Spookygirl - Paranormal Investigator

by Jill Baguchinsky

  “Um, okay?”

  “The things people say about you, I mean. That you can see ghosts. It’s obviously just a rumor.” He said this as though it was supposed to please me.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because ghosts don’t exist, of course. That kind of phenomenon is scientifically impossible.”

  Oh, so he was one of those. I narrowed my eyes and brushed past him. “If you say so. Can we just get started in here?”

  “Um…” He wavered for a moment, apparently surprised I wasn’t thanking him for not buying into the rumors. He regrouped quickly enough when I started poking at the scanner, though. “I have that set up already!” he said, scurrying over. “Maybe I should be in charge of the computer, and you can go through the boxes and hand me papers to scan.” While he spoke, he managed to slip himself between me and the computer. Talk about territorial! Not that I really cared. Even sifting through boxes of records and handing papers to Emerson Bean, who kept trying to chat about sci-fi TV shows that I didn’t think anyone but my dad watched, was better than gym. Plus, it was one more thing to keep my mind off the fact that I hadn’t gotten anywhere in my quest to help Isobel with Dirk and the oh-so-mysterious Black Rose.

  Every day at lunch on the rooftop of the east building, Isobel would give me a hopeful glance. And every day I would have to answer her with a shake of my head. I couldn’t bear to tell her about Dirk’s insistence that the painting had been destroyed. When we could speak without being overheard, Isobel gave me other questions to ask him, things to tell him that might persuade him to be a little more forthcoming. Nothing worked.

  Finally, she took me aside and muttered, “Tomorrow. Lunch. Room 314.”

  The next day, after apologizing to Tim for not taking him along—he was okay with it once I said I was doing a favor for Isobel, especially since the other gothlings actually talked to him now—I sneaked into the art wing at the beginning of the lunch period. Isobel was already there, waiting for me outside the closed door to room 314. She wore her hair pulled back into a bun, with only her bangs and a few long, curling tendrils left loose around her pale face.

  “Is it locked?” I asked.

  She gave me a mascara-heavy eye roll that clearly said, “Pfft, please,” then pulled a bobby pin with a tiny silver skull on it from her hair. She rattled the end in the lock while turning the knob, and the door popped open. “So much for school security,” she muttered, sliding her skeleton key back into place. We went in and locked the door behind us.

  Dirk stood in the center of the room, critically studying the fabric draping on the still life Mr. Connelly had set up for his classes that day. He looked up when the door opened; when he saw Isobel, he made a strange, strangled sound in his throat. “What is she doing here?”

  “She wants to talk to you,” I told him.

  “Wait, he’s here? He’s here now?” Isobel grabbed my arm, suddenly unsure. “I mean, you’re certain he’s not going to go all Poltergeist on us, is he?”

  “What’d she mean by that?” Dirk asked, looking a little insulted.

  See, this was why I hated helping people communicate with dead friends or loved ones. Neither side was ever willing to shut up long enough to let me relay their words back and forth. It was the paranormal version of being a translator at the United Nations.

  “Okay,” I said, holding up my hands, one at Dirk and the other at Isobel. “Both of you need to shut up. We’re going to keep this organized, or else I’m not helping. Isobel, Dirk’s still the same Dirk you knew. He’s just see-through now. He won’t hurt you. Dirk, Isobel’s not used to this. Give her a break.”

  “Where is he?” Isobel asked, looking around the room.

  I pointed, indicating the spot where he stood—or rather, where he hovered an inch or so off the ground, as ghosts often did.

  Isobel stepped forward. “I wish I could see him.”

  Dirk’s expression softened as she approached. “Tell her she looks pretty with the black hair.”

  “All right, but I’m not here to pass a bunch of schmaltz back and forth.” To Isobel, I said, “He likes the black hair.”

  She blushed. “I always said I was going to dye it, but I never did until…until after. Tell him I miss him.”

  “He can hear you,” I reminded her.

  “Oh. Of course. Dirk? I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too,” he said. “I miss those talks we used to have here.”

  I relayed the message.

