Darkest Hour

by Meg Cabot

  I said frustratedly, “This was a long time ago. When I first got here. Last January.”

  Jesse didn’t let go of me or anything, but he had an extremely odd look on his face.

  “Are you saying that you’ve known about this …how I died…all along?”

  “Yes,” I said, a little defensively. I was getting the feeling that maybe he thought I’d done something wrong, prying into his death. “But, Jesse, that’s my job. That’s what mediators do. I can’t help it.”

  “Why did you keep asking me about how I died, then,” he demanded, “if you already knew?”

  I said, still on the defensive side, “Well, I didn’t know. Not for sure. I still don’t. But Jesse—” I wanted to make sure he understood this part, so I pulled back (and he unfortunately let go of me, but what could I do?) and sat up on my heels and said, very slowly and carefully, “If they find your body out there, not only is Maria going to be really mad, but you…you’re going to move on. You know? From here. Because that’s what’s been holding you back, Jesse. The mystery of what happened to you. Once your body is found, though, that mystery will be solved. And you’ll go. And that’s why I couldn’t tell you, you see? Because I don’t want you to go. Because I l—”

  Oh my God, I almost said it. I can’t even tell you how close I came to saying it. I got out the L and then the O just seemed to follow.

  But at the last minute I was able to save it. I turned it to “—like having you around and I would really hate not seeing you anymore.”

  Swift, huh? That was a close one.

  Because one thing I know for sure about guys, along with their inability to use a glass and lower the toilet seat and refill ice trays once they are empty: They really cannot handle the L word. I mean, it says so in just about every article I’ve ever read.

  And you have to figure this is true of all guys, even guys who were born a hundred and fifty years ago.

  And I guess my not using the L word paid off, since Jesse reached out and touched my cheek with his fingertips—just like he had done that day in the hospital.

  “Susannah,” he said. “Finding my body is not going to change anything.”

  “Um,” I said. “Excuse me, Jesse, but I think I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been a mediator for sixteen years.”

  “Susannah,” he said. “I have been dead for a hundred and fifty years. I think I know what I am talking about. And I can assure you, this mystery about my death you speak of…that is not why I, as you put it, am hanging around here.”

  A funny thing happened then. Just like in Clive Clemmings’s office, earlier that day, I just started crying. Really. Just like that.

  Oh, I wasn’t sobbing like a baby or anything, but my eyes filled up with tears and I got that bad prickly feeling behind my nose, and my throat started to hurt. It was weird, because I’d just, you know, been trying to act as if I were crying, and then all of a sudden, I really was.

  “Jesse,” I said in this horrible sniffly kind of voice (acting like you’re going to cry is way preferable to actually crying, as there is much less mucus involved), “I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible. I mean, I know. I’ve done this a hundred times. When they find your body out there, that is it. You’re gone.”

  “Susannah,” he said again. And this time he didn’t just touch my cheek. He reached up and cupped the side of my face with one hand…

  Although the romantic effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was half laughing at me. To give him credit, though, he looked as if he were trying just as hard not to laugh as I was trying not to cry.

  “I promise you, Susannah,” he said with a lot of pauses between the words to give them emphasis, “that I am not going anywhere, whether or not your stepfather finds my body in the backyard. All right?”

  I didn’t believe him, of course. I wanted to and all, but the truth is, he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  What could I do, though? I had no choice but to be brave about it. I mean, I couldn’t very well just sit there and cry my eyes out over it. What kind of fool would I seem then?

  So I said, unfortunately in a very mucusy manner, since by that time the tears were sort of spilling out, “Really? You promise?”

  Jesse grinned and let go of my face. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, lace-trimmed thing I recognized. Maria de Silva’s handkerchief. He’d used it before to bind up various cuts and scrapes I’d sustained in the line of mediation duty. Now he used it to wipe my tears.

  “I swear,” he said, laughing. But just a little.

