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)
“Don’t fucking touch me!” Poe yelled.
Edgar was so startled by the violence of Poe’s reaction that he turned from Antoine and saw Poe cringing away from him. He had his collar turned up and was pulling his jacket around him like it was the only thing holding him together. He looked angry and scared and so, so tired.
“Are you okay?”
Poe set his jaw and glared. “I’m fucking fine. Now can we go?”
Edgar turned back to where Antoine had been. His friend was gone.
“No!” Edgar heard himself yell.
He rocketed through the crowd, shouldering aside a red-faced blond man and a woman with a triple-wide stroller. Antoine had been close to Pirate’s Alley, so that was where Edgar went. If he could just catch up to him. If he could just make Antoine talk to him.
He ran, dodging people, until he tripped on the drainage ditch next to the path and stumbled. Poe caught up with him.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Poe snapped.
Edgar wasn’t hurt. He’d scraped his palms a bit when he caught himself, but the sting only served to focus him. Antoine was close. He could feel it. Edgar got his feet under him, but when he moved to stand, Antoine was already there, no more than ten feet in front of him.
“Antoine,” Edgar mouthed. He grabbed Poe’s leather-clad arm, then dropped it like he’d been burned as he remembered Poe’s injunction.
They crouched there on the ground, Poe frozen at Edgar’s side.
“Antoine,” Edgar said again, his voice audible this time.
The ghost before them had been his best friend. The person he’d spent the most time with, with the exception of Allie and Poe. The boy who’d had the most infectious laugh Edgar had ever heard and the kindest heart he’d ever encountered. The boy who had been his first love as well as his best friend.
The boy he’d watched drown and hadn’t been able to save.
Edgar’s cheeks were wet.
“Poe. Poe, it’s Antoine.”
He didn’t know what he expected from Poe, but his brother didn’t respond. He was looking from Edgar to Antoine and didn’t seem afraid. Then again, Antoine had been Poe’s friend too.
Edgar rose slowly, afraid that any sudden movement or lapse in attention and Antoine would disappear. But he was still there when Edgar took one step toward him, then another.
Antoine’s face was the gray waterlogged misery that Edgar remembered from when they had pulled his small body from the water. Bits of bayou plants and the insects that lived in them were caught in his hair. He was wearing the clothes he’d died in: blue jeans, an orange-and-blue-striped T-shirt, and his favorite red high tops. They’d been the same height when Antoine died, but now Edgar towered over him.
“Antoine?” Edgar said softly. “Is that really you?”
He imagined Poe rolling his eyes at the foolish question. But he’d never spoken to a ghost before. Well, except occasionally to yell at them to get away.
Antoine—no, Antoine’s ghost—opened his mouth, and water poured out, evaporating before it hit the ground. Edgar winced but didn’t look away. He stood just feet from the boy whose death he’d never really gotten over and watched the water that had killed him gush from his stomach and lungs and throat.
“What can I do? How can I help?”
The cloudy gray of Antoine’s eyes cleared to reveal the warm brown that Edgar remembered. As they focused on Edgar, his heart beat faster, and tears dripped down his nose.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and other foolish questions.
Antoine didn’t answer.
Edgar didn’t even know if ghosts could speak. All this time, he’d thought about what they might do to him and why they scared him, and he’d never realized that they might not be able to answer even if he could get up the courage to ask.
Edgar reached out a hand. Slowly, he let his fingers come within an inch of Antoine. A chilly fug clung to him, like Edgar was reaching into a shaded cave or a cold spring, but it didn’t feel frightening this time. It felt refreshing. He didn’t get the sour taste in the back of his throat that he often got when ghosts appeared either. In fact, the fear he’d always felt—even of Antoine when he had first seen him—had drained away, leaving only longing.
“Antoine, what can I do for you? Do you have unfinished business?”
A derisive snort from behind him reminded Edgar that Poe was there. Edgar didn’t turn though. He kept his eyes on Antoine’s.
“Your sister’s doing great,” he told Antoine, not sure what else to say. “Cameron was Allie’s birthing partner. Oh, and Allie had a baby.”
He was catching Antoine up on his life as if he’d never drowned, never abandoned Edgar and all the plans they’d had: to draw a comic book, to sneak into the aquarium at night, to prank Cameron back. More. So much more.