I followed her into the séance room.
The room faced east, so the late afternoon light that came in through the partly open, heavy drapes cast long shadows across the room.
She lit two candles on the side credenza and then pointed to the chair at the table she expected me to sit at. She walked over to the table and arranged some crystals in the center. The light from the flickering candles made them sparkle. Then she sat down across the table from me. She took both my hands in hers.
She put her chin down and began speaking in a low, velvety voice.
“We are here, my great-granddaughter and I,” she began. “We want to hear from you, the young men who have been trying to talk to Sara. We want to know what it is you are trying to tell her.” Her eyes were closed, her thick, dark lashes—which I knew were glued on because I’d seen her without her “face” on—contrasting with the crepe-papery, powdery-white skin of her face. The heady scent of the candles made me feel drowsy.
I closed my eyes too. Opened my mind the way Lady Azura had taught me to. Tried to relax every muscle. Asked them to come to us. Invited their presence.
It’s hard to explain exactly how you conjure someone. For a long time, I struggled with it. I used to ask Lady Azura to tell me exactly what to do, and she would tell me to just close my eyes and focus. I used to do that and nothing happened. But now I was getting really good at it. I felt the air thicken around me, and I knew they were here with us.
I opened my eyes.
I saw the five shadowy figures standing behind Lady Azura. Five young men, two taller, two of medium build, the fifth short but powerfully built. I recognized them. The taller ones were the young man in the red beret I’d seen that day outside Scoops and the dark-skinned young man—still a boy, really—I’d seen at the boardwalk. And then there was a red-haired boy, and two others, both of whom I was pretty sure I had seen before, sitting on the fence at the vacant lot. Each had a cap he had taken off his head and held in his hands.
Lady Azura’s eyes opened. She looked at me. Saw me looking over her shoulder and turned slowly.
“Can you see them?” I whispered to her as quietly as I could. I knew she couldn’t always see spirits the way I could.
“I can sense that they are there,” she whispered back. “But you must speak, Sara. They are here because of you. It’s you they want to talk to.”
I cleared my throat and asked them if they had something they wanted to tell me.
The red-haired young man in the middle seemed to be the spokesman for the group. He took a little step forward. Then he spoke.
“If you please, miss,” he said. “You must ask ’im to cease and desist.”
“I—I’ll try,” I said. “But who am I supposed to ask? I am not sure what you want me to do.”
“The gentleman who was there, ’im as was walking about,” he said.
The dark-skinned boy cleared his throat. “The one as drives the horseless carriage, miss. The green one.”
“Oh!” I said. “You mean Lily’s dad. Mr. Randazzo? Tall and muscular with dark hair?”
They exchanged looks with one another as though wanting to come to a consensus. All of them then looked at me and nodded.
“Did something—happen to you there?” I asked.
More looking at one another for support. More nodding in unison.
I waited. I’d learned when dealing with spirits that sometimes letting them direct the conversation got better results than trying to ask specific questions.
“We was subcontracted by the Pennsylvania-Jersey Coastal Lines to build the new depot in Stellamar,” said the short one. “It was a grand design.”
The red-haired guy spoke up. “I did the masonry on the corbelled chimney.”
The darker-skinned boy added, “I had just begun to lay the slate roof. ’Twas to have half-timbering and stucco walls, iron ridge cresting, decorative stick work in the gables, and carved brackets supporting its broad eaves. . . .”
I waited, wondering what had happened.
“ ’Twas a cave-in,” said the spokesman finally.
“In aught eight,” added another.
The spokesman went on. “An old conduit—wooden, of course—laid a century before, and paved over. ’Twas an explosion and a cave-in. We five were there. A dozen more perished as well. Only two of our original crew survived.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. And I was. They looked so young.
“But miss,” said the short one. “You must warn the gentleman he must dig beneath the later piping, nearly to the bedrock. The old conduits must be removed.”
“Or another cave-in is certain,” said the spokesman.
