The next morning when I opened my locker, a folded piece of paper fell at my feet. Quickly, I picked it up, ripped it open, and read the writing inside.
“Do you really believe in ghosts?”
There was no signature, just a letter “A”.
Still,I had a pretty good idea who “A” was.
“What do you think?” Zach and I were hanging out in my room. I’d shown him the note and was eager to hear his take on it.
“I mean, what am I supposed to do about this note?”
“Answer it, I reckon.”
“Yeah, but how? What am I supposed to say?”
That stopped the conversation in its tracks.
Finally I broke the silence. “She’s reacting to all that blathering about Hamlet I was doing in English—about how Hamlet was calling to his father without knowing it. You think we may have been on to something the other night?”
Zach looked thoughtful. “You mean all that about callin’ out t’each other and then hidin’ out? That would fit the observed phemomena.”
“Like that quote from Eugnosis of Alexandria,” I added, “the one about being most afraid of the thing we most desire.”
“There y’go. That Amy girl and her ma would be wantin’ t’see each other and runnin’ away.”
“Like they’re reaching out and pushing away all at the same time.”
“Somethin’ like that,” Zach agreed.
“But why? What is it that’s keeping them apart?”
“That,” Zach answered, “is the mystery.”
“It’s a mystery all right. And just what the heck am I supposed to do about it?”
It took awhile to get to sleep that night. I was awake for hours composing different responses to that note. I mean, what was I supposed to say? “Sure, I believe in ghosts. Some of my best friends are ghosts.”
How much could I tell this girl? Could I trust her? I didn’t even know her.
In the end, when I finally slipped a note into her locker, all it said was: “Yes, I really do believe in ghosts.”
The day after that I found another note in my locker. This one read: “How would a person know if they were being haunted?”
“She knows. I don’t know what she knows, but she knows something.”
We were in my room again, Zach and I.
Zach nodded in agreement. “She clearly has some level of awareness of her peculiar situation.”
I started pacing. “So now the question is…what am I supposed to do about these notes? Why is she asking me all this stuff?”
“I reckon she’s desperate.”
“Oh, well thank you.”
“I’m not meanin’ any disrespect, but think on it. The girl can’t have too many other options t’turn to. You get up there in front of your class and commence with all your pontificatin’ about ghosts. She hears you goin’ on like you know what you’re talkin’ about, and she’s feelin’ it in herself that what you say sounds right…makes sense.” Zach shrugged.
He went on. “Remember, she knows what those ruffians in your school are like, how they treat her so mean and all, but she still sends you that note. She can’t know but what you’ll just use it t’put her up t’more ridicule, but she writes you anyway. Now I don’t know ‘bout you, but t’me that sounds like desperation.”
“You’re right, I suppose,” I said finally. “She was sticking her neck out. If I was some kind of jerk…” I left off there.
“But still,” I continued, “that leaves me hanging. I don’t know what to do next. What do I tell her?”
“Well,” Zach answered, “you could always go with the truth.”
“Oh that’s a good one. I like that. How about: ‘Yes, I know you’re haunted by your mother’s ghost because I have the rare ability to see the spirits of dead people, and, after talking to my pal Zach, who was killed in the Civil War, I decided we should get together and have a little chat.’”
“You might want t’adjust some of the wording on that,” Zach commented.
“Yeah, right. And then she says something like ‘Get out of here you delusional psycho before I call the cops!’”
“I don’t reckon that girl’d do somethin’ like that. If anybody’s predisposed t’believe the truth about ghosts, she’s the one.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t like it.”
“Well, we could always go with your plan.”
Which, of course, was nothing.