“He’s just being a jerk,” she said. “Don’t listen to him.”
“Dad, you promised me you wouldn’t say anything,” Aunt Cathy whispered furiously.
“The boy’s a teenager,” he said, taking another quick sip, “and he’s on national news, for Pete’s sake! You think I’m the only one out there saying this? We can’t have a real discussion about it? Please. I’m sure he’s heard this from a thousand people.”
“No,” I said, my voice low and shaky. “I actually haven’t.”
Was this why my dad had such a problem with him? Because he was so openly critical of my gift? But Aunt Hilda wasn’t exactly my biggest fan, either. Granted, she was never this rude about it, but she’d had her moments.
“Believe me, Baylor, it’s going to happen,” he said. “Many people think the same way I do. You’re unnatural, Baylor. You’re a freak.”
“Horty!” my mom growled, her eyes lethal. “His gift might be a bit unusual, but Baylor is perfect just the way he is.”
He shrugged. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, dear.”
“That’s enough,” Uncle Glenn said forcefully. Aunt Cathy sipped her champagne, looking dejected.
“You all know I’m right,” he said, sipping slowly. “I can see it in your eyes whenever the boy talks about the other side.” He eyed Jack. “And who knows what else will come next.” Jack, who’d been trying to escape the conversation by willing himself to shrink to the size of a G.I. Joe and live forever on his plate among the mountains of mashed potatoes and rivers of gravy, looked startled.
Uncle Horty smiled strangely at Aunt Hilda.
“I think she agrees with me.”
“My own issues with Baylor aside,” she said coldly, “I’d never say what you’ve said about him. Or the rest of them.”
“Who?” I said. “What did he say?”
“Them!” he said, motioning lazily to Jack and Ella. “They should never have been born!” He turned back to my parents. “It’s that simple. God knows what else you two are capable of bringing into this world. It’s only a matter of time before we see what monsters they’ll become.”
TIP
15
TV stardom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
JACK LOOKED ON IN HORROR, but Ella continued to slap her potatoes and peas in pure baby bliss, much to my jealousy.
“Jack and Ella are normal,” I said, wishing I could erase this moment from Jack’s mind.
“Ah, so you admit you’re not normal,” Uncle Horty said pointedly, his rectangular head leaning in.
“No, that’s not what I meant at all,” I said.
“Horty,” my dad said, gripping the edge of the table, “I’m going to ask—”
“You’re not about to give me another black eye, are you, Dougy?” Horty asked. “We wouldn’t want to open that can of worms again, would we?”
My dad swallowed hard, his face burning bright red. Before he could respond, though, Mom stood up.
“Enough,” she growled, wobbling slightly as she put her arms on the kitchen table and leaned forward to Horty, the light from the candles dancing around her face. “Enough! I can’t believe it’s Thanksgiving dinner at my house”—she pounded her chest—“and I have to sit here and listen to you! You, of all people! I didn’t even want you here. My poor friend Karen and her son are sitting alone in their house right now eating pizza, and you’re sitting here, ungrateful, smug, with your family, in my house, insulting my children?” She shook her head, kicking off her shoes. “No. Nope. That is not how this going to go. Glenn, grab him.”
Horty had been listening to her speech with an odd triumphant smirk, but his face suddenly fell in confusion as Glenn, unsure of what his sister meant, grabbed Horty by his arm and looked helplessly at his sister.
“Everyone, grab a piece of him, please,” she sang. “The more the merrier.” Dad grabbed his other arm, Grandpa By took hold of the back of his neck, and even Grandma Renee snuck in and pinched his shirt collar. He started to protest—“You can’t be serious? What are you doing?”—but no one listened.
“Outside,” she said, grabbing Horty’s plate and marching barefoot down the hall. “Follow me. Baylor, grab their car keys from the counter.”
I ran to the kitchen to find the keys and caught up with them as they led him out the front door, down the driveway, and back to the car he had such difficulties freeing himself from earlier. Mom took the keys, unlocked the car, and opened the back door.
