Elsewhere(36)

"Oh no!" Liz exclaims. "He's in the wrong closet. Alvy, it's in mycloset!"

"He can't hear you," Owen says.

Through the telescope Liz can see her father yelling at poor Alvy. "Get out of there!" her father screams, pulling Alvy by his shirt collar so hard that it rips. "Why are you making up stories about Lizzie? She's dead, and I won't have you making up stories!"

Alvy starts to cry.

"He's not making it up! He just misunderstood." Liz feels her heart racing.

"I'm not making it up," Alvy protests. "Liz told me to. She told me to " Alvy stops speaking as Liz's father raises his hand to slap Alvy across the face.

"NO!" Liz yells.

"They can't hear you, Miss Hall," Owen says.

At the last moment, Liz's father stops himself. He takes a deep breath and slowly lowers his hand.

Liz watches as her father slumps to the floor and begins to sob. "Oh, Lizzie," he sobs, "Lizzie! My poor Lizzie! Lizzie!"

The telescope image blurs and then turns black. Liz takes a step back.

"My father doesn't believe in hitting," she says, her voice barely above a whisper, "and he almost hit Alvy."

"Now do you see?" asks Owen gently.

"Now do I see what?"

"It isn't any good to talk to the living, Liz. You think you're helping, but you only make matters worse."

Suddenly, Liz turns on Owen. "This is all your fault!" she says.

"My fault?"

"I might have made Alvy understand if you hadn't pulled me away before I was finished explaining!" Liz takes a step closer to Owen. "In fact, I want you to take me back now!"

"As if I'm really going to do that. Honestly. What nerve."

"If you won't help me, I'll do it myself!" Liz runs to the side of the tugboat. Owen chases after her, restraining her from diving overboard.

"LET ME GO!" she says. But Owen is stronger than Liz, and she has already had a long day. All at once, Liz feels very tired.

"I'm sorry," says Owen. "I'm really sorry, but this is the way it has to be."

"Why?" asks Liz. "Why does it have to be this way?" "

Because the living have to get on with their lives, and the dead have to get on with their lives, too."

Liz shakes her head.

Owen removes his sunglasses, revealing sympathetic dark eyes framed in long dark lashes. "If it matters," says Owen, "I know how you feel. I died young, too."

Liz looks at Owen's face. Without his sunglasses, she determines he is only a little older than her, probably around seventeen or eighteen. "How old were you when you got here?"

Owen pauses. "Twenty-six."

Twenty-six, Liz thinks bitterly. There is a world of difference between twenty-six and fifteen.

Twenty-six does things that fifteen only dreams of. When Liz finally speaks, it is in the melancholy voice of a person much older than her years. "I'm fifteen years old, Mr. Welles. I will never turn sixteen, and before long, I'll be fourteen again. I won't go to the prom, or college, or Europe, or anywhere else. I won't ever get a Massachusetts driver's license or a high school diploma. I won't ever live with anyone who's not my grandmother. I don't think you know how I feel."

"You're right," Owen says softly. "I only meant it's difficult for all of us to get on with our lives."

"I am getting on with my life," Liz says. "I just had this one thing I needed to do. I doubt it would have made any difference to anyone except me, but I needed to do it."

"What was it?" Owen asks.

"Why should I tell you?"

"It's for the report I have to file," Owen says. Of course, this is only partially true.

Liz sighs. "If you must know, there was this sweater, a sea green cashmere one, hidden beneath the floorboards of my closet. It was a birthday present for my dad. The color, it matched his eyes."

"A sweater?" Owen is incredulous.

"What's wrong with a sweater?" Liz demands.

"No offense, but most people who bother to make the trip to the Well have more important things to do." Owen shakes his head.

"It was important to me," Liz insists.

"I mean, like life-or-death sorts of things. The location of buried bodies, the name of a murderer, wills, money. You get my drift."

"Sorry, but nothing of much importance ever happened to me," Liz says. "I'm just a girl who forgot to look both ways before she crossed the street."

A foghorn sounds, indicating that the tugboat has reached the marina.

"So, am I in trouble?" Liz tries to keep her voice light.

"As it was only your first offense, mainly all you get is a warning. It goes without saying that I have to tell your acclimation counselor. Yours is Aldous Ghent, correct?"

Liz nods.

"Good man, Ghent is. For the next six weeks, you're banned from any Observation Decks, and I have to confiscate your diving gear during that time."

"Fine," Liz says haughtily. "I can go, then?"

"If you go down to the Well again, there will be serious consequences. I wouldn't want to see you get into any trouble, Miss Hall."