by E. E. Holmes
Talia sat up, pushing the hair from her face and glaring fiercely at me. “I didn’t need to be saved! I wasn’t drowning… at least not until you scared the shit out of me and I swallowed half the pond!”
“I… what?” I asked. “You were face-down in the water! You weren’t moving! At midnight! What was I supposed to think?”
“I was… floating!” she said, dropping her gaze. “I… it was peaceful and quiet. Or at least it was until you came barreling into the water!”
“I… you…” I sputtered, not sure whether I was angry or relieved. “Well, you shouldn’t do that in the middle of the night! Anyone who sees you will probably panic!”
“There was no one out here when I came out,” she muttered. As she did so, she suddenly realized she wasn’t wearing her clothes; blushing violently, she scrambled to her feet and ran over to scoop them up.
“Who are you, anyway?” she asked. “How did you get in here? I’ve never seen you here before.”
“I’ve never seen you here before either,” I said, watching her fumble around in her haste to re-dress. “I just got here today.”
But Talia wasn’t listening to me. She was searching, with an increasing franticness, through the folds of her dress; then her head shot up, revealing a fierce expression.
“What did you do with it?”
“With what?” I asked, perplexed.
“There was a necklace over here with a ring on it. What did you do with it?” Her voice rose into a hysterical panic. “Did you take it? You took it, didn’t you?”
“No! No, of course not!” I said, walking over to join her. “I tripped over your sandal in the dark, and found the necklace with your clothes. I dropped it when I saw you in the water. It should be somewhere right… yes, here it is,” I said, spotting the chain curled in the grass. I picked it up and held it out to Talia, who snatched it from my hand with a cry of relief. She pulled the chain over her head and tucked the ring down inside her dress.
“You shouldn’t have touched it!” she spat at me.
Finally, my anger truly bubbled to the surface, burning through what remained of my shock. “Yeah, well, the next time I see you apparently dead, I’ll just walk on by. And just a little tip, Louisiana isn’t the safest place to have a Zen moment in the water at night, unless you consider alligator wrestling a form of relaxation. Namaste, bitch.”
With that, I turned on my now-shoeless heel and marched back to the house. When I turned to close the door behind me, I could still see Talia sitting in the grass exactly where I’d left her. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought a figure might have appeared beside her—a figure just a shade blacker than the deepening darkness.
§
I stalked back into our room, where Hannah was diligently reading a book. Milo was using his electromagnetic pull to flip through the channels on the television; he flicked his finger in a bored sort of way as the channels changed. They both looked up as I slammed the door behind me.
“Jess! Why are you all wet?” Hannah asked, tossing her book aside.
“What the hell happened to you?” Milo said over her, dropping his finger and inadvertently turning the television off.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror in the corner. I was, of course, a muddy, dripping mess.
“I just met Talia Simms,” I announced angrily. I walked across to the bathroom, pulling my sopping clothes off as I went. I dropped them into a pile on the bathroom floor and turned on the shower. Water gushed from everywhere as a dozen showerheads, hidden in the walls, sprang to life. I stepped in and slid the door shut.
“Oh my sweet heaven, you are kidding me?” Milo said, appearing instantly inside the stall. “Tell me everything. What did she say? What did you say? Wait. Okay, just set the scene for me. What was she wearing?”
“Milo! Will you get out of my shower? I’m trying to… holy crap that feels good!” I said, as the massaging jets began turning my tense muscles to jelly. For a moment, I completely forgot my anger at Milo’s intrusion.
“Details! I need them! Spill!” Milo cried. “Just tell me what she was wearing. Could you see any labels?”
“Underwear. And a tank top.”
Milo squinted at me, trying to decide if I were joking or not. “And over that she was wearing…?”
“Nothing. That was it,” I said, trying to cover my own nakedness with my loofah mitt.
Milo folded his arms. “So what did you do, break into her room? Hide out in her bathroom like a psycho stalker?”
