The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl)

by Paige McKenzie

  “You should get packed,” Aidan instructs as we step inside the house. I notice he doesn’t wait for Mom to invite him in.

  “Packed?” I echo.

  “Wait a minute,” Mom interjects. “I said my daughter could begin her training with you. I had no idea that meant you’d be taking her away.”

  Aidan nods solemnly. “I understand your hesitation. But I’m afraid we cannot afford to waste any more time.”

  “You mean that what happened last night might happen again?” Mom blinks and I shudder, remembering how cold I was in the car.

  “No,” Aidan answers. “Although, I suppose it might. But that is not the danger I’m concerned about at the moment.”

  “My daughter is in danger?”

  “She’s been in danger almost from the moment she was born.”

  I reach out and take Mom’s hand. “What do you mean?”

  “All I can tell you is you’re not safe here anymore and I’m taking you someplace where you will be.”

  “Safe from what?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “I’m not letting you take my daughter away from me without a good reason.”

  “There are about a dozen reasons, all of them very good,” Aidan looks directly into Mom’s eyes. “But I can’t explain now.” He glances at his watch. “Time is of the essence.” Despite the cool January air, I think I see a hint of sweat on his upper lip. Wherever he’s taking me, he wants to get on the road right away.

  “Will my birth mother be there?”

  “No,” Aidan sets his lips into a line so straight and firmly shut that I can tell he’s not going to elaborate.

  “What about school? It literally just started again.”

  “Believe me, school isn’t important right now. The lessons you have to learn—”

  “I know you’re new to this whole parenting thing,” Mom interrupts, “but I don’t go around telling my daughter school isn’t important.”

  “Apologies.” Aidan glances at his watch once more, even though there’s no way more than a minute or two has passed since the last time he looked. “Sunshine’s teachers won’t even notice she’s gone,” he promises. “They’ll send you a report card at the end of the school year just as though she never left.”

  Mom opens her mouth to protest—I know what she’s going to say, something about learning being more important than grades—but this time I’m the one who interrupts. “What do you mean at the end of the year? Just how long am I going to be gone?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  Another nonanswer answer. I’m about to ask As long as what takes, but I have a hunch he’s not going to answer—again!—so instead I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Nolan’s number. I’ve already talked to him once this morning to tell him exactly what happened last night.

  Before I can hit the call button, I shiver as a wave of cold air crashes into me. It’s the unmistakable coldness of a nearby spirit, but this time it’s different. The sensation hits me like someone throwing a bucket of ice water over my head. Then I notice Aidan’s slightly outstretched hand, summoning the nearby spirit. He’s pulling it toward us with such strength and focus that my jaw drops in wonderment. In the blink of an eye the dead man’s spirit is upon us. He’s in his midsixties, half of his face is limp, sagging toward the ground, and the other half is filled with fear. He died from a severe and sudden stroke.

  Quickly Aidan touches the man’s shoulder, and the spirit dissolves into a ball of light. Aidan’s face doesn’t register a single emotion. At once I’m in awe of his ability and disturbed by his lack of emotion. Is that my future?

  Suddenly I remember what I was doing, and I hit the call button and press the phone to my ear as I wait for Nolan to pick up. “What about Nolan’s teachers?” I ask. Report card or no report card, Nolan’s going to be pretty upset about potentially missing a semester or more of school.

  “Nolan isn’t coming,” Aidan answers.

  “What do you mean he isn’t coming?” I echo, ignoring Nolan’s voice saying Hello on the other end of the phone line. “He’s my protector! How safe can wherever you’re bringing me be without him?”

  “Our work doesn’t require him. And you know by now a protector’s role isn’t to protect you physically. He protects you by gathering the information you need to complete your tasks.”

  But . . . I only know that because Nolan helped me figure it out. I don’t think it ever occurred to me that, whatever I was agreeing to when I said I’d start working with Aidan, Nolan wasn’t going to be a part of it.

  “Where am I going to get the information I need if Nolan isn’t there to help me?”

