by E. E. Holmes
“Come on, sugar,” said Marigold as the instructor shushed us. “Let’s head on over to the juice bar.”
Well, I guess my assignment of “getting to know some of the other guests better” would be easier than I thought. Marigold and I rolled up our mats and walked out the back door. We passed through the sun-soaked lobby to the juice bar. The bar was deserted, except for a smiling attendant.
“What can I get for you ladies?” he asked, throwing a white hand towel over his shoulder before placing two tall glasses onto the countertop.
“How about a bourbon straight up?” Marigold asked.
The young man’s smiled slipped slightly. “We don’t serve alcohol, ma’am. It’s a widely recognized depressant, and our policy on hard alcohol is—”
“You’re a widely recognized depressant,” said Marigold, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Two Berry Blasts, then, cowboy—and make it quick, we’re melting into puddles of gorgeous over here.”
The attendant began juicing armloads of fruit with alarming speed. Marigold turned to me, fanning herself with a laminated drink list. “So, you’re brand new, right? It’s Hannah, isn’t it?”
“No, Hannah’s my sister. I’m Jessica. Jess for short.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’m sorry, Jess. When did y’all get here?”
“Just yesterday.”
“I thought so,” Marigold said, with the air of someone who’d seen hundreds come and go through Whispering Seraph.
“You’re the first person who’s bothered to introduce herself to me. I get the sense people like to keep to themselves around here,” I said.
Marigold rolled her eyes. “This isn’t the place to come to if you’re looking to make friends. Some of ‘em are downright ashamed to be here, embarrassed to admit they believe in ghosts. You’ll never see that movie star with her sunglasses off, as if we all don’t know exactly who she is. Most of the rest are too rich to care about anyone but themselves. And I suppose a few are just too blue, poor things, to muster up enough effort for socializing. It’s a strange group, but then again, it’s a strange place.”
“When did you get here?” I asked.
“Oh, I’ve been here nearly three months now,” Marigold said offhandedly. “I was the first-ever guest here. Jeremiah held a gathering at his home back in Charleston; he connected with Harold right away, before we’d even had a chance to sit down around the table. I knew then I’d follow Jeremiah Campbell wherever he went.”
As she spoke, I did the mental math of what a three-month stay at Whispering Seraph would cost and felt a bit faint. This woman was loaded—no mistake.
The attendant placed two tall, deeply red beverages in front of us, each topped with a skewer of sliced fruit. Marigold tossed a twenty-dollar bill onto the counter, completely ignoring the attendant’s feeble protests about not being allowed to accept tips, then we crossed the lobby into a kind of solarium, where we sat down on a pair of wicker chairs.
“What do you think of this place so far?” she asked me.
“Well, I think I’d like fewer exploding windows and less focus on my flexibility, but other than that it’s pretty amazing,” I replied.
Marigold laughed. “Yes, that was really something this morning, wasn’t it? Never a dull moment around here.”
“You mean that kind of thing has happened before?” I asked in disbelief.
“Well, no, nothing like that,” Marigold said. “But this isn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill retreat, now is it? Lights flicker, candles flare, doors slam shut—that sort of thing. It’s pretty exciting, wondering what’s going to happen next.”
“I guess, for some people,” I said. “I like a little more predictability in my life.”
We sipped our drinks. They tasted like strawberries and ginger and seaweed-based health supplements.
“You lost a friend of yours, did I understand that right?” Marigold asked.
“Yeah. Milo. He was our best friend. I still can’t actually believe it,” I said.
“Oh honey, no one here can quite believe it. Why do you think we’re trying so hard to stay in contact?”
“So when do you think you’ll be done?” I asked.
Marigold frowned. “Done with what?”
“Whispering Seraph. How will you know when you’ve got what you need?”
“Oh, sugar, I don’t know,” Marion replied with a heavy sigh. “It’s almost become a way of life now. I expect I’ll stay until my Harold is finally at peace.”
My blood boiled. I fought against letting my anger show on my face, although I’m sure some red crept into my cheeks. Harold wanted nothing more than for his wife to stop throwing her money away on this place, yet as long as Campbell—or his angel—kept delivering partial messages, Marigold would stay. Utterly sickening.
“Well, you’ve been here the longest, so maybe you can explain something to me, because I’m a little confused about it,” I said, remembering that I was supposed to be the “reluctant” twin.
“Sure thing, sugar, fire away,” Marigold replied.
“Do you think the ghosts are happy?”
Marigold furrowed her brow as though the question made no sense. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Well, I don’t know a lot about this spirit stuff,” I said, acknowledging in my head the enormity of the lie, “but they’re not supposed to be here, right? Shouldn’t we be trying to help them… I don’t know, move on? Cross over? Go to heaven?”
Marigold looked a little unsettled for a moment. “I don’t know,” she replied. “If they want to stay with us, why shouldn’t they be allowed to?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe they should. I was just thinking about it and… well, I guess it would be pretty easy to keep them here just for us.”
“Are you calling me selfish?” Marigold asked, with her voice rising a bit.
