Chapter 1: For the Sake of Your Heart Gemma Can I give you a little advice? In my fifteen years on Earth, it''s the one and only thing I know for sure. So please, for the sake of your heart, your hope, your life , hear me when I say this: Never fall in love with a ghost. Chapter 2: Meeting Gemma Carroll Jimmy It''s a living nightmare to be trapped inside this graveyard. Or, more to the point, a dying nightmare, seeing as how I''m buried here. For years I tried everything I could think of to escape, to be free . But after the main gates were chained shut and the living stopped coming, I gave up hope of ever breaking through the ruddy force field that keeps me here. Then, about seven years ago, Gemma Carroll tumbled into the graveyard. And now? Now I''m back to dreaming of freedom.
Gemma changed everything. It was early autumn the first time she climbed over the graveyard''s mossy stone wall. She was younger then, with dark, bobbed hair, all giggles and whispers and knobby knees, wearing shoes that didn''t match--one white, the other deep blue. "Come on!" she whispered across the wall once she''d landed on her feet. "It''s easy!" The St. Agnes bell tower tolled four o''clock as the face of another girl--this one with thready blond hair and close-set eyes--popped above the top of the wall. "Are you sure it''s okay?" the girl whispered. "Sure, I''m sure!" Knobby Knees said, but from her skittish look about the place I could tell she was nervous.
Which was understandable. After all, she''d landed in a graveyard. The second girl came over, her legs shaking as she worked her way down the ragged stones. She had mismatched shoes, too--one blue and one white--and I remember wishing I''d had a chum like that at their age. Someone willing to swap shoes to bind your friendship. All I''d swapped as a kid was fear and lies. "Where is he?" the blond girl asked once she''d landed. She looked to be about seven or eight, same as Knobby Knees, but with a suspicious air about her and an unhappy mouth.
"There!" Knobby Knees said, pointing out a gray squirrel scampering up the gnarled trunk of the old walnut tree. "Are you sure he has it?" "Positive!" Knobby Knees raced for the tree. "Look! There''s a nest!" she called, pointing into the branches. "I bet he''ll stash it there." As Knobby Knees began to climb the tree, I watched from my usual haunt at Lionel Finnegan''s tombstone. Lionel''s spirit had been bound to the graveyard for three days, then vanished, as did most of the souls laid to rest here. How they escaped the force field remains a mystery to the five of us spirits trapped here--a mystery we''d really like to solve. "I think I can get up to the nest!" Knobby Knees called from her perch on a low branch.
She pointed above her. "It''s right there!" Curious, I drifted up to the nest to see what the cheeky critter had made off with, if anything. The squirrel screeched at me, but I just laughed and pulled a face at him. It wasn''t like he could hurt me. Inside the nest I spotted a sparkling earring. An expensive one, from the looks of it. There were other bits and bobs in there, too--a blue-and-yellow marble, a bottle cap, some coins. "Is it an emerald earring you''re chasing after?" I asked.
This was met with silence. Of course. The living can''t see or hear us spirits. It had been a long time since anyone had entered the graveyard, and I''d forgotten that my voice would sound like nothing more than the wind. But Knobby Knees did hear me. "Yes!" she cried, then searched around for where my voice had come from. When she looked up again toward the nest, she went wide-eyed. "A ghost ," she gasped, and promptly fell out of the tree.
Her friend ran over, calling, "Gemma! Gemma, are you all right?" I drifted down to her. Not that I''d have been able to help her if she''d gotten hurt, but it was my fault she''d fallen. And also . she''d heard me! She''d understood me! In the eternity of my time in the graveyard, that had never happened with a living soul. Gemma scrambled to her feet. "Are you a . a pirate ghost?" Her face was flushed with hope. "A pirate ghost?" I asked with a laugh.
"What makes you think that, lass?" "The way you''re dressed? How you talk?" If a tattered shirt and trousers made me a pirate in her eyes, she had a lot to learn about sailing the seven seas. But who was I to disappoint? "Aarg!" I growled, lunging as I pulled a fearsome face. She squealed and backed away with a giggle. "Gemma?" her friend asked. "Who are you talking to?" "Him!" she cried, pointing to me. She tilted her head to the side a bit and asked me, "What''s your name?" I gave a sweeping bow. "Sir James Waterford, at your service." I threw in the "Sir" as part of the game, tho pirates aren''t exactly noblemen.
