“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Clara said.
“It’s all right,” Tom said. “Forgive us, Ez. We’ve never done this before.”
“Done what?” I said.
“Told someone.”
“Told someone what?”
Why weren’t they hungry? Why were they running? Why were they tired all the time?
“We’re dead,” Tom said. “And so are you.”
I flew out of the tunnel. I couldn’t get out fast enough. I barely remember climbing the ladder, but somehow my fingers found the brick holds. Then I was coughing in the sunlight, gasping for air. Tom followed me out.
“You’re sick,” I said to him. “Sick.”
He stood over me. “It’s true, what I said.”
“That’s not funny. You’re a jerk like everyone else in this town.”
He touched my shoulder. I started to shrug him off, then I grabbed his arm by the wrist. “See?” I said. “You’re real. Real as me.” I shook his arm. It went limp in my hand. “I can touch you. I can feel you. You’re solid, just like me.”
“Because we’re both dead. You can touch me because you’re dead too.”
Clara had come out of the kiln and stood watching by the tree.
“Help me out,” Tom said to her.
“Oh, I don’t think so. I already tried. Besides, you’ve had more experience.”
“Experience?” I said.
“He died before me.”
I flung Tom’s arm away. I felt shaky. I needed to talk to someone normal, the Firecracker, the maid. I started toward the house, but Tom followed me, motioning to Clara to do the same.
“Leave me alone!” I said to them. “What’s wrong with you? What is this—gang up on the new girl? I haven’t been hazed enough? Someone trying to sit on me in school wasn’t enough?”
Tom halted. “Someone tried to sit on you?”
I stopped too.
Tom’s voice was patient, low. “No one talked to you in school, did they, Ez? The teachers didn’t notice you. Your grandmother didn’t even say hello to you.”
“I—I,” I stumbled. My mind was spinning. “Martha talked to me! My grandmother’s maid.”
“Martha?” Clara stood at my elbow. “She’s been dead a century.”
I tried to remember what the maid had said. She knew my grandmother. She seemed to know me. And the house was always dusty, the stairs un-swept, the bathroom moldy. Martha said she had worked in the house … forever.
I thought back over the last two days: the school bus doors nearly closing on me every time I rode, the boy trying to sit on me, the other boy running me down in the hall. I remembered Clara, appearing out of nowhere on the bus, and Tom materializing on the bank of the pond then disappearing behind a birch.
I felt clammy and cold. I felt for my arms. I could feel them. I kicked my legs. I felt solid to me. I remembered the nightmare the night before I had left New York, when I had thought my hand was gone—but that was just a dream. I had those kinds of dreams a lot, along with the dreams of my mother, dreams where people were shouting at me, shaking me, dreams where I woke up feeling choked.
“The Firecracker!” I said.
Tom and Clara stared at me.
“My sister. Her nickname is the Firecracker. I talked to her just yesterday. I talk to her every day. She wouldn’t be able to talk to me if I were dead.” I had already pulled out my phone and was dialing. Please pick up, please pick up, please, please, I begged her in my head. “Oh thank you!” I said when she answered.
“What?” she said. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
I put the phone on speaker and held it out to Tom and Clara.
“Esmé?” the Firecracker said, her voice crackling. “Esmé, are you there?”
“See?” I said.
Tom and Clara just looked at me. Clara seemed unimpressed. But Tom looked frightened. His eyes were on me, not on the phone, as the Firecracker’s voice blared: “What’s going on? Is everything okay over there?”
“Everything’s fine. You’re speaking to me, I’m fine, and everything is fine.”
“Okay,” the Firecracker said. “That’s not suspicious.”
“I just met some people, and they didn’t believe some things about me.”
“I’m really glad you’re making friends. Listen, I’ve got to get back to work, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Love you too.” I snapped the phone shut. “See?”
But Tom shook his head. “No. Something is wrong. You wouldn’t be able to interact with us. You wouldn’t be able to touch us unless you were like us. Unless you were dead too. That’s how we found Martha. And Mr. Black.”
“Who’s Mr. Black?” I asked.
There was the sound of a car then, creeping up the driveway. We all turned to see my grandmother’s station wagon pull up in front of the barn.
“I’ve an idea,” Clara said.
“No,” Tom said. “She’s not ready.”
“How else is she going to get ready? How will she ever believe us otherwise?”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
My grandmother got out of the station wagon, balancing a grocery bag on her hip. She set another bag on the ground as she closed the car door.
I whispered, “Grandma?”
She picked up the other bag, pausing for a moment, as if she had noticed or just remembered something. Her face took on the look it had taken in the sitting room. Concentration, mixed with a strange sort of blankness. She stared into the woods in the distance. Then she blinked and shook her head, as if shaking off a memory, coming out of a trace.
“Grandma,” I said.
Without hearing me, she headed for the house. But Clara blocked her path. Reaching out, the girl plucked something from my grandmother’s grocery bag: a carton of eggs.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“She can’t see me. She can’t see you. But she can see this.” Clara opened the carton and pulled out an egg. She tossed it to Tom, who caught it.
“Clara, stop.” He set the egg gently on the ground.
“You’re no fun.” Clara took another egg from the carton.
My grandmother watched the eggs, transfixed.
“Stop it,” I said.
“Fine,” Clara said, and she dashed the egg against the house.
The egg broke against the wall with a sickening smack, yellow sliding down the side. My grandmother flinched. She tightened her hold on the grocery bag. But Clara wasn’t done. She threw another egg against the house. Another and another until the house was smeared with yoke and