by Lee Nichols
“If this conversation ends with ‘namaste,’ I’m going to hit you.”
Harry smiled. “Then I’ll say no more.”
That was so unlike Harry, letting a subject drop because I was uncomfortable with it—usually he lived for those subjects—that I gave him a quick hug.
“What was that for?” he asked as the bell rang, ending lunch.
“After Coby died, I didn’t think I’d have another friend who cared like that, who I could trust. You’re like him, only—”
“I know.” He nodded solemnly. “Better-looking.”
“Right,” I said as we walked off together. The smile on my face felt good.
11
The bell rang a minute after I took my seat in World Lit. I’d called my mom on the walk over, but hadn’t bothered leaving a message. I wasn’t sure she even knew how to retrieve them. She and my dad considered themselves Luddites and used current technology as little as possible. They were the only ones who found this charming.
I faked my way through Zorba the Greek, and when class ended, I redialed her.
She picked up on the third ring. “Hello? Hello?” She’d never understood that cells took a second longer to engage than landlines.
“It’s me, mom.”
“Hello? Who is this?” Or that if you looked at your phone before answering, you could tell who was calling.
“Emma!” I practically yelled, over the commotion.
I was standing in the hallway, and a bunch of rowdy ski team boys were psyching themselves up for this afternoon’s meet. You wouldn’t think cross-country skiers would get so wild, but they were jumping up and batting at a banner for Parents’ Night. Which was one more thing I needed to talk to my mom about.
I plugged the ear not attached to my phone and listened to my mother crabbing about not being able to hear me. “… and that boyfriend of yours is a mess. Simon’s completely fed up with him, and I don’t blame him.”
“That’s not why I called,” I lied. Actually, I’d hoped she’d tell me that he was there, and okay. At least, as okay as he got these days. “But, um … is he there right now?”
“What? No, he’s not here. I thought he was with you. Wait, your father’s talking. He says Bennett was here. But he’s gone again. I’m not sure how he’s supposed to be protecting you or Simon when he’s—”
“Parents’ Night is in a few weeks,” I interrupted, as the ski boys started shouting some cross-country fight song. They took this way too seriously.
“What? I can barely hear you. Parents’ Night?”
“Yeah, are you coming?”
“Do you need a permission slip?” she asked.
“It’s Parents’ Night!”
“Honestly, Emma,” she said, a little exasperated, “I can’t hear a word you’re saying. Call us later. We love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I considered calling Simon, but needed to get to class, so I texted him on the way. Pls help B. I beg u.
…
I cut through the main hall on my way to Western Civ. The two-story room was always crowded between classes, and while enormous medieval tapestries hung on the wall, they did nothing to muffle the voices echoing off the marble floors and the sweeping stairway.
Halfway across, I saw Lukas chatting with a cute girl I didn’t know, probably a senior. They were sitting on a couch across from the big stone hearth, half hidden by the huge centerpiece of silk flowers on the coffee table.
I said “hey” as I passed, hurrying to class, then saw Natalie stalking closer. I knew that look all too well—she was about to make a scene.
I called her name, but she ignored me and stomped toward Lukas. She gave the girl an evil look, then crawled into Lukas’s lap and began kissing him. It was a bold move, even for Natalie, and Lukas wasn’t into it. He stood, Natalie still in his arms, and set her down on her feet.
Her eyes narrowed, and I lost sight of them in the crowd. But then Sara stepped out from under the staircase, where she’d been talking to one of her parasophomours. “Bastard,” she said.
“Whats-his-name?” I nodded at the parasophomour’s retreating back.
“No, Lukas. How could he treat Natalie like that?”
I watched Sara’s face. She was so pretty and rich and popular that I still never quite believed how nice she was. “I’ll never understand you,” I said.
“What? Why?”
“Because I know you like him. A normal person would be happy things weren’t perfect between them.” I remembered how she’d made me pretty for my first date with Coby. She could’ve sabotaged me, but she hadn’t. “You never operate out of jealousy.”
