A Ghost for a Clue Read online

  “Anyway,” Torula said, “you were saying? About the new job?”

  “Uhm, nothing. We can talk about it later. Have you decided what to order yet?”

  “Bram, this isn’t the first mind-numbing offer you’ve received. Is it from some company in Korea again? Or Dubai?”

  I gritted my teeth, unable to fill the following dead air with anything.

  Her shoulders drooped as she let out a breath. “Does this mean you flew all this way just to tell me you’re leaving the country? Giving up the dream?”

  “Giving up? No! I’ve held on all this time despite the—”

  “Held on? Past tense? So you’ve accepted?”

  “No, not . . . yet.”

  “Good. I mean, NASA’s where you belong.”

  That was exactly what she’d said so many years ago when I found out I’d gone past the astronaut height limit, and from thousands of miles away, she had helped keep me together—and the dream alive.

  She leaned back, visibly relaxing, as though I were some attempted-escapee she’d managed to detain. “Don’t be dazzled by the offers,” she said. “Your dream far outshines the money.”

  “I agree.” I let out a chuckle. “But really? Coming from the highest-paid botanist in California?”

  She crinkled her brow. “Don’t deflect. And don’t exaggerate.”

  “Who’s exaggerating?” Though I admit, I was deflecting. “I think every scientist where you work is overpaid.”

  Her eyes bored into mine. “If your job offer is from overseas, why are you here?”

  “Hi, there!”

  I jumped at the artificial waiter’s sudden reappearance.

  “Ready to order?”

  I swabbed my brow even though I wasn’t sweating.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Torula asked.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You just lost a good friend. It might have sent you into a quarter-life crisis, and that’s why you’re considering this offer.”

  “There’s no crisis.”

  “I’m assuming you cried for him?”

  I shrugged, getting a sudden sense of sadness that she and Franco never got a chance to meet.

  “Did you?” she asked.

  “Did I what?”

  “Cry for him.”

  Was she serious about that question? “Not as much as I did when he made me laugh.”

  “Hmm . . .” She pursed her lips, her gaze wandering sideward as I tried to figure out the point behind the question—but couldn’t.

  I gestured at the waiting waiter. “Come on, let’s order.”

  “No,” Torula said. “I’m sorry, Bram. I can’t stay.”

  “What? Whuh—why?”

  She bit her lower lip before answering. “Mom’s waiting at my apartment lobby with my little brother. She didn’t confirm she was coming over, so I—”

  “No worries. I can drive over to your place and—”

  “No. I mean . . .” She glanced about as if her answer were some bee buzzing about her head. “Mom and I rarely get to see each other, you know?”

  I sat slack-jawed for a moment. “We haven’t been together in sixteen years.”

  She swallowed, then flicked the hair off her brow. What could her mother possibly have told her? All the sparkle was gone from her eyes, and it looked like my chances of rekindling any warmth in them this evening had been snuffed out.

  I sighed. “Fine.”

  As soon as I said it, she slid out of her seat and grabbed her stuff, all too eagerly. “Thank you so much for understanding.”

  Do I? I stood up befuddled, having possibly overlooked a powerful reason why she would want to stay bound to life on Earth.

  Her family. Her closest of ties. Something I had lost long ago.

  What were the chances Torula would give that up for me? For good.

  6

  An Overpaid Botanist

  (Torula)

  Bram was right. I was an overpaid botanist. And deliriously happy with my job. In fact, I should have been the one paying the Green Manor for letting me work here.

  I approached the wax begonia enclosed in its glass dome, looking radiant as it flaunted scarlet petals around bright yellow anthers. “How are you feeling today, Michel?”

  “Fantastique,” came the begonia’s reply in its haughty, male voice. Its pot vibrated lightly, making the entire plant quiver.

  I placed a checkmark next to its botanical name, Begonia x semperflorens-cultorum, on my cliPad and smiled with satisfaction. Every day, I entered this lush botanical laboratory and talked to my plants—and taught them all to talk right back. Who needs to get paid to do that?

