by Lee Nichols
People eyed us suspiciously, and I felt a shiver of fear at the thought of Neos inside one of those bodies. What would I do if they all jumped us at once?
“There’s no way you saw Matt Damon,” Harry said, even louder than before, trying to cover his mistake. “His kids aren’t old enough for high school.”
“I said he looked like Matt Damon.”
Harry shot me a superior look. “Remember that time you thought you saw Lady Gaga, but it was only a large poodle?”
I mumbled something in reply, trying to watch the crowd and summon my powers without attracting too much notice. The possessed people stopped paying attention to us, but how long could that last? They must know who I was. What were they waiting for?
It didn’t matter. I needed to find the ashes. I felt them nearby, but the ghostly auras of the possessed people interfered with my ability to pinpoint them. Maybe that was why Neos wanted them possessed.
I looked at the tapestries, the furniture, the hearth—and saw Coby, solidifying in the air behind Harry and Sara. The other ghosts didn’t seem to notice him—just one more ghost in the crowd—but he must’ve been worried that if he talked to me he’d attract attention, because he just hovered over them, his face grave and eyes urgent.
I got the message. I needed to get rid of Harry and Sara before they were possessed, too.
“It’s almost time for my presentation,” I said brightly. “Meet me in the classroom?”
“Math?” Harry asked, apparently still thinking I was trying to pretend everything was all right, instead of trying to get them out of there. “I want a cookie first.”
“Harry,” Sara said, through clenched teeth. “Let’s go.”
She’d always seemed sensitive to ghosts, especially Coby, and she hooked her arm through Harry’s and started dragging him through the crowd.
Which was growing quieter and quieter as more people were possessed. A moment ago, a quarter of them—now, half. The dean stood slouching and sneering near the fire, a wineglass forgotten in her hand. Mr. Jones swayed in place, his eyes blank, licking his lips as two junior girls nattered at him, totally clueless.
I circled through the quieting crowd, tracking the ashes like a bloodhound after a scent. I felt the murderous attention of the people in the room on the back of my neck, and prayed that as long as I pretended I didn’t know they were possessed, they wouldn’t attack.
But what if they did? How was I supposed to beat back a mob? I’d only be able to dispel a few before the rest of them swarmed me. Even if I had my dagger, I wouldn’t have been willing to hurt any of these people. They weren’t my enemies; they were Neos’s victims.
I swallowed nervously, willing myself to continue. But as we passed the room’s massive fireplace, a bed of ashes and burning embers began to stir in the grate. A spectral breeze swirled as a figure took shape.
Rachel materialized in the air and looked directly at me. You’re too late, Emma. He has your ring. He has the ashes.
Where are they? I asked her. Rachel, please help me! You’re my only hope.
The mad Ophelia expression on her face was even more pronounced than ever. Any sanity she’d shown when she’d appeared to me before was gone. I’m sorry, Emma. He’s the only one who can save me from eternal unrest. I know he’s …
Evil, I said. Is that the word you’re looking for?
I love him, she said fiercely. No matter what he’s become.
He can’t save you, he can’t—
He already has. Love is my afterlife, Emma. She beamed madly at me.
You’re losing your mind, Rachel. Listen to yourself. Look what you’re doing—look what you’ve done. Neos isn’t the only one who can save you. Tell me where the ashes are, and I’ll help you. I’ll end your suffering. I can do that, Rachel; I can put you to rest.
You mean kill me. Her eyes flashed with sudden menace. He told me not to trust you. That you were just like your mother.
I drew on my compelling powers—I’d make her tell me where the ashes were. I’m sorry, Rachel, but—
Hands grabbed me from behind. The dean and a visiting father grabbed my left hand and Mr. Z and some senior kid grabbed my right, while someone’s mother held me tight around the neck.
Rachel drifted toward the table in front of the hearth. With a sweep of her arm, she sent three arrangements of cut flowers crashing to the floor, leaving only the silk flower centerpiece. They’re right here, Emma, hidden in plain sight. She yanked the artificial flowers from the pot, and pulled a plain cardboard box from beneath.
