Beyond The Grave

“She’s your sister,” Avery said as we sat in her room one day, organizing the things she was going to take with her to college. “She feels helpless and wants to do something for you.

Let her. She’ll feel better and maybe she’ll find something that helps you, too.”

“I had to draw a picture of sadness for her.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Okay, that’s bad. What’d you draw?”

“A crying clown.”

We burst into giggles. It felt good to laugh, especially with Avery. She was going to be leaving soon for college, and I couldn’t bear to think about saying goodbye. It would be another absence to adjust to. We planned to call and email and stay in close touch, but I knew it was easy to make promises like that. Once she started school and her busy new life, would she have time for our long-distance friendship?

Satisfied that my salad was complete, I pulled the steaming rolls from the microwave. Dad walked into the kitchen and clapped his hands together. “Smells great!” I winced at his forced enthusiasm. Without Mom, he was miserable, but he tried to keep up a positive front for everyone. It had to be exhausting to pretend so much.

“It’s all Annalise,” I said, knowing that I was pretending, too.

My sister smiled. “Charlotte made the salad.”

I couldn’t tell if she was trying to warn Dad or give me credit for helping with dinner.

“Shane called,” Dad said. “They’re running a few minutes behind. Trisha got a call from Ryan as they were leaving.”

Ryan was Trisha’s oldest son. He was serving in Afghanistan, and a call from him was a big deal. She hadn’t seen him in over a year, but he was finally coming back this summer. So was Jeff, Trisha’s other son, who was also serving in the military. Trisha was planning her wedding to Shane around her sons’ return so that all three of her kids would be there for the big event. “I don’t care if it rains or snows or the reception hall catches fire,” she told us. “As long as I have Shane and my boys there, it will be perfect.”

Also as long as Mom was there, I wanted to add. It couldn’t be perfect without her. But the doctors had warned us that she might never wake up. Then they spoke to Dad in hushed voices, advising him of the “options.” I knew what that word meant—it meant pulling out the feeding tube and wires that kept Mom alive. It meant giving up and letting her die.

Dad said no. After Mom was transferred to the long-term care facility, he had to endure more kind yet firm speeches from a new team of doctors. They somehow convinced him that if Mom didn’t show any brain activity within the next six months, they would need to “reevaluate the options.” Six months, and there would be no options left. It was a death sentence, like pleasant words wrapped in shiny paper. Mom had until January to get better, even if it was only minor improvement.

For now, our lives were on hold, and that included the wedding. Shane had promised me that. “She’ll be there no matter what,” he’d said after the engagement was announced. “We won’t have the ceremony without her.”

It was a promise I was going to make him keep, although I wondered what he meant by “no matter what.” At first, I thought he meant that she would be there even if we had to push her in a wheelchair. But maybe not. Maybe Shane didn’t think she would come out of the coma. Maybe he thought Mom would be there in spirit, not in person.

“You haven’t given up on her, have you?” I asked him.

The question earned me a look of sad shock. “No,” he said, pulling me into a hug. “I have not given up. And don’t you give up, either. Keep hoping. It’s all we can do.”

Maybe it was all he could do, but I had other plans. Despite my fear of accidentally triggering the Watcher, I was determined to help my mom. I was the reason, the main reason why she was lying in a hospital bed, which meant that I had to try my best to get her out of it.

Annalise checked on her lasagna and turned the heat down on the oven. “I can keep this warm until they get here. Any idea how long that will be?”

“Soon.” Dad peered at my salad. “This is very colorful, Charlotte.”

He sounded apprehensive, but I knew he would like it. Annalise had given me a foolproof job. How could I mess up salad?

“Have you guys given any more thought to your living arrangements?” Annalise asked. She tried to sound casual, but I could hear the worry in her voice.

“I thought we’d settled all that,” Dad said. “Shane will be staying here with Charlotte while I’m gone. In fact, he’s moving out of his apartment next week.”

Annalise busied herself with selecting a salad dressing from the fridge. Her lack of response made it clear that she was not happy with Dad’s decision, a decision he had made weeks ago but one my sister was hoping could be reversed through persistent questions.