  In the end, he persuaded me to come back to my own bed. He said he’d make sure his ex-girlfriend didn’t come after me in the night. Only he didn’t call her his ex-girlfriend. He just called her Maria. I still wanted to ask him what he’d been thinking, going out with a ferret-faced ice bitch like her, but there never really seemed to be a right moment.

  Is there ever a right moment to ask someone why they were going to marry the person who had had them killed?

  Probably not.

  I don’t know how Jesse thought he was going to stop Maria if she came back. True, he had been dead a lot longer than she had, so he had had a little more practice at the whole ghost thing. It seemed pretty likely, in fact, that Maria’s haunting of me was her first and only visit back to this world from whatever spiritual plane she’d inhabited since her death. The longer someone has been a ghost, the more powerful they tend to be.

  Unless, of course, like Maria, they happened to be filled with rage.

  But Jesse and I had, together, fought ghosts every bit as angry as Maria, and won. We would win this time, too, I knew, so long as we stuck together.

  It was definitely strange going to bed knowing someone was going to be sitting there, watching me sleep. But after I got used to the idea, it was sort of nice, knowing he was there with Spike on the daybed, reading a book called A Thousand Years he’d found in Doc’s room, by the light of his own spectral glow. It would have been more romantic if he’d just sat there gazing longingly at my face, but beggars can’t be choosers, and how many other girls do you know who have boys perfectly willing to sit in their bedrooms and watch for evil trespassers all night? I bet you can’t even name one.

  I suppose eventually I must have fallen asleep, since when I opened my eyes again it was morning, and Jesse was still there. He had finished A Thousand Years and had moved on to a book from one of my shelves called Bridges of Madison County, which he seemed to find excruciatingly amusing, although he was trying not to laugh loud enough to wake me.

  God, how embarrassing.

  I didn’t realize then that it was the last time I’d ever see him.

  chapter

  seven

  My day pretty much went downhill from there.

  I guess while Maria wasn’t that interested in renewing her acquaintance with her ex, she was still plenty interested in torturing me. I got my first inkling of this when I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the brand-new carton of orange juice someone had bought to replace the one finished off by Dopey and Sleepy the day before.

  I had just opened it when Dopey stomped in, snatched the carton from me, and lifted it to his lips.

  I started to go, “Hey!” in an irritated voice, but the word soon turned into a shriek of disgust and terror when what poured into my stepbrother’s mouth was not juice, but bugs.

  Hundreds of bugs. Thousands of bugs. Live bugs, wriggling and crawling and falling from his open mouth.

  Dopey realized what was happening about a split second after I did. He threw the carton down and ran to the sink, spitting out as many of the black beetles that had fallen into his mouth as he could. Meanwhile, they were still swarming over the sides of the carton onto the floor.

  I don’t know how I summoned the inner strength to do what I did next. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s bugs. Next to poison oak, it is one of the main reasons I spend so little time in the great outdoors. I mean, I do not
mind the odd ant drowning in a pool or a butterfly landing on my shoulder, but show me a mosquito or, God forbid, a cockroach, and I am out the door.

  Still, despite my near crippling fear of anything smaller than a peanut, I picked up that carton and poured its contents down the sink, then, quicker than you can say Raid, flicked on the disposal.

  “Ohmygawd!” Dopey was yelling, as he continued to spit into the sink. “Ohmyfreakingawd.”

  Only he didn’t say freaking. Under the circumstances, I didn’t blame him.

  Our shrieking had brought Sleepy and my stepfather into the kitchen. They just stood there staring at the hundreds of black beetles that had escaped death by the kitchen drain and were scurrying around the terra-cotta tiles. At least until I yelled, “Step on them!”

  Then we all started stomping on as many of the disgusting things as we could.

  When we were through, only a couple ended up getting away, the ones that had the sense to make for the crack beneath the fridge, and one or two that made it all the way to the open sliding glass doors to the deck. It had been arduous, disgusting work, and we all stood around panting…except for Dopey, who, with a groan, rushed off into the bathroom, presumably to rinse with Listerine, or maybe to check for any antennas that might have gotten caught between his teeth.

