by Rain Oxford
She gasped.
“Your sister wants you to know that what happened to her wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was. I was supposed to be watching her. I was supposed to protect her.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Four years ago, we were playing. My dad was buying a farm. He was talking to the seller and we were playing. There was a wooden plank and Anne was jumping on it. I should have stopped her. I didn’t know it would break. She screamed when she fell in the well.”
“That wasn’t your fault. Accidents like that happen. Your father shouldn’t have let you play without checking the land to make sure it was safe.”
“It was my fault, because I tried to get her out instead of telling Dad. I was afraid of getting in trouble. By the time Dad found us and called for help, it was too late. She drowned because I didn’t get Dad in time.”
“Tell her it wasn’t her fault!” Anne said.
“Your sister doesn’t blame you for her death, and she doesn’t want you to blame yourself,” I said.
“How do you know?” Cassie asked.
“I can see her ghost.”
She shook her head. “Dad said ghosts aren’t real.”
“That’s what I thought, too, until a few months ago. I’ll tell you something about blaming yourself; it hurts everyone around you. I had a best friend as a child. When I found out she was a vampire, I let her sleep in my house. I healed her. Then I woke up the next morning to find my father dead and my mother almost dead. I hated vampires, but it was myself that I blamed. If you can’t trust yourself, you can’t trust anyone else. Once I forgave myself, I learned that my friend wasn’t the one who killed my father or hurt my mother. In fact, she saved me and my mother. I held onto hate for all paranormals, and especially for vampires for years, but it was because I hated myself a little bit. The best thing you can do for your sister is to forgive yourself and be happy.”
After a few minutes of considering it, she nodded. “I’ll try if it will make Anne happy.”
When I opened the door and let Anne and Cassie return to class, the other two ghosts approached me. “You can see us?” the ghost following Ms. Bounds asked.
I nodded and closed the door with them both in the hallway. “I can see you, and I’ll help you if I can.”
“I am Melody’s late husband, Reo. I want her to move on. There’s another staff member here she has a crush on, and I can’t figure out how to tell her I accept it.”
“I’m Kakana’s mother. She needs to know her father. I had a one-night-stand. Kakana always asked about her father and I had no idea. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I gave in and hired a private investigator. He found the father, but I died before I could tell Kakana.”
“Who is Ms. Bounds’s crush?”
“Elisa Sommerfeld.”
“Oh. Okay. Who’s Kakana’s father?”
“His name is Keith Zoltek. He lives in Miami, Florida.”
“I’ll tell them, but I need to ask a few questions of my own. Do you know any ghosts in this school who is hurting students?”
They both shook their heads. “There was a man a few years ago who abused his wife and daughter, but we drove him off.”
“What about Jack Michaels?”
“He’s a jerk, but he wouldn’t hurt any students.”
“What about Eugene Greenwood?”
They both shuddered. “We avoid him. I don’t let Kakana in the library,” Kakana’s mother said.
“So you can stop her?”
“I can make her feel sick, so she goes to the infirmary instead. I hate doing it, but I don’t like Eugene.”
“I don’t think he can hurt anyone, but he creeps us out,” Reo agreed.
“Can he do any magic?”
“I’ve seen him throw things around and he has threatened to set the library on fire.”
“Do you know of any way to stop a ghost from hurting someone?”
“We’re weak to iron and we can’t pass a salt line,” Reo said.
“Do you know about the students in comas?”
“No. No one is really talking about it. Most of us don’t walk freely, so we only talk in passing and hear what the students are saying. The students are afraid that someone is cursing them. They think the monster attacks are related, though.”
“Not all of us think that,” Reo argued. “There are rumors going around about the monsters being some kind of prank. The curses could be a prank, but it’s a lot meaner if it is.”
“Thank you for telling me about it.” I reentered the classroom and went to Kakana first. She frowned with confusion when I leaned down and whispered, “Your father is Keith Zoltek, who lives in Miami.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really? How do you know?”
“Your mother told me. She wanted to tell you, but she didn’t get the chance.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I went to Ms. Bounds. Relaying the message to her would be more complicated. “How is everything going?” I asked.
“Good. I didn’t trust Ms. Hunt at first. I thought she was too young and feisty, but it turns out she’s a lot more responsible and sensible than I expected. The new curriculum and rules are working.”
“I’m glad. Her heart and head are definitely in the right place. I want to tell you something, but you might find it strange and difficult to believe.”
“Okay…”
“Your late husband would want you to move on.”
Her lips thinned. “That is a very uncouth way to ask someone out, Mr. Sanders.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. He wants you to pursue a relationship with Ms. Sommerfeld.”
“How…? What do you know about that?”
“Tell her that Elisa invited her to go skiing as a date, not to get her mind off me,” Reo said, appearing behind her.
When I relayed the message, she gaped. “I’m not trying to freak you out.”
“I am freaked out, but I think I believe you. I’ve always felt like he was still here.”
