Nat’s back at school, but she’s just another ghost in the halls. She doesn’t make eye contact with us in gym when Mili says Lindy agreed to the séance. I search for her eyes to tell her how scared I am, but Nat just nods and walks off to play dodgeball. Mili’s not in the mood to get hit in the face today, and I’m too tired to run. But I wish I would’ve asked Nat to stay.
This séance isn’t going to be like the rest of the ones we’ve attempted. This I know. But we’re not going to feel safe unless we try. We walk the track, watching Natalie loosen up. For the first time in months, it looks like she’s having fun. Without having to worry about where her mom is, Nat’s free to look her age. I tell Mili this, and she agrees. The overdose may have been a blessing, I think, but decide not to say.
When class is halfway through, Nat falls into step beside us with a sore ankle, saying, “Those boys don’t know how to act,” and it’s the first time in a long time we don’t talk about spirits or our parents or death. We talk about kissing. Mili fills Nat in: “Isobel called my house the next day and didn’t even mention her brother catching us.”
For a moment, I feel like I am hovering outside my body. I see us glide along the track, stifling booms of laughter. Our eyes light up, catch the sun. Nat is smiling again. All I can see is the tiny circle of track we walk along, the edges of the space beyond us disappearing like watercolors running. There’s nothing before or after us. No one else matters as I hover above us. We are a tiny scene of love.
“Maybe he didn’t catch anything. Maybe Isobel’s family knows.” Nat snickers. “Just because you like to get freaky with boys and girls, but keep the latter closeted, doesn’t mean she uses any discretion.”
Miliani play-sulks. “I am not closeted.”
“You ever going to tell Jayson about the history between you and Jasmine?” I pipe in. “Or maybe you can introduce him to your new girlfriend. That’ll probably do the trick.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Mili stresses, then sighs. “And it’s weird. You know? I wish I would’ve told him sooner. Maybe he’ll think it’s some post-breakup crisis.”
“You mean, maybe he’ll figure out you left him for some pussy?” Natalie says.
I laugh so hard I almost choke on my gum. Mili sticks out her tongue. “Maybe that too.”
“And he’s trash if he thinks you liking girls is some post-breakup nonsense,” I say.
“I’ll fight him if he says anything that obnoxious,” Nat adds.
Miliani laughs and leans her head against mine, and we walk as if our heads together are awkwardly attached. Natalie comes up between us. “I want some loving too.” We trip over one another’s feet, laugh, talk shit, and I imagine the three of us at the same college, sharing a dorm, fighting over the bathroom. Mili coming up with spells to help us ace our tests, Natalie not having to work hard. But my eyes water a little because for the first time, I can’t see Jas when I think about our future. And that doesn’t seem right.
We saved Nat’s mom, and we’re going to save Jas too. Maybe one more big spell and we’ll have her with us. She’ll be playing pranks on us and telling us stories of all the things she sees when she sneaks around campus while we sleep and … And what will it physically look like? Will she have a corporeal body? Will other people be able to see her too? I’ve asked Mili these questions, and she never has answers. She just insists we need Jasmine here—in any form the ritual offers. And I want her back so bad it hurts, but I can’t see it. I can’t see her fitting into our future in another form that’s not her living, breathing body, and it terrifies me.
But then I hear her voice. “Weirdos.”
The chill travels up my spine and stays after I realize it’s just Darleny.
She turns to Cassie as they jog by. “They’re probably trying to think up spells to force people to love them.” She fixes a look on Mili that I don’t understand but makes my blood boil.
“Maybe you should run faster before we set our sights on you next,” Nat says.
Darleny rolls her eyes, but she and Cassie speed up to put some distance between us.
We stop walking. I wrap my arms around myself. “It’s weird she’s here and Jas is not.”
Nat agrees. “If only we could make her disappear.” She laughs. “Kidding, kinda. She’s worse without Jas here to shut her up.”
“And hearing her voice, seeing her, freaks me out,” I say, and put a hand on Mili’s back. “It must freak you out too.”
Mili seems dazed, still staring off at Darleny, until she focuses on her feet. “Sometimes it’s nice. Sometimes I can—” She cuts herself off, shakes her head, then takes off jogging ahead of us like she never said a thing.
Natalie gives me a nervous look. Then we both watch Mili turn a corner on the track.
When the last bell of the day rings, we walk down to Kennedy Plaza and hop on Bus 42. Lindy lives far from school, so after twenty minutes on one bus we hop off and wait for a different one. The second driver handles curves like he’s playing a video game, and the cheeseburger I ate for lunch almost comes back up. My head begins to hurt, and all I can think about is having to do this again on the way home later. Miliani presses a hand to my forehead because I’m “not looking well.” Maybe I’m a tad bit warm, she decides, and lets me use her as a pillow the rest of the ride.
Lindy is pissed when we show up at her house. Her nostrils flare as she berates Mili. She only lets us inside to “do it privately,” because her neighbors across the street are nosy. She points a finger at Mili. “I told you to stop being a baby. Spirits are around us even when you can’t see them. I told you no, but you brought people to my house anyway.”
“I’m sorry if I disrespected you, Auntie,” Mili pleads. “But they’re not just people—they’re my friends. If being scared makes us babies, then we’re babies. But we need your help.”
“Well, they’re not my friends, are they?” Lindy says, and it makes the almost ten years of age she has on us feel like two. She shakes her head and paces the living room. “You said you’d all be able to stomach this. Maybe we were both wrong. Maybe you can’t handle it.”
As Mili insists we can, I move closer to Natalie and tilt my head to motion we should head out. I’m pissed we’re here. Natalie looks even more pissed. But then Lindy turns sharply and sets her eyes on me. The look rattles my bones. I’m not sure what I’m scared of, but I say a silent prayer before she says, “You. Sit.”
My body is not mine. I sit without wanting to.
She doesn’t move from where she stands but says, “Tell me about your last dream with Jasmine.”
I wonder how she knows I had another dream. I didn’t get a chance to tell Mili about it.
Lindy crosses the room, kneels on the floor in front of me. I push into the couch to put some distance between us, but her eyes call to me and I find myself moving back toward her.
“Jasmine was mimicking me. And it seemed like … like we were doing things as one?”
She purses her lips, says, “And the physical contact?”
I touch the side of my stomach. “She pinched me here. Well … we did it together in the dream. But she used to do it all the time when she was … alive.”
Lindy gets so close I can feel her breath on my skin. It smells like peppermint. She turns my wrists over a few times, examines my neckline, takes two fingers and opens my eye really wide, then does the other. She asks permission to lift my shirt and puts a finger into my belly button. None of it makes me uncomfortable, even though it probably should.
She stands so abruptly I almost fall forward. “Be careful, clumsy one,” she tells me, and leaves the room.
Natalie whispers, “What in the world was that? And why the hell did you lie to us, Mili?” but Miliani mouths, Shh.
I miss the smell of peppermint, and the headache returns. Or maybe it never went away. But it’s pounding at my temples now.