I take a moment as the past tugs at me, not good memories. “It took until my freshman year to be diagnosed. I remember one time in elementary school, in third grade, we had to answer introductory questions about ourselves and draw a picture. You know, the typical stuff—what I like to eat, sports I play, favorite movie. The teacher put up our posters of ourselves on the bulletin board in the hallway for open house. I remember coming home and crying, begging Mom and Dad not to go to open house because I didn’t want them to see my poster next to everyone else’s. Everyone’s handwriting was perfect, the words spelled right. Mine looked like a mess and hardly anything was spelled correctly. I was embarrassed and then Mom got mad when she saw it because she didn’t think I was trying hard enough. Here’s the thing, I was. I gave that poster everything I had and it still wasn’t good enough.”
I go quiet, and Veronica allows me time. She doesn’t have a look of pity on her face, just understanding. Then she does something unexpected. Veronica leans forward and places her hand over mine. Soft fingers, a delicate touch, and my entire body sparks to life. As if I had been in darkness—the world was black and white—and then the switch was flipped into color.
“Thank you for sharing that.” God, she has a beautiful voice.
“Besides the counselor who diagnosed me, you’re the only person I’ve told what it’s like for me to read,” I say.
She unleashes a beaming smile, but unfortunately takes her hand away from mine. “So what you’re saying is that I’m special.”
I chuckle. “I guess so.”
“What?” She mock gasps. “Sawyer Sutherland, the most popular guy at this school, likes me? You better watch out. If you hang with me for too long, people are going to talk.”
“I’m not popular.” And they talk anyhow.
She overly rolls her eyes. “Please. You’re the king, and you know it, and the king likes me.” She sings the last part like she’s five. “Sawyer likes me.”
She playfully nudges my foot with hers, and my heart skips a beat. These reactions aren’t something that normally happen to me, and it’s confusing. Her gorgeous blue eyes dance, and I wonder how it is that I’ve been around her for the last few years and have never stopped to notice her eyes before, or her mesmerizing voice.
“Five minutes left, people,” Mrs. Garcia says, and Veronica smiles at me before she opens her notebook and begins to write.
I rub the back of my head, stretch, and I’m shocked to find my heart beating faster.
Get it together, Sutherland. Get it together.
VERONICA
“You can’t let her in,” Mom whispers in my ear, and her warning causes my blood to freeze. It’s Monday evening, and I watch on the security monitor as Glory enters the foyer of the house and starts up the stairs.
Where people in town think I’m weird, they think she’s insane. Yet that doesn’t stop them from going to her house and paying her money for a psychic reading. She may not be invited to the fanciest parties in town, but Glory’s laughing all the way to the bank.
“If you let her in,” Mom says, “she’ll make me leave.”
My gaze darts to hers, and there’s fear in her eyes. “Why would she do that?”
“Because that’s why God gave Glory her gift to see spirits. She’s to usher those of us who linger in this realm to the next one. Remember what I told you, V. Be careful of who you invite into your home—once invited in, death is too powerful to stop.”
I jump when there’s a knock on the door. I don’t want Mom to go. I need her here with me, but … “Should you go? I mean, I don’t want you to go, but will you be happier in heaven?”
There’s this twisting hope in me that’s nearly strangling: I want so desperately for her to say that death isn’t terrifying.
Mom tilts her head then reaches out and cups my cheek. I close my eyes with the brief, feathering touch and wish I could hug her. For some reason, we can do light touches, but we can’t hug. That’s one of the things I miss the most—her tight, safe hugs. She’d always smell of roses and baby powder, and no matter how cold it was outside she was warm.
“Why would I want to leave you and your father? There’s no place I’d rather be than with you.”
Glory knocks again, and my pulse quickens as she calls out, “I know you’re in there, V. Quit stalling and open the door.”
“What should I do?” I ask.
“Ignore her.”
“Glory can’t make you leave, can she? If you want to stay, can’t you stay?”
Another knock, but louder this time. “Take a look at the camera, V, and I promise you’ll open the door.”
Glory holds up some sort of thick, wrapped stick, and my mom flickers. Honest to God flickers. Like she’s there and then not there and that causes panic to rush into my veins.
“I’ve been told to use this if you don’t open this door,” Glory calls.
“Open it.” The anxiety in Mom’s tone heightens mine. “But get her to leave. Quickly. She’ll lie to get what she wants. Her instincts are to force spirits to move on, but she doesn’t understand that some of us need to stay.”
Then Mom disappears and the suddenness causes my lungs to squeeze. I scan the room and it’s empty and that makes me strangely hollow. Footsteps upstairs, and I find the ability to breathe again. She’s not gone, just someplace different.
I undo the locks and open the door. Glory has waist-length, sandy-blond hair that has a wild natural curl. She wears a long, layered, light blue skirt and an off-the-shoulder white blouse. In her hands is the bundle she held up, and in the crook of her arm is a wicker picnic basket.
“Hello, V,” Glory says. “Are you going to let me in?”
Don’t want to, but … “Sure.”
Glory enters and surveys my home with wary eyes. “You skipped our monthly healing session.” She pins me with her gaze. “Twice.”
