COLE STAYED BY ASHLEY’S SIDE FOR A LONG TIME, holding his friend’s hand as it slowly drained of warmth and colour. He could have stayed there all night, losing track of time, not willing to leave his friend, to lose somebody else. He shouldn’t have come, just like Ashley had said. He should’ve deleted Ashley’s first text, or ignored it and every other text after that. Cole looked at the blood on the floor, all over his clothes, and on his own skin. Would Ashley be alive, too, if he had stayed away? Somehow, had his return led to this? What—
“He would’ve died anyway, eventually.”
Cole looked up to see a coyote standing there, its head tilted sadly to one side. Cole fell backwards, and pushed himself away frantically with his heels and hands, until his back hit the wall.
“It…it’s you.”
“In the fur.”
“Coyote.”
“You can call me Choch.”
“Choch?”
“What is with kids and repeating…okay, listen. I thought of the name and wasn’t sold at first, but now I really like it. Fair? Please don’t say ‘fair.’”
Cole nodded.
Choch moved closer to Cole. Cole, in turn, tried to move farther away, but there was the whole business of the wall.
“I thought I’d imagined you,” Cole said.
“Pfft, kids and their imaginations,” Choch said. “Did you think you did all of that on your own?”
“I didn’t….” Cole’s eyes darted back and forth, between Ashley and Choch. It hit him. “You texted me.”
“Guilty,” Choch said, and raised a paw like raising a hand.
“This is my fault,” Cole kept his eyes trained on his friend, not the spirit being now walking across the room. “If I hadn’t come, if I hadn’t texted Ashley back, he’d still be alive.”
“Like I said, Coley-Boley, there was no preventing Ashley’s death.”
“Then why bring me here in the first place?”
“I wish I could tell you that, I really do,” Choch said. “But all I can say is that while Ashley’s unfortunate demise was inevitable, there are others you can still help.”
“Like who?”
Choch moved his paw across his mouth and made a zip sound. He said, “But honestly, it’s about time you got here. You’ve got some work to do.”
Cole stood up and faced Choch. The shock of seeing a talking animal—a myth come to life—and the disbelief in what had happened ten years ago, was quickly wearing off, giving way to annoyance and frustration. “This is what you meant back then, I guess. If all of that was real. This is the payback?”
Choch laughed. “I mean, I didn’t know what it would be, but you did owe me one. We had a deal.”
“I just wanted to save my friends. If I knew saving my friends would mean losing somebody else, I wish I’d never agreed to it.”
They began to walk together towards the front door. On the way, Choch asked, “And then what, my boy? There’d be no Eva, no Brady. Which life is worth more?”
“This isn’t a game show. These are my friends.” They went outside and stopped at the top of the steps in the cool night air. Cole shook his head. “I don’t want to do this. Don’t make me do this.”
“Look, I’ve got my hands tied, kid. You’ve got your boss, I’ve got mine.”
“Who? God?”
Choch shrugged. “You’re smart, for a teenage boy. Eighty-seven percent in math last year, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“I keep tabs on all my little projects,” Choch said. “Anyway, as I was saying, I may not be able to tell you exactly all the annoying little details, but I can remind you of the abilities you have that’ll help you along the way.”
“Abilities?”
“Yeah, the ones I gave you…” Choch said, and then added out of the side of his mouth, as though he were keeping a secret from somebody who wasn’t even there, “…ack-bay at the chool-say.”
“I don’t have any…” but Cole trailed off, and thought back on the last ten years. He’d always been—
“Okay, let me stop you right there. Inner-monologue, blah blah blah.” Choch rolled his eyes. “I’ll save you the thought process: yes, that’s why you’ve always been stronger than you should be. Why you can, as kids put it, ‘throw it down’ on the basketball court.”
“We don’t say it like that.”
“But there’s more. It’s been dormant, but you can bring it back up like bad Chinese food.”
“How?” Cole asked.
“You really want me to…I mean, I gave you the gist.”
“Yeah, I really do.”
Choch started to dry heave, like he was coughing up a hairball.
“Gross! Stop.”
“You wanted to know how.”
“I meant how I could bring back the abilities, obviously.”
Before Choch could answer, Cole started on his way down the stairs. “You know what? Screw it. I’m not doing this again. I’m not saving people, and I’m not seeing anybody else I care about dead.”
