He surveyed all of the items on the counter, nodded as though deciding he had everything he needed, then started making a sandwich that, in Celeste’s opinion, would feed a small family. “Read that list and tell me if you can think of anything else. Hey, read it out loud. That’ll help me see if Nan and I missed anything.”
She cleared her throat, then began, “‘Silver eyes. They darken as she gets tired, and turn completely black, like other spirits’ eyes, before she is pulled back to the middle.’” Celeste looked at him and asked, “What color are they now?”
He turned away from the counter, tilted his head and said, “Pale silver, almost transparent. You must have rested well.”
She nodded. She had slept well with him by her side, but she had also felt tired before they came down to the kitchen. However, right now, sitting here and scanning the list, she didn’t feel the least bit fatigued, and that was good. She really wanted to stretch her time out with Dax. “I did sleep well.” Then she continued down the list. “‘No control over when she comes or leaves,’” she read, and added, “True.” Then she read the next item, a single word and a question mark. “‘Clothing?’”
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure about that, but Ryan said he had the ability to change his clothing at will. Basically, he thought about what he wanted to wear, and his attire changed. But when I first saw you in the summer, you were wearing a yellow tank top and jeans the whole time. I assumed that’s what you were wearing when you…” He paused, and she knew why. He didn’t want to admit that she’d died.
“That was what I wore the day of the wreck,” she said, helping him out of the uncomfortable sentence. “And you’re also right about my clothing. I don’t know how it changes, or why. That white gown that I had on the last time I visited you wasn’t anything I had when I was living. And these-” she waved her hand down her side to indicate the sage tunic and capris “-I didn’t own anything like this either. Not that I don’t like it, or anything like that, but this isn’t typically the kind of thing I’d have picked out to wear. In fact, it really looks like something more along the lines of what Nelsa would wear.”
“Nelsa?” he asked, and momentarily took his attention off the sandwich he was creating.
“My older sister,” she said, smiling as she thought of Nelsa. At twenty-five, she was four years older than Celeste and truthfully closer than just a sister; she was Celeste’s best friend. “Nelsa has always had a real flair for picking fashionable clothes,” she said. “Me, though, I was more of a tank-top-and-jeans kind of girl. The outfit you saw me in during the summer was basically what you’d always see me in, but this is pure Nelsa.” She looked at the gauzy, feminine shirt again. “I always wanted to dress more like her, tried to, actually, but never could really get a handle on her style. I guess it’s that younger sister thing, always looking up to her and all. She was the levelheaded one, the girlie-girl and the one with the cool taste in clothing. I was more of a tomboy, a little-or maybe a lot-more reckless, and I had a tendency to bend, or outright break, the rules.” She smiled. “Do you think I’m in clothes like Nelsa’s because I always admired her style when I was living?”
He paused, seemed to consider it, then asked, “What about the gown? Was that something she’d have picked out?”
Celeste laughed. “No, that’s the type of thing my mother would have picked out. She always got that sweet, virginal-bride kind of sleepwear when it came to buying gifts for me and Nelsa. I guess in her eyes, she was trying to keep us young and innocent.” She shook her head. “Okay. Maybe I wore that as a tribute to Mom, and this as a tribute to Nelsa?”
“But you said you can’t change your clothes at will, right?”
She closed her eyes, thought of her favorite green tank top and worn jeans, then opened them. She still had on the tunic. “No, I can’t.”
His brows drew together as he seemed to try to process this new bit of knowledge. “Write that down by clothing,” he said. “That your clothing seems to be a reflection of the people you were closest to. Maybe that means something, even if you don’t have the ability to change it.” Then he turned his attention back to the sandwich, spreading mayonnaise across one side of the bread and mustard along the other, while Celeste added the new information, and thought about her family, particularly Nelsa.
“I miss her,” she whispered. “Nelsa always kept me in line, or tried to. If I’d have listened to her this summer-” Her lip quivered, throat tightened.
“What?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t have been on that bus, and I’d probably still be breathing. The counseling position was actually for teachers who were already working in the school system, you know, not for brand-new college graduates who were merely eager to get started. I saw the opportunity to travel to those camps and work with kids, and I went ahead and put that I was employed as a kindergarten teacher.” She shrugged. “I lied because I didn’t want to wait until the fall to start working with children. I mean, I did my internship in the spring, during my last semester, and I loved it. Why would I want to stay away from kids for the whole summer?”
“Didn’t the people running the camp check your employment claim?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Yeah,” she said with a guilty grin. “But I was employed by the school they checked. I’d already accepted a teaching position there, beginning this fall, so they answered that I was employed by the school. Luckily, the fact that I hadn’t done anything but my intern duty there never came up.” She sighed. “If I hadn’t lied on that application, and if I hadn’t been on that bus, I’d be teaching now.” A tear pushed forward, and trickled down her cheek, and she brushed it away.
Dax dropped the knife, and it clanged on the plate as he crossed the room and kneeled beside her. “I’m going to get you back, somehow, and you will get to teach. Ryan came back to this side, and if he can do it, then you can too. We’ve just got to figure out why your situation is so different than his was, and what we have to do to make it happen. But I swear, I won’t give up until we do.” Then his brows furrowed, and he stared at her cheek. “Celeste?”
“What?” she whispered, then wiped another tear away.
“Ghosts don’t cry.”
She blinked, and another swell of tears spilled free. “Well, I do.” Then she sniffed, and managed a smile. “Want me to add that to the list?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
She wrote it at the end, then she peered past him to the sandwich he’d barely started making. “Go on and finish that. You need to eat.”
He exhaled thickly, then nodded and returned to the counter. “We will figure it out,” he said, more to himself than to her, but Celeste nodded, and returned her attention to the list.
“The next thing is another question,” she said. “And I don’t understand it.”
“What does it say?”
“‘Can she see me?’” Celeste read, then looked toward him. “What does that mean?”
“When you’re in the middle, can you see me, on this side? Because ghosts can typically see those they care about when they’re on the other side. I’ve never met a spirit that didn’t say something about watching the ones they love.”
She shook her head. “Well, you’ve met one now. I can’t see you, and I can’t see my family either. I can’t see anyone when I’m in the middle.”
“What about here? When you’re on this side with me, can you think about your family and see them? Because that’s the way it works, you’d see them, and go to them, if you wanted to visit them again.”
She’d thought of that earlier, and had tried to picture them. “No, I can’t. I can’t see them at all.” She fought another impulse to cry, and wrote that down as well, finishing the list. “That’s the last thing you had,” she said, watching him spread a layer of olive paste on top of the mustard, then stack pastrami, salami and provolone cheese on top of it. He topped that off with the other half of the French bread, then brought it to the table.