Free The Color of Heaven by The Colour of Heaven (html)

water. “I haven’t gotten that far yet, but I don’t think so, and do you know why?”
    I parted my lips, keen to hear the rest of the story.
    “Because she’s dead, too,” he whispered.
    “Dead?”
    “Yes. Deceased, departed, gone to meet her maker – but she doesn’t know it. She’s been haunting the warehouse for years, looking for her
    husband who used to own the place.”
    I drew in a deep breath. “What about the boy who’s the night watchman? Does he know his boss is a ghost? Is he scared? Does he tel anyone?”
    Matt looked up at the darkening sky as he plotted the rest of the story in his head. By now, the sun had sunk below the horizon, though there was stil a faint pink blush across the sky. It cast a dim glow upon Matt’s face.
    At last he looked at me. “No, he has no idea she’s a ghost, but there’s a reason for that.”
    I leaned forward again. “Tel me.”
    “Because he’s a ghost, too.”
    My eyebrows lifted, and I smiled. “Promise me you’l let me read it when it’s done.”
    “I always let you read what I write.”
    “But make sure you don’t forget.”
    “I won’t,” he promised, flipping the notepad open again. He read over the last few lines he’d written.
    The evening chil touched my skin, so I hugged my legs to my chest. A seagul soared freely over the water and cried to another. A rogue wave
    splashed onto the rocks.
    Matt shrugged out of his red jacket. “Here.” He slung it over my shoulders and put his arm around me.
    I inched closer. “Thank you. It’s getting cold.”
    We sat for a long time, looking out at the sea, watching the sailboat and marveling at the sunset. It was not the first time we sat together on the
    rocks, just the two of us, while Matt kept me warm. We had been doing it for years.
    Peter knew nothing of it, of course, and it never occurred to either one of us to tel him. Maybe we knew that if he were with us, he would be bored
    unless we were up on our feet skipping stones. We would not be able to sit quietly, and to Matt and I it was pure bliss – to do nothing but stare out at the sea and listen to the waves, admire nature’s artistry. It was the one place where we could forget al the noise and activity in the world, and al of life’s hardships – which Matt knew so much more intimately than I did.
    We had never questioned what our kinship meant. It simply existed. It never occurred to us that this closeness we felt – this inherent knowledge of
    each other – might lead to something more when we were older, because in those moments on the rocks, we lived only for the present.

Chapter Twenty-seven
Spring 1964
    “I’m worried about Matt,” I said to Peter one day, as we stepped off the school bus and started walking up the hil .
    “There’s nothing we can do about it,” he replied. “Matt knows what he has to do to get through this year. He just doesn’t want to do it.”
    “But he might not grade, and if he doesn’t… Wel , I don’t know what wil happen. He’l never go to summer school. He might not ever graduate.”
    We walked slowly in silence, our shoes crunching over the gravel along the side of the road.
    “I think he actual y likes disappointing his father,” Peter said. “It’s his purpose in life.”
    I turned around to walk backwards, facing Peter and hugging my books to my chest. “Where was he after school? He wasn’t even on the bus.”
    “He probably skipped class, like he’s done every day this week. Doug Jones brought his dad’s pickup truck today, and I heard they’ve been getting
    drunk in the woods down by the creek.”
    “That can’t be true.”
    At that moment, the red pickup skidded around the corner at the bottom of the hil and sped toward us, leaving a cloud of dust in the air.
    As they drove by, I saw Matt sitting in the middle between Doug and another boy I didn’t recognize. Matt was drinking beer and smoking a
    cigarette.
    “He didn’t even wave,” I said. “It’s like he