“Ha. It could have been much worse, though,” J said. “Think of all the other idiomatic expressions out there.”
“The what now?” Bobby asked.
“Idiomatic expressions,” J said. “They’re basically sayings that only make sense to a group of people who speak the same language and share the same culture. So, if you literally translated ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ into Spanish, they’d look at you like you were crazy because it wouldn’t make any sense.”
“Oh,” Bobby said, “well, it doesn’t really make sense in English, either.”
“Right,” J said. “Why cats and dogs? And why always in that order? If you said ‘it’s raining dogs and cats,’ most English speakers would question it.”
“Oh,” Aiden said, “or whenever someone says ‘it’s a piece of cake.’ I’ve watched my mom bake cakes. It’s not easy.”
J nodded. “Exactly. They’re just phrases that make sense to us because, as a culture, we’ve collectively accepted them. You could come up with a phrase, assign it any meaning, and as long as everyone was cool with it, that’d be an idiomatic expression.”
“Interesting,” Bobby said, the wheels in his head turning. “I could say anything . . . ”
“The world is your oyster,” J said with a wry smile. “I don’t know who chose oyster instead of something like a burrito, which, quite frankly, offers a better assortment of options than an oyster could ever pray to compete with, but whatever.”
“Right,” I said. “What does an oyster offer the world besides a glob of gross snot in a shell?”
“It’s so true,” Bobby said. “The world is your burrito. Think of all the different options! White or brown rice? Black or pinto beans? The meats! The salsas! The toppings!” His eyes widened dramatically. “You’ve blown my mind, Janet Franklin.”
J’s whole body shuddered. “Never call me Janet,” she said. “I’m still trying to figure out why my parents thought that was a good choice for a child not born in the 1930s.”
“I like your name,” Aiden said. “It’s . . . sweet.”
Bobby, J, and I looked at him for a loaded moment before we burst into laughter.
“Oh, Aiden, you’re as cute as a button,” Bobby said.
“As sweet as apple pie,” J said.
“As cool as the other side of the pillow,” I said.
We laughed as his cheeks burned nearly to the color of his hair.
“I’m serious!” he said. “Don’t laugh at me!”
“We’re not laughing at you, Aiden,” J said. “We’re just joking.”
“No,” he said, his mouth taut and furious. “You’re laughing at me just because I said I liked your name? Har har. Another dumb thing said by dumb Aiden. Aiden’s so stupid and worthless, let’s make fun of him, har har.” He glared at each of us. “I’m sick of it.”
He marched away, aimlessly, not in the direction of his house, but at least away from us.
“Wow,” Kristina said, and she flickered something in my head to tune into Aiden’s aura. It was as red as a tomato, just like Gillie’s had been earlier.
“Aiden,” I called out. “Come back. We’re sorry!”
Hands dug deep into his pockets, his shoulders slumped, he kept walking away.
“What happened?” my mom asked.
“I’m not sure,” J said. Her eyebrows furrowed, her eyes sad under her bright green glasses. “We were just teasing him and he got really mad at us.”
But I knew. I knew it right when he said the word worthless. Aiden’s dream was stuck in his head, those harsh words thrashing around and stinging like a horde of angry wasps.
* * *
That night, I still had Aiden on my mind, but despite sending numerous text messages, I got nothing back.
“Still worried about Aiden?” my mom asked as she sat with Uncle Glenn and my dad at the kitchen table, watching me stare at my phone.
“I’m not worried about him,” I said quickly.
She chuckled lightly. “Right,” she said. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant are you still thinking about him leaving suddenly this afternoon?”
I sighed and looked at Kristina.
“I mean, the answer is clearly yes,” she said, shrugging and throwing up her hands. “Who are you kidding?”
“Not helpful,” I said to her under my breath. Turning to my parents and uncle, I said, “It’s just, uh, a little concerning he hasn’t texted me back. He’s usually instantaneous.”
“Just give it time,” Uncle Glenn said. “These things happen.”
I pursed my lips and nodded, thinking that might have been the least helpful advice I’d ever received. “I’m going upstairs.” Before I headed up, though, I peeked on Jack, who was playing a board game with his friends and Oli.
I walked away and said aloud to Kristina, “Perfect.”
* * *
Upstairs, Colonel Fleetwood and Uncle Charlie were waiting in my room.
“Have you two been here the whole time?” I asked.
“Don’t ask,” Colonel Fleetwood said, his voice pleasant yet prickled with terseness.
“I’m having the best time,” said Uncle Charlie, who somehow looked dirtier, like he’d gone to roll in the mud with a pack of dogs. “It’s been like talking to a fossil. He doesn’t even know how to use a telephone.”
“Really, Uncle Charlie?” I said. “Can you explain what the Internet is?”
He frowned. “The what now?”
I turned to Colonel Fleetwood. “Care to fill in the blanks?”
The colonel looked at me, momentarily confused for some reason. “I’d . . . I’d be happy to,” he said.
Kristina looked at me with the same confused expression as the colonel.
“You just defended the colonel,” she said, as much to herself as to me, seemingly dazed.
“Just calm down,” I said. “Don’t get used to it.”
