Touch Page 2

  Worse than an SUV driving toward the side of his car.

  He can’t do anything. He knows, watching her back, that no one can. She’s here, in his room; his door is closed. She isn’t crying in public. There’s no public here, because no one lives in his room anymore. And he knows she won’t cry like this outside of her own house. Because it would have to practically kill anyone who could see her and hear her; a sound like this could burn itself into your brain, and the only way you could avoid it would be to plug your ears and run screaming.

  You couldn’t help her. You couldn’t do anything to make the pain go away—and you’d want to. You’d be immobile, your own helplessness and uselessness made clear. You couldn’t escape it unless you avoided her, avoided any hint of her grief, and let what you witnessed fade.

  She doesn’t cry in public because of what it would do to everyone else. It’s not because of what other people will think of her—that’s what he assumed, once—it’s because of what they’ll think of themselves, afterward. He knows because he hates himself, now. He hates himself for dying. He hates the people who killed him—first time, for everything—and he hates that he can’t touch her, can’t reach her, because if he could, it would stop. Or change.

  This is the first time Nathan’s been home since he died. He wants to flee. He almost does. But he waits it out, because in the end, he has to know that it does stop. If he leaves now, he won’t believe it; every other memory of home will be buried beneath this one.

  * * *

  It does stop.

  It stops. The rawness of grief peters into an echo of itself—but the echo speaks of pain as if pain were an iceberg, a colossal structure beneath surfaces that hide nothing if you know how to look. When it’s once again submerged, she stands, slowly and awkwardly, as if she’s spent months living on her knees, her forehead propped up against the edge of his desk.

  Her father died when Nathan was a child. He remembers it clearly, now. He remembers the phone call; he remembers her eight-hour absence. He remembers arguing with his dad about bedtime because he wanted his mother. His mother did not come home that night. When she returned the next day, she told him his grandfather had died. He wanted to know why, because death made no sense. Death had no impact.

  He asked her if his father was going to die.

  “No,” she told him softly. “Not for a long time. But, Nathan, everyone eventually dies.”

  She didn’t cry. He didn’t cry because she didn’t. He asked her if she would miss Grandpa, and she said, “Yes, very much.”

  She carried him—at five years of age—for most of her father’s funeral. He thought it strange, because babies were carried and he was a Big Boy. But she still didn’t cry. For the whole, long day, she didn’t cry.

  People came up to talk to her. He recognized some of them; some were strangers—but not to his mother. They told her they were sorry (But why? They hadn’t killed him). They told her he’d had a good life. A full life. But some of them told her stories about her father, instead, and they made her smile.

  No one tells his mother stories in this room. He knows. No one can tell her that her son had a full life, or a good life. There is nothing to make her smile, here. Seeing her gaunt face in the evening light, he wonders if she’s smiled at all in the last three months. He thinks she must have—but he can’t make himself believe it.

  She straightens her clothing. No one can see it, but she straightens it anyway. Then she turns, walks to the door, opens it, and turns again. Into the darkness that contains her son, she says, “Good night, Nathan.”

  She closes the door.

  * * *

  Nathan has learned a few things about being dead.

  He’s learned, for instance, that the dead don’t eat. They can’t. They don’t feel hunger, and physical pain is beyond them. They never get thirsty. Snow, hail, storms, and blistering desert heat don’t bother them. He assumes that bullets won’t hurt; knives don’t.

  He’s learned that the dead have their own version of sleep. It doesn’t involve beds, and it doesn’t hold dreams—or nightmares. It’s a kind of darkness and stillness in which even memories fade. It’s the ultimate silence. The silence of the grave.

  It’s not boring, this sleep. It’s not confining. It’s . . . nothing. Just nothing. But sometimes, nothing is good; right now, he’s not keen on the alternative.

  Because tonight, he’s learned that the dead are useless. They can’t touch anything. They can’t change anything. In any way that counts, they’ve got no voice. They can speak—but no one can hear them.

