“Proof?” Nolan echoes.
“The proof your grandfather spent his life searching for? You can show it to your dad, your mom, your grandmother, the whole world—show them that your grandfather wasn’t just some crazy old man like they all thought.” I don’t think I’ve ever said anything so mean in my entire life.
Nolan responds, his voice calm and even. Nothing like mine. “Look, Sunshine, I’m not going to lie to you. It means a lot to me to know that my grandfather was right, that even now, months after his death, his research helped us.” He locks his eyes with mine. I blink, and a few tears fall out of my eyes and onto my cheeks, shockingly cold. Nolan and I are nowhere near touching, but that wrong-end-of-the-magnet feeling starts to take hold. I lean back, pressing myself against the door behind me, trying to increase the distance between us.
“And yes,” he continues, “there’s a part of me that wants to show everything we’ve found to every single person who ever dismissed my grandfather as a nutty old man. I mean, you and I sat across a desk from a real, live ghost!”
Another time, another place, I’d make fun of him for referring to a ghost as live. But now I just mutter, “Glad it was so exciting for you.”
Nolan continues as though I haven’t said a thing. “And maybe my grandfather is the reason I got involved in all this to begin with—” His hair falls across his amber eyes, but for once he doesn’t brush it away. “But do you really think he’s the reason I’m still here?”
“I don’t know why you’re here,” I say hoarsely. “But I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“What are you talking about? I’m trying to help you. Like I said, I’ll do more research—”
“Where has your research gotten us? Chasing phantom professors and dead ends! I don’t have time for dead ends. My mother could be in serious danger.” Butterflies tap dance across my belly.
“I know that—”
“And you think you can help us by reading some more old books?” My mouth has a mind of its own, and I feel powerless to stop it from saying these mean things. “I don’t need your help,” I lie. For someone who never so much as fibbed about finishing her vegetables a few months ago, I’m getting pretty good at lying. “I’m not some helpless damsel in distress who needs a boy to help her.”
“I never thought you were.”
“Then I’ll ask you again, what do you care, anyway?” I press my chin into my shoulder, feeling the leather of Nolan’s jacket pressing back.
“I care about you! I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Nolan’s words hang thickly in the air between us. Softly, he adds, “Or to your mom. Look, I know you’re feeling threatened right now. I understand that you feel like you have to—I don’t know, lash out, pick a fight with me or something.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“Like I said, I think it’s time for you to leave.” I slip off his jacket and hold it out for him to take, careful not to let his hands brush against mine when he finally does.
“I’ll be gone a few days,” he says, shrugging the jacket on.
“What?” I answer, beginning to shiver. Despite the fact that I’m practically forcing him to go, the prospect of his prolonged absence sends another pack of butterflies flying through my stomach. I guess this is what people mean when they talk about being on an emotional roller coaster.
“My parents and I are going to visit my grandmother. I know she’s just a couple of towns away, but we always stay with her for the holidays.”
“The holidays?” I echo dumbly.
“Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”
“Oh,” I answer blankly. Then I get out of the car and slam the door shut behind me. I stand and watch him back out and drive away. Through the fog I can make out green and red lights someone tossed messily onto the lower branches of the tree in the yard of the house across from ours. It’s an evergreen, but it doesn’t look anything like a Christmas tree.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. School is out for winter break. People are headed home to their families’ houses, gathering around pine trees, basting turkeys, wrapping presents.
I’d honestly forgotten.
Lex and Oscar run to greet me as I walk in the door. I fill their bowls with food, apologizing for the way I left them a few hours earlier. They rub against my legs gratefully, but their presence doesn’t make the house feel any less empty.
For the first time in my whole life we don’t have a Christmas tree. We didn’t strap it to the top of our car and struggle to carry it through the front door and bicker over whether I was holding it straight while Mom crouched on the floor, trying to secure it in our rusty tree stand. We didn’t stay up late drinking eggnog (a drink neither of us actually enjoy, but both of us still insist upon), while we decorated our too-tall tree with lights and silly ornaments I’d made in nursery school—a clay one in the shape of my handprint, a stick-figure Santa Claus made out of popsicle sticks.
