“Ever?” Even though I swore to myself I wouldn’t be provoked into arguing, I’m already gearing up for a fight.
“Ever,” Mom says, staring me down with her death glare. She could play the Wicked Witch of the West with that look.
“Can’t we just leave the door open?” Charlie asks. “That’s what Brendan does with Tori.”
Mom and Mike share a look and then everyone looks over at Brendan.
“I’m so outta here,” Brendan says, raising his arms in surrender. “Good luck,” he says to Charlie as he goes by, fist bumping him.
“Well, we can talk more about that. But we want you to watch TV in here now. Not the den,” Mom says.
Neither of us responds to this one because, really, how ludicrous is that? Do they think he’s going to mount me in the den while they’re in the kitchen? Charlie and I both sit with our arms crossed, and I refuse to look at my mother. Instead, I stare at the seascape on the wall, wishing Charlie and I could float away into it and not come back here.
Mom continues. “And I want to know your plans at night. Exactly where you’re going and who you’ll be with.”
I leave my seascape daydream long enough to give her a nasty look. “That’s totally ridiculous, Mom. How am I supposed to know exactly who I’ll be with? Next you’re going to put one of those house-arrest ankle bracelets on me. Maybe you should add a chastity belt while you’re at it! You’ve trusted me to be responsible while out for at least a couple of years now. All of a sudden it’s different because it’s Charlie? There’s no way that makes sense to you.”
“Okay,” Mike says, standing up. “I think that’s enough for now. Charlie, can I see you in my office?”
Charlie exhales loudly and leans over to whisper in my ear. “Try to go easy. It’ll be better if you do.” He stands to follow his father.
I don’t respond except to snort through my nose like a bull who’s seen a thousand red capes. He clearly doesn’t know my mother very well. Going easy isn’t really our thing. I get up too, but Mom trails after me.
“I’m not done talking to you.”
“I need to lie down,” I say.
She follows me up to my room where I flop on my bed, hugging my pillow and trying to hold back the angry tears. The bed sinks slightly when she sits on the edge. My hand throbs where the IV port was.
“Tell me what’s going on?” she says, her voice soft and coaxing.
Rolling slightly, I allow my face to show. “Don’t wreck this for me. Please?”
She sighs and reaches to rub my back. “I could say the same to you.”
“We’re not doing anything bad. Why do you have to make us going out a big deal?”
“Because he’s going to be your stepbrother. And we live with him.”
I roll all the way over to look at her. “I’m not a little girl, Mom. I can handle Charlie.” “Okay. Maybe I underestimate you. But I know you’re not ready to live with a boy, so we have to have some rules.”
“Fine. Whatever. It’s not like that, though. We’re just close. I feel better about things because of him.”
“Like what things?”
“Like… everything. Living here. You getting married. Never seeing Dad. Do you need a list?”
“No. I think I get it.” Her eyes crinkle at the corners, but I’m not sure my mother does get it. As they say on Facebook, “It’s complicated.”
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, hoping to avoid any more rule-setting discussions for now. Next thing you know, they’ll be setting up cameras in the hall to check for late night visits.
“All right. We’ll talk more later.”
My whole being aches as if I’ve been beaten or I’ve fallen from a great height. There’s been no sign of Lydia since we got home. I should be scared of her and what she’ll do next, but I’m too battered to worry right now.
In the shower, I turn the water up as hot as I can stand and stay in an extra long time. My skin is red when I get out and towel off on the bathmat. I clear a spot in the fogged-up mirror so I can examine my wounds.
But instead of my reflection, Lydia looks back at me. Her face is in the mirror. Not mine.
Chapter 28
I blink rapidly, hoping my mind is playing tricks on me. When I stop, she’s still there, peering back at me as my own reflection. I can’t get air into my lungs. I’m momentarily paralyzed.
As soon as I can move, I flee the bathroom, rush to my bed, and bury my face in the pillow.
Eliza. Eliza. Eliza.
Her voice echoes in my head. I try to silence it, but I can’t, and I think that maybe I really do belong in a mental hospital now. This must be what insanity feels like.
Never, never, never.
Someone knocks on my door. I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying there in my robe, my hair still wrapped in a towel, while I try to stop the words reverberating through my brain.
“Jade, it’s Mom. Can I come in?”
I can’t answer. My head feels like it’s about to blow off my shoulders. Mom comes in anyway.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
I raise my head and scream, “You can’t have her!” Though I said the words, that’s not what I wanted to say. Lydia is speaking through me. She’s inside me! The worst has happened, and I have no idea how to undo it.
“What are you talking about?” Mom asks.
I shake my head and press my face back into the pillow, trying to keep myself from saying anything else. A battle has begun inside me, and I have to try to win it.
“Mike!” Mom yells from the doorway.
I hear rustling and hushed voices, and I’m trying to stop the mania in my brain.
“Tell us what happened last night,” Mike says. “We need to know the truth.”
“Nothing. I swear,” Charlie replies.
