Giving Up the Ghost (6 page)

Tomorrow? Not tomorrow! . . . shopping date with Miranda! Jayden
'
s present! . . . think, think, think . . . need a reason . . . my recital! Aha! Good. Have to practice for my recital . . .

I put up the shield. Managed to tune her out completely now—both what she was saying and what she was thinking. I was stunned. Lily and Miranda were going shopping together? And they were going to chip in to buy Jayden a present? Together? Wasn't he
my
sort-of-kind-of boyfriend? Why were they buying him something? Wasn't it enough that they were throwing him a party? Without asking me for any help?

I tuned back in to her words.

“—so yeah, then my mom was on the phone with the plumber, and it was one of those ‘eventful' mornings.” She crooked her fingers into air quotes.

She was obviously trying to change the subject. To keep it away from doing something together tomorrow. I didn't know how to feel. Confused? Hurt? Mad? Having a best friend might be all new to me, but I was certain this wasn't normal behavior. Why was Lily treating me like this?

I was pretty quiet for the rest of the walk to school. I swallowed away the huge lump in the back of my throat. My eyes burned, but I didn't cry. Between my hood and my soggy hair, my face was covered, so Lily didn't notice.

I spent the first
half of the day going over my conversation with Lily in my mind. Could I have misread something? Or had I done something wrong without realizing it?

At lunch I was still upset. Lily and Miranda were chatting away as I slid into my seat with my tray. I stared down at my taco. I wasn't all that hungry anyway, and what was left of my appetite rapidly vanished as I observed the greasy orange sauce pooling around the taco, and realized it was not even remotely warm. I shoved my tray away a few inches, then opened my milk carton and took a long gulp. The light, normal feeling I'd woken up with was long gone.

“So I guess the Sunday thing didn't work out so well,” said Lily, turning to me suddenly. “You know. For your birthday. Are you okay with it?”

“Me? Sure. I mean, whatever,” I mumbled.

“I guess it's just a busy weekend,” said Lily apologetically. But something in her voice was off. Like she wasn't really all that sorry.

I was aware that the others at the table had turned toward us to listen. I suddenly felt bold. Maybe Lily wouldn't be able to hang out tomorrow, but possibly someone else would.

“Well, hey, how about tomorrow?” I asked. “Anyone feel like hanging out, maybe going to Scoops or whatever?”

I saw Miranda and Lily exchange a quick look. Marlee suddenly looked very interested in reading the ingredients on her granola bar wrapper. Tamara shoved a heaping forkful of taco into her mouth. Avery coughed.

I started to hear a chorus of their thoughts inside my head, but I forced myself to block them. I didn't want to know.

After an awkward silence, Lily finally spoke. “Sar, I'm so sorry, but we have dinner plans with Aunt Angela and her family tomorrow, and we have to leave early.”

Lily was lying. I knew it without having to read her thoughts.

“Okay,” I said. I felt my lower lip quivering, but I made it stop. “So I guess you're going to your aunt's
after
you practice for your dance recital, then?”

The stunned look on Lily's face told me I'd gone too far. She looked hurt. Then surprised. And then completely baffled.

With a pang, I realized my mistake. She'd never said out loud that she had to practice for her recital. She'd only thought it. And I just let her know that I'd heard her thinking it this morning.

Luckily, Tamara changed the subject. “I dropped my Spanish workbook in a puddle this morning,” she said. “Anyone have one I can borrow for Spanish class next period?”

I was relieved that the focus had shifted away from my conversation with Lily. I felt completely awful.

My gaze was distracted by a movement across the crowded cafeteria.

It was the spirit of the gym teacher. The one who always seemed to show up at the times I least felt like dealing with him.

“Collins!” he boomed.

Of course, I was the only one who could hear him.

“Need you to do me a favor, Collins! Now, don't you go rushing out on me again! I know your tricks! Hey! Collins!”

“Gotta run,” I said to my friends, already standing and turning to hustle out of the cafeteria. “See you, guys.”

And I ducked out before the spirit could make his way toward me. Well, at least I'd managed to do something right. I'd managed to avoid the spirit for one more day.