“Sorry. I’ve been busy.”
“Hmmm.” Glory walks farther into the room, each step more hesitant than the one before. “I’ve been dreaming of you.”
“All good things, right?” My smile feels fake, and I’m betting it looks that way, too.
“No.”
Crap.
She lifts the bundle in her hand. “Do you know what this is?”
Not really. She’s used it around me before when I’ve gone to her home for psychic healings and when she’s cleansed my aura. “Some sort of expensive pot?”
“Sage, and it’s used to rid your body and your home of unwanted negative energy.”
“That sounds good.”
Glory walks toward the turret and there’s a sinking in my gut as she brushes her hand along the pillows of Mom’s favorite spot. She then looks over at the piano. Mom’s piano. Where Mom had been sitting before Glory came to the door. “I remember when I first met you, you used to play the piano all the time. Beautifully if memory serves correctly.”
I did. Mom taught me how to play. The music belonged to me and her. After she died, I stopped.
“I’m curious,” Glory continues, “why in my dreams you’re smudging this house, and when you do it, you’re doing it in fear?”
“Smudging?” I ask innocently.
She waves the stick in the air. “The act of lighting this to rid a house of spirits. Now tell me why I saw what I did in my dreams.”
“I have no idea.”
“An even better question, why did I have an angel visit me this morning telling me that you’ve chosen a very dangerous path? One that will affect your health, your family, and one that includes you messing with the spiritual realm?”
We stare at each other. Me trying to hide my guilt. Her in disapproval.
“Spill,” Glory demands, and my shoulders sag.
“It’s not a big deal. I’m doing my senior thesis paper on whether or not ghosts exist.”
Glory grimaces as the picnic basket slides from the crook of her elbow to her wrist. “And how are you going about this project?”
“I’m
going to do some research and”—I twine and untwine my fingers—“I’m going to visit haunted places.”
“And communicate with the spirits there?”
I nod. Glory tsks me like I’m a toddler then walks into the kitchen and sets the basket on the table. “From the moment I met you, I told you to be careful with spirits.”
“Technically”—I hold a finger in the air—“you told me to avoid the first floor, and I do.” At least until recently.
“Because you’re an antenna.” Rare frustration leaks into her tone. “Spirits are naturally drawn to you, and when you start communicating with them you’re inviting them to attach themselves to you. Not all spirits are good ones. Some aren’t spirits at all, but demons. You’re not trained to understand the difference, and what are you going to do when something negative attaches itself to you and you drag it home?”
“I’ll call you?”
“Yes, you will, but you don’t need to drag anything else into this house. Whatever lives on the first floor likes to play games with people. You and your father are protected, I’ve seen to that, but this entity draws in prone people and then it takes advantage of their weaknesses. The last thing you need is more negative energies in this house and possibly creating a situation I can’t control.”
“I don’t think the spirits downstairs are as bad as you think.”
“Because you think it is a child.”
“I know it’s a child.”
“And I’m telling you that there is more than just that child. Something else lurks there, and I don’t understand why you’re choosing to be naïve. You’re too smart for this, V, and I’m curious as to why you’re avoiding me, why you’re taking on this project and why you’re lying to me about being downstairs. This house is alive, it talks, and I’m aware you spent time in the living spaces on the first floor. In fact, this house is screaming at me—so many things all at once, and there are so many voices I can hardly understand what any of it means.”
She places a hand to her head as if it aches, and I understand how she feels.
“I’m sorry you’re in pain,” I say, and my guilt becomes a weight on my chest. “I know how much you hate being here.”
“I worry about you. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here at all.” Choosing to ignore her pain, Glory lifts her head. I can tell because I do it all the time. “I need to smudge your house, and I need your permission to do it.”
“Why?”
“I need to rid the house of the spirits it has collected over the past few years, and I need your permission as someone has allowed these spirits to stay here. I’m assuming that person is you. While I understand that a good majority of these spirits have come to the house attached to the different tenants you’ve had in the apartment downstairs, they have stayed when the people left because your energy creates a welcoming environment.”
Everything in this house has always been friendly. Maybe Mom is right. Maybe Glory doesn’t understand that it’s okay for spirits to linger.
“I first smudged the house when you became friends with Jesse, and I’ve continued to do it over the years. I wasn’t able to force everything out since I’ve been doing it around the house and I didn’t have you or your father’s permission to smudge. I have been able to minimize the negative energy’s impact and power, but I had no idea how much the energy had grown since my last visit. There’s something evil lurking downstairs and you need to let me force it out.”
I wrap my arms around myself as I think of my mom. What if Glory accidentally forces her to leave? “Dad will be home soon. He’s making deliveries in the area this week, and I don’t think he’s going to be happy to find you walking around trying to burn down his house.”
“My angels told me you’d say that.” She goes silent, waiting for me to respond, but I don’t have anything to add.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” she says, “but I’m here for you if things spiral out of control. In the meantime,” she opens the basket, takes out another smudge stick and a seashell, “I’m leaving these with you. When you are called to do this, open the windows and every door to the house, closets included. Light the sticks and go through the entire house, and you have to command the spirits to leave. Once you’re done, put out the sticks by crushing them into this shell. Then call me and I’ll do a follow-up. Do you understand?”
