I kicked myself for bringing up school. I didn’t even know if he liked school. Even though I knew a lot about him, there was also a lot I didn’t know. I mean, I knew a lot about his special powers. And that he made my skin heat up like I had a fever, but I had no idea how he felt about things like homework and studying.
“So would you like to go out with me tomorrow night?” he blurted out suddenly.
“What?” I felt a jolt, like I’d been shocked. We stopped walking.
Then I tried again. “I mean, yes. Okay.”
Mason’s face broke into a huge grin, and I grinned back. We stood there smiling at each other and then started walking again.
“So . . . what would you like to do?” Mason asked a few moments later. “A movie? Go out for pizza? Haunted house on the boardwalk?”
I laughed. I knew he was kidding about the last option. We’d been through the Midnight Manor on the boardwalk together last summer and had a pretty harrowing experience. I don’t think either one of us really wanted to set foot in there again.
“Maybe pizza?” I said, thinking fast. Movies were nice and all, but it was hard to really talk during a movie. We could talk a lot over pizza. There was a lot I wanted to learn about Mason.
We reached my street and turned down toward my house. I was hoping somehow the street could grow longer, just so I’d have more time to walk alongside him. But in about thirty seconds we were standing in front of my house. On the lighted porch, I could see the outline of the knitting spirit who always sat on the swing.
“Okay, then,” he said, and his green eyes darted a look at my face. He looked as nervous as I felt. He leaned toward me a little, and I went stock-still. Was he going to kiss me?
Instead he scooped up my hand and squeezed it with both of his. They were warm and strong. “I’ll text you tomorrow and we can pick a time and place and all that. . . .”
“Okay.”
He gave my hand one more squeeze, turned on his heel, and walked away.
I ran inside to call Lily.
Chapter 13
The next day, Saturday, Lily came over after breakfast. We’d spent an hour talking on the phone the night before. Evidently Calvin had walked her home, and he’d kissed her good night. A quick peck on the cheek, but still. He hadn’t asked her out on a date like Mason had asked me, but we both figured that a good-night kiss definitely meant as much.
I wondered if Mason had gone home and called Cal and if they had spent time talking about us the way Lily and I had about them. I asked Lily, but she said boys probably didn’t do stuff like that. At most they would have texted each other about it.
After we’d exhausted the topic of Mason and Cal, Lily brought up Duggan. I told her I still hadn’t seen him, and that I was getting ready to give up.
“Sara, you cannot give up!” Lily said firmly. “I won’t let you. This is too important!”
“I know it’s important, Lil . . . it’s one of the most important things ever. But I can’t make him appear. I tried that with Lady Azura, remember?”
“But you didn’t try it with me,” Lily said.
And then she talked me into her scheme.
So that’s why when she arrived at my house this morning, she was carrying a big brown paper shopping bag. I knew what was inside it.
I followed her upstairs.
We went into the blue room. Out of habit, I looked in every corner for a sign of Duggan, but as usual, he wasn’t there.
Lily went over to the bed and pulled out the box, placing it on the worn floral bedspread with special care. She climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged, bouncing up and down a little with excitement.
I kicked off my sneakers and climbed onto the bed to sit opposite her, with the box in between us.
“I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.
She’d convinced me to try to conjure Duggan with the spirit board. I was desperate enough to give it a try. I didn’t think it was going to work, but Lily did. And I had learned to trust Lily about stuff like this. Even though she couldn’t see spirits like I could, she had what Lady Azura called “keen insight” into things. Maybe she knew something I didn’t.
We took out the board and placed it across our knees.
“Okay,” said Lily, unfolding the instructions. “Now we place our fingertips lightly but firmly, without pressure, on this thing, so as to allow it to move around easily. It’s called a planchette; don’t ask me why.”
She held up a heart-shaped wooden thing supported by three small plastic feet. She put it on the board, and we lightly touched it with our fingertips.
