Cian

I thought I was hallucinating. No. I knew I was hallucinating. I frowned at the ground, remembering the stars in her eyes that night, her voice as she'd said Happy birthday, Cian.

Then the boat hit, and her screams were like knives in my eardrums.

The ocean was a malignant being, growling and reaching for me in the dark of night. I had let Vinny get in its grasp, and I would never forgive myself for that.

What was she doing here?

I drew the curtain of my bedroom window shut with haste. Vinny backed up and sat down on the floor. He scrubbed one hand through his pale hair and stared at the carpet beneath him. I watched him pensively. He said, "Eden. Eden. I didn't think she wanted anything to do with us."

I wandered over to my Norwegian poster and busied myself reattaching it to the wall. My fingers needed something to do, something to fiddle with. There was a nervous energy humming inside of me like a pattern of sound waves. How long did we have? Was it only a few seconds before the doorbell rang, and I saw her again? What was I supposed to say? "Me either," I agreed, successfully taping one corner up.

Vinny was still scrutinizing the floor underneath him. "She thinks I'm dead."

I frowned at the screaming Norwegian guy with the gel spikes in his hair and replied, "Vinny, you are dead."

"I meant dead and gone," he shot back. There was something undeniably defensive in his tone. "I'm not gone. I'm far from gone. I just wonder if she knows."

Silence roved around us as it occurred to me what he meant by this. Then, I managed: "You think she's Split? Like me? Vinny..."

"I can hope, can't I?" his voice was small. He sounded terribly young. "I missed her. You can't blame me for hoping she...she can actually talk to me."

The doorbell rang. I heard Mom's footsteps heading towards the foyer.

Setting my shoulders, I finished fiddling with the poster and turned slowly, regarding my little brother from underneath a raised eyebrow. In the darkness caused by the drawn curtains, he shone like a lit candle, an ethereal spirit in the center of my bedroom, hoping for something more. I sighed, but would not let myself pity him. There was nothing Vincent Horne hated more than pity, and I knew that for a fact. "Don't do anything stupid," I told him, my voice a bit harsher than I'd intended.

He didn't seem to care; in fact, he looked as if he'd been expecting as much from me. "Define stupid."

"Don't break anything. Keep the power on. And, for goodness sake, no Morse code or ketchup, alright?"

"Refrigerator magnets?" Vinny gave me his puppy dog eyes again.

Downstairs, voices had begun to sound. I heard Mom's surprised "Oh!"

I pointed at him. "Heck to the no. Don't even think about it. No touchy-touchy with your ghost hands, got it?"

His puppy dog expression drooped, just as Mom called: "Cian? There's a visitor here for you." I heard the uneasiness in her voice; she hesitated, even, as if she wanted to call Vinny's name as well.

The look on Vinny's face tightened. I gave him a sympathetic glance. I wanted to ruffle his hair, playfully punch him in the shoulder, give some sort of reassuring contact, but I couldn't. I never could again. It killed me, no matter how much I convinced myself it didn't. There was always going to be some sort of disconnect between us now; he was in one world, and I was in another, and both were just barely overlapping.

To Mom, I said: "Coming!" and to Vinny, I said, "No touchy-touchy."

Then I inhaled deeply and exited my bedroom, appearing at the top of the stairs.

Until then, there was a persistent hope inside me that the silver Tesla parked outside belonged to someone else, but no, it was Eden. She stood in the foyer, talking congenially with my mother, her black hair glittering underneath our crystal chandelier. The strands of it fell nearly to her waist now, curling above the small of her back. She was dressed as elegantly as I always remembered: a bright-colored dress that fell above her knees, hugging her svelte form. Heels adorned her feet, the earrings hanging from her ears like mini disco balls.

She was as polished and as shined and as trimmed as everything else about the house, like she belonged here. She was different in all the ways that she wasn't. I didn't know how to feel.

