Lucie

The classroom burst with stifling heat and eerie silence. In Mr. Davies's class, I sat at the front of the room, at the desk furthest to the right, beside the window. I could see the empty courtyard from here, a few cars drifting by, and I wished I were them, free from the chains of the public school system with my own sense of free will. But, no, I was here, a mostly blank test in front of me, with the exception of a few eraser smudges.

I couldn't focus.

I hadn't been able to focus for a while now, not with Dempsey and with Victor (at least I thought his name was Victor) and that other guy whose name started with a K, or something. I kept picturing Dempsey's last moments, wondering what he'd been thinking, what he'd been feeling. I wondered if he was really gone, if my hope to find him alive was valid or faulty.

Then, of course, there was the thing with the ghosts, which meant both bad and good things. If Dempsey was truly dead, could I see him, somehow, since I now had this odd sixth sense?

My pencil jolted suddenly across my paper. I watched myself rewrite a simplified version of the equation printed there on the math test, but I was not completing the action of my own volition. Confused, I looked up, around. Nothing else was odd; Mr. Davies behind his desk, everyone else working diligently.

My pencil was still moving, but it had stopped forming numbers.

DON'T BE SCARED.

That was the most impossible request at the moment. Realizing what this was, or rather, who this was, I fought with all my might to gain control of my pencil back. I was already distracted enough. I did not have time for some ghost to interrupt me!

The handwriting was shakier, but still the phantom managed to convey his message with the smudging graphite: PLEASE STOP FIGHTING ME. NEED TO—

I started fighting again, but stopped when Mr. Davies shot me a strange look.

NEED TO TALK, LUCIE.

PLEASE

Then, slowly, the letters: V-I-N-N-Y.

Strangely enough, as soon as the Y was written, it felt as if a weight had lifted from my pencil. Now I could move it on my own again, and for a moment I froze, my fingers trembling. I stared at the math problem, then glanced at Mr. Davies, then bit my lip. Even if he was invisible to me now, I felt Vinny (I admittedly felt bad for getting his name wrong) gazing at me, waiting for me to do something.

I'd told him and his brother to stay away from me. Maybe if I just put up with it a little longer, they'd both leave me alone...

Hope you don't mind the girls' bathroom, I wrote.

Vinny's immaterial hand grasping my pencil: LONG AS NO ONE'S THERE.

I raised my hand. "Mr. Davies, may I be excused for a moment?"

Oddly enough, I was alone. I entered the hall bathroom, both the floors and walls a grimy beige that may have been white once. The mirrors were dirtied with soap residue and streaks of lipstick, and the air reeked of urine. I went to the mirror, ignoring the dead cockroach underneath the sink at which I stood. I pulled at my face for a moment; I looked tired, my chestnut skin blanched, plum semi-circles underneath my dark eyes. My lips were chapped, cheeks puffy from crying myself to sleep. I was a mess. I hated being a mess.

I went to rinse my face off, and nearly screamed when I reached for a paper towel. Vinny was behind me, an odd look a little ways off from rueful on his face. I whirled, bracing myself against the sink. "Jesus Christ."

He watched me for a moment, head cocked like a bird's. "Not an angel, then."

"An angel? What?"

"You used the Lord's name in vain," Vinny observed, shoving imaginary hands in imaginary pockets. Yes, that's what this was, all imaginary. Maybe this was one prolonged dream; surely ghosts were not really following me around. Rather, this one annoyingly persistent ghost. "Angels can't do that, you know; they're holy beings and it's a sin. So you're not an angel."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. Of course I'm not an angel. Look, Vinny, I know you and your brother or whatever want to help, but you can't. You can't keep popping up everywhere. Please leave me alone."

"Are you sure about that?"

I sighed, tying my hair up into a bun at the crown of my head and tugging my flannel tighter around myself. I hooked my thumbs in my pockets. "About what?"

"That we can't help you."

I scoffed. "What can some guy and his ghost sidekick do to help me find my brother?" I turned away for a moment, not looking at him. This was something annoying about ghosts, I was learning: You could turn away, refuse to look at them, but you still felt them there, their coldness wrapped around you like a blanket, albeit a lot less comforting. Vinny was observant, missing nothing and seeing everything, and there was no escaping it.

My voice was scraped hollow: "Dempsey's dead, anyway."

A pause. "Cian's not just some guy. Oh, he never brought it up, did he?"

"Vinny," I said, and as I exhaled, swiveled and made eye contact with him. He was still standing there, a grin on his face now. I studied him for a moment before I spoke next, and thought it strange that he was a person but simultaneously was not. He was standing there, but everything about him seemed faded, less revealed. The black of his swim trunks was really a gray, the white of his t-shirt nearly clear. I could tell that, in life, his hair had been more gold than it was now; his eyes had been a blue like the sun rising over the Pacific. I was stricken for a moment, thankful for the vibrancy of the life I could still claim. "I know what you're going to say."

Vinny was gone. Startled, I backed up, and swallowed back a yelp; he'd appeared on the sink beside me, bracing himself upon it. His face inches from mine, he whispered, "Do you, Lucie?"

I took a small step back. "You're going to say Cian's different, or something, that he's a genius with this deduction kind of thing. Well, I don't need that. Right now, I need a miracle."

"Cian works for the miracle worker of all miracle workers, Lucie. He's an angel. He didn't bring it up, but he is, ever since he was Split after the accident."

There were a lot of questions that sentence brought on. That guy, an angel? I'd thought angels were beautiful and delicate and selfless. When I thought of Cian in the dark hoodie and with the scars and his arrogance, his arrogance, I did not think of him as an angel. All I said, however, was: "Split?"

"Look, there's a lot of this spirit world corporeal world vocab that's not important right now," Vinny told me. He sat back, swinging his legs, his eyes darkening as his tone became more grave. "What's important right now is that we help you. Cian's concerned. He wants to help you figure out why you can see the spirit world—me—and maybe even find your brother. Cian's...well, let's just say he easily stresses himself out. He always wants to make himself look better in my eyes, as if I'm ever going to leave him, or something."

Vinny dropped his gaze. "I think he's afraid of being alone. I keep telling him I would never do that, that I stayed here for a reason..." He trailed off, then looked up at me. Despite their slight transparency, his eyes were still vivid in their own way, holding me captive with their earnestness. "You need him to help you figure your powers out, and he needs you to convince himself he's good enough. I've been trying to convince him myself, but nothing's seemed to work, so I'm hoping this will be the—well—miracle I've been needing."

"You think I'm the solution to your brother's internal struggle? Ha! I'm barely in control of my own problems!"

Vinny was pleading with me. He hopped off the sink. "We can help with that! You're new to this, but I've been dead and Cian's been an angel now for around two years. We can help you figure this out."

I shook my head, and, since this is what I would do to any live person, reached out to pat his hand lightly. A few moments of awkward silence passed when I felt the cold porcelain of the sink instead; Vinny looked so tired that he almost swayed me. "I'm sorry, Vinny, but I can't help Cian and he can't help me. No one can. My brother's gone. I've accepted it. Now please stop haunting me."

Vinny's face twisted into an unpleasant expression; his voice came out cold. "I'm not haunting you," he said, "I'm saving you. You're just too stupid to notice."

Then he vanished, leaving me blinking in his wake.