This is a work of fiction; characters, names, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or if real, are used fictitiously. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Text copyright © 2014 by Michele Tolley. All right reserved, including the rights to distribute, transmit, reproduce in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Author.
Cover photography ©2013 Sweet Expressions Photography
Cover Design Alma Tait
Text font Georgia
First Edition February 2014
This book is dedicated to my two wonderful children,
who fill each day with love and magic.
I love you, Thing One and Thing Two!
Chapter 1
São Paulo, Brazil
The bustling sidewalk of São Paulo’s congested Avenida Paulista was hardly the ideal setting to have my Waker senses flare, but I had no choice in the matter. The familiar arctic chill slammed into me, causing goose bumps to pebble along my skin and the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end, all the usual signs of a spirit’s presence.
After stepping out of the flow of traffic, I paused and searched the crowd carefully for the ghost. My heart dropped at the sight of the spectral little girl with worn flip-flops and curly dark hair, studying me with her sad brown eyes.
Most people would have been terrified to see a ghost—even an adorable little girl like this one—but ghosts were a regular part of everyday life for me and most of the women in my family. We are called Wakers, Acorderas in Portuguese. My Vovó, my grandmother, had been sharing her Waker stories with me since my childhood, preparing me for my destiny.
I whistled to catch Vovó’s attention and she turned in my direction, immediately seeing the little girl. Vovó shifted her basket of herbs to her hip and smiled at the ghost. That same smile had helped hundreds of spirits.
Trusting Vovó to wrap this up fast, I glanced at my watch and cringed. I had to be at work in half an hour and it took at least twenty minutes to get back to Vovó’s from here. Hopefully, Grandma wouldn’t have any issues helping this little one into the light. I’d be in trouble if I were late again.
A weird itchy feeling traveled up my legs and arms. I absently rubbed at it and noticed the ghost shifting nervously, edging away from us. Only then did I realize Vovó hadn’t spoken. Strange. Vovó didn’t usually waste time.
Instead of launching into her traditional spiel, Vovó slowly settled down onto the low, crumbling cement wall, sweat beading on her forehead. She caught my eye and smiled, but it was tense and without the normal sparkle in her eyes.
“Can you help her, Yara? Estou cansada.”
She’d been tired more often lately. Even though the battle with Crosby had been almost three years ago, Vovó had never been the same. She had pushed her abilities further that night than I’d ever seen before or since. Though she wasn’t weak by any means, that night had aged her. Vovó had always seemed invincible to me. Her vulnerability frightened me more than Crosby or Sophia ever had.
“Sim, Vovó, I can do it.” I’d spoken with many ghosts over the last few years, but most had been adults. Sometimes there were teenagers, but rarely did I see ghosts younger than that. I was grateful. Children were the hardest for me to deal with. Not only did their deaths seem more tragic, but also they were harder to get through to.
The mix of humidity and the ghost-induced chill settled into my bones, making it feel more like a brisk wintry day than a warm fall Brazilian afternoon.
It could be worse, I told myself. I could be cold and wet. It had happened many times before. Ghosts didn’t stop needing help during the rainy season. Vovó had a post-office-like mantra: no inconvenient weather could stand in the way of a Waker assisting the spirit world. Thankfully, the wetter days of March had given way to April’s dryer season.
I swallowed my worry as I carefully approached the little girl and crouched down in front of her. Moments like these still felt like a test, a time for Vovó to judge and see how far I’d progressed. My hands twisted together.
“My name is Yara. Are you lost?”
Her eyes widened and she smiled, showing a mouthful of baby teeth. “Pode me ver?”
“Yes, I can see you.” I smiled at her and answered in Portuguese. “My grandma can see you too. Can we help you?”
The little girl’s bottom lip trembled. “I can’t find my mom and dad.”
No wonder the poor thing was scared. “What’s your name?” I asked, reaching out toward the girl.
She took a step back. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”
“That’s a very good rule to follow.” I pulled out my phone and showed it to her. “We just need to know your name and your parent’s names so we can find them.”
She hesitated, her eyes flickering between me and my phone before answering. “Ana.”
“Okay, Ana.” At least she was willing to tell me that much. “Do you know your last name?”
Her lip quivered again. “Santos.”
A quick search for Ana Santos turned up a disheartening number of results. I needed to narrow down the search parameters. “What about your mom and dad? Do you know their names?”
“Silvia and Tony.”
“Those are beautiful names,” I told her as I typed the information into the search engine. While the search ran, I wondered what Wakers did before the Internet. It must have taken them days of mind-numbing research and painstaking footwork to figure out who some of these ghosts were, especially the young ones.
A couple of promising links popped up. I clicked on the first one and my eyes welled up with tears as I skimmed through it. Her whole family had died in a car accident a few days ago. Right here. Sure enough, pieces of taillights littered the ground in front of the wall where Vovó sat. The wall itself was cracked and missing chunks of stone and rust colored streaks stained the pavement from me to the wall
I suddenly felt sick to my stomach.
