Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Edgar blinked, stomach gone hollow. It was more than he’d heard Poe say at one time since he’d left New Orleans six years before. Shame rolled through him, and he couldn’t find a single thing to say. Was Poe right about him? Was he so sunk in his own fear that his whole worldview had been constructed on it? Was he a villain? Maybe he was.
“I agree with you,” Jamie said to Poe, and fear lanced through Edgar. “But your brother isn’t trying to control anyone. He’s not trying to obliterate ghosts. He’s just trying to get through the day.”
Jamie squeezed Edgar’s leg.
“You’re talking about his fear like he has control over it. But ghosts appearing for him might as well be like, like…a seizure disorder or something. A stimulus causes a reaction that has really negative effects on him. It’s something so unpredictable that he’s constantly afraid of it happening, even when it’s not. So there’s the terror of when he does encounter a ghost. But the other three-quarters come from your brother being stone-cold terrified to leave his fucking house most days because he might encounter them.”
Jamie’s voice was getting more heated. They leaned in toward Poe. “It’s a disability! He’s in a state of constant fear. He can never enjoy himself because he feels like the second he lets his guard down, that’s when he’s at the most risk.”
Poe was listening calmly, eyes narrowed in the suspicious I’m not sure I buy this expression that had infuriated authority figures since Poe was little.
“Maybe you should try an antianxiety med, bro,” he said mildly.
Jamie knelt up on their chair, impassioned. “Yeah, okay, maybe he should!” They shut their mouth and cut an apologetic look to Edgar. “But I don’t get how you can have no sympathy for your brother. What, when you see ghosts, you’re super chill about it? You’re like, Hey, ghost dudes, like my cool leather jacket that I wear when it’s a hundred and four fucking degrees? Seriously, how are you wearing that in New Orleans in the summer? Anyway, I’m curious. Are you just super brave or have no startle reflex or what?”
Poe didn’t reply, but Edgar didn’t think Jamie had really expected him to.
“Just maybe start with a little damn sympathy before you lump your terrified brother in with villains and hate-mongers.”
When Jamie sat back down, Edgar could feel them trembling with anger. That their anger was on his behalf warmed his heart. The only person in recent memory who’d stuck up for him was Allie.
Poe gazed steadily between Jamie and Edgar. Aunt Alaitheia watched them as if from a far distance but said nothing.
Poe nodded as if in conversation with himself. He pushed himself up, palms on the tabletop, too-long jacket sleeves slapping zippers against the wood.
“I’m gonna go. Aunt, a pleasure. Jamie, I like you.”
He turned to Edgar. There was concern in his expression but also resignation. “I do have sympathy, Eddie,” he said. “But ask yourself this: Can you remember a time when you weren’t afraid? Even before the ghosts? Because I can’t.”
21
Jamie
Jamie’s head was reeling by the time they said their goodbyes to Alaitheia. The sun beat down relentlessly, and the rain-wet streets nearly steamed as the afternoon storm burned away. Jamie plucked at their sweaty shirt.
“Seriously, how does he wear that leather jacket in this heat?” they grumbled, not really expecting an answer.
They didn’t get one. Edgar seemed lost in his own world.
“Do you want to go to my place?” Jamie asked. “Germaine and Carl will have cold drinks, and their balcony is shady.”
Edgar assented, and Jamie led them slowly through the streets.
“I don’t even go in my apartment when the sun’s out if I can help it,” Jamie said, keeping up a steady stream of chatter as they walked in an attempt to distract Edgar.
They told him about how they’d come to live in Germaine and Carl’s guesthouse after Jamie’s landlord had changed their house from a long-term rental into an Airbnb, one more in a long line of people who cared so much about making a buck for themselves that they didn’t care that short-term rentals had radically driven up housing prices, especially in Black and lower-income neighborhoods.
“There it is,” they said.
Every time the white columns and broad wooden planks of the Marigny house’s grand porch came into view, Jamie felt how lucky they were to have ended up here.
“Wow. You live here?”
It was the first thing he’d said beyond murmurs of agreement with Jamie’s disgust at the housing market.
“Well, I live in the guesthouse around back. But yeah. Here, we can cut through this way to the back balcony.”
They flicked the side-gate latch, then led Edgar around the rosebushes that hugged the house and into the garden. The backyard was like an oasis thanks to years and years of strategic planting. Germaine and Carl had created a space invisible to neighbors and hidden from anyone passing by on the street.