It had begun after Mom was transferred to the long-term care facility near Charleston. It was the best place for her to heal and recover, but the distance meant that Dad would need to commute over an hour each way. He decided that he wanted to stay with Mom in her room during the week. Annalise would be able to visit often, as well, and promised that when Dad wasn’t there, she would be.

Then there was me. My plans for the future had changed overnight. I deferred acceptance to college and instead decided to take courses at the local community college. I talked with an admissions officer, who told me as long as I got C’s in my classes, the credits would transfer. I was staying home for at least one more year and filling my schedule with the basics: English 101, Calculus 101, Biology 102. I reasoned that my schedule would let me begin at a university as a sophomore and I could take the interesting electives there. Dad didn’t protest too much when I told him my new college plan. He barely said anything at all.

Annalise, however, had a lot to say. “You can’t stop living!” she cried when I told her about my revised educational plan. “Mom would want you to move forward.”

“I am moving forward.” I appreciated my sister’s concern, even if it seemed a tad too dramatic, but she was beginning to border on the controlling. I was eighteen now. I didn’t need permission from her to live at home. I changed my tactic. “Dad needs me,” I said. “I can take care of the house. Do you really want him to be stressed about that?”

She backed down. “No. No, that’s not what I want.” She sighed. “I worry, though. Dad’s so withdrawn and you’re having panic attacks and if you need me I’ll be hours away.”

“You’ll be a phone call away.”

“It’s not the same.”

It wasn’t, but it was all we had for now. I did not want to move to Charleston, which was Annalise’s first suggestion. So much had happened in such a short amount of time that I decided I would not willingly make any more changes for a while, so when my sister came up with the idea that we should sell the house and relocate to a town closer to the treatment facility, I bristled. So did Dad, and I wondered if it was for the same reason: moving toward Mom meant that we were giving up on her ever getting better. And she had to get better. Although doctors couldn’t tell us when, or how, or anything other than that she was stable, we believed that she was strong enough to come out of it.

“Charlotte and I have no plans to move,” Dad told Annalise now. He looked over at me, and I nodded to show that, yes, I absolutely agreed with him. I wasn’t going anywhere. My sister leaned against the fridge and folded her arms across her chest.

“But this can’t be healthy, living in the same place you were attacked.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Mom wouldn’t want this. She wouldn’t want you to live like this.”

Dad averted his gaze. I knew it was difficult for him to look at her. Annalise looked so much like our mother. They shared the same clear eyes, the same wavy black hair. It was probably harder for him to look at his oldest daughter than it was to look at Mom, pale and motionless in her hospital bed.

“This is her home,” Dad finally said. “This is where we’re going to bring her when she recovers. I’m not leaving.”

I nodded. “Neither am I.”

The doorbell rang, and a moment later Shane’s voice boomed from the foyer. “We’re here!”

We turned to greet our guests with the happy smiles we’d all perfected. I didn’t have to fake mine so much when I saw Noah. While everyone else helped bring food to the table, Noah and I hung behind. “You look great,” he whispered.

I looked down at my jeans and white T-shirt. “I’m not wearing anything special.” Except the bracelet. I always wore that.

“Doesn’t matter. You still look great.”

“If you really want to flatter me, you’ll try my salad.”

He kissed my ear, sending a little shiver down my back. “I’m sure it’s fantastic.”

Dinner was filled with bright conversation about Trisha’s phone call with her son, Annalise’s upcoming semester and the courses she would be taking, and how Noah would be starting school as a senior in a few weeks. I watched as everyone sampled my cuisine, taking careful bites and picking out the random unwanted fruit or vegetable. Noah ate three servings, so I was happy.

Trisha also talked about the wedding. “I know we don’t have a firm date yet, but I want everything to be in order,” she said. “When we have a date that accommodates everyone, I want to move forward with lightning speed.”

I looked at Shane, who nodded. He was keeping his promise.

After everyone left, Dad retreated to the living room to watch TV while Annalise and I washed the dishes. “How do you do it?” she asked. My hands were immersed in soapy water and at first, I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I use the scrubber sponge.” I rinsed a plate and handed it to Annalise to dry. We had a dishwasher, but I actually liked washing dishes sometimes. The warm, bubbly water and simple repetition of the chore relaxed me.

