by Meg Cabot
Oh, I thought as he propelled me along. Okay. Great. Now he's mad at me. Here I risk my life - because let's face it, that's what I was doing - and he's mad at me because of it. I actually should have thought of this. I mean, risking your life for a guy is practically like using the L word. Worse, even. How was I going to get out of this one?
I said, "Jesse, don't flatter yourself that I did this for you. I mean, it has been nothing but one giant pain in the neck, having you for a roommate. Do you think I like having to come home from school or from work or whatever and having to explain stuff like the Bay of Pigs to you? Believe me, life with you is no picnic."
He didn't say anything. He just kept pulling me along.
"Or what about Tad?" I said, bringing up what I knew was a sore subject. "I mean, you think I like having you tag along on my dates? Having you out of my life is going to make things a lot simpler, so don't think, you know, I did this for you. I only did it because that stupid cat of yours has been crying its head off. And also because anything I can do to make your stupid girlfriend mad, I will."
"Nombre de Dios, Susannah," Jesse muttered. "Maria's not my girlfriend."
"Well, she certainly used to be," I said. "And what about that, anyway? That girl is a full-on skank, Jesse. I can't believe you ever agreed to marry her. I mean, what were you thinking, anyway? Couldn't you see what she was like underneath all that lace?"
"Things," Jesse said through gritted teeth, "were different back then, Susannah."
"Oh, yeah? So different that you couldn't tell the girl you were about to marry was a big old - "
"I hardly knew her," Jesse said, hauling me to a stop and glaring down at me. "All right?"
"Nice try," I said. "You two were cousins. Which is a whole other issue which, if you really want to know, completely grosses me - "
"Yes, we were cousins," Jesse interrupted, giving my arm a shake. "But like I said before, things were different back then, Susannah. If we had more time, I'd tell you - "
"Oh, no, you don't. We still have" - I looked down at Father D's watch - "twelve minutes left. You tell me now."
"Susannah - "
"Now, Jesse, or I swear, I'm not budging."
He actually groaned in frustration, and said what I think must have been a very bad word, only I don't know for sure, since it was in Spanish. They don't teach us swears in Spanish at school.
"Fine," he said, dropping my arm. "You want to know? You want to know how it was back then? It was different, all right? California was different. Completely different. There was none of this mingling of the sexes. Boys and girls did not play together, did not sit side by side in classrooms. The only time I was ever in the same room with Maria was at meals, or sometimes dances. And then we were surrounded by other people. I doubt I ever heard her speak more than a few words - "
"Well, they were evidently pretty impressive ones, since you agreed to marry her."
Jesse ran a hand through his hair and made another exclamation in Spanish. "Of course I agreed to marry her," he said. "My father wanted it, her father wanted it. How could I say no? I didn't want to say no. I didn't know - not then - what she was. It was only later, when I got her letters, that I realized - "
"That she can't spell?"
He ignored me. " - that the two of us had nothing in common, and never would. But even then, I would not have disgraced my family by breaking things off with her. Not for that."
"But when you heard she wasn't as pure as the driven snow?" I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him, sexist product of the nineteenth century that he was. "That's when you decided she wasn't good wife material?"
"When I heard rumors about Maria and Felix Diego," he said, impatiently, "I was unhappy. I knew Diego. He was not a good man. He was cruel and . . . Well, he was always looking for ways to make money. And Maria had a lot of money. He wanted to marry her - you can guess why - so when I found out, I decided it might be better to end it, yes - "
"But Diego got to know you first," I said, a throb in my voice.
"Susannah." He stared down at me. "I've had a century and a half to get used to being dead. It no longer matters to me who killed me, or why. What's important to me right now is seeing that you do not end up the same way. Now will you move, or do I have to carry you?"
"Okay," I said, letting him pull me along again. "But I just want to get one thing straight. I did not do all this - you know, get myself exorcised and come up here and all - because I'm in love with you or anything like that."
"I would not," he said grimly, "as you say, flatter myself."
