“No. He lived right across the street.”
“Above the bookstore? Where Arthur lives?”
“Exactly, but there was no bookstore then. It was the Stewart’s family home.” Jo smiled wistfully and glanced at the window. “Henry was a couple of years older than Esme and me. When we were little, he used to tease us something awful. But as we got older, he stopped being a nuisance and somehow became part of our little crew. And then…well, the two of us went and fell in love.”
All of a sudden, Ocean had one of those ‘aha’ moments. Jo’s words echoed in her mind. Not just what she said, but how she said it. She still loved Henry. That love was still alive.
Ocean thought of the strange things she’d noticed in the bookstore. Little things that didn’t make sense until now.
Still, like piecing together a puzzle, she needed to start with the corners.
“What happened to Henry?”
Jo’s smile faded entirely. “He was wounded in the Argonne Forest in France right around the same time I died.”
“That’s horrible. Did he die there?”
“No. He survived the fighting somehow, but he needed to convalesce in France for a long time. The funny thing was that at the time neither of us knew what was happening to the other. That’s when he wrote those letters to me. From the hospital there.” She gestured toward the desk, where the thin blue pages lay. “But I never got them. Never saw them until today. I was already gone.”
Ocean didn’t say anything. She just listened, trying to ignore the knot that had formed in her chest.
“He was sent home after the war,” Jo went on. “Back here. To the house across the street.”
“And then?”
“Before he got here, Henry’s parents died, as well. The epidemic surged again the following summer. It took them both,” Jo said gently. “When he came back, the only one left in his family was his younger brother.”
Ocean thought of all the sadness and suffering of that time. The war. A deadly flu. “Did...did Henry ever marry?”
Jo shook her head. “No. And then, not long after, he died too. ”
“Died? But he must’ve been young!”
“He was twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four?” Ocean stared. “Did that flu get him too?”
“No. An accident.”
Ocean let out a slow breath. “That’s crazy. It’s like, Romeo and Juliet stuff.”
Seriously. After more than a hundred years, Jo was still obviously pining for him. That had to be real love.
“I always thought that when people died, they…I don’t know, crossed over. Moved on. But you...you stayed behind.” A thought occurred to Ocean. “Do you think he knew? When he came back, I mean. Did he know that you were right here, a ghost?”
“At that time, only Esme knew,” Jo said quietly. “She told him once, and he came over to the house. But he couldn’t see me. Couldn’t hear me. And when she told him I was still here, I think he didn’t believe her. Or maybe he did. But I think it just added to his pain. It was just too much for him.”
She paused, her voice catching, barely more than a whisper. “That was the only time—after I died, I mean—that we were in the same house. He was just a few steps away, and he never knew for sure that I was there, watching, aching to reach out and touch him. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t even say goodbye.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”
Ocean glanced toward the front of the house, toward Arthur’s bookstore across the street. Now that she knew ghosts were real, she had to ask.
“Did Henry stay behind too?” she asked. “Like you?”
Jo nodded slowly. “Of course, he did. I think our love is the reason we’re both still here. Because neither of us could let go. Not while the other was still holding on.”