“Is that—is that why no one has been able to build there?” I asked as the pieces all fell together around me. “Have you been—protecting people from the certainty of another cave-in?”
All five nodded.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”
They shimmered out of view, all five of them looking immensely relieved.
“I believe I heard the gist of it,” Lady Azura said a moment later. “They were the construction workers, then?”
I nodded. Filled her in on the details of the conversation. Then I asked her what I should do.
“You must tell Lily, and find a way to tell her father,” said Lady Azura simply.
“But he’ll never believe it,” I protested. “I can’t tell him I was visited by a bunch of spirits. He would never believe something as wild and far-fetched as this. How am I ever going to convince him?”
“I trust you will find a way, Sara,” she said as she smiled at me. “You can be very resourceful.”
I texted Lily as soon as I was out of the séance room.
CAN I COME OVER TO CU? IT’S IMPORTANT.
A couple of hours went by before she responded.
SORRY. I HAD TO TAKE MY BROTHERS TO THE LIBRARY. AT AUNT ANGELA’S FOR DINNER. AND YOU KNOW HER NO-TEXTING RULE. HAD TO DO THIS IN THE BATHROOM!
My phone buzzed as a second text came in from Lily.
WILL GET HOME TOO LATE TONIGHT, BUT DO YOU WANT TO SLEEP OVER FRIDAY NIGHT? WE HAVE MUCHO TO CATCH UP ON!
I smiled as I texted back, saying that of course I wanted to sleep over Friday night. I didn’t really want to wait so long to tell her what the construction workers had told me, but then again, there was still plenty of time before her dad signed any of the paperwork.
I knew that Lily and I would be able to think of some way to convince her dad not to go through with the deal. It felt really good to know I was going to be able to help my best friend.
Chapter 14
It rained all day on Thursday, too, but luckily, the day flew by. I managed to avoid Mason at school. It was getting really easy to do. I think maybe he was avoiding me, too.
Friday afternoon Lily and I walked home from school together. I stopped by my house to drop off my backpack and grab my overnight stuff, and then headed right back over to her house. Lily’s mom and dad were out with the guy Lily’s dad was thinking about entering into the business deal with.
“Yeah, about that,” I told Lily. “I have some info I need to share with you about it. Lady Azura and I did a séance, and I learned some stuff—”
“What’s a say-ons?” asked Cammie, Lily’s little sister.
Lily’s eyes got wide, and I clapped my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t realized Cammie was within earshot, but it made sense she would be. She practically glued herself to my side whenever I was there.
“A séance is what Lady Azura does sometimes,” Lily explained simply. “How about if we go outside and play for a while?”
And just like that, Cammie forgot all about it. By unspoken agreement, I knew Lily and I would talk about it later, after Cammie was in bed.
We played outside with Lily’s brothers, Cammie, and Buddy the dog until it was time for dinner. Then we made them grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwiches and broccoli and carrot sticks. Fed Buddy. Got Cammie in
to and out of the bath. Cammie demanded that I read to her, so I headed up to her room and snuggled on her bed with her and read her a bunch of books while the boys watched a movie.
At last Cammie was in bed with her stuffed frog and the light out—but the door slightly open—and the boys were upstairs playing quietly in their room. I could talk to Lily in private.
We went into the kitchen and made some hot chocolate. As I stirred it, I told her about the séance. About the spirits I’d seen.
Lily’s brown eyes got wider. “So the place really is jinxed!” she said.
“Well, I don’t think I’d call it jinxed exactly,” I said. “ ‘Jinxed’ sounds so negative, and the spirits have been trying to help prevent people from getting hurt, so they mean well. They seem sure that another cave-in is extremely likely because of those crumbling old pipes buried way deep down, below where most normal developers would dig. So you have to make your dad know about those pipes somehow.”
She pulled her ponytail and absently twirled it around her fingers, a gesture I knew meant she was deep in thought. “He won’t believe us if we tell him about the spirits,” she said. “As soon as we start to tell him that we learned all this from a bunch of spirits, he’ll stop listening and won’t take us seriously.”