  Aidan looks surprised by my question. “From me, of course,” he replies simply.

  On the other end of the phone I hear Nolan hanging up. I don’t have to call back and ask him what he’s doing. I already know.

  He’s on his way here.

  Later, after Mom has served Aidan tea at our kitchen table and he’s more or less convinced Mom that I should go with him, and after I’ve packed my clothes into an enormous duffle bag and stuff my backpack with every Jane Austen book I own (all six of them, obviously), Nolan is waiting for me on our front steps. He’s still wearing that silly hat, so I playfully pull it off his head and hand it to him.

  “I can’t take you seriously when you’re wearing that hat,” I joke. Nolan doesn’t even crack a smile.

  “This is ridiculous,” he says.

  “I know. It’s an awful color combination.” I hold up the hat. Nolan remains stone-faced. Okay, Sunshine, stop trying to make the hat joke work.

  “No. This is ridiculous.” He waves his hands as if he’s trying to encompass our whole lives. “How am I supposed to protect you if I’m not with you?”

  “Aidan said I don’t need you.” I bite my lip. I didn’t mean to say it quite like that. I mean, that is what Aidan said, but I didn’t mean to make it sound like I agreed.

  “Here.” I hold out his grandfather’s butter-soft brown leather jacket between us. This jacket was the first thing I ever noticed about Nolan. When he gave it to me for good luck, I thought I’d never want to take it off. “Aidan says it’s warmer where we’re going. I won’t . . .” I bite my lip again, stopping myself before I can say I won’t need the jacket. Bad enough I already said I wouldn’t need him.

  Nolan shakes his head. “I want you to have it.”

  I hug the jacket to my chest and breathe it in. Just the scent of it brings me back to when Nolan and I first met. He didn’t seem bothered by my embarrassing klutziness. He didn’t think I was weird because I carried an old-fashioned camera around wherever I went and preferred vintage clothes to the brand-new ones most of the girls at Ridgemont High wear. Finally I say, “I want me to have it too. But can you . . . can you take care of it for me while I’m gone?”

  Nolan nods, but he doesn’t reach out to take the jacket, so I place it carefully on the steps beside him.

  “And this,” I add, taking my beloved Nikon F5 from around my neck. “Can you hang on to this for me?”

  “Don’t you want to take it with you?”

  “I thought I did, but . . .” I trail off. Nolan gave me his jacket when I needed it. Now I want to give him something that’s important to me too. I hold the camera out in front of me, and Nolan finally takes it, lifting the thick strap around his own neck.

  “I’ve read Victoria’s letter over and over.” His voice is heavy with frustration. “I still don’t understand what my role is in all of this.” Nolan is amazing at research, the kind of person who’s used to getting answers from books, articles, letters. I’m pretty sure this is the first time the written word has ever let him down.

  I sit down beside him. “I’ll make sure Aidan explains it to me. I’ll ask him over and over and over again, and I won’t stop until it’s absolutely crystal clear. I’ll be the most annoying mentee he’s ever had.”

  Nolan looks up at me and smiles, though he looks tire
d. I don’t think he slept much last night. Around dinnertime he called to find out how my drive to and from the hospital went, and I had to tell him what happened in the parking lot, how Aidan showed up, how we told Kat everything. I think he felt guilty he wasn’t there every step of the way.

  And now he’s not going to be there for whatever my next steps will be either.

  The front door opens behind us. Mom steps out onto the porch to let our little white dog, Oscar, out. Aidan is still waiting inside.

  “I think it’s time, Sunshine.” Mom says.

  “Okay. Just a sec,” I answer, and she turns to go back inside.

  Nolan waits for Mom to close the door. “Come here,” he says softly, walking toward the side of the house.

  Slowly I follow him. I start to ask why we’re walking away—what does he want to do or say that he can’t do or say in front of my mother?—but then I realize. I don’t know how I know—it’s not like this has ever happened to me before—but I just know. He wants to kiss me good-bye. Just like those couples I was so jealous of in the school parking lot yesterday. Just like the characters in my favorite Jane Austen books. (Okay, I know there’s not much actual kissing in Jane Austen novels, but sometimes my imagination takes liberties.)

