Scarecrow’s Dream Read Online Free

I’m serious about the ghost manual, though. There needs to be a kick-ass book with rules for spirits and the people around them. ‘A Guide for the Undead and How to Navigating Amongst the Living’. Shit. I’m a writer. You’re a writer. You and I could co-author it and do the new self-publishing thing and become superstars.”
    Addie waved her hand in the air, dismissing the comment. “You’ve just nailed why I bought Beetlejuice . I doubt it’ll be helpful, but the ghosts in the movie do get some kind of guidebook, so there’s an off chance you’ll find something you can use. Holly, you have to make your own rules. You were a rebel in your day, although you were always quiet about it, so why should things be different because your existence is not quite—oh—coalescing with the rest of the world?”
    She grabbed a giant pretzel and one of her diet sodas, then munched and slurped for a few minutes while she checked her email, a skill she promised to teach me later this week.
    I watched my aunt for another minute before bringing up the two things driving me the most nuts. “Addie, I have to find out why I’m here and who I am. Wait. Not a good way of putting it. I’m very confused about what’s real, what I actually lived through, and what you’ve told me happened to me in the past. As I told you, I have memories of Paul Malone as my dad and your brother, especially from my childhood. I know he was the super here and we moved to this apartment when I was a toddler. I don’t have any memories of my mother, which makes sense since you’ve told me she died when I was only a year old. But there are still so many things of which I have zero knowledge.”
    “What about your friends? Or the classes you were taking at NYU?”
    “Yes and no. I remember going to demonstrations and I remember working on papers for some creative writing class. Maybe scriptwriting? Not vital, I suppose, but it’d be nice if some solid memory flashes from the last couple of years would, uh, flash and make me feel more grounded, if that makes sense. And you weren’t here the year I…died…so I need to find out what led up to me sailing off the bridge. Do you suppose this computer thingy could have any information? I mean, if I’m remembering the sound of what I’m starting to believe was a bullet, well doesn’t it appear I was shot? Which means…”
    “Say it. Quit dancing around with ‘ifs’, ‘need tos’, and ‘kind ofs’. Doesn’t do any damned good to keep it buried.”
    “Fine,” I snarled. “The operative word is murdered . So will the big silver monitor with the keyboard tell me why? It gives my birth date, along with Dad’s but not a lot more. My throat closed as I whispered, “it gives his death date.”
    I stopped. “My God. This is awful. My dad only lived fifteen more years after I died. What kind of life did he have? We adored each other. That I do remember. Even when we were arguing about his only child being Ms. Protest of the seventies there was an element of pride in my activities. Although, I seem to recall embarrassing the hell out of him more than once during my years at NYU. I’m positive I ended up in jail. I have this odd semi-claustrophobic sense of being in a large room behind bars alongside a mess of unwashed bodies. Anyway, when I got picked on at school Dad was right there for me.”
    Addie sat up straight. “Picked on at school? Anything specific?”
    “More of a wisp flying by. I can see myself in a school uniform and two blonde bimbo types giving me grief for being an Irish super’s daughter.”
    “Interesting. I’m assuming high school, because if this had happened in elementary I’d’ve been there to defend you and raise holy hell at your school.”
    “Yep. High school. Not that it matters. I’m in—fine—if I’m right, I was in grad school so the memory is at least from four years ago.” I shrugged. “Make that forty years. Crap. This whole ‘I’ve been dead for