I nod because Glory has always been awesome to me and lying to her doesn’t feel good. Glory places the smudge sticks and shell on the kitchen table then crosses the room to me.
“You aren’t helping anyone, living or dead, by giving spirits a place to stay,” she says. “They need to move on.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re meant for more than here. Earth isn’t our final destination—it’s preschool. Death is a graduation from this place to another. Plus, if the spirits don’t move on then neither do we.” She tucks my hair behind my ear, like my mother used to do. “Jesse told me your headaches are getting worse. I brought crystals: amethyst and tourmaline. They will help. I spotted the hammock in the backyard. Let’s go there and I’ll perform a healing. The house is too loud for me to stay in.”
“Okay.” But I don’t move. Instead I’m stuck in place. Dread fills me as I think of Mom, how Sawyer said Lucy’s having nightmares and how the activity in the house seems to be growing. “Why am I a magnet for spirits?”
“One, you believe.”
True.
“Then there’re some people who share a rare place between the living and the dead and you happen to sometimes be there.”
I say what she dances around. “Because I’m dying.”
“Not anytime soon if I have anything to do with it. Come, let’s call on some angels to do their job.” Glory takes my hand. I clasp on to her as if I’m a child and follow her out the door and down the stairs.
SAWYER
Wednesday March 13: Nothing much doing today. Cured a little, but Diary, I really am neglecting my cure. But I simply cannot compose myself enough to keep quiet on the cure.
Harry and Joe came over and sat with Tillie and I. I certainly was angry with both of them. They acted too silly for words.
But probably I was disagreeable because I had the most terrible pleurisy. Painted my side with iodine.
Pleurisy—an inflammation of the inner chest wall of the lungs. My Google search on a word I didn’t know brought up pictures of people in pain. Can’t imagine painting iodine on skin helped, but it was 1918. Don’t imagine there was much that helped at all.
Neither can I imagine curing—lying outside in the open air. Even when it was cold. Even when it was hot. Lying still, being quiet, doing nothing … for hours. Sounds like hell. I imagine I would have been a lot like Evelyn. I would have gone there because that’s what I was told to do, but then would have done a crap-ass job with what was expected.
In the living room, Lucy sits on the floor, zoned in to cartoons and using the coffee table as a place to eat. If Mom finds out she’ll go nuclear, but I need the break. I put Evelyn’s diary on the coffee table, grab the pot and scoop more box mac-n-cheese onto Lucy’s plate.
I walk into the kitchen and place the pot next to the stack of stuff to be cleaned. I’ve helped Lucy with homework, played dolls until I thought my brain was about to crack and made her dinner. At the kitchen window, I do a double take and spot Veronica lying in a hammock while the town nutcase/psychic hovers near her head.
My cell pings, and my eyebrows draw together when I spot Dad’s name. I put in one earbud and listen using the text-to-voice app: It’s time for me to hang out with you two again. When would be a good time for you to drive up so I can see you and Lucy? You pick—this weekend or next?
Never. How’s that for an answer? I talk into my phone to text back: How about you pay your child support?
There’s a purring engine and Mom’s shiny Beamer flies into her marked spot on the big space of blacktop. There’s a garage in the back big enough for the semi without a rig that
pulled in here early Saturday morning. We aren’t allowed to park in or near the garage, but only in one of the two spots designated on the side of the garage or on the street out front.
My cell pings two times in a row. It’s Dad, and when it chimes a third time, I turn my cell off. I don’t have the patience for Dad’s bull excuses.
I’m betting with how Mom slams her car door and rushes the house, Sylvia told Hannah about English and Hannah told Mom. Or maybe Sylvia snitched in person. The back door flies open, and Mom yanks off her sunglasses. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I lean back against the counter and fold my arms over my chest. “Want to pull back on the language? Lucy’s in the living room watching cartoons, eating the dinner I made her that you promised to make tonight. And thanks for picking her up from day care like you also promised. I had to split from practice early to get her. We owe more money on the day care account now for the late pickup and the director was ten shades of angry. And Coach is pissed at me again, and because you sweet-talk him, he blames me not you.”
Mom jerks like I threw a baseball in her face. “I didn’t promise you anything.”
“Yeah, you did. Last night before I went to bed, I asked if you would pick her up and make dinner since I had late practice.”
“You must be remembering incorrectly as I wouldn’t forget that.”
The muscles in my neck tense. “I walked into your room last night at ten and I said—”
“Enough!” she shouts. “I don’t want to hear it. I would remember, you’re wrong and none of what you’re saying has anything to do with the real problem. How could you refuse to work with Sylvia? Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull to put you in that AP English class? Do you have any idea how much time I spent?”
My vision tunnels and my pulse pounds in my ears, but I keep silent because it won’t matter what I say. It never matters what I think.
“And now I look like a fool and you’re risking your grade and your swim career in order to prove some sort of point?”
Miguel
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