“What are you doing to him?” asked Gillie. I couldn’t tell whether she was concerned or having the time of her life. Oli stood next to her, looking like he was about to cry but smart enough to know it was not the time to protest.
“Inside,” Mom said, glaring at Horty. “Buckle him up in the middle seat.” Her feet must have been freezing on the pavement, but she stood there defiantly as my dad and Glenn settled him inside the car.
“This is wildly immature,” he yelled helplessly as the men finished up. “You’re just going to leave me here?”
Mom stuck her torso in the driver’s seat, turned on the ignition, and said, “I’ll get the heat going. Wouldn’t want you to freeze to death.” Then she paused. “Well, I’m sure Cathy wouldn’t, at least.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,” she said viciously as she dropped the plate of food onto his lap. “And if you so much as look at one of my children again—you know, the ones who should’ve never been born—I will personally be the one to make you wish you’d never been born.”
Then she slammed the car door in his face and laughed gleefully.
“Wow,” Charlie gushed from behind me. “What a woman.”
Grandpa By patted Mom on the back and guided her toward the house, singing her praises all the while. “It was a little extreme, sure, I’ll give you that, but you’re a true O’Brien, Connie. I gotta ask, you sure you want to stick with that Bosco nonsense still? Honestly, it makes a lot more sense for you to be an O’Brien, with you, and the anger, and the defending the family, and the showing-whose-boss, it’s all very O’Brien.”
Aunt Cathy, lagging behind, said, “We can’t really leave him out there, Glenn.”
“He’s fine,” Uncle Glenn said. “The heat’s on, he’s got food, and we get to relax for a bit. Everyone wins.”
Back inside, Mom was on the phone. “If you don’t come right now, I will come get you and force you in the car. I just forced one person into a car, and I’m not afraid to do it again . . . . I don’t care! Bring the pizza! Who really likes turkey anyway?”
And five minutes later, Mrs. Kirkwood and Aiden showed up, each carrying their own small pizza box.
“Our contribution to the feast!” Mrs. Kirkwood said as they entered the kitchen.
“You know there’s an old man yelling in the car, right?” Aiden whispered to me.
I nodded. “Don’t ever mess with my mom.”
Mom gave her a big hug as Dad got another chair for Aiden to sit at the kids’ table. We all took our places, Mrs. Kirkwood in Horty’s old spot and Aiden next to me.
“Yes,” Mom said suddenly as the adults passed around the champagne to top off their glasses, “I may have just put an elderly man in time out, and that’s something I’m really going to think about for a while, but he deserved it. And we deserved it, too, because now I’m finally with my family”—she looked around the table, beaming at everyone, but lingering on Mrs. Kirkwood and Aiden—“and the only charity case is outside, stuck in the middle seat of a car.”
* * *
After dinner, once everyone had eaten seconds and thirds (Aiden), we’d plopped onto the couches and waited until our stomachs had enough room for some pie. Gillie had once again taken control of the TV and was flipping aimlessly from channel to channel.
“Should we think about letting my dad back in?” Aunt Cathy asked. “It’s been a couple hours. I bet he’d apologize.”
Mom scoffed. “Cathy, I love you, but that man is not stepping foot inside this house again. There’s a hotel downtown he can check into if there’s any room. Otherwise, I hope he finds that backseat comfortable.”
Aunt Cathy squirmed a little, but Uncle Glenn put his hand on her leg and shook his head.
“Wait, what was that?” he said suddenly. “Gillie, go back.”
Gillie flipped to the previous channel, and once again, my face was plastered on the screen. Except this time, it was a video rather than a picture.
“. . . exclusive video uploaded earlier today showing Baylor Bosco, the self-proclaimed thirteen-year-old medium who’s been making a lot of appearances in the news these days, channeling spirits . . .”
In the video I was looking around, my face fraught with concern, reacting to things no normal person could see or hear. And I was wearing the same sweatshirt I’d been wearing all day. And the background was the family room, where we were sitting now.
All the adults turned my way, confused, but Kristina, who’d shot over from chatting with the colonel and Charlie in the kitchen, turned to gawk at Gillie.
