A faint clanking and clattering of fine china wormed into my ear and I rubbed my earlobe. Uh-oh. Please don’t let me look like an idiot.
Damon chatted about something to do with the nineteenth century but I couldn’t focus. The sounds of the teacups became louder and sharper, poking into my ears. And then—crash! I jumped as I heard something fall to the floor and smash into a thousand tiny pieces. But when I looked at the tea set, it was all there, sitting pretty and perfect like it was the boss of the room.
“Now look what you’ve done!”
I flipped my head to the source of the invisible voice, beside the table.
“Are you okay?” Damon approached me as I stood with my hand on my chest.
“Yes. Of course. Fine. I’m okay.” My words were shaky and contradictory to my state of mind. And I knew Damon knew it too. I pointed weakly to behind the armchair. “I, um, I think I saw a spider.”
Or a ghost. At least, I heard one. Goosebumps prickled my skin and I shivered. And, suddenly feeling like I was suffocating, I dashed from the room.
Chapter 5
When I got home I was going to tell my sisters about the voice at the Jamesons’ house, but Mom was hanging about and I didn’t want to bring anything up around her. It wasn’t like we had to hide our ability anymore, but after all that had happened I didn’t want to create any more uncertainty. So I opened my laptop and typed “Huntington’s disease” into Google. Lara had pretty much explained the basics of it, but the more I read the more my shoulders tensed. God, it was bad.
Death of nerve cells…
Overstimulation of motor cortex…
Irregular jerky movements…
Mood swings…
Reduced ability to eat, swallow, speak, and walk…
Duration of illness ten to thirty years…
The earlier the onset, the earlier death occurs…
Genetic…
Offspring have a 50/50 chance of developing the disease…
What? Oh no.
Damon. Lara. Did they have it too? I gulped. Maybe they didn’t know, or couldn’t find out yet.
I continued reading, and discovered that there was a test to find out if you had the gene for the disease. Surely they must have been tested? Maybe they were both okay; otherwise wouldn’t they want to forget about school and just enjoy the years they had left? But maybe they did have it, and that’s why they were both so efficient and studious, so they could learn as much as they could and have some sort of career before they couldn’t anymore.
“Dinnertime!” Mom called out.
I flinched. Damon and Lara’s mother wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t. We were lucky. On the other hand, they had a dad and we didn’t. At least, he wasn’t around anymore. Sometimes life was cruel.
When we’d all cleaned up after dinner and Mom was on the phone with someone, we went to the bedroom. “God, I don’t know how on earth I’m going to pass this science project with Mandy and Samantha in my group,” huffed Savannah. “They spend most of the time posting selfies on Facebook and talking about what to do on the weekend.” She collapsed onto her bed.
“Sounds like the complete opposite of my group,” I replied. “If I posted selfies on Facebook or talked about anything social I’d probably get a detention from Lara.”
Savvy laughed. “She’s a quirky girl, that Lara. And she has cool fingernails.”
“I don’t know how she has time to paint her nails; she runs a tight schedule.”
“Maybe that’s how she winds down at night, painting her nails.”
“Maybe.” I sat on my bed.
“Speaking of nails…” Sasha grabbed some nail polish, sat on the floor, and started painting her fingernails a fuchsia color.
“So did you get any work done on the project today?” I asked Savannah.
Savvy shrugged. “Some, sorta. We chose a topic: social and environmental influences on health and disease.”
I chuckled. “Knew you’d go for that one.”
“Thought I’d leave the brain one up to you, Einstein.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes. It was her new nickname for me. If I were Einstein then that would make Lara…God? She knew everything and acted like she owned the universe.
“So we just got a few notes written down, but as soon as we started talking about alcohol being an environmental influence on health and disease, they started talking about the time they got wasted at some guy’s party. Then Mandy goes to her dad’s home bar—which is basically just a cupboard with a sign saying ‘bar’—and opens a bottle of vodka.”
“Ooh, did you have some?” asked Sasha.
“Sasha, don’t encourage her. As if she’s going to risk her health after what she’s been through.” Talia crossed her arms.
“No, I didn’t. And even if I weren’t recovering from my wonky brain issues, I still wouldn’t have.”
But I was guessing Mandy and Samantha didn’t have to worry about anything like that. I bet they had no idea what it’s like to have a life-threatening illness, or to lose someone, or to live in a constant state of uncertainty and fear.
“Are you okay, Serena?” Talia asked, and I realized I was clenching my jaw and rubbing my ears. Even if I wasn’t hearing anything, it was a force of habit now, a stress reaction.
“Just annoys me, people who don’t appreciate the life they’ve got.”
“Huh?” Sasha obviously hadn’t progressed to reading minds yet.
“The girls in Savvy’s group. I take it they had a few drinks?” I eyed Savannah.
She nodded. “They joked that they could be the project, to show the effects of alcohol on the human body, and then they laughed like they were the funniest people on earth.” Savannah pulled the drapes aside and peered across at Riley’s house. “Wish my baby wasn’t working tonight.” She pouted.