I never actually believed in Santa Claus. When I was little Mom told me to write him a letter and tell him what I wanted, but somehow I always knew she was the one fulfilling my Christmas wishes. After all, I never asked Santa for a glass unicorn, but when I was five years old there was one waiting for me under the tree on Christmas morning, just as there would be every Christmas afterward.
Until now. There’s no way my mother remembered to get me a new unicorn this year. A few months ago I thought about asking her for one of the UV lamps that combat seasonal affective disorder. Now I don’t think anything could brighten my mood. Not even actual sunshine.
I stomp through the house, up the stairs, and into my room. I sit on my bed, still wearing my boots, my hair still damp from the air outside and covered in Levis Hall dust. I feel the absence of the weight of Nolan’s jacket on my shoulders. My steps have tracked mud through the house, but I don’t think Mom will notice. Still, I know I’ll retrace my steps with carpet cleaner before she gets home. I don’t want her to get into trouble with our landlord. Though I wouldn’t feel that bad since he’s the one who rented us a haunted house.
I can’t remember the last time I had an actual conversation with Ashley. It’s been texts only over the past few months, as it became obvious that I was less interested in Cory Cooper than I was in ghosts—and as she became interested in nothing but Cory Cooper. We just kind of stopped calling each other. The last text I got from her said Cory let me drive his car. That was two days ago, and I haven’t written back yet. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react. I guess that’s some kind of big step in their relationship. But I couldn’t seem to make myself get excited about it, even for Ashley. I had more important things going on, things that Ashley couldn’t possibly understand.
I wish I knew who it was in this house with us. Maybe if I knew the name of the little girl I heard begging for her life in the bathroom—if I knew her story—I’d be able to figure out why this was happening. Or maybe if I knew who she was begging, I’d understand just what kind of threat we’re up against.
But I sent away the one person who wanted to help me find out.
I flop back against the bed, and (of course) instead of hitting the pillows like I intended, I thwack my head against the wall behind me. Probably right on top of an enormous pink flower. “Still klutzy,” I say with a sigh. “I guess some things never change.” I just wish some of the good things hadn’t changed.
Before he backed out of the driveway Nolan rolled his window down to say one last thing to me. “You believe in ghosts, Sunshine,” he said. “Why can’t you believe in this—in what you are? In what you’re capable of?”
“But that’s just the thing,” I say out loud now, even though he’s not around to hear me. “I haven’t the slightest clue what I’m capable of.”
I’m Growing Concerned
I knew she’d be resistant—after a human childhood she couldn’t immediately understand all of this—but I expected she’d have made more progress by now. Sh
e was so quick to recognize the foreign presence in her house, but in the months that have passed since I moved them to Ridgemont she’s been fighting against the next logical conclusion.
She doesn’t even recognize her instincts for what they are. She has been comforting the innocent spirit in the house, whether she understands it or not, in ways that a human never could.
But I need her strengths to lie not just in comfort but in the fight. My plan is destined for failure if she doesn’t have the strength I need. And what will become of our kind then? Not just our kind—what will become of humans, without luiseach on Earth to protect them? Unless my theory proves correct . . .
The boy was not part of the plan. Such helpmates often don’t materialize until much later in a luiseach’s life. And the last thing I want is for her to get caught up in a distraction. I made express precautions against such things years ago. And my precautions do seem to be working. I see them in the way she reacts when he touches her. Her body stiffens and she moves away. She swallows hard, as though trying not to gag.
Still, their connection is strong. The measures I set in place don’t seem to be keeping him away—or keeping her away from him. This was most definitely not part of the plan.
