by Meg Cabot
“Yeah,” Paul said with another of his trademark bitter laughs. “That’s probably it, all right.” Then, without elaborating further, he threw open a door on his right and said, “This is it. What I wanted to show you.”
I followed him into what was, clearly, his bedroom. It was about five times as big as my own room—and Paul’s bed was about five times bigger than mine. Like the rest of the house, everything was very streamlined and modern, with a lot of metal and glass. There was even a glass desk—or Plexiglas, probably—on which rested a brand-new, top-of-the-line laptop. There was none of the kind of personal stuff lying around Paul’s room that always seemed to be scattered around mine—like magazines or dirty socks or nail polish or half-eaten boxes of Girl Scout cookies. There was nothing personal in Paul’s room at all. It was like a very high-tech, very cold hotel room.
“It’s here,” Paul said, sitting down on the edge of his boat-sized bed.
“Yeah,” I said, more spooked than ever now…and not just because Paul was patting the empty space on the mattress beside him. No, it was also the fact that the only color in the room, besides what Paul and I were wearing, was what I could see out the enormous plate glass windows: the blue, blue sky and below it, the darker blue sea. “Sure it is.”
“I’m serious,” Paul said, and he quit patting the mattress like he wanted me to sit beside him. Instead, he reached beneath the bed and pulled out a clear plastic box, like the kind you store wool sweaters in over the summer.
Placing the box beside him on the bed, Paul pulled off the lid. Inside were what looked to be a number of newspaper and magazine articles, each one carefully clipped from its original source.
“Check these out,” Paul said, carefully unfolding a particularly ancient newspaper article and spreading it out across the slate-gray bedspread so that I could see it. It came from the London Times, and was dated June 18, 1952. There was a photograph of a man standing before what looked like the hieroglyphic-covered wall of an Egyptian tomb. The headline above the photo and article ran, ARCHAEOLOGIST’S THEORY SCOFFED AT BY SKEPTICS.
“Dr. Oliver Slaski—that’s this guy here in the photo—worked for years to translate the text on the wall of King Tut’s tomb,” Paul explained. “He came to the conclusion that in ancient Egypt there was actually a small group of shamans who had the ability to travel in and out of the realm of the dead without, in fact, dying themselves. These shamans were called, as near as Dr. Slaski could translate, shifters. They could shift from this plane of being to the next, and were hired as spirit guides for the deceased by the deceased’s family, in order to ensure their loved one’s ending up where he was supposed to instead of aimlessly wandering the planet.”
I had sunk down onto the bed as Paul had been speaking so that I could get a better look at the picture he was indicating. I had been hesitant to do so before—I didn’t really want to get near Paul at all, especially considering the whole bed thing.
Now, however, I hardly noticed how close we were sitting together. I leaned forward to stare at the picture until my hair brushed against the cracked and yellowed paper.
“Shifters,” I said, through lips that had gone strangely cold, as if I had put Carmex on them. Only I hadn’t. “What he meant was mediators.”
“I don’t think so,” Paul said.
“No,” I said. I was feeling sort of breathless. Well, you would, too, if your whole life you had wondered why you were so different from everyone you knew and then all of a sudden, one day you found out. Or at least got hold of a very important clue.
“That is exactly what it means, Paul,” I exclaimed. “The ninth card in the tarot deck—the one called the Hermit—features an old man holding a lantern, just like this guy is doing,” I said, indicating the guy in the hieroglyphic. “It always comes up when my cards are read. And the Hermit is a spirit guide, someone who is supposed to lead the dead to their final destination. And okay, the guy in the hieroglyphic isn’t old, but they are both doing the same thing…. He has to mean mediators, Paul,” I said, my heart thudding hard against my ribs. This was big. Really big. The fact that there was actual documented proof of the existence of people like me…I had never hoped to see such a thing. I couldn’t wait to tell Father Dominic. “He has to!”
