Double by Jenny Valentine

dark-skinned, Indian maybe, in an old sort of tailcoat and a red scarf and a battered bowler hat. He looked like he’d just run away from the circus, with shining shaggy black hair and huge, bewildered eyes. He was bleached—no, green, like he was going to pass out or be sick. He looked stricken to see me. He looked terrified.
    “Cass?” he said. His voice cracked.
    I stopped, we both stopped still the moment he said it, like there was nothing else that could be done. Just my luck, to avoid all of Cassiel’s friends and then run into one just when I was leaving.
    He said, “You’re not Frank? Are you . . . Is that Cassiel?”
    I didn’t want to say anything. I tried to walk on.
    “It is,” he said, stopping me, putting his hand on my arm. “You are. You can’t be.”
    “Can’t be what?” I said.
    “You’re dead,” the boy said to me. “Are you dead?”
    “No, I’m not.”
    “Why didn’t I know?” He was shocked. His eyes pooled out, black and empty. He was in shock.
    “What?” I said. I thought everyone would know after my visit to town. That’s what Edie said.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said.
    I couldn’t move away from him, from the look on his face, a look of horror and relief, a fight between them.
    “Are you a ghost?” he said to me, quietly, like this was just between us, like we weren’t alone.
    “No. Look. You’ve got your hand on my arm.”
    He snatched it away, and then he put it back, wrapped his hand around my bicep, checking for flesh and bone. The color in his face was coming back.
    “Shit,” he said. “Fuck.”
    He pushed the hat to the back of his head with one finger, scratched in his hair. He held his hands up in the air like someone was pointing a gun at him, a gun he found more amusing than scary. Everything he did, the way he moved, was elegant and hypnotic, like a dance. I don’t think he was doing it on purpose. He just had this thing about him, this strange, graceful thing. I noticed it straight away. It wasn’t something I’d normally notice.
    He stared at me.
    “Cassiel Roadnight,” he said, one hand on his forehead, the other out toward me in a question. “Am I seeing things?”
    “Yes, you are,” I said.
    “Am I?” he said. “Sorry. Fuck . Are you for real?”
    “What?”
    He closed his eyes, and the light went out of his face. “I’m out for a walk,” he said. “Well into another boring day in my lonely miserable life, and suddenly . . .” His eyes opened again; I looked right into them. “There you are.”
    I waited.
    “You’re haunting me,” he said.
    “No.”
    “Then you’re back from the dead.”
    “I’m not dead,” I said. “I wasn’t dead.”
    He laughed. “I must’ve got it wrong, then.”
    “Yes,” I said. “You must have.”
    “I’m glad,” he said, and then he groaned and looked at the ground, like he was the opposite of glad; put the heels of his hands on his eyes, pressed hard.
    “I’ve got to go,” I said.
    “That’s it?” he said. “You’ve got to go?”
    I asked him what he’d like me to say.
    “‘Hello, Floyd’ would be a start.”
    Floyd. His name was Floyd.
    “Hello, Floyd.”
    He grabbed me and hugged me, and as quickly as he’d done it, he let go. “Sorry,” he said.
    “That’s all right.”
    He looked into the sky. He raised his hands, palms up, like he was Jesus, like he was asking God a question. Then he pointed at me, like he was asking it about me.
    “What’s going on?” he said.
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “What happened?”
    “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “Not right now.”
    “Oh,” he said. “Oh, right. Okay.”
    I smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I didn’t know what to say. I just wanted to keep moving.
    He said, “How about now?”
    “What?”
    “Now? Any good?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Well, when do you want to talk about it, Cassiel?” Floyd said. It burst out of him like a