by Sarah Kuhn
“But on the other hand,” Victoria said, taking Jocelyn’s hand again. “Without Morgan, the two of us surely never would have met. It’s where I really found myself, where I discovered my love of science. Where I first started to dream of a life for myself that didn’t simply involve finding a rich man and marrying well so my grandfather could be taken care of.”
“Is that why you give them so much money every year?” I said.
“I suppose so, yes,” Victoria said, her gaze wistful. “I like to imagine other young women are finding their dreams there as well, and I want to help them on that quest. This world is not always easy on us. If I can make things a little easier thanks to the fortunate way my life has turned out, then I want to do that.” She gazed off into the distance for a moment, and I saw those regrets flashing over her face again. I wondered if she’d ever want to return to campus—I’d never had the desire until recently. I’d also wanted to leave the past in the past.
“And if it were up to just me, that place would never see another cent,” Jocelyn said, casting an affectionate look Victoria’s way. “But Vic has the softest heart. And the fact that both my Victoria and the ghost Victoria are helping students there . . . well, it warms my heart. Which is cold and black, if that wasn’t clear.”
I smiled at her. I couldn’t help but feel that that was very much not true.
“So,” Victoria said, standing and crossing the room. “Is our story at all connected to what’s happening on campus?” She fiddled with another package of cookies, picking at the plastic, which didn’t seem to want to open. She finally gave up and brought the package back over to Jocelyn, who tore it open and set it out for us.
I exchanged a glance with Aveda. “We’re not sure,” I said honestly. “It definitely confuses things more, raises a lot of questions about what’s going on. We actually encountered Ghost Victoria just the other night.”
Victoria smiled at me and squeezed Jocelyn’s hand. Her knuckles were white, I noticed.
“But,” I continued, “I don’t think what you’ve told us is something we have to share with administrators—or anyone, for that matter.”
“Thank you,” Victoria said, her hand relaxing a little. “Our life is quiet, but we like it the way it is.”
“Of course,” I said. “It’s really . . .” I paused, studying them, searching for the right words. They were gazing at each other again, so much love and tenderness radiating between them. It stabbed at something deep inside of me, made tears spring to my eyes. It was really inspiring that they’d managed to fight through so much to be together. That they’d fought so hard for each other. And they hadn’t just survived, they’d thrived. This life, this dream they’d managed to make come true, was a beautiful thing.
I wondered if Nate and I could have something like that. If we’d gaze at each other lovingly over cookies after decades together, all our hurt and misunderstandings melting away.
Once I’d thought we’d always fight for each other. But now . . .
“It’s wonderful what you two have together,” I said, my voice trembling. “Thank you for sharing your story with us.”
“Come on, Waterworks,” Aveda said, standing and motioning for me to do the same. “Let’s get out of here before you get your tears all over these cookies.”
“Sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes and getting to my feet. “I’m pregnant,” I blurted out to Victoria and Jocelyn. “So, you know . . .” I gestured to my teary face. “Hormones.”
“Congratulations,” Victoria said, smiling at me. “But you don’t need an excuse to be moved, my dear. Sometimes I tear up when I remember the first time I met Jo. I had no idea of the adventure we were about to go on together.”
“You’re such a marshmallow,” Jocelyn said to her—but she was also smiling.
Victoria walked us to the door, making small talk about the garden outside.
“Good-bye, Evie and Aveda,” she said, opening the door for us. “And . . .” She hesitated, casting a glance back at the kitchen. “If we are somehow connected to whatever’s happening at the college now or if there’s anything we can do to help . . . please let me know. I know Jo would rather never hear a word about Morgan again. But it’s an important part of our past we can’t deny.”
Then she reached over and gently squeezed my arm—and for some reason, that small gesture of kindness made me burst into tears.
* * *
My phone buzzed as soon as Aveda piloted us back to the freeway. We’d been riding in silence, both of us trying to figure out what Victoria being alive meant for all of this.
