“Maybe.” Looking doubtful, Jamie grabbed the mouse and opened a new tab. “Oscar needs to see that photo of Lidia,” he reminded me, and I leaned back as he typed in my blog’s URL.
Lost in Crimptown
Comments: (27)
“Whoa, twenty-seven?” I made a move to click the comments open, but Oscar swatted my hand away.
“Hang on, I want to see the photo first.”
“Fine.” I scrolled down until the photo of Lidia filled the screen, and the three of us huddled close to the screen to study it. Maybe she didn’t look like Sonja, but the image was still creepy—strands of hair floating around her head like she’d just pulled on a sweater straight out of the dryer, eyes wide and unfocused . . . and the outline of a boy at her side, reaching for her, just barely visible against the crumbling gray brick wall.
I glanced at Oscar. His mouth was open, but he closed it when he realized I was looking. “Okay,” he said slowly. “That’s . . . weird. What is it?”
“It’s a ghost,” Jamie said matter-of-factly. “Not Sonja, and not Red Leer—too small. The third ghost we contacted with the Ouija board, remember?”
“Mi Jin said something about cameras picking up ghosts even when we can’t see them,” I added, tracing the outline with my finger. “Something about a broader spectrum of energy.”
Jamie beamed at me. “So you really do believe now?”
Flushed, I pulled my hand away from the screen. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I mean, I don’t know how else to explain this picture. And . . . she was Sonja. Lidia was Sonja. She grabbed my arm, and it felt like . . . like electricity.”
“So you think Sonja possessed her?” Jamie asked.
“I don’t know what I think.” I turned to Oscar. “Have you ever seen Lidia have a seizure?”
He shook his head, glancing back at the image of his aunt, glassy-eyed and wild. “No. But I never spent a whole lot of time with her before now—she was always traveling. And she and my dad aren’t really close.”
As soon as Oscar finished speaking, his face tightened. I stared at him, Sonja and Roland and the curse momentarily forgotten. This was the first time Oscar had even mentioned his father. Why wasn’t he living with him?
Something about his expression told me not to ask.
Jamie cleared his throat. “It doesn’t look like a seizure,” he said, pointing to the screen. “I mean, don’t people fall over when they have seizures? But you said she was walking down the tunnel, right, Kat?”
“Yeah.”
“She did fall,” Oscar said. “She was lying on the ground when we got there.”
“Only after I took her picture,” I pointed out. “But she was walking before that. And she . . .” Sighing, I turned to face Oscar. “Look, her face was Sonja’s face. I know you think I’m crazy, and I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what I saw.”
Oscar gazed at the picture. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”
“Kat?”
Startled, the three of us whirled around. Dad stood in the doorway, yawning.
“Hi,” I said, suddenly nervous even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong. “Everything okay?”
“Yup,” Dad replied lightly. “Just need to talk to you about something for a few minutes.”
He headed back into the hall without waiting for a response. Sighing, I stood up. “Time to get chewed out for running off last night.”
Jamie made a face. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I glanced at Oscar, but his eyes were back on the picture of Lidia.
Dad was waiting for me by the elevator, hands stuffed in his pockets. I watched him press the up button. Worry lines creased around his bloodshot eyes. My stomach clenched uncomfortably. I waited until we were on the elevator, then blurted out:
“I’m really sorry again about last night. I didn’t mean to—”
Blinking a few times, Dad waved his hand at me. “No, it’s . . . not that. I mean, we still need to have that talk. But that’s not why I came to get you.”
The elevator doors slid open. Dad ruffled his hair absentmindedly as he stepped into the hallway. I followed him to our room, the knot in my stomach cinching tighter and tighter with each step. Something was up. Something really not good. Outside our door, Dad turned to face me.
“Your mother’s on the phone.”
The knot snapped.
A sort of floating numbness spread through my chest. I stood there silently, waiting. After a few seconds, Dad sighed. “Look, sweetie . . . I’ve really been trying not to push you. But it’s been six months, and—”
“I don’t want to talk to her.”
