Page 8 of After Life
“You’re afraid of barnacles?” I rose to my feet, doing my best not to smile at his dramatic reaction. “Seriously? They can’t even move once they’re cemented to something.”
“They can too move,” he muttered, petulant and dark. “Those little grasping mouths, those weird frills... They’re terrible. Just waiting to eat whatever drifts past. Ugh! They’re as bad as mussels! Mussels definitely move,” he added, shooting me a glare. “I’ve seen videos. They scoot and some of them do this hop-float thing and it’s terrible!”
“You’re really upset about this,” I said wonderingly. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone afraid of bivalves before.” Guilt nibbled at me—he was seriously unnerved and here I was trying to make jokes. “I’m sorry,” I offered. “I didn’t realize. If I’d known, I’d have suggested something else. Maybe a drive around the island or something.” I was a little annoyed—he could’ve said something when I first suggested this destination, I thought, but... But I’d been in his place more than once, not wanting to admit what I’d perceived as a personal failing in front of someone I cared about. “Would it help if we went back to the street? There are no barnacles there.” I winced even as I said it—it still sounded dickish, but there was no taking the words back.
Oscar glared. “Don’t mock me. It’s a phobia. It’s not like I can help it!”
I nodded. “Of course not. I’m sorry. It’s just unexpected, is all.” He was still staring balefully at the very un-barnacled bench, jumping when I reached for his hand as if he fully expected a man-sized clam to have toddled up on the beach to make a play for him. “Sorry, sorry!”
“You’re laughing at me,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “And so are you!”
I glanced toward the trail, unable to deny the twinge of disappointment at seeing nothing more than sand, grass, and gravel. “Is she a, ah, intelligent haunt then?”
Oscar paused, shifting his gaze to me. “That’s the widely used term, yes. She’s very aware that she is dead. She is... sentient, I suppose is the best word for it.” He paused, then, with a small sigh, added, “Sometimes I feel like you’re doing a study when you ask me these things,” he admitted with a rueful little smile.
“Maybe I am. A personal one, of a sort. This is new for me, so I’m doing the only thing I’m good at here and gathering information.”
“A personal study sounds racier than I expect it truly is,” Oscar muttered, shooting me a baleful glance.
“It can be,” I chuckled. “I mean, it’d be an entirely different methodology. And for the record, I haven’t been intentionally making a study of your methods since we left Bettina. I... It’s just habits sometimes,” I admitted. “I’m trying to understand, to learn.”
He rolled his eyes, the tension receding from his posture just a bit. “If you have questions, ask. But I can’t promise I’ll know the answer. And if you want to make notes on me, tell me first.”
My face warmed. “I’ll do better.”
“That’s all I ask.” He sighed, then glanced “Now. Virginia. She’s ‘intelligent,’” he said after a brief pause, air quotes practically neon and flashing. “She doesn’t want us—me, specifically—down on the sands. She says it’s too dangerous. That...” He trailed off, staring at something—someone, rather—beside me. “Her body was never here, but it’s where she died.”
“How does that work?” I murmured.
“I have no idea, Julian. I’m not... I’m not an expert.” Raking his fingers through his hair, he watched the ghost—Virginia, I reminded myself, because she did have a name after all—as she apparently moved away from us, toward the incoming tide yards away. After a long few moments, he shifted his attention back to me. “I apologize,” he rasped. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’ve been distracted lately, upset about the entire situation with,” he made a gesture at his head, one I took to mean his abilities, “and then the show is not at all what I’d been lead to believe it’d be and...” he ran out of steam on a sigh. “I apologize.” He finally let me catch his hand, so I wove our fingers together, tugging him closer on the soft sand..
“This isn’t exactly how I pictured our romantic beach walk,” I admitted. “In fact, if I’d known about your phobia—”
“No,” he cut me off. “It’s... it’s ridiculous, I know.” He shrugged again, glancing back at the path and frowning. “She’s very determined,” he said. “She’s worked herself into a state about me going to the beach.”
“You, specifically,” I noted. “Not us. Just you.” My fingers itched for my phone and the notes app there. The compulsion to make notes, to start a research project, was great. Ever since my experiences with Reg, with freaking Boo Con, I’d been dying (well... no pun intended there) to start in earnest, but the sheer breadth of the potential project was daunting. You know people you can ask about this, a niggling little voice reminded me. Professionals even. Just answer Professor Tomlinson’s email. Or call Professor Demmings back—he’s left you two messages this week about the position.
Oscar nudged me, smirking and dragging me out of my incipient spiral. “Jealous?”
“Terribly,” I sighed. “I don’t know how I can go on like this. Alas, alack, et cetera.”
“Arse,” he grumbled, but smiled as he tugged me closer for a quick kiss. “Also, she’s taken her wailing to the water. We can make a break for it if you’d like.”
I hesitated. “Would you?”
He looked toward the water, seeing Virginia. “I think so, yes.”
“If you’re certain...”
His expression was amused, but it didn’t quite sit right on his face. “I thought you said no investigating this week.”
“I thought we agreed on it,” I rejoined sharply.
“I’m just confirming our agreement,” he snapped. “And no investigating means no investigating. So I’ll leave her be. She told me what she wanted to tell me. And I offered to help her, but she said...” He paused, glancing back at Virginia, back toward the lines of sea foam and rushing water. “She said she’s tried so many times to make someone hear her. I’m the first who’s actually listened.”
WITH SOME UNSPOKEN agreement, we abandoned our beach walk and went back up the trail to the sidewalk. I grimaced through most of it, trying to take as much of my weight as possible on my good leg but even with the help of the cane, the trail was too pitched and too soft for me to make it up without some more pain flaring to life in my bad hip. I was unable to stop the hiss and grunt of discomfort when we finally reached the pavement and I could adjust my weight better. Oscar darted me a guilty glance, but I tucked his hand beneath my arm and motioned toward Delia’s Café. “Looks like the path is clear,” I noted.
He nodded. “Um. I must admit something. Earlier, when those teenagers were arguing, there was a ghost between us and them.”