“So now we ask a question and it’s supposed to move all on its own, with no pushing from us, and spell out a message from the spirit.”
“Open mind, open mind,” I said to myself under my breath.
Lily looked at me, as though waiting for my cue. I shrugged a little. She frowned and looked down at our fingers on the planchette.
“Okay, here goes nothing,” she said.
“Okeydoke,” I said, feeling dubious.
“Mr. Duggan? We’re really hoping you’ll come see us. Sara and I? We’re hoping you can come and talk with us. Hello?” asked Lily in a low voice.
We sat, staring down at our fingers resting gently on the movable part. I opened my mind. Allowed myself to listen, to look, to feel whether there was a spiritual presence in the room.
I didn’t feel anything.
“Maybe I should start with something easier. Like a yes or no question,” whispered Lily. “Mr. Duggan. Will you talk to us?”
A minute passed by. Then another. Then more. Outside I could hear it was starting to rain.
We sat in perfect silence for possibly five minutes. The old clock on the mantelpiece did not tick, the way it had in my dream. I supposed no one had wound it in years. Whatever dim hopes I may have had faded. Outside, the formerly sunny day had grown gray and rainy. So now it was dim and shadowy in the room. I was just about to call it off, to thank Lily for trying, when something happened. Something changed.
Ever so slightly, the room seemed to tilt and everything around me went blurry, like I was underwater all of a sudden. My heart started beating faster, and I could hear my breathing growing shallow. I knew what was happening. I was having a vision.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, and when I opened them again, I saw myself in the room, just as I had been in my dreams. This time, instead of being seated at the desk, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, writing in that same purple book. Once again, my hair was longer. And then a shadow moved behind me. But now whoever was casting the shadow emerged into the light, and I saw his face. It was Duggan.
The other me looked up from my writing, and my hair fell back from my face.
And then I realized it wasn’t my face. The girl was not me at all. She looked almost exactly like me, but there were small differences. For one thing, she looked older. Older than I am now, older than she had looked in my dreams. She looked like me in a few years. But she wasn’t me.
She was my mother.
“Duggan, I can’t see you, but I am hoping you are here. You are here, aren’t you?” She looked around the room. For a moment her gaze seemed to settle on Duggan, but I don’t think she could see him. It reminded me of how Lady Azura acted during our séances. She could sense that spirits were there, but she would look right through them because she couldn’t see them.
My mother’s cheeks were flushed with excitement. I tried to tattoo the image of her face on my brain. Seeing her alive—hearing her talk—was amazing. Her voice sounded so much like my own.
“It was crazy, Duggan,” the girl, my mother, Natalie, was saying. “She was my daughter! Or she will be my daughter in the future, after I grow up and get married. I met her. I talked to her in my dream. We talked about everything, and it all makes sense, even though it’s so crazy!”
Duggan stood there, just listening. The expression on his face was kind.
�
��I’m going to write it all down in here. For her to find. So she knows everything.” She looked up as if hoping to see Duggan. He was right there, but her gaze flicked by him. She went on. Her voice came out a whisper. “She told me her name was Sara. That’s my favorite name, so it makes sense that would be her name, doesn’t it?”
“Sara,” Duggan echoed. “ ’Tis a fine name, I’ll warrant.”
And then the vision vanished. Suddenly. It was just over.
I searched around the room desperately, trying to bring the vision back. To hear more of what my mother had to say about me. She said we’d met. But where? When? Why didn’t I remember any of this? Had it not happened yet?
I squeezed my eyes closed and prayed that when I opened them, I’d see my mother again. But the vision was over. It was just Lily and me on the bed.
I drew in a deep breath. I looked down. Focused on Lily, and the board between us. Beneath our fingers, the planchette began to move. I felt Lily tense up. Slowly it glided toward the upper left corner of the board. Toward the word “no.”
