We all stay here for something. For me, it’s Annabel Lee.

She was the girl who lived in

the kingdom by the sea, next door to me for too short a time. A few months after we
came, she moved into the house next door with her Mama Stella.

I fell in love with Annabel Lee the moment I clapped my eyes on her. We played
together sometimes, when I wasn’t working at the market or she wasn’t helping her
Mama Stella. At night or early in the morning I could hear her singing in her attic room
only a thin wall away from mine. She had the prettiest voice. I would stay real still and
practically held my breath, for fear she’d realize I was close by and stop.

That’s when he sent for Miss Maria Stella and Annabel Lee to come live with him. When
she said goodbye she kissed my cheek, like she was now a grown-up. She did look like
one, that’s for sure, in her blue traveling suit with the matching bonnet and grown-up
gloves.

Before she stepped into the carriage she promised to come back for me. I never forgot
and I’m sure Annabel Lee hasn’t either.

Early the next morning, Trolls strolled down the street like he owned it, whistling a tune
that I’d heard on the radio. That was one of the new modern contraptions that I liked. I
wasn’t a fan of cars—too fast and stinker than horses. To tell you the truth, I missed the
horses. The streets used to be full of them. Now I only see them once in a while, hauling
the Arabbers’s wagons full of fruits and vegetables. Oh, I know sometimes they bit and
made a mess of the streets. But some of them were true friends, better than any ol’ dog.

I’d stopped to watch television a few times but I didn’t like that much either. Most of it
was silly or just for selling stuff I didn’t need. But radio was fine. Lots of good music, not
pretty songs like Annabel Lee’s, but still the kind that made a heart happy.

“But you did, but you did and I thank you,” Trolls sang out like the two guys on the radio.
Not as good as Sammy and Davey but he had a clear, strong voice.

He stopped when he saw me, lounging on the vacant lot where I had abided since my
house was torn down a few years ago.

“Hey, you. What’d you say your name was?”

“Harry.”

He dropped on the ground beside me and gave me that squinty-eyed look again. “I
been looking for you since yesterday.”

“You have?” Nobody ever looked for me anymore, not since the funeral anyway.

“Turns out I owe you an apology.”

“You do? What for?”

“I should’ve believed you yesterday or whenever it was. I keep losing track of time.”

“That’s to be expected. I know it doesn’t feel like I been here for 135 years.”

He was getting ready to say something else until my statement made him stop. “Huh?
What you mean by that?”

Remembering my vow to be patient with this fellow, I explained as calmly as I could. “I

was twelve when I passed on. I had the diphtheria. I been here ever since.”

“No kidding?” He considered that for a moment. “The thing is, I realize now you might
be right. I don’t understand it but I know something weird is going on. When I went
home, I couldn’t turn the doorknob of my very own door. I tried again and again and
couldn’t get ahold of it. I tried to push against the door but it didn’t move a speck. I still
ended up in the living room anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s how it is for me, too. I can’t move anything but things like walls and doors
don’t keep me out anymore. I wish I could talk to people, but they can’t hear or see me.”

“I know what you mean. Mama Stella was in the living room and I expected them to look
up when I came in.”

“But they didn’t.”

“Now. It was as if I wasn’t even there. I sat between my Mama Stella. They had that
‘Julia’ show on the TV. Mama always likes seeing that Afro-American lady with her own
show but I’m not sure she was actually watching it. My house was crowded with people.
There were church ladies running around in the kitchen. They were frying chicken but I
couldn’t smell a thing. And the Reverend Fuller was sitting with my Auntie Dedly. They
both had their eyes closed, like they were praying. Anyway, Mama never once turned to
look at me. I tried to talk to her but she didn’t hear me neither. She had a tissue in her
hand and was shredding it to bits, crying her eyes out. I put my arms around her but it
didn’t do no good.”

I remember my own mother after I passed. It was hard thinking about how I made her
feel. Now it seemed like what I recalled most was her handkerchief, the Irish linen one
edged in lace and her initials stitched in pale blue on one corner. She lost it once after
she came home from church and she spent hours looking for it. I found it wedged under
a cushion and she laughed as she hugged me.

She was holding it when I went to see her after I passed. It was crumpled and wet but
she still kept touching it to her red-rimmed eyes.
For a minute, I thought Trolls was going to cry. “She’s sad I’m dead, huh?” He stabbed
at his eyes with his big hand and swallowed. “How’d that happen? That’s what I want to
know. How come I’m dead?”

“I don’t know, Trolls.” I wish I knew why either of us were dead but I didn’t. Never had
been able to answer that question.

“So now I’m a ghost, huh?”

“‘Fraid so.”

“So is this Heaven?”

I wanted to laugh. This most assuredly was not Heaven or, as I like to call it, Home.
That’s where I want to go someday but not until I’m ready, not until Hermione comes to
see me here on Amity Street.

But how about Trolls? What did he need to work out with his family before he went
Home?

“No. This is where you lived. You could have gone Home when you passed but for
some reason, you turned aside. You weren’t ready to leave. Like me.”

He leaned in and searched my face with that squinty look again. “But you’re saying
there is a Heaven, right?”

I nodded.

“And this ain’t it?”

I shook my head.

“So why didn’t you go—what’d you call it?—Home?”

I didn’t get to answer Trolls before he hit me with another barrage of questions.

“What you staying here for? Why would anybody stay around here on these dirty old
streets? I got to tell you, for a little white boy, you’re pretty brave to be hanging out
around here.”

That got my back up. I’d abided here a long time. I knew my way around, even as the
neighbourhood grew and changed and changed again. “My family lived in the house
that used to be next to the little house on the corner.”

I pointed to Hermione’s place.

I explained how my house used to look, the other half of the duplex that shared a wall
with Annabel Lee’s house, before they tore it down, long after my Mama and Pa moved
away. “When I lived there, the two houses looked like mirror images of each other.”

“So why did you stay?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I really didn’t want to explain about Annabel Lee. Older
boys at the market used to make fun of me for being such a sap about her. I’ve always
loved Annabel Lee and I guess it showed. I’m not really good at keeping my feelings to
myself. But now, I wanted to keep this buried deep in my heart.

“I have to wait for my friend.” Would that be enough to satisfy Trolls?

He looked down his nose at me, like he was skeptical. “Is he dead too?”

What a question. It’s been almost 135 years since I saw Annabel Lee. I guess she had
to be, though. I didn’t rightly know. All I knew is she said she was coming back. That’s
what kept me here waiting.