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  “Danny, wait!” I call after him, and then I realize, just like that, that he is gone, along with the mysterious charged feeling that lingered in the air throughout our conversation.

  I realize that I’m shaking. What just happened? Where did Danny go? Did I imagine the whole thing? No, of course not. I shake my head, as if to rattle some sense into my brain.

  “Harper!” Chase calls again.

  I run the length of the trail, burst back into the park, and keep running. I find my brother by the playground, looking rather sick and clutching a bag of unfinished fudge.

  “Let me guess,” I say. “You didn’t win?”

  Chase shakes his head no. “Nothing but a stomachache.”

  “I told you that a fudge-eating contest was stupid,” I say, but my mind is a million miles away. I can still feel Danny’s fingers on my cheek, the pressure of his thumb tugging at my hair. Only two days in Oak Leaf, and already I’ve got it bad for a guy…a strange, mysterious, amazing guy unlike anyone else I’ve ever met before.

  The trouble is, I don’t know when I’ll see Danny again. He gave me no clear idea of where he lives, no phone number, no Facebook information. I spend the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday trying to find out about him. I even ask Uncle Lenny if he knows anyone my age named Danny, and he says no.

  Chase and I start at Oak Leaf High on Wednesday. The building is just as rinky-dink as I expected, but although some of the kids in my classes are hicks and potheads, not everyone’s that bad. I sort of make friends with a girl named Aimee who’s in Geometry with me. On Thursday, I ask her if she knows anyone named Danny, if he ever went to school here or anything. I tell her his age—seventeen—and describe his appearance.

  She’s never heard of him. Weird….

  And then on Friday evening, when I’ve just about given up hope, I find him. It’s the day before Halloween, and I’m kind of moping around, wishing I was back at home and getting ready for Aaron’s party tomorrow night. Instead, I’m stuck here, not knowing anyone at my new school well enough yet to make plans with them. Chase and I begged Mom to let us drive home this weekend and see our friends, but she was dead-set against it, saying that we ought to focus on getting settled in here first.

  Now I’m sitting on the back porch of the farm house, listening to my iPod and wishing I was anywhere but here, when I get that feeling again—that strange, shimmery, mysterious feeling I had on the trail at the park last Saturday.

  I pull out my ear buds, turn off the iPod, and listen, straining to hear anything unusual above the night noises that surround me, the sound of the TV show Uncle Lenny’s watching inside the house.

  And then…

  “Harper!” Danny’s voice, little more than a whisper, floats to me across the expanse of back yard.

  I stand up and run across the leaf-littered grass, not stopping until I reach the trees that border the yard, beyond the rickety barn and shed. How did I know exactly where Danny would be? I just knew. The guy sure likes the woods.

  He steps away from the overhanging foliage and grins at me, cute and cocky and full of an almost ethereal light that lingers only a moment before vanishing. “Harper,” he repeats, touching my arm.

  “Danny!” I say. “How did you know where to find me?” My head is spinning; my breath is short. Danny is a riddle.

  He shrugs. “I know my way around this town. But, please, be quiet. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

  I take a step backward. “But why not? My mom and Uncle Lenny aren’t weird about me having guys over, if that’s what you think. One thing I’ll say for Mom is that she isn’t strict. Uncle Lenny, either. He can really party when he wants to.” I tug Danny’s arm. “Come on, come meet them. Then maybe we can rent a movie or something. It’s about time I had some fun here.”

  Danny laughs. “Not yet, Harper. I can’t meet your family right now, just trust me on that. But as far as having fun…we can have plenty of that on our own.” There’s a mischievous lilt to his voice, and I giggle.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Come on!” Danny tugs my hand, and we disappear into the woods, reemerging after a little while into a moonlit clearing. At the center of the clearing there’s a hill, a perfectly round mound of earth encircled by plump orange jack-o-lanterns. Spread across the top of the hill is a white tablecloth, upon which an elaborate picnic basket overflows with food. The sky has grown darker by now, and stars twinkle above us, pure and unadulterated by city lights.

  I gasp. “Danny! What is this?”

  He shrugs simply. “Don’t you like picnics?” Without waiting for an answer, he strolls across the clearing and comes to a stop at the base of the hill. Reaching down, he lightly touches one of the jack-o-lanterns there, and as I watch, they all flicker on, warm orange light seeping through their perfectly carved eyes and noses and mouths. More miraculous that that, a dozen white pillar candles shimmer into flame at the top of the hill, illuminating the pristine cloth and the picnic basket.

  I gasp again, my heart lodging in my throat. “Danny!” I cry. “How did you do that?”

  He turns back, smugly satisfied, and winks at me. “Magic,” he answers simply.

  I stare at him, uncomprehending. “Magic?” I haven’t believed in magic since I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. But still, there seems no other explanation. That weird, shimmery feeling in the air whenever Danny’s just about to make an appearance, the way he lit those jack-o-lanterns and candles in one svelte motion, even his vague avoidance when I ask him questions.