“I’m not talking about dishes.” Annalise sighed. “I mean, how do you live in this house? How do you pass by the dining room every single day and not think about what happened there? I wasn’t even here, and I think about it constantly.”

“I do think about it.” I held a fork to the light so I could make sure I had thoroughly cleaned it, then dumped it back into the hot water for one more rinse. “But if I didn’t live here, I’d still think about it. At least here, I can face it. I’m not running from anything, and I think Mom would be proud of that.” Again, I could almost hear her voice: Don’t let fear make your decisions for you.

“Maybe.” Annalise had been drying the same plate for a while now, rubbing it slowly with the dish towel. I put my hand on hers and she looked up, startled. “I don’t want to leave tomorrow,” she whispered. “If I go, I don’t know how I’ll be able to come back here again.”

“You can come back with Mom.” I hoped she believed me. I wasn’t sure I trusted my own words, but if Annalise did, maybe they could be real.

“At least you’ll be able to drive yourself to school,” she said as she put away the small stack of clean plates.

“You’re not mad about that, are you?” My eighteenth birthday in June had almost completely escaped my mind, the first time I could ever remember not being excited about the day. In fact, when I’d realized it was coming up, I’d cried. It was the first birthday without Mom, and after enduring the torture of graduation without her face in the crowd, I was not ready to tackle another milestone so soon.

Annalise had stepped in and made a sugary pink cake, Trisha had brought over a dozen fat balloons, and Noah had given me the bracelet from Potion. I wasn’t expecting anything from Dad, as he was spending most of his time either asleep or sitting at Mom’s bedside, but he’d surprised me by leading me out of the house and handing me the keys to his car. His gorgeous, shiny silver BMW, the one that I wasn’t allowed to wash, much less drive. But with a quick kiss on my cheek, Dad had announced that it was time I had my own form of transportation. He’d dropped the keys into my hand, told me to drive safely, and was back inside the house before I could squeal with joy.

“I’ve already told you a hundred times,” Annalise said. “I’m not mad about the car. I’m glad you can finally drive yourself around.” She wiped at the wet silverware.

“Then what is it? I know something’s bothering you.”

She glanced toward the living room. The lights were off, with only the blue glow from the TV illuminating the room. “He loved that car. It was a gift from Mom. Why wouldn’t he want to keep it for himself?”

I didn’t know. He had bought a new car the following week, a little black hybrid.

“He needs time,” I said quietly. “We all do.”

“I know.” Annalise put the silverware away. When she turned back around, her eyes were filled with tears. “I worry about you. Both of you.”

I gave my sister a hug. “Well, I worry about you.”

She sniffed and pulled away. “I’ll manage. I have school and my friends and Mills.”

“And I have school and my friends and Noah,” I reminded her.

“But you also have—” she looked around the room “—this. You’re stuck here, where she was hurt. I can remove myself from it. You can’t.”

What I couldn’t make Annalise understand was that I did not want to remove myself from it. Yes, the house held horrible memories, but also good ones, and I couldn’t separate the two. My life was formed by both, and I wasn’t willing to let any of it go.

“I’m going to call you every day,” I told Annalise. “And you’d better answer the phone.”

She hugged me again. “I promise.”

Later, after I was sure that Dad was asleep in his room and Annalise was asleep in hers, I pulled out the box I kept under my bed. Hidden beneath a bunch of wrinkled T-shirts were a few pieces of equipment my parents had used in their paranormal investigations. I turned on the EMF reader first and set it on my nightstand. Then I checked the battery on the digital recorder. Finally, I brought out my thermal imaging camera and turned it on.

“Is anyone here?” I whispered. In my parents’ show, they always called out in a loud, clear voice, but that was to ensure the sound quality of the program. For my purposes, I only needed to be loud enough for the sensitive recorder to pick up my voice. “Can you hear me?”

I waited, as I had nearly every night for weeks. Only one light shone on the EMF reader, the one signaling that it was on.

“I need to know if someone’s here.”

