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The first time Travis hears Jackie Taylor’s voice again, it’s easy to convince himself it’s his subconscious. It’s just after the mess with him choking Lottie, his head hurts from the tea, and Akilah’s just handed him a duck (Mortimer, apparently.) He’s trying to quell the trembling of his jaw, when Mortimer lifts his head and:
You should drink some water.
Oh.
Okay, sure.
Why the hell not?
Technically, the duck didn’t open its mouth, it just looked at him. Weirdly intensely, but still. And, yeah, maybe the voice sounds a little too much like a girl who is very much dead, but Travis isn’t a psychologist, he can’t be expected to explain that one. Besides, he should drink some water, he realizes. His throat is dry, from both the crying and earlier screaming, and it might get rid of the lingering high. So he does, and if Mortimer rests his head on his shoulder, Travis chalks it up to animals knowing when people need comfort. And man, does Travis need comforting.
The People versus Ben Scott comes and goes with no more weird voices on Travis’s end, and he can’t help but feel that it might have something to do with what he did to Akilah. He’s more and more worried about her by the day, as he goes with her and Lottie down to the caves, but right now, the only thing he can focus on is the darkness in Shauna’s eyes, and how she seems to get less and less recognizable by the day. Travis never knew Shauna too well, back home, but Javi liked her, and it makes him feel so deeply alone, knowing that the only person who might have understood how much he feels the loss of his brother is someone he can’t get within two feet of, lest she put him on the chopping block.
It’s bittersweet, the allegiance he feels for her, the way he still sees her sometimes, crying over a baby boy with no name, the way he imagines her feeling the same phantom pains as him, the loss of a boy who never was, who never will be again. Hearing the screams of Ben, though, is something else that Travis realizes he'll never forget. He can’t hear it when the knife hits the man’s Achilles, but he almost feels it, and he’s stricken. He has to walk away, off to sit under some tree or another, as if to make the screaming go away. Tears slip down his face, and they almost feel distant, not his own. Then:
A leaf falls on his shoulder. Then another. They keep coming, and he knows, this time, it’s Jackie. He feels her rather than sees her, crying alongside him, in her own way. It’s silent for a while, boy and girl sitting in their grief, when he hears her again.
I loved her.
Travis pauses, considering. “You still do.” She’s quiet for so long he starts to think he really is imagining things.
Yeah, I still do. But now she’s…I’m scared of her.
“Yeah, me too,” He mutters, before he furrows his eyebrows. It feels selfish, to ask anything of her, of this girl he’s not sure he’s really hearing, this girl who he’s already taken so much from, but…
“Can I…I mean, is there a way to—”
I don’t know. I wish you could hear him, but…I don't know how it works. No one could hear me before, until you. It’s not exactly an exact science.
“Oh. Right, that makes sense, I’m–”
Don’t apologize. I get it.
It feels like forgiveness for more than just the question, and Travis wants to cry again, but he doesn’t. The leaves stop falling, but they breeze into his lap, and he closes his eyes, letting himself feel.
The thing about Jackie Taylor is that, ghost or not, she’s really fucking annoying. She’s always talking, now that she knows he can and will listen to her, and Travis is really trying to be patient. He can’t imagine what it must be like, how lonely it must feel, but sometimes, he really wants her to shut up.
You know she was my first kiss? And my second, and third…well, you get it. I thought…I thought she knew. I thought she knew! How could she not have known, right?
“Jackie, please, just–”
I know, I’m sorry, it’s just…Melissa?
“Okay, yeah, that’s really fucking weird.”
Thank you!
Okay, maybe he likes having her around more than he’d like to admit. Because even when she’s at her meanest, she’s still kind. She’s devastatingly normal (for a ghost) and out here…it’s easy to forget what normal feels like. What goodness feels like. And every now and then, when they’re alone at night, and Travis can’t sleep, she’ll say these things that are just…so profoundly sad, that Travis feels the whole forest stop to listen, the Wilderness twisting in on itself to give her a voice.
That night…you know, my whole life, I just…I wanted to be loved. So badly, I…I think I wanted to be loved more than I wanted to be alive. I was just so tired, you know? I just…I thought if I let it…get colder, then, everyone would have to love me. At least a little. ‘Cause, you can’t miss someone without loving them a little, I think.