  “Come on.” Danny attempts to pull me from my reverie, tugging me toward the top of the hill. “I hope you didn’t have dinner yet.” He grins easily, and I can’t believe how nonchalant he’s acting about this whole “magic” thing.

  I refuse to budge. “No,” I say. “Danny, this is really nice of you and everything, but I need to have some answers before we do anything else. Please respect that, and tell me why you’re so mysterious.” I wrap my arms around myself, shivering, wishing I’d put on a heavier jacket and gloves.

  Danny notices and takes care of the problem immediately, sliding his arm around my shoulders. But it isn’t his body heat that makes me warm; it’s something else entirely. One minute I’m freezing; the next, Danny touches me, and I’m warm through and through, like I just drank a big mug of hot chocolate.

  As enticing as the warmth is, I step away. Losing contact with Danny, I’m cold again. But I don’t care. “See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about! Why am I so warm when you touch me? I feel like I stepped into a heated house! How do you do things like that? How did you get onto the trail where I met you last weekend? The trees are really dense, and I would have heard you if you’d been pushing past branches and stepping over twigs! And how did you light those pumpkins and candles? And why don’t you want to answer any of my questions? And why are you so dead-set against meeting my family? And—”

  Danny cuts me off. “Whoa, Harper, calm down! Did you say I was ‘dead-set’?” He laughs. “That’s a good one.”

  A chill skitters over my skin. “What do you mean, a good one?” All the stubborn strength has seemed to ebb out of me, and now, to my surprise, I’m somewhat frightened.

  “Come here.” Danny sighs understandingly, wraps his arm around my shoulders. Again, I’m warm; even my bare, gloveless fingers are warm. Together, we walk to the top of the hill. Danny reaches for my hand, and I find myself automatically reciprocating, sparks of warmth and cold and dark and light crackling between our skin.

  For a moment, I forget where I am. I forget how much I hate being in Oak Leaf, how much I miss my friends, the disappointment of not being able to drive back home for Halloween weekend. I even forget to text Mom and let her know where I am. No doubt she’ll freak when she comes out into the dark yard and finds me missing, but I can’t worry about any of that right now. Everything seems to hinge on Danny. I want to know about him. I want to be close to him—but not until he gives
up his secrets.

  “Sit down, Harper,” he invites, gesturing at the white tablecloth, a pristine picnic blanket atop the dried-out grass. I sit and watch as Danny opens the picnic basket, then gasp at what I see inside—beautifully latticed pies and fresh fruit and wedges of cheese and choice cuts of chicken and turkey. No red meat, I notice. How could Danny have guessed? Propped against the corner of the basket are a bottle of champagne and two glass flutes.

  I look at Danny in wonderment. “Where did you get all this?” I demand. “How were you able to buy champagne? Danny—”

  He holds up a hand. “Shhh. First things first. You’re right about what you said—I need to respect that you have questions, and those questions need to be answered. It’s just that I don’t think you’re going to find any of this easy to believe.”

  I look at him, tilting my head critically. “Try me. I find a lot of things about you hard to understand, as it is.”

  “True.” Danny tightens one arm around me, uses the other to prop himself up as he leans back on the hilltop and studies the star-studded sky. It’s peaceful and pretty up here, surrounded by glowing jack-o-lanterns and the warm light of a dozen candles. Silence reigns for several minutes, but I let it. I know Danny is thinking, trying to piece together the words he wants to say.

  At last, he turns to me. “It’s hard to know where to begin, Harper.” He sighs again. “So I guess I’ll begin at the beginning. You see, I was just like you once upon a time—a normal teenager with a normal family, going to school, living a normal life..”

  “Did you go to Oak Leaf High?” I asked, intent on the story.

  “It’s the only high school in town; of course I went there.”

  “But my friend Aimee has lived in Oak Leaf her whole life and gone to Oak Leaf High for the past couple years,” I protest. “I asked her about you, and she said she didn’t know you. If you’re really our age, she should know you. It’s not a very big high school.” I don’t think I’ve ever been more confused in my life. Danny is more than a riddle; he’s a conundrum.

  “It makes sense she doesn’t know me.” Danny fidgets on the tablecloth, reaches into the picnic basket and plucks a handful of fat, juicy grapes. He studies me appraisingly for what seems an eternity, then asks, “What year were you born, Harper?”

  What a bizarre question! But I tell him.

  There is a long pause. Finally, Danny says, “I was born in 1955.”

  I gasp, reflexively withdrawing my hand from his. “1955? What are you talking about, Danny? That’s crazy!”

  He ignores me. “Like I told you, I had a normal family and a normal life. I lived with my parents—our last name was Benson—and my brother Dave in a little white frame house on Big Hill Road. It’s still there, in fact, but I have no idea who the present owners are. Anyway, we were a close family—went to church Sundays, ate dinner together every night, had a cat and a dog, everything was perfect, you know? My mom dressed like June Cleaver and baked pies for dessert. It was a stereotypical 50’s kind of household, even in the 60’s.

