I nod and follow her down an aisle of products to a door that she opens. We step into a parlor-like room with two big windows that look out on a fire escape running down the back of the building. Beyond the metal stairs is a parking area with four cars, two of which might actually run. Couches line the other three walls, and a round table sits in the middle of the floor. Noemie saunters over to the table and picks up a box of fireplace matches.
She strikes the matchstick with a flourish and begins lighting the array of candles on the table. They are all in varying states of melting with different shapes and colors. As she lights them, a mix of aromas waft through the room. She needs two of the long matches to get the entire assortment aflame. Next, she pulls a set of heavy, velvet drapes across the window, so the glowing candles are the only light source.
“Usually, I have the room prepared for a reading ahead of time, to set the mood, so to speak.” She smiles over her shoulder at me. “No need to worry, child. I’m not going to curse you. Have a seat.”
I realize I’m clenching my hands into fists at my sides, so I relax them and sit in the closest chair. Noemie takes a chair that is clearly personalized for her. It’s an old-style, wheeled desk chair, made of oak maybe, with well-worn cushions attached to it. She arranges a crucifix, a Mary statue, and the candles around her. She pours three drops of oil from a purple bottle on each of her hands. The powerful smell of rosemary floats over to me.
Still holding the bottle, she wheels around the table until she’s next to me. “Your hands, please.” The words roll off her tongue in that pleasant French accent.
I offer up my hands, and she drops three perfect dots of oil on each one. She sets down the bottle, grasps my left hand, and rubs in the oil. She uses long, massage motions and spreads the oil halfway up my forearm, acting as if this is a perfectly normal thing to do to someone you just met. I want to ask her a million questions, but at the same time, I don’t want to interrupt her concentration.
When she moves on to my right hand, she says, “You have a spirit on your mind.”
I nod.
“How did you meet Connie?”
“On the Internet.”
She snorts. “Have you figured her out yet?” She turns over my hand and starts massaging my palm. The rosemary hangs heavily in the air, combining with the massage to relax me.
“Yeah. She’s a fake.”
Noemie smiles. “But not you, my dear. You are the real thing.”
“Unfortunately,” I mumble.
“No, no, never. You just need to learn. Didn’t your grand-mère teach you?”
“She didn’t know. I wasn’t around her enough, and I was very young when it started.”
“Ah.” Noemie finishes her massage and lays both my hands in my lap. She wheels back around the table. “So what made you go looking for Connie and then for me?”
One of the candles has gone out. Noemie relights it with another taper. Her motions are graceful, like a ballerina’s.
“I just moved here, and there’s a ghost at my school.”
Noemie stares at me for several long seconds then asks, “May I hold your key?”
I nod and reach around my neck to unclasp it.
“No, I will do it,” she says. She wheels back around the table, positioning her chair behind me. “Lift your hair.”
I do, but she doesn’t reach for the necklace right away. Instead, she rests her hands on my upper back and neck as if checking for fever.
“Your hair is very beautiful. A lucky little black girl—no kink, just curl.” She says “beautiful” like boo-ti-ful.
Her palms flatten on my back, and a weird sensation overtakes me, as if I’m floating on a wave or drifting in clouds. The vague notion hits me that I should be creeped out, but I’m not.
“You were possessed,” she says. “How long ago?”
“In the summer.” I close my eyes as she starts to massage my shoulders.
“And that is how everyone found out?”
“Yes.”
She rubs my neck with one hand and unlatches my necklace with the other. I hear her wheeling around to my front. Her hands travel down my arms, her fingertips tracing gentle strokes. I keep my eyes closed, and she clasps one of my hands between hers and lays the key on my palm.
“You cannot show fear,” she murmurs.
“I know, but it’s hard.”
“But you must be strong.” She presses my hands together, my key between them. “Your ghost. The new one. He died violently?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I am,” she says.
I smell lavender, and the scent washes over me as if I’m in a dream. She takes my hands again. I’m half-asleep and half-entranced but not afraid, just wondering and floating and drifting down the river.
“You’re in love?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Very much in love?”
“Yes.”
“This is dangerous, to be vulnerable at your age. Men… boys… they are trouble. You will learn this.”
A feeling of warmth infuses my arms and chest. I get a vision—Noemie laughing, flowers, her hair spinning outward.
“You love someone, too,” I tell her. “I see it.”
“Yes. I love, too.” There’s a smile in her voice. “What else? What else do you see?”
The vision is cloudy around the edges and fuzzy in the middle, like looking through a kaleidoscope. Then, the image snaps into place. A shack. Metal roof. Dirt floor. A child. Another frame. Noemie. Kissing a man. A large, handsome black man. Another frame, cloudy, and then Noemie at a gathering. Candles and people. I pop open my eyes.
“What did you see, child?”
“You. All about you.”
She smiles. “That is good. You are strong. What was it?”
“Haiti, I think. And a man. And then a ceremony.”
