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)
“What the fuck, Poe?” Allie asked softly.
“I didn’t do anything,” he shot back.
“I’m fine,” Edgar managed. “He didn’t do anything.”
“Then would someone like to tell me what’s going on?”
Poe snorted. “Got that mom tone down, eh?”
“Listen, you little shit,” Allie said. “You show up here after six years of avoiding us like the plague. Ever since, you’ve acted weird, and now Edgar is…liquified. So shut your face about my tone, get me a fucking snack, and then sit down and explain yourself. Please. Thank you.”
Poe glared, but he made Allie a peanut butter and honey sandwich without comment, and Edgar told her and Jamie about how they’d seen Antoine.
“Oh, shit.” Allie took a bite and spoke through it. “Did he still look twelve?”
“He was thirteen,” Edgar corrected automatically. “His birthday was two weeks before. We made an apple cake.”
“Right,” Allie said softly. “I forgot. How did he look?”
“Kind of…”
“Dead?” Poe offered flatly from his perch on the arm of the couch.
Something about the way he said it made Edgar look at him closely.
“How did he look to you, Poe?” Edgar asked.
Poe’s eyes narrowed for an instant before he wiped all expression from his face. “Honestly, I was trying not to look at him.”
That was reasonable. But something about his brother’s voice made alarm bells go off in Edgar’s mind.
“But you saw it when he liquefied into a puddle, right?”
“Yeah,” Poe said. “Poor bastard.”
Edgar’s stomach dropped like he was on a roller coaster. Poe hadn’t seen that because it hadn’t happened.
Poe was lying.
But why?
Edgar ran through other options, seeking some reason—any reason—for the untruth. Maybe Poe had been too scared and really hadn’t looked at Antoine. Maybe he’d seen how emotional Edgar had gotten and wanted to give him privacy. Could he be lying just to fuck with Edgar’s head? Weird and cruel, but Poe had been gone since he was sixteen. Maybe Edgar didn’t know him anymore. True though that might be, if Poe had wanted to mess with him, wouldn’t he have been more likely to disagree with what Edgar said?
Hell, maybe ghosts looked different to everyone; what did he know? Well, you know that Allie sees pretty much the same thing you do, because you’ve seen ghosts together. Same with Mom.
But Poe had been there too when they were kids, and he’d seen them as well.
At least he’d said he had.
Edgar slowly became aware of Jamie’s hand on his thigh. Someone had said something, but he couldn’t track what. He ignored it and looked at his brother.
“Poe?” he asked softly. “Do you see ghosts?”
A muscle jumped in Poe’s jaw, and he went still. It was a change so subtle that Edgar wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been looking for it.
“Not at the moment, no. You?”
“Poe. Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“We just saw one, like, five seconds ago. What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about, Edgar?” Allie asked, leaning forward. She looked, in that moment, so much like their mother, and a longing rose in Edgar for the first time in years. To be enfolded in her arms as he hadn’t been since he’d grown taller than her at fifteen.
“That’s not what happened,” Edgar said. His voice sounded thick and dull in his ears. “Antoine didn’t liquefy. He floated away. And he didn’t look dead. Well, he did at first. But then he looked…almost like he used to.” He swallowed hard.
“I told you, I was trying not to look.” Poe stood up, pulling his jacket around himself. Edgar stood too. He was a few inches taller than Poe and broader. Poe didn’t raise his chin to look at him.
“You were really that scared?” Edgar asked.
“Yup. I’m a huge wimp,” Poe said and rolled his eyes. “Now can we discuss the way—”
“I don’t believe you.”
It was something that Edgar had never said to another soul. Growing up with a mother who saw ghosts and a father who didn’t believe in them and seeing ghosts himself when the world said they didn’t exist…it all added up to a deep knowledge that there were a lot of things in the world he didn’t know about or understand. And if someone said something was true for them, he always erred on the side of believing them rather than the alternative.
Poe flinched.
Edgar searched his face for any sign that Poe felt like he was being falsely accused and didn’t find it. Something was wrong.
“Poe?” Allie said, her voice a gentle warning. Allie had always been their staunchest ally. Their fiercest champion. But when you fucked up, she would not hesitate to let you know exactly how much. “What’s going on?”
For a moment, Poe seemed to teeter between fury and bravado. Edgar thought he might walk out the door, walk to his car, and leave New Orleans for another six years without telling them.