  “Why are you still here?” she asked.

  “I was happy here,” he said, giving me time in between sentences to repeat his words. “When I woke up after the accident, I was like this,” he said, indicating his translucent form. “I felt so alone, and all I wanted to do was go somewhere I’d been happy. As soon as I thought that, I landed here. It’s not the same as it used to be, though. You don’t come here anymore.”

  “I work in three-eighteen now. Ms. Belz lets me use the kiln, and…This room would make me too sad. I’m sorry, Dirk. I didn’t know you were here, or I would’ve come back.”

  Dirk tried to brush his fingers over her cheek, but she didn’t seem to notice. He looked questioningly at me. “How come that didn’t work? Sometimes I can move stuff. You know, make pencils roll across the floor, knock someone’s drawing board over. Why can’t I touch her?”

  I shrugged. “I wish I could tell you. Reason and common sense don’t always seem to work in your world.” Or in any world, for that matter.

  “Dirk, I’m so sorry,” Isobel suddenly blurted. “For what I said that day. I’ve wished so many times that I could take it back.”

  “Tell her it doesn’t matter,” he muttered, but his face hardened again.

  “Wait, wait.” I raised my arms again. “I can’t play paranormal translator if I don’t know what I’m translating.”

  Okay, so I was being a tad nosy. But I was doing them a favor. The least they could do was clue me in.

  I looked at Isobel. “What are you sorry for?”

  “The last time I saw him here, I gave him a hard time about his dad. He’d mentioned that his dad was already researching colleges for him, and contacting reps to come watch him play. I said he should also apply to some art schools, since that was what he really wanted to do.”

  “And I told her she was nuts. There was no way I was going to come out and embarrass my dad like that.”

  Isobel didn’t want to hear that. “If he was embarrassed by your talent, that would’ve been his problem, not yours. You didn’t even like football.”

  “I did! Sort of, I guess. At least people looked up to me because of it.”

  “Who cares if a bunch of idiots in high school think you’re cool?”

  “I did!”

  Isobel’s eyes flashed when I relayed Dirk’s response. “You used to tell me you wished you could just let go of all that, ignore it and do whatever made you happy. Have you forgotten? We were going to be different together. But then, that last day, you were acting so weird about it. You kept talking about good football schools, and about not disappointing your stupid father.” She looked at me and explained the rest. “After that, I told him to suck it, and I left. That was the last time I ever saw him.”

  “She doesn’t get it,” Dirk told me. “Why would I want to be a loser when I could have everybody worshipping me instead?”

  “Because being worshipped doesn’t always equal being happy,” Isobel said.

  “Maybe it did for me,” Dirk said.

  When she heard his response, Isobel shook her head. “It didn’t. I knew you too well for that. Dirk, where’s the painting?”

  Dirk looked at me. “You didn’t tell her?”

  I addressed Isobel. “He says he destroyed it.”

  “I don’t believe him.”

  Scowling, he went into detail. “It was the afternoon of our fight. I’d finished most of the painting earlier that week, but it still needed a few touch-ups, so I left it on an easel in the corner.
Isobel kept telling me I should put it in the county show, but dude, my rep! How would it look if I started showing off paintings of roses? What would my dad think? I never meant for anyone else to see it. It…It was only for Isobel. So I said no, like I always did when she bugged me. She threatened to steal it and submit it herself under my name. That pissed me off, so after she left, I trashed the painting. I smeared more paint all over it and left it on the easel. I don’t know what happened to it after that. I always figured Connelly or one of the janitors tossed it.”

  I summarized for Isobel, who looked hurt and spiteful. “So why’s he still here, then?” she asked me. “If he was so content denying his true self and being a stupid jock, I mean. How come he’s still in the art room?”

  “I don’t know,” Dirk admitted. “Like I said, I just kind of got pulled here after the accident. I can’t leave, either—I get pulled right back.”