“Ah, yes. This is good. You are green, but you are strong.” She pushes her chair back around the table. “I can help you with this spirit, but we must wait until I am sure you will not be possessed. We will need lessons and practice. Would you like to do this with me?”
“Um, I guess. I don’t have a way of getting here, though. I don’t have my license yet.”
“Ah, I see. And Connie will be too nosy if we use her.” Noemie caps her oils then wipes the bottles with a rag.
“Why are you friends with her?” I ask, “if you know she’s a fake?”
Noemie stops and fixes me with her eyes, both haunting and captivating at the same time. “Connie sends me business. Usually white people with money who want what I can give them. Some who go to Connie just want their fortunes told. This, she does, and she does well. But others, the ones with spirit problems like you, they need me.”
“Are you going to charge me? For the lessons?”
She chuckles. “No, chou chou, of course not. Kindred spirits do not charge each other. You can be my protégé. You know this word? You know its meaning?” She stands to blow out the candles.
“Yes. I know it. I would be like your apprentice in the business of communicating with the dead.”
“That is correct. I have no daughter, and no other have I met such as you. Would you like to work with me in this way?”
“Yes.” I say it with confidence before I even have a chance to think about what it really means, what I’m committing to. I only know in my heart that I want to learn from Noemie.
“This is wonderful. We shall arrange to meet then. Regularly. I will need to thank Connie very much for bringing you to me. I will gush and praise her forethought, because truly, this is providence. But then we will not share details of our plans with her. It will be private to us. Do you agree?”
I nod. “Yes.”
Noemie
pulls out her cell phone. “Please tell me your number.”
And for the first time since moving to Manchester, I have found someone I can trust besides my dad.
Jade
Chapter 17
Avery has some explaining to do. I need him tell me what happened the night he died, how he ended up in that pond. Noemie seems to think he died violently, but I really hope not. Maybe he changed his mind about doing it and fought to get back to the surface. Whatever happened, I will try to find out today.
Sneaking away from the library after school is easy because of my lack of sporting responsibilities. Most everyone is sweating it out with their teams on the fields, and the teachers are holed up in their offices, grading papers. I head straight for the art history room. Fortunately, no one else is in the hallway, and once inside, I shut the door behind me.
Avery appears immediately. “Hello. Can I help you?” He sounds pretty serene.
“I… I… um… wanted to ask you a question.”
“About the homework?” He drips brownish water across the floor as he floats toward me.
“No. About you. About why you went into the pond.” I take a step back because he’s about two feet away and shows no sign of stopping.
“The pond? I’ve never been in the pond. The pond is filthy. No one swims there.”
Great. We’re in denial mode. I move to the side, and he sort of bumps the wall I was just up against. Half his body disappears into it before he’s able to back out and turn toward me.
I decide to take a different approach with my questioning. “You’re worried about Blakely, right? Maybe I can help.”
His face transforms from almost calm to viciously angry in the blink of an eye. “Clarke is a dirty letch!”
I wince at the volume of his yell but try to maintain my composure. “Did you fight with him?”
“He wouldn’t stop. He told me he stopped, but he didn’t!”
I start backing away again, but Avery keeps advancing. His face flickers like a strobe light. I saw that once before with a ghost in Nantucket. Every time Avery flashes on, his face twists in a new torment. He’s blistering mad. A static-like noise fills my ears as I feel the other wall at my back.
“Did he hurt you?” I manage to whisper.
“No! No! No!”
He’s going to touch me. He’s going to run into me. I close my eyes and brace for impact. A wave of frigid water crashes over me. I slide down the wall, gasping.
Stop! I say in my head. Blackness overtakes my vision. Please stop.
After a few minutes, I open my eyes to find him gone.
Over a week has passed since Charlie’s visit, and despite my best intentions, I’ve been unable—or unwilling—to stay away from Mateo. I should be avoiding him like a stomach virus, but for many reasons that are a mystery to me, I can’t. If I had to name one valid reason, I would simply say that he’s becoming a good friend and having that here makes me happy. I just wish he wasn’t a gorgeous boy, too.
During the past week, since my attempt to question Mr. Avery, I’ve also been trying to come up with a new plan for finding more information about Avery’s death. I’ve been racking my brain, but I’ve managed to come up with only one new idea—one that is horribly distasteful to me. I hate it because it involves contacting Avery’s parents and becoming a big fat liar.
Normally, little white lies don’t bother me too much. I think most people tell white lies all the time and think nothing of it. We do it to protect ourselves from embarrassment and to be nice. But in this case, I hate lying because it involves innocent, grieving people. I’ve tried to think of another way to find out more about Avery’s death and why he won’t leave, but no matter what I come up with, all roads lead back to one destination—Ogden and Phyllis Avery. They are the only people who don’t believe that it was a suicide, and maybe by talking to them, I’ll gain new insight into what really happened.
The second snafu in my plan to meet the Averys is finding a way there. I need to meet them at their house so I can be around Mr. Avery’s things. I imagine they’ll have plenty of photos and other personal things of his. His death wasn’t very long ago, so they probably haven’t had time to pack everything away or give it to charity or do whatever it is people do with a dead loved one’s stuff.