I scooted back a foot so my feet didn’t touch what I guessed was blood. This was and would always be my life. Constantly surrounded by death, witnessing first hand the fragility of life and the inevitability of death. Without realizing it, I slipped my hand into my pocket and fingered the obituary I kept there.
I forced myself away from the dark path my thoughts were starting to tread and focused instead on Ana. Since Ana was here, her parents might also be trapped. If so, I could reunite the family and they could go into the light together. Standing up, I looked at Vovó.
“Her parents died in the accident. Do you think they’re in the light or—”
“Yara!” Vovó’s voice cracked across the space between us like a whip. I jumped. She never snapped at me.
“What?”
She put her hand over her eyes and muttered something in Portuguese I couldn’t make out. “You frightened her away.”
My eyes darted to where I had last seen Ana. She was gone. I closed my eyes and reached out my Waker senses, trying to search for her presence, but the air was warm, my goose bumps diminishing. Vovó was right; I’d scared her off. And she probably wouldn’t be back until after I left.
Sliding my hands into my pockets, I sighed and walked over to where Vovó sat. “Sorry.”
Vovó’s expression didn’t soften in the least. If anything, her lips grew thinner. “You have been here with me for three years. A crossing for that little girl should have gone like this,” she said, snapping her fingers at me.
&nb
sp; I hated it when she criticized, especially when her accusations were justified. Sighing and preparing myself for her constructive criticism I asked, “What did I do wrong?”
Vovó shook her head as she listed my mistakes. “You talked to me about Ana like she wasn’t here. Then, without lowering your voice so only I could hear, you announced her parents were dead—a fact she obviously didn’t know and wasn’t prepared to face. Now she thinks her parents are dead, but doesn’t know she is also. She’s out there alone and terrified.”
Hanging my head, I collapsed next to her on the wall and hunched my shoulders. When she pointed them out to me, my mistakes were so glaring that I couldn’t believe I made them. How many times had I been told that young spirits who hadn’t crossed usually didn’t know they’d died?
She wiped her forehead again. “I still have so much to teach you, but how can I move on to new things when you keep forgetting what you’ve already been taught?”
Her words hit me like a slap across the face. I wanted to argue but she’d spoken the truth. Embracing my Waker legacy and learning to wield that ability were two separate things. As Vovó constantly reminded me, natural abilities needed to be honed. Be it artists, athletes or Wakers, it took hundreds—if not thousands—of hours of practice to master the craft.
I’d fought against it in my pre-teen years when I realized it would make me stand out as the weird kid. In my junior year of high school, I grudgingly accepted my abilities after my experiences at a cursed and haunted boarding school made my gift impossible to ignore. I’d spent the three years since graduating high school studying and developing my Waker talents under the tutelage of Vovó and my other family members in Brazil. Sadly, all that training didn’t automatically translate into being perfect at it—or even particularly good at it.
I’d spent every day since coming to Brazil learning how to help ghosts cross over in addition to homework, tests, and clinical hours for my holistic medicine degree. Combine that with the volumes of herbal lore Vovó and my great-aunts expected me to memorize, and the fact my brain hadn’t imploded could be called a miracle. But all of that time preparing didn’t matter if I couldn’t help the spirits.
And I wanted to help ghosts. Most of them were lost and only wanted to find their way into the afterlife. Without me they might never make it into the light. What I did mattered. But every time I failed, doubt spiraled through me and it wasn’t easy to shake off. Would I ever be as skilled as Vovó? Or had I thrown away my dreams of being a journalist for nothing? At moments like these, I really didn’t know.
Even while smiling for my patients at the holistic clinic, my somber thoughts lingered. After clocking out, I came home and curled into my desk chair.
Alone in my room, I pulled the obituary out of my pocket. I always carried it with me, since the day it had arrived in the mail. Something must have spilled on the envelope during transit because most of the words announcing the death had been blurred beyond recognition. The young face still stood out clearly though.
Amy’s bright smile reminded me of the girl I’d known in childhood rather than the young woman I’d seen my senior year. The teen I’d met then had been weathered and almost feeble, skin hanging off her skeletal frame. I would’ve assumed she’d died of an accidental overdose if not for the note attached to the second press release I’d found inside the water damaged envelope.
That one I could read. It announced Mr. Crosby’s campaign for senator. A large black X covered Crosby’s face, and a sticky note adhered to the newsprint with handwriting I recognized. It too had suffered water damage, but the permanent ink was clearly legible.
It’s his fault. I will make him pay.
I instantly recognized DJ’s messy scrawl. It hadn’t changed since he’d written a warning on the back of some surveillance photos of my boyfriend Brent and I. DJ blamed the Clutch for his sister’s death, especially their leader, Crosby.
During our years in Brazil, Brent and I tried to pretend Crosby hadn’t escaped, that Brent wasn’t dying from something that modern medicine, with all it’s wonders, couldn’t treat, let alone cure. The problem was, there wasn’t anything really wrong with his body; it was his soul that had been tainted, and the illness carried over to his physical form. I wondered if he’d waste away and become as frail as Amy had been.