Her eyes lifted to mine. They were angular, almond-shaped. She'd been adopted from China when she was young, thrown into an upper class, well-esteemed American family with no escape, yet she was adaptive. Sometimes I even thought she embraced this lifestyle of first impressions and nice clothes and good reputations better than I ever would. "Cian," she said, and her rosy lips split into a smile that made my heart thud in my chest. Bright crimson colored her high cheekbones. "Hi."

Vinny was next to me; I felt his frigidness at my shoulder. It took all I had to act like he wasn't there, but I had to, as I always had to when we had company. "Eden?" my voice cracked, and in the back of my head I cursed, the only place I could do so without physically paying for it. First time I'd seen my best friend in two years, and I sounded just like I had back then, when puberty had been running its course through my body with less than ideal side effects. "I...I wasn't expecting you."

She said, "Sorry. I should have called ahead of time, but I didn't know if you'd changed numbers, or anything."

I braced my hand against the railing, imagining balling up all of the memories screaming in my brain and shoving them down my reluctant throat. I no longer had a phone. It was at the bottom of the bay now, and I hadn't felt the need to replace it.

I remembered staring at myself in the mirror the morning after the accident, hospital lights flickering above my head, the unforgiving scent of bleach in my nostrils. My scars weren't scars then, but red, freshly stitched lines in my face. I drowned my thoughts in the running California tap water: What more do you have left?

I hadn't had anyone to call back then, and I didn't now.

I forced a smile. Something in Eden's expression changed, as if she could tell my smile was that: forced. "Well, uh, I'm glad you decided to visit, regardless," I said. I didn't sound like myself. I was too polite, too uptight. I sounded like I belonged on a public service announcement. I turned to Mom with an awkward cough. "Is the quiche done?"

Her blue eyes, as dark as mine, held an unsaid message as she looked at me. She was as apprehensive as I was. "Yes. The quiche is done."

My eyes flitted back to Eden. "Well," I said, "we have quiche, if that interests you."

Eden's smile made mine look like a hobo's. She was actually trying. "Thank you. I happen to love quiche."

We ate quiche.

Mom removed her apron, which had a plethora of stains on it, and busied herself slicing the meal into neat, symmetrical slices while Dad tried to make casual conversation with our guest. He was succeeding, but barely, and I could tell. The set to his mouth, the subtle twitching of his eyebrows, made his discomfort obvious. Everyone in the Horne family was thinking the same thing: Why is she here? We were also thinking: She can't know.

No one could know.

Eden was no exception.

Just as Dad asked: "So what brings you here this afternoon?" Mom caught my eye. With her quiche-slicing knife still in hand, she motioned for me to follow her into the kitchen. I gave the parlor a quick once-over before following her; Vinny was, at the moment, nowhere to be seen. The space remained room temperature.

I came into the kitchen and braced myself against the counter, taking deep breaths. The kitchen still smelled like egg and ham and cheese. With Eden nowhere near, my lungs felt normal again.

Mom dropped her knife in the sink and retrieved appetizer plates from a cupboard instead. Unloading them into my arms, she adjusted her chignon and said one word: "Vincent."

I shook my head. "Not here."

"Not here or not here?"

I blinked. "I'm afraid I don't recognize the difference." Public service announcement switch was, oddly enough, still on. I coughed. "Sorry, I'll rephrase. What?"

"I mean," my mother began, "is he not in the kitchen, as in watching Eden in the parlor, or is he not present at all? He must know she's here, doesn't he?"

"He does know," I said, seating myself on a barstool and entertaining myself by spinning around a few times. I spun back to face Mom, and noticed the disdainful look on her face. I ceased my movements by gripping the counter and proceeded to finish answering her question. "He was here when she first arrived, but then we all moved to the parlor and he vanished. I don't know where he is or what he's doing. I told him not do anything stupid."

"Define stupid."

"Poltergeist."

She understood. "That's good. We don't want to freak her out."

