She was no ghost. She could be seen by others. She could be touched; she spoke full sentences; her breath reeked, but not with maggots, with plain bad beer. There was no smoke, no mirrors. If Ruby had made this happen, it was really and truly happening, not just to me but to every single person here.
Ruby reappeared once I got to my feet. She was there for me to lean on, there as if she’d been at my side all along and always would be. The wind played with her hair, making it sway over her bare shoulders. Her lips were painted her color—without a smudge. Her eyes borrowed stars from the sky, or seemed to. Even the fireflies came to lend her their glow, blinking sweet nothings all around her.
I wasn’t the only one staring.
“Hey there,” Pete said.
“Hi, Ruby,” London said meekly, eyes flicking to me as if she didn’t think she’d be allowed to tell my sister hi.
Ruby ignored them both. “That took forever,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Chlo.” She held out a water bottle for me and watched carefully as I twisted off the cap and took a long swallow.
When I was done, Ruby grabbed my hand in hers, so everyone could see. Then she asked, projecting as if she were wearing a wire hidden inside her dress, “London, how are you? My sister was wondering. Tell her. Tell her how you are.”
I was? But I was. Ruby knew I was wondering that and way more.
London gave Ruby an odd look. Then she turned the same look on me, seeing as I could have asked her how she was myself, and said, “I’m fine, thanks.” Her words wavered, like she wasn’t sure. Like Ruby could say no, she wasn’t fine, and then she’d have to change her answer.
“See?” my sister said to me. To London, her voice shifted and she said, “What are you doing over here with Chloe? What happened to the keg?”
“It’s empty,” London said.
“Damn,” Pete could be heard muttering behind us.
London was shifting from foot to foot. “I should go back to the fire,” she said, taking a step toward her friends.
“Should you?” Ruby asked this question with great concentration. Her gaze needled into two thin points, aimed with precision at London.
I saw the stabs. Saw how London flinched and then in one last-ditch effort to defend herself squeaked out, “I told them I’d be right back.”
“You did?” Ruby said. She had control of the conversation, tossing it high, bouncing it back and forth between her palms.
London’s forehead creased up. She put a hand to her head, thinking. The fireflies seemed drunk, glowing haphazardly in downward spirals toward the ground.
“I don’t know,” London said at last, her voice faint. “I don’t remember.”
Something was going on here, something between this girl who’d come back to life and my sister, who’d maybe possibly had a hand in it, and I couldn’t figure out what.
“Hey,” Pete called out, dumb to the world as usual, “is everyone high but me?”
Ruby tore her eyes from London. “Yes,” she said, “everyone but you.”
Pete looked down at his feet, crushed. It was so easy to hurt him.
“Oh, Petey,” Ruby said, softening, “c’mere.” She pulled him into a hug for a few lingering seconds. When she pushed him away, he seemed placated, so caught up in the moment and in her that I thought he might keel over—and then she did him one better.
“I have one hit left,” she told him sweetly. “And I’m warning you, Pete—Petey, look at me so I can talk to you—I’m warning you . . . you’ve never had anything like this. You might not know where you are when you come out of it. You might lose your head.”
She had him. “You don’t want it?” he said. “You sure?”
She nodded.
Pete’s eyes widened in anticipation as she slipped a hand into one of the small pockets sewn at the hips of her sundress. The pockets were triangular, meant for decoration. They could hold maybe a stick of gum if it was folded in half, or one key, if it was a small key for a small lock. But she took her time rummaging through that pocket as if it sunk deep down the length of her leg.
Then she pulled out her hand, keeping the treasure hidden from sight in a closed fist. “I guess you can have it,” she told Pete.