“Jackie…we would’ve loved you alive, too.”
You really believe that, don’t you? Well, there’s no changing it now. Besides, I kept you guys alive, so…if there’s something I wanted more than your love, it was your survival. And I’ve got that now, so I can’t be too sad, right?
He’s about to say something, anything, because she remembers, she knows, when Natalie draws both their attention. The necklace around her neck catches some light or another, and Travis feels Jackie’s eyes. He knows Natalie too well not to recognize the look in her eyes, the goodness in her heart, and he feels cold, hard panic reach into his chest and squeeze. He tries to talk her out of it, tries to save her, because it’s Natalie, but the necklace shines again, and it’s like Jackie’s hand settles on Natalie’s shoulder.
Let her go.
He stays there the whole night, lets Jackie tell him the story of Shauna’s fourteenth birthday just to keep him awake until sunrise, and then she’s gone again, wind ruffling his hair as a parting gift, because there are bigger problems to attend to. Like, for example, Lottie taking an axe to a man’s head. Seriously, what the actual fuck?
She keeps calling his name as he and Akilah follow Kodi, but Travis doesn’t listen, can’t listen. Jackie, as much as it pains him to say, is part of this place now, and Travis needs to leave. So he ignores her, much to her irritation. It’s annoying, really, how even as a ghost she makes herself known. He keeps tripping over rocks, branches keep hitting him in the face, arms, anywhere. He half wants to tell her to quit it, but this guy saw them screaming around a man’s head less than an hour ago, and he doesn’t think saying sorry, it’s just the ghost of the girl I lost my virginity to is being a pain in the ass, please, keep going would do anything for them.
Travis realizes, once he’s surrounded by the rest of the girls, that Jackie saw what Akilah was doing and was warning him. God, you think he’d learn after the first time to listen when the ghost girl talks to him, right? He mumbles an apology, which Akilah catches and gives him a nod, and a bug buzzes next to his ear, so he figures he’s forgiven.
The only person angrier than Natalie at Shauna’s refusal to leave is Jackie. This is the first time Travis has seen her, Jackie Taylor as she was in life, stomping around the camp furiously.
This is ridiculous, Shauna. Do you hear me? Ridiculous! Seriously, of all the stupid , short sighted decisions—
“Jackie.”
No, I mean, where does she get off, staying in this place? Melissa wants to go home too! God, I knew I shouldn’t have done the moth thing, it was supposed to be a goodbye, but when has Shauna ever correctly interpreted something I said or did—
“ Jackie. ”
What?
“It’s you. How could she leave you? Him?” Travis asks, still staring at her, wide eyed, because holy shit, Jackie’s a ghost. She falters, frowning deeply enough that the trees put more shade over their heads.
Fuck.
Travis snorts in agreement. Fuck indeed.
Jackie doesn’t speak to him for days after he tries to kill Lottie. Being ignored by a ghost is weird , Travis thinks. You don’t notice how obvious it is when they’re around until they’re around and not interacting with you. He can feel her there, the trees watching him, grass under his feet standing more upright than usual, but she never moves, never speaks.
It’s a peculiar kind of grief, missing someone you’ve mourned before. The first time, though, he didn’t know her. Losing Jackie the first time was like dropping food on the floor. Gone before you got to know what it would’ve been like. Then, there had been the…feast. Travis can’t think back on that for too long, memory twisted between bacchanal and brutality, flashing back and forth so much that his head hurts. They’d taken everything from her, and it still didn’t hurt as much as this does, as knowing Jackie Taylor and not having her anymore. He feels, once again, a pang of empathy for Shauna, even now, because this is miserable . He goes back out to the pit, to what he tried to do, and looks down at it. He considers, for a long moment, what it would be like to just…’ if there’s something I wanted more than your love, it was your survival.’
He can’t take that from her too. He curses, sitting down beside the pit and looks up to the sky, aimless.
“Jackie–” He hates the way his voice shakes, “Jackie, look, I’m sorry. ”
She’s silent, and Travis chokes on a sob.
