Just how magical is this weapon? Did time stand still while I wielded it? Did the earth freeze while I was locked in that bubble, warm and dry?
I study the weapon in my hand—it’s just a dull knife again, although now, when I look closely, I can see the shadow of the torch that it was just seconds ago. Maybe it will always look that way to me, the way it was a rope to Victoria.
“Sunshine?” My mother sounds groggy, like she’s waking from a deep sleep. I look down at her, still crouched at my feet. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
Mom shakes her head. She looks around the kitchen like she’s seeing it for the first time, reaches her arm out of the dry ring surrounding us, and touches the wet floor. “Why is the kitchen soaking wet?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was going to make you popcorn,” she answers. Slowly she stands and begins to walk around the room, up to her ankles in water.
I’m not sure what to tell her. I don’t want to lie anymore, but I’m really not sure that now is the time or place. “There was a flood,” I answer finally. “The rain was crazy tonight. A pipe must have burst or something.”
Before Mom can ask another question—and she must have plenty of them—she sees Victoria lying face down in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, her long skirt tangled around her legs, her hair damp.
“She’s unconscious!” Mom shouts, and runs across the floor, splashing up rust-colored water as she does. She turns Victoria over and begins giving her mouth to mouth. “Call 911, Sunshine,” Mom says in between breaths. But before I can call anyone, Victoria is coughing up water. Mom pulls her to sit up and smacks her on the back.
“Anna!” Victoria cries hoarsely, reaching out a wet hand to point. I turn around. She’s pointing almost exactly to the spot where I was standing just seconds ago.
“Anna,” she repeats, her arm outstretched.
“There’s no one there,” Mom coos in her soothing nurse voice.
Victoria looks meaningfully at me. Maybe she sees something I can’t see, maybe something I don’t yet know how to see.
I kneel beside my art teacher and take her hands in mine. “I know, Victoria,” I say softly. “She helped us.” I could never have passed this test without her.
“Anna,” Victoria says once more, whispering this time.
Then she passes out again.
“Call 911,” Mom demands once more as she resumes CPR.
I crawl through the demon water back around the counter to where Nolan’s body lies. He hasn’t regained consciousness since the demon smacked his head against the counter, but he’s still breathing. I lean over him and reach into his jeans’ pocket, baggy around his skinny hips. Carefully I pull out his cell phone and dial.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
I glance frantically around the kitchen. I have no idea how to answer that question.
I recite our address. “Our house flooded,” I sputter. “My friend . . . fell into the water,” I add, scrambling for a reasonable and nonparanormal explanation. “She lost consciousness. And my other friend . . .” I glance at Nolan, trying to come up with a second cover story. He slipped on the wet floor and smacked his head against the counter? But before I can tell another lie, Nolan moans from the floor beside me.
“Nolan!” I shout. “Are you okay?”
“Ow,” he says in response, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. Blood from his wound has dried onto his face, chin, and neck, making him look like a vampire after a feeding frenzy.
“Nolan,” I repeat, more softly now. He looks up at me and nods, silently telling me that he’s okay.
“Ma’am?” the 911 operator prompts. “I’ve dispatched an ambulance to your address. I need you to tell me if you need more than one. I know this is difficult. But can you please tell me how many people need aid?”
“Ummm,” I pause, looking at Nolan and then at my mother. They don’t look good, exactly. Mom is covered in sweat from the effort of doing CPR for so long, but other than that, she looks fine—not a scratch on her. Slowly, carefully, Nolan pulls himself to sit up. Nolan’s wound has already stopped bleeding, and other than the blood on his face and his soaked clothes, he looks practically normal, his blond hair falling into his eyes. He doesn’t look perfect, but I’m not sure he needs an ambulance all to himself either.
Finally I answer, “I guess just one.”
The doctors don’t even examine Mom and me. They don’t ask how the kitchen flooded. They just give us some dry scrubs to change into and cover us in blankets. I slip Nolan’s damp jacket on over my scrubs.