She raised the box of ashes and opened her mouth as if to call for Neos—and then everything happened at once.
I released a blast of dispelling energy—not just from my hands but from my whole body—that coiled into the ghosts inside the people holding me and reduced them to dust. But before I had a chance to focus on Rachel, more hands grabbed me as the crowd of possessed people surged forward in waves.
At the same time, Harry hopped the couch, snatched the box from Rachel’s hand, and shouted, “Dude, you have no ashes.”
I had to admire Harry’s bravery, thinking he was taunting Neos, given all he’d seen was a cardboard box hanging in midair. When he raced toward the door, the ghosts shrieked and surged, terrified of losing the ashes. They grabbed and tore at me; I summoned and dispelled them until one of my bio lab partners socked me in the face.
I went down hard, but still managed to summon the ghost from the kid’s body. It was a leather-clad biker with a shaved head, who apparently hadn’t worn his helmet, because his skull was cracked on one side. If I’d met him on a dark street after midnight, I might have been scared, but now I just zapped him with a bolt of dispelling energy and watched him crumble.
Harry sped for the exit, galloping like a gawky colt. He didn’t get far before a ghost slammed into him. Not a possessed person, a disembodied ghost. The box of cardboard sailed through the air, and Harry stumbled, then stiffened. He turned toward me as the ghost filtered into his body, and an alien expression rose on his face.
Harry was possessed.
I cried out as my gaze followed the box through the air, and for a moment I felt a flash of hope. There! Sara was right in its path. But in the same moment that she caught the box, I realized she’d been possessed, too.
The ghosts recognized one of their own, and stopped worrying about the ashes. Instead, they just worried about me. As they marched toward me, I summoned a Depression-era-looking guy from Mr. Jones, a pilgrim woman from a freshman boy, and a hippie wearing serious bell-bottoms and an orange suede vest from someone’s mom and melted them all into oily grease marks on the carpet. Thatcher’s orientals would never be the same.
But they were about to overwhelm me.
As fast as I was, I couldn’t dispel them all, not before they buried me beneath a mound of hitting, kicking, biting bodies.
Except they didn’t. One of them punched my mouth and I stumbled backward, seeing stars—then the rest of them began screeching again and turned toward Sara.
She was cradling the box of ashes under one arm like a football and racing toward the side door. I couldn’t understand—she was clearly possessed, but trying to get the ashes away from Rachel.
Three possessed students lunged at her, and despite her dress and heels, she did this fake-left-lunge-right thing that left them on the ground. One of the possessed janitors loomed in front of her, and she slammed into him with her shoulder, sending him sprawling, and kept running. She scrambled to the door and seemed to spin in place, then threw the box of ashes in a perfect spiral that ended, almost magically, in my arms.
That’s when I realized—she was possessed by Coby!
I dodged the grasping hands, crawled under the buffet table, and stood up to break for the staircase when Harry loomed in front of me. I summoned a guy who looked like an extra on Mad Men from his body and dispelled him without a thought.
Harry swooned and almost fainted before draping one arm around me.
“Wha—?” he said.
“We’re running away,” I told him, and dragged him toward the door.
I wouldn’t have made it if Craven and Moorehead hadn’t appeared from nowhere.
Barfight! Craven called.
Cowabunga! Moorehead said.
I could always count on them for team spirit as they leaped into the melee, hurling themselves at the pursuing ghosts. And so did—
Edmund? I gasped.
He’d wrapped his arms around Coach’s muscular legs, catching the ghost inside her, his brown suit crazily disarranged. Stop dilly-dallying! he told me. Get moving!
Good advice. Except with Harry leaning on me and the ashes in one hand, I couldn’t really fight—and there were just as many possessed people as ever. Every time I dispelled one ghost, another took its place. I summoned and blasted them, and a minute later, another slipped into the same body. I couldn’t stop the ghosts without hurting the people they were inside—and that was one line Neos would never make me cross.
