The Other Side of Dark by Sarah Smith

Author:Sarah Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Published: 2010-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

KATIE

LAW DOESN’T LIKE ME ANYMORE. He doesn’t know it yet, I think, but we can both feel it. It’s not because we kissed. That was so good.

It’s because of the Other People.

Other ghosts pretty much stick to where they died. But the Other People know I see them, and they stick to me.

Law must feel them. Why shouldn’t he get chills, and be afraid of them, and look at me like I’m something he doesn’t recognize? That’s how I feel.

I wanted to be normal. For a little while, I almost was.

On New Year’s Eve, Phil and Lucy go to First Night and Law has to do something for Kwanzaa. If I were black like him, if I were an ordinary girl, would I be going with him to whatever it is? Phil and Lucy ask me if I mind staying home alone and I say no problem, it’s all right. I make myself some popcorn and cocoa and put Little Miss Sunshine on the DVD.

It’s no use. It’s like being inside the apartment when I know the guy is hanging from the stairs outside. Like watching a horror movie and knowing that the monsters are just about to do something horrible to the girl. I’m just waiting, scared, waiting to be more scared.

I can’t see them. But I can feel I want, I want like you hear that little hum from lightbulbs. You don’t notice it until you do and then it drives you crazy.

What would they be like for Law? Like a bad smell. Like I’m a dog and I’ve rolled in something dead.

What do they want?

I go into my room. “Hey, Dad, come on, I need to talk to you.”

Nothing.

It strikes me that I haven’t seen him since Christmas. No. Since the day before Christmas, when I thought I’d sent the ghosts away.

“Dad!” I yell in a panic.

Nothing.

“Come on, Dad, you know I didn’t mean you.”

This isn’t like him. Generally I only need to call him and he’s right there.

“Dad. Please.”

The faintest fog in a corner.

“Don’t get all ghosty, I’ve got all the weird shit I need. I have to talk with you right now.”

I can see right through him, but he’s there.

He’s there, but he’s faint, worn. “You were right,” he says. “Seeing me ain’t good for you. You got to grow out of this and send me away for good.”

“Dad, first I would never send you away, and second, I need a parent right now and you’re it.”

I tell him about the ghosts. He was always a good listener. With him there I have the guts to get out Lucy Rosen’s sketchbook and show him what I saw. The pictures just flow out onto the page. George’s little-boy hand on the Bible; the older men; and flowing and spreading out from them in all directions, pieces of faces in the dark like reflections in a pool of blood.

Broken faces. A bloody collapsed eye—

“I’m really scared of them, Dad.”

What I mean to say is Help me.

“Honey,” Dad says, “I’m no good at this.

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