Spirit - Part Three
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I stretch out on my back in the garden, watching as the last of the honey-colored sunlight melts away into dusky darkness.
I’m so full from the incredible dinner that Aiden made, and so deeply, sublimely peaceful from the day we’ve had together. My spirit is drowsy, rich with happiness. I honestly might have fallen asleep in the amount of time it’s taken Aiden to go inside and make us some tea, if Kasey wasn’t here keeping me awake.
“It’s annoying that I can’t get you a present!” She throws her arms up in frustration, sprawled out on her back beside me. “I tried to think of a way to do it, but if there is one, I couldn’t land on it. What can I do besides talk to you? We talk every day, but that’s all I can fucking do! Talk to you, and be here.”
I turn my head to smile at her. “That’s a pretty incredible gift, Kase-face. Given the situation.”
Kasey blinks at me, then rolls her eyes.
“Jamie, stop,” she laughs, swatting a hand at me. “Now it feels like you’re giving me a present, somehow. How do you always do that? It’s annoying.”
“Oh, yeah?” I arch a skeptical eyebrow. “I can tell. You look so annoyed.”
“Shut up,” Kasey giggles, rolling over to snuggle up affectionately against my side. “You know what’s double-annoying?”
I fold an arm around her, looking at her with fond eyes. “We’re actually onto triple-annoying, now.”
“Will thought of a present he could give you. I mean, it was a misguided idea, and I had to nix it, but - how could he think of one and not me? I don’t care if he’s over two hundred years old, I’ve known you for like - your whole life!”
“What?” I glance over at the kitchen window. Through it I can see Will listening to something Aiden is saying, his pale green eyes bright with laughter. “What misguided idea did he have?”
“It - was sweet.” Kasey’s voice fills with obvious warmth. “He offered to give me all of his energy so that I could be more solid when we hung out on your birthday. So you and I could hug and snuggle and stuff like we used to.”
“Aw, Will.” I cast him a deeply affectionate glance through the window, my heart melting with warmth. “That is very sweet. And very misguided.”
“I told him you’d probably prefer to have him take part in the celebration, too. Instead of having him basically dissolve himself and miss it.”
“Thanks for doing that, because you were right.” I flash Kasey a grateful smile. “You and I can ghost-snuggle, anyways. I think we’re getting pretty good at it.”
Kasey rests a hand on my chest, looking at her own translucent fingers thoughtfully.
“It should feel like a workout holding my hand here, but I can’t really get physically tired, so it doesn’t. It’s kind of like - working a mental muscle instead? The one that says: don’t forget about your hand and drop it through him. I think I’m getting better at it. It’s a little more automatic, now.”
“I guess Will is gonna need to practice that, too.”
“Yeah, I’d way rather have him focus on that!” Kasey exhales a stressed-out little sound. “You know what he wanted to work on? Fixing up the way he talks. Thank god he changed his mind about it after we talked it through. I’d be so sad if he did that.”
Oh, I’m glad that Kasey talked Will out of it. I would be really sad if he changed the way he talks, too. He’s the only one who thinks it needs fixing.
One thing about Will, Kasey said to me, when he first started talking to her after his summoning, Is that he’s been around for so long, through so many different eras of time. And he went from the wealthy upper class to the working class in the course of his life. It’s done something to his language. One minute he talks like a Regency-era gentleman. The next he sounds like a workman from the timber company during the time of the Oregon Trail. The minute after that, he sounds like someone I could’ve met yesterday in a bookshop, or something. It’s all in his sexy voice, so I’m not complaining. Honestly, I kind of love it?
Kasey is definitely right about the way Will talks. Earlier this week he said motor-car when he was talking about my much-loved blue hunk of junk. I’m surprised you didn’t want to take your motor-car, Jamie! It looks to be a cold night for a walk, no? But last week he remembered to just call it a car. The time before that, he couldn’t remember the right word at all, and he called it a curricle.
Sometimes it happens in the span of one sentence, and he’ll sound like several different eras blended together. He never seems to realize he’s doing it, either.
This type of thing occasionally leads to a few miscommunications, but generally speaking it makes all of us look at Will with fond eyes, fighting down affectionate laughter. Usually that’s when he’ll realize, and gain a self-conscious spike of color in his cheeks.