  Not no one.

  * * *

  I want you to go back to your home, Nathan.

  “Why?”

  Because there, you will find an opportunity that most of the dead will never have.

  He didn’t ask what the opportunity was. Even the first question had been a risk. The Queen of the Dead doesn’t like to be questioned.

  Go home. I will give you no other orders yet. Just go home. Watch your family, watch your friends. Her smile was winter, her eyes sky blue. They were wide, and looked, in the radiance of her face, like windows. Beyond those windows: clouds, lightning, destruction. As if she were the only thing that kept the storm out.

  Promise me, when we’re old, you’ll let me die first.

  What kind of a promise is that, Em?

  The only one I want. I don’t want you to die first. I don’t want to be left behind again. Promise?

  * * *

  Emma’s house is half lit. Her mother’s office lights are on on the second floor, but her mother’s probably working—as she usually does—in the dining room. Emma’s bedroom is dark. Nathan stands between two streetlights, looking up. He wants to see Emma. He wants more than that, but he’ll settle for what death has left him.

  The moon is high. The night sky is a different shade of gray. Nathan slides his hands into his pockets and waits. He’s got nothing but time, and he hates it. But he hates it less when the front door of the Hall house opens and Emma steps out, surrounded by Petal, the rottweiler who refuses to stand still. Nathan can’t take his eyes off her; for one long moment, she is the only thing he sees.

  He watches her lead Petal toward the sidewalk in silence.

  Nathan joins her, stopping when she stops and moving when she moves. He can pretend, for a few minutes, that he’s still alive, that this is a normal night, a normal walk. He doesn’t have to fill the silence. Silence has never bothered Emma.

  There’s a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. Emma is alone. Nathan? Doesn’t want to think about it.

  The breeze lifts Emma’s hair. Petal’s name leaves her lips. She keeps walking. Nathan watches her go. He wants to talk to her. He doesn’t try.

  The problem with death—this version of death—is that it feels pretty much like life, at least to the dead people. He’s not dragging bits and pieces of corpse around, because he’s pretty sure that’s what he’d be doing if the manner of death defined him. He’s not spouting blood. He’s not a poltergeist.

  He’s Nathan. She’s Emma. They haven’t seen each other for three months, and the last thing Nathan did was break a vow. He left her. He left her behind.

  It was a stupid promise. He knew it was stupid before he made it. But she was there, lying in his arms, curled against his chest, her hair tangled, her eyes wide. She wasn’t joking. She wouldn’t let him make a joke of it.

  He promised. He promised because to him it was just a different way of saying I love you.

  And he does. He meant every word of it. She knows—she must know—that dying wasn’t his choice. It wasn’t his fault. She must know that he’d be out here by her side, walking her half-deaf dog, if it had been up to him.

  He shakes himself, hurries to catch up with her, and stops when he finally realizes where she’
s going. The cemetery.

  Emma. Oh, Em.

  * * *

  Nathan has no desire to see his grave. He’d had no idea, until he followed Emma from her house, where he’d been buried. But he knows now, and he almost leaves. He doesn’t want to see Emma cry. He doesn’t want to see her go to pieces the way his mother did. He can’t comfort her. He’s got nothing to offer her at all.

  But when she slips behind the fence, he walks through it. He keeps her in sight. The night sky is clear. If there’s a breeze, he can’t feel it; he can feel the cold, but it’s always cold now. He doesn’t read the headstones. He doesn’t read the markers.

  To his surprise, Emma does. She reads them. She lingers. But she doesn’t stop; she hasn’t reached the gravestone with his name on it. Petal’s tongue is hanging out of his mouth as he trots back and forth between the markers. He’s happy. Emma is silent. She’s not in a hurry.

  Emma finds a standing wreath of white flowers before one marker. She kneels in front of it, picks up a petal, blows it off her fingers. Tucking her legs to the right, she sits; Petal flops down to her left and drops his head in her lap. She scratches behind his ears.

