Free Spirits by Julia Watts Read Free Book Online Page B

like me, he’s trying not to laugh so hard that Abigail will feel like we’re making fun of her. Finally, once we’ve gotten our breaths and answered Mom’s questions about what’s so funny, Adam launches into an explanation of how the dogs’ mouths are animated through computer graphics and actors’ voices are dubbed in. It’s a long, drawn-out explanation, which is not surprising since Adam will talk forever about anything that’s technical.
    When at last he finishes, Abigail says, “Well, call it what you like, but it’s still magic.” Then she says, “Miranda, could you ask your mother if we could stop by the river? I’d like to see if those spirits are still there.”
    When I ask her, Mom checks her watch. “Okay, but it’ll just be for a few minutes. We’ve got to get home by midnight so Adam’s dad can pick him up.”
    There are no streetlights by the riverbank, and the sky is black velvet. Mom gets a flashlight out of the trunk so we won’t trip over roots or rocks. I hold the flashlight in one hand and the mirror in the other as we make our way to edge of the water.
    “There he is!” Abigail says. “Do you see him, Miranda?”
    I shine the light near the figure, but not directly on it. It’s a boy, a couple of years older than Adam and me, maybe, wearing a Confederate Civil War uniform that hangs loosely on him because he’s so thin. His cheeks are sunken in, and his eyes are hollow even though he looks young enough to still have baby fat.
    “Hold up the mirror so I can talk to him,” Abigail says, and I do.
    “Hello,” Abigail calls. “I’m in the mirror. Can you hear me?”
    “I can hear you.” It’s an older boy’s voice, on the verge of changing, with a Kentucky twang.
    I look back at Adam and Mom. “Can you hear him?”
    Adam nods.
    Mom shakes her head, which isn’t surprising since she can’t hear Abigail anymore either.
    “My name is Abigail,” Abigail says from the mirror. “I died of scarlet fever when I was twelve. I usually stay in a house, but my friend Miranda has discovered that I can travel if I’m inside a mirror.”
    “Hit’s a pretty mirror,” the ghost boy says. “My mama had one just like it. My name’s Virgil Thomas. I was a soldier camped out in these parts.”
    “Did you drown in the river?” Abigail asks.
    Virgil laughs. “Drowning was what got me in the end, but it was kind of a race to see what was gonna do it. I got caught where some mini balls blew up some fellers and a bunch of their teeth and chunks of their bone got stuck in my arm, and I got real sick. Took a fever, got the flux. One night I woke up in my tent just burning up and feeling like I’d die right there if I didn’t get me a drink of water. I couldn’t hardly walk I was so weak from the flux, so I crawled to the river. I musta passed out from the fever, face down in the water. So it was a drink of water that kilt me.”
    “Is this riverbank where you stay when you’re in the earthly realm?” Abigail says.
    “Yes, miss. I can’t go no farther than them trees over yonder.”
    “When I was here before I saw other spirits, too,” Abigail says.
    “They’re around here somewhere,” Virgil says, but he pronounces “somewhere” like “summers.” “Adahy’s the little Injun boy’s name. He got bit by a water moccasin in this river— that’s why he’s here. He’s real shy when it comes to the living, but he’s a right nice little feller. Can’t speak no English, but he can kindly act out things so I can understand them. Now the other one—she don’t speak no English neither, but she speaks a different tongue than Adahy does. She paces and cries more than she talks. She ain’t been here as long as me and Adahy. Sometimes she’ll let him sit next to her and hold her hand, but she screams bloody murder if I try to get close to her. I try to tell her I don’t mean no harm, but she can’t understand me no better than I can understand her. I don’t even know her