Chapter 4

 

Gabe’s mouth moved, but no noise came out. No voice.

Thea watched him, amazed. What was he doing here? He looked good. He’d aged better than she had. His long frame was still sinewy thin. He wore faded jeans and a stained T-shirt. His wavy, dark hair brushed his shoulders. His eyes blazed. He wasn’t his usual, mellow self. There was an urgency, an intensity about him as he tried to communicate with her again.

He was waving his hands, frustrated, when footsteps flew up the wooden stairs to the deck outside. Just as the door burst open and Hannah rushed into the room, Gabe disappeared.

Hannah ran straight to Thea and demanded, “Was that Uncle Gabe? Why did he leave?”

“You saw him?” Thea asked.

“Of course. He was talking to my mom when I got out of school.” At ten years of age, Hannah’s gift was still growing. Thea’s niece had been born with the ability to see dead people and talk to them. It never frightened her, but it did make her an extremely eccentric little girl.

“Talking to your mother?” Thea tried to sort out her thoughts, but they were too jumbled. “How? What about?” He wasn’t a Patek. He didn’t have their kind of talents. What sort of things had Gabe learned since he left Emerald Hills? How to transport? And talk to ghosts?

Hannah shrugged. “They both evaporated when they saw me. Must be serious if they think I’m too young to hear.”

Thea smiled and changed the subject. She needed time to think. The vibes had been Gabe. Had he tried to visit her earlier in the week and hadn’t perfected it yet? Was that why those vibes were so chaotic? “How was school today?” she asked, trying to sound normal.

“The usual.” Hannah walked past her to the dining room table and ran her finger around the bowl of whipping cream. “You didn’t save any for me.”

“There’s chocolate pavlova.”

Hannah scooped up a slice and took a big bite.

“Does ‘the usual’ mean you had a good day?” Thea asked.

“Miss Dickerson got mad at me,” Hannah said, “but it wasn’t my fault. I almost had my math paper finished when a dead kid walked through the wall to talk to me.”

“You know the rule,” Thea said. “No ghosts at school.”
“Tell him that. He’d just died and was scared. I told him to wait for the light and to go to it.”

“Did that help?”

“No, the light already came and went. He missed it. He thought he was stuck here.”

Thea sighed. “No wonder you tried to help him. Don’t worry about it. If Miss Dickerson gets too mad, I’ll go to school and talk to her.”

“No teacher wants you to visit,” Hannah said. “That’s the only thing I have going for me. You make all of them nervous. So do I.”

“Did you finish your paper?”

Hannah’s lips curved into a naughty grin. “When I told Miss Dickerson that the little boy hadn’t left yet and I could ask him to appear for her so he could explain, she let me finish my work after school.”

“That’s the type of thing your mother would have done,” Thea said, smiling too.

“I know. She’s the one who told me to try it.”

Thea laughed. Her older sister was just as naughty as a ghost as she’d been while she was alive.

Hannah’s smile crumpled. “I wish my mom could have healed herself like she did everyone else.”

Hannah’s mother was four years older than Thea, and everyone thought that she’d get the gift of weaving, but instead Aggie was born with the talent of looking into people’s eyes and prescribing a natural remedy to cure them.

“Impossible,” Thea told Hannah. “Your mother’s bookmark was too short. At least she died fast of an aneurysm. There was no hospital, no lingering.”

Thea was jealous of Aggie when they were growing up. She thought that their mother loved Aggie more than her. Later, she realized that their mother knew Aggie’s life was going to be short and sweet, and she simply wanted to make the most of it until Aggie was gone.

“The least she could have done was marry somebody healthier than she was,” Hannah complained.

“You know what they say, ‘Love is blind.’” Thea rumpled Hannah’s hair. “Besides, that’s why she hurried to get pregnant for you. She looked in your dad’s eyes and knew he was too sick to keep healthy very long, and she wanted to have a baby with him.”

“Then she should have started younger.”

“She didn’t meet your dad until she was thirty-three. She had you when she was thirty-five. That’s about as quick as a person gets.”

“Poor you,” Hannah said. “You got stuck with me.”

“Hey, I got lucky and didn’t inherit you until you were three-and-a-half. I missed the terrible twos.”

Hannah laughed. “If I turn out horrible, you can always blame Mom. She gives me all kinds of advice when she pops in.”

“Lucky you,” Thea teased. “Two moms to heckle you.”

Hannah licked the last of the pavlova off her fingers. “I wonder why Dad didn’t stick around like Gabe did.”

“What do you mean, like Gabe did?”

Hannah stared at her. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Hannah chewed her bottom lip. “Gabe died this afternoon. A car wreck. He told Mom that a semi swerved into his lane. He wasn’t ready.” She frowned. “Maybe that’s why Dad went to the light. He had plenty of time to get ready. Gabe’s not very good at being a ghost yet.”

Thea’s knees buckled. She sat down, hard, on a kitchen chair. Her heart seemed to stop, and her mind went blank. A ghost. She hadn’t even considered that. Gabe couldn’t be dead. It was impossible. His bookmark was nearly as long as hers. What would she do? How could she go on?

“He’s trying to learn,” Hannah went on as if nothing had happened. “There’s something he wants to tell you, something so important he stayed for it.”

Thea licked her lips. She felt empty inside, as if all of the air had been knocked out of her. “Gabe can’t be dead. His bookmark was long and happy once we got together again.” Okay, she’d cheated and looked after their divorce. Without permission. So sue me, she thought. But something wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to be dead.

“Tell him that. He kept saying he had unfinished business.”

“What was it?”

“Beats me. No one talks to a kid about anything serious.” Hannah grabbed her backpack and said, “I’m gonna watch some cartoons, okay? I don’t have much homework.”

“Are you all right?” Thea asked.

“Me? I’m fine. You?”

Thea didn’t reply. This was not supposed to have happened. It ruined her plans for the rest of her years. And how in the world could she tell Josh and Rachel that their father was dead?