Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

“On the show, she calls some people blocks. People who aren’t sensitive to vibes or energy or currents of feeling. Jack says I’m a block.”

He shrugged and Rye took a moment to enjoy the notion that both Matheson brothers apparently watched this show.

“Do you feel like a block?”

“I think that’s the thing about blocks—they don’t feel things.”

He said it casually, like an offhand truth he didn’t need to consider.

“But...that’s just about psychic, ghosty stuff, right? Not about, er, earthly emotion?”

Charlie mumbled something Rye didn’t catch.

“What?”

But Charlie didn’t repeat it.

Up until now, Rye had thought Charlie was rather terse about personal matters. Now he wondered if Charlie simply wasn’t used to having someone to listen. So instead of dropping the subject, he pushed a little harder.

“Would you find it comforting to think that your parents are still around, in another form?”

Charlie’s eyes were fixed on the screen, but his jaw tightened.

“I dunno, sometimes. In that first year, I used to talk to them constantly. I had so many questions. No idea what I was doing. I’d ask them things and hope for an answer. Once I even—”

He cut himself off with a shake of his head.

“What?”

Charlie rolled his eyes.

“Once, I tried to ask them. Jack had this Ouija board that he’d gotten from a friend at Halloween the year before for some sleepover they had where they tried to scare the bejesus out of each other, and he hadn’t given it back. And I...you know.”

Rye imagined eighteen-year-old Charlie, really just a kid himself, trying desperately to ask his parents how to be an adult, and it broke his heart.

“What happened?” Rye asked gently.

“Nothing whatsoever except that I felt really foolish and hoped Jack wouldn’t notice I stepped on that little thingie that you use to move around the board.”

Charlie gave a ghost of a smile, then raised an eyebrow at Rye. “Do you? Believe in this stuff?”

“When I was a little boy—probably six or seven, given which apartment we were in—I saw a ghost. At least, I thought I did.”

He had Charlie’s full attention now.

“I woke up to the sound of someone crying and there was a small form in the corner of my room. Hazy, kind of, but there. It was a child, and they were sobbing.”

Rye had whispered, “Are you okay?”, not wanting the sound to wake his father, who would never accept weeping ghost as an explanation when he told Rye to stop making a racket.

The child had kept crying, the kind of snuffling, wet cries that can only last so long before they drain your energy out with them. Rye put a pillow over his head and went back to sleep, hoping it would be gone in the morning. When he woke, there was no evidence and when he asked if his parents had heard anything, his father just ranted about teenagers out until all hours of the night wreaking havoc.

He hadn’t seen anything like it since, but it had left him with a powerful sense of possibility.

“It seems as likely to me as anything else, anyway,” he said, shrugging. I guess the idea that the energy of life can leave a mark on the world after we’re gone kind of appeals to me.”

Rye’s chaotic life had so far left nothing behind. If he died tomorrow there would be no tangible record of his existence on earth except a few government forms and his name carved very small at the base of a scarred tree in Discovery Park.

So when Charlie said, “I’m sure you’ll leave plenty of marks before you die,” with utter sincerity, it made Rye’s heart pound a little faster.

“Thanks,” he said, not sure that was quite the sentiment but wanting to say something.

When the episode ended, Charlie turned off the TV and lumbered to his feet. He held out a hand to Rye to help him up.

When Charlie’s warm hand closed around his own, Rye hissed at the sting, having forgotten the damage he’d done that day from demo.

Charlie eased his grip instantly, but kept Rye’s hand in his, and turned it over. He traced the blooming blisters with his fingertips and caressed the pinched skin.

“Shoulda worn gloves,” he murmured, like he couldn’t help himself. “Lemme get the salve.”

He left Rye standing in the middle of the living room, hand out like he was dancing with a ghost.

“C’mere,” Charlie said, and drew Rye back down on the couch.

He uncapped what looked like a shoe polish tin and scooped a fingerful of the stuff out. It smelled like mothballs and cloves.

“Maybe you just pretend to be a block but you’re actually anointing me with a potion right now,” Rye said.

Sleepy, tipsy Rye said silly things.

“I am anointing you with a potion,” Charlie said. “It’s a keep-your-hands-from-hurting-so-much-you-can’t-use-them-tomorrow potion, and it’s potent as hell.”

Rye closed his eyes and willed himself to be silent as Charlie worked the salve into his abused skin. Charlie’s strong thumbs dug into the tight tendons and muscles of his palm and fingers, like he could rub out the pain all the way down to his bones.