“I know.” Dad sounded so weary, I felt another stab of guilt. “And like I said, I’ve been trying to respect that. But this is different. She has . . . news.”
News. A thousand possibilities jammed my brain all at once. She got into a major art gallery. She finally opened a studio in Cincinnati. She scored a cover shoot for a magazine. She’s moving to New York. She’s moving to Paris.
She wants to come back.
Not that I wanted her to. Not at all. But I wanted her to want to.
Dad swiped his key card and held the door open. I stepped inside, and he squeezed my shoulder.
“I’ll be down in the breakfast room,” he said before closing the door softly behind me. I listened to his footsteps fade as he walked down the hall, eyeing the phone on the desk. The light flashed red.
Steeling myself, I sat on the edge of my bed and picked up the receiver. “Hi.”
A pause. Then: “Kat? Is that you?”
“Yeah.” After half a year, I figured hearing my mother’s voice again would be . . . I don’t know. I thought it would make me feel something. But it didn’t.
I heard her take a deep breath. “H-how are you?” she said.
“Okay.”
“Good. That’s good.” Another pause. I stared at the wallpaper. Yellow with a swirly beige pattern. Fairly nauseating.
“Is it . . .” She paused, then there was the muffled sound of talking. I frowned. Did she have her hand over the mouthpiece? Who was she talking to? “Sorry, sorry,” she said quickly. “So, Kat, what’s it like in the Netherlands?”
“Fine.”
“I’m so jealous of the traveling you’re getting to do. Where are you headed next?”
“Belgium.”
“Wow. And your grandma said something about a haunted prison next—sounds creepy!”
“Yeah.” I twisted the phone cord around my finger and listened to her take a deep breath. That’s right, I’m not making this easy, huh? Poor you.
“Well, um . . .” Mom cleared her throat. “So, I have some news.”
News, news, news. I waited, tightening the cord until the tip of my finger went numb.
“I’m . . . engaged.”
I watched the clock change from 12:06 to 12:07.
“Kat?”
“What?”
“I said I’m engaged.”
My fingertip was starting to turn a sort of mottled dark purple. “What do you mean?”
“I . . .” She trailed off for a moment. “I mean, I’m getting married.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I heard myself say. My voice sounded calm. Detached. “You can’t get married when you’re already married.”
Mom was quiet. In the background, I heard the theme music to some cartoon I’d forgotten the name of. “Well,” she said at last. “Your dad and I are . . . taking care of that.”
The cartoon sound effects got louder. Slowly, I began to realize what she meant. Married. Again. Second marriage. First marriage? Taking care of that. So:
Divorce.
Even though a small part of me had known this was probably going to happen, it was still sort of a shock. Not because I didn’t think they’d
ever really go through with it. But because I’d always figured when they did, Dad would be the one who told me. But he knew, about Mom’s engagement—and Grandma, she probably knew, too—and neither of them had said anything. The list of people I trusted was shrinking even more.
“Kat? Are you still there?”
Releasing the cord, I flexed my numb finger until it started tingling. “Yeah, I’m here.”
Mom sighed. Not in a sad way. In an irritated way. I’d heard that sigh a million times: when I wore my Bride of Frankenstein T-shirt for school photos, when I polished off a pint of ice cream in one sitting, when I begged her to let me cut my hair short again and again and again . . .
“So. Congratulations.” I gave each and every syllable equal, deliberate weight.
“Thank you,” Mom replied. “We’re thinking May for the wedding. I know it’s sudden, but . . . well, that’s how it happens sometimes. Anthony can’t wait to meet you. I think you’ll really like him, Kat. And I’d really love for you to be a bridesm—”
“You’re staying in Cincinnati permanently, then?” I cut in. My face and neck suddenly felt hot, like I’d been sunburned by the hideous yellow wallpaper. It was peeling a little near the edge of the desk.