I had been doing this for so long it felt like a sacred ritual. After I could no longer bear the daily visits to Mom’s bedside, I decided that I could do something else to help her, something more powerful than my somber hand-holding. And even though nothing had happened yet, I still believed that I was helping her. I held on to the possibility that the answers I needed could be discovered if only I tried hard enough. Mom had suffered serious injury because of a paranormal entity. With her doctors at a loss for how to help her, I had to find a way they wouldn’t dream of. If the cause of her suffering was paranormal, couldn’t the cure be paranormal, as well?

My work was done in secret and in the dark. Not even Noah knew about it. After what had happened, it would freak everyone out. It freaked me out, at first. What if I contacted the Watcher or something like it? I wasn’t even sure that the thing that had attacked my family was gone. Not even Beth, who knew more about the paranormal than anyone I’d ever met, could tell me that I was safe. She could only say that for now the Watcher was subdued, which made me think of it as being held back, but still struggling to escape.

Something had been after me and I’d stopped it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t find a way back. It was my worst fear, and a solid reason to stay away from trying to make contact with the paranormal, but my fear was eclipsed by a powerful need to help Mom.

I waited, watching the lights on the meter and wanting so much for all of them to light up, but they didn’t, and I felt defeated because I knew I was just a desperate girl whispering in the dark and asking for something I might never get. But there was still a voice inside me, quiet and insistent, telling me to try one more time. I clutched the EMF reader more tightly in my hand. “Please.”

And something happened. Two things, right at the same time. Three lights on the meter lit up just as my cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. I ignored the phone and stared at the meter, willing it to light up again. Then I heard the tinkle of chimes from my phone alerting me to the fact that someone had left a message.

I stood up and, still holding the EMF reader, grabbed my phone, never once taking my eyes off the lights. I flipped open the phone and listened to Noah’s voice.

“Hey. I thought you might still be up. Call me if you are, okay?”

Four lights flickered this time, and I took out the digital recorder and began speaking. “Is anyone here with me?”

It was how we always began an EVP session. The goal was to ask simple questions, wait for a few silent seconds, and then play back the recording to determine if it had captured an electronic voice phenomenon.

“Can you help me?” The EMF reader was showing only two lights now. I asked a few more questions, and by the time I was done, all signs of activity had vanished. Still, I was happy that after months of trying, it appeared that I had finally reached something.

After attaching headphones to the recorder, I sat back down on the floor and listened to what I had captured.

My first few questions seemed to go unanswered. The highly sensitive device picked up the sound of my own breathing, but not much else. I had been expecting more, even if it was an undecipherable voice, but on the tape I was already asking my final question.

“Can you help me?”

And then, after a few seconds, a high-pitched whisper responded.

I am trying.

three

Annalise returned to Charleston the next morning. She engulfed me in a firm hug and blinked back tears, then turned away before I could see her cry. I watched her car pull away, waving until it turned the corner and disappeared, and then walked down the hill to Avery’s house. I pulled out my key, unlocked the front door and stepped inside. A low whimper greeted me from the top of the stairs.

“It’s just me, Dante,” I called. When Avery’s little dog didn’t appear right away, I sighed and trudged upstairs to find him. He always hid in the same place: underneath Avery’s empty bed.

It had taken only moments for the airy pink room I had spent so much time in to transform into something completely different. Gone were the delicate silver picture frames that used to dot Avery’s dresser. The closet held several dangling hangers and a single formal dress from Homecoming. Even the bookshelf had been stripped of all but a few titles. It wasn’t her room anymore, I thought. It was the space that used to be her room.

I had helped her pack the week before, pulling clothes out of her dresser and stacking books she thought she’d need.

“This should be enough, right?” Avery had surveyed the half-dozen plastic storage bins that sat on her bedroom floor. They’d reminded me of oversize building blocks. “I mean, I’ll be back over Labor Day weekend if I need anything.”

“I don’t know,” I’d said. “I don’t think they have stores in Ohio. You might be in trouble with only—” I pried open the lid closest to me “—twenty pairs of shoes? Wow.”