Victoria is still unconscious when the EMTs wheel her into the hospital. Her pulse is weak and her breath shallow, but she’s alive. They hook her up to about a million machines and tell us to go home—she won’t wake until morning.
“But she will wake up?” I ask. The doctors don’t answer my question but again gently urge us to go home.
“Get some rest,” the on-call doctor instructs. “You’ve been through a lot.”
I shake my head. He has no idea.
Nolan and I stay up all night. By the time we get home from the hospital it’s already almost four in the morning. The doctor stitched up the gash on Nolan’s forehead and said he shouldn’t sleep for twenty-four hours, just in case of a concussion. I make us some coffee, and we start mopping up what’s left of the water in the kitchen. Despite the fact that this place has never been wetter, the smell of mildew is fainter than it was before. By the time the kitchen is dry, the smell has vanished completely.
At eight in the morning Nolan says he better get home.
“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” I argue.
“I promise I’ll come back this afternoon,” he says, then gestures to the green scrubs the doctors gave him. “I just want to change out of these clothes. And maybe shower,” he adds. His fine blond hair is matted with dried blood, falling over the bandage that covers his stitches.
“Good idea,” I agree. I haven’t looked in the mirror recently, but I’m pretty sure I don’t look the least bit presentable. I can feel my curls sticking straight up from the top of my head, like a messy sort of crown.
I offer Nolan his jacket back. I tried to dry it in the hospital’s bathroom, pressing paper towels against every drip and spatter. But it’s still pretty much soaked. “I hope I haven’t ruined it,” I say.
“Keep it,” he insists. He holds his hands out in front of him; once more, the closer he gets to me, the warmer I feel. (And the more nauseated, but I’m concentrating on the good feelings for now.)
I shake my head. “I can’t. I know how much it means to you—”
“It’s just a jacket, Sunshine,” Nolan says with a sad sort of smile. “I mean, I love it, but it’s not my grandfather, however much it reminds me of him.”
“I know, but—”
He cuts me off before I can argue anymore. “And I owe it to you—consider it a thank you present.”
“There’s no such thing as a thank you present. Besides, what do you have to thank me for? For putting your life at risk? If anyone should give anyone a thank you present, it’s me.”
“Because of you, I know that my grandfather . . .” Nolan pauses.
“That he wasn’t just spouting crazy theories about ghosts and spirits?” We’ve known that for a while now.
“Not just that. I mean, yes, but now I know that wherever he is, he’s not alone. When he died some luiseach, somehow, was there to help usher his spirit to the beyond.” He smiles. “And it’s nice knowing that. So . . . thank you.”
I smile and hug the jacket to my chest like a Teddy bear.
“You know it still smells like him?” Nolan says.
I shake my head and lower my face to the jacket, inhaling. It should smell wet and mildewy, but it doesn’t. “Not to me,” I say. “To me it smells like you.”
Nolan grins. “Looks better on you anyw
ay.”
“I can’t keep it.”
“Consider it a loan, then.”
I nod. “Okay. Just for now. And hey,” I add, before he closes the front door behind him.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for the fireworks.”
“I knew we’d have something to celebrate.”
“That makes one of us. I really didn’t think I’d pass this stupid test.”
Nolan smiles wide. “I didn’t doubt you for a second.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Flowers
After Nolan leaves I go into my bedroom. All my toys are put away—no checkerboard, no Monopoly money—and Dr. Hoo is right where I left him. I thought I would be relieved when the test was over—and believe me, I am—but my room feels so empty without Anna here. I kind of miss her.
“Where did you go, little girl?” I ask, but for once I’m talking to no one.
I get into the shower. I guess it’s kind of strange that I’m using water to wash away water. But the water pouring down from the showerhead feels clean; the water that dried to my skin and hair last night was filthy. I close my eyes and imagine that whatever is left of the demon is disappearing down the drain.
“Sunshine!” Mom shouts almost as soon as I step out of the bathroom. “Get dressed.”