  She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t weep.

  Nathan listens to the ever-present sounds of passing cars. Mount Pleasant isn’t a small cemetery, but it’s in the middle of a city. He looks up, as Emma does, to see the stars. To see the moon in the night sky. To know that they’re seeing the same thing.

  He’s never minded waiting for Emma. He could wait for her forever. He doesn’t interrupt her. He doesn’t talk. He knows she’ll come to him in her own time.

  She picks up Petal’s leash as she unfolds, straightening her hair and brushing petals off her legs. Her head is bent as she walks back the way she came; Nathan knows, because he’s standing there.

  But she lifts her chin, and as she does, she slows. He can see her eyes so clearly, even though it’s dark. He can see their shape, the way they round; he can see the edge of her lashes. Her mouth opens slightly as she approaches. Her eyes are brown. They’ve always been brown. But they’re also luminescent. It’s not an exaggeration: They glow; they’re alight. He’s seen light like that twice since his death. Only twice.

  And he knows, then, that Emma can see him. He knows how to hide from the sight of anyone but the Queen of the Dead; if she’s looking for someone among the dead, she’ll find them. But he can make himself so still, so quiet, that no one else who can see the dead will see him.

  It never occurred to him to worry that Emma might see him. It doesn’t occur to him now. If he’s afraid at all, it’s of the sharp edge of ridiculous hope. He has never loved anyone the way he loves Emma. When she lifts a hand, palm up, it’s the most natural thing in the world to reach out to take it.

  It’s the most natural thing in the world, but he’s dead, and she’s not. She can see him. He can see her. Touching doesn’t happen, for the dead; it’s too much to hope for.

  He feels the shock of her palm beneath his. His hand doesn’t pass through hers. Before he can withdraw, she closes her fingers around his, tightens them. And, god, she is so warm.

  “Hello, Nathan,” she whispers.

  “Hello, Em.”

  * * *

  There’s so much he wants to say to her. So much he wants to explain. There’s so much groveling to do, for one. Maybe he’ll start with that. But the words stick on the right side of his mouth, and as he stares into her eyes, his gaze drifting to her parted lips, they desert him.

  He hugs her, instead. He reaches out, pulls her into his arms, tucks her head beneath his chin. He’s dead. He’s dead, but he can feel her. She smells of shampoo and soap.

  He wants to apologize. He doesn’t. He holds her instead, amazed at the warmth of her. But he always was. They stand together in the darkness until Emma begins to shudder. He thinks she’s crying, but he pulls back to catch her chin, to pull her face up.

  She’s not crying. Oh, she is, but she’s not weeping. She’s shivering. She’s shivering as if it’s winter and she’s caught outside without a coat.

  He lets go of her. He feels the loss of her touch as a profound physical pain. He feels cold again, but this time, the cold is harsh. Isolating. And he understands, as her eyes widen, as her brows gather in the way they do when something confuses her, that the warmth he feels—he’s stealing it.

  Emma . . . Emma is like the Queen of the Dead. Like her, and nothing at all alike.

  I want you there, Nathan. You have an opportunity that very, very few of the dead will ever have.

  Nathan is afraid. Three months ago, Emma was his quiet space—one of the few in which he could be entirely himself. She knew him. He knew her. He thought he knew her. But the Emma Hall he fell in love with couldn’t touch the dead.

  Emma is a Necromancer.

  Petal whines, and Emma glances at the wet nose he’s shoved into her palm. She feeds him a Milk-Bone, but she tries not to take her eyes off Nathan, as if she’s afraid he’ll just disappear. Nathan knows the look.

  Emma is a Necromancer with a whiny, half-deaf dog. She goes to school. She lives alone with her mother. She visits her dead boyfriend’s grave. She lives here, among the living. And her eyes are still round, and she’s still shivering. And grieving.