“It makes me feel so bird-witted, Jamie,” he’d groaned at me once, a statement that made me have to smother a fresh wave of laughter. “Knowing I canna speak right! Puts me to the blush, truth be told.”
“No, but we laugh because we love it, man, not because it’s embarrassing! We’re not laughing at you, we’re laughing because - that’s just very you, and we love it.”
Will seemed like he felt better about it after that, and I think Kasey’s reassurances have probably taken care of any lingering doubts he might’ve had. He’s been speaking a little more freely, these days.
He and Aiden step back out into the garden, Aiden with two steaming mugs of tea in his hands. I sit up as Will comes over. His leaf-green eyes are warm and smiling as he drops down to sit in front of me.
“Come on, man, unbutton!” he says cheerfully.
I glance down at my clothes, then look up at Will again, bewildered. “Um, I - what?”
“Tell us what you’re thinking,” Will clarifies. “You looked to be in your thoughts, at least. Or - were you trying to remember what you were telling me?”
“Oh. Oh! Right.” I give myself a little shake. “What was I talking about?”
“You were gettin’ me apprised of the rescue that Kasey and I missed.”
“Right, sorry! So, we were going to try to summon you and Kasey, so we could send you to try and find Luca. But we were afraid of what might happen if we summoned you outside of Ketterbridge, so we decided to just let Luca go on his own, and since Ralph and Noah-”
“We were past that.” Aiden presses a mug into my hands as he drops down to sit beside me. “We were onto the part about the kid they saved.”
“Oops! Right, okay - sorry, I had to tell this whole thing to you, Aiden, and then Kasey, I’m losing track!”
“That’s my fault.” Will winces at me apologetically. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you told Kasey.”
Will is very used to being on his own, and while he’s clearly happy that he’s with us, sometimes he goes back to be alone. To walk the paths he’s walked over and over again during the very long span of his life and afterlife. Two hundred year old habits are understandably difficult to break.
“Oh, it’s totally fine, dude! The only thing is I’ve told the story a few times, I’m forgetting where I was with everyone. We really need a better way to communicate to the whole team.” I give my head a shake, trying to organize my thoughts. “Anyways, it turned out the kid has epilepsy - do you know what that is, Will?”
His blonde eyebrows furrow uncertainly, but his expression clears after Kasey gives him a brief description.
“Ah, the falling sickness.”
“Um - sure, yeah. But Luca was able to stop anything bad from happening, thank god. Ralph and Noah got the way clear for him in time.”
“Admirable, that,” Will says approvingly. “Good lads. They cleared the way for you to have a good birthday, too, way I see it.”
I let out a laugh of agreement, and Kasey suddenly sits up, a bright smile turning up the corners of her mouth.
“Hey, wait a second! I just realized we’ll have Will with us on his birthday, next year! Oh my god, we had him with us for his birthday this year, we didn’t even realize - it’s March, right, babe? It said on your grave.”
“Oh. Ay, lass, I suppose it must be.” Will looks caught by surprise at the thought of his birthday. “Though I can’t say off the top of my head what exact age I’m turning next. I’d much prefer to say I’m only five-and-twenty. Seeing as I could get away with it.”
He flashes all of us a grin when this draws a collective laugh.
It really is easy to forget Will’s real age. He looks slightly older than me or Aiden, despite his physical appearance freezing at only twenty-five years old. His big build, the mature lines at the corners of his mouth and his eyes, the long-healed scar on his filled-in jaw. He was - and looks like - someone who’s done years of hard labor in their life.
But if he was in full color, if he wasn’t glowing or transparent - Will wouldn’t look at all out of place hanging out with me, Aiden, Noah, Raj, Ralph, and Ripley. His clothes would be the only thing setting him apart, and even those somehow serve to make him look more like the twenty-five-year-old he was when he died. Something about the way the collar of his work shirt is undone, leaving his throat exposed, or the thoughtless roll of his sleeves back to his elbows, or the way his permanently wind-tossed blonde hair falls over his eyebrow.