“Emma, look around. Thatcher is a hotbed of hot boys. What’s there to be jealous about? It’s high school—nobody hooks up forever.”
That thought stayed with me the rest of the day. Was I a freak for thinking I’d love Bennett forever? Yeah, we’d broken up, but I still loved him. We weren’t over, not even close. But was it our shared determination to kill Neos that kept us together? Would we still want each other if we survived the fight?
I couldn’t help thinking Sara was right; we were so young. It was naive to think that Bennett was the only guy I’d ever love. And yet I did.
“Whoa, Kylee, where’d you learn that?”
Kylee was ninety pounds soaking wet, yet she regularly kicked my butt in fencing. I could fight, but I couldn’t fence. It just didn’t come naturally to me.
Today, for some reason, Kylee was fighting like me. She’d loosened her form and attacked aggressively, with the same brutal edge that the Rake had beaten into me. It wasn’t like Kylee at all. She normally executed her thrusts with composed grace. This was sloppier, yet more powerful.
Even after she disarmed me, I suppressed the urge to respond in kind; I didn’t want to hurt her. She was good, but I was better.
Kylee grunted as I retrieved my foil, not bothering to answer my question.
I got back into position. “En guard.”
She came at me with a cross-cut. I blocked her, but didn’t return the attack, waiting for Coach to realize that someone else was fighting dirty for once.
Coach didn’t seem to notice, but the ghost jocks really enjoyed themselves. They shimmered into existence the moment Kylee disarmed me the first time, and my spine tingled even more than usual from their ghostly presence.
Cat fight, Moorehead said, from his perch in the bleachers. Bet you Emma gets knocked on her butt.
How much? Craven asked. He was lying backward on the bench, his head lower than his feet, examining me upside down.
Ten minutes alone in the girls’ locker, Moorehead answered.
Done!
Yeesh. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that they were haunting the girls’ locker room. I scowled at them as I deflected a fleché. Why don’t you bet about whether I’m going to compel you to flip off the bleachers and land on your butts?
They were unimpressed, even though they knew I could do it. I fended off Kylee’s renewed attack, retreating across the mat, and waited for a return insult.
Instead, Craven said, Something’s wrong.
The two of them drifted through the bleachers and landed on the floor of the gym. There’s another ghost here, Moorehead said, serious for once. Maybe a wraith. One of his.
Neos. I dropped my guard slightly as I summoned my power, and Kylee shed all pretence of fencing and came at me in a vicious assault. I deflected one attack after another as Kylee chuckled. Only … the chuckle sounded like a man. And it hadn’t come from Kylee’s mouth. Her face was covered with a mask, but the laugh had definitely been male. She was possessed.
I switched my grip on my foil and summoned my power. There’s only one way this can end, I told the ghost inside her.
Yes, he said. But you don’t know what it is.
Leave her!
I only obey Neos. Kylee slashed at me and I let the blow land—a stinging pain like a whip—and caught her wrist.
You’ll obey me, I snarled, and compelled the ghost from her body like shucking a slug off a stem.
Kylee fainted to the mat and a ghost stood in her place, tall and muscular and hard-faced. I came for the ring around your neck.
Tell Neos to buy his own jewelry, I said, shooting him with dispelling energy flashing from my fingertips.
The ghost didn’t flinch. Neos will reward me in— he started, then faded into an oil slick on the gym floor.
For a moment, it felt like the whole world was silent.
“Emma!” Coach shouted, running toward us. “What did you do to Kylee?”
“I—I—”
“She fainted,” Natalie called from across the room. “I was watching. Kylee just fainted.”
Coach eyed me suspiciously as Kylee started rousing, then sent one of the girls for the nurse and told me she considered this my fault. I was irresponsible and inconsiderate. I didn’t have the style for fencing, and I didn’t have the sense not to bully poor little Kylee. She told me to expect an “incomplete” as my grade, because she wouldn’t let me fence again this year. Then she sent me to the locker room to change.
