I deftly swooped in, touching his cheek, hoping against hope that, this time, empathy would work on him. But as usual, I couldn’t get in to his thoughts, so I pressed harder against his cheek, thinking that a hallucination would relax him fully while he still wasn’t expecting a ghost.
All of this had taken only a flashing second, and he didn’t have any time for fear or thought.
He didn’t have time to react quickly enough for anything, and I was in before he could stop the hallucination. . . .
We are in water, the ocean, floating and feeling the sun on our face.
Warm, bobbing up and down on slight waves.
Silence, except for the dull roar of the sea in our ears . . .
And then something happened that I totally didn’t expect.
I somehow tumbled into his mind.
He hadn’t just relaxed—he’d fallen asleep from the hallucination and his complete exhaustion. I knew it because that eerie slow-motion passage of time surrounded me as I opened my eyes and saw a red sky above me, clouds dripping from it like the bloody tears I’d once seen on Gavin’s plastic-masked face in his first dream.
As I rolled from my back to tread water, I saw that I was actually in a pool. The lagoon pool, outside the mansion.
I wasn’t moving in the double-slow-motion time that had distinguished Gavin’s original fire-sky and wall-of-water dream from the relatively more realistic second dream half that had taken place in the study. Even so, I still moved at a drag as I swam to the side of the pool, clutching the edge.
A sound from my left won my attention, and I swiveled my gaze over to see the pool guy who’d been peeping at Wendy the other morning hiding in the bushes. Blond, good-looking . . . he should’ve been a welcome sight to any girl, but he had a grimace on his face that was so heart-shocking to the dream body I now had that I had to press a hand over my thudding chest.
What the fuck was he doing here?
It seemed to take hours for me to get out of the pool—time enough for him to step back into the foliage and disappear.
Blood raced through me because I was filled with dread—and that was saying something, seeing as I had already gone through a whacked-out dream with Gavin along with visions of my own murder. I was used to weird, but being in the pool under a bloodred sky was more unsettling than usual for some reason.
When I glanced at the mansion, a wall had rolled open to reveal the study with the heaven-high shelves of books.
Water dripped from me, plopping onto the concrete in slightly suspended time as I looked down at my body.
At the white swimsuit I was wearing.
I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing the towel on a nearby chair and covering myself up. Couldn’t stop the realization that I was playing the part of dream Elizabeth tonight.
With the towel around me, I told myself that this was just a dream, and I found myself walking toward the opening in the study. The room was empty, except for all the books strewn around.
When the fourth wall slammed shut behind me, I slow-whipped around, dropping the towel at the same time. Belatedly, I grabbed at it, but it disappeared in my hand, just as quickly as the pool guy had faded into the bushes outside.
Now I was dressed in my unfortunate Jensen clothes again: blue jeans and sneakers. No towel. No more white bathing suit. No more me-being-Elizabeth.
When I looked up, Gavin was sitting in that leather chair he’d occupied in the original dream. But there wasn’t any blood trailing from his fingers and over the leather this time. He was sedately reading one of the books, the tome open in his lap. He looked up at me as if he’d been expecting me.
“You,” he said simply, and he was watching me like . . .
Whoa. Like he was seeing that half-angelic spirit in Wendy’s photograph, with light-colored hair spread out in the air. Beautiful, ethereal, spellbinding.
And he looked completely bewitched by me.
My dream heart pumped excitement through my body as he closed the book, speaking again.
“Were you there tonight?” His words were slightly dream-slurred. And he didn’t need to explain that he was talking about the séance.
“Yes, I was,” I said.
“That psychic let something in that should’ve stayed out. . . .”
“I don’t know what it was.”
“Why don’t you?”
I only shook my head. I should be the one asking him a million “why”s.
No . . . Elizabeth should be the one.
I walked closer to him, and his pale eyes lit up, like he appreciated that I wanted to be near.
He couldn’t take his gaze off me. He was even smiling, warmer in this dream than he’d ever been in life.
I was going to take full advantage of his fascination, even if my dream libido was beating, telling me to go in another direction altogether. A taboo one.
“What happened that night?” I asked, talking about Elizabeth’s murder. “You have to tell me.”
“That night?”
He seemed confused and—
Without warning, the room went dark, the lights turning off. I hit the floor just as a slant of illumination angled out of a corner of the room. But as the light got brighter, I saw that this wasn’t a room anymore.
I was in the desert, but not like one I’d ever seen. The red sky had followed me here, and the cactus plants had stiletto knives instead of needles sticking out of them. Blood dripped from the blades as well as the sky. The sand looked like crushed skulls beneath my tennis shoes, and when a tumbleweed undulated by, it was composed of hissing asps.
My perception had slowed a hundred times to a barely moving flow, and I realized that this dream of Gavin’s was the opposite of his original one—the faintly less surreal portion coming first and the weird-as-shit part coming second.
A hand grabbed my arm. Awareness tingled in me, claiming every cell.
But it was only Gavin standing next to me, touching me. A normal guy against the fucked-uppery of this land. A cipher who might never be solved.