I wrap my hair in a towel as she follows me into my room. “What’s the rush, Mom? It’s New Year’s Day. Nothing is open anyway.”
“We’re going to the hospital to visit Victoria. It’s the least we can do.”
I raise my eyebrows. I mean, of course I want to visit Victoria, but what does Mom mean by it’s the least we can do? She doesn’t even remember what happened last night, doesn’t know that she’s the reason Victoria needs visiting at all. Unless . . . is she beginning to remember?
Before I can ask, Mom says solemnly, “She was a guest in our home when she was hurt. Anyway, I want to have one of my doctor friends check up on her.”
“You have friends at the hospital?”
“I’ve been working there for months now. Of course I have friends—or did you think I’d become some kind of social pariah?” She folds her hands across her chest and smiles. Despite the fact that she was up most of the night, the dark circles beneath her eyes are lighter than they’ve been in months. There’s some color on her cheeks, and even her hair looks shinier than it did a few days—a few hours—ago. She’s dressed in jeans and a gray turtleneck sweater that brings out her eyes. She looks pretty. In fact, to me, she looks absolutely beautiful.
“Of course not,” I say with a grin, not quite ready to explain that—since she was possessed by an evil water demon—I’d assumed she hadn’t been particularly social at work recently. Right now, we’re teasing each other the same way we used to. It feels familiar and wonderful.
Mom glances around the room. “I really have to call the landlord about this carpet. I don’t know how you’ve lived with this pink for so long.”
“I don’t mind it so much.” I shrug. “In fact, let’s stop and get Victoria some flowers just as pink as the ones on this wallpaper.”
“Sweetie, I don’t think this particular shade of pink actually exists in nature.”
“You might have a point there.”
Mom smiles, then suddenly reaches out to hug me tightly. She might not truly understand that she’s been gone all these months, but she holds me as though maybe she’s been missing me as much as I missed her.
I’m clutching a bouquet of a dozen roses when we walk into the hospital. I settled on pale pink in the end, so light it’s almost white. The color reminded me of Victoria’s living room. I press my face to the cool petals and inhale.
The hospital feels like it’s well below freezing. I know now that this chill is connected to my luiseach powers somehow. After all, I’m in a hospital, a place where people are born and die every day. Which means there are probably tons of spirits moving in and out, forcing my temperature to dip down while Mom doesn’t feel the slightest bit cold.
Mom leads the way to the ICU.
“ICU?” I ask nervously. “That’s where they put the really sick people, right?”
“Don’t worry, sweetie. They’d have put her there because it’s where they can keep the closest eye on her.”
But Victoria isn’t in any of the beds in the ICU.
“Excuse me?” Mom says, reaching out to grab a nurse’s arm as she walks past us. “Can you tell us where we can find Victoria Wilde? Did they move her to recovery?”
The nurse looks at us blankly. Maybe she doesn’t know who we’re talking about. “Long dark hair,” I offer. “Pale skin. Flowing witchy clothes.”
The nurse furrows her brow like I’m a crazy person. I guess I can’t really blame her. It’s certainly not the first time someone’s looked at me that way. I’ve been saying inappropriate things since long before I heard the word luiseach.
“Are you her family?” she asks. I look at the badge hanging around her neck and see that her name is Cecilia.
“Not exactly—” I begin, but Mom cuts me off.
“I’m Kat Griffith from neonatal.” A shadow of recognition crosses Cecilia’s face. “We met a few months back?”
“I didn’t recognize you in street clothes,” Cecilia says with a small smile. Her scrubs are blue, nothing like the pastel colors of the neonatal unit. Her light blond hair is pulled into a messy knot at the nape of her neck.
“Cecilia, we really need to know where Victoria is.”