“Is that . . . ?” Grandma Renee said. “Is that from today?”
Mom looked from the TV to me to Gillie. Gillie was gaping at the TV, her mouth wide open. She turned to me, her expression fighting between horrified and thrilled, a small smile on her mouth.
“Oh my God!” she said, covering her mouth, laughing in disbelief. “That’s the video from earlier.”
“You were recording me?” I asked.
“I wanted to show my friend Erin what you look like when you’re channeling ghosts.”
“Oh,” I said meekly, turning back to the TV.
“. . . already racked up twenty thousand views in less than three hours . . .”
Talk about a slow news day. I didn’t know what to say, but luckily I didn’t have to say anything.
“Gillie,” Grandma Renee said, her voice stern and unfamiliar, “how could you do that to your cousin?”
Uncle Glenn was nearly foaming at the mouth and kept saying, “You . . . you did that?” over and over.
Aunt Cathy, already on edge thanks to everything that had happened with her dad, was livid. She stood up, gripped Gillie’s arm, and yanked her away to the office, where she screamed at her for twenty minutes. Our house was an old New England house, with hardwood floors throughout and very open vents, which meant we could hear every single word.
“How could you do this to your cousin? You’ve betrayed his trust, my trust, your father’s trust, your aunt’s and uncle’s trust. And might I remind you you’re spending Thanksgiving in their house, where we are right now?”
“But I didn’t post it, Mom!” Gillie said, clearly crying. “I sent the video to Erin. She’s the one who did it.”
“Do you seriously think I care?” Aunt Cathy hissed, her voice positively lethal. “Do you think I give a single hoot about the logistics of how your silly little video got posted? You recorded it, Gillie, so you take responsibility for it. This is the last thing this family needed right now. You are grounded, young lady, for as long as I care to think about. You’re lucky homecoming already happened, because you’d be home for that, and you can forget about the winter formal.”
“But Jake already asked me to go! And we already have the limo at Lauren’s house!”
“Jake’s going to be awfully lonely, I guess, and you can pay me back for the cost of that limo, by the way.”
“What? I don’t have any money!”
“You know what? The other day, I saw the gas station was hiring a cashier. That seems like the perfect way to earn some money.”
“What! No! You can’t make me get a job! It’s not even legal. You have to be fifteen.”
There was a brief silence, where I could almost see Aunt Cathy mentally tossing around her options, and she finally said, “If that’s true, then you’re officially our new full-time snow shoveler. I’m canceling the service as soon as we get home!”
Yikes. That was brutal. I wanted to tell Aunt Cathy that I really didn’t think the video was that bad. There had been much worse things done to me, some of them as recent as a couple hours ago, but deep down I knew it didn’t matter. Gillie’s timing couldn’t have been worse, and she was going to pay the price.
Aiden and his mom chose that moment to slip out.
“Are we hanging out tomorrow?” he asked as I walked them to the door.
“Um, let’s play it by ear,” I said. “It’s been a really weird day. I need to make sure everything’s cool here first. Sorry you had to see that.”
“Are you kidding?” he exclaimed. “It was way more entertaining than hanging out with just Mom.”
They awkwardly ignored Uncle Horty’s shouts and pleas for liberation from the middle seat and drove away.
“Oh no,” Kristina said sadly as she watched them drive away, “he left without getting any pie.”
As I walked back to the family room, Gillie ran from the office to my room upstairs. Aunt Cathy, her face flushed and her eyes wet, shook her head as she saw me. “This has been the worst Thanksgiving ever.”
That night Aunt Cathy collected Horty’s stuff from Jack’s room and drove him to a hotel. She was going to rent a car and drive him back in the morning; Uncle Glenn, Gillie, and Oli would stay for another day to visit with everyone.
“That was one for the books, wasn’t it?” Grandpa By said to Grandma Renee as they headed out the door with Aunt Hilda. “Very exciting. Too much excitement, maybe, for the bad heart.”
“Bad heart?” I said, my voice panicky. “What? Are you sick?”
Grandma rolled her eyes. “He’s fine. He’s a hypochondriac.”
