Only the Good Die Young

25

When I got to Amanda Lee’s, she and Louis and Randy were indeed waiting for me on her front porch, near the swing.

But two other ghosts had shown up in the meantime.

Twyla and Scott flew over to me right away, leaving Randy and Louis behind as Amanda Lee stood from the swing, looking at me from a distance.

“Where’ve you been?” Scott asked as Twyla bobbed with curiosity, surveying my major color with a bit of awe.

“That’s a question I could ask you,” I said. “You guys left Wendy alone after I asked you to stay with her.”

Twyla put her hands on her hips. “After you chased Farah, Little China Girl told us to scram, and I wasn’t about to babysit a mouthy, emotionally on-fire trend queen who called my wardrobe ‘unfortunate.’ So I took off to UCSD, you know? There’s always some pinhead playing with a Ouija board in the dorms or whatever.”

Scott piped in. “There was nothing happening, so I went with Twyla. I guess we should’ve stayed… .”

He was baiting me for an explanation as to what’d gone on.

I shook my head. “I doubt your presence would’ve changed anything in the end. Just come with me to talk with the others.”

“Changed what?” they both asked, and I waved them on and floated toward the porch, where I would have to break the news to Amanda Lee.

By the time I got there, Amanda Lee could sense something big had gone down.

Randy’s relieved smile even died on his face when he saw my expression, and he took up that sober sailor stance he’d assumed when he’d hovered near the bed of McGlinn’s time-looped uncle the other day.

As I told Amanda Lee everything—from the pool house hauntings, to discovering Farah was the killer and Noah was the helper, to the revelation of Daddy Edgett’s abuse and his death via Gavin—she slowly sat down again. I couldn’t read her face, but I could feel how much the news pummeled her. I think Louis could feel that from her, too, because he hovered near her, faithful and good, no matter what dimension he lived in.

“Are you okay?” I asked her after she’d had a few minutes to absorb it all.

She only nodded and clutched at her turquoise cross around her neck. “Farah? She was the one who did it?”

“Yeah.”

Amanda Lee gradually pushed the swing back, and it idly fell forward as she rode it, the chains groaning. I’m not sure she realized she was even moving.

Louis tried to smooth the rough moment. “We talked all night about those dreams that Gavin had, but now every meaning we came up with is null and void, I suppose.”

There was still so much to work out about the case, wasn’t there? I wanted to unwind all its threads. Louis was definitely up for it. I’m sure it would help Amanda Lee to come to terms with everything, too.

“All those twisted clues,” I said. “Right there in Gavin’s mind. I guess the girl pilots in the dreams weren’t his anima, after all. The main pilot was Farah and the second one was Wendy, and the air machines were a symbol of their high-flying, wonderful childhoods, when you’re supposed to be able to laugh and soar and have fun.”

“And the big dark bird really was death,” Louis said. “The dad’s death. And it was shadowing Farah and Gavin.”

“That means the dragon with the crushed face was their dad, because he didn’t have much of a face after he fell from that balcony. He was trying to pluck Farah out of the air and victimize her in that first dream, and in the second, when he was the spider, he did get her with his web. Gavin saved her both times.”

Yes, the motivations for Farah’s crime had been there, in his baffling subconscious, all along for me to figure out. But since Gavin hadn’t known Farah was Elizabeth’s killer, his clues hadn’t been clear enough to me.

“I feel so awful for him,” I said. “I haunted him for killing Elizabeth when he actually did it to his dad. I’m not sure he meant to kill him, though.”

Actually, I had the feeling I was wrong about that, because in that second dream, I suspected that Gavin and the bird had been working together, killing the father. But did I care? Frighteningly, I didn’t, because if Wendy had escaped the man’s abuse thanks to his death, that was just fine by me.

Louis gave me a sympathetic glance. “If Gavin’s dreams were any indication of how he felt about Elizabeth, he was haunted before you even got to him. Thoughts of her death were tearing him apart.”

True. Gavin lived in a world of blood. He’d killed, and I’m sure even more dreams than I’d witnessed had featured him in leather chairs with red trailing from his fingertips, him wearing clear masks with gory tears slipping down his face.

He’d worn a mask for four years now, existing with memories of violence and despair. But I’d made it worse.

“Gawd,” Twyla said from where she was sitting on the porch railing. “When humans aren’t being clowns, they’re sure being bummers. Bleh.”

Louis, Randy, and Scott sent her chiding looks, but Twyla was Twyla, and she summoned a travel tunnel, flying toward it.

“You guys are being total bummers, too. Like, call me when you’re off your depresso pills.”

She shot off, the tunnel sucking up behind her like a mouth turning into nothing.

An oblivious Amanda Lee was just as pale as every other human I’d encountered tonight. “So this is what closure feels like.”

I didn’t know what to say.

But she was ready to talk now. “I feel horrible about Gavin and Wendy, as well.”

“As far as I know,” I said, “they decided to keep the whole truth to themselves. They didn’t tell the cops everything.”

“Then we won’t go to the law with our findings. Not that they would even believe us. I don’t want to, anyway, for their sakes. They’ve been through enough.”

“And Farah paid for what she did,” Louis said.

Amanda Lee looked toward his voice. “I don’t feel badly about Farah.”