“But that’s not all they were, Suze,” Paul said, reaching back into the acrylic box and bringing out a sheaf of papers, also brown with age. “According to Slaski, who wrote this thesis about it, back in ancient Egypt there were your run-of the-mill mediums, or, if you prefer, mediators. But then there were also shifters. And that,” Paul said, looking at me very intently from across the bed, and not very far across the bed, either, as we were leaning only about a foot apart, the pages of Dr. Slaski’s thesis between us, “is what you and I are, Suze. Shifters.”
Again, I felt the chill. It raced up and down my spine, made the hairs on my arms stand up. I don’t know what it was—the word shifters, or the way Paul said it. But it had an effect on me…quite an effect on me. Like sticking my finger in a light socket.
I shook my head. “No,” I said in a panicky voice. “Not me. I’m just a mediator. I mean, if I were a shifter, I wouldn’t have had to exorcise myself that time—”
“You didn’t have to,” Paul interrupted, his voice, compared to the high-pitched squeak mine had become, deep and calm. “You could have gotten yourself there—and back—on your own, just by visualizing the place. You could do it right now, if you wanted to.”
I blinked at him. Paul’s eyes, I noticed, above the crinkled pages of Dr. Slaski’s thesis, were very bright. They almost seemed to gleam like cat’s eyes. I could not tell if he was telling the truth or simply trying to mess with my head. Knowing Paul, either would not have surprised me. He seemed to get pleasure out of blurting things out, then seeing how people—all right, me—reacted.
“No way,” was how I responded to his suggestion that I was anything but what I’d always thought I was. Even though the whole reason I was even in his bedroom was because deep down, I knew I was not.
“Try it,” Paul urged. “Picture it in your head. You know what the place looks like now.”
Did I ever. Thanks to him, I’d been trapped there for the longest fifteen minutes of my life. I was still trapped there, every single night, in my dreams. Even now, I could hear my heartbeat drumming in my ears as I tore down that long dark corridor, fog swirling and then parting around my legs. Did Paul really think that, even for a second, I ever wanted to visit that place again?
“No,” I said. “No, thanks—”
Paul’s smile turned wry.
“Don’t tell me Suze Simon is actually afraid of something.” His eyes seemed to glow more brightly than ever. “You always act as if you were immune to fear the way some people are immune to chicken pox.”
“I’m not afraid.” I lied with feigned indignation. “I just don’t feel like—what is it called again? Oh, yeah, shifting—right now. Maybe later. Right now I want to ask you about that other thing you mentioned. The thing where somebody can take over somebody else’s body. Soul transference.”
Paul’s smile broadened. “I thought that one might get your attention.”
I knew what he was referring to—or thought I did, anyway. I could feel my face heating up. I ignored my burning cheeks, however, and said, with what I hoped sounded like cool indifference, “It sounds interesting, is all. Is it really possible?” I plucked at the crumpled pages of the thesis that lay between us. “Does Dr. Slaski mention it at all?”
“Maybe,” Paul said, laying a hand down over the typewritten sheets so that I could not lift them.
“Paul,” I said, tugging on the sheets. “I’m just curious. I mean, have you ever done it? Does it actually work? Could Craig really take over his brother’s body?”
But Paul wouldn’t let go of Dr. Slaski’s papers.
“It’s not because of Craig that you’re asking, though, is it?” His blue-eyed gaze bore into me. There wasn’t the slightest hi
nt of a smile on his face anymore. “Suze, when are you going to get it?”
That was when I finally noticed how close his face was to mine. Just inches away, really. I started instinctively to pull away, but the fingers that had been holding down Dr. Slaski’s papers suddenly lifted and seized my wrist. I looked down at Paul’s hand. His tanned skin was very dark against mine.
“Jesse’s dead,” Paul said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to act like you are, too.”
“I don’t,” I protested. “I—”
But I didn’t get to finish my little speech, because right in the middle of it, Paul leaned over and kissed me.
chapter
nine
I won’t lie to you. It was a good kiss. I felt it all the way down to my poor, blistered toes.
Which is not to say I kissed him back. I most definitely did not….