  “My mom once told me there were two kinds of ghosts,” I said, wondering if that was any truer than the false information she’d given me about ghosts not being harmful. I’d just have to trust her for now. “Some hang around because they want to. They’re pretty content. Maybe they’re watching over a loved one, or they’re waiting for someone to join them. But other ghosts are tied down by unfinished business; they can’t get away. Dirk, you sound like the second kind. There’s something you still need to do before you can be free.”

  “Be free to go where?” he asked.

  “I have no idea. I guess it becomes sort of self-explanatory when the time is right. So what is it you haven’t said or done yet?”

  Dirk shrugged.

  I sighed, puffing the hair out of my eyes. “Look. Something’s made you unhappy enough to trap you here, okay? Since you’re stuck in the art room, it probably has to do with art, or with Isobel.”

  “I’m not unhappy,” he argued, looking absolutely dejected.

  “Yeah, I can see you’re just a big ball of joy.”

  “What about his other paintings?” Isobel asked. “And his sketches. Where did he keep them?”

  “I didn’t,” Dirk said. “I trashed them all. I didn’t want anyone to find them, so every time I finished one, I’d throw it into a Dumpster on my way home. Look, I don’t have any ‘unfinished business.’ I don’t know why I’m stuck here, but it’s not because of that, all right?” Quickly, he vanished.

  I filled Isobel in.

  “He was always such a stubborn moron,” she muttered. “So he trashed all his art, and now he’s haunting the art room? If he secretly wanted the world to see his stuff, he sure screwed himself.”

  During drawing class that afternoon, my pencil point snapped. The sharpener was bolted to the wall near Mr. Connelly’s desk, very close to the file cabinets. Thinking of Dirk, who never ghosted in for class that day, I stared into the space between the cabinet and the wall, where the dusty prepped canvas leaned. It would’ve surprised me to learn Mr. Connelly had thrown away Dirk’s last painting, even if Dirk really did ruin it with a sloppy overcoat of paint. If nothing else, the art teacher would’ve removed the trashed canvas and stretched a new one over the wooden frame.

  Something about the prepped canvas caught my eye. There was a tiny fleck of peeling paint sticking up from one corner. Whoever had gessoed the canvas hadn’t done so correctly, it seemed.

  But the canvas underneath was too dark to be blank. I reached into the space and tugged at the ragged bit of peeled paint. It was stretchy and smooth and rubbery, and it pulled away from the canvas with surprising ease. I uncovered about six inches of the canvas, which was painted black and white—I couldn’t make out the design, but what little I could see looked a lot like a stained-glass window without the color.

  Holy crap—I’d found the Black Rose.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ghost-in-the-box

  I pressed the loose flap of paint back into place, but I was almost too excited to sit still and bother with my drawing for the rest of the period. I couldn’t wait to tell Isobel what I’d found. Could the painting possibly be salvaged?

  “How’s Isobel get home from school?” I hissed to Tim.

  “Why?”

  “I have to talk to her.” I couldn’t explain it to him, not yet. She deserved to know first.

  “She drives. Her dad gave her his old tan Kia when she got her license over the summer.”

  Ooh, a tan Kia. How very goth. When I told Tim I wanted to find Isobel before she left, he agreed to help. After sixth period, we hurried out to the student lot. Tim knew where Isobel’s assigned parking space was (Stalker much?), and we caught her just before she pulled out. She was driving Derek and Charlene home, but all I needed to tell her was that I’d found something in the art room, and she ordered her gothlings and Tim to wait in the central courtyard while she and I ran back to room 314.

  Mr. Connelly hadn’t let anyone stay after that day. From down the hall, we saw him leave the room, lock the door, and go to his office. Isobel jimmied the lock again, and we crept inside.

  I dragged the canvas out. It was filthy, and a trail of dust bunnies followed it, their leader snagged on the canvas’s corner. Then I grabbed the paint flap and pulled again, demonstrating for Isobel what I’d discovered. This time I tore a strip diagonally across the canvas, exposing more black and white lines and angles.

  “Omigod,” Isobel said softly. Ignoring the grungy art room floor, she dropped to her knees beside the canvas and ran a hand over the newly exposed portion. “This is it.”

  She started clawing at the rest of the gloppy white overcoat, which peeled off in wide strips.

