"He said no."
"Do you believe him?"
"Yeah, I do."
She stared at me for a moment. "You hesitated."
I stepped on a branch and held it down for her. "Not because I don"t believe him. I don"t think they ever dated, but I think he cared for her a lot. Enough for her death to shake his world."
"You don"t think your death would do the same to him?"
"That"s the problem. Connor has sacrificed a lot for me, and he"s never been deceptive. This weird rebellious, delinquent behavior was part of his past. Why is the death of this girl pushing him backward?"
"Maybe he feels guilty for some reason?"
"I don"t know. He won"t tell me enough about what happened."
Jeannie paused and eyed the small hill in front of us. "You never told me this would be a hike."
"Stop complaining. You wanted to get a feel for Connor, and this is his natural habitat."
We crested the hill and the Ruins lay below, primarily clear of the forest overgrowth.
"There," I said, pointing to the crumbling buildings and debris in front of us.
"This is amazing." Jeannie stood tall at the top of the cliff and absorbed the whole scene. She fumbled with the buckle on her purse and dug out a camera. "Show me Connor"s work. No, wait. Let me find it."
Jeannie climbed down the cement staircase that led from the top of the hill down to the middle of the Ruins. I followed her down but stopped at the bottom step to rest. She roamed the area ohing and ahing over the different designs. The boys had covered every inch of brick and stone. She never put her camera down, instead viewing the entire place through the lens. I noticed her stop once or twice and run her hands over the paint-covered brick feeling the painting. Her behavior reminded me of how it felt to be "read" by Jeannie. She always touched as well as saw. I had the impression this was a similar process.
"Here!" she shouted, pointing at one particular wall out of my line of vision. "This has to be his."
I brushed off my shorts as I walked down to meet her. Sure enough, she found Connor"s wall. Obviously, he had not been here in several weeks but his tag was still visible and the wall seemed untouched. I had no doubt a code existed between the guys down here over how the s.p.a.ce was divided and at what point you lost your claim. A couple of days in detention probably didn"t justify painting over another artists work.
"How did you know?"
"The color and composition. The paintings are similar to the mosaic you two made."
I studied the wall and tried to see the painting through her eyes, but it was impossible. I knew his style and had seen some of the designs before they made it off the pages of his sketchbook.
"He has a real sense of color. They probably reflect his emotions at the time." She walked back and forth, studying each section. "You see this?" she asked, pointing to a blood red design that resembled a heart. A literal one, not the traditional cartoonish representation. It was surrounded by a pair of clutched hands. An intricate symbol sat at the top like a crown.
"Yeah."
"That"s you."
"What is that? A claddagh?"
"A variation of one. You"re the heart. See how the red is so dark. That"s the color of your aura. I wonder if he can see it or if you just inspire him that way," she mused. She pointed to the image over the heart. "I"m not sure what that symbol is. Something else Irish probably."
"Connor mentioned once that his grandparents are from Ireland. He was using some symbolism in a project at school."
"Then that up there," she pointed to an angular, black shape near the top of the wall, "is death. Following you of course."
Of course. "b.l.o.o.d.y hearts and death. How romantic."
She ran a hand down my arm and smiled. "These letters seem to be some kind of gibberish. No order at all. I have no idea what it means, except that Connor doesn"t seem to be the type to include something random." She paused to snap a couple photos. "I suspect these letters have meaning. You should ask him."
"We"re not exactly on speaking terms, you know."
She smiled. "Maybe not right now, but we"ll figure this out and you will be. You don"t create a monument to someone you love one week and then refuse her the next."
I blushed at the word love. Even though my feelings for Connor were intense, I had no evidence that he ever loved me. A piece of graffitied wall wasn"t enough to convince me.
The sun shifted behind the trees and even though it would be light for a while longer, Jeannie was finished with her tour of the Ruins.
"There"s a trail over here," I said, waving her in a different direction than the way we had come in.
Together we climbed the short hill. It was steep and slippery.
"A little help," Jeannie asked. I turned to grasp her hand and help her up.
"Wait," she said, pulling out her camera once more. "I want to capture it from this angle."
Jeannie began snapping pictures of Connor"s section below. From this different perspective, I looked at his bleeding heart and weird designs and wondered if my boyfriend really was crazy. Just because he had an excuse like seeing ghosts didn"t exclude the fact he may also be mentally unstable.
"Oh, Jane look!" Jeannie shouted and grabbed my arm.
"Where? What?"
"At the black design death!"
I followed her eyes and looked. The design was more visible than before. It no longer looked like a random design. There was a body and two flapping wings. If Jeannie was right, an angel was hovering over Connor"s painting for me.
THE NEXT DAY, I followed Jeannie through the front door of the nursing home. I"d volunteered to come with her to see her mother, my great-aunt Ruth. I"d met her before, but hadn"t seen her since I started seeing the ghosts or found out she saw them, too.
"Let me go check in," Jeannie said. While she walked to the front desk, I slipped my phone out of my pocket. With fast fingers, I typed a message to Connor.
Hey, with Jeannie. Can we talk later today?
I waited a second for a reply. Nothing.
"Ready?" Jeannie said, handing me a visitor"s sticker. I peeled off the back and stuck it on my chest. "Thanks for driving me."