Whatever it is, if someone asked me to guess Will’s age, I’d be roughly two hundred years off. But it makes it easier to talk to him, somehow. Like I could be talking to Noah or Raj or any one of the guys, not someone with centuries of life on me. It feels perfectly natural to have him here in the garden, chatting with us as we all lazily sprawl out on the grass, tired out with that peaceful, good-day exhaustion.
“I have na’ celebrated my birthday in quite some time,” he says thoughtfully, folding an arm around Kasey’s shoulders. “Suppose I let the date slip my mind, long ago. I haven’t had occasion to think of it.”
Kasey leans up to brush a kiss onto his mouth. “March 10th.”
“We’re celebrating next year,” Aiden tells him firmly. “We’ll - figure out how to throw a ghost party, or something.”
Will fixes him with a bright smile. “Aw, really? Cool. Thanks, man. Sounds great.”
I bite back a laugh at the sudden switch-up of Will’s dialect, and catch Aiden doing the same. Kasey only beams at Will, an adoring smile glowing in her dark eyes.
“You know, Jamie, you’re right about us needing better communication,” she tells me, dragging her eyes away from Will with visible effort. “For the rescue team, I mean. Because it is like a full-size team, now, and we should have a system.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Aiden answers, then pauses, because Kasey already looks like she’s thinking. “Or… nevermind. You’ll figure it out, probably before we can think of anyth-”
“Oh, I’ve got an idea,” Kasey cuts in, her eyes lighting up.
Aiden huffs out a laugh. “And there we go.”
“We’ll work on it later, though. When it’s not Jamie’s birthday.”
“Speaking of my birthday.” I poke Aiden’s ribs, looking up at him hopefully. “Can I have my present, yet?”
He smiles, pretends to think it over for a moment. “Mmm… yeah, sure. Guess so.”
Will gets to his feet and offers Kasey his hand. “Shall we leave them to it, lass?”
“Mhm.” Kasey lets Will draw her up, then bends to plant a ghost-kiss on the top of my head. “Happy birthday, Jamie.”
“Goodnight,” I call softly, smiling at the ghosts until they disappear.
The garden falls a little darker without their glow. A soft sweep of velvety purple has fallen over the sky, and a heavy bed of glittering stars is starting to make itself visible within it. It’s gorgeous, especially seen from the quiet wilderness of our garden, but I’m busy looking at Aiden with an eager grin on my face.
“So?”
He laughs, then gets up and pulls me up with him. “Let’s go.”
~~~~
Aiden brings me to the coffee room, where I drop to sit down on one of the cushions by our new coffee table. He presses the light switch, then laughs softly.
“I forgot this is one of the rooms where the light switch doesn’t appear to be connected to anything. Guess we might need Noah’s help, now that the coffee room is in use.”
“This weird house,” I laugh, then breathe out a sigh of admiration when Aiden holds out his palm to flood the room with a waterfall of his radiant golden fireflies. “God, I’ll never get over these beautiful little things. I love them.”
Aiden smiles again, his fingertip picking at the door frame as the white-blue magic fades from his eyes. “I hope you like your gifts, too.”
“Oh - gifts, plural?”
Aiden’s smile widens a little, even as he looks at me with nervous eyes. “Hang on. I’ll go get them.”
It must be something he’s proud of, or he wouldn’t be this nervous about showing me. I smile to myself, petting Luna and sipping from my mug of tea while I wait. Breathing in the spiced air of the house, still full of the scent of Aiden’s cooking.
I look up with drowsy warmth on my face as Aiden stops in the doorway. Hiding something around the side of it, something he’s holding with both hands.
“Got something I want to show you,” he murmurs shyly, half in the glow of the fireflies.
I tilt my head to the side curiously, staring up at him with adoring eyes. “You know, every time you say that…”
Aiden huffs out a sweet, soft thunder-rumble of deep laughter. “Yeah, yeah, something ridiculous happens.”
Without another word, he steps into the room and holds out the plant.
I instantly wake all the way up, a soft gasp escaping my mouth. I sit frozen for a long moment, then very slowly get to my feet. Staring at the plant, my eyes perfectly round with amazement.
“Aiden,” I breathe softly, staggered. “What - what…?”