“Don’t listen to her, Baylor,” he said, grabbing my shoulders to huddle with me. “We O’Briens have a history of heart disease. You’re never too young to start taking care of yourself, you got that? Go for the broccoli instead of the cake. Put down the red meats and pick up the celery. Say sayonara to salt and say ‘hey there, cutie’ to Cuties—you know, those weird little oranges?”
“How much champagne have you had?” Grandma asked him.
“Probably a whole bottle,” he said, hiccupping out the door.
She shook her head and followed him out.
“Baylor,” Aunt Hilda said quietly. “I may not like your gift”—she reached up and touched my cheek—“but you’re not so bad.” Then she hobbled after them. “Don’t forget about the old broad!” she called out.
Gillie had moved into Jack’s room, and Jack didn’t even protest because he was still excited to have a slumber party with me and Oli—well, mainly Oli.
“Baylor,” Oli said as I turned out the lights, “you don’t, like, see ghosts in your sleep, right?”
I looked at Jack and wondered how truthful to be. “I do sometimes, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to see any. I’m the only one unlucky enough to see ghosts all the time.”
“Hey!” Kristina said.
“Just kidding,” I mumbled.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” she said, “but it’s still sort of hurtful.”
I rolled my eyes. “Good night,” I said, to both her and the boys.
“Good night?” Oli said. “Aren’t we gonna stay up and tell stories and . . .”
But, sadly for Oli, I’d already drifted off to sleep.
I don’t know whether I actually felt closer to Archie and Helena than ever before, or if I was just pretty stressed from seeing myself on national TV twice in a day, but when I fell asleep, I somehow wound up right on Loved Ones’ Lane and headed straight for the edge of the lane to the vast ocean below. The stars overhead twinkled brighter than I’d ever seen them, like they were trying to convey an urgent message.
I didn’t even wait to see if I could spot them in the distance—I channeled my inner cliff jumper and threw myself off the edge, swan-diving into the ocean. As my arms cut through the water, my legs pumping just as fast, I cou
ldn’t help but think I was breaking some kind of Olympic record. Of course, I wasn’t actually swimming and didn’t feel tired, but still, it had to require some kind of energy.
I arrived at the boat after a few minutes and crawled up the slippery edge with relative ease. Archie and Helena were lying on their backs, their faces glowing an eerie blue-white from the moon. The light cast uneven shadows across their faces; the bags below Helena’s eyes were cavernous, while her skin, now papery and peeling, seemed to have aged fifty years. The water in the bottle strapped to Archie’s wrist was nearly gone; the strap had chafed against his skin, rubbing it raw and leaving a bloody pink handcuff that streaked violently against his skin.
“I’m here again, Archie,” I said as I settled on the boat between them. “Are you okay?”
“What about me?” Helena asked, her voice raspy and harsh. She turned her head my direction, her eyes doing their best to focus on me. They settled on a focal point somewhere above my left shoulder.
“You can see me?” I asked, shocked. “I thought this was Archie’s dream.”
“Does it matter whose dream it is?” she asked, a hint of lightness in her voice. “That’s no excuse for bad manners.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or tell her this was no time for jokes. They’d been stranded on a boat for days, with seemingly no chance of rescue in sight. Then again, all things considered, in the face of such a dire situation, maybe now was the perfect time for some jokes.
“Now, now, Helena,” Archie croaked, his deep voice even raspier than hers, like his vocal cords had turned into sandpaper. “That’s no way to treat our guests. Especially the ones who aren’t trying to eat us.”
“That shark was only acting on his instincts,” she said. “If we could talk Sharkese, I think we’d have made decent friends.”
They each chuckled lightly as I sat there, unable to believe they weren’t panicking.
“Baylor, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Archie said, his sundried, cracked lips forming a thin smile on his face.
“That’s an understatement,” I said under my breath. “I know this is probably a dumb question, but do you two have any idea where you are right now? Have you seen any kind of landmark or something I could tell the authorities to help them find you?”
Baylor's Guide to Dreadful Dreams Page 11