I was good at avoiding things.

Chapter 8

By the time school was out on Thursday afternoon, the gloomy skies had cleared a little. The sun actually looked as though it was trying to peer out from the light-gray clouds. Puddles were everywhere, though, and I got soaked twice by cars fanning water on me as they whooshed through waterlogged streets.

When I got home, Lady Azura was waiting for me. I peeled off my wet jacket and hung it on a hanger on the inside of the closet door, where it could drip dry without soaking everything around it.

“I've made some tea,” she said by way of hello. “Run up and change into dry clothes and I'll pour you a cup.”

A few minutes later, I was sitting at the cozy kitchen table, my hair still damp and stringy, but warm again in my comfiest sweats, sipping sweet tea and nibbling on the cookies Lady Azura had put out on a little plate for me. I felt some of the stress of the day melt away.

“Finish your tea,” she said as I reached for the last cookie. “Then come into my room. We must meditate together.” She stood up and walked out of the kitchen, leaving a trail of exotic scent in her wake.

I had known her long enough to understand that what she really meant was, “Hurry up and finish your tea.” So I gulped down one more sip, carried my cup to the sink, and then followed her into her room.

She was already sitting at her table, eyes closed, calmly breathing. She opened one eye and addressed me. “Come. Sit. We'll meditate together and see if we can't rid the house of what is afflicting it.”

I sat down warily.

“The negative energy that has invaded this house must be offset by positive energy. I have given this matter much thought, and I believe that if we combine our powers, we can rid the house of this terrible burden.”

“Do you know the source of the bad energy?” I asked.

“That's not important,” she said. She kept her eyes closed and hummed. She was avoiding my question. I was sure of it.

I tuned in to her thoughts. I heard a name:
Nina Oliver.
Then, as if a trapdoor had slid closed, I couldn't access her thoughts anymore.

She reached across the table and took both my hands in both of hers. They were tiny, with gnarled knuckles and large rings, but her grip was firm and warm. “Close your eyes. Think deeply,” she instructed.

I closed my eyes. Opened them again. Her eyes were closed, her lips quietly chanting something I couldn't hear. I felt uncomfortable doing this. I didn't know how to meditate. I breathed deeply. Tried to relax.

And almost immediately had a vision.

The room whirled around, faster and faster, reminding me of the time when I was a kid and I would twirl around and around to make myself dizzy. When the room came to a stop, I found myself no longer holding hands with Lady Azura. I was standing in the kitchen. It seemed to be late. Very late at night. I could see snow coming down outside the window. It was heaped on the windowsill. The calendar on the wall showed that it was February of this year—just last month.

The white-haired woman from my dream stood in a corner of the kitchen, facing Lady Azura. But now the woman was no longer alive. She was clearly a spirit. She looked much older than she had in my dream. Now she was an old woman, although probably not quite as old as Lady Azura. But she looked wearier. Careworn. Her eyes darted from side to side. Her movements seemed twitchy. Nervous.

“Please. You must help me,” she said to Lady Azura. Her voice was dry and cracked. Not the firm voice from my dream. Her former confidence seemed to have vanished.

Lady Azura was dressed in her dressing gown, wearing no makeup. As though she'd come into the kitchen late at night, after everyone else was in bed. Which made sense. I often thought I heard her roaming around the downstairs while I lay in bed.

Lady Azura's hands clutched the countertop behind her. I noticed her knuckles turned lighter. “I tried to help you when you were alive,” she said, firmly but not unkindly. “It will be much harder now. Yet there is still a way to reverse the course. You know what you must do, Nina.” My great-grandmother's brown eyes were sad. Filled with pity.

“I—cannot do it on my own,” said Nina the spirit, her voice trembling.

Lady Azura looked down at the floor and sighed heavily. “I will try to help you now, but you must
help
me help you. It will be very difficult for me. I must know that you will do the right thing.”

“I will. I swear,” said the spirit.

Suddenly the vision shifted.