He let his fingers trail down my arm, his gaze following his gentle touch. He looked like he wanted to confirm I was real. But there was an edge in his irises, too—black splinters cutting through the blue.
He was attracted and repulsed by what I was—his compelling, torturing devil. A floating ghost who looked like an angel of death in Levi’s jeans.
I closed my eyes, trying not to let him affect me.
In the near distance, a humming sound claimed the atmosphere, and I opened my eyes to see that a Victorian air machine was slicing through the red sky. It was the same machine as in the original dream, with the little girl pilot and her dark hair flowing from her helmet.
But wait. There were two machines this time.
I was so busy slow-watching the skies that I was barely aware that Gavin had started pulling me back from something, forcing me to get behind him with such suspended speed that it took me forever to process what was going on.
But when a hideous, huge black spider appeared in front of us, I screamed.
Its face . . . crushed, just like the dragon’s had been in Gavin’s original dream.
I watched helplessly as the spider dangled and those air machines flew over us, dipping low, the first little girl pilot in her goggles, leather uniform, and flying long dark hair. She was waving at Gavin. The second machine began a drawn-out dive, too.
But that’s when the spider turned toward the girls, opened its mouth, then shot out a bony, skeletal web that flew with rickety grace at the first air machine, caging it. Yanking it down and crashing it into the shattered skull-sand.
As the dust flew around the wreckage, that first little girl cried out, her scream one long echo. The other, airborne pilot didn’t seem to notice the danger, and she kept diving in her air machine, the same long dark hair streaming out of her leather helmet behind her.
The spider scuttled toward the trapped pilot as she wailed.
“No . . . ! No,
please, no . . . !”
Gavin tried to take a step toward her, but his boots were mired in the crushed skulls. I tried to move, too, but fear had me in its hold.
Then, suddenly, another cry filled the air. Inhuman. Crowlike.
At next glance, I saw that the huge bird that had been shadowing the first little girl’s machine in the original dream had materialized and it was diving down, aiming for the hanging spider. And when it impaled the creature, black blood flew everywhere—over the cacti and the sand.
When the liquid hit Gavin, speckling his white shirt, it was like the blood freed him, and he began to run toward the first girl, even though his boots were getting sucked into the broken skulls.
With every step, he sank deeper . . . deeper. . . . But he wasn’t giving up, and with a ragged cry, he stretched his arms toward the massive bird and the spider, who was getting impaled over and over again.
When Gavin raised his fist and punched through what was left of the spider, drawing out a dark blob of a heart, he held it up, staring at it. Then falling into a spent heap to the ground.
As the other girl’s machine kept diving toward us, the first pilot crawled out from the wreckage and then between the bones of her cage to Gavin, ignoring the bird and the spider like they were invisible. When she got out, she threw herself over Gavin’s back, clinging to him as he lay belly down, motionless on the ground.
In the sky above, the second machine pulled up from its long dive, then flew past us, continuing its journey like nothing had happened below. The little girl’s hair kept flowing, just like a dark river, and I saw her waving back at us until she faded away.
The bird began to bury the spider beneath the skulls while the rescued first little girl kissed Gavin.
“My hero,” she said worshipfully, clinging to him.
Then it was as if all of it—the girl, the bird, the cacti, and the skull-sand—had never existed. Just Gavin in a red, empty space. Just me, still on the ground, unable to move.
And then footsteps that thudded like a reanimated corpse’s.
It took a few dream seconds, but I looked over my shoulder to see who’d arrived. Elizabeth?
She was naked except for the bloody white scarf tied over her eyes, blinding her. Worst of all, her limbs were attached by large, thready stitches, like someone had tried to put her back together after her killer had dismembered her.
She didn’t say a word to us, only shaking her head in sad pity.
From somewhere, the sound of a muffled bell shook me, and when I looked at Gavin, he wasn’t next to me anymore. I should’ve known that was the end of the dream, even before my body got yanked once, twice, and then I flew backward, out of the red land, through the darkness, back to Gavin’s bedroom.
Expelled, I skittered over the carpet, leeched of energy.
Before looking anywhere else, I spied a wall socket, and I began moving toward it so I could stick myself into it for a rush of energy. The hallucination, the dream, the residual effects from the dark spirit had done their work on me, even with my power-line fill-up.
Behind me, Gavin’s voice came, wide awake. No fear. No energy I could take from him to make me feel better.
“You came back,” he said, almost regretfully. “You really should’ve stayed away from this place.”
I could barely look at him, but when I did, I saw a man sitting up on his bed, forearms braced on his thighs, his hair bed-ruffled. He had a longing on his face I didn’t understand.
Until I realized that he would do anything to protect his family—even get rid of the angel-ghost he’d touched in his dream.
The doorbell rang, and I realized that was what I’d heard in his subconscious. And before the cleaner could enter the mansion, I left the bedroom as fast as I could, trying to get downstairs to the chimney and to safety.
But I wasn’t nearly fast enough.
19
I’d had so much energy sucked out of me tonight that this latest experience had reduced me to a thin mass of coldness that could only inch over the carpet.
The doorbell rang again as I slid into the hall, then down the stairs, pushing myself to my limits, just like I used to when I played sports or went surfing with real Dean.