I tapped the answer button.
“Hey, boring-ass adults,” Bea sang out, her face filling the screen. “I got some bracelet intel for ya.”
“As in Pippa’s bracelet?” I said. “I thought you said that all you found was a trace of supernatural energy that gave you a bunch of gibberish numbers.”
“That’s right,” she said cheerfully. “At least that’s what we thought it was at first. But then I was playing this numbers game online with Sam—it’s this thing where you have to do math really fast and you keep solving problems on top of each other and then eventually, one of you—”
“This is fascinating but also seems like not the most relevant information?” Aveda interrupted.
“Right,” Bea said, blushing a little. “I forget that math isn’t as exciting for most people as it is for Sam and me.”
“Keeping the flame alive long distance, I see,” I said.
“Mmm hmm,” she said, her blush deepening. “Anyway, we got bored with the equations the game was giving us, so we started making up our own. I needed a rando sequence of numbers, so I used the one we got off the bracelet. I was mixing up the numbers, using them to come up with new equations, when all of a sudden I realized something.”
Aveda and I both leaned in, waiting.
“That sequence of numbers,” Bea said, “is the same as the code that usually detects emerging portals—with one key difference.” She widened her eyes and swept a hand out. “It’s backward.”
“What?!” I exploded. “What does that mean?”
“It could mean nothing,” she said. “We all know the scanners aren’t always the most reliable source of data. But it seems odd that the exact same sequence we get whenever there’s a new portal—which we haven’t seen in ages, by the way, because there haven’t been any new portals—would just show up at random.”
“That means it’s not random,” Aveda said, gripping the steering wheel harder. “But does that also mean there’s a new portal opening up at Morgan? Is that what’s been causing all the ghosts?” Her brow furrowed as she tried to work it out. “Is Morgan College the Hellmouth?!”
“Sounds like it has a lot of Hellmouth-y qualities,” Bea said. “But I think if this were a portal like the ones we’ve seen before, it would just give us the same code as always. Backward seems to indicate there’s something different about it.”
“A new, weird portal that’s possibly allowing the demons to work with ghosts,” Aveda muttered. “I don’t know if I can even wrap my head around that. I think we need to talk to Pippa and Shelby again—or maybe everyone who was at that dorm party, period. See if they noticed anything at all.”
I hesitated, turning this new information over in my mind. Bits and pieces were swirling around again, chaotic and refusing to form a clear picture.
Backward . . . Hellmouth . . . Pippa . . .
Pippa’s face swam into my brain. I pictured her lying on the chaise-longue, describing her ordeal.
It was like I was suddenly pulled away from reality. Swept off of Earth. Taken somewhere completely alien . . .
“Wait a minute . . .” I breathed, some of the puzzle pieces coming into sharper focus. “What if it’s backward because it’s the opposite of the portals we’re used to?”
“What
are you saying?” Aveda said.
“I’m saying that it’s not the Hellmouth,” I said, feeling my theory out. “It’s the reverse Hellmouth. It doesn’t bring demons to our world—it takes people to theirs.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
AVEDA WAS PACING again. We’d returned to our dorm room to further contemplate this whole reverse portal possibility, but we didn’t seem to be getting very far. Bea told us she’d do a little more research and cross-reference with Nate. Until then, we could only hypothesize.
“A reverse portal makes some sense, given how the demon connection to our world has evolved recently,” Aveda said, tramping across the floor between her bed and mine. At this rate, we were going to have to pay the college for completely destroying that section of carpet. “After Bea’s adventures jumping into the Otherworld, maybe the demons were like, ‘Oh, hey—it still seems to be difficult for us to travel to the human realm, but if we go the other way, perhaps we can actually get access’?”
“Maybe,” I said, turning it over in my mind. “But what would the ultimate goal of that be—just keep taking people until Earth doesn’t have anyone left? That would only overcrowd their realm without giving them a way to get to ours.”