“This is what I’ve been working on at the Ghost Office,” he explains slowly and quietly, as I raise my thunderstruck eyes to his face. “You said you wanted to make our garden into a magic garden, so I wanted to give you a new magic plant.”
I drop my gaze to the plant and press my fingers over my mouth, speechless.
“Since I grew the first one out of malachite, figured I’d try to grow one out of one of the other stones,” Aiden goes on, clearly trying to read my eyes for a reaction. “Problem was I had no idea how to do it again. That’s why I’ve been working on it for so long, it - took a lot of tries.”
“Wait - what?” I finally stammer, my voice coming out a hoarse whisper. “But you grew the malachite sprout so fast, without even trying. Like it was nothing. You made it look so easy.”
“Yeah, but… I’ve only ever done it by accident.” Aiden blushes and bites his lip, like he really doesn’t want to say what he’s about to say. “When I grew the malachite sprout, I didn’t ask my magic to grow a plant. What I asked was more like - please do something that will impress Jamie. So. It took some time for me to figure out how to replicate it in this specific form.”
I stare at Aiden, just stare and stare at him, distantly wondering if I need to go get my inhaler.
Aiden looks at me anxiously, searching my blank face, then holds the plant out again. “It’s a ruby tree.”
I would have known, even if he hadn’t said anything. This is not a slender little shoot, like the malachite tree was in its youngest form.
This is more like… like a bonsai tree.
A full-grown, mature tree, in perfect miniature. Its graceful, curving trunk sweeps up in an arching circle before spreading into a little canopy of branches. Every branch is densely crowded with a sea of tiny, dark green leaves no longer or wider than a grain of rice. The leaves tumble down to spill into a rippling curtain on one side of the tree, nearly kissing the soil, shading half of the trunk. Here and there the trunk is spotted with sleek little clusters of what look like vivid crimson crystals, but which I actually think are some kind of minuscule fungi, or else the way the tree puts off its sap.
The tiny flowers of the tree are nearly hidden in the overflow of leaves, but once they’re spotted, they’re impossibly beautiful. Deep, vivid red, with tiny, deep golden hearts. They glitter like geodes as they’re tossed around in the soft movement of the leaves. Reflecting back the firefly glow.
I take a deep breath, and a spicy, sweet, sultry fragrance reaches me from the flowers.
The little golden hearts of the flowers put off a faint glow, but the plant as a whole seems to soak up and eat the light, so that there’s a smoky little haze of half-light around it. The vivid flowers with their glowing hearts look like tiny red lanterns in the darkness of night.
I run my mind back to the gemstones Aiden and I worked with before we gave up trying to use his mom’s methods of magic. Clearly Aiden has found his own way to use them, now. A way free of his mom’s influence, a way that’s purely him.
We memorized the associated meanings of the stones over the course of last summer, so I know that ruby can mean a number of different things. Romance, loyalty, love.
Most of all, it means passion.
I gaze down at the twinkling darkness of the little tree. The wind from the open window brushes through its leaves, and instead of the chiming music of the malachite leaves, the leaves of the ruby tree breathe out a sound like a soft, whispering sigh.
Just like the malachite plant, though, the leaves turn to face Aiden. Their source of light.
And mine.
I’ve been completely silent for a long time, and Aiden looks like he’s losing a battle with himself.
“Do you like it?” He bites his lip, his blue eyes fretful. “I know it’s not a sprout for you to raise up, like the other one. I mean, it was. It was like time didn’t matter, for this one. I took my eyes off of it for one minute, I swear, and when I came back into the Ghost Office to check on it, it was already in full force. Sprang up all on its own, just like that. I tried to slow it down, but I couldn’t.”
Passion, I think to myself, and let out a dazed laugh.
I slowly reach out to take the pot with the ruby tree into my own hands. Then I look up to meet Aiden’s eyes, struggling to pull myself together. He watches me uncertainly, fidgeting with his snapback. I still haven’t answered his question.
“Yeah, I like it,” I stammer, holding it tightly. “I mean, it’s fine. It’s alright.”
Aiden blinks, then breaks into a slow, warm smile.
“Yeah, I know.” He lets out a disappointed sigh, shaking his head like it’s a shame. “There’s a ton of room for improvement.”