“I need those.” Avery swatted at my hand. “Besides, it took a lot of work to get them all into one bin, so don’t mess anything up.”

I wished that I could mess everything up. I wished I could make Avery stay here instead of driving off to Ohio for college. I wished I could keep at least some things in my life the same instead of sitting back and watching one more person slip away.

Avery sat on the floor, labeling her bins with a squeaky black marker. “That’s it,” she said. “Last one.” We were quiet for a moment, both of us staring at the containers. Half her life and most of her room was packed inside them. They would be stuffed into the back of her mom’s car and travel six hundred miles north. Six hundred miles away from me.

“Part of me wishes I wasn’t going,” she said. I looked up, surprised. “I mean, what if I have a crazy roommate? What if the classes are completely over my head? I thought I was ready for this, but now that’s it’s almost here …” Her voice trailed off.

I fought the urge to say that her concerns were totally justified and that she should stay home and take the year off. Instead, I forced a smile. “It’s going to be great,” I said. “You have nothing to worry about. And you won’t be alone.”

The day Avery announced her college choice was also the day that Jared revealed that he had been accepted to the same school. He and Avery would be in different dorms, but they would be able to see each other every day.

“You won’t be alone, either,” Avery reminded me. “And with Shane and Trisha getting married, Noah will be like family.”

“So I’m dating a relative? Nice.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Avery pushed a bin off to the side. “He’ll be around more. You can spend time with him.”

“Yeah, but it’s time spent with everyone else, too. I want more alone time with him.”

I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone out to dinner, just the two of us. Even the simplest moments, like making sandwiches in the kitchen, turned into a group event. Shane would show up or Dad would wander in or Trisha would require my opinion on wedding favors, and whatever conversation Noah and I had been having stalled.

Dante had trotted into the room. He ignored me and immediately went to Avery and curled up in her lap. “What’s going to happen to him?” I asked.

“He’s going to have a rough adjustment.” Avery scratched behind Dante’s ears. “Unless I can convince my very best friend to stop by once in a while and check on him?”

“He hates me.” And I wasn’t too fond of him. We’d reached a strange understanding: he acted as if I didn’t exist and I pretended not to notice.

“He doesn’t hate you,” Avery said. “And once I leave, he’ll be lonely. Mom will be at work all the time, so it’d be nice if you came by to walk him, you know?”

“I didn’t think Dante took walks,” I said. “I thought he ran around in a hamster wheel.”

“Funny.” She looked at me with wide eyes. “Please? For me?”

“That pleading look doesn’t work on me.” I shook my head. “But you’re my best friend, so yes, I’ll do it.”

She clapped her hands together, startling Dante. “But if he bites me it’s over,” I said. “Got that, Dante? I bite back.”

Now I was in the empty room, crouched on my hands and knees in an effort to coax Dante out from beneath the bed. “Come on,” I urged. “One little walk. I promised Avery, okay? Do it for her.”

The mention of his owner’s name caused Dante’s ears to prick up. Finally, he emerged. I gently scooped him up and took him downstairs, where his powder-blue leash dangled from a hook by the front door.

“It’s nice outside,” I told him. “You’ll see.” He gave me an unconvinced look. I was sure he blamed me for Avery leaving, and now he was resigned to putting up with the brief walks and random treats I offered him. It wasn’t much of a consolation prize.

Outside, it was warm but not too hot yet. I slipped on my sunglasses and began walking up the hill, Dante trotting in front of me. The neighborhood slumbered in typical Sunday-morning mode. I let Dante determine our slow pace, which gave me the opportunity to gaze at the houses that made up my familiar street. Each house followed the same nonthreatening neutral color palette. Personal touches included a few cement lawn ornaments or decorative rocks or a basket of flowers.

I liked our neighborhood, even if I didn’t feel as if I completely belonged here. I didn’t know any of my neighbors by name. There was Lady Who Always Sat on Her Porch Talking on Her Cell Phone, Man Who Washed His Car Three Times a Week and Family With Screaming Twin Boys. I wondered who I was to them. Girl Who Walked Best Friend’s Dog? No, they probably knew my face from what had happened inside our house months earlier. Girl Whose Mother Was Attacked.