from shoulder to wrist. She shuddered for a moment, then let me move her hand, my fingers wrapped around hers, pointing her index finger where I willed it.
I scanned the page and quickly chose a phrase I hoped would express my difficulty in communicating with Jenny: I could not very well understand her.
Jenny gasped, but did not pull away from my influence. She whispered, “More.”
I helped her turn several pages and chose the line: my eyes sought Helen.
“Helen,” she whispered, her voice thinned with awe. “Why did you take my body?”
I went ahead to another page, chose another phrase: I must love him.
“Why did you leave my body?” she asked.
I folded over a few chapters of the book and from the page I found I pointed to the words something not right.
“Why are you still here?” she wanted to know.
I turned a few pages farther along: to comfort you, as well as I could.
Then I skipped forward several more pages and showed her: I am here; and it is my intention to stay till I see how you get on.
In a jarring trill, the phone rang, the sound rolling through the halls. I couldn’t remember how many phones Jenny’s family had. Three? Four? They all cried at once.
The spell was apparently broken. Jenny listened toward the hall for a moment—the sound stopped in the middle of the second ring—and Jenny put her hand into the book again, but she wouldn’t let me control her now. She sighed and left the book on the floor. She went to the bed and lay on her side, scanned the room, then asked, “Are you still here?
I tried speaking the word, but she couldn’t hear me, even when I shouted it. I tried flickering the lamp, then moving the curtain, but nothing worked. Finally I sat beside her and tapped her shoulder. Nothing. I tapped the back of her hand and she jumped.
She looked frightened at first, but then she lay her hand on the bedspread palm down, offering it to me. I drew a Y for the word yes on her skin and she shivered.
“Yes?” she asked. I wrote the Y again.
“Is your name Mary?” she asked with half a smile.
I wrote an N for “no.” She gave a small sound of surprise.
“Is your name Helen?” she asked.
I drew the Y again. Jenny closed her eyes for a moment and took a slow breath, in and out, before asking, “Are you an angel?”
I indicated that no, I was not.
Jenny’s smile dropped. “You aren’t evil, are you?”
Well, I was not without sin—I wasn’t sure how to answer. Finally I told her no.
“A ghost?” she asked.
Yes—I told her twice.
To test me again, I suppose, she asked, “Your name is Sarah, right?”
No, I indicated, and then along her arm I wrote with my finger in block letters as if I were a child practicing at a chalkboard: H E L E N. Jenny shuddered again and let out a breath as if she was chilled.
“Wow,” she whispered. “Helen is here to comfort me.”
Y for yes.
“Did you drown?”
Yes.
Perhaps my finger was cold on her skin, for she pulled the covers over her legs and wrapped her free arm around her waist. The other stayed on the bed, waiting for my answers.
“Why do you care how I feel?” she asked. “My father doesn’t—he hates me. I don’t even think my mother likes me very much.”
Silly girl, I said aloud, but she couldn’t hear me. Of course I care for you.
“And Billy used to like me,” she said. “But I ruined that.”
I wrote on the back of her hand: N.
“I did,” she insisted. “I don’t think he wants to see me again. I hurt his feelings.”
I was about to draw a heart on the back of her hand, but she asked another question: “Where is your sweetheart?”
Up her arm I spelled heaven.
“He must miss you,” she said, which froze me for a moment. How awful if he was missing me, but how much worse if he was not. Could she have sensed my worry? She drew a Y for yes on the back of her own hand as she said, “Yes, he does.”
Then she sat up with a new idea. “Do you know about a boy I met when I was away from my body?”
She held her hand out in midair and I wrote, N for no. I had no way of knowing what people, ghosts, angels, or other kinds of creatures she might have visited.
She nodded, trying not