“No, but like - it’s okay. Good effort. Would’ve been better with more flowers, maybe? That might’ve helped.”
“Shit.” Aiden knocks his knuckles against his temple, like he’s stupid for not thinking of it himself. “More flowers, duh. The fuck was I thinking?”
“Yeah, but you tried, so that’s n-nice.” I stop and swallow hard, choking up in the middle of my sentence. I hold still for a second, then exhale a soft, shaky laugh, dropping my head. “You - you make it really hard to do this particular joke, Aiden.”
My voice came out all hoarse and raspy, and Aiden goes very still, staring in surprise at the wet shimmer in my eyes. I sniffle happily, folding my arms tight around the pot with the ruby plant.
“Thank you,” I rasp softly, dragging the sleeve of my flannel under my nose, gazing up into his eyes with all of my love in mine. “I can’t believe - thank you.”
Aiden breaks into a huge, glowing smile. He runs his fingers through my hair, then bends to leave a lingering kiss on the top of my head. “You’re welcome.”
“You must have worked so hard on it,” I say hoarsely, thinking of how many fake jogs he went on.
“Yeah, like I said, it took a couple of tries.” Aiden runs a hand over the back of his neck, dropping his gaze to the ruby plant. “I was sort of trying to make it happen all at once, with one big burst of magic. Turns out what it needed was more, like… steady, patient encouragement.”
He makes a face at me, then adds - “That’s not a good explanation. I’m sorry. I’m - I’m all tongue-tied right now.”
He’s not really listening to what he’s saying, I don’t think. He’s taking in the expression on my face, and from the radiant expression on his, he’s listening to my note, too. I know what he must be hearing.
The glow of the fireflies glitters brightly around us, sensing the change in Aiden’s energy. I touch a fingertip to one of the tiny leaves of the ruby tree, and find it soft as silk.
“Wait, there’s seriously another thing?” I stammer, looking up at Aiden in disbelief. “Another gift?”
“Mhm, there is. Maybe I should have started with this one. It’s - probably less exciting.” Aiden laughs softly, reaches into the back pocket of his jeans. “Here.”
I set the ruby plant down on our new coffee table, pausing for a moment to admire the way it glimmers and glows. Then I turn around, drag my sleeve over my eyes, and take a look at what Aiden is showing me.
It’s a notebook. A little writing journal, brand new in its packaging, with a dark green cover.
“Alright, this one needs an explanation too,” Aiden admits, when I look up at him with a surprised question in my eyes.
He falls silent, takes a long moment to choose his words.
“You’ve been nice enough not to say anything about it, but… I can’t help but notice that you don’t write poetry anymore, Keane.” Aiden gazes deep into my eyes, slowly running a hand over his stubble. “I’m wondering if some big mean jerk you went to high school with put a permanent stop to that? By giving you shit about it, then stealing one of your poems?”
I blink hard in surprise, then bite the inside of my cheek, scrambling for an answer that isn’t the truth, but isn’t a lie -
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Aiden’s face falls for a moment, but he gives himself a little shake, a determined look rising in his eyes. “Well, that big mean jerk is real sorry about what he did. But he stole your poem because it was really, really fucking good. He loved it too much not to take it. He hopes you remember that, if you, um - if you ever want to try again, someday. You would already have one devoted fan, if you did. And he wanted to make the first contribution towards whatever you write next.”
Aiden hesitates, then reaches out and gently presses the journal into my hands. He shifts on his feet and works his thumb into his palm, flashing a sweet, shy smile down at my stunned face.
“So, that’s everything,” he murmurs softly, bending down to brush a kiss onto my mouth. “Happy birthday.”
He clearly intended it to be a swift little kiss, but my hand flies up to catch him around the back of his neck, keeping him right where he is.
Trying to handle all of the love pouring out from my heart is impossible. Like trying to soak up an entire ocean with just my body. There’s going to be some spillover, and it all spills out into the kiss I draw Aiden into. I hear his breath catch, feel him melt into me, his warm arms wrapping around me as he leans into the kiss.
I love you, Sugar Maple, that kiss says.
And through the way he kisses my back, I understand the clear, shining answer.
I love you too, Linden.
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