Still, I summoned and dispelled and sidled toward the staircase, with Moorehead, Craven, and a bedraggled Edmund—and now Sara—beside me. I kept thinking that maybe Natalie and Lukas and the others would appear, but they didn’t. Either they were still fighting the wraiths … or they’d lost.
We started retreating upstairs, but the onslaught was too much. Craven was getting pummeled by a goth chick—which, if I survived this, I’d never let him forget—and Edmund was repeatedly hitting a banker-looking dad in the fist with his stomach.
Sara gasped, “Get those ashes away, Emma. We’ll keep them here for as long as we can.”
“Which of you is that?” I asked. “Is Coby still inside you?”
“It’s both of us,” she said, tossing the goth chick over the stair railing. “Now go!”
“No way. I’m not leaving without—”
“We’re here!” Simon yelled, bursting through the front door. His long camel-hair coat swung with action and his glasses glinted in the light of the chandelier. For once he looked pretty powerful, as he dispelled three ghosts with rapid-fire blasts.
“Simon!” I cried out.
“What took you so long?” Harry grumbled, leaning against the banister and pulling himself upstairs.
“Traffic was a bitch,” Simon quipped, then zapped another ghost.
For the first time all night, I smiled. Good to have him back—and to see my parents hustling in behind him. Simon hammered the ghosts from behind, and after I handed Sara/Coby the ashes, I helped from the base of the stairs.
My dad started pummeling a chubby, mutton-chopped ghost with his fists.
“What are those?” I asked, glancing at the thick, quilted gloves that were protecting his hands from ghostbite.
“A little idea I cooked up,” he said. “Barbecue mitts. Nothing can eat through these babies.” He looked like some weathered old cop as he punched another ghost in the mouth.
Now him, I like, I heard Moorehead say.
They don’t make ’em like that anymore, Craven agreed.
“Mom!” I called. “Watch out!”
She couldn’t even see the ghosts, but apparently she’d come prepared to deal with possessed people. She spun and squirted pepper spray in a student’s eyes. Then, clearly impressed by the results, she squirted an arc in front of her, until she joined us on the stairs.
“Where’s Bennett?” I asked.
“Who knows?” Simon told me. “I left him a dozen messages.”
“Um, honey?” My father glanced at the possessed people massing below, then at me. “Is there a plan?”
I looked upstairs and saw Harry at the double doors leading into the hallway. “Yeah. Run.”
17
We got through the doors and my dad and mom slammed them shut while Simon and I kept the approaching mob at bay with bursts of dispelling power. Harry, still barely conscious, shoved the doorstop into place, but ghosts shot directly through the doors, from every era and in every costume.
Then the pounding began. The possessed people on the other side slammed into the doors, which creaked and groaned.
“I’m afraid that won’t keep them back for long,” Simon said.
And I’m not kidding, my mom said, “Ya think?”
Simon flushed, and my dad draped Harry’s arm across his shoulder and we rushed down the hallway, away from the shuddering doors. We were a motley group of ghosts and the living. My dad supported Harry, and my mother stepped right through Edmund without noticing; Coby, now out of Sara, directed the ghost jocks, and Sara stuck close to Simon.
Neos is here, Edmund told me.
Obviously, I said, pausing to dispel two ghosts that were following us.
How are you going to stop him? he asked, his face concerned.
Edmund, I didn’t know you cared.
It’s not something to joke about, Emma.
I’m not sure, okay? I’m going to stop him, that’s all. I don’t know how.
We rounded the corner and stopped short when we saw them: a pack of seniors, all boys, all possessed, all dressed in pastel cashmere sweaters and skinny jeans. They looked like some preppy gang, as though we were in the ghost-world version of West Side Story.
They spread out, covering the width of the hallway as they stalked forward. I knew Simon and I could take them, but I wasn’t so sure we could protect the non-ghostkeepers. Especially when I heard the sound of the locked doors splintering and crashing open behind us, then the footsteps of the possessed mob.
I needed a place to hide Harry and Sara and my parents until this was over. The auditorium or the teacher’s lounge or—there! A custodian’s closet across the hall.