“True,” Aveda said, flopping down on her bed. “But remember Bea’s Mom-Demon—she needed a certain amount of human souls to weaponize Bay Area locations. And she was close to getting enough souls to actually cross over to the human world. It could be something like that?”
“Then why did they return Pippa? It doesn’t make sense. It’s almost like they were . . .” I trailed off, trying to make all the puzzle pieces fit. For some reason, Bea’s chatter about her math game popped into my head. How she and Sam had experimented with adding new numbers, new equations—new ways of challenging themselves. “What if it’s more like the Otherworld demons are experimenting with something?” I began, feeling out a theory. “What if the reverse portal is a test, something they figured out they could do now that the walls between worlds are thinner—maybe they want to see how that sort of thing would work and what the limitations are?”
“That could explain what happened to Pippa,” Aveda said. “But basically nothing else. What do the ghosts have to do with reverse portals?”
“Hmm, let’s think about the other thing we just learned,” I said. “Which is that there’s a Morgan ghost of a person who’s actually still alive. How did Tess describe what they and Julie hypothesized: demonic energy fusing with leftover paranormal energy, those emotional resonances left behind by humans?”
“They said that’s what produces the more aggressive apparition,” Aveda said, nodding. “The ghost that’s able to interact and attack people.”
“But now we know that ‘leftover paranormal energy’ doesn’t necessarily come from someone dying,” I said, shaking my head, trying to make it all make sense. “How did Victoria leave any kind of ‘energy’ behind? Did she just have such a strong presence, her emotional resonance, like, dripped off of her and stayed here? But if that’s possible, wouldn’t there be so many more ‘ghosts’?”
“If these ghosts are essentially powered by demons on purpose, rather than the collision of the two energies being an accident, maybe the demons are choosing which resonances to activate,” Aveda said. “Then again, it seems like they don’t have total control over the ghosts. Otherwise the ghosts would never pass over, right? They’d stick around and keep terrorizing humans. But I guess experiments don’t always go the way you think they will. Too many variables—isn’t that what Nate would say?”
“He would say that,” I said, my heart clenching. I brushed the feeling aside. “I mean, maybe the demons need the ghosts to pass over for some reason? Something along the lines of Bea’s Mom-Demon needing all those souls? But we still don’t know what makes them pass over. Ugh. I wish we could talk to Julie again.” I took a deep breath, forcing my mind to focus—trying to see the whole picture. “Let’s go back to one of our first examples of this kind of ghost—Shelby’s courtyard ghost. Who seems to have passed over. Maybe there’s something in here . . .”
I reached over and grabbed the big red book we’d taken from the Quiet Room.
“Let’s see,” I said, flipping through. “Ah, here we go—a whole damn section entitled The Spirit of the Courtyard.”
“What did Richard say her story was?” Aveda said. “She was looking for her children?”
“Yes, and she broke off from the rest of her wagon train, desperate to find them.” I scanned through the spidery handwriting, trying to find something beyond a basic description of the ghost. “Huh. This is interesting.”
“What?” Aveda said, breaking from her pacing and sitting down next to me on my bed.
“It says our pioneer woman didn’t break off on a whim—she proposed an alternate route that actually might have gotten the whole party to their destination more quickly,” I said, reading over the page. “But she was immediately dismissed by the men leading the party. She fought with them for two days straight before finally deciding to go her own way and try to find her children.”
“Tragic,” Aveda said. “And yet another instance of men ruining things, I might add.”
“So why was she telling Shelby that Shelby was destined to fail here?” I mused, thinking back to my conversation with Shelby at the dorm party. “And why was that the thing that may have gotten the ghost to pass over? Did she just need to fully get her aggression out or what?”
“Let’s go talk to Shelby and Pippa,” Aveda said, jumping up from the bed. “We should check in on them anyway, see how they’re doing.”
