Free Whispered Magics by Sherwood Smith Page B

should
I care anymore? My dad is dead .
    “Yeah, stupid drunks,” I said, and laughed, just as meanly as
he had.
    o0o
    “Where was Dad killed?”
    My mother looked up from her coffee. “Good morning, Anna,” she
said brightly. “Please, sit down and have some breakfast. Here’s some toast—”
    “Where was Dad killed?” I demanded.
    Next to Mom he sat,
his eyes on the paper. He’d given up trying to talk to me a month before.
    “You didn’t want me to tell you the details,” Mom said
carefully, her eyes scanning back and forth across my face. “Are you sure
you’re ready for it now? You look like you aren’t feeling well.” She reached
for my forehead and I stepped back. She pulled her hand down quickly.
    “Just tell me where.”
    She looked over at him .
He looked up, his brown eyes serious. “It happened out on the highway, Anna. He
crossed the line into a logging truck. It was a dangerous curve—”
    I walked out.
    o0o
    The rain started right after the dinner I didn’t eat. I sat at
my window and watched. First it pelted down, hissing and roaring. Then it
tapered into soft drips. Then, slowly, it got stronger, until the drops between
my window and the lamppost were like thin spears of icy-white light.
    At midnight, there was Ben, his hair hidden in his hoodie. I
pulled on a sweatshirt. If he’d worn only a shirt, so would I. No one would
call me a sissy, afraid of a little wet. I was just as tough as any bad kid,
and I cared even less.
    When I landed, I had a coughing attack. After I caught my
breath he said, “You sound sick. This will make it worse.”
    “Who cares?” I said. “They don’t. Be glad to get rid of me.
And since she already killed my dad and got away with it, why not me?”
    “What?”
    “My mother.” I snarled the word so nastily it made me start
coughing again. “Killed my dad.”
    “Geez!” Ben exclaimed, throwing up his hands. “Why is it some
people have all the luck?”
    “That my dad is dead?” I said, really angry now.
    “No, no,” he said quickly. “But here’s you, sit all period in
math and English doing nothing, and nobody notices. Me, now, I look at one of
them wrong, and it’s back to Detention. Then when I get
home . . .” He gave one of those shrugs again. “So how’d she do
it? And get away with it?”
    “Dumped him,” I said, a year’s worth of bitterness making my
voice shake. “He moved out and that disgusting idiot moved in with us. With
her. Anyway, Dad started—” I hesitated, then said quickly, “—she made him start
drinking, but he wasn’t some old drunk. So one night, something happened to his
car . . .” I stopped, and closed my mouth hard. I sure wasn’t
going to cry in front of some boy and have him laugh at me.
    “Some people have all the luck,” he said softly. “Hey, let’s
see if the ghosts come out in rain.”
    The ghosts were there, clothes streaming and fluttering as if
the rain were nothing but wind. They seemed delighted to see us.
    Ben and his crowd went up to the bridge again. I didn’t feel
like doing much, so I mostly sat and watched Sarah and two other little ones
playing some kind of game. Was it something kids had played a hundred years
ago? I hugged my arms close, and as the silvery little kid ghosts clapped
soundlessly and hopped and twirled, I thought about how wonderful it would be
to just hang out in a park for a hundred years, playing and playing. How lucky
the ghosts were! The weather didn’t have any effect on them, for some of them
were in summer clothes, but they just danced about like leaves in the wind,
light and uncaring.
    A movement by my leg made me look up, and I saw my little
Sarah-ghost. She really did remind me of Sarah, I thought. My sweet little
cousin Sarah, whom I hadn’t seen since Dad’s funeral.
    The little ghost looked into my face, her eyes and mouth sad.
I reached out to pull her into my lap, like I used to with Sarah, but my hands
went right through her. The air