"How did you come to be like this?" I ask him.
He sighs and floats closer to me. "I lived during the great depression," he says. His dark eyes are full sadness. "I....actually it would be better if I could show you."
I am now very confused. "What do you mean by show me?"
He breaths a laugh. His ghostly breath is cool and sends shivers up my spine. "For me to show you, you must sleep."
"Sleep?"
"Lay down and close your eyes," he tells me.
I purse my lips. "I can't fall asleep quickly."
"Don't worry," he says. "Just lay down."
I do.
"Close your eyes."
I do.
As I lay there I can feel the coolness of his presence. There is an eerie tingle inside of me. I feel him rest his hand just above my head. He doesn't touch me, not that he could anyway, but I still know he is there.
"Now, Aaliyah," he says softly. "Open your eyes slowly."
I do as he says. What I see I cannot process. I am no longer on my bed in my room. It takes me a minute but I figure out where I am. I am in the garden behind my house. Right underneath my favorite willow tree. But something is wrong. There is no stone bench and the tree is much smaller. The tree behind my house is very wide, this one, I can easily wrap my arms around.
I look at my surroundings to see what else has changed. The house is this there, the flower beds are in the same places, but there are no flowers. The stone path is different too, in fact, it's not even stone, just dirt.
"This is what the garden looked like when I lived." A voice says from behind.
I turn to see a good looking boy. I don't recognize him, but he looks very familiar. He has wavy blond hair and kind hazel eyes. His skin is healthy, clear and tan.
"Who are you?" I ask.
"Don't you know?" he laughs. "We were talking not even two minutes ago."
I gasp. "Sam?"
He nods. "Yes. This is what I looked like when I lived. And this is what I look like in the dreams of humans."
"Dreams?"
"I can, well ghosts can go into the dreams of humans. I don't know how it works," he says. "But yeah."
"You said something about the great depression?" I say.
"Yes. I was born February 26 1918. By the time I was twelve the depression had hit the US badly. My family was not affected at first. We were quite wealthy. I didn't really notice it until I was fifteen. Thats when my dad started losing money. He would come home from work every night very upset. He would go into his study and make phone calls all night. Sometimes he would leave for days or weeks at a time. We began to live in poverty. Sometimes there was no water or food. The winter of 1937 was the worst. On the best nights we would have a small bit of meat and some grain. We still lived in this house, but we couldn't afford it much longer. There was no electricity. We barely managed a fire."
When he finishes I realize my mouth is hanging open. I quickly closed it. "That's so sad."
Sam laughs. "That's not the worst part. I still haven't told you how I died."
"Oh," I say softly.
"It was about two months before my eighteenth birthday. My dad had started to lose it. He talked about killing himself just to feel better. Then he and my mom began to fight." He looks to the house. Then back to me. "Follow me."
