Ghost Time

said, and believe it or not, they shut up. They both shut up, and they looked at me, waiting.
    I took a deep breath and said, Knox, Mel wants to have a talk—she wants you to have a talk with Heather, tell her Mel and I are friends. She also invited me to spend the night. Is that cool? I said. Tell him we can have the talk or he can just say yes , Mel said. I raised my right hand: Talk with Heather or sleepover, which would you rather have? Knox made this little huff, puffing his lips, knowing it was two against one, and then he said, When you put it that way, I’d rather we all went to bed.
    So we took Mel upstairs, and I helped her get dressed for bed, and then I left them alone for a moment, waiting outside her room. Get some sleep, girls, Knox said, stepping out of the room. I got in bed, and I was so careful, lying down beside Mel, and I pulled the covers up, tucking them in around her body. Goodnight, I said, looking at her, and she goes, Hey, Thee? I sat up, so she could see me, and she said, I’ve decided I’m going to get my hair cut. For my birthday—for our birthday. I could tell she was serious, too, so I go, Then do it, and she goes, I will. You’ll see, Thee: I’m not afraid of what my parents will do. I said, I know you aren’t afraid—you’re the bravest person I know. Are you just saying that? she asked, and I said, No. I mean it. Now go to sleep, I said, giving her a kiss on each cheek, lying down beside her.
    I shut my eyes, and then she said, Hey, Thee… you know you never really talk about him , and of course I knew what she was saying. Really? Maybe because I’m always thinking about him, I feel like I talk about him all the time, even if I’m not saying it out loud, I said. Mel didn’t ask, but I told her, the only person I’ve ever told. I said, The last thing Cam said to me, he was leaving my house, and he asked me the craziest question. He said, What if God was a teenage girl?
    Mel balked, then turned to look at me, almost squinting. She said, Literally, you mean? Like, what, like, And on the seventh day, teenage girl God created the shopping mall? I smiled and my head fell back, shaking, because Mel’s dying to go to a shopping mall, and I told her she’s not missing anything, but she said she doesn’t care, so I promised her we’d go sometime. I said, Honestly, I don’t have a clue what he was talking about—that’s just Cam. He had all sorts of crazy questions, crazy ideas—everyone thinks I’m so crazy and he’s so sane, right, and they’ve got it all wrong, I said. Has , Mel said, quietly. Sorry? I said, looking up. He has all sorts of crazy ideas , she said, smiling. Has, I said.
    Anyhow, I have no idea what he meant, but that question keeps coming back to me, I said. Like he was trying to tell me something, you know? Yeah, well, that’s kind of big, whatever it was he was trying to tell you , she said, and I just had to laugh. Kinda, yeah, I said. You want to hear something else he taught me? I said, propping myself up on my elbow. And Mel said, Tell me , and I said, You know what the Butterfly Effect is, how, like if a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan, it can start a hurricane in Kansas or whatever? Um, not really… And I said, Anyhow, Cam used to say the same thing about butterfly kisses. He called it the Butterfly Kisses Effect, that you couldn’t possibly know the magnitude of a single action. Watch, I said, and then I leaned over her, giving her butterfly kisses until she squealed. Now go to sleep, I said, resting my head on my pillow, waiting for her to close her eyes.
    After she fell asleep, I decided I better get up to pee, so I wouldn’t wake her in the middle of the night. Knox heard me, walking out of the bathroom, and he called up to me: Thea? Yes? I whispered, peeking down the stairs, and he nodded his head, wanting me to see something in the living room, and to be quiet about it. So I walked down, and before I could ask, Knox cocked his head across the room, holding the remote control in his hand. I was watching the news, he said, and there’s something you should see, Thea. My first thought was, Ohmygod, they can’t show porn on the eleven o’clock news, can they? And then he hit play, and the news segment started. It was footage taken at night, an aerial view, and it took a few seconds to come into view, thereporters talking about some private jet that had recorded a most unusual sight in the quiet town of Fort Marshall, which had