Then I added, "But I''d be pleased if you''d call me Jimmy." "What are you smiling at?" the blond girl demanded. "At him!" Gemma cried as she pointed to me again. "His name''s Sir James Waterford!" "But there''s nobody there!" "She can''t see me, Miss Gemma," I said. "Or hear me." "Well, why can I?" Her friend stomped her white shoe. "Quit faking! There''s nobody there!" "But Lexy, there is ," Gemma said. "He''s a ghost.
And he''s right there ." "There''s no such thing as ghosts ," the Lexy girl said with another mighty foot stomp, this time of the blue shoe. "Stop lying!" I sensed company, and when I turned I caught sight of the Colonel lurking nearby. Behind him, blowing in like a storm cloud, was Haggy, giving us a keen look through her little round spectacles, her long silver hair as wild as ever. Gemma could see them, too. "There''s more of you?" she squealed. "Ghosts knockin'' about in a graveyard?" I asked with a grin. "You don''t say.
" Her friend looked around frantically. "Where?" "Right there!" Gemma cried, pointing to the lot of us. Haggy''s frown was dug in deeper than usual, but the Colonel hitched his thumbs behind the straps of his overalls and looked amused. "She''s a kid, Haggy. She''ll outgrow it." "What''ll I outgrow?" Gemma asked. Before any of us could answer, Lexy said, "This isn''t fair! Why do you get to see them and I don''t? I''m going home!" Gemma chased after her, calling, "Lexy, wait!" She stopped when she reached the wall and turned to me. "Bye, Jimmy! See you later!" Then she toed her way up and over the crumbling stones.
"A Seer," the Colonel said after a moment. "And one who''s not afraid. That''s a first." Haggy pinched a look through her round spectacles. "That girl''s trouble. If she comes back, I''m doin'' a Fright." "What? No!" I said. "What if .
what if she can help us escape?" Haggy shot me a look. "And how would she do that?" Shotgun and Trip--the final two spirits of our graveyard crew--descended, hovering next to the old walnut tree. "Yo!" Shotgun called out. "What''s happening?" Haggy was quick to answer. "Not much." The Colonel and I stayed mum. Shotgun had a way of adding fuel to any argument. "What''s wrong, Trip?" Haggy asked, neatly switching paths.
"You look depressed." "Man, I''m bored out of my mind," Trip answered. "Aren''t we all?" Haggy agreed. "Do a perimeter. It always helps." Then she drifted off to her haunt by the Bergmann mausoleum, which she''d claimed as her own after the Bergmann spirits had moved on. "I think I''ll patrol the main gates," the Colonel said. "Who''s coming?" "Might as well," Trip said, and Shotgun nodded.
Then the three of them drifted across the graveyard while I went back to Lionel Finnegan''s stone to think. My body had been buried here first. The others had lived in the physical world longer--Haggy by almost fifty years--but I''d been trapped inside the stone walls the longest. On that account, I should have been the one to say what was what in the graveyard, but it didn''t work that way. To the rest of them I wasn''t James Waterford, or even Jimmy. I was just "the Boy" or "Brit Boy." And with a flesh-and-bone life that had ended at fifteen, I couldn''t argue about that. I was the youngest of the Ethereals--the nickname the Colonel had given us--and Haggy and the Colonel were the oldest, so they called the shots and I mostly stayed mum.
I was deep into thinking of ways I might stop the others if they decided to do a Fright on Gemma when a ladder was pushed over the wall near where the girls had climbed it. "Daddy, I don''t need a boost," came Gemma''s voice, and in two shakes of a lamb''s tail she''d gotten herself into the graveyard. "Look who''s back," I said as an unfamiliar happiness swept through me. "Shh!" she whispered. "My mom and dad think I hit my head when I fell out of the tree. They said they''ll take me to the doctor if I keep talking about ghosts." "Ah," I said, noting that both her shoes were now blue. I gave her a piratey grin.
"So maybe I should disappear?" She giggled, "You''re funny." Then she put a finger to her lips and went quiet because all at once, there was her father. Mr. Carroll was a jaunty chap with a head of thick black hair, a trimmed stubble beard, and dark-rimmed spectacles. "Which tree is it, Button?" he asked her. "That one right there," Gemma said, pointing. Her father hefted the ladder and set off. He went right past me without a glance and walked with long strides through the graveyard''s tall grass and wild.