Notes from Ghost Town by Kate Ellison Page A

smell Mom’s version of the sea, feel the vapory gods she always told stories about descend from the heavens and cradle me up inside their arms. And then Stern creeps up again from somewhere inside of my head. I see the smile on his face, the ocean swelling beyond us. How we used to swim together, late nights. His body next to mine. The way I’d always know he was there before I even saw him coming:
don’t you cry for me, I come from Alabama with a banjo on my kneeee
.
    “Man, that’s so beautiful.” The voice startles me and rolls my stomach back into knots.
    I don’t get a chance to turn around to see who it is, because, the next time I blink, he’s moved, crouched right beside me on the marble floor.
    Stern.
    He’s back.

six
    L iv. Stop ignoring me. Look at me.” The invented ghost plants himself in front of me on the shiny floor. He’s wearing the same clothes he was wearing yesterday—same basketball shorts he wore pretty much every day he was alive, same painstakingly selected flannel shirt.
    I don’t look at him because he’s not real. And I know that because I’m not crazy. I’m a rational person, waiting for her father, sketching on top of the blueprints for an ugly building.
    “Hey. Come on. You need to look at me. I don’t know how long I can stay.” His voice breaks when he says it; I glance briefly over at him: he’s watching me, so intense, so focused. “Liver, you have to listen to me. Your mom didn’t kill me, Liver. I wanted to tell you last night, but you ran away, and …”
    I start humming to myself, blocking out the words.
Just ignore him
. I will myself to keep breathing, though my air supply feels short and strained again.
He isn’t real. If you ignore him, he’ll go away. You’re not crazy.You’re
not
crazy. You can choose to make this go away
.
    “She didn’t do it, okay? I know that. That might be the
only
thing I know for sure. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”
    I’m startled to see the paper blurring in front of me, feel the burn of tears behind my eyes.
Wish fulfillment
: A Freudian theory; unconscious aspirations that come out in dreams, hysterical fantasies. I’d paid attention that day in psych class. It resonated with me, even then. I bored pencil into paper, digging lines across it, just shapes now, nothing concrete.
    “Did you hear what I just said?” He moves to squat right in front of me now, hands on his knees, leaning only inches from my face. Weirdly, he smells like firewood. “Do you understand? She’s innocent. You can
help
her. You can help
me
.”
    I’m starting to shake, my own terrible hopes squeezing my insides like mutant weeds. “Stop. Just stop.” I want to stand up, I want to run, but I don’t trust my legs to hold me.
    He sits down now, still in front of me, quiet for a moment. For a while, he says nothing. He stares out the wide, glass lobby doors, over the parking lot.
    “What was here before?” he asks abruptly. He looks around, at the sparse, light-flooded lobby and the darkened hallway beyond it, at the highway visible just beyond the gates. “It was Shepherd’s Field, wasn’t it? We used to have Little League games here! Oh, man … that’s one of the first memories I’ve had since … since being wherever I am now. It feels so good.”
    “Raina and I call it Ghost Town,” I say cautiously, quietly, conscious that I am having a conversation with someone who doesn’t exist. “She says it’s got some major bad energy.”
    “She’s right. It does—I can feel it.” He cocks his head to the side. His dark curls stick up from his head. He could never control them. He won’t stop looking at me. “Do you hear that?”
    “Hear what?”
    He closes his eyes, presumably to better listen. “Someone’s crying…. Can you hear it?”
    I shake my head—I can’t. I can’t hear anything but the sway of thick palm leaves, knocking occasionally against the big glass doors, the distant swish of cars along the highway.
    I