I roll over and glance at him. He looks so freaked that I feel bad for him. He’s wrapped up in my nightmare, and he doesn’t deserve to be. “Tell them,” I rasp. “We have to tell them now.”
I’m glad to be able to speak, that Lydia didn’t override me this time. Charlie stares back at me, his lips in a tight line.
“There’s a ghost. In this house. And I can see her.” I whisper because that’s all I can make my voice do.
“Jade! Have you lost your mind!” my mother shrieks.
“No, it’s true!” Charlie says.
Mom and Mike look over at him.
“You need to call someone to help her,” Charlie says.
“Charlie!” Mike says as if he’s reprimanding him.
“This is insane.” Mom shakes her head. “Whatever is going on, you can tell us. We’ll help you. You don’t have to make up stories about ghosts.”
Charlie and I look at each other, neither of us sure where to go from here. We have no proof, no evidence, nothing to make them believe us.
Mom comes over to the bed, sits down, and takes my hand. “You’re scaring me, honey, really scaring me. I need to know the truth. We’ll call a counselor. We’ll get you some help. Whatever it is, we’ll help.”
I try to formulate an answer to this. I wish I was better prepared. If I’d had more time, I could have maybe thought up some proof or explanation, but as it stands, I have nothing to give her. Plus, I’m afraid whatever I start to say will be taken over by Lydia mid-stream. So all I do is shake my head, feeling my lower lip trembling as I fight back tears.
“Okay. It’ll be okay,” Mom says, pulling me into a hug. “I’m going to get us some help.”
When she’s done patting my back and clutching me to her, she stands back up. “I’ll be right back. Will you be okay?”
I nod and swipe at my wet cheeks. She turns to leave.
Mike says, “Come on, Charlie,” and
points toward the door as if Charlie needs to be shown how to get out of my room.
Charlie ignores him and walks toward me. “You need to get up and get dressed. Can you?”
I nod.
“Okay. I’ll be right outside.”
Once they’re all gone, I pull on yoga pants and a T-shirt. I’m sure I look like crap, but I can’t worry about that right now. I look in the full-length mirror on the closet door to comb my hair. It isn’t until I see myself, with a messed-up head of hair, that I remember I shouldn’t have looked.
Thank God, I only see my reflection. Not Lydia. The cuts on my face are just surface scratches. My arms feel heavy as I work on my hair, but I get the job done and call Charlie. He comes back in like a man on a mission and pulls me over to sit on the bed with him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I saw her. In the mirror. Me. My face,” I whisper. “And she’s in my head. Talking. I think maybe… I’m possessed.”
“Jesus,” Charlie says, running both hands through his hair. “What are we gonna do?”
“We have to try again. We have to—”
Charlie shakes his head. “They don’t believe us, though. They’re calling people to come and help them deal with you.”
“I know. I’ll try to act normal. Maybe I can. But she… spoke through me before. To Mom.”
“Really?” Charlie asks and further destroys his hair with his hands.
“Maybe I should call Martin again. Maybe…”
Mom appears in the doorway. “My friend Karen from work is coming over. Are you feeling any better?”
I nod. “A little.” I figure I better start faking it. Fake it ’til you make it, right?
Charlie puts his hand on my knee, and Mom frowns as if us touching is part of the problem she’s here to eradicate.
“Charlie, could I speak to Jade alone?” Her voice is terse.
“No,” I say. “He’s staying.” I rest my hand on his, praying he won’t listen to her.
When he doesn’t move, Mom sighs loudly and asks, “Did your grandmother put this ghost idea in your head?”
Grandma Irving? “What does Gram have to do with any of this?”
“She has these ideas too. About ghosts.” Mom sort of scoffs as she says this, as though believing in ghosts is the dumbest thing she’s ever heard.
This new information about Gram takes longer than it should to register with me, like the sun trying to penetrate the fog. Why didn’t I think of this before? I must have gotten this… this curse or whatever it is from her. My ability to see ghosts had to come from somewhere, right? Like my eyes and my hair and my skin color, I inherited this trait too.
I jump to my feet. “I need to call her. Right now. Where’s my phone?”
Mom holds up her hand like a crossing guard. “No. That’s a bad idea.”
“You can’t stop me!” I storm past her and barrel down the stairs.
She and Charlie follow. Once I reach the family room, I try to remember where I left my purse when all this insanity started last night. My memory is kind of fuzzy, but I finally spot my purse on the counter near the house phone. Did I put it there or did Mom? She probably rifled through it, looking for the drugs I was supposedly on. Thank God, I put away the notes from the library visit. Part of me wishes I was on drugs. A drug problem might be easier to fight, and at least they would believe me about that.
When I pull out my phone, Mom tries to grab it. I back away and put the phone behind my back.
“Just wait!” she shouts. “You can call, but just wait!”
I freeze.
“Let’s call your father first. Let’s ask him.”
