The Girl from the Well

“Okiku and I have had a few talks since then—if you consider conversations with a three-hundred-year-old ghost talking. She doesn’t mind hanging around long enough for me to get my karmic groove back or die of natural causes—whichever comes first.” Tarquin has the audacity to grin.

“She’s a nice spirit, though. She doesn’t mind that I don’t always clean my room, and she respects my privacy every time I need to go to the bathroom. I’ve spent a good part of my life living with a horrible, terrible ghost, Callie. Living with Okiku is like a reprieve, in comparison. For the first time in a long, long time, I’m actually happy. I don’t go to bed afraid anymore. And I’m pretty sure if there are any other spirits around hoping for a free ride, she’d be more than happy to kick their asses for me.”

“I don’t think this is something you should be trivializing, Tark.”

He squeezes her hand. “I’ll be okay, Callie. And thank you for being concerned—for always looking out for me. It’s not like I have much choice, but if I had to choose to cohabit with any one spirit in the world, I’d choose her any day.”

“Tarquin, Callie, it’s getting late,” his father calls out. “Do you guys prefer sushi or okonomiyaki?”

“How about both?” Tarquin counters. He pays the vendor and accepts the rolled-up scroll. “I think Okiku will appreciate having this on the wall.”

“Tark…”

“I don’t want to die, Callie. You understand that, right?”

The girl nods. “But there has to be another way.”

Tarquin smiles again, but this time it is the smile of one who made peace with his inner demons long ago. “Come on. Dad’s waiting.”

The teenager walks on ahead, waving to his father. Behind him, Callie can see the figure of a woman in white, flimsy and transparent at first, but eventually gaining substance and shape, keeping pace beside him. She watches as Tarquin turns toward the apparition and offers her his arm. She watches the figure hesitate before, haltingly, accepting it with a pale, withered hand.

This same apparition turns her head slightly, and Callie can make out the startling black eyes, the sunken cheeks, and the jagged cut of mouth that curves into hints of a smile as I bow my head gently in her direction before turning away.

I am the fate that people fear to become. I am what happens to good persons and to bad persons and to everyone in between. I am who I am.

But when you have resigned yourself to an eternity filled with little else but longing, to sacrifice what lies beyond that eternity for one boy’s lifetime—it is enough.

Tarquin and I make our way past the shops and past the laughter, leaving Callie standing there alone in the crowd while up above, stars look down from the darkening sky and slowly, as they were born to do, begin to shine.





Acknowledgments


This book has gone through the hands of many people who believed in its potential and cheered me on every step of the way. I can never be grateful enough.

To my parents—thank you for being my first librarians; for the bookshelves in your bedroom filled with the things I was technically too young to read. To Papa, the first writer I know, and to Mama, who tried to point me down the right path and who, for the most part, succeeded.

For my sister Kim, who talked me into writing her high school English Lit papers, because she had that much faith—thanks for the practice.

A big thank-you to my cousins—Gin, Dara, Kurt, Timmie, Micah, and Keisha. You were in many ways the Tarquins to my Callie.

Thanks, Eugene, for the words of encouragement that came with every dinner, and also to Stephanie, who believed before I’d ever written a word. All my love to Sars, Nichole, Rip, Sophie, and Sara, for making it fun.

For my amazing agents, Rebecca Podos and Nicole LaBombard, who have championed Okiku’s story from day one. Thank you for taking a chance on us, and for loving her as much as I do.