“What about everybody you know?” Choch asked, suddenly striking Cole with the uncommon gravity of his words and tone.
Cole stopped beside the hood of the Ford Mustang. He stood silent for an eternity. And then pursed his lips: “I won’t do it.”
“I thought you might say that. You’re a stubborn little thing, aren’t you?” Choch tried to whistle towards the forest several times, but couldn’t with his coyote mouth. He was visibly annoyed by his failure. He ended up calling out, “Hey! Time for that cool entrance!” Cole looked into the thick trees and underbrush and, bit by bit, the cool air began to warm. A ball of flames approached them from within Blackwood Forest. Finally, the ball of flames moved onto the gravel driveway as though it had just been out for a walk. It turned towards Cole, let out an excited shriek, and ran over to him. At first, Cole recoiled against the Mustang, but then he recognized the little ball of flames. It was Jayne, a girl in his class from Wounded Sky Elementary School. A girl who died in the school fire. Half of her body was in flames, while the other half of her was the perfectly normal little girl he remembered. She’d always been smaller than the other kids. Because of her size, his classmates often excluded her as a “baby,” but Cole had always liked her.
“Coley!” she cried out, and put her arms around his waist.
Her flames instantly began to burn Cole, and he politely pushed her away.
“Hey Jayne.” He saw she was sad that he’d refused her hug. “Sorry, it’s just that I think you’re going to have to hug me with the other side there.”
Jayne looked at her flaming hand and nodded. “Right.” She shuffled over to him and gave him a quick hug with the non-burning side of her body.
“Thanks, Jayney.”
“Jayne here has a bit of a predicament,” Choch said, moving down the stairs to Cole and Jayne. “See, she’s been in the waiting room for ten years.”
“The waiting room?” Cole said.
“There’s games!” Jayne shouted.
“That’s real good, Jayney,” Cole said to her. He turned to Choch. “What are you talking about?”
“You know the northern lights?” Choch said. Cole nodded. Choch continued, “Well, that’s the waiting room. Sure, there are games, as Jayne says. I’m not cruel. And they dance, of course. But even spirits get bored, once in a while. Especially, you know, when they’re stuck there forever.”
Cole closed his eyes in submission. “You’ll keep her there unless—”
“—you keep your end of the bargain. Right. See? I said you were smart,” Choch said. “Eighty-seven percent in math, boy.”
“It’s okay, Coley! It’s fun anyways!” Jayne interjected, jumping in place.
“There’s also the whole everybody-in-the-community-will-die thing too,” Choch said, clearing his throat. “But no pressure.” He waved his paw in the air. “You go. Those tryouts next week, the whole scholarship thing. I mean, these are things that would keep me up at night.”
“That’s enough!” Cole said. “I’ll stay.”
“Good boy,” Choch said. “I knew you’d come around.”
The group—spirit being, ghost, and boy—heard the distinctive sound of rubber against gravel approaching, followed by the shadows of trees sliding across Ashley’s trailer from the car’s headlights, like ghosts marching.
“Good luck!” Choch leapt away from the driveway and into Blackwood Forest.
Jayne remained, her warm, orange light almost overpowering the headlights that were getting closer and closer with each passing moment. Cole gave her a gentle nudge on her non-burning shoulder.
“You better go, too, Jayney.”
Jayne shook her head. “Choch says I’m ‘vincible!”
“Invisible,” Cole corrected. “You’re invisible.”
“Yeah that too.”
“Go on, though, okay? I’ll see you after.”
Jayne kicked at a pebble on the ground, and Cole was surprised to see it connect with her toe and skip along the ground. “Okay, fine.” She evaporated into a cloud of black smoke.
Even with the headlights glaring into his eyes, Cole could see it was an RCMP vehicle. He stepped out from behind the Ford Mustang with a hand cupped over his eyes so he could see a bit better. He watched Wayne step out of the car. When Wayne saw Cole, he immediately drew his gun and pointed it in Cole’s direction. Cole raised his arms.
“Don’t move!” Wayne shouted.
“I was just—” Cole started, about to explain how when you had a gun drawn on you, you were generally required to raise your hands above your head.
“What’s all over your clothes?!”