  “My parents were pretty much untouched by what was happening in the real world—the war, the drugs, the hippies, the sexual revolution. So it was easy, once Dave and I got older, to rebel a little bit. We never did anything all that bad, but, you know, boys will be boys.” Danny smirks knowingly at me. I can’t believe I’m really hearing what’s coming out of his mouth.

  He continues. “When you live in a place like Oak Leaf, you’ve got to create fun of your own. We hung out with our friends, played practical jokes on people, ran wild on Halloween, experimented a little with alcohol and cigarettes. Once Dave even got hold of some weed, and we tried that and had a decent trip—but then, you know, I decided drugs really weren’t for me. We went on dates, messed around with girls, and all the while, our parents were sitting at home, Mom with her sewing and Dad with his paper.”

  He shrugs. “I’m not saying everything we did was right; just telling you like it was. Then, one stormy night in 1972, I had dropped my date off at her house and was heading toward my own. To tell you the truth, I don’t know I managed to get her back to her parents in one piece; we’d been at a party, and I was pretty sloshed. Well, you can imagine what happened next. The road was slick with rain; I swerved, crashed through a guard rail, and found myself trapped in a car that was hurtling down the side of an embankment.

  “Oak River was below me, but I never got a chance to see it. Before I reached the bottom, the car crashed into some rocks at the bottom of the embankment, and the lights went out behind my eyes, and I was gone.”

  I gasp, uncomprehending yet still affected by his story. “What happened next?” I managed.

  Danny shrugged. “I woke up in the woods; it was light out, and my first thought was that somehow I had gotten out of the car alive, after all, and ended up knocking out in the woods till morning. But I quickly realized that I was miles from Oak River. And when I went back to my house, I found my parents and Dave grieving over me. I tried to tell them I was here, that they didn’t have to be upset, but they couldn’t see me or hear me, no matter what I did.” He shudders. “It was probably the worst moment of my…I can’t say life, can I? Of my existence.”

  I shudder, too, just imagining it. But if Danny isn’t alive, if he died a long time ago, that must make him a….My hand flies to my mouth, but Danny keeps on talking.

  “I went to my own funeral, Harper,” he says. “Of course, no one knew I was there. But I saw myself—I saw my dead body, dressed up in a suit and lying in a coffin. That’s when I knew for absolutely certain that I was a ghost. So I’ve pretty much been hanging around in the Oak Leaf woods since 1972,” he concludes.

  “I’ve found I can make myself invisible. I have limited magical powers, like the ability to vanish and reappear in a different location, to light candles from a distance, to make things I want float over to me. Anyone who touches me will feel of the warmth of the magic and be warm themselves. I can do human things, too—I can eat food without it falling into thin air. I can spy on people, find out the good gossip in the town. I can even steal—clothes, groceries—and no one ever suspects.”

  I gape at him. “This food is stolen, is that what you’re saying?”

  He cracks up. “After all I’ve told you, all you can think about is whether or not I stole this food? Of course I did. But I have to steal. If I didn’t steal, I’d starve. Not sure what would happen then, but food sure does make the afterlife a lot more entertaining. And I’ve got to keep my style up to date, right?” He plucks at the material of his T-shirt. If he’s a ghost, no wonder he isn’t cold out here….

  I shake my head, numb with shock, and rest it between my knees. “So…” I ask at length, “are you just going to be a ghost forever? Just keep living—or, I’m sorry, after-living, on and on and on?”

  Danny glances at me. “I take it you believe me, Harper?”

  I look into his eyes. He really has beautiful eyes. “What choice do I have?” I ask. “It all adds up.” To my surprise, this is the truth; I do believe him.

  He breaks into an easy grin. “I knew you would, Harper. You’re the first person I’ve revealed myself too—willingly—for years. When I saw you that day on the trail, I could tell you were sensitive, perceptive, intelligent.” He touches my chin with his fingers. “I guess I will go on and on and on, like you say, but people like you make it all worthwhile.”

  He moves ever so slightly closer to me, takes my chin in those warm, magic-sparking hands of his, and tilts my face upward. We kiss and kiss and kiss. Like everything else about him, the kiss is tingly and exciting, mystical and otherworldly. It’s like a thousand perfect kisses bottled into one.

  I sigh with delight, and Danny strokes my hair. At last we pull apart, and I shake my head at him in wonderment. “You really clear up a lot of misconceptions about ghosts, you know that?” I say. “You’re not pale, you’re not transparent, and you’re definitely not a cold fish!”

  He laughs a
nd laughs, and I sigh again, just enjoying the sound. I like his laugh. I like everything about him. Who cares if he is a ghost? Danny Benson just made moving to Oak Leaf worthwhile.

  # # #

  About the author

  Riley Moreno has lived in Minneapolis for the last 13 years. She loves the uptown, the Walker Art Center, going to the movies and hanging out with her friends. She mainly writes young adult paranormal romance and can be super lazy at times.

  The other parts of this 5 part short story series are Never Lost, Halloween, One weekend in November, and the other 2 parts are due to be out by end of November.

  Connect with me online:

  http://rileymoreno.blogspot.com