  The twelve steps it takes to get around to the side of the house feel like twelve hundred. My heart is pounding—not a million beats a minute like it did last night, but just really hard, like I can actually feel the blood pumping through my veins one beat at a time.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Confessions

  I want to kiss Nolan. Of course I want to kiss him. But I’m not sure I want our first kiss—my first kiss ever, by the way—to be a kiss good-bye.

  Does Nolan think I’m going to be gone a very, very long time and this is his last chance to show how he feels about me? I mean, I want him to show me how he feels—if this really is how he feels—but not right now. Not like this. And not just because it’s a kiss good-bye.

  Ever since I met Nolan, his touch has had a . . . strange sort of effect on me. I don’t mean in a romantic, makes-my-knees-weak sort of way, though I really wish I did. Being near him may make me warm, but only up to a point. If he gets too close, I don’t feel good. I mean, I feel literally sick when he touches me, like I’m going to throw up or like I have a fever and need to lie down and get under the covers for a very long time. Which isn’t exactly conducive to romance. Sure, there have been times when I’ve ignored the feeling—when he was bleeding or when he grabbed my hand to run through the torrential rain. But those were emergency situations. They were nothing like this.

  Still, here I am, around the corner from our front porch, my back leaning against the outside of our house. The kitchen is on the other side of this wall. The same wall that actually disappeared a few days ago as I battled the demon that threatened to kill my mother and Nolan and to destroy Anna’s spirit altogether. But right now this wall feels completely solid, like not even an earthquake could make it falter.

  And that’s a good thing, because right now I’m shaking so hard I need something solid to lean on.

  I can feel Nolan’s breath on my face. As he leans down, his tawny hair falls across his amber eyes. I inhale. The camera bumps up against my chest between us. But when his thumb traces my jaw, every muscle in my body stiffens as I try to control my gag reflex. Nolan drops his hand and steps back.

  “Why don’t you want me to touch you?”

  I shake my head. There’s no way to tell him that being this close to him makes me feel sick without sending the wrong message.

  As if reading my thoughts, he prompts, “You can tell me the truth.”

  I nod. When I told Mom everything, she said that she’d love me the same no matter what, and I felt about a zillion times better than I had before. Plus, from the look on Nolan’s face, it’s clear that the truth he’s expecting is for me to tell him that I don’t like him that way, that I want to be just friends.

  I’d rather he know the truth than believe I don’t want him.

  So I tell him. But Nolan doesn’t look relieved. He backs away, one foot behind the other, like he can’t get away from me fast enough.

  “I’m sorry—” I begin, but Nolan shakes his head.

  “I understand,” he cuts me off.

  “Maybe it’s a luiseach thing,” I suggest desperately. “Maybe Aidan can help me learn how to overcome it,” I add, but it’s the wrong thing to say. No guy wants to hear that the girl he wants to kiss has to overcome disgusting feelings in order to kiss him back.

  I look down at my bright blue sneakers. I’ve hurt him. I’ve really hurt him. This doesn’t feel better than keeping the truth to myself. This feels much, much worse.

  “I better go,” he says finally. Before I can call out Wait or I’m sorry or Good-bye—before I can say anything at all—Nolan stuffs his hat in his back pocket and heads around the corner, down our driveway, and into his grandfather’s car parked just across the street. I wait for him to drive away, and then I go back to the front porch, where Mom is standing with her arms folded across her chest, holding herself to keep warm.

  “He forgot his jacket,” I say softly as Mom puts her arms around me. “Promise me you’ll get it to him when I’m gone, okay?”

  “I promise,” Mom replies. I tucked Victoria’s letter into one of the pockets so Nolan can take care of it while I’m gone.

  Mom strokes my hair, frizzed from the Ridgemont moisture. Maybe wherever Aidan is taking me will be dry enough that my hair will actually behave. Not that I know where he’s taking me. He just said that it was warm and that I needed to bring my passport.

