I repeated, and I slid back into the seat.
I kept my eyes glued to the blurred scenery outside the windows. Still, I itched to lean forward again, so I grabbed the seat to hold myself in place and tried in vain to revive the sensation of leather against my skin.
Eventually, the woods gave way to a small town. The road wound through a sort of main street dotted with small buildings and scattered pines. A painted wooden sign along the roadside welcomed us to Wilburton, Oklahoma.
The town reminded me of a vaguely familiar photograph, one that I’d seen a long time ago but couldn’t place now. Had I passed through this particular town in my death? I’d never really taken much note of the places where I’d wandered. I couldn’t be sure, and the uncertain familiarity made me squirm in my seat.
Too soon, Joshua slowed to a few miles per hour. Next he pulled onto a side road, one lined more heavily with pines. When the trees thinned, a set of low buildings appeared. As Joshua pulled into a parking lot, I could see a few students milling around or making their way into the corridors between the buildings.
“Made it.” Joshua sighed in relief. He parked the car, then unbuckled his seat belt and reached into the backseat to scavenge for his schoolbag.
I remained focused on the redbrick buildings in front of us. I took in the sight of the flat white roofs, the dark purple benches on the lawn, the faded metal signs that proclaimed GO DIGGERS! in block letters. Something about the buildings itched at me—something I couldn’t put my finger on ….
“Good ole Wilburton High School. Shall we?”
The nearness of Joshua’s voice made me jump in my seat. He stood beside me but outside of the car, with one hand holding the frame of the passenger side door and the other gripping the bag that hung from his right shoulder. In my concentration, I hadn’t even noticed him leave the car or open my door.
“Um ….”
I began to twist the fabric of my dress, suddenly nervous again. Before Joshua, impending contact with the living world would have saddened me. Now Joshua’s awareness of me (and honestly, Joshua himself) had made the depression slink back to a remote part of my brain.
Yet the sight of those buildings, and the creeping sensation they gave me, made me a little scared. And more than a little fused to my seat.
“Move it, Amelia. You’re making me look crazy, standing by an empty door.” Joshua’s words may have seemed harsh, but his voice was playful. Although my indecision was certainly going to make him late for class, he simply smiled and held out one hand for me.
It seemed as though my bravery could stretch itself out a little farther, because I grabbed his hand and stepped out of the car. Immediately, a fiery shock jolted up my arm.
“Oh!” I cried out, and dropped his hand. As he leaned across me to close the passenger side door, he managed to gasp and laugh at the same time.
“More of that later.” He chuckled. “Now for school. Just follow me.”
He actually winked and then strode quickly past me. A smile—formed half from embarrassment, half from excitement—crept onto my face, and I followed behind him toward one of the smaller buildings. As we walked, he spoke through clenched teeth without looking back at me. I assume he did so to keep from appearing to everyone else as if he were talking to himself.
“You all right back there?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I said, mirroring his volume even though I didn’t need to. “This place just looks so … familiar. I feel as if I remember this school; but I don’t know why, or from when.”
“Huh. That could be … interesting.” He was silent for a moment and then, in an unsure tone, he whispered, “Will you be okay with this? I mean, I sort of forced you into it, didn’t I?”
He sounded so genuinely worried, I had to stifle a laugh. Apparently, he hadn’t thought to ask me what I wanted until the last possible second.
Aloud I said, “I’ll probably be all right.”
As I stared at his back, broad and strong beneath his light gray shirt, I impulsively blurted out my next thought.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter where we go, because I just want to be wherever you are.”
Upon hearing my words, Joshua froze with one hand on the door he was just about to open. Looking at his back, I bit my lower lip in frustration. Was I really such a moron that I’d make a proclamation like that without being able to see his response?
I could see Joshua’s hand flex against the doorknob, so I readied myself for the worst: he would tell me my very presence here was a risk, just as I suspected; he would scold me for touching him in public and would then suggest that I wait outside for him … or go away completely.
But, of course, I misread him again. Instead of fleeing from me, Joshua reached one hand behind him and, still facing forward, squeezed my hand. Then he jerked the door open wide and stepped into a classroom just as a bell rang out across the lawn behind us. I saw him clench and unclench the hand that had touched me, possibly in response to the same fire sizzling in my fingers. I took a deep breath and slipped into the classroom before he pulled the door shut behind us.
I guess I wasn’t prepared for the change in scenery, because I began to blink furiously against the sudden dimness of the room. To be fair, I didn’t have much afterlife experience with poorly lit high school classrooms, and I absently wondered if my pupils still expanded in the dark.
Joshua’s loud cough pulled me out of this reverie, fast.
The cough was obviously a warning, because an elderly woman stood right in front of me, her face mere inches from mine. Her yellowed face matched her wispy hair as well as the yellowed whites of her eyes.
Which were looking directly into mine.
Frantic, I turned back to Joshua, who had frozen in front of the first row of desks. I whipped my head back to the woman, tensing every muscle. Was she another once-dead human who could now see me, like Joshua could? Or another malevolent ghost, like Eli?
A second look into her eyes told me all I needed to know. The eyes didn’t focus fully on mine but instead gazed past me and at Joshua. She squinted, her vision possibly obscured by my form but not enough so as to make me visible to her. The woman looked through me like one looks through a wisp of smoke: distracted by it, without really being fully aware of or concerned by it. When she spoke, she confirmed my assumptions.
“Mr. Mayhew, has your brush with death given you permission to waltz in whenever you please?”
“No, ma’am, Ms. Wolters. I thought I made the bell?”
She frowned, allowing deep lines to pull her mouth into a droopy sort of scowl.
“The bell signifies the start of class, not the time for your entrance. Now take your seat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled. Ducking his head, Joshua moved quickly down the aisle and slid behind an empty desk—his, I presumed.
A burly, red-headed boy, sitting at the