Cole took a deep breath, then needed another. Right then, despite sitting beside Ashley’s dead body for as long as he had, it all became real. His lips were trembling. “It’s Ashley’s blood.”
Wayne stepped around from the driver’s side door of the RCMP car, and walked up to Cole slowly. When he saw definitively that it was Cole, he lowered his gun.
“Cole.” Wayne holstered his gun.
“Mr. Kirkness.”
“I thought I saw you at the rink.”
“Yeah, I was there.”
He put his hand on Cole’s shoulder. “What happened, son?”
Cole was sobbing as quietly as he could, trying to wipe tears away from both eyes before they fell. He was feeling weak. Not anxiety weak—something else. He felt like falling over, like his legs wouldn’t support him anymore. Wayne must’ve seen all of this happening. He helped Cole sit down on the hood of the Mustang.
“What happened?” he repeated.
“I came to see Ashley, because he…I thought he…asked me to come home. We were talking in the trailer, then, I don’t know, somebody shot him, right in front of me, through the window.”
“I didn’t see, I…it was a man, I think. He ran off into the woods,” Cole said. “I was going to run after him, but Ashley was…”
“It’s okay, Cole.” Wayne stepped away from the car, towards the trailer. There was a hole in the window and spiralling cracks leading away from it, towards the edges of the glass. Cole heard Wayne breathe deep, watched as Wayne’s whole body sucked in air, then deflated as he pushed the breath out. He ran his hands over the cracks, inspecting them thoroughly, then climbed the steps to the front door. He paused for a moment there. “Hang tight, okay?”
“I’m hanging on.”
Cole’s arms were tingling. He lifted his hand up, fingers spread, and looked at his own limb, shaking delicately in the wind like it was a leaf in autumn. Wayne walked inside the front door, and Cole looked away from his hand, towards the trailer, to see Wayne keel over, hands against knees.
“Oh, God,” Cole heard Wayne say, even though he shouldn’t have. Wayne had whispered it. Wayne continued to talk low, and Cole continued to hear the words perfectly, when he made a phone call.
“Kate, it’s Wayne…listen, I need you to come out to Ashley’s trailer…yeah I know, I was there, I…how many? Three? What spreads that quickly? A flu or…wait, listen…Kate, Ashley’s been shot…I don’t know. Cole Harper was here, visiting with him. Saw the whole thing…” Wayne looked over at Cole while still on the phone, then turned away from him and continued, “I just need you to be here… right…thanks, Kate.”
Wayne hung up the phone and ventured farther into the trailer. Cole could hear light footsteps moving around, like he was trying not to wake Ashley up. Oh please, wake up, Ash. Please. He saw Wayne at the window again, looking at the hole, at the cracks. He watched Wayne look all around the trailer methodically for several minutes before getting to Ashley’s body. Wayne took off his hat, held it to his chest, and then dipped out of sight as he crouched down.
New headlights approached and Dr. Captain got out of a grey sedan. She walked towards the front door of the trailer first, but stopped when she saw Cole, and rushed over to his side. She looked him over carefully.
Shaking hands, weak knees, dizziness, Cole felt like he’d drunk a hundred cups of coffee. “Hi, Dr. Captain,” he said. His voice was shaking as well. “Sorry about earlier.”
She had a stethoscope and was listening carefully to his heartbeat. “Well, this isn’t a heart attack either, Cole. You’re in shock. You saw Ashley…”
“Yeah, I saw it.”
She shone a light into each eye. As she did, she said, “That would do it.”
“I’ve seen worse.” Cole noticed how dark it was suddenly. Darker than it should have been with Wayne’s headlights shining across the driveway and against the trailer, and the trailer’s own lights spread out over the area. There were black spots converging in his vision. He wiped at his eyes, and stood up from the car. “I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen…”
“I know.”
Cole stumbled as he tried to take a step. Dr. Captain grabbed his arm and tried to steady him.
“Hang on, Cole.” Her face was covered in black, like a stocking was being pulled over her head. Soon all he could do was hear her, not see her. “Wayne!” she called out.
Cole tried to take another step, but fell to the ground. He could feel Dr. Captain’s hand slip away from his forearm. He felt the gravel scratch against his skin as the hard ground collided violently with his body.