“Do you really want to ask me that question when you’re literally invading my shower? While I’m stark naked?” I yelled.
Milo rolled his eyes, “Relax Jess, it’s not like I’m interested.”
“Dead or not, gay or not—you’re not getting another detail out of me until I get some privacy!” I snapped.
Milo blinked out of view, then reappeared outside of the stall’s glass door, which was now mostly clouded over with steam. “Better?” he asked.
“Better.” I picked up the shampoo and squeezed a dollop into my hands. “Sweet lord this stuff smells incredible—like unicorns and stardust!” I looked more closely at the bottle. “It’s French. Is this what French people smell like? We’re moving to France.”
“Jessica Ballard!” cried Milo, as if he’d caught me stealing from his wallet red-handed. “Stay on topic! You met Talia Simms in her underwear? Explain! Now!”
I put down the shampoo and launched into a tirade about my encounter with Talia, although my anger ebbed considerably thanks to the French beauty products and the intensely hot water; I kept ratcheting the temperature up until I was pretty sure I would scald the top layer of my skin off. I finished my story and stepped out of the stall to find a towel. What I found first was Milo sputtering incoherently.
“But… she… you… does this mean you two won’t be best friends?” he whimpered.
“I think it’s safe to say we won’t be getting matching tattoos, if that’s what you mean,” I replied, as I wrapped myself in a spa-quality bathrobe and shuffled out of the bathroom. “Hannah come over here and smell me!” I called. “I smell all Parisian!”
Milo was so incensed that his form began flickering. “Jess, you’ve spoiled everything!” he shouted. “How are we supposed to become a part of Talia Simms’ entourage? You practically drowned her!”
“Okay, first of all, I’m pretty sure being alive is a necessary qualification for being in a celebrity entourage, and that leaves you out. Secondly, as I already explained, I wasn’t trying to drown her—I was trying to save her. And if she doesn’t want to be rescued, she should probably stop impersonating drowned corpses in public.”
“She’s Talia Simms, she can do whatever she wants,” said Milo, with his arms crossed like a truculent child.
“Yeah, she seems to be under that impression, too,” I said. “What I’m more interested in, though, is figuring out who told me to save her. Because whoever it was was pretty insistent that she needed help.”
“Didn’t you see anyone?” Hannah asked. She had listened to our exchange through her connection with Milo without a word, digesting it in her characteristically quiet, thoughtful manner.
“No,” I answered, before flipping my head over so I could towel my hair dry. “I think the voice might’ve been male, though. It all happened pretty quickly. I was too focused on rescuing Talia to concentrate much on the spirit presence.”
“Well, it’s pretty obvious who it was, isn’t it?” Milo said. When we stared at him in response, he heaved a dramatic sigh. “Grayson Allard! Her boyfriend!”
“Oh, right,” I said. “I almost forgot about him. Yeah, that would make sense. I don’t think we can just assume that, though. Not without proof.”
“Who else could it possibly be?” Milo asked. “They were in love! A perfect Hollywood couple! When they stood next to each other, they were so gorgeous you could feel your brain starting to melt—almost like trying to stare directly into t
he sun. And then he died, and even his death was perfect…”
I put up a hand. “I’m going to stop you right there,” I said. “What the hell does ‘his death was perfect’ mean? He died in motorcycle crash! It was horrible!”
“Of course it was horrible, but it was just so… James Dean! It was almost like he was too gorgeous—and their romance too perfect—to be allowed to exist, you know?”
I shook my head at him, lost for words. Milo had watched one too many reality TV shows, bless him, and was starting to forget what actual reality was like for normal people.
“It could certainly be him, but we won’t know for sure until he shows himself,” Hannah said. “And no, I won’t Call him. If nothing else, it’s too risky while we’re undercover.”
There was no arguing with the logic of this. Drawing attention to ourselves now would be incredibly stupid. We needed to blend as best we could into a group of people we had absolutely nothing in common with—nothing, except for a healthy belief in the paranormal.
