“Charlie!”
“What? It’s true. The girl gets around.”
“Ew.”
“Yeah. Ew. Guy parts are so ew,” Charlie mocks.
“That’s not what I meant. I meant her mixed with guy parts.”
“Ah, yes. Ew.”
I’m giggling and about to take a bite of my potato salad when I feel a frigid blast. Someone else might think there’s an air conditioner nearby set to the highest level, but I know. I know one is coming.
Chapter 25
“Oh, no!”
“What?” Charlie asks, still focused on his burger.
“There’s a—”
She materializes in the doorway—a lady in a uniform of some kind, like a nurse but not a nurse. Maybe a maid.
“What is it?” Charlie looks around the room.
She glances over her shoulder. “You can’t be here.”
I close my eyes, willing her away.
“Mister would not approve.” Her voice is pleading. “Go! Go now!”
When I open my eyes, she’s gone, but books start flying off the shelves. One at time, they launch and smack to the rug, their pages fluttering as they fall. What is it about books that makes ghosts love to throw them?
Charlie stares, mouth open, mesmerized. A few seconds later, he snaps out of his trance and jumps up. “Come on.”
We scramble out of the room, leaving our food and heading toward the front door, not back to the party. We get onto the porch and stop. A few guests who are just arriving stare at us. Luckily, they don’t seem to know Charlie.
“Follow me,” he says.
We head down the driveway, the shells crunching under our feet. Charlie turns left and pops open a gate in a tall hedge. We enter the pool area. Dusk has descended, and the pool is illuminated by low, LED lights, sort of like white Christmas lights, which also run along the fence. He continues on to the pool house, and once we’re inside, he tugs me into one of the changing rooms. The roomy floor-to-ceiling stall is paneled in cedar, making the air smell woodsy and fragrant. We sit on the cushioned bench along the wall.
“What the hell was that?” he asks.
I bend over at the waist, putting my face in my hands. “A ghost. A lady. She was telling me to leave.”
“And then she started throwing books?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
He places his hand on my back. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
He moves his hand back and forth gently.
“At least now you have proof.”
His breath catches. His hand stops. “I didn’t need it anymore. I already believed you.”
I sigh, exhaling my pent-up frustration. I shouldn’t be taking this out on him. Fighting with Charlie right now isn’t going to do any good. I sit up and twist to face him on the bench.
“But proof is good, too. So you can be sure I’m not insane after all.”
“If you’re crazy, then I am too because there were definitely books flying off the shelves in there.”
This is like a scene right out of a Mindy Bates novel. Finally, something has gone my way, just as things do for Mindy in her stories. For once, a ghost was sort of useful. Charlie can no longer doubt that supernatural things happen to me.
“And for the record, I never kissed Lindsey Cathcart.”
I smile. “Yeah. Right.”
“I swear I didn’t.” He tilts his head and looks into my eyes.
“I believe you. And it’s okay if you did.”
“You’re not jealous?” he teases, inches from my face, mere centimeters from kissing me.
“No. But if you play tennis tomorrow at four, I will be.”
He smiles and touches my lips with his, a gentle peck. He smells like cologne and mint and cedar. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
His hands cradle my face, tangling in my hair as he kisses me. I lace my fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and move to straddle his lap. His hands drop to my hips to steady me.
He moans when I come to rest on top of him. “Jade…”
He kisses my neck, then back up to my ear before finding my lips again. Our bodies meld together, mine curving over his. Being with Charlie like this feels better than good. We’re mind-blowing together. I’ve never felt this way about a boy. We stop a few minutes later because we hear someone in the hall. I press my forehead against his, trying to control my breathing.
“I’m sure they’re just going to the bathroom,” Charlie pants.
“We should go back, though. They might be looking for us.”
Charlie tightens his grip on me. “Don’t you like the pool house?” He pecks small kisses on my lips and face.
“Actually… I love… the poolhouse,” I say between his kisses.
“Me too,” he murmurs.
“But we should go.”
“Fine.” He helps me up and off of him.
Later that night, watching the fireworks explode over the sound, we keep peeking at each other. I smile when our eyes meet and then dart away, because we have to play it cool. I know by his expression, though, that he’s thinking about me. He’s thinking about kissing in the poolhouse and about spooning in my bed and about beating up boys like Billy who try to mess with me.
I know everyone will eventually find out about us. There will be freak-outs and lectures and giggles. People will say we’re stupid and wrong for falling in love.
Is that what’s happening to us? Love? I think maybe it is. I can feel it in Charlie, and I can feel it inside myself, a level of emotion and caring that must be love.
Chapter 26
The plan isn’t much—a mess and a half of nothing actually—but it’s the only one we have. Waiting all day to implement it is the problem, especially since patience isn’t a virtue I was born with.
When everyone else has finally vacated the house, we prepare the dining room. The dining room practically radiates paranormal energy. I have a hunch that Lydia might have hung herself here, since it’s where I was in that one dream. And for sure, the space gives me the most day-to-day heebie-jeebies at Fair-Ever.