Duggan had answered Lily’s question, “Will you talk to us?” The answer was—
Almost at “no,” the planchette suddenly swerved down and to the left and stopped over the letter A.
A?
Then it moved to Y.
Then to E.
“Aye.” That meant yes.
I heard Lily draw a sharp breath.
She and I looked at each other, and her expression looked to me as wild and surprised as mine must have looked to her.
I turned my head slowly to look around the room. For a second, I thought I saw Duggan, over in a corner. But then I realized it was just an old coat hanging from a coatrack. My gaze traveled to the next corner, and the next.
And then I saw him.
My hands flew to my lap, my fists clenched in shock.
Lily could tell that I had seen something. She turned slowly to look in the direction of my gaze, but she couldn’t see him. She turned back to me.
“Is he here, Sar?” she said in a barely audible voice.
“Yes.”
“Then talk to him!” she hissed.
I pushed the board to the side and stood up, so that I was facing him.
He was dressed in his old blue coat and his battered three-cornered hat. It was the right-aged Duggan, the old one who had told me about the message. He squinted at me beneath his fierce black brows, and it occurred to me that what seemed like gruffness might just have been that he was nearsighted. Maybe that was why he had passed by me in front of Scoops without saying anything. I remembered how kind he’d looked, listening to my mom talk about me. He was a good man, I decided. A friendly spirit. I believed he would help me.
“Hello, Mr. Duggan,” I said, as calmly as I could so I wouldn’t scare him away. “Thanks so much for coming back.”
“The sea, ’tis the accomplice of human restlessness,” he said, more to himself than to me.
“Sir?” I said.
He looked at me sharply, as though noticing me for the first time. “Dash my buttons, you resemble ’er, lass, I daresay!”
“Natalie, you mean?” I asked eagerly. “Yes, I’ve been told that. Natalie was my mother. I believe you knew her, sir?”
“Aye, and a cleverer lass with a pen and paper than ever I clapped eyes upon,” he said. “Never learned to read and write very well myself. But the lass was smart as paint! And hark ye: The lass could draw pictures, the likeness of which I had ne’er before seen, I’ll lay to that.”
He knew my mom, I realized, my heart swelling. He really knew her.
“Please, Mr. Duggan,” I said, trying hard not to appear as desperately eager as I felt. I didn’t want to alarm him. “You mentioned something about a message from Natalie. Did she—do you know where I might be able to find it?”
Suddenly there was a clap of thunder, which made me jump. Lily gave a tiny squeak, so she must have been as startled as I. Rain streamed down the window.
Duggan turned toward the window and furrowed his brow. “Heavy weather afoot,” he said. “Must be sure all is shipshape and seaworthy.”
I remembered how Lady Azura had said he tended to appear just before storms. But was he beginning to fade? No! Not yet! I screamed on the inside.
“Please, don’t go,” I begged. “They predicted a few passing showers today, but it’s not like it’s going to turn into another big storm or anything. You don’t need to check on your ships just yet. Please, can you tell me where to find the message from Natalie? She spoke of meeting me, but I don’t remember any of it. I need to find the message she left for me. Can you help me?”
“Aye,” he said, nodding, but his voice was fainter, and I could see directly through his shimmery image to the coatrack behind him. “ ’Tis in the cupboard. Look ye under the boards.”
“Which cupboard?” I asked. “In this room? Or somewhere—”
I stopped talking midsentence. It was no use. He was gone.
Chapter 14
I turned to look at Lily. Her eyes were huge.
“Did you see him?” I asked.
She shook her head so hard her chandelier earrings swayed. She hadn’t been able to see him. But from the look on her face, I knew she believed that he had been here.
“What did he say? Did he know your mom when she was younger? And I heard you say something about your mom meeting you? And a cupboard?”
I nodded. Kept nodding. “We have to look for something under some boards. And I think—I’m pretty sure—what we’re looking for is a purple journal. She met me, Lily. I’m not sure—maybe in a dream—but she wrote about it and left it for me to find. I think maybe she left instructions for me on how to reach her. . . .”
