by Spear, Terry
Haunting her dreams, the ghostly apparition called her to join it in the swamp. Emily had every intention of helping the spirit find the solace it needed to leave the land of the living and rest in peace. She had to, if she was ever going to get a good night’s sleep. But it was more than that. She wouldn’t even consider not aiding a spirit who was reaching out to her for help.
Emily speared a slice of corned beef, then looked up to see Granny studying her. Certain Granny was reading her thoughts, Emily twisted her mouth. She assumed meeting someone with her own abilities would give her an outlet to share her concerns. But now she knew she was on her own, just like she’d always been.
“You’re wrong, dear. You’re not alone. You have us now. This is all so new to you. You’ll need time to adjust to the notion.”
Michael stabbed a slice of cabbage. “She won’t listen. No matter how much we warn her, she’s bound and determined to do what she wants.”
Emily tsked. “Your grandmother knows the reason why. Ask her sometime.” She had no intention of enlightening Michael further if he refused to share the truth with her. Maybe it was because their abilities were different. She didn’t know, and for now, she didn’t care.
Shaking her head, Granny lifted her fork. “You do care. Relationships take time to build.”
Emily took a deep breath. She’d ride with Michael to school and back, because she wanted to avoid the bus. And she didn’t like the idea of getting stranded somewhere if her Caddy conked out on her. But the swamps were another story. She had a mission…a puzzle to solve and a restless soul to aid. End of story.
Granny reached over and patted Michael’s hand. “At least she’s agreed to ride with you to school every day and back home again.”
Frowning, Emily considered Granny. “How do you block my reading of your thoughts?”
“It comes with age.”
“But Michael does it, too.”
Michael let out a breath, and all at once Emily realized he thought she’d known what he was thinking from the beginning. That made her wish more than anything she knew what he had been thinking.
Granny laughed. “No, she can’t read your mind, Michael. It’s too complicated.”
Defeated, Emily tapped her fingers on the table. “Can you tell what he’s thinking?”
Granny shook her head. “No. Well, most of the time, no.”
“Oh.” Glad she wasn’t the only one, Emily finished her meal and waited for everyone else to be done.
Granny rested her fork on the edge of her plate. “So, what are you going to work on during your study date?”
Emily’s cheeks warmed. There was that date word again. Michael must have told his grandmother Emily called it that. Study hour, that’s what she should have called it. But she really wanted it to be a genuine date.
Granny smiled. Emily’s skin prickled with embarrassment. She picked up her plate. She hadn’t realized how uncomfortable she would feel knowing someone could read her mind.
Grabbing his plate and his grandmother’s, Michael hurried into the kitchen after Emily.
“I’ll take care of the dishes, kiddos. You just go and do your studies,” Granny hollered from the dining room.
“I’m sorry,” Michael said to Emily, “that I didn’t tell you everything.”
Was he? Nah. He still hadn’t told her whether he could change the future or not, but his reluctance to say made her figure he couldn’t.
Intending to get on with the business of schoolwork, Emily took a deep breath. “I guess we both have to work on the first chapter in psychology.”
He showed her into the den where he’d already set his schoolwork on the coffee table. Like the other rooms, the den was filled with new, sunshiny furniture. Yellow, green, and blue flowery fabric covered the two couches. The overstuffed chairs wore blue brocade, making them appear comfortable and inviting, just like his grandmother.
Michael’s psychology book rested on a light oak table, opened to a page on true stories delving into parapsychology.
Sitting on the carpeted floor beside the table, Emily touched her finger to the page. “Parapsychology, meaning at the side of psychology. ESP. Extrasensory perception. Perceiving objects or events some way other than through the sensory organs...sight, sound, touch, feel, taste. Precognition...the ability to know about events before they occurred.”
Emily looked up at Michael. “Precognition. That’s what you have the ability to do.”
She read further in the book. “Psychokinesis...the ability to move objects by thinking of them moving.” She wished she could do that. “Telepathy...directly transmitted thoughts or ideas from person to person without anything being spoken or written.”
“What you and my grandmother have the ability to do,” Michael said.
She nodded. “Clairvoyance...the ability to perceive objects beyond the range of the usual five senses.” She frowned. “Some psychologists think ESP exists in the realm of magic rather than science?” She’d never heard scientists call it magic before. “Okay, look here—several experiments have been conducted by psychologists trying to prove its existence. Because results couldn’t be proven successful repeatedly, ESP remains an unproven theory. Heck, it’s because we aren’t always right.” Emily couldn’t help that her words sounded bitter. “We’re not guinea pigs. I mean, sometimes we can see things and sometimes we can’t. It’s not an exact science.”