Charlie pulls the velvet drapes closed, and we gather all the candles we can find and place them on the antique table. My hand shakes as we light them, and I see the deep lines of worry on Charlie’s forehead. I probably have them, too. We’re too young for worry lines like these.
I have a few prayers for the dead I printed off from a Catholic website. Even though I’m not religious, I think they might help. I’ve practiced saying them a few times, but it feels somehow false and disingenuous when I do. How dumb is it to think they’ll help? I had to bring something, though, besides candles. I feel better having prayers to cling to and not just a bunch of lit tapers.
Once we’ve set the stage, I sit at the head of the table with Charlie to my right. We smile weakly at each other, and Charlie takes my hand.
“Your hand’s cold,” he says. He drops his lips, sort of frowning.
“Yeah.” I’m not sure what I should say. I think I’m numb with fear, with the uncertainty of what we’re about to do. I arch my back and wiggle my shoulders like a fighter preparing to box.
“Are you ready?” Charlie asks.
I close my eyes and nod. I try to focus my thoughts on Lydia, hoping I can draw her out. I think about her sad life and horrible death. How desperate she must have been.
“Lydia?”
Nothing. Charlie squeezes my hands.
I chant in my head. Lydia. Lydia. Lydia.
And suddenly, I know she’s here. I pop open my eyes. She hovers in the doorway, glowing as bright as the halo on the Virgin Mary in a Renaissance painting.
She waves her arm
s at the candles. “What is this, Eliza?”
“I want to talk to you. About moving on.” I try to control my voice, keeping it steady and strong.
“Where will you go, Eliza?” She nods toward Charlie. “With this man?”
“No. You. I want to talk about you. You need to go.”
She flies toward me, and I plaster my back against the chair, turning my head and closing my eyes. Will she hit me?
“Jade!” Charlie yells.
“Open your eyes!” Lydia screams.
I do. She’s inches away. Black, gooey liquid pouring from her eye sockets.
“Where should I go?”
I squeeze my eyes shut again and start to recite one of the prayers for the dead that I remember. “O merciful God, take pity on those souls who have no friends and intercessors…”
I clutch the arms of the chair. I want to reach up and touch my key, but I can’t let go of the chair.
“You’re shaking,” Charlie says, his voice taut with fear.
I hear a crack and snap open my eyes just as the huge mirror over the sideboard shatters into a million pieces. The glass explodes from the frame, showering over the room like glittery confetti. Charlie curses loudly, and my chair flies backward. The last thing I hear is the sound of my own scream.
You come at night to the back door when all the children are asleep. You crush my body to yours. You cover my mouth in kisses so passionate I cannot think a single thought but of you. I may ascend to heaven right here and now. Your lovemaking is the closest to heaven I come, though, because afterward, there is only hell. I must endure the dark glances and knowing disapproval as my belly swells. You are gone, and he’s been gone, so they all know. I am a truly wretched woman, unable to hide the sin I have committed. How could something as beautiful as that night—the love between us, our bodies together, a feeling of bliss I’ve never had—lead to such suffering?
The excruciating birth is worse than I could have ever imagined. The midwife calls for the doctor, but the baby comes before he arrives. Blazing hot, searing, I may not live, and that would be all right. I would gladly die to stop this pain.
But I don’t die, and she’s here. I am saved only to know a pain even worse than the agony of childbirth. I must endure an emotional torture and punishment far worse than one’s worst enemy could devise. Eliza is but six months old when Captain Chase returns from the Pacific, his whaleship loaded with precious cargo. The news has already reached him of my dreadful infidelity. He has the girls, my stepdaughters, take Eliza from my arms, and I am cast to the floor by his own hand, the hand of a long-serving captain, a man who knows of only one way to deal with disobedience of any kind. He berates me for the monster I am. His foul language leaves me writhing in tears. I am sent back to my father. Cast out. Lost forever.
The light is so bright. I reach up to bat it away. Muffled voices rumble in my ears. I can’t feel my body. I’m floating on water or air.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” Charlie says. He’s talking to someone else, his voice choked with emotion. Where are we?
“Jade!” Charlie calls. I feel his hand grip mine.
“Come here. Come over here,” Mike says.
My hand is released, and my body’s lifted and placed on a soft cushion. There’s something on my face. I try to shove whatever it is away, but someone grabs my hand.
“Jade, can you hear me?” Mom asks.
Oh God! What’s happened? I feel myself moving. Lying down but moving. Levitating? Metal clanks and rattles. I fight to open my eyes. When I do, I see sky, dark but glowing with stars. My face and my right arm burn as if on fire.
“Charlie?” I whisper.
“He’s inside. He’s fine,” Mom says.
“Charlie,” I say again. I turn my eyes. My mother is floating beside my levitating form. The throbbing in my head makes me press my eyes shut again, and I’m lost. Gone.
I open my eyes. Bright sunlight. Stark white walls. Someone’s warm hand on mine.