I shuffled out of the gym, worrying about Kylee, and who Neos would send next to retrieve my ring. I felt a ghostly tinge nearby and wanted to lash out at Craven and Moorehead, but didn’t have the energy.
I sat on a bench staring at my locker, and a couple of girls I didn’t recognize came in for the next class. I ignored them, lost in my own sulky thoughts, and suddenly the world tilted and I wasn’t looking at the locker anymore.
I was looking at the underside of the bench.
Lying on my back on the floor, my head throbbing in pain, a puddle of water soaking through my shirt.
Above me, a girl said, “Oh, did she fall?” But there was a ghostly echo in my mind—I heard a ghost speaking at the same time: Grab the ring.
A fist closed on my hair and yanked my head, and another hand grabbed my necklace and pulled. The chain snapped. My ring—Emma’s ring—rolled across the tile floor. One of the girls, who I now knew were possessed, snatched it, and spoke to the other. Does Neos want her dead? Or does he have other plans for her?
He wants the ring to help him claim her. Now that he has the ring, he’ll—
Then I heard a new voice. Hey, girls, you looking for the showers? Craven asked.
The sound of fighting and swearing echoed in the locker room as I faded away.
When I returned to consciousness, I was still on the floor, still looking at the bottom of the bench. Except now Craven was sitting there, his face even paler than usual.
I moaned and sat up. “What happened?”
Isn’t it obvious? They bashed you on the head and stole your ring. Craven looked toward the corner. We fought them off, but he’s hurt pretty bad.
I followed his gaze to the corner, where Moorehead was curled in a ball, slowly unraveling.
He’s … he’s fading, Craven said. I’m going to be alone. For once, his tone wasn’t filled with sarcasm. He was really worried.
I stood unsteadily, then almost fell as pain burst in my head and my knees wobbled. I dropped beside Moorehead and said, Do you want to stay?
I do, Moorehead told me feebly. But I can’t.
I blinked away tears of pain, willing myself to not think about losing the ring—not yet. Instead, I focused on trying to save Moorehead. I thought if I could summon him, maybe it would lodge his ghost more solidly in this world. My stomach churned as summoning power surged through me. The blow to my head was still making me woozy, and I couldn’t get a grip on Moorehead. Instead of helping him, he seemed to be fading further.
I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I can’t— And then it hit me. What about the principle of reflexivity Simon had been talking about? Could I use my dispelling power to heal Moorehead?
I glanced at Moorehead. Okay. I’m not sure this is going to work. But it was better than doing nothing, than watching him fade into nothing. I gathered a line of dispelling energy, then twisted it in my mind, so that instead of hurting him, it would heal. If this didn’t work, I was out of options, so despite feeling like I might pass out again, I poured power into him. For a moment, nothing happened. Then he grew firmer, more coherent, his spectral self reknitting.
“It worked!” I said aloud. Simon had been right. All our powers worked in both directions.
Craven slumped in relief. Much better. We owe you.
You fought those ghosts for me.
Because this is the girls’ locker room, Moorehead explained, gesturing widely. The inner sanctum.
The holy of holies, Craven intoned. We don’t let just anyone in here. Besides, we couldn’t stop them. We tried to keep them from getting your ring, but they were too strong.
Still, I told them, you tried. And you probably saved my life.
Well, you saved his death, Craven said.
I tried to smile, but couldn’t manage more than a pained grin. Not only because my head hurt, but I’d lost the ring. Neos had wanted one thing, and now he had it.
“The possessed girls hit you with a field hockey stick?” Mrs. Stern asked. “Did you see the nurse?”
It was an hour after school, and I was sitting around the breakfast nook with Mrs. Stern, Lukas, and Natalie. Mr. Stern paced the floor, occasionally stepping through Anatole or Celeste, who kept the table stocked with tea and cookies.
I’d just told them what happened at fencing class, that Neos had used the ghost possessing Kylee to manipulate me into the locker room alone; then the other possessed girls had attacked, and I’d lost the ring.