"No problem," I replied. It wasn"t as though I had much choice. My mother informed me before work today that as soon as I arrived home, I needed to bring Jeannie here since she had to work. My plan had been to go see Connor, but that wasn"t the first message of the day he had ignored. In light of this, playing chauffeur made an acceptable alternative to obsessing over whether he called me back or not.
On the elevator ride, Jeannie reminded me that her mother was often heavily medicated so she never knew if she would be asleep or not.
"Bebe said things have gotten pretty bad. Sometime she seems lucid, but you never know what she will say. She may ask you to see your hat or something."
"I"m not wearing a hat."
"Exactly."
The elevator doors opened and Jeannie stepped off and led the way down a narrow hallway. The hall was quiet save for the hum of a television or radio as we pa.s.sed door after closed door.
"Here we are," Jeannie said, mostly to herself. She paused outside a door with the name Ruth Monroe on a small piece of paper next to the room number.
My aunt knocked and called through the door, "Mama, it"s Jeannie, can I come in?
There was no reply, so Jeannie went ahead and opened the door. "We could be here all day if we waited for her to answer."
I followed Jeannie into the small room. The furnishings consisted of a single bed, two padded chairs that had a table in between and a small television in the corner. The room felt spa.r.s.e, but I supposed Ruth didn"t really comprehend her surroundings. Jeannie told me on the way here that all meals were brought in by the nurses, so it"s not like she needed to cook or anything.
"Hi, Mama. How are you?" Jeannie said. Ruth sat in one of the chairs, staring out the window.
"Baby girl?" Ruth said, turning away from the window. Jeannie walked right in front of her.
"It"s me and I brought Jane."
Ruth eyes narrowed. "Jane who?"
"Claire"s girl. Your great-niece? Remember?"
She turned and studied me. "No."
Jeannie laughed. "Oh well, here she is. Beautiful isn"t she."
"She looks like Claire."
Jeannie rolled her eyes. "She sure does. How are you feeling today? Did you take your medicine?"
Before Aunt Ruth could answer, a woman stopped at the door. "I"m Janice Greenwood, Ruth"s social worker. Do you have a minute to go over some papers?"
"Sure," she said and squeezed my hand. "Be right back."
I opened my mouth to protest, but she was gone. I tried to squash the slight moment of panic I felt being left alone with Ruth. She had been fairly quiet since we came in, maybe we could sit in silence until Jeannie returned.
Ruth"s gaze returned to the window staring into s.p.a.ce or daydreaming. I sat in the chair across from her, but she made no notice that I was there at all. I took out my phone to play a game.
"You see that?" Ruth said.
"Excuse me?" I croaked. I looked around the room.
"That," she said and jabbed her finger at the window. "That angel has been sitting right there all afternoon."
"Angel?"
"I think it"s trying to tell me something. It"s keeps flapping those big black wings"
I looked out the window. "Aunt Ruth, that"s a bird. A crow or something."
She stared out the window a bit longer before turning her eyes on me. She studied me for a moment and then asked, "Girl, what"s your name?"
"Jane. Claire"s daughter."
She sighed heavily as though my mere presence exhausted her. "Not you."
I raised an eyebrow. "Not me?"
"I"m talking to the girl."
As much as I hoped there was no other girl, that it was only me, I had a feeling this wasn"t true.
"What girl?"
Ruth focused her eyes behind me, near the door. "Why you hide from her? Your job ain"t to hide from her but to show her."
I turned and expected to see something or someone, but there was nothing there but the door and the blank wall surrounding it.
"Who do you see?" I asked.
"That little colored girl. You know her, she"s just playing games. Says her name is Tonya and that you know her mama." She said this with a firm nod. "Don"t let her trick you. It"s how she ended up dead in the first place."
Nothing about this moment should make sense, but everything became startlingly clear. Ruth could see Tonya, the girl I"d seen around my neighborhood. And Tonya was following me.
"She"s here now?"
Ruth nodded and gestured behind me. I looked again, but saw nothing.
Confused, I asked, "Did she tell you what she wants?"
"No. She"s just playing with you, and now me. Peeking out behind that chair."
"What kind of games is she playing?" The word "game" caught my attention. "What do you mean being tricky is how she died?"
"Silly games. But none of this is funny stuff. Somebody is gonna end up hurt. These lines are blurry. There"s rules and that one ain"t following them." Her eyes moved back to the window. "Same with that angel. It"s not my time, go away," she yelled at the bird. Unfazed, it flapped its wings and snapped its sharp beak in return.
Her finger tapped against the window pane and she spoke to the bird. "You can wait all you want, but I"m not going anywhere. Not yet, anyway. And don"t even think about s.n.a.t.c.hing this body."
"You think that bir... angel wants you to die?"
"Well, I knew I"d meet him one day. It"s just a little early." Again she looks me up and down with eyes surrounded by wrinkly skin.
I had the hardest time following her thought process, but she could see Tonya, maybe she saw an angel, too. "Jeannie said she painted a picture, an angel with black wings. And my boyfriend, he"s an artist, too same thing. Black wings."
"You know, the raven is a special bird. It houses the soul of those who have pa.s.sed on. Sometimes it transports. Other times it becomes a home. For a little while at least." She looked back out the window.
"That ain"t no raven. That"s the angel of death."