“So this thing with you and Janelle, is it a real thing?” I asked.
“I don’t know what that means, but yes, I like Janelle. A lot.”
“What do you like about her?” I hoped that didn’t sound too rude . . . but I kind of had to know.
“Janelle’s smart. She’s funny. We have a good time.” He turned to flip the waffle, then turned back to me. “Sara, your mom will always be my first love.”
“I know.” And I did. I wanted him to be happy and find someone to love. “I just don’t think you two are right for each other.”
“Because why?”
“Because her daughters are horrible.”
“They are not,” he protested. “Chloe and Dina are both very sweet. Nice girls.”
“And you know this because you met them once in a Chinese restaurant?”
“I’ve met Chloe and Dina twice, actually. I think they’re great.”
I couldn’t believe Janelle and her daughters had conned my dad. I clamped my lips together to stop myself from telling him that considering I went to school with her mean daughter every day and had a front-row seat for her evil, I had a much better sense of how not-great she was.
“You need to spend more time with them,” Dad continued. “I bet you have more in common than you realize.”
“I don’t think—”
“Something is burning!” Lady Azura called from the doorway.
We all turned as a tendril of smoke escaped the waffle iron. Dad grabbed a dish towel and opened the lid, releasing the remains of charred waffle. Lady Azura wrapped her white silk robe tighter around her tiny body as I pushed open the small window by the sink, letting in the icy morning air. Her long hair was wrapped in a matching white silk turban, and without her makeup, her pale, papery skin blended in with the turban.
“What is going on here at this ridiculous hour?” she demanded. Her eyes darted nervously about the room, as if searching for something other than the obvious.
“We’re cooking waffles,” I explained.
“Burning them, you mean.”
“That was just the practice one,” Dad explained, greasing the waffle iron again. “Sara distracted me. I’m sorry if we woke you.”
Lady Azura sighed and sat at the table. “You didn’t. I’ve been up.”
“Why?” I joined her at the table.
Her eyes darted around the room once more. “I can’t sleep this time of year.”
“I agree,” Dad called from the stove. “So much to do.”
“So many to wait for,” Lady Azura murmured under her breath.
She must be waiting for her husband and her daughter to come back, I realized. What were they like? When I tried to picture her husband, Richard, I kept seeing a man in a dark business suit with the head of a bald eagle.
I watched Lady Azura closely, but she was absorbed in her own distant thoughts. A gem on a gold chain shimmered around her neck as she loosened her grip on her robe.
“That’s pretty,” I said. The white-green stone glinted in the kitchen’s overhead light, causing flashes of pink and blue to intermingle with the green.
She rested one finger on the iridescent stone “Opal,” she said.
“What’s it for?” Her gemstones were more than just pretty. They had powers, too. She’d already given me some small ones—an aquamarine for courage, a ruby crystal for love, and hematite for protection—and I wore them together on a necklace.
“Opals make wishes come true.” Her eyes focused once more on the window.
“Does it work?”
“It’s new, but I sincerely hope so.”
“What are you wishing for?”
“Ahh, there are many things in your heart that must remain in your heart lest they get spoiled.”
I guessed that meant she wasn’t going to tell me.
I wanted to know more about the opal, but Dad jumped in. He told Lady Azura about his Philly plans.
“So you want to leave me here, alone with Sara? Two days. Just the two of us?” She didn’t sound happy.
“If it’s not too much trouble.” Dad sounded as surprised as I felt. “She’ll be good—”
“Of course she’ll be good,” Lady Azura snapped. “We both know what the problem is. Mike, it’s the week before Christmas. You promised it wouldn’t go on this long.”
“It won’t. Soon. Not now.” Dad seemed nervous. Panicked. What was going on?
“I don’t want to be in this situation anymore.” She shot him a warning look. A look I couldn’t understand. Was I the situation? Did she not want to hang out with me? Was I asking too many questions?
I’d thought Lady Azura and I were getting close. Bonding.
I guess I was wrong.
Chapter 4
“I think she hates me,” I confided to Lily as we walked to school the next morning.
“Oh, please, she so doesn’t hate you.” Lily leaped forward, practicing a dance move she called a grand jeté. “I bet she was talking about your dad dating Dina’s mom. She probably looked in her crystal ball and realized what we already know, that it’s a huge mistake. That’s the situation that’s going on too long.”
“Maybe.” Was that it? I didn’t think so. “But she’s been kind of cold to me the last couple of days. Like she can’t bear to be alone with me. Weird, right?”
“You’re definitely weird.” Lily pirouetted on the sidewalk in front of Elber’s Convenience Store.
“You, the dancing queen, are calling me weird?” I laughed and raised my camera to shoot Lily twirling in front of the green-and-white-striped awning. Ever since I’d been made staff photographer of the Stellamar Wire, our school’s online newspaper, I’d been taking my camera everywhere.
“How are you going to turn that photo into news?” Lily asked. “Mrs. Notkin likes facts, facts, facts.”
“I’ll just keep it for myself. There’s great motion in it.”