Dad? Should I talk to him about this? I can’t believe I never imagined I got this from somewhere. How stupid was that? Like all the other parts of myself that I got from my mother and my father, I got my ghosting from Dad’s side of the family. The Irving in me is just that powerful. I remember how Gram squinted at me when we Skyped. How she said I looked like Livvy. Yes, Gram could tell. Gram saw it in me, even on the computer screen.
“Yes. Let’s call him.” I’m glad we can finally agree on something. I scurry to the couch and scroll through contacts. I hit Call, hoping against hope that he’ll answer.
He picks up on the second ring. “Hey!”
“Hi.” My voice cracks, and I’m suddenly shrinking inside at the prospect of telling him what’s happened.
“What’s going on?”
“Um, not much. I just need to ask you something. Can you talk for a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Um… well, I was talking to Mom about… um… ghosts. And she mentioned that Gram might have… some ideas about them?”
Silence. The weird, eerie kind. Dad either doesn’t know or doesn’t believe.
“What’s going on, Jade?”
“I… um… I need to know about it.”
The line is so quiet, I think it may have gone dead. “Dad? Are you there?”
“Can I talk to your mom?”
“No. I want you to talk to me. Tell me about Gram.”
He sighs. A loud, breathy exhale. “Gram thinks she has some… abilities. I guess that’s what you call it. Why?”
“Um… I think… maybe… I have them, too.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because… there’s a ghost here… at Fair-Ever.”
Silence. And then, “How do you know?”
“Because I see her and… talk to her, and I need help from someone because no one except Charlie believes me.” There. The truth is out, and it can’t be taken back.
“Jade, honey, you don’t have to do this…”
“Do what? I’m not doing anything! Trust me, I wish I wasn’t doing this!” Tears burn my eyes. He thinks I’m trying to get attention. Of course, that’s what Mom thinks, too. I’m a pathetic little child of divorce trying to get attention. I should have stuck with my original plan of never telling a single solitary soul what I can do. Even Charlie because now he’s going to get screwed over by all this crap, too.
“Let me talk to your mother,” Dad says again.
I scoff as rudely as I can over the phone before holding it over my head. “Mom, he wants you.”
She takes the phone and retreats to some other part of the house. Charlie sits and gives me a big hug that literally squeezes more tears from my eyes—tears of frustration and tears of exhaustion.
“I shouldn’t have told them,” I mumble against his shirt, sniffing.
“No, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
“Mike must hate me.”
“No. He’s confused. Do you really think she’s… inside you?”
“Yeah. Maybe I’m just crazy, though.”
A knock on the back door jolts us apart. Mom and Mike come scurrying down the hall to answer it. After a hushed discussion in the mudroom, Mom brings Karen the counselor over to me.
“Jade, this is Karen. Would you like to talk to her in the den?”
I glare at my mother. Would I like to? No, actually, I wouldn’t, but I can tell I don’t have a choice. I nod and get up to I follow her into the den. Charlie gives me a sympathetic look as I leave.
Karen’s kind of a largish woman with short brown hair and a fat roll that protrudes over the top of her Capri pants and stretches her mauve T-shirt. I take the couch; my legs tucked up underneath me, and wonder if this is like a real therapy thing where she can’t tell anyone what I say or if she’ll go running back and tell my mother everything.
“So you had kind of a rough night,” Karen says.
“Yeah, but this morning was worse.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
“Are you going to tell
my mom what I say?”
“I’ll only tell her if I think you’re in danger. I won’t tell her details.”
I don’t like this answer. It’s one of those vague, possibly deceitful things adults say so they can screw kids over. She can construe just about anything to be dangerous. But I have to tell her something.
“There’s a ghost in this house, and she’s been messing with me. I finally told because she kind of possessed me, I think. I’m fine now, though, and I want to forget the whole thing.” There. I wonder if that’ll work?
Karen squints at me. “Can you see why this story would concern your mother?”
“Yes. But apparently, I get this… power or whatever from my grandmother, so maybe she’ll be able to help with Lydia.”
“Lydia?”
“Yeah. The ghost.”
Karen’s plump face puckers, and she refolds her hands. “Have you ever seen ghosts before this?”
“Yeah.” I pick at my nail polish and hope this is almost over because I don’t see how talking to Karen will help. Calling Gram will help. Nitwit Karen will not.
“And you said this… Lydia, she possessed you?”
“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t like that word, though. It’s too exorcist-like. This is different.”
“So is she going to make you do crazy stuff?” Karen asks.
I glance at her. “I don’t know. I hope not.” I haven’t thought far enough ahead to wonder what crazy stuff Lydia could make me do. Is it possible I’ll do things I don’t want to? My guess is yes, and a whole new fear creeps into my already frazzled brain. Lydia could inflict all kinds of trouble and trauma on me.
And as if Lydia hears me thinking these thoughts, a frigid chill descends over my body. Icy fingers run up my spine and out to my legs and arms, just like the cold from her other visits, except she’s not outside anymore.
She’s inside, and she starts shrieking in my head. “I did not kill myself! They did it! They drove me to it!”
Ever Near (Secret Affinity Book 1) Page 14