Dad spit, glowering at the old man. “Yeah, those cars were so much safer, you know, without all the air bags and seat belts and pumping breaks and alarm systems.”
As my dad finished his little speech, Uncle Horty smirked. “Happy Thanksgiving, Douglas. It’s good to see you again.”
My dad opened his mouth to say something, but my mom touched his shoulder and walked forward to embrace the old man in a hug.
“Great to see you, Horty. Now let’s get your daughter inside before that cut gets infected.”
She grabbed Aunt Cathy around the shoulder and led her inside the house, leaving me, my dad, Uncle Glenn, Uncle Horty, and a trio of ghosts to awkwardly stare at one another in the driveway.
“Well,” Charlie piped up, his voice eager and excited, “looks like we’re goin’ to be in for a very interesting evening!”