Lady Azura and the white-haired woman—still a spirit—were seated across from each other at Lady Azura's table. My great-grandmother was still wearing her dressing gown. Now I could see the clock over the entry door, and it read 1:20 a.m. I stood nearby, looking down at them, but neither seemed to know that I was there. And yet I could smell the faint scent of patchouli, hear the knocking of the old radiators, feel the chilly draft that escaped from beneath the heavy drapes at the window. Outside, icy snow pattered against the window.

Several large, green crystals lay between them. Moldavite crystals. Like the one Lady Azura had given to me.

The spirit was trembling. She looked as though she might cry. The air in the room felt dark. Heavy. I found it hard to breathe. I felt an overwhelming sense of gloom and desolation. Hopelessness.

“You must let go. You must forgive them. Tell them how you feel. Show them. Release the energy, Nina. Release it, please.”

“I cannot,” she gasped. “It's too late.”

“You can. You must. Together we must try.”

The spirit was quiet for maybe a full minute, although it was hard to know how much time was passing. Then all at once she gave a shriek. I jumped. Lady Azura's eyes flew open.

I watched as a dark cloud whooshed out of the spirit's body. It startled me so much that I gasped and jumped backward. It formed a smoky, roiling cloud, dark as a smoke cloud, but somehow even thicker.

Just like the cloud I'd seen in my room.

It occurred to me that the cloud seemed to be propelled by anger. Agitation. It whipped furiously around the room. The spirit and I followed its path, this way and that. Lady Azura sat calmly, staring at the spirit. I was certain she couldn't see the cloud. Didn't know it was there.

Then the cloud slammed into a mirror on the wall, cracking it so that long, branchlike strands grew across it, like the surface of thin ice on a pond. But it didn't make a sound. Lady Azura did not seem to notice this, either, although the spirit and I both saw it.
So that's what happened to the mirror,
I thought, remembering how the mirror had just disappeared from Lady Azura's wall one day last month, and she'd refused to tell me anything other than that it had broken.

I saw the cloud swirl and shift, and then it seemed to get sucked out of the room, under the closed door. Out into the house. Just as it had in my bedroom after my dream.

The vision ended.

“Sara? Are you all right?”

I blinked. Stared at her. I had beads of sweat on my forehead and on my upper lip. I was breathing heavily. The vision had been so . . . vivid.

Lady Azura was giving me one of her laser stares. Her eyes bore into me.

“Sara. You must tell me what happened.”

Now I was officially freaked out. I'd dreamed about this woman twice. Then I'd seen her in a vision. Lady Azura clearly knew her. Suddenly I felt angry. She knew more than she was telling me. All this talk of “bad energy.” I had seen with my own eyes that the bad energy had been released into our house by this spirit. It hadn't just spontaneously shown up. There was more to the story. It didn't seem right that she was holding back information from me.

I decided to just come right out with it.

“Who is Nina Oliver?”

Lady Azura went pale.

Chapter 9

When someone who wears that much makeup loses all the color from her face, you know you're onto something.

Then she recovered. She folded her hands and leaned toward me, speaking in a calm, clear voice. “Sara. It is very important that you tell me what just happened to you. Did you have a vision?”

I met her eyes. I could be just as strong. I would tell her, but first she had to tell me what she knew.

“I think you're keeping something from me,” I said. “I'm not a kid. Well, I mean, I am, but I'm also old enough to handle this. You have to please tell me who Nina Oliver is. Because I have seen her three times.”

She sat back. She looked surprised. I guess I'd never really shown that I had much backbone before. I think I might have been as surprised as she was, but I tried not to show it. I just sat there and didn't look away.

“Very well. If you have seen that dreadful woman so many times, then you have a right to know.” Lady Azura's eyes searched my face as she spoke. “I will tell you the story of Nina Oliver.” And with that, she cleared her throat and launched into her story.

“Nina came to visit me many years ago—it was more than twenty years ago, in fact. But she came not as a client, she told me, but as a colleague. She told me that she had a special power. She was able to read people's minds.”

Lady Azura sat back and regarded me. I nodded, like that information came as no surprise. I mean, I'd seen and heard firsthand the way she read my
own
mind.