  “Well,” Andy said, when I explained what had happened. “That’s the last time I buy organic.”

  Which was kind of funny, in a sick way. Except that I happened to know that organic or frozen from concentrate, it wouldn’t have made any difference: A poltergeist had been at work.

  Andy looked at the mess on the floor and said in a sort of dazed voice, “We have to get this cleaned up before your mother gets home.”

  He had that right. You think I’ve got a thing about bugs? You should see my mother. We are neither of us what you would call nature lovers.

  We threw ourselves into our work, scrubbing and scouring bug guts off the tile, while I made subtle suggestions that we order in for all our meals, not just supper, for the time being. I wasn’t sure if Maria had gotten her hands on any other foodstuffs, but I suspected nothing in the pantry or refrigerator was going to be safe.

  Andy was only too willing to go along with this, blathering on about how insect infestations can destroy entire crops, and how many homes he’d worked on had been destroyed by termites, and how important it was to have your house regularly fumigated.

  But fumigation, I wanted to say to him, doesn’t do any good when the bugs are the result of a vengeful ghost.

  But, of course, I didn’t mention this. I highly doubt he would have understood what I was talking about. Andy doesn’t believe in ghosts.

  Must be nice to have that luxury.

  When Sleepy and I finally got to work, it appeared briefly that things were looking up, since we did not even get in trouble for being late. This was, of course, on account of Sleepy having Caitlin so firmly in his thrall. So you see, there are some advantages to having stepbrothers.

  There did not even seem to have been a complaint from the Slaters about my having taken Jack off hotel property without their permission, since I was told to go straight to their suite. This, I thought to myself as I made my way down the thickly carpeted hotel corridors to their rooms, really is too good to be true, and just goes to show that behind every cloud is a slice of clear blue sky.

  At least, that’s what I was thinking as I knocked on their door. When it swung open, however, to reveal not just Jack, but both Slater brothers dressed in swimwear, I began to have my doubts.

  Jack pounced on me like a kitten on a ball of yarn.

  “Guess what?” he cried. “Paul’s not playing golf or tennis or anything today. He wants to spend the whole day with us. Isn’t that great?”

  “Um,” I said.

  “Yeah, Suze,” Paul said. He had on long baggy swim trunks (proving that it could have been worse: He could have been wearing one of those micro Speedos) and a towel wrapped around his neck and nothing else, except a smirk. “Isn’t that great?”

  “Um,” I said. “Yeah. Great.”

  Dr. and Mrs. Slater scooted past us in their golf clothes. “You kids have fun now,” Nancy called. “Suze, we’ve got lessons all day. You’ll stay until five, won’t you?” Then, without waiting for an answer, she said, “Okay, buh-bye,” took her husband by the arm, and left.

  Okay, I said to myself. I can handle this. Already that morning I’d handled a swarm of bugs. I mean, despite the fact that every once in a while I thought I felt one crawling on me and jumped, only to find it was just my own hair or whatever, I had recovered pretty well. Far better, probably, than Dopey ever would.

  So I could certainly handle having Paul Slater around all day bugging me. Um, I mean bothering me.

  Right? No problem.

  Except that it was a problem. Because Jack kept wanting to talk about the whole mediator thing, and I kept muttering for him to shut up, and then he’d go, “Oh, it’s okay, Suze, Paul knows.”

  Which was the point. Paul wasn’t supposed to know. It was supposed to be our secret, mine and Jack’s. I didn’t want stupid, nonbelieving, since-you-won’t-go-out-with-me-I’m-telling-on-you Paul to have any part of it. Especially since every time Jack mentioned anything about it, Paul lowered his Armanis and looked at me over the top of the frames, all expectantly, waiting to hear what I’d say.

  What could I do? I pretended I didn’t know what Jack was talking about. Which was frustrating to him, of course, but what else was I supposed to do? I didn’t want Paul knowing my business. I mean, my own mother doesn’t know. Why on earth would I tell Paul?