"You read my mind," I said with a sigh, and as a chorus of laughter rose from the parlor, we both paused for a moment to glance in its direction. I wanted nothing else right now but for Eden to leave, but also to talk to her. The thing is, I didn't know what to say, what to ask her. It had been easier when I hadn't thought I would see her again, but now that had been proved untrue, and I didn't know how to handle it. My fingers started twitching again. I picked up the appetizer dishes. "We done here?"

Mom nodded. I started to leave, but then she held up a finger, and I stopped moving. "Wait, Cian," she said, and when I raised my eyebrow at her, asked, "you don't think she'd be able to see him, right? If he was here."

I looked down at the appetizer plates. There were dainty olive trees painted on them, done by Vinny's and my old nanny. "If she was like me, Mom, I think I'd know."

There was an unyielding resolve in her voice. "That's that, then. We have to convince her everything's alright. Nothing's changed. We are a normal, perfectly well-off family, you understand me, CJ?"

I bit my lip. "Sure."

She gave me a sloppy kiss on the cheek before whisking herself off to the parlor, and I watched her for a moment, shaking my head. Something ugly was locked inside my chest, it seemed, begging to free itself. When was my mother, when was everyone, going to recognize that normality was not finite? Its definition was not a riveted, secure denotation, but rather held a meaning that changed with the times, had low tides and high tides. This was our normal now. It hadn't always been, but it was now, and my parents refused to acknowledge it. I wondered when they were going to break the ice and reach into the cold water and feel it freeze their veins and realize that there was no going back.

The Hornes aren't the Hornes anymore.

I took the appetizer plates and went back into the parlor, which was painted an off-white with several replicas of famous paintings hanging on the wall. Van Gogh's Starry Night hung beside the armoire, and as I set the olive tree dishes beside the quiche, Mona Lisa watched me from beside a rather tall potted bamboo plant. I imagine Dad would have the maids trim that soon. Polish, shine, trim; rinse and repeat. Normal.

Cold wind breathed down my neck. Vinny. He's not here. Act like he's not here.

"Cian," he said.

He's not here.

I slid a piece of quiche onto a plate. The olive tree disappeared under it. "Here," I said, handing it off to Eden with a grin. She accepted it. "Quiche. How long has it been since you've had quiche?"

"A while," Eden said with a smile. I gave her a fork. Everything felt too awkward, too staged, too forced. Where was the easiness of the laugh in my throat when she told a joke? Where were the afternoons spent cloud-watching in the backyard? Where had our youth gone? It was different now. I disliked it. "Thanks again."

"Cian."

He's not here.

Eden's eyes flicked, just barely, to something over my shoulder. I noticed it, but as soon as I did, she was looking away again. Dad said, "Eden was telling me she's gone to college now. A freshman at Stanford University. How's that?"

Stanford. I'd heard the name so many times that I wanted to throw up in my mouth. That's where Mom and Dad met, and they wanted me to go there, had wanted Vinny to as well. I was supposed to be a lawyer, Vinny a doctor. The perfect picture. It's a good school. They'd be happy to have you. I know some administrators that can get you in.

Eden had dreamed about going there since eighth grade. I had done nothing if not support her boundlessly, so I should feel happy for her. Why did I just feel sick? "Very prestigious," I said, sitting down on the loveseat, beside Mom. "That's where you ran off to, then? Vinny and—"

There was an awkward silence.

I started again. "I was hoping to hear from you. It's been too long."

"Cian, I miss her. Say something to her. Please. Tell her I'm here."

I looked away. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. This was harder than I thought.

"What about you, Cian?" asked Eden, her fork clinking against the plate as she sliced a bit of her quiche. "You headed off to college anytime soon?"

"Me?" I shook my head. "No. Not my thing. I'm...I'm taking a break. Yeah."