Afterwards, I went to Remy’s office. When I knocked, she told me to come in. Amelia and Kita were sitting across from her at her desk. “Is everything okay?” I asked.
“I was just telling Ms. Hunt that Kita should be put in the advanced English class,” Amelia said.
Kita blushed. “I want to be a journalist when I graduate.”
“Maybe Darwin should start a club. He’s a journalist, too. Or was. I’ll come back later.”
“No, we’re done now,” Amelia said. She and Kita left.
“How can I help you?” Remy asked. She looked tired.
“I had a vision last night.” I explained every detail I could, but I didn’t have a name. “I can search for his mind, but it was blocked during the vision.”
“Are you certain it wasn’t just a dream?”
“I don’t think it was.”
She nodded. “Then I will stay out of my room for the next few nights or put a ward around it. The only way he could have gotten a key to my room is from Dani or me. Thank you for letting me know.”
I spent the rest of the school day going from class to class. I met five more ghosts, but I didn’t learn anything new. Four of them needed me to pass on messages, while the last said she wanted to see her grandchild graduate. I couldn’t really help her, but at least it was her grandson’s last year.
* * *
I was hoping for a quiet night. With no messages, I decided to get ready for bed. Just as I took off my shirt, there was a knock on the door. I let my power out just enough to detect who it was.
“Come in,” I said.
Remington entered and shut the door behind her. “It’s been a long day.”
“I know the feeling.” I sat on my bed and padded the mattress next to me. She sat beside me and leaned her head against my shoulder. I caught her up on everything and asked her how it was going with her teachers. “I overheard an argument in your office yesterday.”
“I’m handling it. I like that you’re here to talk to, though.”
“Ditto.” I ran my fingers through her hair and kissed her. For a few minutes, that was all I did. Then she ran her hands across my chest. I slowly unbuttoned her maroon blouse, giving her plenty of time to stop me if she didn’t want to go any farther. I wasn’t surprised at all when she pushed me back, flipped on top of me, and deepened the kiss.
The thin satin of her shirt tore as I pulled it off her. She rolled off me to remove her pants and I kicked off my boots. Before I could get my jeans past my knees, she got back on top of me and kissed me. As she did, her bare feet worked my jeans down.
An extremely insistent pressure on my mind interrupted, like a bad headache. “What?” I asked. Rocky wasn’t normally pushy.
I put my hands on Remy’s shoulders to stop her. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I thought you would want to know that all three children you asked me to watch are sneaking out of their house.”
I jumped out of bed and pulled on my clothes as fast as I could. “Thank you.” To Remy, I said, “I’m sorry. Leon, Jasmine, and Jessica are sneaking out.”
Remington scrambled to fix her own clothes, but her shirt was unsalvageable. “Shit. Go on without me. I’ll try to catch up.”
I made it outside and ducked behind a tree just as I saw Leon, Jasmine, and Jessica exit the front door of the West. They didn’t glance around or act sneaky in the least, so I followed them at a shorter distance than I normally would. I was just a minute behind them when I opened the door to the East. I saw them turn the corner and rushed to get there before they could disappear. I trailed almost right behind them, but they never noticed me.
They went into the library and I peeked through the door crack. I saw Eugene try to stop him, but they walked right through him.
“Leave! You’re going to die!”
* * *
Wednesday, August 31
A knock sounded on my door. I groaned because I had never felt such terrible pain in my head. I could hear my heartbeat. Although every inch of my body hurt, it was my head that was the worst.
I barely felt it when I was slapped on the face and it didn’t even begin to distract from the rest of my pain. I rolled over on my side and threw up. Over the ringing in my ears, I heard someone calling my name. Someone pushed me onto my back and it took me a few minutes to recognize Remington kneeling over me.
“Can you stand?” she asked.
I opened my mouth… and threw up again.
“I’m getting Dr. Martin.”
* * *
Sometime later, I came around again. This time the pain was only as bad as the time my cursed heart gave out on me. The ringing had stopped and I was coherent enough to see Remington and Dr. Martin. I realized I was on the floor of my room and tried to sit up.
I failed.
“Take it easy,” Dr. Martin said. “Whatever happened to you, it was bad enough you would have died if it weren’t for your gargoyle’s strength.”
“What happened?” My throat was raw, like I had inhaled smoke. My body hurt enough that it made sense, yet my clothes weren’t singed.
“We were hoping you could tell us that,” Remy said.
I thought about it. Everything of the last few days was blurry. “What day is it?”
“Wednesday. I was with you last night. Remember?” I tried to, but ultimately shook my head. “You know who I am, who you are, and where we are, right?”
“At the children’s school.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
It took a few minutes to finally got some semblance of organization in my mind. “Darwin and I were talking about ghosts.”
“He needs rest right now,” Dr. Martin told her. “Let him sleep and most if not all of his memories should return.”
She turned to me and nodded. “I will leave you alone, but when you can get up and around, come down to the infirmary. Leon Raymo was found this morning in a coma.”