My voice trembled with excitement.
Lily hopped up, ready to take charge. “Okay, so let’s look. Should we start with the cupboards in the kitchen? Or maybe the pantry cupboards?”
I clutched my arms against the sudden chill in the room, thinking hard. “I think ‘cupboard’ is an old term for ‘closet.’ And I remember Lady Azura complaining about how few closets there were in the house, considering the number of rooms. She told me that the Victorians didn’t build closets. They had those big, freestanding wardrobes instead, like that one over there.” I pointed at the massive old wardrobe across the room. “Or they hung their clothes on pegs or stuck them into trunks.”
“Okay,” said Lily, tapping her foot impatiently. She was eager to start searching. But I knew we had to be smart about it. This was a big old house. We’d be searching for days if we didn’t stop and think for a moment.
“There are some closets in the house,” I continued. “I think they were built later, after the house had been around for a while. But definitely they would have existed while my mom was alive.”
“Makes sense,” said Lily. “So where should we start?” She looked around the room. “There isn’t a closet in here,” she said.
“We could start at the top and work our way down,” I proposed. That sounded like as good a plan as any.
So we did. After scurrying down to my father’s workbench in the basement to dig out two flashlights, we headed back up, all the way to the attic. But aside from a small storage area under the eaves, there weren’t any actual closets up there. On the third floor, we had to release Henry, the little-boy spirit who inhabited my craft closet.
“We just need to look in the closet for a second, Henry,” I explained to him. He was delighted to run free around my craft room. I eyed my canisters of colored pencils and paintbrushes near my art table, knowing they posed a serious temptation to the mischievous little squirt. “Be good,” I said. “And I’ll ask Lily here to bring Buddy over to play with you tomorrow.”
Henry loved Lily’s dog, Buddy. He nodded eagerly and then sat in the corner, his hands folded in his little lap.
But I still didn’t trust him. I had Lily sit with her back against the open door to prevent Henry from locking us in. I’d learned
that lesson already. But there was no loose floorboard in my crafts closet.
After luring Henry back into the closet, we headed downstairs and into my room to look. Nothing in there. Then we checked my dad’s room, and finally the pink bedroom, where the spirit of the woman in the rocking chair observed us without commenting. That room didn’t even have a closet.
“Should we check in there again?” asked Lily, pointing to the blue bedroom.
“No point,” I said. “There aren’t any closets. Let’s check the downstairs.”
We checked the coat closet near the front door. We checked the cupboard under the front stairs, the one with the triangular door. We checked the cupboards in the pantry, and even the kitchen cupboards, although I was sure we wouldn’t find anything. There was no closet in Lady Azura’s séance room, which was a good thing, because she had a client in there. I didn’t bother with her bedroom, because why would my mother hide her diary in there?
We returned to the blue bedroom and sat on the bed side by side. I fought back tears of frustration. “Is he just messing around with me?” I asked. “Why would Duggan say that if it weren’t true? He’s kind of gruff, but he doesn’t seem to be a malicious spirit.”
Lily propped her chin on her hand and nodded glumly.
“She was talking about me like she met me in a vision or a dream or something. But how come I don’t remember? I have all these other dreams and visions and I always remember them, but—”
Suddenly I felt Lily sit up straight. Her fingers squeezed my arm.
“Ow! What?”
Wordlessly, she pointed across the room. I followed her gaze.
At first I saw nothing. And then I saw it.
Half obscured by the battered old wardrobe, and only a few feet high, was a door. It was flush with the wall, and covered by the faded blue wallpaper, but you could see that it had been cut into the wall, and that it was definitely a door.
We looked at each other. We both hopped off the bed and moved across the room like we were part of a choreographed dance. We both crouched down to look. The door was one of those old, hidden things with a spring on the inside. You can just push it in and it pops out and opens.
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