The Ghost of Emmy Silver

Chapter One

That monstrous black SUV had to go and ruin everything. What was it about people and their huge-ass cars, Emmy SIlver thought as she looked up at the sky, askance. There were foosteps, big thudding ones coming from some dude in roughened Timberlakes, and small dainty ones coming from a lady wearing six-inch stilettos. Really, lady?  You’re going to kill yourself in those shoes. 

The clouds were nice that day, at least. The air was crisp and the dewy pink of approaching sunset reminded Emmy of the new cashmere sweater she’d just splurged on. It was so soft, just like rabbit fur, just like this pavement. She could see the moon, a fingernail in a patch of blue, and she lifted up her own hand. At least the moon-fingernail wasn’t crusted with blood. 

And where was Raz? He was so cute. They could have been something. He could have been THE ONE. (He wasn’t, and she knew it, but comforted herself with the possibility anyway.) 

Raz, in fact, was being scooped up into an ambulance, and, Emmy realized, so was she. She said goodbye to the fingernail moon, to the clear, Autumn air, to the pinkish clouds and the setting sun. She said goodbye to the midterm essay about she’d been working on for too many hours that day, to her sister Ella who she’d meant to call before going on that bike ride with Raz, to her mom and her dad and her best friend Summer Rain. 

As the ambulance doors shut and she was hooked up to an IV, she waved hello to Forever Land.  

***

There were mountains in the distance. To her right, a huge, beautiful clear lake. To her left, a grassy wildflower meadow. It was the perfect temperature, the kind where you’re not even aware that there is a temperature. The sky was cloudless, the sun bright but not painfully so, and the tree leaves shimmered gold. 

There was also a man. Standing next to a canoe banked on the lakeshore. Looking right at her. 

As if in a haze, and removed of all will or cares or, really, thoughts at all besides the perfection of the moment, Emmy moved toward the man. 

“Nice day, isn’t it!” She said. He quirked an eyebrow and frowned. 

“Indeed. Welcome to Forever Land.” He motioned to the canoe and held out a hand as if to help her in. Emmy looked at him, confused. 

“I don’t get in canoes with strangers.” 

The man cleared his throat, looked just as confused as she did. She noticed then that he had a very nicely constructed throat, a truly beautiful jaw, and large, handsome hands. “Forgive me, my name is Fish.”

“Fish? Is that short for something?” She took his outstretched hand, and yes it was quite big,  and shook it with a firm grip. 

“Yes. Listen, you need to get in the canoe. We have to go to Forever Land headquarters, so you can register as a citizen--”

Emmy surveyed her surroundings with renewed interest. She looked behind her, couldn’t remember where she’d come from, and realized, then, that she had no idea what was going on. 

“Wait. What?” She shook her head. That sounded dumb. “What I mean, is, where am I? Who are you? What is Forever Land?”

Fish shook his head. “You’re supposed to know all this stuff. It’s just supposed to come to you.” 

“Well, it didn’t.” Emmy narrowed her eyes and backed away from Fish. He wasn’t being very welcoming, for all his ‘Welcome to Forever Land’ hooplah. And now, memories were beginning. The black car. Raz. The blood. The pain and the pavement. The fingernail moon. The shutting of the doors. The ambulance.

“Oh,” and then it came to her, clear as the water in front of her. “I’m dead.”

***

Patrick Silver texted his ex-wife with fingers shaking like an addict’s. This would be the first time he’d talked to her since Ella’s 8th grade graduation two years ago. 

PATRICK: 5 minutes away. At stoplight. Be thr soon.

His fingers gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles felt like they might unscrew themselves, waiting for the light to turn green. When it did, he gunned the gas and shot forward, wholly ungraceful, and managed to reach the hospital in three minutes, not five. He parked, didn’t allow himself a deep breath, and sprinted into the building, pushing past anyone in his path. 

My little girl, my little girl, my little girl. His shock prevented him from thinking any words other than those three, at least until he saw Ella in Marion’s embrace, and then he thought Ella, Ella, Ella. Emmy, Emmy, Emmy. Can’t be. No. No. 

He reached them and Marion opened her arms to include Patrick in their familial shock. The easiness of the move, the naturalness of it, momentarily shocked him. But only for an instant, and then he sheltered his second little girl between his chest and Marion’s , and everywhere were tears and shaking. 

“I need to see her,” he said, finally, and he went into Emmy’s room. 

***

Emmy turned away from Fish, almost forgetting that he was even there. Where did I come from? How did I get here?  But there was no evidence of her ever having “gotten” anywhere. From what she could remember, she just appeared. Right here, in this spot. She dug around in the dirt, looking for a hole. 

“Hey,” Fish said, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder that she promptly shoved off. “You can’t go back yet.”

“Yet? Yet! So I’m not dead forever? What if I kill myself here, will it take me back?” She ran to the water’s edge, ignoring his shouts.

“No! Come back here!” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. She shrugged out of his grip, but stumbled to her knees with the force of it. He placed himself in between her and the lake. “You’re dead, Emmy, you can’t go back. Right now, you have register with Forev--”

“I don’t give a flying crap about Forever Land. I need to go back, I can’t be dead, I need … I haven’t even found the One yet!” 

Emmy stood up and shoved Fish to the side, sending him tumbling into the canoe. Before he could stop her, she dove into the water, and was gone. 

“Idiot Fish,” Fish muttered. He righted himself from his fall, and dove in after her. 

***

Ella, Patrick, and Marion stayed in the ER lobby for a long time. Hours after the doctors had confirmed that there was nothing to be done, still they sat, bleary-eyed and filled with the expected kind of trauma and shock that explodes inside you like a nuclear bomb when you lose someone close. And of course they were shocked; it was unexpected, an accident, and they had no way to know that Emmy was still around. 

Fine, she wasn’t really around, at least, in the traditional sense of being able to use prepositions to describe one’s position within time and space. She was around in the cosmic sense, the sense of being a presence, a conscience, with will, and emotions, and a few tricks yet undiscovered. The moment her heart submerged under that lake in Forever Land, Emmy had ghosted. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, and the Exec’s had made a poor decision, putting novice Ferguson Fisher on her case. She was an anomaly, a fire-bright soul that wasn’t ready to be snuffed out. Usually the recently dead just got in that canoe and rowed peacefully to the other side. But Emmy’s soul was troublesome. She wasn’t done. 

After all, she still hadn’t found the One, her one True Love. And neither had her dad, or her sister, or her best friend Summer Rain. There was so much to do, and she would stay stuck between the two worlds until her work was done.