Well, okay. Not that much, anyway.
It was just that, you know, Paul was such a good kisser. And I hadn’t been kissed in a very long time. It felt nice to know that someone, at least, wanted me. Even if that someone happened to be a person I despised. Or at least someone I was pretty sure I despised.
The truth was, it was sort of hard to remember whether or not I despised Paul. Not while he was kissing me so thoroughly. I mean, it isn’t every day—unfortunately—that hot guys go around grabbing and kissing me. In fact, it had really only happened a handful of times before.
And when Paul Slater did it…well, let’s just say that the last thing I was expecting was to like it. I mean, this was the same guy who’d tried to kill me not so long ago….
Only now he was saying that this wasn’t true, that I’d never been in any danger.
Except that I knew this was a lie. I was in plenty of danger—not of being killed but of completely losing my head for a guy who was bad for me in every way and even worse for the guy I loved. Because that’s exactly how Paul Slater’s kiss made me feel. Like I’d do anything—anything—to be kissed by him some more.
Which was just plain wrong. Because I wasn’t in love with Paul Slater. Granted, the guy I was in love with was
A. dead, and
B. apparently not real interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with me.
But that didn’t mean it was permissible for me to fling myself at the very next hottie who happened to come along. I mean, a girl has to have some principles….
Such as saving herself for the guy she really likes, even if he happens to be too stupid to realize they are perfect for each other.
So even though Paul’s kiss made me feel like throwing my free arm around his neck and kissing him back—which I may or may not, in the heat of the moment, actually have done—it would have been wrong, wrong, WRONG.
So I tried to pull away.
Only let me tell you, that grip he had on my wrist? It was like iron. Iron.
And even worse, thanks to my having encouraged him by kissing him back a little, half his body ended up over mine, pressing me back onto the bed and probably wrinkling Dr. Slaski’s thesis pretty badly. I know it wasn’t doing any good for my Calvin Klein jean skirt.
So then I had like a hundred and eighty pounds or something of seventeen-year-old guy on top of me, which is not, you know, any picnic, when it isn’t the guy you want to be on top of you. Or even if it is, but you are doing your best to stay true to someone else…someone who, to the best of your knowledge, doesn’t even want you. But whatever.
I managed to wrestle my lips away from Paul’s long enough to say in a sort of strangled voice since he was crushing my lungs, “Get off me.”
“Come on, Suze,” he said in a tone that, I’m sorry to say, sounded as if it were heavy. With passion. Or something, anyway. I’m even more sorry to say that the sound of it thrilled along every nerve in my body. I mean, that passion was for me. Me, Suze Simon, about whom no guy had ever felt all that passionate. At least so far as I knew. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about this all afternoon.”
“Actually,” I said, pleased that I was able to answer this one truthfully. “I really haven’t. Now get off me.”
But Paul just went on kissing me—not on the mouth, because I had fully turned my head away, but on my neck and, at one point, part of one of my ears.
“Is this about the student government thing?” he asked between kisses. “Because I could care less about being vice president of your stupid class. If you’re mad about it, just say the word, and I’ll drop out of the race.”
“No, this has nothing to do with the student government thing,” I said, still trying to wrench my wrist from his fingers and also to keep my neck away from his mouth. His lips seemed to have a curious effect on the skin of my throat. They made it feel like it was on fire.
“Oh, God. It’s not Jesse, is it?” I could feel Paul’s groan reverberate through his entire body. “Give it up, Suze. The guy’s dead.”
“I didn’t say it had anything to do with Jesse.” I sounded defensive, but I didn’t care. “Did you hear me say it had anything to do with Jesse?”
“You didn’t have to,” Paul said. “It’s written all over your face. Suze, think about it. Where’s it going to go with the guy, anyway? I mean, you’re going to get older, and he’s going to stay exactly the age he was when he croaked. And what, he’s going to take you to the prom? How about movies? You guys go to the movies together? Who drives? Who pays?”