Chapter 11
Over the next few hours, I recovered physically thanks to Dr. Martin’s healing potions. When I went into the dining room for lunch, I was surprised to see Henry and Darwin not sitting together until I remembered that Henry didn’t believe me that I could see ghosts.
I sat with Darwin and Amelia.
“You look like shit, bro.”
“Thanks.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. We talked about ghosts, right?”
“Yeah, we talked about Eugene. Why? Did you find out anything else?”
“Who?”
“The ghost in the library. You went there Monday and got his name. You were pretty sure he had something to do with the comas. I was brilliant and got all that info about him.”
“I don’t remember it. The name does sound familiar, though.”
“You must have gotten hit on the head pretty hard.”
“Well, a ghost could do that, right?”
“Yeah, I suppose. So could a pissed off student, though.”
* * *
After eating, I went to the infirmary, where Dr. Martin and Rhonda were doing tests on Leon. “Anything different about this one?” I asked.
“Blood-wise, no,” Dr. Martin. “However, there is this.” He held up Leon’s hand and I saw blood dripping from an extremely nasty (and fresh) cut. “He didn’t have a potion like the other three did, obviously.”
Only then did I remember the potions and the mostly-healed cuts on the other students’ palms. “That is definitely important. I’ll look into it.”
* * *
I went to my office and checked my notebook, which included the conversation Darwin and I had about Eugene. I really hated not knowing what I did or what was done to me.
I may be missing my mind control, but I still have my visions. I pulled out my ring, slipped it on, and put my hands on the page. Instantly, my vision changed. I saw my entire day, including the conversation about Eugene and Remy’s visit to my bedroom. I remembered following the kids to the library.
And then everything was black. It felt like a gaping hole in my memory. There was nothing left of the memory to access.
I pulled the ring off and headed to the library. The halls were rowdy as students made their way to class from lunch. Fortunately, the library was quiet. I found a note on the door that said Ms. Sommerfeld was at lunch.
“Eugene, I know you’re here.”
He appeared in front of me. “You dare show yourself after last night?”
“What happened last night?”
“You know what happened; you couldn’t save the kids! Get out! You don’t belong here! This is my school and these are my books!”
“Did you hurt the kids?”
“They’ll die slowly, you will be the seventh, blood will rain from the sky, and the sun will be dark.” With that, he vanished.
* * *
I returned to my office and wrote a note to Hunt, then mentally called for Ghost. Reaching his mind was a lot more difficult than contacting Darwin, Henry, or Remington, because I had only sensed it a few times. Nevertheless, he appeared.
I held up the letter. “Will you please take this to Hunt?”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to interrupt Vincent?”
“I know what he and my mother are doing, and I don’t want to think about it. Take it to Hunt.”
He took it in his mouth and vanished.
A few minutes later, Hunt stepped out of the dark shadows of my office. “I got your letter. Please explain.”
I told him everything I could remember, including the memory loss. I glossed over the fact that I could see ghost, though. “I think Eugene is the problem, or at least knows more than I can get from him. I need a way to capture him and force him to talk. Obviously, I got my ass kicked last night, so if he’s the one who did it, I need to be better prepared.”
That felt familiar, but Hunt started talking and the thought escaped me.
“How is it that you can see ghosts?”
“Oh, um… the key.”
He nodded. “I see. Do you want me to remove your chain so that you can control his mind?”
“Can you show me how to do it so that I can if I need to?”
He nodded and approached me. “I can show you how, but doing so is excruciatingly painful, so expect that.” He traced his index finger in a pentagram motion across my arm over the end of the chain. It started glowing silver. While it was still two-dimensional, he slipped his fingernail under the edge and pulled it up like a sticker. When he pulled, it felt like he was ripping barbed wire out of my arm.
“Fuck!” I jerked my arm away and the chain instantly fell back into place. The pain was slow to fade. “That’s worse than being shot!”
“The nature of the chain is not to be removed. Now, I can deal with Eugene. I wish my daughter had told me there was a problem before it got to this point.”
“No. Remington doesn’t know you’re here. It would crush her if she thought you had to come in and save the day. It’s me that needs help. She’s dealing with her stuff just fine.”
“Any problem relating to the children is her responsibility to fix.”
“And she hired a private investigator. I need some way to capture or stop a ghost.”
“Why not go to Andrew?”
“I lost most of a day of memories because I confronted Eugene. Right now, Dr. Martin needs to focus his efforts on helping the kids and finding a cure.”
He nodded. “There is a man named Ascelin Ares. He runs a magic shop and should have what you need.”
“You don’t have a spell you can teach me?”
“No. Containing magic is difficult. Explain to him what you need.”
“Can you take me there with the shadow pass?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We are… not speaking to each other at the moment.”
“Oh…kay… is he someone I should be wary of?”
“Extremely. He will give you what you need without trickery or deceit, but the same cannot be said about his associates. I do not want his reputation anywhere near my daughter until he reevaluates his lifestyle.”