“You know, you could always sleep over my house Saturday night when your dad is gone,” Lily offered. “My mom loves you.”
“Thanks.” Lily’s mom was great. She treated me like one of her kids. “Maybe I will.”
“We need to work on the article on the new donation to the media center. You should take a photo of Mrs. Krell when I interview her. . . .”
I stopped listening.
He was back.
The army guy with the missing arm.
He stood stiffly, as if at attention, alongside old Mr. Rathgeb, the crossing guard by the school. Other kids streamed by, but he remained motionless. Waiting.
Waiting for me.
His face looked drawn, and a weariness clouded his eyes. The fabric of his empty sleeve fluttered in the wind. Then he caught sight of me.
“Of course, a photo of a bunch of new equipment is beyond boring, but if you . . . ,” Lily continued as Mr. Rathgeb stopped traffic and waved us into the crosswalk.
The soldier marched forward. Right at me. As if zeroing in on a target.
I glanced behind me at the curb. Should I go back? But then how would I get into the school?
The first warning bell sounded. Kids pushed across the street.
“I need help.” His voice was low. He stood in front of me.
I moved to the left, trying to dodge him.
He followed.
I shifted back to the right. He shadowed my every move.
“I need help,” he said again.
Centimeters now separated us, and the sour smell of death struck me. I started to gag.
“Sara?” Lily called, suddenly realizing that I’d stopped in the middle of the street.
She didn’t know a dead soldier blocked my path. No one knew.
“Miss?” Mr. Rathgeb stepped toward me. A few other kids turned, curious.
The soldier was much bigger than I was.
A car honked its horn.
I felt everyone staring, waiting.
Then I did it. I faked to the right, then sprang forward with one of
Lily’s dance leaps, past the soldier. I grabbed Lily’s hand, and we ran toward the school.
“Was that supposed to be a grand jeté?” Lily called as we took the front steps two at a time.
“Like it?”
“Inspired.” Lily laughed, but her laughter was drowned out by a voice only I could hear. A voice that pleaded, “I need help.”
I felt bad, but it was unfair of him. What could I possibly do in the middle of the street in front of all the kids at school?
I heard his voice all through first-period science. A nagging whisper in my head. I need help, I need help.
He wasn’t here in the classroom. I knew he wasn’t. I had to ignore the voice. Block it out.
“Hey.” Jayden wandered over to my lab table. We weren’t partners today.
“Hey.” I wondered how to ask him if he was really getting me a Christmas present. I didn’t want to get him something unless I knew for sure he was getting me something. “Only a few more days left.”
“Yeah. The days before break last the longest.” He held a beaker in his hand. He’d been on his way to the sink to fill it.
“Do you do a big family Christmas?” I asked. I didn’t know how to bring it up. I couldn’t just come right out and say it. Or could I?
“Kind of. I mean, most of our family is in Atlanta. We’re flying down there on the twenty-third.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“So when do you get gifts?” I got the word gifts in! That was a start.
He shrugged. “Probably in Atlanta. Are you home then? Right before Christmas?”
“Yeah, sure, why?”
“Jayden Mendes, stop talking and start working!” Miss Klingert called from the front of the room. “What did I say?”
“Start working,” Jayden called back. Miss Klingert ran her class like a cheerleading squad.
“Go, go, go!” she called. I could tell she missed her pom-pom days.
Why did he want to know where I’d be right before Christmas? Was he planning on coming over with a present? Now I had two voices battling for space in my head. The dead soldier who wanted help, and me, asking myself baffling questions.
The noise wouldn’t stop all day.
I was happy when the final bell rang. I opened my locker door and began to sort through the binders I needed to bring home. Suddenly I felt someone behind me. Watching me. Waiting.
I didn’t want to do this in school.
I couldn’t speak to him here.
Taking a deep breath, I turned.
Dina Martino cracked her gum and eyed me. She wore a black-and-white-striped blazer over a stretchy black miniskirt. The lacy pink tank under the blazer matched the glossy color on her lips. “I’m here to give you a message. You’re supposed to meet us after school tomorrow in the front.”
“What?”
“You think I’m happy about this? My mom promised me a new phone case if I came with you guys. I’m only going for that. And if I smile while we’re there, it’s only for my mom’s sake, because believe me, we are never going to be friends.”
“Going where?”
“To the mall.” Dina rolled her eyes.
“We’re going to the mall? Together?”
“Are you stupid?” Dina placed her hands on her hips, as if waiting for an answer. “This was your dad’s idea. Spending time together. My mom jumped all over it. ‘Girl bonding,’ she calls it. So now Mom, Chloe, and I have to drag you to the mall with us tomorrow.”
A lot of responses ran through my mind, but I knew if I tried even one of them and it got back to Dad, I’d be in major trouble.
“Sounds like fun.” My tone was far from fun, but it didn’t matter. Dina had already left, not caring what I thought.
How could Dad do this to me? I wondered, as I walked home by myself. I was glad Lily had stayed after for extra help in math. I needed to fix this with Dad, to make it not happen, before she ever heard about it. She would find it too funny.
