Awake and Dreaming - Kit Pearson [62]
Theo had trouble breathing. “Cecily …” she croaked. She stood up and faced her. “Your idea did work. I did go into the family.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Everything happened just like you said! I was always thinking about families, ones with four children and a mother and father. And I met the Kaldors on the ferry and they were perfect—exactly what I wanted!”
Cecily looked astonished. “They were on the ferry? You talked to them?”
“Yes! I wished I could live with them and I did! I belonged to their family until Easter. It was wonderful. The most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me! But then I started not to be there … to sort of fade … and then I was back on the ferry with Rae.”
“Well, I’ll be … that’s incredible, Theo! It’s hard to believe.”
It was hard to believe she was standing in the cemetery talking to a ghost, too, thought Theo.
“But how did it happen?” she asked.
“I don’t know. There’s no point in trying to explain these things,” Cecily said slowly. “I think your time with the Kaldors must have been a combination of both of our fantasies—mine and yours.”
“It did seem weird that I just wished to be there, and that they accepted me so easily. I couldn’t decide if it was a dream or magic,” said Theo.
Cecily mused on this. “I think it was both. An idea is like a dream—a dream of what could be. Your fantasy of being in a family was a dream—a wish, a daydream. And stories are magic. I’m so glad it happened, Theo, that you really belonged to such a special family for a while.”
“But I couldn’t stay!” burst out Theo. That seemed Cecily’s fault.
“No … You faded away just as my idea faded away—when I couldn’t solve the main problem of the story, that your time in the family was too perfect. Real life isn’t perfect, and good fiction has to seem like real life.”
“I liked it being perfect!” protested Theo.
“But you found the Kaldors again, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but it’s not the same! They aren’t perfect any more and I don’t belong to them—I’m just their friend, not their sister.”
“Friends are very valuable,” said Cecily. “Like gold. I never had many—you’re lucky. I was so surprised to see you with those four children, Theo. To see you again! I watched you playing here with them and I saw you looking out of the window of their house last week.”
“I saw you, too,” whispered Theo. “Did you cover me up?”
“Yes,” said Cecily gently. “I don’t usually go upstairs, but I couldn’t resist getting a longer look at you. Then I wished you could read my books, so I put one in the living-room.”
They exchanged smiles. But then Theo glanced at the plot and shivered as she tried to reconcile Cecily being buried there and Cecily sitting across from her.
“Are there other ghosts here?” she asked in a wavery voice.
“I haven’t seen any. It’s a myth that cemeteries are full of ghosts. If people linger on after they die, they linger in the places that meant the most to them. But this was my place. I came here every day of my life. At the end of it, it soothed me to know I’d be buried here.”
She stood up and beckoned Theo over to her grave. “Do you like my inscription? I left instructions for it in my will. An open book … that’s all that will save us, I think.”
Sometimes Cecily was hard to understand. “Save who—from what?” asked Theo.
“I think an open book symbolizes imagination. Only imagination will save people from their narrow, cramped expectations of life—like those my parents had.” She chuckled. “But enough of my philosophizing. When you’ve done nothing but think for forty years you get pretty pedantic.”
They stood there in silence, Theo as close to Cecily as she dared. Something told her it wouldn’t be right to touch her.
Beyond the plot brilliant yellow broom tumbled down the bank. The warming sun drew out its bitter odour. “I should go back,” said Theo. “They’ll wonder where I am.”
“I’ll come part of the