I tried the knob. Locked.
I’m on it, Coby said, and put his hand into the door and fiddled around until I heard a click.
I smiled at him; he always knew what I was thinking. But I’d lowered my guard for one moment too long, and as the possessed preppies approached from the front, the ghost of what looked like a wholesome farm boy—except for the vicious grin—rose from the floor and lunged at Harry.
My dad swung at him, but the ghost caught his arm and slammed him into the wall, then dove at Harry again. But Edmund jumped in front of Harry and took the full brunt of the farm boy’s attack.
I left the pastel posse for Simon as I tried to help Edmund. He and the farm boy were rolling around, fists flying like a cartoon fight, and I couldn’t get a lock on the farm boy.
“Emma!” Simon called. “A little help?”
I glanced over and found him almost lost in the pastel onslaught. I compelled the possessed boys away, to give Simon time to dispel them, and when I looked back, the farm boy was using Edmund as a shield against me.
Caught in the farm boy’s grip, Edmund fixed me with his eyes. It’s time. Dispel us both. Do as you promised.
He was right. It was time. I’ll miss you, I told him, and fired a quick burst of dispelling energy.
As he and the farm boy faded into dust, Edmund’s voice rang in my head. I always thought you were rather marvelous, Emma Vaile. Live well.
Simon finished off the other ghosts, leaving a bunch of semiconscious pastel seniors in a heap on the floor, and I stood staring at the empty hallway where Edmund should’ve been. The man in the brown suit was gone.
“Thank you, Edmund,” I said to his dust. “For everything.”
“What’s going on?” Harry asked from where he lay in a heap on the floor.
“You’re going in the closet.” I turned to my parents. “You, too. Everyone who can’t fight.”
Sara gave Simon the ashes, then led Harry into the closet. My dad said, “I can fight,” then staggered a step, still dizzy from the farm boy’s attack. “Oh.”
My mother took his hand. “Emma’s right, Nathan. We’d just be in the way.”
“Hey,” I told them. “At least you got here.”
As I closed the door, I said to Coby, You and the boys stay here and watch over them. I can’t keep goi
ng if I don’t know they’re safe.
You stay. I’m going with her, Coby told Moorehead and Craven.
Oh no, Craven said, mock-regretfully. We can’t fight Neos and his wraiths? We were so looking forward to that.
The door opened a crack, and a groggy Harry peered into the hallway. “We should come with you, we can—”
“Namaste, Harry,” I said, slamming and locking the door. “Nama-stay!”
The pounding footsteps of the mob sounded closer, and then the first of them skidded around the corner. Simon peppered them with dispelling energy, and I loosed a blast, but they didn’t slow. Three people just collapsed, and the rest of the mob stampeded over them.
“That’s bad,” Simon said. “They could kill them.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know—”
We need to lead them away from the closet, Coby interrupted. Time to run.
I tried compelling the mob, sending power over my shoulder, as I led Coby and Simon in a mad dash back toward the main hall.
Along the way, we battled ghosts, possessed people, and wraiths, but we got there. And then we saw them. Max, Mrs. and Mr. Stern, Lukas, Natalie, and her mom.
A wave of relief washed over me, and I ran toward them. “Hey!”
But when we got close, they turned, and I saw they were bruised and bleeding, their hair crazy and their clothes ripped. And their eyes were wrong.
Possessed. All of them.
Before I could react, Mrs. Stern slugged me in the stomach, and I gasped and folded as Lukas kicked my legs out from under me and Natalie punched me in the ear. I hit the ground hard, and barely saw Natalie’s mom knee Simon before Max took him in a headlock and punched him in the face.
These were my best friends. The people I trusted most. The people who knew me best, and who loved me anyway. And they’d been turned into Neos’s puppets. He could do nothing to hurt me more.
Coby dove to rescue me, but a dozen ghostly hands reached from under the floor and grabbed him, trapping and pummeling him.
I lay on the floor, trying to figure out what to do. I felt abandoned and alone and weak, like we’d already failed.
