Mr. Syme looked at them dubiously. They both laughed.
“We’re actually serious,” said Julie. “We’ve decided that this is all about love.”
“And we figured out that we don’t want to become like Annie, hanging on neither fully alive nor dead, and we really don’t want to be like Professor J,” said Richard. “Hey, Mike, doesn’t that make sense to you too?”
“Mike has his own decision to make,” said Mr. Syme.
“Oh,” said Richard. “Well, so if we think this eternal life is for us, what do we have to do?”
“Not much. You’ve probably already done it,” said Mr. Syme.
“Hey, I’m getting pretty good at reading Richard’s mind, and maybe even Mike’s a little, but I haven’t had any practice with you. So give us a break, will you?” said Julie.
“Sorry,” said Mr. Syme, laughing.
“She’s like that,” said Richard. “Has a way with words.”
“Yes, I can see that. I really meant what I said, though. You’ve decided to believe this stuff, weird as it is. And you’ve decided that coming to God is the way to deal with it.”
“Sure, that sounds right,” said Julie.
“Well, then,” said Mr. Syme.
“You’re doing it on purpose,” said Julie.
“Wait a minute,” said Richard. “Does Christ come into this at all?”
“Don’t you remember my serm…, uh, speech?” asked Mr. Syme. “Christ died and rose, defeating death, and now by connecting with him, death no longer dominates your fate.”
“Hey, Julie, that means I can get hit by a truck and still keep my promise!”
“Ha! It means I can still come after you if you use that cowardly way to try to get away from me!”
“What are you two talking about?” asked Mr. Syme.
“Love,” said Richard.
“Eternity,” said Julie.
“And everything,” they both said together, laughing.
“College students,” muttered Mr. Syme. “Well, traditionally when one gives himself to Christ like I think you two are talking about, one gets baptized. Sort of like marriage. A sign of your commitment, given in a public way. Dying with Christ as you go down, then rising with him to new life as you are raised. Of course, we Presbyterians sprinkle, but the principle’s the same. The Sunday after next Sunday is Easter. We will be glad to baptize you on Easter if you want. It’s a great day for it.”
“But does this mean we have to go to church?” asked Richard.
“You don’t have to, as if it were an obligation. It’s more like you become connected with all the other people that belong to Christ, and church is one way to make that connection visible. There are other ways and they are good too. But I don’t want to get too complicated.
“But you do have to give up everything. That is, let God have first claim on every part of your life. If you lose your life for him, you save it to eternal life. That’s the plan.”
Richard and Julie looked at each other. “I’m up for it,” said Julie, more decisively than Richard was expecting.
“Me too,” said Richard. “Julie, remember when you talked about something outside breaking in and changing everything? Seems like it has happened.”
“Yes, but not the way I thought it would, that’s for sure,” said Julie. “God’s not very polite, if you ask me, scaring the wits out of me.”
“Polite in that sense he’s not,” said Mr. Syme. “But you have to admit he got your attention.”
Mrs. Syme and Laurie had been having their own conversation. It revolved around Mike. It turned out that Laurie had taken one look at him and it was all over as far as she was concerned. He was the one for her.
“It’s love at first sight, and with someone who’s in love with someone else, and even worse, that someone else is a ghost!” said Laurie. “How can you compare with a girl who glows in the dark?”
“You can be what you are: alive,” said Mrs. Syme. “But Mike hasn’t decided whose side he is on yet. And you need to know that he’s on God’s side before you let this get any further. You need to guard your heart.”
“Too late,” said Laurie. “I guess all I can do is pray that he’ll make the right choice.”
“But Laurie, what will you do if he doesn’t?”
“Die, I guess,” she said. “Oh, I’m just kidding. I’ll probably get over it in a year or two. Oh, I’m just kidding about that, too. Sorry, Mrs. Syme.”
Mrs. Syme hugged Laurie. “I’m going to get breakfast ready. Want to help?”
“Sure,” said Laurie.
Mrs. Syme spoke loudly to the group. “We need to get organized,” she said. “First, breakfast. Laurie and I will handle that. Second, plan for the day. Some of you have classes. We still want to keep watch on Professor J. So I assume that people will go to class and come back here as soon as possible, right?”
Everyone agreed. She continued, “Then I also assume that we’re going to take Professor J up to see the ghost again, right? And we’re going to try to get her to forgive him, right?” She looked at Mike, who nodded.
“OK, if people want to take a shower we have a bath over there,” she said, pointing. “Let’s go!”
The smell of cooking breakfast soon overwhelmed the eerie, high-strung atmosphere that had predominated. “Amazing, isn’t it?” said Mr. Syme. “I’m the stereotype absent-minded professor. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
People managed to get through the normal routine of the day while still keeping Professor J under observation. But as the day wore on people got more and more nervous. The tension grew as evening came and everyone started thinking about what would happen next. Even Mrs. Syme started bustling around like a mother hen.