“It’s kind of nice,” she said. “Not having to worry about you making some dumb, rude comment to him. You should feel guilty about Aiden more often.”
“That’s not what’s happening here.”
“Sure,” she said. “I believe you.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You’re so annoying.”
She smiled. “You’re as sweet as a button,” she said.
“You’re hilarious,” I said, “meanwhile, can we just discuss real quick how I have to casually shave off part of my soul the next time I see Archie and Helena?”
“You’re thinking about it too much,” she said. “I can guarantee you it’s not ever going to happen if you try to force it.”
“All I can do is try to force it!”
“It’s like Madame Nadirah was saying—you need to become one with the setting.”
“Which,” I said, “is absurd. Become one with the gigantic body of water that’s about to eat up two kids my age. How could I become one with that kind of awful setting? I’d have better luck trying to leave a piece of my soul in a Porta Potty at the pumpkin festival.”
“Gross, Baylor,” Kristina said, rolling her eyes. “Look, I’m not 100 percent sure how you’re going to make it happen, but if you want to save their lives, you’re going to have to figure it out.”
“I need to light a candle,” I said. The stress of the problem, combined with the Aiden situation, and even the Uncle Horty fiasco from the previous night, were all building up some seriously bad juju.
I lit the wick and circled myself with light, feeling a little better, but even when some of the bad energy cleared away, there seemed to be plenty more waiting in the wings. Carla Clunders. The Baylievers. Gillie’s bad attitude. Jack’s precarious friend situation.
I put my hands over my face and sighed. This was not the relaxing Thanksgiving break any of us had been hoping for.
The most immediate of the new problems was Jack. He was downstairs having fun, and that was all I could really ask for. Everything was going smoo
thly—the last thing I needed was for some ghostly situation to arise and scare the crap out of his friends.
“Er, is that normal ’round these parts?” Uncle Charlie asked.
Kristina looked off to the side somewhere, and her eyes grew wide. “Baylor, tune in,” she said. “Tune in right now.”
Once again, I hadn’t even realized I was tuned out. Actually, I’d barely delivered any messages the past few days, ever since I got the amulet. Was this what it was like to live a semi-normal life? Thinking I could really get used to it, I tuned back in, and though normally there was never much activity at home, tonight was a whole different story.
On one side of my room, I had what looked like a wedding taking place, while on the other side, a Christmas party was in full swing.
“Kristina,” I said calmly, “what’s going on?”
“I think Minh and Adam are wreaking havoc on the Bosco ecosystem,” she said, sounding genuinely surprised. “These people just appeared out of nowhere! I’ve never seen such raucous relatives!”
“We wouldn’t have to appear so suddenly if Baylor would let us pass on messages once in a while!” said a gyrating older man.
“It’s only been a week!” I said. “Forgive me for not being at your beck and call every moment of my life.”
“You didn’t have to shut us out completely,” said a woman, one of Minh’s relatives, who wore a Santa hat and was holding a star-shaped paper lantern.
“Why are you already celebrating Christmas? It’s not even December.”
“We started celebrating in September!” she said. “One month of Christmas isn’t enough!”
“That makes no sense,” I said. “Do you even have a message for me to pass on, or is this some kind of call for help from the other side?”
“You hit the nail on the head,” called out one of Adam’s uncles. “We’ve been putting requests in to Kristina and Colonel Fleetwood and the others to have you tune in, but since we all clearly were met with deaf ears, we decided to take things into our own hands.”
“By throwing a Christmas party? That seems a bit extreme.”
“Oh?” said the aunt with the paper lantern. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“Well, you finally have my attention,” I said dramatically. “What is it? What could possibly be so urgent that you felt the need stage an intervention with me?”
“It’s not something specific from any of us,” said one of the uncles. “It’s a message for you from the Beyond.”
“What are you talking about?” Kristina asked. “All messages from the Beyond go through me.” A note of pride reverberated in her voice
“This doesn’t concern you, Kristina,” the uncle said, suddenly sharp. “You think you’re some expert on the Beyond just because you’re special? You don’t know everything.”
Kristina scowled, her body suddenly shimmering with blue energy.
“How dare you come into my family’s house and talk to us like that! I can tell you’ve been dead for less than five years. You’re just a baby ghost! You know nothing.”
“We didn’t come here to fight,” said the paper lantern aunt, her hands spread open in a gesture of peace. “We were selected since our loved ones are here.”
“Who selected you?” Kristina said.
“What matters now,” she said, her voice ominous, “is that Baylor acts carefully.”
“Who sent you?” Kristina said, her voice a growl, suddenly tense, her body illuminated in blue. Next to her, Uncle Charlie and Colonel Fleetwood’s forms were lapping with the blue energy. I didn’t know what was happening, but I promptly lit a candle. It hissed and burned brightly, seemingly spurred on by the extra energy in the room.
“The other side is bigger than you can imagine,” the uncle said as his fellow dancers began to shimmer and flicker. I hadn’t taken a good look at all the people till now, but the dancers and the party revelers suddenly slowed down, and it dawned on me that they all looked very similar. In fact, they looked identical, as if they were a set of decatuplets—ten men and ten women who just so happened to look exactly alike.