“I just want to go home. ”
The wind feels like a hug, drying his tears, as she speaks again. I know, I’m sorry I–it just wouldn’t have done what you thought it would have, Travis. It wouldn’t get you home. It would make you part of this place. Of ‘It.’ It would just make you what you’ve never been before.
Travis is quiet, shoulders shaking and breath coming in little gasps, and she stays. Mutters different things: words of reassurance, stupid gossip, things to make him laugh. He falls asleep there, and doesn’t get up until Akilah comes looking for him, and he turns back to see her again. She gives him a little wave, a tree branch shifting up and down. I’m here.
When the snow falls, Jackie isn’t there. Weirdly, he thinks it’s almost like her birthday. He wonders if it’s weird for her, the thing that killed her blanketing them again. He thinks, bizarrely, of if Jesus were to see people wearing the cross. The thing that killed Him is the way people remember His sacrifice. He wonders if Jackie feels similarly.
She comes back, and she feels teary, which Travis adds to the list of things he just has to accept about this insane situation. He sees Misty coming back to camp right after, lip bloody, and he’s about to ask if Jackie saw that when Nat comes trailing in from the same direction. She’s been crying, too. Oh, Travis realizes. Of course she was with Nat. Travis understands, now more than ever, that Jackie is the only person who could ever understand Nat the way she needs to be understood, and Nat can’t even see her. He also understands that it goes both ways. He remembers Nat, taking Jackie’s bones, not letting him come along, coming back shaken but lighter, somehow. Absolved. Fallen Captain, fallen Queen.
He walks over and squeezes Nat’s shoulder. It feels like a return to form, especially when he feels something in his hand, like Jackie’s laying hers there too. He’s glad he can provide comfort on both their behalf, in any capacity. There’s contemplative silence at the camp, but for a moment, it feels like peace.
Travis is drunk. Out of his mind drunk, but it’s all he can do to keep from screaming because Jackie sounds scared.
Jackie’s never sounded scared . He’s heard her through anger, sadness, annoyance, cheer,a myriad of other things that are just distinctly Jackie , but never this, never as panicked as she is when they’re drawing cards. She’s protesting, yelling first at Akilah, then Van, Taissa, even Hannah, and his head hurts. He’s not hunting, he never has, but then Mari draws the queen and Jackie starts yelling at him too.
Travis! For fuck’s sake, you drunk idiot, do something!
“What the fuck do you want me to do?” He complains, and Lottie absolutely lights up beside him, pausing her count to look at him. He ignores her.
Talk to her, Travis, please, get her to stop!
“She’s not going to stop, this is what she wants–”
Then stall, please, they need time!
It gives him pause, momentary lucidity. They need time. There’s something he’s missing, but it makes it so that Jackie’s desperation feels a little like hope. He grabs Shauna’s shoulder, and lets Jackie’s words evoke images in his mind.
“My favorite thoughts are Jackie’s,” He says, and they are. They’re the best thing about this place. “The slumber party makeouts?” Flashes of Jackie, grinning, of a look on Shauna’s face he’s never seen before. “The jealousy?” Jackie scribbling angrily over Shauna’s MASH results after she got dropped off back home. “The betrayal? ”
He thinks Shauna might actually kill him, but then she’s taken off again, and Travis almost apologizes for fucking up, when Jackie speaks.
It’s okay. You did good. I just hope she has time.
“Jackie, will you tell me what–”
Travis, I’m sorry, I have to go. It’ll make sense soon, I promise.
“Hey, wait– ” Lottie turns around instead. Great.
“Don’t worry Travis. It’ll come back to you. It came back to me,” She says, and Travis almost scoffs. Whatever Lottie’s talking to, It isn’t anything like Jackie, and it almost offends him to hear the comparison. If It wants blood, Jackie wants peace. And he trusts that wherever she’s going, she’s helping someone find it.
Shauna screams for Natalie, outraged, and Travis has to bite back a laugh, because holy shit . Jackie’s not there, but Travis can feel her pain over Mari just as much as his own guilt for building the thing that killed her. He knows, wherever Natalie is, whatever she’s doing, Jackie’s with her. Jackie knows, and she’ll tell him soon. He sees Van is smiling, a smug, rueful little thing that Misty quickly echoes, and as the camp bursts into a cacophony of voices, Travis looks out into the distance.
He can wait. He trusts them.