“I need help.”
The voice was back. Not in my head. In front of me. The army guy was standing on the sidewalk.
He pulled his hat from his head with his one good hand and held it against his chest. “Take me to my betrothed, please.”
I darted around him and kept walking.
“I need help.” His footsteps were silent, yet I knew he was following me. “Please take me to my betrothed.”
I didn’t know what a betrothed was. I didn’t know where he wanted me to take him. I quickened my pace, but he moved closer, practically becoming my shadow.
I was afraid to stop and talk to him. He was too close. His energy pulled at me, scrambled my thoughts, and made it hard to breathe.
“She’s waiting for me,” he whispered into my ear.
My legs took off before I could think. Running. Running as fast as I could down the sidewalks toward home. My rubber soles slapped the pavement, and the crisp air burned my lungs, but I kept going. I had to.
I was trying to outrun a ghost.
Was that even possible?
Was he still behind me?
I turned to look.
Chapter 5
Gone. He was gone.
I slowed when I reached Seagate Drive. There were others lurking. On the wide Victorian porch of the pink house at the corner. In the branches of the old oak tree in front of the Fergusons’. But they didn’t want anything from me. They were here to see loved ones, not me.
Spirits haunted our porch too. An old woman on the double swing, forever knitting. A man in a cap running his fingers over the brown, shriveled leaves in the planter, searching for life. A pale face at the bay window, eyes darting about.
I waved to Lady Azura, the pale face very much alive. What was she looking for? I realized then that no one had come.
The spirit window had been open for four days already.
“They’ll be here,” I told her when she met me in the foyer.
“Who?” She wore a long green silk dress cinched at the waist with a thin belt.
“Your family. I know you’re probably lonely with no family around.”
“I do have family.” She sounded angry.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I fumbled. “I mean, you said you miss your love. Your husband will come this week, you’ll see.”
“I loved Richard, but I love others as well.”
“And they all died?”
“Not all.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?” Maybe one of her fortune-telling clients was more than a client! Maybe he was someone special.
“No.” She gave a short laugh. “My boyfriend days are over.” She sighed. “I’ve had my true love. Now I’m left missing him. Missing all the time we could’ve had together. Our paths seem so clear. Then destiny changes the route, yet our hearts yearn to move forward along the same road.” Lady Azura trained her gaze on me. “You and I, we are forever searching for what was taken from us.”
I didn’t know what we were talking about. Her husband? My mother? Something else entirely? “I don’t understand.”
“I am trying, Sara. Believe me, my child, I am trying.”
“Trying what?”
“To get you the answers you need.” She closed her eyes as if pained. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small iridescent gemstone. She held it out to me. “An opal for your necklace. So your wishes come true.”
“What wishes?” I asked, taking the shiny stone. There was a tiny hole in it to add it to my necklace.
“The small ones and the big one.” She turned and disappeared behind the purple curtain, before I could say thank you.
“I am not going,” I repeated that night.
“You’ve told me five times already.” Dad stood on a stepladder, attempting to straighten the tinsel on our tree. We had placed the tree in the front sitting room, so Lady Azura could enjoy it too. I’d noticed that the division between her part of the house and ours had started to blur. Dad and I were spending a lot more time
on the first floor.
“But you’re not listening to me.” I was so frustrated I wanted to scream. Dad refused to let me out of this mall disaster. I had tried every argument.
“Look, kiddo.” He climbed down and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Do this as a favor for me. Please.”
What could I do? I saw how much this silly outing meant to him. He rarely asked me for anything. It was always him doing stuff for me. “Fine,” I agreed. “I’ll go. For you.”
“Thank you.” His face brightened. He pulled out his wallet and handed me two twenties. “Spend it on holiday gifts. Or decorations.”
“You owe her more,” Lady Azura piped up from a side chair, where she flipped through this week’s People magazine.
“Sara and I are good,” Dad replied. “Nobody owes anybody anything.”
Lady Azura grunted. “That’s not how I see it.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “I’ll suffer through it.”
“I’m not worried about that. He owes you more than that.”
“Not now.” Dad cut her off.
“When?” she asked. “You’ve been here five months.”
“I need more time.” Dad shot her a pleading look. “I think we should discuss this later.”
“Later when? Seven months? Ten months? A year?” she countered.
“What are you guys talking about?” I asked.
They both ignored me.
“Soon,” Dad promised. “Just give me more time to figure things out and make a plan.”
“You’ve been here too long, Mike.” Lady Azura stood and headed toward her rooms. “I can’t bear it any longer.”
“Wait!” Dad raced after her, their voices becoming muffled as they disappeared into her fortune-telling room.
I waited, baffled, beneath the half-decorated tree. The tree meant for the first Christmas the three of us were to share together. But now it sounded like Lady Azura wanted us out of the house. Lady Azura had been grumpy for the past few days. I thought it was because her dead husband was a no-show. That she was missing her true love.
Now I wasn’t so sure. Had something bad happened between her and my dad?
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