“Of course not, Hannah. We’re not even close to considering Calling, or Walking. Only in emergencies. We made that point clear to Catriona before we came here.”
“So the only real choice that leaves us,” Hannah went on, “is to hang around Talia and wait for him to show up again.”
“Haven’t you been listening?” Milo cried. “We can’t hang out with her now! Jess almost drowned her! I bet Talia’s bodyguard tackles Jess the next time she comes within fifty feet! Celebrities have taken out restraining orders for less.”
“Yeah, especially since she thinks I was stealing her jewelry,” I added.
“What? Why would she think that?” Hannah asked.
“She had this ring on a necklace on top of her pile of clothes. I was looking at it when I saw her in the pond, and dropped it in the grass. It took us a minute to find it when we came out of the water. She was hysterical about it.”
Milo’s pressed his hand over his heart as though he were having a ghostly version of a heart attack. “What kind of ring? What did it look like?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t get a great look at it, but it was gold and had a big pale stone set in it. It was kind of heavy.”
“A big pale stone? Like a diamond?”
“I don’t know. I guess it could’ve been.”
Milo looked from Hannah to me with his mouth hanging open. “Am I seriously the biggest girlie girl in this room?”
“Yes,” Hannah and I said together.
“It’s obvious! It was an engagement ring! From Grayson! She flipped out when it was missing because he gave it to her before he died!”
“I don’t remember hearing they were engaged,” I said doubtfully. “Don’t you think that would’ve been in the news? The tabloids would’ve gone even crazier because that makes their story even more tragic.”
“It was a secret engagement!” Milo squealed, his voice so shrill that Hannah winced. “It must’ve happened right before he died! Either they were keeping it under wraps for privacy, or they hadn’t had a chance to announce it! When Talia saw that you found the ring, she freaked out because she thought you would tell the world!”
I considered this. Part of me thought Milo had read one too many gossip magazines, which was probably true. But the other part of me thought his theory made a lot of sense. Talia should’ve been more upset about being dragged half-naked out of the water, but her most vehement reaction had definitely been to the ring.
I wasn’t about to encourage Milo in his crazy fanboy theories, so I changed the subject. “I’m not so sure I buy her story that she was just relaxing out there. I obviously didn’t do a very good job of it, but someone needs to keep an eye on her while she’s here. I think it’s likely that I stopped her from doing something drastic, even if she hadn’t entirely made her decision yet.”
“Hopefully you shocked her out of it—at least for tonight, anyway,” said Hannah. “Maybe you can try to find her in the morning and apologize.”
I felt as though I were being forced to swallow something vile. “Sure,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Sure, I could do that.”
Hannah looked slightly alarmed by the look on my face. “But maybe try to look a little less… murder-y when you do it, okay? If you come at her looking like that she’ll think you really are out to kill her.”
“Right. Okay. No problem. Speaking of tomorrow, do we have a game plan?” I asked.
“The most important thing is to try to get some time with Campbell, if we can. We need to see him make another spirit connection,” Hannah said. She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed Campbell’s brochure. “This schedule says that he’ll be holding a session called ‘Communing with the Lost’ at 9:00 AM; we should obviously go to that.”
“Good idea. What’s he doing after that?” I asked. “We should try to keep him in our sights all day long.”
“It doesn’t say. That’s the only scheduled activity that mentions him by name. The others are all more generic—‘Cleansing Meditation;’ ‘Healing Rifts;’ ‘Spiritual Music.’ He could be at any of them, I guess,” Hannah said, flipping the paper over.
“Or none of them,” I pointed out. “We might need to split up, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Hannah nodded and began smoothing her bed excessively, a holdover from the OCD-like tendencies she had developed while bouncing between mental hospitals and group homes. They resurfaced whenever she was particularly nervous about something.
I went on, “We should also try to talk to some of the other guests, especially the ones who have been here for a while. Their experiences with Campbell might give us some important clues.”