Faster. Faster!
But I moved more like I had a hangover, which I supposed I did.
Halfway down the stairs, I remembered a toy I had played with when I was a kid—the Slinky—and I let my essence tumble end over end down the steps. I was almost at the bottom when the door opened and a woman walked inside.
“Hello? Constanza? Is everyone all right?”
Under the lights that were blaring, the petite woman—it had to be Eileen the cleaner—seemed shiny and new, even if she was middle-aged. She had rosy tan skin like Noah’s that glowed from good health, a delicate nose and cheekbones, and dark brown hair that flipped into a Jackie O do. Her pristine light pink two-piece suit hugged her skinny figure, and her small feet were tipped by pink-and-white pumps.
She carried a big white vinyl bag that bulged. “Constanza!”
I heard the maid’s voice from the kitchen. “We are in a salt circle in here!”
“Good. Stay there for a moment while I get a feel for what’s around me, all right?”
“Yes!”
From the second story, Gavin’s footsteps thumped on the floor. I couldn’t summon the energy to look at him. I just rested, hoping my strength would come back. Wishing I could move.
Eileen looked up at Gavin, smiling, her teeth white. “You must be Gavin. I’m Eileen Perez.”
“Thanks for coming over,” he said. He didn’t seem put out that she was here, because he knew I was back and that I couldn’t stay.
I focused on the door that was still cracked open behind the cleaner. Have to get out before she traps me . . .
I pushed myself over the marble as she reached behind her, giving the door a push. Going . . . going . . .
It shut while I was only a couple of feet away from it.
I remained as still as untouched water. Could cleaners see ghosts? Or did they just sense them? Was I fucked here?
I rested my head over the floor, waiting for her to address me, to sprinkle holy water on me or whatever cleaners used. Then I remembered Twyla talking about iron daggers in the gut and how that was the way to “kill” a ghost.
When nothing happened, I turned my head to glance at Eileen, but she was only looking around, her dark eyes narrowed. She rubbed one hand over her opposite arm while addressing Gavin, like she felt a chill.
“I tried to make it in better time,” she said, “but I hadn’t charged my car up enough yet. So much for trying to save the environment, huh?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by charging up a car, but I was concentrating on the fact that she was so damned nice and casual instead. Also, I was praying that her inexperience would cut me a break.
She added, “Constanza told me everything she could. Has the spirit returned?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The spirit that went out the window earlier was dark, but there’s a ghost here now that’s . . . I want to say light, but I’m not sure that’s a good description.”
“She feels different from the other spirit?”
“Yeah, but I want all of them gone for my family’s sake.”
Eileen reached into her big bag, taking out a small device. She turned it on and lifted it up to Gavin.
“Do you mind if I set this recorder down on a table?” There was an antique white one by the door. “It’ll capture sounds, and I can replay the tape to see if this ghost is trying to communicate through channels that we don’t hear. And I have a few more I’ll put throughout the house. But I might be able to expel your spirit or spirits before we get any EVPs.”
“Electronic voice phenomena?”
He had been studying.
“That’s right.” She seemed pleased as she put down the recorder. Then she brought o
ut a square, boxy thing that looked like the phones everyone was using. When she turned it on and waited, then slowly moved it around her, I guessed it must’ve been either a temperature gauge or something that read electricity in the air. Either way, I was screwed. But she still hadn’t seen me, so I guess that was good news.
“I’m getting a high reading,” she said. “Your spirits could be biding their time, watching us even now. I certainly feel their coolness. This happened in the other house I visited.”
“Constanza said you chased a ghost out of that one.”
“Yes. He was a sad man who’d overdosed. Helping him to move on was a blessing. I’m part of a group who studies these things, so we knew just what to do for him.”
Hell, she just might get to chalk up another ghost banishment tonight.
Gavin was finally coming down the stairs. “As far as these two spirits are concerned, there’s been one in particular that’s been at me. The other psychic who was here said it was a poltergeist, so I thought the dark spirit that we all saw fly out the window was it. But then I got to thinking—why didn’t it look like the spirit in Wendy’s pictures?”
“Constanza told me about the photos.” Her voice was sweet, and I imagined that she could get just about anyone to talk to her. Even screwed spirits. “May I see those pictures?”
“I’ve got them right here on my phone. I’ll also tell you about the experience I just had . . . and what’s gone on with one of the spirits before.”
He reached the bottom of the stairs, and I decided that it was now or never to attempt an escape.
The door was pretty tightly shut, but if there’s one thing I was learning, it’s that there’s always an opening, no matter how small. As a ghost, I recognized the wispy needle of light on the side of the door, where age had warped the wood and left an opening that maybe a microorganism could fit through.
I could change my shape, but would I be able to get that thin? And how long would it take me to get my entire, snaking essence through? God, why hadn’t I been an anorexic?
I didn’t have a choice about what I was or wasn’t now, because Eileen was walking toward Gavin, getting ready to stride straight through me, her heels clicking on the marble as she put that reader into her purse and Gavin handed her his phone.
Only the Good Die Young Page 23