  “You promised,” she whispers. She’s not smiling. There’s no humor in her voice.

  “This is the best I can do.” He almost hugs her again, but balls his hands into fists instead.

  Her face is wet with tears, shining with them. He always hated making her cry. Being dead hasn’t changed that. He can’t stand so close to her without touching her. He wants to kiss her. He wants to cup her face in his hands.

  He heads toward his grave instead. The wreath of standing flowers is new. The petals that adorn Emma’s legs—the few she hasn’t managed to brush off—are scattered across the ground in ones and twos, but the flowers themselves haven’t wilted or dried. He recognizes his mother’s hand in this. His mother. He closes his eyes.

  When he opens them, Emma is standing by his side. She’s still shivering.

  “Does my mother come here often?”

  “Often enough. I don’t see her. I think she must come after work.”

  “You?”

  “It’s quiet, here. Good quiet.”

  Which isn’t an answer. He doesn’t press. It’s never been hard to talk to Emma before. It’s hard now. What can you say to your girlfriend when you’re dead? Apologies won’t cut it, but beyond apologies, there’s not a lot he can offer.

  She holds out a hand. Nathan keeps both of his in his pockets. When she says his name, he shakes his head. “I’m making you cold. I’ll walk you home.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be home right now.”

  Home, for Nathan, is where Emma is. God, he wants to touch her. He finds it hard to look at her; she’s always been beautiful, to him. Now, she’s luminescent.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  “GET YOUR FEET off my dashboard.”

  Chase, slumped in the passenger seat, grinned. “What? My boots are clean.” The skin around his left eye had passed from angry purple to a sallow yellow; it clashed with his hair. In Eric’s opinion, everything did. “And I’m wearing a seat belt.”

  “Seat belts,” Eric said, sliding behind the wheel and adjusting its height, “are supposed to be worn across the hips, not the ribs. What did the old man say?”

  “Long version or short version?”

  “Shorter the better.”

  “Tell me about it.” Chase’s grin sharpened. “But I had to sit through the long version. No reason why you should get off easy.”

  “I’m driving. Don’t make me fall asleep at the wheel.”

  “Couldn’t make your driving any worse.”

  Eric pushed a CD into the play
er.

  “You bastard.” Chase was flexible enough to remove his feet from the dash and hit eject before more than two bars had played. He wasn’t fond of perky singers. Gender didn’t matter. Eric ignored them, but Chase couldn’t. They were fingernails-against-blackboard painful to him. “You know I’d rather you stabbed me. In the ear, even.”

  “I’m driving or I’d seriously consider it. What did the old man want?”

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  Eric reached for the CD again. Chase grabbed it and threw it out the window, barely pausing to open the window first.

  “We’ve got three Necromancers, just off the plane. Old man thinks there’s a fourth.” Chase appeared to consider throwing out the rest of Eric’s collection as well.

  “Thinks?”

  “Yeah. He can’t pin him down.”

  Eric grimaced. “Why does he think there’s a fourth?”

  “Margaret insists.”

  Shit. “She recognized him.”

  “I wasn’t the one questioning her. The old man was in a foul mood. You want to tell him he’s wrong?” Chase fished in his pocket and pulled out a phone. Eric glanced at it.

  “Driving, remember? When did they get in?”

  “Yesterday. We had two addresses; neither was good.”

  “They take a cab?”

  “Yeah. They were careful,” he added.

  Eric swore.

  “He also reminds you we’ve got two midterms tomorrow.”

  “Midterms? Are you kidding me?”

  Chase dangled the phone under Eric’s nose again.

  “This is getting unreal.”

  “Tell me about it. I’ve got the same midterms, and apparently my marks are crap compared to yours.” Chase slid his feet back up on the dashboard. “We’ve got two addresses. Margaret supplied them. We’re supposed to head over to the first one tonight.” He frowned as he glanced out the window. “Is that Allison?”