  “The dolt painted acrylic over oil! They don’t bond. See how the acrylic’s all smooth like vinyl on the back? It can’t stick to the oil paint; it peels right off.”

  She kept peeling and picking until the floor around her was littered with scraps of dried acrylic and the painting was entirely exposed. It still showed some hazy acrylic residue here and there, but Isobel said a proper cleaning and retouching would get rid of that.

  The painting really was kind of extraordinary. I mean, I’m no art expert, but I thought the way Dirk hardened the rose’s shape into harsh lines and geometric angles was really interesting. It was romantic and technical, soft and architectural at the same time.

  I was so busy studying the painting that I didn’t immediately notice when Isobel started to cry. Her eyeliner and mascara smeared down her face in little black rivers.

  “The stupid jerk,” she muttered, ignoring her tears and tracing her fingers along the edge of the canvas. “I can’t believe he wanted to destroy this.”

  “You fixed it.” Dirk’s voice came from behind us, startling me. He passed by me and crouched next to Isobel. “I thought I’d ruined it.”

  “Acrylics over oil,” I told him.

  Isobel looked up at me. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  “He is.” I watched Dirk while he looked at Isobel. “And there’s something different about him.”

  “I can feel it,” Dirk said. “It’s like the world just…”

  “Unlocked?” I suggested. He had a peace around him, a balance that hadn’t been there before; he no longer looked angry or annoyed or agitated.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “You wanted Isobel to have this painting,” I told him.

  “I did, but I thought I’d trashed it, so I couldn’t tell her. And…I want her to do whatever she wants with it. She can keep it, or put it in a show, or whatever. It doesn’t matter as long as it makes her happy. I don’t care anymore if everyone knows about me.”

  I told Isobel what he’d said. She beamed through her tears. “That’s what I wanted to do all along, you big moron,” she said to the space beside her.

  “Well, do it already, you little freak,” Dirk said affectionately. He reached out and tried to touch her cheek again. She gasped and raised her own hand to her face.

  “She felt it that time,” he said, heartened. “Why?”

  I shrugged.
“Like I said, the rules for ghosts don’t always make sense. I guess you two are more connected now.”

  Suddenly Isobel looked stricken again. To me she said, “If this was his big secret, his ‘unfinished business,’ does that mean he’ll move on now, and he won’t be here anymore?”

  “That’s up to him. From what my mom told me, some ghosts leave right away, and others stick around.”

  “I’m sticking around,” Dirk said quickly. He moved closer to Isobel. “As long as she promises to start working in here after school again, that is. I miss her. I promise to keep her company.”

  “You’re not stuck here anymore, though,” I pointed out. “You can go wherever she does.”

  “True.” He nodded. “But…this is our room, you know?”

  Isobel gladly agreed to move most of her work back to 314.

  “You know, I can tell he’s here,” she sniffled, looking far too joyful. It was ruining her somber goth exterior. “I can almost feel him.” He had his arm around her.

  “I think that’ll get even stronger the more time you spend together.”

  I promised to act as their interpreter whenever they needed me to, and then I reminded Isobel that she had two gothlings waiting for rides home (and Tim and me, too, since we’d both missed the bus).

  She was reluctant to leave. “Is he sure it’s okay if the painting goes in the county show? It really should be seen.”

  Beside her, Dirk nodded.

  “Okay,” Isobel said, when I communicated his agreement. “I suppose we should lug it home and—”

  She was interrupted then as the door opened and Mr. Connelly stepped in. He was surprised to see us, but before he could open his mouth to question us, he spotted the painting. He clapped his hands in front of his chest. “Is that?…That isn’t…”

  Isobel nodded. “It’s Dirk’s. We just found it.”

  Mr. Connelly totally forgot he’d caught us trespassing in a locked classroom, especially after Isobel said she wanted the painting submitted to the county art show under Dirk’s name. Mr. Connelly offered to sign off on the submission, and to help Isobel clean off the rest of the acrylic. After the exhibition the piece would be returned to Isobel, and she could do with it as she pleased.