  Of course, it was all with the help of the Verdabulary program, recorded spiels, and well-concealed speakers, but the effect was breathtaking.

  From the wooden platform at the center of my nursery came the highly recognizable click-clack of high heels. I glanced at my iHub; I was supposed to go to Starr’s nursery in a few minutes, so why was she here?

  “Have you seen my phone, honey?” she asked, answering my question with her trademark pet name for anyone she considered likable. Which, for her, was almost everyone.

  “It’s right there, next to Bram’s jacket.”

  Starr picked up her mobile in its sparkling case covered with rhinestones, beads, and pearls. Given her bangled wrist and colorful fashion, no chunky iHub could possibly match her sense of style. It didn’t matter she was somewhat on the heavy side and a forty-something widow and mother of three; she was every bit glamorous.

  She raised a perfectly plucked brow on her beautifully made-up face framed by nicely highlighted strawberry-blonde hair. “Bram was here?”

  “No.” I climbed the steps to join her on the workstation platform. Me in my Henley shirt, camos, and a haphazard ponytail. “I picked up his jacket by mistake. Now I’m obligated to see him again to return it.”

  “Obligated? Since when did you not want to see him?”

  “Ever since I realized he’s leaving for a job overseas.” And making a horribly wrong choice. “Why reconnect with someone on a stopover to Dubai or Korea or Vanuatu, for all I care. I don’t see the point in a protracted goodbye.”

  “Why? You’re scared you’ll cry?” she teased with a wink.

  That little quip, touching on something I’d shared with her about my past with Bram, almost made me wince. I pulled out the barb before she could tell it stung. “I used my mom’s call as an excuse to abort dinner.”

  “You took a call on a date? That’s not very nice.” She crinkled her nose.

  “It was Mom. She had an early morning doctor’s appointment near my place, so she came to sleep over with my baby brother and—” Why am I bothering to defend myself? I waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not important. We can go now.”

  “You are such a KJ.” Starr tossed the jacket at me.

  I caught it deftly before it hit me in the face. The whoosh of Bram’s barely perceptible but unmistakable scent coursed through me like exhilaration at the brink of a roller coaster drop. Outwardly, I made sure to look unaffected and tossed the garment back on my chair and asked, “I’m a knee jerk?”

  “A killjoy! What’s so wrong with reconnecting? I like him.”

  “You do, do you?” I glanced at the tiny gold crucifix she wore every day around her neck. “He’s an atheist.”

  “Oh, how ironic. You seem like a match made in nerd heaven.”

  I frowned. “We’re friends. He doesn’t think of me that way.”

  She arched a brow and pursed her glossy lips, but I refused to read the taunt that flashed in her eyes. I marched down the steps, out of the greenhouse, and away from any more frivolous discussions about a man who’d only visited me twice in sixteen years—both times to say goodbye.

  I led Starr past my collection of specimen plants, each one in its glass cloche—bell-shaped enclosures that made my conservatory look like a jewelry store with the late afternoon sun glinting off the transparent dom
es.

  “See you later, guys,” I hollered.

  “Buh-bye!”

  “Au revoir.”

  “Tata!”

  “G’day, Torula.”

  “See yah!”

  It was a chorus of farewells from my garden that talked in a rich mixture of accents, personalities, and temperaments—and my heart swelled with immeasurable pride. It had been a long, awkward climb from being the introverted kid, who felt more at home talking to plants than to people, to becoming the scientist leading the project that got plants to talk right back. I couldn’t imagine leaving the Green Manor to work anywhere else in the world.

  We took a short, brisk walk to Starr’s nursery. Much larger than mine, it was divided into plots, each about the size of two pickup trucks, holding a variety of shrubs. I never could get used to the shift in atmosphere. Entangled amongst the branches and leaves were electrified wires and rods, metallic plates, crystals, magnets, and other paraphernalia Starr used in her experiments. She’d insisted there was order in the mess, even though it always looked like a mad scientist had gone berserk in there.