“I made her go to the nurse,” Natalie answered. “She said Emma’s okay.”
“I am,” I said, rubbing my head. “No concussion, just a goose egg.”
“Coach thought she was faking, for attention.”
“Coach hates me.”
“I’ll have a word with her,” Mr. Stern said, a hint of his son’s protectiveness in his eyes.
“That’s hardly the issue,” Mrs. Stern said. “We’ve lost the ring. So not only does Neos have this new advantage over us, but Emma can’t search Thatcher for his ashes as a ghost.”
“Are we even sure why he wanted the ring?” Lukas asked.
I fiddled with the sugar cookie on my plate. “I think I’m part of his plan. The ghosts said something about him claiming me.”
“He intends to possess you,” Mrs. Stern said. “To use the body of the most powerful ghostkeeper as his own. We suspected that much already.”
I thought about the snaky ghost visions again. What if he’d already started, and the visions were part of that? It made me wonder if I could trust myself.
“We can still search the school,” Natalie said. “Just not with Emma as a ghost.”
“So far, everything we’ve done has played into Neos’s hands.” Mrs. Stern paused to sip her tea. “For once I’d like to be a step ahead of him.”
Mr. Stern stopped pacing. “And Simon expects him to attack soon.”
“Natalie, did you feel the ghosts at school today, in your fencing class?” Mrs. Stern asked. “Why didn’t you help Emma?”
Natalie looked stricken. “Me?”
“You are a ghostkeeper.”
“Okay.” I set my half-eaten cookie aside. “She gets the point. Stop picking on her.”
“I’m not picking on her, Emma. I’m trying to assess our strength. How much weaker are you?” she asked Natalie. “Since you and Lukas started … seeing each other?”
“I’m not sure. A little?” Natalie said, miserably. I noticed she didn’t look at Lukas.
“This isn’t her fault,” I said. “I’m the one who let them take the ring.” I downed the rest of my tea. “The only thing that matters is finding those ashes. Without them, we’ve got nothing.”
12
Despite being in an ongoing battle with Neos, I still had school and homework. It would be nice if I could claim a ghost ate my homework, but I doubt un-cute Mr. Jon
es would believe me. So after dinner, I spent a couple hours catching up and finished my Zorba paper. Then I knocked on Natalie’s bedroom door. She didn’t answer. I knew Lukas was downstairs eating his second dinner, so I pushed open the door, presuming I wasn’t interrupting anything.
Natalie was buried under the covers, her laptop open beside her. “Go away.”
“No.” I sat beside her. “I know you want to talk.”
“I do not,” she said.
“Yes, you do. I can tell.”
“You’re interfering with my celebrity gossip. How am I supposed to survive without knowing what they’re wearing to the Golden Globes?”
I was momentarily distracted by the photos on her screen. “Wouldn’t it be awesome to have an excuse to dress up like that?”
“There’s prom next year,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess.” Though I had no idea where I’d be going to school next year, or if I’d even want to go to prom. I stared at her until she flipped her computer closed.
“Fine,” she said.
“What’s going on with you and Lukas?”
“You mean today in the main hall?”
“No, I mean the whole thing. You and Lukas together. You haven’t told me anything.”
She licked her lips. “I know. I didn’t know what to say to you. I thought you’d disapprove. I’m scared. That’s what’s going on.”
“Because you like him more than he likes you?”
“Oh, he likes me,” she said, sounding like herself again. “He definitely likes me.”
“Then what are you afraid of? Losing your powers?”
She didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “Ever since that last battle with Neos, with all those ghasts and wraiths, the siren trying to drown me, I’ve—I kind of lost my nerve. You don’t know what it’s like; you’re Emma Vaile, Warrior Queen of the Dear Departed. You think I’m all brave, but I’m not.”
“You’re scared of ghosts?” I was astounded. This was like my ex– best friend Abby all over again. “You don’t want to see them anymore?”