I studied Amy’s image again, my finger sliding across the newsprint photo even though I wanted to crumple the clipping and forget I’d ever seen it. The paper crinkled beneath my gentle touch. Phrases like “too young to die” and “such a shame” bounced through my head. Those sentiments were true, but one emotion ate at the edges of my stomach and made me want to curl up into a ball and cry: guilt. It ate away at my insides like acid every time I looked at Amy’s bright smile.
Could I have saved Amy if I’d stayed to fight Crosby instead of retreating to Brazil to study with Vovó? Maybe. But, when I was being honest with myself, I knew my presence probably wouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t have the kind of power I needed to stand up to Crosby. Not then. I still didn’t. After having failed with Ana this morning, I doubted I’d ever have that strength.
“It wasn’t your fault, Yara.” Vovó placed a warm hand on my shoulder and I turned my cheek into it. I’d been so wrapped up in my thoughts I hadn’t even noticed her coming into my small room.
“I guess. I just thought . . . It’s been three years! Crosby’s still free, and we’re not any closer to finding a cure for Brent! ”
Vovó lowered herself onto the edge of my twin bed and looked at me over the rim of her glasses. “I think we need to approach Brent’s treatment in a new way.”
“What do you mean?”
She glanced toward the locked cabinet above my chest of drawers, where we kept the potion we’d stolen from the Clutch, the only thing keeping Brent alive. It hadn’t cured him, but it kept him going, and gave us time to search for something that would. The medication had become less effective over time, forcing Brent to take more to get the same results.
“We thought we’d have enough for almost a decade.” She leaned forward and took my hand in hers. “With the way his dosage has been increasing, he barely has enough for another year.”
It felt like a rock lodged in my airway. I knew how much medication he burned through every month, but hearing it spoken out loud made it more real. And scarier. Brent had tried to bring it up lately, but I’d refused to talk about it. I couldn’t face it. I still didn’t want to, but now I had to.
“I know.” I forced myself to meet her eyes. “I know. But what else is there to do? We’ve talked to all of the Wakers on both sides of the family: yours, and Grandpa’s.”
There were three original Waker lines: Dias, Azevedo, and Sousa. I was a child of the Sousa line through Vovó and the Dias line through Grandpa Silva. After talking to family on that side, they had directed me to even more Wakers. I’d talked to all of them. “We’ve talked to every Waker we know.”
“No, we haven’t.”
What was she talking about? I ran through the mental list of the Waker families in Brazil. We’d definitely asked all of them for help.
“Yes, we did. We . . .” I trailed off when I understood what she was saying. There was one group of Wakers we’d avoided. Mainly because the last time we’d had contact with them they’d expressed their displeasure with me. “You want me to talk to the American Wakers?”
She nodded.
“But they threatened us.” Sure, they had warned us not to take down the spirit barrier surrounding Pendrell, but we hadn’t had a choice. It was down now and based on the grim note Kalina had given me, they weren’t our biggest fans.
“Yes.” She released my hand and reached inside her apron pocket, pulling out a well-worn envelope. “This came a few weeks ago and I have been deciding what to about it. Then, I had a dream.”
I shivered. Vovó’s prophetic dreams were never about sunshine and rainbows. Gripping the arms of the wooden chair, I asked, “And?”
&n
bsp; “It told me I needed to give this to you. I believe this will help Brent and that we need to work with them.”
With shaking hands, I took the envelope, not sure if I trembled from fear of the American Wakers, or excitement that I might finally be able to help Brent. This letter could change my life. Which was probably why I was so disappointed to find it barely a quarter-page long.
Ilma,
We have the information you are seeking in regards to Mr. Springsteed. We will welcome you back to the United States for a meeting. We share a common enemy.
Rachel
“Welcome us back? Like they could to keep us out.” I laughed. My grandmother didn’t. The lines around her eyes deepened and I glanced back at the letter. We will welcome you back to the United States. “Really? They could do that?”
“Yes. They have powerful connections.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “There are many reasons I have avoided them in the past.”
It seemed like there was a very interesting story behind that statement, but I knew from the look on her face that she didn’t plan to share it. I read the letter again. “They want something from us, don’t they?”
“Of course, but for now that doesn’t matter. I don’t think we should meet them; I think we must.”
Vovó’s gaze was steady and her words rang with certainty, but I wasn’t ready to come running when the American Wakers beckoned us. I sighed, pulling my knees to my chest. Leaning back in the chair, I read the letter again, but it didn’t tell me anything more than it had before.
“But we’re still working on the formula. There are variations we haven’t tried. Plants we haven’t experimented with.”
“Querida.” She held up her hand, stopping me. “It doesn’t matter. Even if we suddenly discovered the secret and could produce as much of the potion as we desire, it is still a short-term treatment. They may have the cure.”
My hands tightened on the slip of paper. ‘Cure’ was one of those dangerously slippery words filled with hope that I wanted to pounce on without thought, and agree to anything to posses. I knew a cure existed; my brother Kevin managed to communicate with me from the other side to let me know it was out there. I just had to find it.
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