Free Rebel Spirits by Lois Ruby Page A

softball out of my hand, and backs away. “Here, catch.” He hurls the ball in a wobbly arc toward me. I get under it easily and pitch it back.
    “Hey, good arm,” he says, fumbling the ball. Gertie’s running from me to him, but is smart enough to realize it’s our game, not hers. “So, what’s on your mind, Lori?”
    “It’s about the lawn-mower shed.”
    He moves in closer and flings the ball in my general direction, which is to say, at a puddle by a rosebush. He’d never have made the mixed league in Philly.
    “Yeah, I know. Some animal got in there and burrowed into a corner when the door was open yesterday. Poor critter must have panicked when he couldn’t get out. Ooof! ” The ball thuds into his belly, and he staggers back. “Game over. So, I figure when dinnertime came, the animal pecked open the bag of bedding soil looking for munchies. Dirt and broken pots are all over the floor, and some clippers and trowels were knocked off the hooks. It’s a mess. I better clean it up before Old Dryden resurfaces.”
    “What kind of animal?” I ask.
    “Squirrel? Possum, maybe? This used to be their hangout before we civilized it.”
    I accept the muddy ball back from Evan, digging my fingers into its sides. “I think it was a human animal, Evan.”
    Evan furrows his brow. “Nah. An actual human wouldn’t have any reason to rip open a sack of soil.”
    “Unless he was looking for something.”
    “In a pile of dirt? Come on.”
    “I saw someone run out the back door of the shed,” I tell him quietly. “Someone who didn’t want to get caught in there.”
    “Hmm. I’ll check it out later today,” Evan tells me, and Ifeel slightly better. “Got to pick up my uniform at the cleaners now,” he adds, checking his watch. “Score a few canisters of fake blood, a musket, some ammo. I’m dying at one forty-six tomorrow. Come watch.”
    Right. The reenactment of the Battle. “I don’t think so,” I tell him. “I don’t have the stomach for it.”
    “Hey, it’s human epic to the max. Blood and guts, pain and agony, good guys and bad guys. It’s classic, like The Godfather or The Hunger Games on a beautiful summer afternoon. People eat it up.”
    “Maybe,” I offer dubiously, backing up toward the house.
    “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he says quietly, all the bravado leaked away. “It’s Gettysburg in July.”

 
    LATER THAT EVENING, long after dinner, I flop down on my bed and open my laptop to finally Google Nathaniel and his regiment. But then suddenly, something feels off-kilter. My bedroom door slams, although there’s no breeze. The air has that leaden feeling, heavier than mere heat and humidity.
    “You’re here, aren’t you?” I whisper, and my heart leaps with joy.
    A disembodied voice says, “We haven’t much time, Lorelei, and there’s still so much to tell you.”
    “I know, Nathaniel,” I say, glancing around and seeing no one else in my room. Then my pleasure morphs into indignation. “But where are you? You can’t just keep showing up and disappearing without warning. Or talking to me when I can’t see you! Let’s set some ground rules. Because right now you have all the advantages. Relationships in my world are fifty-fifty.”
    Are we in a relationship? I wonder. Is that even possible?
    The warm, familiar voice replies from seemingly nowhere. “I’m at a great dis advantage, Lorelei, with words in your world. But I can guess the meaning of fifty-fifty.”
    “That’s a start. Okay, Number One: You can’t hover around me and listen in on my conversations without my knowledge.”
    “I try not to, I do, but it’s so much harder to resist than to give in to the impulse.”
    I nod. “Like trying to give up French fries.” I realize he doesn’t get French fries. Oh, well. “Rule Number Two: Please show yourself when you talk. Otherwise I feel silly just spitting words out in your general direction. I look like a crazy person.”
    “Aye, General.” He