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and I have an idea. What if we research the accident? There has to be something in an old newspaper or something. We can find proof of what happened there and share it with him. That way we can maybe convince him without ever mentioning the spirits.”
Lily’s face lit up. “Yes! That’s a great idea, Sar!” she said, leaping to her feet. “And I know just where to start—at the visitors’ information center on the boardwalk. Great-Aunt Ro still works there on the weekends. We can go see her in the morning and ask her how to find out about what happened.”
Lily’s great-aunt Ro had helped me out once before, though she didn’t know it. The summer I first moved to Stellamar, I was being visited by a ghost who needed me to help him prevent a tragedy on the boardwalk. I was too afraid to listen to him, let alone help him, until I found out from Great-Aunt Ro who he had been in life. He’d been a really good, kind man who loved kids and was always helping people. Once I knew that, I was able to give his spirit a chance. I’m so glad I did, because together we prevented a fire.
We spent the next hour getting Lily’s brothers to bed and tidying up the kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Randazzo came home as we were heading up to bed ourselves.
“Hi, Sara,” said Mrs. Randazzo, giving me a quick hug. “Thanks for helping Lily out tonight.”
She looked tired to me. Mr. Randazzo wasn’t his usual cheerful self either. He excused himself and went into the study to check his e-mail. Lily and I exchanged a look and went upstairs.
“So much stress,” she said under her breath to me as we brushed our teeth side by side in the double sinks of the upstairs bathroom. “They’re never like this.”
“We’ll help them work it out,” I said as reassuringly as I could.
Lily had one of those cool beds that has a second bed under it that can be pulled out. It was already all set up for me. Tonight I would be sleeping on Cinderella sheets that I had a feeling belonged to Cammie.
After we turned out the light, talk turned to boys.
“So how much do you care that Jody is spending every waking second with Mason?” asked Lily. “Does that bother you?”
“Weirdly, no,” I said. “I really do think I’m changing my mind about Mason. I was so excited when he asked me out, but when we went out together, I didn’t have the greatest time.”
“But wasn’t that all Jody’s fault?” Lily asked.
“Well, we didn’t have to sit with her. Mason wanted to, I think. And I could have said no. We could have told her we were out together and sat by ourselves. But we didn’t do that. And besides, I wasn’t having very much fun before we bumped into Jody anyway.”
“I think you’re way too nice,” Lily said. But then she added quickly, “Though I do see your point. And you’re right. Especially if it wasn’t fun even before you bumped into Miss Minty-Fresh Breath.”
I laughed a little at Lily’s new nickname for Jody. “I don’t know, Lil,” I said a moment later. “It’s not like it was with Jayden. I never had to think about what to say, topics to discuss, when I was with him. With Mason, things feel forced. It’s kind of stressful.”
I couldn’t tell Lily the other reason I was bothered. That Mason was so embarrassed by his powers. And that he probably wasn’t okay with mine, either, which made me feel like he wasn’t okay with who I was.
“So how are you going to deal with it?” asked Lily. “Just break up with him?”
I shrugged. “We’re not even really officially going out. So I’d feel pretty dumb saying I want to break up. I guess I’ll just avoid him. Which hasn’t been very hard to do, so that should tell you something. We’re supposed to have another ‘date’ ”—I said this in air quotes, even though I knew Lily couldn’t see me in the dark—“to go for pizza in Harbor Isle tomorrow night, but I might just text him and cancel.”
“Yeah, just cancel on him,” Lily agreed. “I’m pretty much over Cal, too,” she added with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know what I saw in him. Maybe just because he was new, and I was sick of all the boys at Stellamar. But we have nothing—zip—nada—in common. And he’s really kind of boring! What on earth was I thinking?”