Mom cleared her throat. “No, Cincinnati . . . It didn’t work out. I’m back in Chelsea.”
I knew it. I knew it. “When did you get back?”
“June.”
I froze in the act of picking at the frayed patch of wallpaper. “June?”
“Kat . . .”
“June.” I sat up, my pulse suddenly racing. “You left in April.”
“Kat—”
“You said you needed to move to the city for your career,” I said loudly. “You said you weren’t happy in Chelsea. You said you wanted to be in galleries or open your own studio. The next step. That’s what you said.”
“Kat, I—”
“And you were only there for two months?” I laughed, a weird, high laugh that didn’t sound like me. “And you—you didn’t even bother telling us when you moved back. Are you seriously telling me you were in Chelsea all summer, and when I started school?”
“Kat.”
“What?” I yelled, squeezing the phone. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You weren’t taking my calls,” Mom snapped. I felt a grim satisfaction at hearing her lose her patience. Not that it ever took much. “I told your grandmother, I told your father. They both thought I should be the one to tell you. But you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right,” I said, interjecting as much sarcasm as possible into every syllable. “This is totally my fault.”
“I didn’t say that.” Mom took a deep breath. “Look, I just . . . I wasn’t happy in Cincinnati. I thought it’s what I wanted, but it wasn’t.”
“So what did you want?”
Silence. I squeezed the cord again, listening to the cartoon in the background. Suddenly, I heard a child shriek in delight.
Wait, what was a kid doing with . . .
Oh.
I closed my eyes. “Who’s that?”
Mom waited a beat too long to answer. “I’m sorry?”
“Who is that?” I repeated. “There’s a kid there. Does your, um . . .” Fiancé. The word caught in my throat. “Whatever his name is, does he have a . . .”
“His name is Anthony.” Mom paused. “And yes, he has a daughter.”
For a split second, the room went blurry. It was like a physical shock—like seeing Sonja Hillebrandt gliding toward me down a dark tunnel. Then everything came into sharp, dizzying focus.
“She’s five,” Mom went on, her voice higher, nervous. “Elena. She’s a sweetheart, you’d really like—”
“I’ve got to go,” I said shortly. “Congratulations again.”
And without waiting for a response, I slammed the phone down.
Forget ghosts. Now I had proof that the Thing was real.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE DAWN OF DOCTOR PAIN
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Phone call?
Hi, Grandma,
Everything’s great. Really busy, though. Maybe we can talk next week.
Kat
I slept for five solid hours.
It was one of those dead-to-the-world sleeps, too. Facedown, arms tucked under the pillows, left leg hanging off the side of the bed. When I woke up, the comforter’s stitch pattern was imprinted on my cheek.
I felt about as awesome as I looked.
After a scalding hot shower, I pulled on jeans and the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes T-shirt Grandma had given me for my last birthday. I rummaged through my bathroom- supplies travel bag and found a pack of rubber bands before giving my reflection a critical once-over. My hair was settling into the new cut, but it was still a little uneven—slightly shorter in the back than in the front. I gathered what I could up into a supershort ponytail that stuck out like a bristly makeup brush, then used a few barrettes to keep the stray pieces in place.
“Nice,” I told my reflection. The Thing hovered in my peripheral vision, shaking its head disapprovingly. I turned my back on it and walked out of the bathroom.
When I stepped off the elevator and into the lobby, Hailey waved from the doorway as if she’d been waiting for hours.
“Kat!” she hollered. “We’ve been looking for you all day! Want to come get some dinner?”
“Sounds great!” My spirits lifted when I stepped outside and found Jamie standing near the entrance, studying his cell phone. He looked up and his face broke into a smile.
“Hey! I was wondering what happened to you,” he said. “Everything okay with your dad?”
“Yup!” I said, maybe a little too cheerfully. “I ended up taking a nap.”