“Oh, you poor thing,” Tamara teased. “I’m sure you’ll survive not seeing him until morning.”
Savannah turned back to face me. “So, how was your study session with the boooy?”
My face went warm.
“You like him!”
“Do not!”
“Then why are you red?”
“I’m hot.”
“Yeah, hot for him.” Savannah laughed.
I crossed my arms and lowered my head. “I seem to remember having this same conversation with you when you supposedly didn’t like Riley.”
“Exactly. And now you know I like him, so it must be the same with you and Damon.” She grinned.
Why couldn’t I think before speaking?
I recalled the voices I’d heard at the Jamesons’ and shivered. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about him; I want to talk about something else.” I adjusted my position on the bed and grasped my ponytail, stroking it over the side of my shoulder. Another stress reaction. “The voices in our vision.”
“The scream?” asked Savvy.
“No, just the talking. The ones I heard when we connected. I heard them again.”
Talia sat next to me on the bed. “You had a premonition without us?”
“No, at least I don’t think it was a premonition. It was like they were speaking right then, in the room with me.”
“What, here?” asked Sasha, glancing around and looking spooked.
“No, at the Jamesons’ house. I think they might be…ghosts.” The word caught in my throat and I coughed.
“Whoa. What happened?”
I told them how I’d heard voices and no one else had, and how Damon showed me the sitting room. I described the teacups to Savannah. “And then one of the voices sounded like it was annoyed that I was there, and then the teacups smashed, only they didn’t. I just heard the sound. God, Damon must think I’m psychotic.” I shook my head.
“So you do like him.” Savannah sat next to me and nudged me in the side.
“Can we please focus on what’s important?”
“Okay, so then what happened?”
“I ran from the room.”
“What was I supposed to do, tell him I’d just heard ghosts?”
“No, but you could have simply said, ‘Well, thanks for showing me the room, let’s get back to studying.’”
I glared at my sister. “I’d like to see you try to do that when you’re hearing things no one can see!”
“C’mon, guys, calm down,” Talia said. “Let’s write this down.” She grabbed our visions journal and wrote some notes. “So, somehow, our vision relates to Lara and Damon?”
“Could Lara be the screamer?” asked Tamara.
I shook my head. “Don’t think so, nothing would get her worked up enough to scream—she’d probably take the recommended ten seconds to calmly figure out the most appropriate and effective response to any threatening situation, and it wouldn’t be as useless as a scream.”
Then again, if you were in danger or about to die, who knew how the body would react?
I thought about what else I’d heard, and tried to piece it all together. It was like a jigsaw puzzle without the finished image of the scene to guide you, with no idea where the pieces went or what they were supposed to create.
“Maybe, if they were ghosts, they’re trying to communicate something to you and we have to figure it out? Like Savvy did with Riley’s dad?” asked Talia.
“Maybe, but they don’t seem like they have any interest in communicating with me; it’s like I’m intruding on their space and they just want to be left in peace to drink tea and complain like a bunch of snobs.” I stood, and I wanted to tell them about Lara and Damon’s mother, too, but that could wait. “Not that I want to hear them again, but let’s connect. Maybe I’ll get more clarity.” I held out my hands.
Sasha blew on her nails. “Hang on, don’t want to mess these up.”
When the vital issue of Sasha’s painted nails was resolved, we held hands. I swallowed a lump of fear and waited.
Bubbles.
More bubbles.
A crispness in my ears.
A muffled sound.
And then…
A different voice. Not the old people. A girl. She laughed, in a strange, sniggery way, like she was getting revenge on someone. She sounded familiar. Then she spoke: “No one messes with Mandy.”
Chapter 6
I watched Mandy wander around the school yard with Samantha, an air of entitlement wafting around her like a sickly, sweet perfume. She held a bottle of some fluorescent pink drink that was as bright as her lipstick, and she cast a glance in Lara’s direction. Lara sat a few feet away from me and my sisters, her eyes narrowed.
“I wonder why we got Mandy in our vision?” said Sasha, munching on her sandwich.
“I can suss her out a bit at our study sessions. I mean, social sessions.” Savannah said, without looking up from her phone.
“What are you doing?” I gestured to her phone. “Texting Riley while he’s in detention?”
“No, and by the way, it’s totally sucky that he got a detention for being late twice. He was just walking me to class at the other end of the school; it’s not his fault he had to walk extra far to get to his class.”
“Oh, I’m sure the teacher thought it was very nice of him,” I said. “Girlfriends before class. Has his priorities right.”
“Teacher was probably jealous,” Savannah mumbled.
Join the club.
“So what are you doing?” Sasha peered at Savannah’s phone, while Savvy was simply looking at the screen with squinted eyes. “Is that what I think it is?” She drew in a sharp breath.
I peered at the screen too, and gulped, my heart flip-flopping. “You took a photo of Dad’s letter?”
“Obviously.” She looked at it closely. “There’s something about it that’s not right.”
I scoffed. “There’s a lot that’s not right about it.” He knew he was in danger. Mom didn’t show it to us. And also, his handwriting was messy.