“It’s not having anything to do that makes it hard,” she said to Laurie.
“It’s not knowing if anything you do will make any difference that really makes it hard,” said Mr. Syme.
Mike said, “I’m going to take a walk.” Everyone stood up automatically. “By myself,” he said. Everyone except Laurie sat down. Mike looked at her. Then he said, “OK, if you want to come. But I may not be much for conversation.”
The two of them went out. About an hour later they came back. Both of them had red eyes. Neither said a word as they came in and sat down.
Dinner was pizza delivery. People ate mechanically, waiting for it to get really dark. Finally Mrs. Syme said, “It’s now or never. Let’s go.”
Mr. Syme and Mike guided Professor J. It was harder. He seemed to know where they were going and kept trying to walk the opposite way, but they kept him going in the right direction.
As they neared the place, it got really cold. “Feel that?” asked Mike. “I think she’s here.”
He walked in front of the group. Approaching the tree, he saw a faint, misty figure. A rope drooped from her neck. He walked closer and said, “Annie!”
She turned and her eyes went wide. She came to him quicker than the eye could follow. She was like a mist surrounding him. Mike opened his mouth and his eyes started to close. He started swaying as if he was about to fall over. Mr. Syme walked forward.
“Annie!” he said firmly. “You need to stop it!”
Annie had become much more visible. She was as beautiful as Mike had described her. Mrs. Syme, though, was not impressed.
“Spoiled. Melodramatic. Ice princess. So pure and so cold, like she’s above everybody and doesn’t need anyone in the universe. Yet ready to suck the life out of him. I’d better stay back, or I’ll get in an argument with her.”
“Good idea,” said Richard. “We need to talk with her, not drive her off.”
Mrs. Syme hung back with Laurie. Between them they kept a hold on Professor J, who still wanted to wander off in the other direction. He made moaning sounds quite often now.
Annie looked at Mr. Syme. “I need him,” she said. “It’s getting worse.” She said this as if she expected Mr. Syme to understand what she meant. “I came only during full moon because I didn’t want him to die. I knew if I came every night he would die. But I didn’t want that.”
“Because you needed him,” said Mr. Syme.
“Yes, because I need him. And because he liked to talk to me and that was nice. I like that a lot.”
She flowed over to Mike again. “No!” said Mr. Syme. Annie looked at him. Suddenly, all at once, she wailed. It was not the wail of a ghost, but of a lonesome child.
“It hurts!” she said.
“But you can do something about it,” said Mr. Syme.
“But it’s getting worse!”
“That’s because you keep doing the same thing over and over. You have to do something different.”
That seemed to be a new thought to Annie. “What can I do?”
Mr. Syme looked at Mike, who walked over to her. “Annie, I love you. But there’s not just the two of us. There is three of us. You, me, and Professor J.”
“How unpleasant,” said Annie.
“But you’re the one keeping him here. And what you’re doing to him, you are becoming that. Your hate and your revenge gave you some kind of power over him, but it’s killing you. If you don’t let him go, you will die.”
“But I’m already dead!” she said, wailing again.
“Your body is dead, but you can still live,” said Mike. “Let him go. Set him free. Forgive him.”
Mike was surprised to see her cold beauty roll off her. She was no longer the perfection he had worshiped. She was a girl, pleasant enough to look at but no longer spectacular.
“There she is,” said Mrs. Syme. “There’s hope.”
“Bring Jeffrey over here,” said Annie. Mrs. Syme and Laurie brought him over. Annie looked at him. She looked at Mike. “It hurts so much,” she said.
“I know,” said Mike. “But it will stop soon.”
Annie looked at Professor J. She flowed over to him and stared in his eyes for a while. They blinked once, then started to flutter closed. Professor J slumped down and started snoring.
Annie looked at Mike again. Her face was twisted oddly—then Mike realized that she was smiling. It was a pretty smile but his mind had not expected to see it.
“Mike, someone’s calling me,” she said. “He’s been calling me all along, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying before. He’s asking me if I want to go be with him forever. I do, but I don’t want to leave you.”
“It’s OK,” said Mike. “You can go.”
“No. I won’t. Well, I have to, I have to go somewhere. But it would mean a lot to me if you let me go.”
Mike had tears running down his face. He said, “I won’t forget you, but I won’t keep you. No, that’s not right. I send you. I give you to your true love.”
“You’re my true love, Mike,” she said.
“Just a pale shadow. He has all the love in infinity to give you, and that’s almost as much as you deserve.”
“Don’t be silly, I don’t deserve anything.”
“I didn’t really mean ‘deserve’. You ought to be loved. But he will do a better job than I can.”
“Oh, Mike, how can I leave you behind?” She was getting more transparent, but at the same time brighter.
“I’ll join you some day,” he said.
She grew bright and beautiful beyond words and was gone.