Cecilia nods; I guess there’s a kind of understanding between nurses that’s enough for her to give us information that would normally only be released to family members. “I’m so sorry,” she says softly, her mouth resetting into a straight, sympathetic line, her pale blue eyes narrowing slightly. The look on her face frightens me, maybe as much as the demon did last night. Despite the chill in the air, the tiniest bead of sweat forms at the nape of my neck, just below my ponytail. I tighten my hold on the roses, hugging them to my chest.
Ow. One of the thorns stabs me in the thumb. I drop the bouquet abruptly. It hits the ground with a soft thud, the pretty pink petals scattering across the hospital’s linoleum floor.
The scent of roses is heavy in the air when Cecilia finally confirms my fears: “Victoria passed away early this morning.” Mom holds my hand as we walk back through the hospital.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she says, but I don’t say anything in return. I don’t think I can. Not with this lump in my throat choking me. “I looked at her chart,” Mom continues. “She was just without oxygen for too long.”
I nod as though that explains things, but none of this makes the least bit of sense. I passed the test, didn’t I? I got rid of the demon! How could Victoria still die?
I have to get out of this hospital. The creepy feeling is stronger than ever. It wasn’t like this last night, in the emergency room, on the other side of the building—Victoria was one of the only patients, and the others were mostly New Year’s Eve partiers who had partied a bit too hard, nothing life threatening. But right now, walking through the ICU, it’s overwhelming. So many people hovering on the brink between life and death. I’m certain now that this feeling—the one I felt on my sixteenth birthday, the one I felt in our house with Anna there, in the professor’s office—is my body’s way of telling me that a spirit is near.
I walk faster, toward the exit, toward the car that Mom will drive away from here. But all at once I stop.
“Honey?” Mom asks, but I shake my head. The creepiness has shifted; instead of the weight of thousands of spirits that have come and gone from this building, I feel only one.
I close my eyes and concentrate, focusing on the sensation: the chill in the air, the hair prickling on my arms and at the nape of my neck. Then I gasp with understanding and open my eyes. Though Mom can’t see her, there’s an elderly woman with white hair and paper-thin freckled skin leaning against the wall across from where I stand. At once I know that she was sleeping two fl
oors above us mere seconds ago, but then her heart simply gave out. Her spirit was drawn to me—like a moth to a flame, just like Victoria said.
A light spirit. One that’s ready to move on.
I extend my arms in her direction, and as she begins shuffling toward me I can feel her spirit—all the memories, all that she did and saw and knew—rushing toward me.
Her fingertips brush against mine, and suddenly I know that she had a good life: two children, four grandchildren, a beloved husband who passed away just six months ago. She’s ready to see him again. An amazing feeling washes over me. It’s not the least bit creepy—it’s the opposite of creepy.
It’s peace.
I smile.
“Honey?” Mom says again. I turn to face her. “Are you okay?” She wrinkles her nose the way she has a thousand times before, every time she tried to figure out what her dopey daughter was up to.
The feeling of peace is dissipating, replaced by grief over the loss of Victoria. Still, somehow it feels more manageable now than it did before.
“Not really,” I answer. “But I’m getting there.”
Mom takes my hand in hers once more. Arm in arm, we leave the hospital behind.
She Has Succeeded
I watched her confront the demon. I stood in her yard, a device of my own keeping me hidden and dry, even when the water demon drenched her house with rain, flooded it with water that seemed to appear from out of nowhere, from beneath the tiles of her kitchen floor, from the very air that she breathed.
The creature had saturated the house for months, thriving in this damp climate. The demon that Victoria couldn’t conquer, who murdered her human family. The creature she gave up her powers to help destroy. I sensed Victoria’s need throughout the night: she wanted the girl to succeed as much as I did, her feelings every bit as intense. But unlike me, she was focused only on saving her daughter; I’m trying to determine the future of our entire race.
I watched Sunshine every step of the way. Even as she was begging her powers to manifest I could feel that she was hoping for some other luiseach to come and finish the job. I felt it when she gave up hope, then sensed the change in her when she found stores of strength she didn’t know she’d had. Still—even now—she is trying to plot her way out of her destiny.
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl Page 23