“See, look how he’s spelled the word ‘love’: L-U-V.”
An amazing, unique, unconventional luv.
“But in the line above it’s spelled L-O-V-E,” Sasha said. “Weird.”
“It’s not weird, that was just Dad. He was a handyman, not an academic,” I said. “And I think it’s because he called it an ‘unconventional love,’ so spelling it L-U-V could be a way to show the unconventionality.”
“Ah, true. He did like to be cryptic.” Savannah looked away from the phone for the first time since we started lunch. Actually, she hadn’t even started eating yet.
“Eat, girl.” I nudged her. “Otherwise you’ll get low blood sugar, and fatigue, and your concentration won’t be optimal for your next class.”
She rolled her eyes and got out her sandwich.
I watched her face slacken a little. She—well, we all —desperately wanted to get some kind of extra insight into Dad’s letter, more clues. Savannah was grasping at straws, trying to use her gift of sight to analyze the letter to pieces. But it was just a simple letter. A last-ditch effort to tell Mom he loved her.
Laughter turned our attention to Lara, nearby, who was picking up remnants of her sandwich, which had fallen apart. But she wasn’t laughing; Mandy was, as she walked past Lara and didn’t offer to help her out.
“Bitch,” said Savannah. “I think Mandy knocked it over accidentally-on-purpose when she walked past.”
Lara was by herself. I got up and walked over to her. “Need a hand?”
“No, I can do it.” Her focus stayed on the ground as she picked up the food.
“Okay. Um, I’ll leave you to it.” I scratched my arm, feeling awkward, then turned away.
“Thanks.”
I turned back and smiled, and she locked gazes with me for a split second. Wow, that was a first. Maybe she wasn’t so unfriendly after all. I went back to my sisters and sat down.
My face must have looked concerned because Savannah asked, “Anything wrong?”
“Huh? Oh, I was just thinking about Lara’s family.”
“What about them?”
I sighed. “Their mom—she has a fatal disease.”
“Oh God.” Savannah put her hand on her heart. “What disease? Cancer?”
I shook my head. “Huntington’s disease.” I explained what it was all about to the concerned faces of my sisters. We all knew what it felt like to lose a parent and that led to an instant bond with anyone who had been through or was going through the same thing.
“So, if it’s genetic, then does that mean Damon and Lara both have it?” Savannah asked.
I shrugged, a heavy shrug that was as much about uncertainty as it was about needing to move the tension around in my shoulders. “Possibly. They haven’t said anything.”
“As if they would,” said Sasha. “Hi! I’m Damon and by the way, I have an incurable disease. Want to go out with me?”
My jaw clenched and nostrils flared. “This isn’t something to joke about.”
“Sorry.” She brushed away a wisp of dark brown, straightened hair from her forehead. It fell right back to where it was before. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that it’s probably not something a teenager wants to tell everyone they meet.”
I nodded.
But what if it were true? What if Damon’s future was already set in stone and there was nothing anyone could do about it? Was he destined to be his mother’s son? As morbid as it was, at least the Jamesons would know how their mother died. They would have closure. For us, that door to closure was as wide open as the mystery of our father’s disappearance.
Chapter 7
At the end of my last class my phone pinged. So did something inside my chest when I glanced at the screen. A little, fluttery sort of ping.
Text from Damon: Hi. Do you happen to have a blue highlighter?
I looked in my bag, then typed back: Yes. Why?
Damon replied: Lara said we need it for the afternoon study session. She has other colors but wanted different ones
for each brain wave and apparently blue is vital. Something to do with the mind map.
I was going to tell him I also had purple and pink, but figured Lara would ask if she needed those ones too.
OK, I typed back, then: Blue is my favorite color.
What the—? Damn! Why did I say that? Delete, delete, delete! Too late.
Great, now he probably thinks I’m flirting with him or something. That was something Sasha would do, not me. I was about to shove the phone in my bag when it pinged again with his reply to my random moment of girliness: Mine too.
I smiled. Something soft and fluid I hadn’t felt before slithered its way up my spine until it reached my head and my scalp tingled. Birds, did I hear birds? Or angelic singing? Or was it violins?
I stepped out of B wing and promptly tripped on the step, regaining my balance just in time to avoid landing on my face.
“Making a habit of falling, huh, Serena?” Tamara asked as she approached with Talia. “Thinking up more grand hypothesises? Or is it hypotheses?” She grinned.
I smoothed my ponytail across my shoulder. “Nope, just an accident.” I slipped the phone into my bag and tried to hold back another smile as it urged to come to life on my lips.
• • •
The low afternoon sun shone into my eyes and I slipped on my sunglasses. My plain, purely-for-glare-protection, skin-cancer-association-approved, SPF 50+ sunglasses. I walked with Damon as Lara powered on ahead. “So, what do you think you’ll do after high school? Any plans yet?” I asked the boy next to me who shared my favorite color.
“Med school. Well, to start with. Then medical research,” he replied without a second thought.
“Oh. Cool.” I nodded. “I can see you doing that.”
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