“Great idea,” I said, just as my stomach let out an embarrassingly loud growl. “Except first I need pickles.”
“I know the drill,” Aveda said, marching over to our mini fridge. “Pickles, peanut butter, furikake. Look how amazing I am at this! You should be pregnant all the time, Evie, it really brings out my caretaking side.”
“Dear god, please no,” I said. “Though if you want to make me snacks all the time, even when I’m not pregnant, I am one hundred percent for that.”
“You wish,” she said, expertly slathering a pickle with peanut butter.
* * *
“Cool TAs!” Pippa sang out, throwing open her dorm room door and ushering us inside. “You are just in time for my! Epic! Meltdown!” She slammed the door shut behind us and stomped over to her bed, flopping down and pulling a pillow over her head.
Shelby, who was sitting on her own bed, gave us a little wave.
“What’s going on?” I asked, crossing the room and sitting next to Shelby. Aveda stayed standing, leaning against the wall and studying Pippa curiously.
“Professor Covington’s threatening to fail her,” Shelby said, pulling at the ends of her hair. Her gaze went to Pippa, who was now lying inert, grumbling into the pillow over her face.
“What?” I spat out. “Why?”
“Because I missed class and am now late turning in a big paper and apparently being kidnapped and stuffed into a velvet coffin for a couple days isn’t a good excuse,” Pippa snarled, throwing the pillow to the side.
“Did you actually tell him the velvet coffin part?” Aveda asked.
“Of course not,” Pippa spat out. “Provost Glennon was supposed to take care of it for me, explain that I was totally excused. But I guess that wasn’t good enough for him, and he’s been all up in my inbox saying that even if I miss class, I’m still responsible for turning in work on time and I’ve had all semester to work on this paper, which is technically true, but . . .” She shook her head, pulled the pillow back over her face, and screamed into it.
“Pips . . . here, hug Carpet Ball. Carpet Ball always helps,” Shelby yelped, her eyes widening with desperation. She tossed the furry green monstrosity across the room. It landed with a sad little thunk next to Pippa’s head. Pippa threw her pillow aside and pulled Carpet
Ball into her arms, curling herself around it like it was a life preserver. “Guys, I can’t fail this class,” she said, a thread of fear weaving its way into her voice. “I’ll lose my scholarship, I’ll . . .” She hugged Carpet Ball tighter, her face crumpling. A tear trailed down her cheek and she rubbed her face against Carpet Ball, wiping it away.
Shelby jumped up and went to her, plopping down next to Pippa and patting her back.
I studied them for a moment, a heady stew of emotions bubbling up in my gut. It was sudden and all-consuming and I couldn’t stop it. My face got hot, my vision narrowed, and all I could see were these two vibrant girls on the cusp of adulthood . . . being torn down by a fucking awful man who only cared about spouting his pretentious theories and preserving his massive ego.
Then I realized it was actually just one emotion bubbling through me.
Rage.
“Fuck that!” I growled, jumping to my feet. My hands fisted at my sides and I forced myself to uncurl them. I had a momentary flash of pleasure, though, realizing that I wasn’t afraid of my fire coming out, as it had all those years ago in the library—because now I was in control. “He is not going to flunk you, Pippa,” I declared, putting my hands on my hips. “I’ll make sure of that.”
I turned on my heel and strode toward the door, that rage blazing through me in a way that felt positively unstoppable.
“Wait, Eliza!”
I whirled around to see Pippa leaping up from her bed, Carpet Ball still clutched to her chest.
“It’s after five,” she said, gesturing to the darkening sky outside the window. “If you’re on your way to confront him . . . well, he won’t be in his office anymore.”
“Then . . . then I’ll go to his cottage! Or write him a strongly worded email! Or—”
“Eliza.” A sweet half-smile broke through Pippa’s tears. She hugged Carpet Ball a little tighter. “I appreciate it. But please don’t do any of that—I don’t want you to jeopardize your job.”