“Not at all,” I said as gently as I could—I certainly wasn’t judging this woman for wanting to keep the man she loved close to her. How could anyone ever condemn another for love? Love, on its own, was never a crime.
“Please don’t get angry. That’s not what I mean. I’m just afraid that this place is all about holding on… when maybe it should be about letting go.”
Marigold didn’t have a response to this, and so she looked for it in her juice glass. Just over her shoulder, the door opened and several other people walked into the solarium; the yoga class had finally ended. Tom and Moira Owens brought up the back of the group, and there, floating in their wake, screaming a steady stream of profanity as though using it to propel himself forward, was Kyle.
Discovery—it happened in less than a second. Kyle screamed in frustration; the sound made me jump. As I looked up, we caught each other’s eye.
His mouth fell open.
“Shit.”
Quickly I dropped my eyes to my lap, which I realized was now slopped in Berry Blast. I was speckled all over with bright red juice; I must’ve looked like a crime scene.
“Oh, honey, you’ve gone and spoiled your clothes!” Marigold tutted, handing me a napkin.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it from her and blotting myself. From the corner of my eye, I could see Kyle still staring at me.
“You can see me,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“You’ll never get that out, sugar, it’s got beet juice in it,” said Marigold. “Although there was this stain remover I saw on TV…”
I could barely focus on the rest of her sentence. Kyle had appeared behind her, waving both arms frantically over his head as if I were a plane he was signaling to land.
“HEY! HEY! Right here! I’m right here! I know you can see me!” he shouted.
“…spilled a whole bottle of red wine on this white carpet, and then a jar of marinara sauce, and—”
“LOOK AT ME AGAIN!” Kyle screamed. “Damn it! Don’t pretend you can’t hear me!”
On our table, a glass bowl full of fresh-cut peonies began to tremble. The
re was no way around it; I was going to have to talk to Kyle—and quickly—before he exploded again.
“Marigold, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to the restroom to try to get this out,” I said, jumping to my feet and cutting across her. “I can’t believe I was such a klutz. Do you want anything else from the juice bar before I go?”
“What? Oh, no honey, I’m fine,” she replied, looking a little disappointed that I wasn’t more interested in her one-woman infomercial.
“Okay, I’ll be right back. Sorry, I just don’t want it to set.”
I turned and found Kyle planted right in my path. I couldn’t detour around him without drawing attention to myself; as much as I hated the idea, I had no choice but to walk straight through him.
Pushing through Kyle was like being doused with frigid, angry water from the inside; I could feel it running down the inside of my skin and then ebbing away as I left him behind me. I couldn’t repress a violent shiver. Kyle didn’t miss it.
“Ha! You felt that! Look at me! Look at me! You just saw me, I know you did! Why won’t you answer me?”
I came to a sudden halt in the middle of the lobby, which Kyle wasn’t expecting. He floated right into my space again, coming so near that I could feel the chill of him again. He was so close that, although I spoke with barely a breath of sound, he could hear every word. “Because we’re in public, Kyle, now be cool and shut up. We need a place where no one can see us!”
“Wha—oh!”
Kyle immediately began behaving himself, floating silently behind me. But I could still feel the buzz of his excitement—licks of electricity that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. I walked right past the juice bar and into the women’s restroom, locking the door behind me. I spun around.
Kyle seemed to shrink and pale slightly as I faced him with whatever my fury had scribbled all over my face, but he stood his ground. Well, floated his ground, more accurately.
“You can see me,” he said again, although not as forcefully as before.
“Yes, we’ve established that,” I snapped. “Way to almost ruin everything there, Kyle.”
“What did I ruin?”
“That’s none of your business.”
He tried a new question. “Did I do something to make you see me?”
“No, I can always see spirits. It’s a very annoying talent of mine,” I replied, trying to give him as little information as I could possibly get away with.
Kyle’s eyes widened. “Really? All of them? The other ghosts here, too?”
“Unfortunately, yes. All of them,” I sighed.
“And you can understand everything I’m saying?” he asked, as his shock slowly transformed into eagerness.
“Yes, I can understand everything you’re saying,” I repeated, somewhat wearily.
“This is amazing! Listen, I need you to come with me. I need to tell my parents—”
“Hold it right there,” I said, putting my hand up to silence him. “I’m not telling your parents anything. I’m not a messenger pigeon. That’s not why I’m here.”
“But you have to!” Kyle said, starting to fire up again. “That asshole Campbell is useless—he’s just taking my parents’ money and twisting my words around to make them feel better!”
“I know. I heard it. All of it.” I replied, not without sympathy.
“So then…” Kyle opened and closed his mouth a few times, unable to immediately wrangle his thoughts into words. “What are you doing here? If you can see ghosts, you don’t need Campbell’s help.”
Shit. I was hoping he wouldn’t realize that. This was bad; I was going to have to tell Kyle far more than was safe for our mission. “You’re right, I don’t. I’m here to shut him down,” I answered.
Kyle froze. His energy, which had been pulsating toward me in angry waves just a few moments before, was still now.
“I’ve got a sort of… an obligation to make sure people like Campbell can’t take advantage of people like your parents. I’ve made it a personal mission, actually.”