  Fortunately, after the first six or seven times Jack tried to mention anything mediator-related and I ignored him, he seemed to get the message and shut up. It helped that the pool had gotten very crowded with other little kids and their parents and sitters, so he had plenty to distract him.

  But it was still a little unnerving, leaning there against the side of the pool with Kim, who’d shown up with her charges, to glance at Paul every so often and see him stretched out on a deck chair, his face turned in my direction. Especially since I had the feeling that Paul, unlike Sleepy, up in his chair, was wide awake behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses.

  Then again, as Kim put it, “Hey, if a hottie like that wants to look at me, he can look all he wants.”

  But of course, it’s different for Kim. She doesn’t have the ghost of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old hottie living in her bedroom.

  All in all, I would say the morning turned out pretty wretchedly, considering. I figured that, after lunch, the day could only get better.

  Was I ever wrong. After lunch was when the cops showed up.

  I was stretched out on a lounge chair of my own, keeping one eye on Jack, who was playing a pretty rambunctious game of Marco Polo with Kim’s kids, and another on Paul, who was pretending to read a copy of The Nation, but who was, as Kim pointed out, spying on us over the top of the pages, when Caitlin appeared, looking visibly upset, followed by two burly members of the Carmel police.

  I assumed that they were merely passing through, on the way to the men’s locker room, where there’d been an occasional break-in. Imagine my great surprise when Caitlin led the cops right up to me and said in a shaking voice, “This is Susannah Simon, Officers.”

  I hurried to climb into my hideous khaki shorts, while Kim, in the lounge chair beside mine, gaped up at the cops like they were mermen risen from the sea or something.

  “Miss Simon,” the taller of the cops said. “We’d just like a word with you for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

  I’ve talked to more than my fair share of cops in my time. Not because I hang out with gangbangers, as Sleepy likes to think, but because in mediating, one often is forced to, well, bend the law a little.

  For instance, let’s say Marisol had not turned that rosary over to Jorge’s daughter. Well, in order to carry out Jorge’s last wishes, I would have been forced to break into Mariso
l’s home, take the rosary myself, and mail it to Teresa anonymously. Anyone can see how something like that, which is really for the greater good in the vast scheme of things, might be misinterpreted by local law enforcement as a crime.

  So, yes, the fact of the matter is, I have been hauled before the cops any number of times, much to my poor mother’s chagrin. However, with the exception of that unfortunate incident that had landed me in the hospital some months prior, I had not done anything lately, that I could think of, that could even remotely be construed as unlawful.

  So it was with some curiosity, but little trepidation, that I followed the officers—Knightley and Jones—out of the pool area and behind the Pool House Grill, near the Dumpsters, the closest area where, I suppose, the officers felt we could be assured total privacy for our little chat.

  “Miss Simon,” Officer Knightley, the taller policeman, began, as I watched a lizard dart out of the shade of a nearby rhododendron, look at us in alarm, and then dart back into the shadows. “Are you acquainted with a Dr. Clive Clemmings?”

  I was shocked into admitting that I was. The last thing I had expected Officer Knightley to mention was Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D. I was thinking something more along the lines of, oh, I don’t know. Taking an eight-year-old off hotel property without his parents’ permission.

  Stupid, I know, but Paul had really rattled me with that one.

  “Why?” I asked. “Is he—Mr. Clemmings—all right?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Officer Jones said. “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” I wanted to reach out for something to hold on to. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything to grab except the Dumpster, and since it was filled with the remains of that afternoon’s lunch, I didn’t want to touch it.

  I settled for sinking down onto the curb.

  Clive Clemmings? My mind was racing. Clive Clemmings dead? How? Why? I hadn’t liked Clive Clemmings, of course. I’d been hoping that when Jesse’s body turned up, I could go back to his office and rub it in his face. You know, the whole part about Jesse having been murdered after all.