"Damn straight," I said. I wondered if I was still being unfeminine enough. Actually, I was beginning to think I was being a little too unfeminine. Hostile, actually, was what I was being. "Because I'm not. I came because of the cat. The cat really misses you."
"You shouldn't have come at all," Jesse said under his breath. Still, I heard him anyway. It wasn't like there was a whole lot of other noise up there. We had left the corridor - it had disappeared, I saw, the minute we turned our backs to it - and were back in the fog again, following the rope that, thankfully, Jack had remembered. "I cannot believe that Father Dominic allowed it."
"Hey," I said. "Leave Father D out of it. This is all your fault, you know. None of this would have happened if you had just been open and honest with me from the beginning about how you died. Then I could have at least told Andy to dig else-where. And I'd have been prepared to deal with Maria and her bohunk husband. I don't know why they are so strung out about people finding out they're a couple of murderers, but they are very intent on keeping what happened to you a big old myst - "
"That," Jesse said, "is because to them, no time has passed since their deaths. They were at rest until it became evident that my body was about to be found, which would inevitably open up speculation as to the cause of my demise. They do not understand that more than a century has passed since then. They are trying to preserve their places in the community, as the leading citizens they once were."
"Tell me about it," I said, fingering my bruise. "They think it's still eighteen fifty, and they're afraid of the neighbors finding out they offed you. Well, it's all going to blow up in their faces in a day or so. The truth is coming out, courtesy of the Carmel Pine Cone - "
Jesse spun me around to face him. He looked madder than ever. "Susannah," he said. "What are you talking about?"
"I told the whole story to Cee Cee," I explained, unable to keep a note of self-congratulation from creeping into my voice. "She's interning at the paper for the summer. She says they're running the story - the real story, about what happened to you - on Sunday."
Seeing his expression growing, if anything, even darker, I added, "Jesse, I had to. Maria killed the guy at the historical society - the one she stole your picture from in order to do the exorcism. I'm pretty sure she killed his grandfather, too. Maria and that husband of hers have killed everybody who has ever tried to tell the truth about what really happened to you that night. But she's not going to be able to do it anymore. That story is going to go out to thirty-five thousand people. More even, because they'll post it on the paper's website. Maria isn't going to be able to kill everybody who reads it."
Jesse shook his head. "No, Susannah. She'll just settle for killing you."
"Jesse," I said. "She can't kill me. She's already tried. I've got news for you: I am really, really hard to kill."
"Maybe not," Jesse said. He held something out in his hand. I looked down at it. To my surprise, I saw that it was the rope we'd been following.
Only instead of the end disappearing down into the hole through which I'd climbed, it sat, frayed, in Jesse's hand. As if it had been cut.
Cut with a knife.
CHAPTER 16
I stared down at the end of the rope in horror.
It's funny. You know what the first thing that popped into my head was?
"But Father Dom said," I cried, "that Maria and Felix were good Catholics. So what a
re they doing down in that church?"
Jesse had a little more presence of mind than I did. He reached out and seized my wrist, twisting it so he could see the face of Father Dominic's watch.
"How much more time do you have?" he demanded. "How many more minutes?"
I swallowed. "Eight," I said. "But the whole reason Father Dom blessed my house was so they wouldn't try to come in, and then look what they do. They come into a church - "
Jesse looked around. "We'll find the way out," he said. "Don't worry, Susannah. It has to be around here somewhere. We'll find it."
But we wouldn't. I knew that. There was no point, I knew, even in looking. What with the fog covering the ground so thickly, there was no chance we'd ever find the hole through which I'd climbed.
No. Susannah Simon, who'd been so hard to kill, was effectively dead already.
I started untying the rope from around my waist. If I was going to meet my maker, I at least wanted to look my best.
"It must be here," Jesse was saying as he waved at the fog, trying to part it in order to see beneath it. "Susannah, it must be."