But perhaps the time has come to alter the plan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
New Clues
The little girl in the tattered dress is in my dreams again. This time she’s crouched in the corner of the bathroom, crying quietly, water dripping from her hem onto the floor beneath her. Plop, plop. Plop, plop. I crawl across the tiles to get to her, but she’s always just out of my reach, eluding my touch. The scent of mildew is heavy in the air, and she won’t look at me, only at the tiles beneath her small bare feet.
“Why are you crying?” I whisper, but she doesn’t answer. “Can I help you?” I ask, but there’s no response. She just sits there, her tears falling on the floor so rapidly that once more it reminds me of that part of Alice in Wonderland when Alice nearly drowns in her own tears.
Is this the same girl who paced above Nolan and me, who got so excited that the lightbulb exploded above us? She must be. And she wants me to figure this out. At least Nolan thinks so.
So finally I ask, “Can you help me?” Abruptly her tears stop. She looks up, and I can see that her eyes are dark brown, nearly black. She opens her mouth, but if any sound comes out, I can’t hear it.
“What?” I ask her. “I’m sorry—I couldn’t hear you.”
She opens her mouth again. There’s the murmur of whispers, but I can’t make out any words.
“What?” I ask again, and she whispers her answer, but I still can’t hear it. “Please!” I say desperately. Now I’m near tears.
She whispers more, but I still can’t make it out. The girl looks nearly as frustrated as I feel. I try again to get closer to her, to put my ear close to her lips, but she slips ever farther away, until I’m left alone in the bathroom, the water from her tears seeping into my pajamas.
I wake up with a gasp.
My pajamas are dotted with droplets of cold water. I roll over and see the blinking light of my alarm clock: 2:07 a.m. I press my eyes shut, but I know I’m not going back to sleep. Not for a while at least.
I get up. On my way to Mom’s room I stop and peer into the bathroom. I can’t believe I’m actually hoping to see a crying girl with a tattered dress crouched in the corner, just as she was in my dream. What kind of freak hopes to see a ghost?
But the bathroom is empty, except for Lex perched on top of the toilet, his new favorite place to sleep.
“You’d tell me if you saw a ghost, wouldn’t you, Lex?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he opens his eyes and yawns, as if to say, This is my room. Please go away.
“Some help you are,” I mumble. He blinks his green eyes. Ashley was right—my eyes do look kind of like his. “Maybe I’m part cat,” I whisper. “I mean, that can’t be any crazier than what Nolan thinks I am.”
I tiptoe down the hallway and open Mom’s door slowly, listening for the steady sounds of her breath. She didn’t get home until ten o’clock tonight. She must have forgotten that it’s Christmas-time, just like I did.
She’s sleeping in her scrubs, pastel peach with dancing teddy bears on the edges of her short sleeves, the kind she used to refuse to wear. She’d always complained that it’s difficult for neonatal nurses to be taken seriously when they’re wearing scrubs covered in kittens and teddy bears. (The same types of patterns I choose to sleep in, but that’s beside the point.) She’d insist on wearing solid-colored scrubs. Why is she wearing these now? Maybe the hospital was out of plain scrubs. Or maybe she doesn’t remember that she used to care about things like that.
Her straight auburn hair is spread out messily on the pillow beneath her head. Her breath is kind of ragged, like maybe she’s coming down with a cold or something.
I tiptoe into her room and lean over the bed. I expect her eyes to snap open, expect her to say, What on earth are you doing? I wouldn’t be able to come up with an answer that would satisfy her. I’d hoped you’d gotten over all that ghost stuff, she’d sigh, her voice heavy with disappointment.
No, I’d answer. I haven’t gotten over it. I just found someone else to talk to about it.
Then I’d tell her all about Nolan, about this boy who is so nice and so smart and who laughs at my jokes and doesn’t seem to mind that I’m a total klutz. I would tell her that when I first saw him I thought he was very cute, with a nerdy, eighties-movie kind of quality about him. Mom would laugh, and we’d end up talking about all the silly movies we rented on Saturday nights when I was growing up. But after that, Mom would turn serious and suggest that I call Nolan to apologize. And I’d make a face, but I’d know she was right.