  I lean down and kiss Oscar on top of his soft little head, sending his tail-wagging speed into overdrive. Upstairs I kissed my taxidermied owl, Dr. Hoo, in exactly the same spot.

  Aidan steps onto the front porch. “Take care of my baby,” Mom’s voice shakes as she faces him. She turns back to me, twisting my curls around her fingers. We’ve never been apart for so much as summer camp. “And call every day.”

  Her voice breaks on the last word and then she swallows. I know she’s trying so hard to be strong for me, not to let on that she’s scared—both to let me go and of what might happen to me if I stay behind. I know because I’m scared of the exact same things.

  I have no idea how to say good-bye to her. She pulls me into her arms again and whispers, “You can come home anytime you want to. Just say the word, and I’ll come rescue you.” I nod into her hair. I know that if open my mouth to speak, I’ll start to cry.

  I lean down and lift my backpack off the ground, acutely aware of the weight of what’s inside of it. Not just my books and some of the clothes I couldn’t fit into my duffle bag: nestled between the Mustang T-shirt I stole from Mom and my tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice is something else. I decided to pack it at the very last minute: the rusty old knife that transformed into a torch on New Year’s Eve when I faced the water demon.

  I want to be prepared, no matter that Aidan said we were going someplace safe. Victoria said this weapon would manifest as whatever I needed it to be at the moment I needed it. I don’t know what I’m going to need next.

  I settle into the passenger seat of Aidan’s long black sedan. He backs out of our driveway, and Mom gets smaller and smaller until Aidan turns the car and I can’t see her anymore.

  Once we get to wherever we’re going, I’m going to move the knife from my bag to my back pocket. I’d rather have it within arm’s reach. Just in case.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In Flight

  Aidan’s car has tinted windows and soft leather seats, and the controls on the dashboard look more like the ones on the Starship Enterprise than like the ones on Mom’s old sedan. As we drive to the Seattle airport, Aidan tells me we’re flying to Mazatlan in central Mexico. There’s no direct flight from SeaTac to the Mazatlan airport, so we’re changing planes in LA, and the whole thing will take more than ten hours.

  “I’ve never even
been out of the country,” I say.

  “I know,” Aidan answers, pressing down on the gas pedal because we have a flight to catch. I wonder what else he knows about my life. Does he know Mom and I have pizza and movie night once a week? That I’ve never kissed a boy? That I prefer vintage clothes to new ones?

  “When did you buy these tickets?” I ask suddenly. Aidan doesn’t answer. “I only agreed to come with you a few hours ago, but you already had us on the next flight out of town.”

  “I booked tickets on every flight since New Year’s Day,” Aidan finally responds, as though that isn’t a strange—and extravagant—way to make travel plans. “I wanted to be ready to go as soon as you agreed.”

  “Oh.” I don’t ask what he would have done if I kept not agreeing to go with him for much longer.

  As we stand in line to board, I notice something, someone, strange in the terminal. There is a man looking at me, even as he walks right past us to an adjacent gate where another flight is boarding. Not just looking—he’s staring. Almost like he knows me. But his face isn’t friendly, like maybe he’s trying to figure out why I look so familiar. He’s wearing a long black coat and a wide-brimmed black hat, like someone out of a movie set in the 1940s. But that’s not the weirdest thing about him; there seems to be a sort of . . . darkness attached to him, like a faint shadow is emanating from his body, surrounding him completely, unlike the rest of us, whose shadows are stuck to the floor beneath our feet.

  “Did you see that man?” I ask Aidan, but he’s already walking down the ramp to board the plane. I turn back toward the mysterious man, but before I can make eye contact, he walks past a pillar and out of sight.

  We’re sitting in first class. Enormous pillows and soft blankets wait on our seats, and as soon as we sit down, a flight attendant is asking for our drink order. I ask for a Diet Coke, unlike Aidan, who says, “Nothing, thank you.”