A Gift of Thought by Sarah Wynde

Sylvie after she’d run away. She’d been gone three years. He’d been eighteen, about to go to college, and Zane had just discovered his ability to find missing objects. Lucas made Zane look at Sylvie’s picture every day to see if he could find her, but with no luck. Then one day, Zane said yes, that she was somewhere to the north. They’d told their parents they were going on a brother-bonding camping trip and then drove north until Zane found her.
    Lucas wouldn’t tell him what had happened then, but he admitted that he’d seen her twice since. Once as he was graduating from college, the second time in Milan a few years later. He’d refused to talk about why she’d left and why she’d never come back. Those answers were hers, he’d said, looking grim.
    Still, Dillon didn’t think knowing the details would open a door to a different type of afterlife.
    “It’s more complicated than that,” Lucas said. “He can’t move on.”
    Dillon glanced over his shoulder, just to check. Yep, no cloudy passageway waiting behind him.
    “Why not?”
    Lucas raised his eyebrows. “Maybe he has something left to do?” he offered, sounding doubtful. “But I don’t think it’s that easy.”
    “Lucas . . .” Sylvie paused and rubbed her forehead, then said, in a tone that started with long-suffering patience and ended with annoyance, “You’re being haunted by our dead son and you’re not putting every possible effort into fixing that?”
    “Ah, no.” Lucas folded his hands together and then seemed to think better of that and stuffed them into his pants pockets.
    “Why not?” Sylvie snapped.
    “I think we’re headed back into Milan territory,” Lucas replied, words sounding almost light. Dillon, who had been watching Sylvie, sent a sharp look his way. What did that mean? There was an undercurrent in his tone that Dillon didn’t understand.
    Sylvie paused. “Let’s not go there, then.”
    “I’d prefer it that way, yeah.”
    His parents had fought in Milan, Dillon knew. Lucas had told him that they’d argued about whether Sylvie should come back and about what was best for Dillon.
    “So this is what you wanted to tell me?” Sylvie asked. “My employer is a criminal and Dillon is haunting you?”
    “Well, ah . . .” Lucas looked reluctant to say any more before he finally added, “More that I think he might be haunting you for a while.”
    “What? What the—” Sylvie’s lips were forming words but no sound was coming out.
    Dillon wasn’t good enough at lip-reading to be sure, but it looked to him like most of the words were bad ones. Well, she’d get used to the idea. It might take a while, but it wasn’t like she could send him home. Or leave him with his grandparents.
    Lucas slid his hands up her arms and rested them on her shoulders. “It’ll be okay.”
    “I’m not a mean ghost,” Dillon offered. “I promise not to do anything creepy.”
    Sylvie shook her head and then tugged away from Lucas. “I need to think about this. I need to—” She turned away from him and started down the path toward the door, then turned and called over her shoulder. “AlecCorp party. Next Friday. I’ll see you then.”
    “Wear the dress,” Lucas replied, his voice light, but his eyes shaded.
    Dillon glanced at him. He hated the look on his dad’s face, the sadness he could see there. But he wanted to learn more about his mom and he couldn’t do that unless he followed her so he hurried after her.
    She might need to think, but he intended to get to know her, whether she was happy about it or not.
    *****
    Sylvie headed straight to the gym.
    Lucas was insane.
    Or Dillon was a ghost and Chesney was a criminal.
    No, no, far more likely that Lucas was insane.
    But somewhere along the way, in their half verbal, half unspoken conversation, he’d denied sending her any texts. And it hadn’t felt as if he were lying.
    So was Lucas so insane that he had delusions, hallucinations, and blackouts where he