Now I was really mad at him. More, of course, because he was right than anything else. Also because he was assuming that Jesse even returned my feelings, which sadly, I knew was not true. Why else would he have stayed away from me so assiduously these past few weeks?
Then Paul plunged the knife deeper.
“Besides, if the two of you were really right for each other, would you even be here? And would you have been kissing me like you were a minute ago?”
That did it. Now I was furious. Because he was right. That was the thing. He was right.
And it was breaking my heart. Worse than Jesse already had.
“If you don’t get off me,” I said, through gritted teeth, “I will jab my thumb into your eye socket.”
Paul chuckled. Although I noticed he stopped chuckling when my thumb did actually meet with the corner of his eye.
“Ow!” he yelled, rolling off me fast. “What the—”
I was up and off that bed faster than you could say paranormal activity. I grabbed my shoes, my bag, and what was left of my dignity, and got the heck out of there.
“Suze!” Paul yelled from his bedroom. “Get back here! Suze!”
I didn’t pay any attention. I just kept on running. I tore past Grandpa Slater’s room—he was still watching an old rerun of Family Feud—then started down the twisting staircase to the front door.
I would have made it, too, if a three-hundred- pound Hell’s Angel hadn’t suddenly materialized between me and the door.
That’s right. One minute my way was clear, and the next it was blocked by Biker Bob. Or should I say, the ghost of Biker Bob.
“Whoa,” I said, as I nearly barreled into him. The guy had a handlebar mustache and heavily tattooed arms, which he had crossed in front of him. He was also, I shouldn’t need to point out, quite, quite dead. “Where’d you come from?”
“Never you mind that, little lady,” he said. “I think Mr. Slater’d still like a word with you.”
I heard footsteps at the top of the stairs and looked up. Paul was there, one hand still over his eye.
“Suze,” he said. “Don’t go.”
“Minions?” I called up to him incredulously. “You have ghostly minions to do your bidding? What are you?”
“I told you,” Paul said. “I’m a shifter. So are you. And you are way overreacting about this whole thing. Can’t we just talk, Suze? I swear I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
“Where have I heard that before?” I asked.
Then, as Biker Bob took a threatening step toward me, I did the only thing that, under
the circumstances, I felt that I could. I lifted up one of my Jimmy Choos and smacked him in the head with it.
This is not, I am sure, the purpose for which Mr. Choo designed that particular mule. It did, however, work quite handily. With a very surprised Biker Bob incapacitated, it was only a matter of shoving him out of the way, throwing open the door, and making a run for it. Which I did, with alacrity.
I was tearing down the long cement steps from Paul’s front door to his driveway when I heard him calling after me, “Suze! Suze, come on. I’m sorry for what I said about Jesse. I didn’t mean it.”
I turned in the driveway to face him. I am sorry to say that I responded to his statement by making a rude, single-fingered gesture.
“Suze.” Paul had taken his hand down from his face, so that I could see that his eye was not, as I had hoped, dangling out of its socket. It just looked red. “At least let me drive you home.”
“No, thank you,” I called to him, pausing to slip on my Jimmy Choos. “I prefer to walk.”
“Suze,” Paul said. “It’s like five miles from here to your house.”
“Never speak to me again, please,” I said, and started walking, hoping he wouldn’t try to follow me. Because of course if he did, and attempted to kiss me again, there was a very good chance I would kiss him back. I knew that now. Knew it only too well.
He didn’t follow me. I made it down his driveway and out onto the oceanfront road—imaginatively named Scenic Drive—with what was left of my self-esteem still more or less intact. It wasn’t until I was out of sight of Paul’s house that I yanked off my shoes and said what I’d wanted to say the whole time I’d been striding, with as much hauteur as I could, away from him. Which was, “Ouch, ouch, ouch!”
Stupid shoes. My toes were in shreds. No way could I walk in the torturous mules. I thought about flinging them into the ocean, which would have been easy considering it was below me.
On the other hand, the shoes were six hundred bucks, retail. Granted I had gotten them for a fraction of that, but still. The shopaholic in me would not allow so rash a move.