“You’re. . .” I pointed at him. “You’re the second ghost.”
His voice was light and melodic. “Interesting. I was told that you were too hard-headed to teach, but you’re quite accepting.”
“Okay.” I held my hands to the side, trying to understand this. “Those last two dreams were real?”
“What is real?”
“No.” I shook my head. “We’re not doing that. I want to know if those moments were real or not because I figured they were crazy dreams. During this time of the year, I get crazy—”
“What is a dream?”
I glared at him. “Please.”
He took out white gloves and put them on. “Define a dream to me.”
“It is when. . .it really didn’t happen.”
“Dreams really do happen.”
I sighed. “But I mean, it is only happening in my head.”
“Everything only happens in your head.”
“Not in the waking moments.”
“The waking moments?” He laughed. The jolly sound rose in the room. “What is waking and what is dreaming? That is even a question I can’t answer.”
“Who could?”
“Whoever answers those questions.”
“You’re not giving me any answers.”
“You ask questions that assume answers within them. How can I answer those?”
“Okay.” I held my hands in the air. “My mother came to me while I was sleeping on a plane. We walked in the clouds and she told me ghosts were coming to teach me about love.”
The man nodded. “I am the second one.”
“So. . .this is really happening. This is real.”
“What is real?”
“Never mind.” I paced in my bedroom. “That wasn’t a question. It was a statement. So, wait a minute. I saw my mother?”
“You did.”
“That was actually her with the rope and bags attached to it?”
“It was.”
Stunned, I stared at him. “But. . .so. . .”
He smiled. “Are we done?”
“My mother is walking around in. . .this spirit world. . .with a rope around her neck?”
“She doesn’t truly walk. She more floats.”
“She didn’t go to. . .heaven or—”
“Don’t mention the other.” His brown face tinted red. “There’s no need to invite unnecessary beings our way.”
“Then, will I see my grandfather and grandmother too?”
“Perhaps, they are not in what you would call this spirit world. Maybe, they’ve moved on to where they belong.”
“Which is where?”
“Other lives. Other realms. Other moments in this living spiritual body that we call the universe.”
I didn’t know if that answered my question or further confused me. “My mother is in limbo?”
“I’ve heard her use that term.”
“Then, you’re in limbo?”
“If that is what you think of this realm.”
“Why are you there?”
He widened his eyes and appeared perplexed. “I don’t know. I’ll be here until I’m not.”
“And. . .” I tilted my head to get a better look at him. “Hold up. Mom said her past lovers would help. So. . .you two had a thing.”
“As much as a thing would be here.”
“Why did you change my room?” I walked over to the bed. Roses lay there.
“I like things to look nice.”
“Do I have to wear these pajamas? Can you change them?”
He shook his head. “Those pajamas are a part of you. The thing you carry just like those bags your mother drags around.”
I frowned at them.
“But I can add some flair.” He pointed.
A red robe covered me.
“Thank you. I don’t like looking at them. They remind me of. . .a rough memory.”
“Then, one day you’ll have to take them off.” He beckoned me forward. “We should begin.”
I swallowed. “Our lesson?”
“Yes.”
“And if I understand the lesson. . .then I won’t need to see the other ghost?”
“That is my understanding.” He held out his hand.
“Okay.” I walked over and reached for it.
As soon as he touched my finger, the world blurred and spun around me. We fell and I couldn’t see what we were descending into. I screamed. His hands gripped me harder. Those fingers were much more powerful than they suggested. My throat went hoarse. I tightened my hold on his hand and turned my gaze to him, trying to speak. He was calm and relaxed. That made me stop screaming.
Stay calm. Stay calm.
Holding on closer to him, I scanned this tunneling energy around us as we continued to fall. I couldn’t make anything out but constantly spinning light swirling around me as if I were at the center of a cyclone. As we dropped, the funnel around us flickered. Wind whistled past my ears. Scared out of my mind, I looked down. A dark expanse spread out below me. It seemed like it would take forever, although everything happened so fast.
And then the falling stopped. My feet sank to a vibrating ground. A wisp of brightness pierced the darkness. The light flickered in the center of my view and in a blink more lights illuminated everything around me as if someone flipped on a switch.
A large forest stood before me, but the trees were different. Instead of leaves, clocks dangled from the branches. Thousands upon thousands of clocks—big and small. A constant clicking filled the air as if it were counting each second that passed.
We entered the forest.
“This. . .” I scanned the whole place. “This isn’t like the place with the doors.”
“We are different.”
“You mean you’re different from last night’s ghost?”
“I am.”
“Then. . .this place. This. . .forest. It doesn’t exist for others?”
“Only if I bring them here.”
I did my best to understand. “These places are each of your creations?”
“My spirit’s creation.”
“Why are there clocks hanging from the leaves?”
His skin brightened. “Time changes like leaves. And the universe is the tree, always sprouting new time. New buds rise. Then it goes green. And then it browns, dies, and falls away.”
“So. . .we’re the leaves?”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
I shook my head. “What happens to the leaves when they die?”
“More important. What happens to the tree?”
I studied all the dangling clocks. “The tree remains.”
“That is correct.”
We walked forward on a brightened path.
The light brightened the closer we got. So close, I realized an intricate webbing of stars and red vines wrapped around most of the trees’ trunks. I followed those plump vines down to where they emerged from the ground. Dry clock leaves covered the forest floor.
The more we went further, the more the trees darkened. The trunks curved inward on both sides of the path. The hovering branches and clock leaves arched overhead, stretching out to cover the path.