“Kristina?” I said quietly. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Before she could respond, the ghosts began to shoot around in a blur, like some kind of pinball machine gone wrong, and I took a step back, nearly dropping my candle in surprise. At first it looked like they were zooming at high speed around my room, but then I realized they were disappearing, each form melding itself into the one that’d been talking to us the entire time.
After just a few seconds, we were left with just the two figures staring back at us, each of them deadly serious, their eyes focused on me.
“A change is coming,” the woman said
“And your soul is at stake,” the man said. They both spoke with grave authority.
I held the candle, unsure of how to respond. “Could you . . . could you maybe elaborate a bit more?”
The woman shook her head. “Proceed with caution, Baylor, lest the evil of the other side find its way to you.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” Kristina said, her entire body illuminated in blue flash of light. A shock wave of energy passed through me, and the flame from the candle in my hands sizzled as it mingled with the energy. It grew stronger, combining with the blue and forming a fiery barrier that wrapped itself around the spirits that had come to warn me. The lights flickered, and suddenly, Kristina ignited, a blast of energy jutting outward.
“Kristina!” I yelled, dropping the candle and covering my eyes.
She zoomed out my door, the spirits knocked off their feet and dragged along like two dolls on a rope. I ran after them, Charlie and Fleetwood close behind, as the lights continued to flicker. The front door flew open, and Kristina hurled the spirits out into the dark, where they tumbled in violent circles before landing on their feet, shooting me one last pointed look, and disintegrating into the night in a shower of blue-and-white sparks.
“What just happened, Kristina?” I yelled. “Are you kidding me? Were they good? Were they evil? Were they something else? And what did their message mean?”
Kristina stood just outside the doorway, defiant, her shoulders back and sturdy.
Before she had a chance to answer, I felt eyes on me from the side, and I saw my parents, Uncle Glenn, Gillie, Oli, Jack, and his friends Minh and Adam all staring at me from the foyer.
There was a pregnant silence, during which clearly no one knew what to do, and then Jack’s friends ran screaming out the door into the dark.
“Adam! Minh!” my mom called after them as they ran outside. “Where are you going?” She gave chase, doing her best to stop two very scared and very fast seven-year-olds from going too far on their own.
My dad was looking at me like I’d just grown another head, surely debating how much the whole “unconditional love of a parent” thing really applied in situations like this one. I, on the other hand, was looking at Jack, feeling awful.
He was still clutching a stack of playing cards from their interrupted game of Crazy Eights, his eyes wide and wet.
“Jack,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what just happened, honestly.” He looked at me, confused, and then looked out the door through which his friends had just run, blinking several times.
“Jack?” I said.
A few more seconds passed, but then he took a gulp and smiled at me. “That’s okay, Baylor,” he said, his voice cheerful but thin. He glanced at the playing cards in his hands. “I had fun while it lasted.” Then he offered a tepid smile once more and turned around to head back to the family room as cards fluttered to the floor from his limp hand.
“My heart is broken,” Kristina said, clutching her own, her form still shimmering blue.
I rolled my eyes, upset that I’d built up Jack’s day and then torn it down so quickly. “You don’t have a heart.”
“Shut up, Baylor.”
TIP
18
&nb
sp; Turning a piece of your soul into a metaphysical object is exactly as hard as it sounds.
MOM HAD TO CHASE DOWN Minh and Adam to stop them from running off into the night by themselves. Once she wrangled them, she couldn’t persuade the boys to come back inside the house, so she wound up dropping them off at Minh’s house since Cam was done with his movie anyway.
Then there was the whole matter of the ghosts who’d shown up to deliver a cryptic warning. Kristina was lying on my bed, spent from the massive amount of energy she’d used expelling them from the house.
“How could you not know what they meant?” I asked, frantically lighting as many candles as I could find. “How could you not know who they were?”
“I don’t know, Baylor,” she said, sounding weak. “Clearly it’s never happened before.”
“Shouldn’t you be in the Beyond asking some questions?”
“I will tonight,” she said. “But right now, I just want to rest and think.”
“But they said I need to be careful! Careful about what?!”
“I’m not sure.”
“They said a change is coming, Kristina!” I said, placing a third candle on the windowsill. “My soul is at stake?” I peered out the window, half expecting to see a Bruton or something worse staring back at me. “That sounds pretty bad if you ask me.”
“Baylor, I can assure you, you’re perfectly safe,” Colonel Fleetwood said. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Did we not just live through the same fiasco, Fleetwood? You’re joking right?”
“Clearly they were just trying to scare you.”
“Actually, you’re scaring me,” I said, throwing my hands up, “because you’re not taking this seriously. How did they enter the house? What happened to the protections?”
“They were actually the boys’ relatives,” he said with a shrug. “We could feel it. That kind of connection can’t be faked.”
“So then my little brother’s friends”—ha! Friends. Poor Jack was never going to have friends after those boys told everyone about what they experienced—“conveniently both had relatives with special powers in the Beyond?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t feel any negative energy. They were being influenced by someone in the Beyond,” he said. “No doubt about that. The main question is, quite simply, why?”
Baylor's Guide to Dreadful Dreams Page 14