The Urban Fantasy Anthology (Peter S. Beagle) (Kitty Norville 1.50)

Or Chlöe might call us into the house because she’d made us each a sugar pie, big fat pies with much more filling than crust, because we liked the filling the best. We didn’t even need the crust, except then it would just be pudding, which we also liked, but it wasn’t pie, now was it?

Once we had to go into the far away to help our friend Jilly, because we promised we would if she ever called us. So when she did, we went to her. That promise had never been like a chain dangling from our feet when we flew, but it still felt good to be done with it.

But finally I remembered the ghost boy and managed to not get distracted before I could make my way to his mother’s apartment. When I got there, they were both gone, the old woman and her dead son. Instead, there was a young man I didn’t recognize sitting in the kitchen when I stepped out of the between. He was in the middle of spooning ice cream into a bowl.

“Do you want some?” he asked.

He was one of those people who didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find me appearing out of thin air in the middle of his kitchen. Tomorrow morning, he probably wouldn’t even remember I’d been here.

“What flavour is it?” I asked.

“Chocolate swirl with bits of Oreo cookies mixed in.”

“I’d love some,” I told him and got myself a bowl from the cupboard.

He filled my bowl with a generous helping and we both spent a few moments enjoying the ice cream. I looked down the hall as I ate and saw all the cardboard boxes. My gaze went back to the young man’s face

.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Nels.”

He didn’t ask me my name, but I didn’t mind.

“This is a good invention,” I said, holding up a spoonful of ice cream. “Chocolate and ice cream and cookies all mixed up in the same package.”

“It’s not new. They’ve had it for ages.”

“But it’s still good.”

“Mmm.”

“So what happened to the old woman who lived here?” I asked.

“I didn’t know her,” he told me. “The realtor brought me by a couple of days ago and I liked the place, so I rented it. I’m pretty sure he said she’d passed away.”

So much for her being happy. But maybe there was something else on the other side of living. Maybe she and her ghost boy and her daughter were all together again and she was happy.

It was a better ending to the story than others I could imagine.

“So,” I asked Nels, “are you happy?”

He paused with a spoonful of ice cream halfway to his mouth. “What?”

“Do you have any ghosts?”

“Everybody’s got ghosts.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I suppose one of the measures of how you live your life is how well you make your peace with them.”

My bowl was empty, but I didn’t fill it up again. I stood up from the table.

“Do you want some help unpacking?” I asked.

“Nah. I’m good. Are you off?’