“The Best Friend Is Not In Heaven”

The dumb thing is this could’ve been cool if Preston wasn’t being a butt crack. La Belle Cemetery at almost dusk, dark out and not dark out at the same time—actually, it’d be perfect if I hadn’t promised Mrs. Grimble I’d do this ghost hunt with Preston. She made me swear to it, and this is the kid who told me in homeroom I’m the reason we can’t be partners anymore.

Now he’s ruining the light.

No, screw that, the Nathusius family gravesite is still cool and I tell jerk face Preston to stop practicing his intro so I can get some video.

I turn on the camcorder and start with the three headstones, the dad and mom and oldest daughter, all born way long ago in the 1800s and died way long ago in the 1900s. Then the family monument, the platform built to look like stairs and the gigantic cross on the last step and the big block next to it that says NATHUSIUS. All the thick gray stone is sculpted and amazing and everything, but I zoom in where everybody’s eyes should be going.  

The statue of the girl made of the same stone on the second stair. Long hair falling over her shoulders and a dress that covers her feet. She’s got her hands on her stomach and she’s cradling flowers. Age-wise, she’s probably two grades ahead of me.

I do a slow zoom out from her sad gray face and man it’s kind of dramatic—

—and Preston totally stands up in my shot. Stares straight into the camera.

“What the?! Man!” I stop recording.

“Neil, I need another rehearsal,” he says. “Reading the diary pages. My elocution is off.”

“Your what? Electrocution?”

Here they come, the big show-off words. It’s always when he’s wearing his “tweeds” and his slicked-back hair he can’t get right unless his mom helps him.

“It was fine,” I say. “Just read what it says. Don’t go all Sir Preston Highcliff.”

Preston sniffs like he’s sniffed since first grade when nothing’s dripping out of his nose.

“Why did I allow Mrs. Grimble to constrain me to a promise not to work this solitarily?”

“What? Stop doing that. I’m the one who promised her. I could do this by myself, easy, but she gave me that look.”

Preston shivers in his tweeds. “That look.”

“Yeah, like it makes—”

“—icicles in your armpits,” we say.

We almost look at each other and laugh. Our joke when we met Mrs. Grimble at the Historical Society that first time. When we were still partners. And now I’m way first to scowl. Because this is our last ghost hunt. Not partners, definitely not friends.

“Don’t be a dorkhole,” I say. “Do it like I would for once. Normal, like, ‘Hey, what’s up, if this statue really is haunted by a ghost girl, then thanks to the secret Nathusius family diary we know her name is Mary. And 200 years ago she came to Wisconsin for a better life with bunches of other German immigrants. She was gonna marry the son of Mr. Nathusius but he changed his mind and because girls have been weird for I guess forever, she drowned herself in Fowler Lake. And now, supposedly, every year on the day Mary died, after the sun’s completely gone, the statue cries blood and her ghost appears and she drowns herself again.’ See? It’s easy.”    

“I don’t think girls are weird,” Preston says.  

“What?” My armpits were cold before, now they’re hot. “Forget the intro. Just do what you do to be ready if a ghost shows up.” 

Preston sniffs and mumbles a made-up word. Sounded like “igneraymuss,” whatever that is. I hit record on the camera and he sits on his little stool at his little table in the grass. He takes white candles out of the leather bag that looks like when his grandpa’s been in the sun too long. 

I go back to the statue and follow where the girl’s eyes are looking. The block of stone at the bottom of the family monument. The words carved into it. I remember that other stuff Preston read from the diary. The Nathusius family felt really guilty about Mary dying and had the statue made and those words engraved just for her. It’s German, something she always used to say. In English it means THE BEST FRIEND IS IN HEAVEN…………………………………..  

Why am I holding this shot so long? I move to where other graves mark a path down to the Oconomowoc River feeding into Fowler Lake. Mary’s ghost only has to walk or I guess float a hundred feet to the water. To drown herself………….my armpits are cold…………that’s weird.

Everything is really still. The lake. The trees. The air. I can’t smell the laundry soap on my jean jacket. I don’t hear Preston squeaking candles into candleholders.  

“Neil,” he says. “She’s here.”

I flinch—I mean, I turn quick to see and Preston’s standing and staring at nothing but a darker cemetery. I switch the camera to night vison. All that gives me is the nothing in green.  

“Are you sure?” I say. “Grab the EMF meter out of your bag.”

He doesn’t move. His eyes are as big as mine would be if I could actually see my first dang ghost too.

“Can’t you hear her?” he says.

“Preston, show me where she is.”  

“Mary says she’s been waiting for someone just like me. Serendipity.”

“What?”

My armpits heat up and I’m zooming in and out on the camera, trying to find her, catching the statue’s eyes. Something very very wrong is coming out of her eyes.

“Preston, is that blood? Preston!”   

He’s shaking. Really hard. Like a million Mrs. Grimbles are all giving him that look. Both our mouths pop wide open. What do I do I’m—Preston’s mouth snaps shut he stops shaking and…………man the grin he puts on.  

I’m 89 pounds of armpit sweat.

“Der beste freund ist nicht im Himmel.”        

I drop the camcorder. His voice is a girl’s voice, but low and not real friendly.

“He will walk with me into the water. He will walk with me forever.”

Preston comes at me on the cemetery path to the lake. His face is like the family’s headstone. What do I do I’m stuck I can’t move I can’t breathe I can’t—

He shoves me aside.

Mary’s ghost is in control.

She’s taking him to drown with her.       

“Wait,” I say, hoping I’m louder than my heart is. “You’re not weird. I didn’t mean it!”

“He will walk with me forever. My husband.”

“Husband?! He’s in sixth grade!”

“He’s lonely. We will be good company in death.”

What do I do I go after him and jump on his back and we fall off a grassy ledge and hit the riverbank. I’m on top of him but we’re still moving. Preston claws at the wet grass digging up mud crawling forward. Mary’s ghost is gonna drown us both. I grab his arms. I gotta try.

“Preston, it’s my fault,” I say. “You’re right. I lied. I did.” He keeps clawing. I keep trying. “I ditched you and went to that VR party. I’m the butt crack. But you’re never alone, okay? You’re not! Preston!”

He slows. He twitches.

“Preston!”

He quits. He blows out this massive breath.

We both do.

“Aren’t ya glad you did this together,” Mrs. Grimble says. Mrs. Grimble?

She’s sitting on the grassy ledge. Not giving us that look, just raising her eyebrows.

“Boys,” she says. Her mouth stays open. “OH!” It stretches, stretches, she’s shaking, then it shuts so hard her false teeth smack.  

But she’s grinning, and Mrs. Grimble never ever grins.  

“Der beste freund ist nicht im Himmel.”