“Well, it’s about time,” my mother says from where she sits in a chair a few feet away to my right.
I look to my left and see Charlie. He’s the one holding my hand, his face hanging with worry. I dart my eyes from her to Charlie, hoping his expression will tell me what I need to know. Unscrambling my brain, I remember only snippets of the things I’ve been hearing and possibly dreaming. I raise my head a little. “Did you tell them?” I whisper.
“Yeah. About the pretend séance. And about us.”
“Did you think you could hide this?” Mom says, gesturing between us. Her jaw is set, her lips pursed together.
I drop my throbbing head back on the pillow. “I told you she’d be mad.”
“Mad? Yes. As a matter of fact, I am. How could you think this was a good idea? Of all the boys in Nantucket, you pick your stepbrother for a summer fling?” Her voice is high and shrill, the Boston accent breaking through more than usual.
“Don’t yell at her. She just woke up. And just because you’re with my dad doesn’t mean I can’t date Jade.”
My mother narrows her eyes at him. “Yes, Charlie, that’s exactly what it means. And what the heck is this séance stuff?”
“I told you. We were joking around. We thought it would be funny to pretend the house was haunted. And then Jade had the seizure.”
“And the mirror was just accidentally smashed?” Mom asks sarcastically. She stands and looks down at me. “Is that what happened?”
I nod. “Yeah. That’s it. We weren’t drinking, though. Or using drugs.”
“I know that. They tested you for everything. All the tests, including the CT scan, came back normal. That’s why this is so weird.”
I’m groggy, as if I’m just emerging from a fogbank. Trying to keep up with my mother’s sarcasm and anger is hard work. “How long do I have to stay here?” I ask, noticing the IV attached to my arm.
“I don’t know. I’ll go ask,” Mom says with a sigh. “You really scared me, you know?” She smooths back my hair and bends to kiss my forehead.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
“This isn’t over, either. They want to do more tests. Maybe an MRI. But for now, I’ll go see if they’ll let you leave. Since it’s with me.”
“Thanks.”
She sashays out.
I meet Charlie’s eyes once the door is closed again. “I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head. “We should have never tried it. It’s my fault for making you do it.”
“Did your dad freak? About us?” My voice is hoarse and very small, tears threatening to fall.
“A little. And the séance story was the best I could do. I’d gotten rid of the prayers, but the candles… I couldn’t explain them away. I told them the mirror was an accident, that I was throwing stuff around as a joke.”
“What happened?”
“You were unconscious and bleeding from the glass. Then you’d move, but I couldn’t wake you up. It was like you were dreaming, but you wouldn’t come out of it. I freaked after a few minutes of that. I called my dad, and he called 9-1-1. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay.” I raise my hand to my face, vaguely aware that my cheek is stinging by my temple. “Where am I cut?”
He darts his hand up to stop mine. “Careful.”
“Is it bad?” My voice rises two octaves above normal. Thinking about my face being marred by glass causes me to panic.
“No. You’re fine.” Charlie pats my hand. “No stitches. It’s okay.”
Tears spring to my eyes as I touch two round bandages on my arm. “Here?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
I notice the dark bags under his eyes and the red lines in them. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Of course.
Just tired. We’ll figure something out. I promise.”
Even though I know he can’t promise this, I don’t disagree. Sometimes, a girl needs to believe her boyfriend can save her from her demons—real or otherwise. And I’m grateful that Charlie hasn’t reached his limit of my craziness. Any other boy probably would be done with me at this point. The failed banishment would have put them over the edge. But not Charlie. His loyalty seems to know no bounds. We’re bonded now. Unbreakable. If only that was enough to get us through this mess…
Chapter 27
We have a family meeting when we get home, which is weird in and of itself. I ask for breakfast first because being attacked by a ghost and spending the night in the hospital being treated for seizures makes a girl really hungry.
Mike bustles around the kitchen making pancakes and bacon for everyone, and then we all sit down to talk—a teenager’s least favorite thing to do, especially when it’s about her boyfriend. Plus, Brendan’s hanging around, staring at me in a skeptical sort of way, as if I’ve put a spell on his baby brother, and he’s trying to figure out how to undo it.
“So Mike and I have talked,” my mother says, “and we’ve decided on a few rules. There may need to be more as we go along.”
Rules. Great. I fold my arms over my chest, defiance rising up inside me. This is why I didn’t want them to know. I knew my mother would be like this, and what’s coming is most definitely going to put a damper on my time with Charlie. My mother is nothing if not the fun police.
“How long, exactly, has this been going on?” Mike asks, apparently unable to contain his curiosity about our new relationship.
“Does it matter?” Charlie curls his lip and squints at his dad.
How embarrassing can they make this for us? Are they going for complete and total humiliation?
“Mike, it’s fine. It doesn’t really matter.” Mom puts her hand on his arm as if they’ve already been married for thirty frigging years. She turns to me. “So the first rule is no going in each other’s rooms.”
Ever Near (Secret Affinity Book 1) Page 13