That means I’ll need a ride, and the only person I can think of to ask is Mateo. He was a former student of Avery’s, so he’s the perfect candidate, but I’m not sure how to get Mateo on board. I could say I’m obsessed with suicide or that I’m writing a book about the death. While definitely weird reasons, they seem less bizarre than the reality. Hopefully, Mateo won’t think I’m a complete lunatic.
Asking Mateo for a ride doesn’t seem like a huge leap now that we’ve been spending so much time together. Every day after his practice, he gives me a ride home then hangs out at my house for a while. He doesn’t even ask anymore. We just have a little routine where we do homework and watch TV until my dad gets home.
I’ve learned a lot more about him. He lives with his dad and stepmother, and his stepmom is pregnant. They already have two little girls together, too—Mateo’s half sisters. His mother went back to Brazil after the divorce, but Mateo stayed with his dad. I can’t tell if he’s happy about this or not—probably a bit of both, from what I know about divorce. So I think maybe Mateo’s home life is why he likes hanging out at my place.
On Thursday night, as he’s driving me home from school, I set my plan in motion. I ask, “Can we stop and get dinner?”
“Yeah. Where?” He downshifts for the light.
“A sushi place? My treat. I need to ask you a favor.”
Mateo grins. “A favor?”
“Yeah. Do you know a sushi place?”
“Yeah. Right up the street. What’s the favor?”
“It’s sort of complicated. I’ll tell you when we get there.”
The sushi place is called A Taste of Japan. It’s on one of the main streets in Beverly, surrounded by little shops, a bank, and other restaurants. When we’re walking in, he puts his arm around me and pulls me close to his side.
“Our first date,” he whispers in my ear.
I jerk away. “Teo, stop!”
He chuckles. “I’m just kidding. Don’t be so uptight. Charlie’s not following us in the Tahoe, is he?” He swivels his head as if looking for him.
I stomp my foot. “Stop or I’m leaving.”
“Okay, okay.” He holds up his hands. “It was just a joke.”
Since it’s only five fifteen, the restaurant is pretty quiet. A tiny Asian woman seats us at a table for two beside a floral paper screen. The tables have red linens under glass tops. A caddie of soy sauce and napkins along with a fake orchid are arranged on top.
After we order drinks, Mateo asks, “So what’s this favor?”
“I need you to promise to keep it a complete and total secret between us.”
“I like the sound of this,” he says, moving his eyebrows up and down. He leans his muscular forearms on the table, his white Layton soccer T-shirt stark against his brown skin.
“And you have to promise not to ask any questions about why. Why isn’t for you to know.”
“I don’t need to know why. I can imagine why, but I don’t need to know.”
I sigh. Of course he makes this sexual. “What are we going to order?” I ask, opening my menu.
“I’m getting two orders of pork dumplings to start. Those are my favorite.”
I raise my eyebrows at him over the menu. “To start?”
Mateo grins. “Don’t worry. I’m paying. Did you really think I was going to let you pay on our first date? Thank God I showered.” He fake-sniffs his armpits.
I shake my head. There really is no point in arguing with him. I study the menu until our server c
omes with the sodas. Once we’ve ordered our meals, I know it’s time to get to the point.
“I need a ride to see Ogden and Phyllis Avery. They live in Ipswich.” I take a sip of my soda.
After a few seconds, he shrugs. “Okay. When?”
“Sunday maybe?”
“Okay, why?”
“No, no, no. Remember I said you aren’t allowed to ask why.”
“Fine. I just want one thing in return.”
“What?”
“A small kiss.” He grins mischievously.
“Mateo… no.”
“On the cheek?” He continues to smile like the cat that ate the canary.
“No.”
“Come on. A cheek kiss is nothing. People kiss their grandmothers on the cheek. Or their little cousin Bobby. A cheek kiss is not cheating.”
I roll my eyes. “All right. But you have to do exactly what I ask during our visit with them.”
“Them? Who are we visiting?”
“Yeah. You don’t seem to be picking up on this, but we’re going to see Mr. Avery’s parents.”
Mateo squints at me. “So why do you want to see them?”
“All I’m going to tell you is that I’m doing research for something, and I need your help.”
Mateo scrunches his face. “What kind of research?”
“I really don’t want to get into it.”
“That’s kind of weird, Jade. Like the creepy kind of weird. Just saying.” He sits back in his seat and crosses his arms over his chest.
“I know. I’m sorry. I just can’t tell you now.”
We have a staring contest as if we’re twelve. During this, I try to read his mind. I should be able to do that—according to Noemie, anyway—but even without any supernatural powers, I know what he’s thinking. He’s trying to decide what to do about this unusual request from the girl he thought he liked who now appears to have gone off the deep end.
“I promise I’m sane. I need you to trust me on this. Can you?”
Ever Lost (Secret Affinity Book 2) Page 10