“I guess I can socialize on the flip side, see if I can connect with any of the floaters,” Milo offered. “They’ll have their own experiences, and since you two can’t be seen talking to them…” Milo shrugged in an aggrieved sort of way, as though he were sacrificing himself by volunteering for this task.
“You have to stick to the story, though, even with the spirits,” Hannah reminded him. “You can’t let them know what we’re really doing here, because if Campbell really can communicate with them, they could blow our cover.”
Milo rolled his eyes. “Obvi.”
“And make sure you remember there are other spirits to talk to besides Talia’s ghost,” Hannah added. “I know you want to find out if it’s Grayson Allard, but stalking is stalking… even if both of you are dead.”
As she said Grayson’s name, a sudden familiar tingling jumped into my fingertips, like an itch that I just couldn’t resist scratching. I jumped up and pulled my sketchpad and pencil from the bedside table and plopped down next to Hannah on the bed.
“Speaking of movie stars who may or may not be haunting Talia Simms,” I said, “my Muse fingers are a-tingling, so let’s see who the mystery man really is.” I flipped past the sketch of our resident spirit back home in Salem and found a fresh, blank page.
“Ooh, are you getting something?” Hannah asked, scooting in closer so she could watch me work.
“Yeah, as soon as you said Grayson’s name,” I replied. “I’m not convinced we connected for long enough to get anything good, but I’ll give it a try.”
I closed my eyes and felt my way out into the space around me, following the energy as it ran from the tips of my fingers, up through my body, and out through my connection to the spirit realm. I found what I was looking for—a bright, pulsing spot that was calling to me and sending those irresistible pulses of pure essence shooting back into me. I focused in, breathing deeply, clearing all other thoughts and emotions; everything I could divine about this spirit needed to travel unfettered from his being to my fingers. I could feel my hand, independent of my control, flying over the page. When I finally opened my eyes, my sketch revealed a face that I knew very well.
“I told you it was him!” Milo cried. “He’s here! Grayson’s here and I might actually get to talk to him. I feel like I’ve been traini
ng my entire afterlife for this moment!”
The face that stared back at me from the page was ruggedly handsome—stubbled chin, closely cropped hair, and intense, piercing eyes that held such a sadness that I found myself unable to look directly into them.
“Well, he’s here, but he’s keeping his head down,” I said. “I think the only reason he even attempted to communicate was because he thought Talia was in danger. I don’t think you’re going to find him very sociable, Milo. If you find him at all, I mean.”
“You underestimate my mesmerism,” Milo said confidently. “I’m captivating, trust me.”
“You trust me, Milo,” I said, and I couldn’t help but smile at him. “I underestimate absolutely nothing about you.”
15
Silenced
BY MORNING, AFTER A MUCH-NEEDED FULL NIGHT’S SLEEP on the most comfortable—and probably the most expensive—bed I’d ever had the privilege to sleep in, I had gained enough perspective to realize that apologizing to Talia was the most reasonable thing to do. She may have overreacted, but then again, I was known to be a tad emotional sometimes, too.
Well, maybe more than a tad. Okay, fine, I regularly flew off the handle.
In any case, I made peace with the idea of making peace, and resolved to find Talia as soon as we went downstairs for the “Morning Social Hour and Breakfast.”
As soon as I stepped out onto the porch, it became clear that I would not have a chance to find Talia. Nor would I be able to socialize or have breakfast first—Talia’s personal assistant flew at me like a bat out of hell the instant I arrived. She had a face like a squirrel and an unnaturally high, fast voice, almost like someone had put her on permanent fast forward.
“Ms. Simms has requested that you look over these documents and sign them,” the woman said, thrusting a stapled packet under my nose.
“I… what?” I was ready for any number of things this morning—being served papers was not one of them.
“Ms. Simms requests that you sign these papers. It’s a privacy agreement, which stipulates that you will not disclose any information about last night’s encounter—including any pictures or other forms of media you may have used to document said encounter—and that you will agree to immediately take down any social or electronic media posts that you may have shared. We can arrange generous compensation if necessary.”