I close my eyes. Wow, is this what I’ve been reduced to? Imagining conversations with my mother instead of actually having them?
I don’t think I’ve actually ever felt lonely before. I’ve heard other people complain about loneliness, I’ve read about it in books and watched it on TV shows, but I never actually felt it myself. It just didn’t seem to apply to me. I mean, of course I spent plenty of time by myself, even back when we lived in Austin. As soon as I was old enough not to need a babysitter I became a latchkey kid: letting myself into the house after school, making my own snacks while Mom worked, cooking dinner when she had to work late, dutifully doing my homework without a parent to tell me so.
But all that time I never felt lonely. Even with my mother at work, I never once doubted that she’d come home if I needed her. That she’d always, always be there for me, no matter what.
Now, here she is, just inches away from me, and I’ve never felt so alone.
My mother grunts in her sleep, and I jump away, my heart pounding. I shake my head; plenty of people make noises in their sleep. I should just go back to my own room, climb under my covers, and get some much-needed sleep.
And I’m about to go do all that—well, try to do all that—when my mother makes another noise. And then another. And another.
Suddenly she sits up in her bed. I jump away in surprise, expecting her to yell at me. But her eyes are closed, her muscles stiff. Her back is straight, her fingers are curled into tightly clenched fists, and her mouth is open. Ugly, awful sounds start to come out of it. Her voice doesn’t sound anything like her voice at all.
I don’t think they’re just noises. I think they’re words. But words I don’t recognize. Words in a language I’ve never heard, a language my mother doesn’t speak. A language that—from the guttural, hacking, horrible sound of it—doesn’t resemble any other language that any other person on the planet speaks.
“Mom?” I say softly and take a step closer to the bed. I should wait. She’ll lie back onto her pillows eventually, right? She’s probably just having a bad dream or something. Plenty of people make noises when they have bad dreams.
But the strange words coming from her mouth are only getting louder. They sound like gib
berish, but angry gibberish—shouts and protestations. She stretches her arms out in front of her and points her finger at something across the room that I can’t see. Oscar and Lex are hovering in the doorway, wondering what happened to their friend Kat.
Then she lets out a howl, a scream that makes my flesh crawl.
“Mom!” I scream. I pounce onto the bed and reach for her, ready to grab her arms and wrestle if I have to, ready to slap her across the face if that’s what it takes to wake her. But the instant my fingers touch her arm, her body goes slack. The horrible sounds stop coming from her mouth, and instead she lets out a sleepy sort of sigh as she lies back onto her pillows.
“Is that you, Sunshine?” she asks sleepily. Her voice is back to normal now.
“It’s me,” I answer.
“My Sunshine,” she says.
“I think you were having a bad dream.”
“I think I was,” she agrees groggily. “But my Sunshine made it go away.” Her eyelids flutter like she’s trying to wake up to talk to me, but sleep has too deep a hold on her.
“Don’t try to wake up,” I say, reaching out to brush her hair off her forehead. She rolls over onto her side, curling up like a cat. I wait until her breath is smooth and even—not ragged like it was before—and then I get up off the bed and tiptoe back to my room.
Did I do that? I mean, not the scary, guttural-speaking part—I don’t know who or what did that—but the nice, peaceful, falling back to sleep part? My Sunshine made it go away. Did my touch somehow—I don’t know—startle the words out of her throat, ease her muscles into relaxing?
Nolan would say that I did. Because I’m a luiseach. I was bringing light, or whatever it is that we—they—do. He would say that my powers were kicking in, just like he’d hoped they would.
But Nolan isn’t here to say anything at all.
Oscar beats me back to my room, using my absence from the bed as his chance to lie down on my pillow, taking up all the space my head previously occupied. Curling around him, I slide back under the covers. I wonder whether I’ll dream of the girl again, whispering words I can’t hear. Nothing like Mom’s shouts.
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Page 16