Free Rebel Spirits by Lois Ruby Page B

shimmers into visibility, perched on my desk, and I’m struck again by how dashing and melancholy and strong he looks — for a dead person. There’s a scent about him that’s like cinnamon or ginger. I want to hurry over to him, to be close to him, but I try to stand my ground.
    “Rule Number Three —”
    “You’re quite the bossy girl, aren’t you?”
    “Of course. I’m a Scorpio!”
    “You don’t look a bit like a scorpion, for which I’m immensely grateful.” I want to laugh, figuring it’s not worth explaining astrology to him. Then he holds out his foot toward me, the one bound in cloth and scraps of leather. “That’s how I lost my boot, when a scorpion took up lodging in it. I saw him down in the dark of the toe and tossed the boot as far as I could. It landed in a campfire. Both the boot and the scorpion, fried crisp. The scorpion was more tasty than the boot.”
    “Why, Nathaniel Pierce, you have a sense of humor.”
    He smiles shyly. “Have we finished with the rules?”
    “One more. I’ll meet you anywhere but here in my room or the bathroom.” Although part of me loves having Nathaniel in my room, another part of me feels like it’s too big of a step, too quickly. I want to be able to move freely about my room without worrying about my privacy or the peering eyes of a handsome ghost.
    “The bathroom?” Nathaniel asks. His quizzical look reminds me that he comes from a time before indoor plumbing.
    “The water closet, the loo?” I offer, thinking, for some reason, of British slang. “The … facilities?”
    “Ah, the privy.”
    “Yes! As in private .”
    “I understand,” he says, all proper and gentlemanly.
    “Okay. Then I’d say we’re done with rules for now.” I stand and walk over to him. We are close enough that our elbows collide. I’m glad that I showered after tossing around the softball outside, and that I changed into a sleeveless yellow sundress to feel cooler. Nathaniel puts his firm hands on my shoulders and draws me closer. He’s solid now, as real as I am, but no body heat radiates from him, and even up against his chest I feel no heartbeat.
    I have so much to learn about ghosts.
    “A question for you,” I whisper to him, grateful that most of the guests and my parents are sleeping and can’t hear me conversing in the night. “You weren’t in the shed last night, were you? I saw — something.”
    Concern flashes across Nathaniel’s face but he shakes his head. “No. I was in the cemetery, by my grave, but thinking of you. Why?”
    I don’t want to get into the mystery with him now. I notice him glance from me to the laptop on my bed.
    “You opened your talking machine,” he says. “May I see how it operates?”
    Why not? I grab my laptop and drop to the floor while hesits behind me on my bed. I click a few keys and feel him watching me with avid curiosity.
    I enter Nathaniel Pierce 93rd regiment Gettysburg into the Search bar.
    “You can put my name into this machine?” Nathaniel asks with incredulity.
    “You can’t imagine what this machine can do,” I tell him.
    The search results pop up, and I click on the first article. I begin reading, instinctively hunching over so that Nathaniel can’t see what I see. I’m not sure why I want this privacy — maybe it’s the same reason I felt indignant when he just showed up in my room.
    July 3, 1863 – Private Nathaniel Pierce, of Titusville, Pennsylvania, a member of the 93rd Pennsylvania Volunteers, succumbed to a bullet wound to the back. There is reason to believe that Pierce was guilty of treason …
     
    My heart stops. What? I keep reading.
    … and was executed, according to the unofficial military custom of the time. Because the evidenceof the treason is inconclusive, Pierce was not buried in the Pennsylvania section of the National Military Cemetery at Gettysburg. It is unknown where his remains lie.
     
    I snap around to face him, my cheeks burning.
    “You’re a traitor ?” I demand.