White Space

“Yes, Casey, I know it sounds crazy, but the dead live in the snow. I feel their …” She broke off, remembering how Casey had been Big Earl, shedding his father’s death-whisper as easily as shucking the man’s shirt. He must not know; can’t sense the change much at all and only half-remembers. He just becomes. She gasped. And if the snow’s where the dead live … “Casey.” She snatched his jacket and yanked. “Casey, get off the snow, get off now!”

“Wuh—” Off-balance, Casey reeled and lurched forward, his hands shooting out to grab the sled’s handlebars. “Okay, okay, I’m coming, relax.” She wouldn’t let go until he was straddling the seat so they faced one another. “All right, I’m on,” he said. “What’s the matter with you? What do you mean, you feel people?” Then his brows wrinkled, and he glanced away, his mouth working the way it had when he tasted the fog on his tongue. “You know, I … I remember something you said. It’s … foggy.” He let out a breathy laugh. “Which fits, I guess. But I do remember a little. In the car … I wouldn’t let you in … and I started hurting …” He raised a hand to that livid, swollen splash of purple-black bruise. “You said I needed to fight—”

“I remember what I said.” She took his gloved hand in both of hers. “It’s something I’m … I’m able to do. I know you’ll think I’m crazy, but just listen.” As she talked, she saw the growing doubt and disbelief. Well, she knew how to fix that. “So,” she said, “that’s how I know about Big Earl: that he’s dead. That’s why I told you to fight him.”

Yup, that did it. An expression first of blank surprise and then a swell of shock, hot and scarlet, flooded his face. “What?”

“You heard me.” She paused, then added, softly, “I know what Big Earl did to you. I know Eric didn’t mean for it to happen, but he had no choice. He was protecting you. If he hadn’t swung that bottle and put Big Earl down, I think you’d both be dead.”

“How?” The question came as a harsh, hoarse whisper. “How can you know all that?”

“Your shirt. It was your dad’s. That’s why I didn’t want you to touch me, Casey. Because whenever you did, I felt it, him, Big Earl’s death-whisper … and you, when you were wearing the shirt, you were different. You were mean. Didn’t you feel it? You feel the difference now, right?”

His eyes faltered, his gaze sliding from her face to the snow. Some part of his mind must register the change. Perhaps he even knew but tucked that knowledge away in some dim corner where he would have little excuse to look.

“Yes,” he said, finally. When his eyes again met hers, they were much too bright and pooled. “Before, when I looked at you and the others? I heard him talking to me, telling me what to think. But now I … I see you, like there’s no fog, nothing of Big Earl between us. It’s like I’m meeting you for the very first time.”

She opened her mouth to say … something, she didn’t remember what. The words slipped right off her tongue, because that was when she got her first good look at Casey’s eyes as they were now. They weren’t just bright with tears. They were different. When he had worn Big Earl’s shirt, Casey’s eyes were a muddy brown. Now they were stormy. Not gray, exactly, or blue or brown or green. His eyes were all colors, and no color, nothing fixed. His were the kind of eyes that, depending on the light, were green one moment and hazel the next. Even blue.

What does that mean? Another thought: My God, maybe he could get to the point where the change would be permanent and he’d never find himself again.

“How did you feel then?” she asked. “When you had that shirt? Do you remember?”

“Angry,” he whispered. “Mad at everybody, everything, even Eric. I didn’t like the feeling, and I heard Big Earl in my head and it … he was bad. Evil. Remembering him crawling around like this black spider, it makes me feel dirty. That’s never happened before either. I’d never had him in my head. Hell, I used to think someone had made a mistake. How could Eric and I have a father like that? It never felt like my dad belonged in our lives; he was a mistake, an outsider. Like … like this virus you just couldn’t shake and …” Casey let out a trembling breath. “Ohhh-kay, that sounds pretty crazy.”

She shook her head. “You’ve never met my mother. She and I don’t look at all like we belong to each other. Sometimes I think I popped out of nowhere or someone switched me at birth and my real mom’s got this awful kid. I don’t even like touching my mom. She feels”—she hugged herself—“like there’s something rotting inside. All the drugs she does, that’s probably pretty close.”

“So if you feel dead people, their … whispers, like the little girl in your parka, Taylor? Is that what I’m doing?”