When Scott added his two cents, it seemed she could hear him vaguely, too.

“She got her just deserts,” he said.

The only thing I regretted was that she’d gotten her way in the end, going out on her terms and taking Noah with her. I felt sad for the little girl who’d been abused and warped, but that part of her had died a long time ago.

“Noah didn’t deserve it,” Amanda Lee said. “I know he helped with…”

She didn’t have to say, “Desecrating Elizabeth’s body” to clarify.

Clearing her throat, she went on. “He was a casualty in that demented house, just as much as Wendy and Gavin. Why couldn’t I see any of this?”

Randy spoke. “Not everybody can see everything,” he said.

“Wendy turned out to see more than I expected, though,” I said. “How did that even happen?”

Amanda Lee let her hand fall from her cross. “We all work differently. You triggered something in her, Jensen, and her life will never be the same.”

Scott’s turn. “I just hope that dark spirit doesn’t come back for them or whoever it was after.”

“I wish I’d found out what that was,” I said.

Randy smiled. “You can’t do everything, either, Jen.”

Being a ghost, with all these powers, made me think I could. It seemed such a waste to screw around like Twyla for the rest of my existence when there was so much I could do.

But hadn’t Randy insinuated that, someday, I would change?

We all just sat or hovered there for a minute… until something hit me.

“Shit,” I said. “Shitshitshit. The Edgetts’ dad died on their property. You don’t think…”

“Shee-it,” Randy said, catching on.

I could tell Louis, Scott, and Amanda Lee were thinking the same thing.

Was the dark spirit Daddy Edgett, who’d come through a portal?

Amanda Lee was just about pulling at her necklace now, a vein throbbing in her throat. “This isn’t the end. We put one wrong to rights tonight, but there’s still so much to do.”

With other humans who might need closure? Or just the Edgetts and their maybe-dark-spirit dad?

I didn’t get the chance to ask, because Randy saluted me.

“Dawn’s comin’,” he said, then quickly summoned a travel tunnel to get the hell out. He was gone within fifteen seconds.

I shrugged to Amanda Lee. “Randy’s got a letter to look for.”

Louis nodded, almost to himself. I’d noticed he’d stayed after Amanda Lee had hinted at her penance. Scott, too.

“One thing you could do,” I said to Amanda Lee, “is set your mind on finding out whether Wendy’s mom ever moved on.”

I wasn’t about to ask fake Dean about that. Give me a break.

“Would you keep an eye on Wendy, as well?” Amanda Lee asked us ghosts. “And… Gavin?”

We all nodded. I wasn’t just doing it for Amanda Lee’s conscience, either. I’d grown a soft spot for Wendy, and I was worried about how she was dealing with tonight’s abysmal events.

Gavin, too. Yeah, there it was. I admitted it.

Amanda Lee stood, holding her hand out to me. “But most important, we’ve got your murder to solve. Can you trust me enough to do that?”

Louis smiled at her. “I’m with you.” Then he smiled at me, letting me know he was in for a penny, in for a pound.

“Count me in,” Scott said, floating up the stairs, standing on the other side of Amanda Lee. He looked like he wanted to make up for disappointing me tonight.

She couldn’t see them, but I could, and they made quite a team. Two ghosts I trusted and one human I still wasn’t sure about.

Funny. Even though I technically didn’t have a spine anymore, I’d somehow grown one. I wasn’t going to ever be manipulated again as Amanda Lee had done to me.

And with or without her, I was going to make my killer regret murdering me.

I went up to the porch, sweeping my essence over Amanda Lee’s outstretched hand, and for a second, Louis and Scott joined us in a huddle.

But when she shivered, we all backed off.

I told them there was somewhere I had to be, and I asked Louis and Scott to let me travel there alone.

The cops had obviously let Gavin and Wendy go home, and the mansion was ablaze with lights through some of the windows that had curtains open now. Even though I knew how to overcome salt barriers, I didn’t want to tangle with any incantations that’d been said against me by the cleaner, so I stayed outside. Besides, I’d had enough drama for the night, and I knew that the Edgetts wouldn’t want me nearby, so I respected that, peering in the windows instead, deciding to stick around in case the dark spirit, aka maybe-bad Dad, came by.

I found Gavin and Wendy in her room, where her curtains were parted.

They were on the floor, leaning back against the bed, which had a suitcase open on top of it and clothes strewn around, like Wendy had been packing items so they could get out of this house and maybe to somewhere with fewer memories before she’d abruptly stopped.

Below the bed, she was slumped in Gavin’s arms, fast asleep. I imagined how she might’ve been having a fit of emotion and they’d both sunk there and he hadn’t dared to move for fear of waking her up.

Gavin was finally sleeping, too, although his face looked tougher than ever, still a fighter, still a protector.

I almost left them in peace, but then I saw the pencil that must’ve fallen out of his hand and the drawings near his leg that he must’ve been creating as he’d cradled sleeping Wendy.

Drawings of a young woman with light, flowing hair. One who wore a long-sleeved blouse over a tank top, plus jeans and tennis shoes. She looked like… well, a denim angel.

She looked like me.

Touched in a way that was just as protective as Gavin was for his family, I backed away from the window, just one of many ghosts for the Edgetts.

A justifier who was going to do as much reckoning as she could.