“Your dad and Jess went to do a follow-up interview with the tour guide, and everyone else is editing and stuff. We were going to walk down the boardwalk and look for a pizza place Hailey swears she saw yesterday.” Jamie glanced at my bare arms. “Do you want to get a jacket?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
We set off down the boardwalk, the cold, salty wind whipping my face and arms. The ponytail and barrettes were a good call, I decided.
“Are you sure you’re not cold?” Jamie asked again. I shook my head vigorously, spreading my arms out wide. My T-shirt billowed around me like ship sails, and Hailey giggled. We talked about Crimptown for the rest of the walk, and by the time Hailey spotted the pizza place, I’d gone over the entire story about Lidia and Sonja in excruciating detail.
While we worked our way through an enormous pizza with ham and extra cheese, I outlined my theory about Roland for Hailey—that he’d fired Emily just because he was jealous that she was in love with Sam, but when the ratings spiked, he realized it was a great way to get publicity. So he set Carlos up by publishing that fake exposé in his name, then found some way to scare off Bernice.
“And now he’s going to try to get rid of my dad and bring Emily back,” I finished, dragging my crust across my plate to soak up the cheese grease. “He’s delusional.”
“Should we tell someone?” Hailey asked. “Our dad?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Not yet, anyway. If your dad finds out what Roland’s been doing, it might just make him want to cancel the show even more.”
“What about Lidia?” Jamie suggested, and I frowned.
“Maybe . . .” I popped the last piece of crust into my mouth. “Let’s ask Oscar first. Where is he, anyway?”
Jamie shrugged. “We played video games for a little while after you left, but he said he wasn’t feeling good, so he went back to his room. Hopefully he didn’t catch Lidia’s cold.”
“Oh.” I chewed slowly, thinking. Lidia had definitely been looking ill
since Crimptown. I pictured her crumpling to the ground, the ghost of Sonja stepping out of her body, helped by another ghost . . . a boy . . .
“Who do you guys think the third ghost was?” I blurted out. “The boy ghost in the photo?”
Hailey’s eyes brightened and she sat up a little straighter. “I have a theory,” she said seriously. “Sonja and Red Leer weren’t the only ones who died during the fight, right? Other women died, and some of the prisoners, and some of Red Leer’s men. I was thinking maybe . . .” Casting a glance around the near-empty pizza place, she lowered her voice. “I was thinking maybe it was her brother.”
“Whose brother?”
“Sonja’s!” she said eagerly. “Bastian Hillebrandt. Red Leer kidnapped him, right? He was one of the prisoners, and he was really young!”
“But I don’t think he died in the tunnels,” Jamie pointed out.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure when Dad interviewed the tour guide he said Bastian survived thanks to his sister,” I added.
“Aw.” Hailey’s face fell, and Jamie and I snickered. “Well, I mean I’m glad he wasn’t killed,” she added hastily. “I just really thought he was the ghost.”
“The ghost reached out to catch her when she stumbled,” I mused. “I don’t think he was one of Red Leer’s men. Maybe he was just one of the other prisoners who died.”
“Hang on!” Hailey exclaimed. “Do you still have the paper I wrote all the Ouija messages on?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I dug the paper out of my pocket, pushed the empty pizza tray to the side, and spread it out in the center of the table.
KEEP HER AWAY FROM THE MEDIUM
13 Xs
H E L L O
Is this Sonja?—YES
How many spirits?—3
G A T H E R T H E W O M E N
F R E E T H E M—NO
Is Sonja here?—NO
Who is this?—L E E R
Third ghost here?—YES/NO
F R E E T H—(Leer & ghost #3 fighting?)
K E E P H E R A W A Y F R O M T H E M E D I U M
“Look,” Hailey breathed, tapping the bottom of the page. “After Sonja left and Red Leer was moving the planchette, the third ghost tried to take over. Keep her away from the medium.” She stared at me. “Whoever the third ghost is, he was with you in the theater. He gave you the same message there, too.”
Dead Air Page 11