  Today, she was going to test if a jolt of electricity in addition to magnetite in the soil was going to yield larger papaya fruit. Poor papayas. Unless, of course, electricity was a pleasant treat for them.

  I walked past a dense cluster of plants, and the hair on my nape stood on end just before I got the shivers.

  How peculiar. I’d had the exact same feeling last night after I’d woken up to find my baby brother in my bedroom sleep-walking at three a.m.

  I moved a little closer to the bed of plants, and the tingling rose to my scalp.

  “I’ll set things up for the Carica papaya while you get the VeggieVolt ready,” Starr called out.

  “Right. I’m on it.” I shook off the eerie sensation and hustled across stone paths to the central platform of her greenhouse and settled down at the console. After I clicked on the VeggieVolt icon on her computer screen, it seemed to start up, but then it stalled.

  “I don’t believe it. I called I.T. to reinstall this, and they said they’d get it done.”

  “They did,” Starr said. “They sent someone this morning.”

  I stared at the frozen screen. “Well, it’s just hanging here like a dead program on a noose. I’m restarting everything.” I leaned back and resigned myself to the wait; as I sat there, my mind on idle, my eyes staring blindly at nothing, the hair on my arms stood on end.

  This is so weird. Was I coming down with something? With the computer back on, I clicked on the VeggieVolt and brushed the odd feeling aside.

  “Please don’t ignore me,” said a man, close to my ear.

  I gasped and turned, expecting Bram to be right next to me—but no one was there.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Starr.

  “Hear what?”

  It was the same phrase I’d heard last night at the restaurant, but I thought . . . it was probably—“Nothing,” I said, flustered, and quickly clicked on a program icon, navigating to the library of plants. Okay, Carica, Carica. There you go! I found the name and pressed enter.

  A soothing woman’s voice issued through the computer speakers declaring, “I am a Ficus Carica.”

  “What in heaven’s name?” Starr cried. “My garden can’t talk. What have you done?”

  “I don’t know.” I checked the computer display and realized I’d clicked the Verdabulary icon out of habit. “Wait a minute.” I frowned at Starr. “Why do you have my Verdabulary in your system?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.” A quick flashback instantly told me what might have happened. “Oh, no. The I.T. guy must’ve gotten things mixed up because I made the call about your software.”

  “How ya going, Torula?” It was the friendly male voice of my eucalyptus plant, which I suddenly realized sounded a lot like Bram.

  “Will you shut that program down?” Starr cried. “It’s giving me goose bumps.”

  “Right. Sorry.” I glanced at Starr and—froze.

  What? Is. That?

  There—just beyond arm’s reach from Starr—stood a badly smudged illusion of a man. Floating. Distorted. Misshapen. But somehow, recognizably . . . though vaguely, human. I slowly rose to my feet and gaped at the bewildering sight. Its features were blurry. No mouth. No nose. With a shadowy smear beneath its brow. Though the silhouette of its torso and arms were discernible, there was nothing but mist beneath its hips.

  This couldn’t possibly be . . . a ghost?

  The image slowly turned as it hovered, and a pair of golden eyes gleamed at me. A dark hole for a mouth gaped open on the specter’s face. “Cool burn,” said the Verdabulary.

  Starr screamed and ran down the pathway.

  The image held out a sprig of blue flowers, and then, it vanished. Starr rushed past me, heading out of the nursery, and only then did I realize the oddest thing about the whole experience. I wasn’t afraid.

  7

  What Did We See?

  (Torula)

  Six times in three hours. That was how many times Starr and I had tried to make it reappear. That illusion. That anomaly. That mystery.

  I stepped out of the elevator and trudged down the corridor to my apartment. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until simply walking to my door seemed beyond me.

  What did we see? Why couldn’t we reproduce it?