"That's so like you, Cian," she said with a laugh. Even her laugh sounded different than it had in eleventh grade. Back then it had been spontaneous and full, the laugh of someone who had never been without joy in their life. This, however, was on a whole different plane. This laugh was clipped and barely there at all, as if most of it had been thrown away. "Always on break. Getting you to study for something was like pulling teeth."

The room erupted into short-lived laughter. I forced a few of my own, face flushing: "Ha. Ha, ha, ha."

"Cian! Stop ignoring me!"

Please hold on, Vinny, I wanted to say, but couldn't. Everyone was watching me. I needed to say something, do something, because Vinny's voice had an edge to it. It was the same edge I'd heard back at the bay last night. He was standing on the precipice of frustration, about to hurl himself off its apoplectic cliff. And what I could do? Nothing. I could sit here and watch it happen.

Mom and Dad pestered Eden with questions about Stanford for a couple minutes, and I let them. Then it was silent, which I guess meant it was my turn. Unable to hold it in anymore, I asked the one question I had wanted to since I'd seen her Tesla pull up: "What happened after the accident, Eden? You didn't call, or anything. I mean, it was hel—crazy just trying to figure out if you were alive. I was so worried about you."

There was more silence, from both the live and dead people in the room. I knew I'd asked the question my brother wanted to hear, too. My parents, on the other hand, looked about ready to slap me. In their eyes, I read: You weren't supposed to mention the accident. I was done with the "supposed-to's," however. I was done with the furtive glances and the careful words. I wanted to taste authenticity again.

Eden set her quiche down. The air conditioning whirred. Mom looked like she wanted wine and Dad looked like he wanted a cigar. "I didn't know how to talk to you, Cian," she told me, her eyes on the ground. "I was afraid, so I ran. I'm sorry. And..." she looked up. "Vinny. About what happened to him...I'm so sorry."

"Say something," he hissed in my ear. "Tell her I'm not gone! I'm right here!"

"No," I said.

As soon as I did I clapped a hand over my mouth.

Eden said, "What?"

"Uh...no," I told her, thinking fast. Mom looked like she needed a whole bottle of wine. Dad looked like he needed a very expensive cigar. "No, don't be sorry. It's alright. He was my brother, so I know if he were here, he would want me to move on—"

"I'm right here!" his voice bellowed out, and I knew I was done for. The house started trembling as if we'd been struck by an earthquake, the paintings on the wall shaking from side to side. The olive tree plates clinked erratically on the coffee table. The furniture seemed to dance to the beat of Vinny's wrath.

One by one, the paintings fell. Rather, they crashed to the floor, their frames shattering. Van Gogh's work was the last to go. Both Mom and Eden screamed and jumped up. Vinny, I wanted to say. Vinny, stop it. Control yourself! I said not to do anything stupid!

Mom had lost it. The pins in her hair fell, and the fair strands hung around her face as she looked, horrified, to me. "Make him stop!"

Eden shrank back towards the wall. There were tears in her eyes. "What is happening!"

The fan fell from the ceiling, crushing the coffee table under it. It exploded, splinters of wood going in every direction. I whirled towards Vinny, who was huddled beside the armoire in a fetal position, screaming. I looked at him, unable to fight the fear climbing up into my throat. He was more out of control than he had been at the bay. This was worse, so much worse. What was wrong with him? "Vinny," I said, "stop it."

He didn't reply to me, just buried his fingers and shouted, his voice trembling, "Who cares? I can do what I want! All I'm ever going to be is a phantom!"

"Yeah!" I shouted back, irritated. "Well you know damn well you asked for it!"

My tongue burned. Vinny screamed.

The room went black, the only light source the dying sparks occasionally emanating from the destroyed ceiling fan. There was nothing I could do anymore; I knew I'd gone too far, and the only thing I could do now was get everyone out of here. Vinny would have to be left alone until he calmed himself down again. He was only a hazard to us now.

Amidst the quivering house, I clawed for Eden's wrist in the dark. Calling for my parents to follow my voice, I ran.