“Why do you—”
“Because Campbell, and others like him, make it a lot harder for me to do my real job.”
“Your real job? What’s your real job?”
I didn’t answer. I’d already told Kyle way too much; Finn was going to kill me.
As if Kyle had heard this last thought, he raised an eyebrow at me, then threw his head back. “Hey! Other ghosts! There’s someone here who can—”
“Shut up! I’ll tell you, just—stop shouting!” I cried, caving immediately to his manipulation.
I sighed. Kyle obviously wasn’t going to let this go until I gave him a really good reason to. So much for my undercover skills.
“Look, stop focusing on your own anger for a minute and instead focus on me. Put your emotions aside and look me in the eye. Really concentrate,” I said.
Kyle calmed himself and did as I instructed. As he focused in, I slipped the Masking bracelet from my wrist. I felt the Casting, like the finest, most gossamer of veils, slip away from my being.
The very instant I was free of the Casting, Kyle’s eyes widened. He gasped and shot backward, as though I had scalded him. Then slowly, hesitantly—as if he were approaching an animal that might attack at the slightest provocation—he floated toward me again. A slow smile spread over his features; all his anger and resentment disappeared. He looked, for the first time, like the fresh-faced kid he really was.
“You… you’re… I can see the way home,” he whispered.
“What you’re feeling is called the Gateway,” I told him, “and I’m one of the people who can help guide you through it, when you’re ready to Cross over.”
“I thought I missed it,” Kyle whispered. “I thought I was stuck here. For good.”
“No, you’re not. You can still move on if you want to, but you’ll need my help to do it.” I said, as I slid the Masking bracelet back onto my wrist. Kyle’s smile faded at once, like I’d shut a light off inside him.
“Why did you cover it up?” he asked, with a longing in his voice—a longing I recognized as easily as my own reflection.
“I have to keep it hidden from the other spirits here, so that they don’t discover what I am.”
“But why would you keep that from us? Don’t you want to help us?” Kyle asked.
“Yes, of course I do,” I said. “And I will, when the time is right. I’ll give all of you the chance to Cross if you want to. But right now Campbell is my priority. He’s not just getting rich off the living while pissing off the spirits. There’s something else going on here, something… bigger.”
Kyle was intrigued enough to refocus on my words for a moment rather than concentrating on what he’d sensed about me. “What do you mean bigger?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “There is more to that angel and to this place than meets the eye. There’s a bigger plan, maybe even something dangerous, but I don’t know what it is yet. I need to stay undercover until we sort it out.”
“There’s someone else here who can see me too?” Kyle asked. “Is it that girl you’re with?” Is that who you mean by ‘we?’”
“My sister and I, and the people we’re working with, yes. Don’t bother wasting your time asking me anything else about them, because I can’t tell you. But the point is, the other spirits—and especially Campbell himself—can’t know about this. If he realizes what I am, our one chance to shut this place down will be ruined!”
“So what do I get, then?”
I frowned. “What do you get?”
“In return for keeping your secret,” Kyle said, with a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re joking, right?” The nerve of this kid.
“I’ll keep my mouth shut around the other ghosts, and around Campbell too, if you promise to give my parents my message before I go,” Kyle said, crossing his arms.
“Or… how about I open up the Gateway here in this bathroom and let it suck you through to t
he other side right now?”
Kyle’s smirk faltered. “That’s not how it works. I’ll bet anything that’s not how it works!”
“You sure about that, Kyle? Should we try it and see?” I asked, hovering my hand over my bracelet while silently praying he wouldn’t call my bluff.
“Okay, okay!” Kyle said, backing down as he nervously watched my fingers pulling at the quartz stone. “I just… I really need my parents to understand. Can you help me with that before you leave here? Please?”
I dropped my wrist to my side again. “I will, but don’t expect me to torture them on your behalf. I’ve heard your constant yelling and cursing around them. You’ve got real stuff to say to them, and that’s fair. I get that. I had some pretty real stuff to say to my mom, too. But you need to think really long and hard about how you want to say it. Regrets are just as easy to acquire after you’re dead, but they’re usually harder to fix.”
Kyle considered this. “I… okay. I’ll think about it.”
“Good. And in the meantime, not a word to the other spirits.”
“Fine. Do you need… I mean… can I help at all? With busting Campbell?”
I smiled a little at him for the first time. “If I need a hand, you’ll be the first ghost I ask.”
18
Wards
“SO HE ACTUALLY TRIED TO BLACKMAIL YOU?” asked Hannah incredulously. “Well, that’s a first!”
“No kidding. Threats? Sure. Bribes? Frequently. But blackmail? Not until today,” I said.
We were back in our room, and I was relaying every detail of my encounter with Kyle to Hannah and Milo. We were changing for dinner, which, much to my dismay, was a formal affair. I looked at the four dresses laid out on the bed, wanting nothing more than to set fire to all of them.
“So now he knows everything?” Hannah asked, wringing her hands. “Oh, no. That’s really not good, Jess. He could totally blow our cover!”
“I know that, Hannah!”
“What should we do? Do you think we need to get out now, or should we stay and hope he’s as good as his word?” she asked.