branch library that day.
Cathy handed over her phone. “Call me when you’re done,” she said, as Jenny climbed out of the car. “Until twelve at the church and after that at home.”
“Okay.” Jenny swung her book bag over one shoulder.
“And don’t talk to strangers.”
“I won’t. I have lunch money. I’ll be fine.”
Do you think I would let anything happen to her? I said, but Cathy didn’t hear.
Finally she left us on the sidewalk in front of the library. Jenny waited just inside the entrance, trying not to pace, checking the clock every half minute, glancing out the windows in the front doors. I remembered how the last few minutes before I would see James again always felt like hours.
Don’t fret, I told her. But I did wonder if he would come. Life is complicated and there were scores of obstacles that might hinder him.
But Billy ran up the stairs at last and shoved open the doors at 10:33. Jenny’s shoulders relaxed.
“How did you know I would wait for you?” she asked him.
“You’re a nice person,” he said. “You wouldn’t just ditch somebody.”
Where are your manners? I scolded him.
“Sorry I was late,” he said. “When you tell your mom you want to study at the library I bet she believes you. Not so easy convincing Mitch. But I promised not to jump bail.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
He waved the question away. “It’s an in-joke.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Jenny asked.
He gave her a baffled expression and motioned toward the cavernous room beyond the information desk. “Study.”
I followed a few paces behind as Jenny and Billy went in search of an empty table. All the private study rooms were taken. They squeezed into a single carrel, partially screened off by a kind of desk blinder. They sat in plastic chairs pressed side by side—Jenny held her book bag in her lap.
“What do you want to study?” she asked.
Billy pulled out a few pages of folded notebook paper from the back pocket of his jeans. “Something I found last night.”
I don’t know what I had expected, but the sight of those pages, even before they were opened, covered in my writing, startled me so that the cord to the blinds beside me began to swing.
“What is it?” Jenny spread out the papers on the small desk.
“I think somebody lived our lives for us during the time we can’t remember.” His voice was quiet, but inside I could feel him spinning with excitement. “See, I think this comes first.” He turned over the top page and tapped on the word haunt.
I gripped Jenny’s shoulder, willing her not to be frightened.
She took the paper slowly. “Who would want to live our lives?”
“Someone who needed a body,” said Billy. “Who didn’t have a body of their own anymore.”
“A ghost?”
“Use your library voice,” Billy whispered.
“Sorry,” she whispered back. Billy watched her staring at the page.
“I found it in a box under my bed with some other stuff that wasn’t mine. See?” He took the papers back, ordered them, and ran his finger down the first one. “Two different kinds of handwriting.”
Jenny stared as if Billy had uncovered an ancient treasure.
“Two ghosts,” said Billy, “passing notes in class.” He was grinning now, and I sensed it was not because the idea of ghosts delighted him, but because he had bound himself to Jenny with a story she would find utterly compelling.
“I think this is him, the one who was me.” Billy moved his finger under the words as he read. “Where have you been? Please don’t be afraid. I would be a friend to you.”
James’s handwriting was stylish and angled, and even though Billy’s inflections were a little different as he read aloud, the tone of his voice was so like James.
Billy read on. “Follow me after class. I long to speak with you again.”
“Again,” Jenny echoed. That was all that was written on the front of the first page, but he turned it over and there was an entire page of writing, alternating between that jaunty hand and my small cursive lettering.
“How long have you been Light?” Billy read. “That’s still him. And also this word—Which?” He leaned close to Jenny as he whispered. “And here’s your ghost.” Billy pointed to the next word and she read it aloud.
“Write.” Jenny shivered.
A thrill coiled through me remembering this scene. We couldn’t speak aloud to each other during class because James kept forgetting that he could be heard—we had to write out our first questions and