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“Oh, baby, you’re not alone. You’ve got family all around you.”
“But they hate me, Mom. They don’t want me here.”
“I don’t mean them, honey. I mean the ones who love you.”
“Who loves me?” I take a seat on another bed close by. “I don’t understand.”
“He says you look just like her.” She gets a familiar look in her eye, like she’s trying to see through me. Apparently she can still have visions, even now. “They’re coming...”
“Who’s coming?” I wish I could take her hand. “Who’s coming, Mom?”
“They’re coming for you...” Fear contorts her features. “The man in chains. I didn’t know what he was...”
“What man? Oh, God, Mom.” It’s like her final moments all over again. Incoherent scraps of thought and memory running together like watercolors.
“They took everything from us. But you’re going to take it back. You have to be braver than I was. I couldn’t help him then, but you can help him now.”
“Who can I help?” I grip the stone lip beneath me to keep myself for reaching for her. “Mom, who’s in chains?”
“Mariah,” Keema says. She steps off the patio onto the garden path. “Is everything okay?”
When I turn to look back at my mother, her ghost is gone.
“No,” I say, breathless.
“Are you feeling all right?” Keema asks, her face drawn with concern.
I wipe the tears from my cheeks. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? I can get someone to cover if you need to take an hour off.”
I shake my head. My mother’s ghost is here. If I stay, there’s a chance I’ll see her again.
“I’m sure,” I tell Keema. “I just thought I saw someone.”
Chapter Eleven
William
“You were right, Will,” Mariah says to me. “My mom is here. I saw her in the garden at work this morning.”
“Did she recognize you?” I cross my feet on the dining table. Sadly, I missed their little mother-daughter reunion, thanks to Chastity choosing this fine morning to tap my arms like backyard maples.
“I wasn’t sure at first, but yes, she did.” She smiles to herself. “I wanted to hug her so badly. She looked so healthy.”
Mariah picks a grape from the bunch on the cheese board in front of her. We’re seated across from each other, at either end of the dining table, with an array of appetizers and half-eaten dishes spread out between us. Leftovers of a meal that was never actually served but exists to give the illusion of an ongoing gathering. The food is technically edible, if not at all nourishing.
Chastity passes through the dining room on her way to the kitchen. Mariah drops her grape in surprise.
“She can’t see you,” I remind her. By now, Mariah’s figured out that the twilight realm is a sort of alternate version of her world, rather than a place she’s invented.
“I know,” she says. “It’s still unnerving.”
She waits for Chastity to make her return pass with a glass of wine in one hand and the open bottle in the other.
“Will, do you watch me during the day?”
If I had a pulse, it would jump three stories.
