Page 24

After a few more minutes, she called him back into the kitchen and again told him how he must try harder and do what I had done.

"You know you haven't tried hard enough. Noble," she told him. "You do know that, don't you?"

He didn't respond, and she hovered over him with her eyes full of desperation and anger. He glanced up and looked down quickly. I felt sorry for him.

"You will try harder," she said, and he nodded again.

Noble was as repentant and as cooperative as he could be for days and days afterward. He looked at me differently. too. I could see it in the way his eyes grew smaller, his gaze more intense. He watched me more closely, interrupted his own activities to loiter around me when I planted or weeded our garden, something he had little interest in doing, or when I helped Mommy clean the house. Whenever we took walks with or without Mommy, he paid keen attention to whatever attracted my attention, and he was always asking me whether I saw Daddy and especially whether or not Daddy had said anything to me.

He hadn't yet. so I wasn't going to say he had. and I couldn't tell him anything more because I hadn't seen Daddy again since that night. and I would never say I had. I took Mommy's warnings very, very seriously: never lie about the spirits.

However, since I had seen Daddy. I was sure that I began to see other spirits. Sometimes they were just walking about the property, talking softly to each other. although I couldn't hear them. I saw their mouths moving, their hands going. Occasionally they would pause and look my way, always smiling and nodding at me.

I told Mommy I had seen them and asked her what I should do, and she said, "Do nothing. Smile and nod back. It takes time. They have to get used to you, to believe in you."

She studied me. My eyebrows were scrunching together. Why would they have to get used to me?Im not the dead one. They are.

"I see that is odd to you, but yes. Celeste, it's harder for the spirits to believe in a living person being able to see and hear them than it is for a living person to believe in seeing and hearing them. Time has made it more difficult for them to understand what we are and what they were. They can't understand why we place so much value on things that have no lasting quality or why we get upset over trivial matters. It's almost like one of Noble's ants trying to understand Noble," she added. and I nodded. When she explained it that way. I understood everything she was saying. Mommy must have been a very good teacher, I thought. We're lucky to have her all to ourselves.

"You're very bright," she told me, but she didn't sound as happy about it as I thought she would, "To be honest. Celeste. I didn't expect it to happen this way. I expected Noble would cross over first,"

"Why?" I asked quickly, maybe too quickly. She didn't turn back to me. She stared out the window.

"I don't know." she finally replied. "It was supposed to be that way. That's all I know,"

Her voice drifted off. I hated it when she couldn't give me a reason for something.

We both saw Noble running about, holding his sword above him and screaming some war cry. To me he looked further away from crossing over than ever. I guess he looked the same way to Mommy. She turned back to me, and her expression hardened.

"We've got to help him," she said with desperation. "I'm afraid for him."

"Afraid? Why, Mommy?"

"I just am," she said. and you should be. too. Remember, you have a special responsibility to watch over him. Celeste. Remember that," she warned.

Why? What have I done to give me this special responsibility? I wanted to ask. but I thought it would sound too selfish and mean. After all, she had so much on her shoulders, so much responsibility. She had to be a daddy and a mommy all wrapped up in one person.

Almost a year had one by since Daddy's death. Our lives had taken on a comfortable routine. For the most part. Mommy was able to do every-thing we needed done herself. She had even come to

understa

nd our oil burner, our circuit breakers, and diagnosed and corrected our minor problems almost as quickly and efficiently as Daddy had. When she was convinced she couldn't solve a problem, and only when she was convinced, she would call for help. Usually she called Mr. Kotes, who came over so quickly, it was as if he had been on his way before she had called.

When she thanked him, he told her not to and practically begged her to call on him again.

"No matter how small the problem might seem," he said. "That's very kind of you, Taylor." Mommy told him.

I liked him. He always had a warm, friendly smile on his face for me. but I could see that Noble did not like him. He resented him.

"Those are Daddy's tools he's using," he would mutter when Mr. Kotes went to fix something.

"He needs them to do the job," I would say. but Noble was still distraught,

"He shouldn't be able to use them. He isn't as smart as Daddy, and he isn't as strong."

Mr. Kotes was a smaller-framed man who, even though he was a few inches taller than Daddy was, probably weighed twenty pounds less than Daddy had weighed and didn't have Daddy's firm build and posture. He had light brown, very close to blond hair he kept trimmed short, and a light complexion with swirls of redness in his cheeks and over his temples.

He tried to get Noble to accept his friendship, giving him tools from his lumberyard occasionally, or trying to. because Noble would respond with, "Mommy says not to take gifts that will make us forget Daddy."