We giggled and then that dissolved into a huge laughing fit. I don’t know why it was so funny that Lily had declared Cal boring, but it was somehow hilarious. We finally stopped laughing when Lily reminded me, between giggles, that we had to keep quiet or else we’d wake up her parents.
Before we fell asleep, we vowed to only crush on boys in the future that we thought were worthy of us.
We woke up pretty early Saturday morning. We dressed quickly, ate quickly, and were out the door and heading toward the visitors’ information center just a few minutes before nine.
Great-Aunt Ro was just opening up.
“Well! This is a pleasant surprise!” she exclaimed upon seeing Lily. She greeted me warmly too.
“Hey, Great-Aunt Ro,” said Lily, giving her a quick hug. “So Sara and I are here to research something.”
“Oh! For a school project?” she asked.
Lily and I exchanged a look. We hadn’t really discussed ahead of time what our reason for researching would be. But before we could think of how to answer, Great-Aunt Ro went on talking.
“I’m so happy to have a task to keep me busy. It’s such a slow time of year, now that the tourists have all left,” she said. “So what are we researching?”
I had written down the name of the railroad that the young man had mentioned in the séance. I pulled out the piece of paper and read it. “We’re doing research on the railroads. Wasn’t there a Pennsylvania-Jersey Coastal Line running through the town a hundred years or so ago?”
Great-Aunt Ro’s face furrowed into a frown, thinking. “Hmm,” she said. “I know that there used to be a railroad that ran through town here. Some of it is still in operation by the commuter train, but not here in Stellamar. I believe the Harbor Isle stop is the nearest one. But yes, there was definitely a track running through town. Just where, though, I can’t say.” She massaged her chin thoughtfully.
“Can we look it up somewhere?” asked Lily.
“You most certainly can,” said Great-Aunt Ro. “We have the Stellamar Sentinel on microfilm in the basement.”
“What’s microfilm?” we both asked at the same time.
Great-Aunt Ro chuckled. “You kids. You have it so easy these days, with the Internet. But back in my college days, if you had to research something that happened a century ago, you had to look on microfilm. Come on. I’ll show you how it works.”
We followed her around the counter and then downstairs, into the basement. It smelled of musty furniture and old leather. Great-Aunt Ro sat Lily down in f
ront of an antique-looking machine that looked a little like a huge computer from the eighties. I pulled up a chair next to Lily. Great-Aunt Ro opened a long, flat drawer, scanned down the line of small boxes, and pulled one out.
Inside was a miniature reel of film. She helped us thread it into the machine, then flicked on the switch. The front page of a newspaper appeared.
“Whoa!” we both exclaimed.
“Well, I need to get back upstairs to man the fort,” said Great-Aunt Ro after she demonstrated for us how to turn the spool so you could see the next page. “You girls have fun.”
It was fun for about five minutes. We scanned the paper’s headlines, giggled at some of the ads for corsets and horse harnesses and medical elixirs, and then realized how long it could take to find what we’d come for.
“We don’t even know what year the cave-in happened,” said Lily. She twirled the spool firmly, and dozens of pages streamed past. “We’re only in 1900. What if it was 1920 or something? We’ll be here all day.”
I nodded grimly.
“Do you remember if anyone mentioned when it happened? Any clues at all?”
I closed my eyes.
Concentrated hard on remembering.
Suddenly my eyes flew open.
“Aught eight,” I said.
“What?”
“Aught eight. That’s what one of the spirits said.”
“What ought to be eight?” asked Lily, looking confused.
“Not ought. Aught. A-U-G-H-T. It means zero in olden-day language.”
“So . . . oh-eight.” The realization dawned. “1908!” she said excitedly.
I nodded. We rewound the film, put it back in its box, and scanned the other boxes until we found the year 1908. I helped her thread the film in, the way we’d seen Great-Aunt Ro do it.
We found a front-page headline in January:
Modern Depot Planned for Stellamar Junction
Then, in May, we found another article about how digging of the foundation was to commence as soon as the ground was workable.
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