I thought about Father Dominic. And Jack. Poor Jack. If that rope had been cut, it could only have been because something catastrophic had happened down in the church. Maria de Silva, that practicing Catholic Father D had been so convinced would never dare launch an attack on consecrated ground, had not been as frightened of offending the Lord as Father Dominic had assumed she'd be. I hoped he and Jack were all right. Her problem was with me, not them.
"Susannah." Jesse was peering down at me. "Susannah, why aren't you looking? You cannot give up, Susannah. We'll find it. I know we'll find it."
I just looked at him. I wasn't even seeing him, really. I was thinking about my mother. How was Father Dominic going to explain it? I mean, if he wasn't already dead himself. My mom was going to be really, really suspicious if my body was found in the basilica. I mean, I wouldn't even go to church on Sunday. Why would I be there on a Friday night?
"Susannah!" Jesse had reached out and seized me by both my shoulders. Now he gave me a shake with enough force to send my hair flying into my face. "Susannah, are you listening to me? We only have five more minutes. We've got to find a way out. Call him."
I blinked up at him, confusedly pushing my long dark hair from my eyes. That was one thing, anyway. I'd never have to worry about finding the perfect shade to cover my gray. I'd never turn gray now.
"Call who?" I asked dazedly.
"The gatekeeper," Jesse said through gritted teeth. "You said he was your friend. Maybe he'll show us the way."
I looked into Jesse's eyes. I saw something in them I'd never seen before. I realized, in a rush, what that something was.
Fear. Jesse was afraid.
And suddenly I was afraid, too. Before I'd just been shocked. Now I was scared. Because if Jesse was afraid, well, that meant something really, really bad was about to happen. Because Jesse does not scare easily.
"Call him," Jesse said, again.
I tore my gaze from his and looked around. Everywhere - everywhere I looked - I saw only fog, night sky, and more fog. No gatekeeper. No hole back to the Junipero Serra Mission church. No hallway filled with doors. Nothing.
And then, suddenly, there was something. A figure, striding toward us. I was filled with relief. The gatekeeper, at last. He would help me. I knew he would....
Except that, as he came closer, I saw it wasn't the gatekeeper at all. This guy didn't have anything on his head except hair. Curly brown hair. Just like -
"Paul?" I burst out incredulously.
I couldn't believe it. Paul. Paul Slater. Paul Slater was coming toward us. But how -
"Suze," he said conversationally as he strolled up. His hands were in the pockets of his chinos, and his Brooks Brothers shirt was untucked. He looked as if he had just breezed in from a long day on the golf course.
Paul Slater. Paul Slater.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Are you ... are you dead?"
"I was about to ask you the same question," Paul said. He looked at Jesse, who was still clutching my shoulders. "Who's your friend? He is a friend, I assume."
"I - " I glanced from Jesse to Paul and then back again. "I came up here to get him," I explained. "He's my friend. My friend Jesse. Jack accidentally exorcised him, and - "
"Ah," Paul said, rolling back and forth on his heels. "Yes. I told you that you should have left well enough alone with Jack. He'll never be one of us, you know."
I just stared at him. I could not figure out what was happening. Paul Slater, here? It didn't make any sense. Not unless he was dead. "One of ... what?"
"One of us," Paul repeated. "I told you, Suze. All this do-gooding, mediator nonsense. I can't believe you fell for it." He shook his head, chuckling a little. "I would have thought you were smarter than that. I mean, the old man, I can understand. He's from a completely different world - a different generation. And Jack, of course, is ... well, clearly unsuited for this sort of thing. But you, Suze. I'd have expected more from you."
Jesse let go of my shoulders but kept one hand firmly around one of my wrists ... the wrist with Father Dominic's watch on it. "This," he said, "is not the gatekeeper, I take it."
"No," I said. "This is Jack's brother, Paul. Paul?" I looked at him. "How did you get here? Are you dead?"
Paul rolled his eyes. "No. Please. And you didn't need to go through all that rigmarole to get here, either. You can, like me, come and go from here when you please, Suze. You've just been spending so much time 'helping' " - he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers - "lost souls like that one" - he nodded his head in Jesse's direction - "you've never had a chance to concentrate on discovering your real potential."