  Maybe the temperature had dipped too low. Or the humidity had gone too high. Or quite likely, time of day had been a major factor. Having had no other way to control that last aspect, we had packed up and agreed to try again at dusk tomorrow.

  I pushed open my apartment door and found some lights already on. Mom’s still here? The sweet scent of potpourri came to embrace me as I walked in. “I’m home,” I said under my breath, sending the greeting to my pots of fern, philodendron, and dracaena sitting next to windows filtered by lace. All the tiredness lifted from me as I imagined the day when I could bring the Verdabulary technology home so they could all greet me right back, and I smiled.

  Amidst my pastel-colored collection of flea market finds—an assemblage of vintage and shabby chic furniture—was my mother seated on the floor in a lotus position, meditating. Her long auburn hair fell in a bohemian twist down one shoulder. An aromatherapy candle glimmered nearby.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked.

  Mom opened one eye and peered at me. “Do I look anxious to you?” She closed both eyes again. “The reason one sits in the shape of a triangle is for stability and balance. It lets you sit strong like a mountain so your mind can be open like the sky.” She rose from the floor with the grace of a ballerina, her taut and slender frame clad in loose, cream-colored pants and a white halter top. My mind sent out a quiet wish that I had enough of her genes to look that good when I too neared sixty.

  “Do you literally watch your grass grow?” she asked. “I can’t imagine a reason for any botanist to do overtime.”

  “Do you need to go for another checkup tomorrow?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then why are you still here? What did the doctor say?”

  “Sorry, I can’t tell you,” she said as she slipped on her classy leather sandals. “Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  “Mom, you’re the patient.”

  “But I’m also a doctor.”

  I looked at her askance. “What happened at your check-up?”

  “My doctor peeved me, that’s what happened.” Mom’s voice remained calm even as she expressed aggravation. “He says I’m healthier than most women half my age, but that I should learn to accept the inescapable.”

  “Does he mean old age?”

  Mom cringed, though with her poise, it looked more like she had just closed her eyes to smell the herb-scented air. “I will not be a lemming to be led down that path just because no one has yet found a way to turn back.”

  I chuckled. As far as I knew, only a legal inquisition could pry the real age out of Dr. Triana
Jackson. “So everything’s all right, then?”

  “Of course. I’ve never been ill a day in my life.” She quickly reconsidered. “Well . . . excluding that time when I died.”

  “When you nearly died, Mom.” I glanced at the guestroom. The door was ajar. “Is Truth in there?”

  “Yes, sleeping.”

  I moved towards the bedroom, wanting to kiss my little brother goodnight.

  “Truth told me he saw a stranger in your bedroom last night,” Mom said, stopping me in my tracks.

  Oh, so that’s what this is about? Because Bram was in town, she wanted to scrutinize my sex life? “Truth was sleepwalking, Mom.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I raised a brow. “Am I sure he was dreaming, or that I wasn’t hiding a man in my closet?”

  “I believe in ghosts, you know. So you can tell me anything.”

  A sudden chill coursed through me. “That’s quite a leap, Mom.”

  “Did your brother wake you up in the middle of the night or not?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Did he not point out your visitor to you?”

  The haze lifted from my bleary recollection. Truth had pointed at a blank wall and giggled, then kept staring at the same spot as I carried him out of my room. But the explanation had seemed obvious. “He’s just three, Mom. He’s only beginning to distinguish between dreams and waking life.”

  “Was he also dreaming when he told you he needed to pee?”

  “Well, no, but . . .”

  “He had to be awake to recount it. Sleepwalkers don’t remember what they do. Did you not talk to him, and he talked back? Did he look at you and answer quickly? Did his eyes focus?”

  Yes, to all. But the last thing I wanted was to fan my mother’s eccentric flames. “Mom, I didn’t have a visitor, imaginary or otherwise, all right? I’m . . . going to get a drink.” I took a detour to my kitchen.