I stared at him. "You told me . . . you told me you don't believe in ghosts."
He smiled like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "I should have been more specific," he said. "I don't believe in letting them walk all over me, like you clearly seem to." His gaze roved over Jesse contemptuously.
I was still having trouble processing what I was seeing ... and hearing.
"But . . . but isn't that what mediators are supposed to do?" I stammered. "Help lost souls?"
Paul heaved a shudder, as if the fog swirling around us had suddenly grown colder. "Hardly," he said. "Well, maybe the old man. And the boy. But not me. And certainly not you, Susannah. And if you'd bothered giving me the time of day, instead of being so caught up trying to rescue this one" - he sneered in Jesse's direction - "I might have been able to show you precisely what you're capable of. Which is so much more than you can begin to imagine."
A glance at Jesse told me that I had better cut this little conversation short if I didn't want any bloodshed. I could see a muscle I'd never noticed before leaping in Jesse's jaw.
"Paul," I said. "I want you to know that it really means a lot to me, the fact that you, apparently, have your finger on the pulse of the mystical world. But right now, if I don't get back to earth, I'm going to wake up dead. Not to mention the fact that if I'm not mistaken, your little brother might be having a really hard time down there with a guy named Diego and a chick in a hoop skirt."
Paul nodded. "Yes," he said. "Thanks to you and your refusal to acknowledge your true calling, Jack's life is in danger, as is, incidentally, the priest's."
Jesse made a sudden motion toward Paul, which I cut short by holding up a restraining hand.
"How about giving us some help then, huh, Paul, if you know so much?" I asked. It was no joke, holding Jesse back. He seemed ready to tear the guy's head off. "How do we get out of here?"
Paul shrugged. "Oh, is that all you want to know?" he asked. "That's easy. Just go into the light."
"Go into the - " I broke off, furious. "Paul!"
He chuckled. "Sorry," he said. "I just wanted to know if you'd seen the movie."
But he wasn't chuckling a bit a split second later when Jesse suddenly launched himself at him.
&
nbsp; I'm serious. It was way WWF. One minute Paul was standing there, smirking, and the next, Jesse's fist was sinking into his tanned, handsome face.
Well, I'd tried to stop him. Paul was, after all, probably my only way out of there. But I can't say I really minded when I heard the sound of nasal cartilage tearing.
Paul was pretty much a baby about the whole thing. He started cursing and saying stuff like, "You broke my nose! I can't believe you broke my nose!"
"I'll break more than your nose," Jesse declared, clutching Paul by his shirt collar and waving his blood-smeared fist in front of his eyes, "if you don't tell us how to get out of here now."
How Paul might have responded to this interesting threat I never did find out. That's because I heard a sweetly familiar voice call my name. I turned around, and there, running toward me through the mist, was Jack.
Around his waist was a rope.
"Suze," he called. "Come quick! That mean lady ghost you warned me about, she cut your rope, and now she and that other one are beating up Father Dominic!" Then he stopped running, took in the sight of Jesse still clutching a bloody-faced Paul, and said, curiously, "Paul? What are you doing here?"
A moment passed. A heartbeat, really - if I'd had one, which, of course, I didn't. No one moved. No one breathed. No one bunked.
Then Paul looked up at Jesse and said, "You'll regret this. Do you understand? I'll make you sorry."
Jesse just laughed, without the slightest trace of humor, and said, "You're welcome to try."
Then he tossed Paul aside as if he were a used tissue, strode forward, seized my wrist, and dragged me toward Jack.
"Take us to them," he said to the little boy.
And Jack, slipping his hand into mine, did so, without looking back at his brother. Not even once.
Which told me, I realized, just about everything - except what I really wanted to know:
Just who - or, more aptly, what - was Paul Slater?
But I didn't have time to stay and find out. Father Dominic's watch gave me a minute to return to my body, or be placed in the difficult position of not having one ... which was going to make starting the eleventh grade in the fall a real problem.