She rose, crossed the floor, and peered out the glass panel that viewed the kitchen window into her own house. “It’s not fair that psychologists—” Movement in her kitchen caught Emily’s eye. She squinted, trying to make out the girl with long dark curls standing there.
“Emily.” The voice in Emily’s head was the same as the one haunting her at night.
Chapter 5
Emily gasped and Michael joined her at the den’s glass pane, but the dark-haired girl peering out her kitchen window vanished.
“What’s wrong, Emily?”
“Nothing. I…” She glanced back at the window. “I need to run.”
“But our homework…,” he said, motioning to the coffee table.
“Sorry, uhm, something’s come up.” She whirled around and headed for her book bag. “I’ve got…got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“You seem upset. What’s—”
“Sorry, Michael. Sorry.” Her throat clogged with tears, and she felt like such a fool. But what if the ghost girl hurt her mother? She headed for the front door and noticed Michael’s grandmother scrubbing a pan at the kitchen sink. “Thanks for the meal, Granny!”
“Anytime, dear.”
Michael followed Emily to the door, his face dark, his brows furrowed. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing.” That he could deal with. “Bye!” She clipped the word extra short, trying to give him a smile. But her heart was thumping so hard, she hoped he wouldn’t hear it beating.
She nearly flung the door against the wall in her haste, but Michael caught it.
Wordlessly, he watched her while she dashed across their adjoining lawns. She gave him a quick wave over her shoulder, but when she saw the entity standing across the road next to the line of trees surrounding the swamps, she hesitated.
The dark-haired spirit of the girl motioned to her. Emily hadn’t heard Michael shut his door yet, which most likely meant he was observing her. Hating the deception, she stepped onto her front patio shielded from prying eyes. As soon as she heard Michael’s door shut, she dumped her book bag, jumped off the porch, and raced across her lawn.
The spirit was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t deter Emily. It was way past time to explore the jungle and see the sights that up until now had only been in her dreams. And maybe…discover what the ghost girl needed to make her go away permanently.
As soon as Emily reached the trees of the jungle-like swamp, she felt immersed in the wild. The humidity and heat inferno seemed heavier, more oppressive. Multi-trunked saw cabbage palms nearly a
s wide as Emily was tall, grew out of the murky water, their trunks covered in thick hairy brown fiber. And in one, an ibis sat, its white feathers contrasting with the dark tree, its red beak and spindly red legs clashing with the light green circular palm leaves armed in jagged orange teeth. The bird glanced at her, then spread its wide wings and flew off.
Towering overhead, massive live oaks draped in gray Spanish moss looked ghostly as the limbs stretched out so far, they nearly touched the ground. She climbed over one, and stopped, searching for any sign of the ghost girl.
“Hello?” she called out.
Cicadas and crickets made such a racket, while birds whooped and tittered, calling to one another, and the lapping of the water against the higher ground could be heard only a few feet away. Everything sounded louder, clearer, closer. The odor of the jungle, of leaves sickening, festering, decaying, and disintegrating in the murky water, assailed her. Mosquitoes buzzed around her head, and she swatted at them or clamped her hands together to squash the blood suckers before they attacked. Some alighted on her arms, searching for any unprotected micrometer of skin, but flew away as soon as they tasted her insect repellent.
Turning, she intended to head closer to the water and nearly ran straight into a golden silk spider’s massive web, eggs wrapped in yellow silk, and the huge black and yellow spider herself. Emily stifled a scream and jumped away from it, her skin crawling. Not that the spider would hurt her, but, ack, the idea she could have walked face first into the intricate web full of eggs and the spider. A shudder went through her. She walked in a different direction to skirt the menace and headed for the same sound of water washing up against solid ground.
When she reached the water’s edge, a blanket of algae covered it, making it appear solid. Reeds poking out of it, hid multitudes of microscopic insects and bigger ones, maybe snakes, alligators, snapping turtles, even fish. A fishy odor permeated the air now, and sweat stained the underarms and front of her shirt, while the water licked at the tips of her sneakers.
“Hello?”
She wasn’t ready yet to walk into the water, but that’s where the ghostly figure had taken her night after night. That’s where the key to the whole mystery was, Emily was certain.
Something splashed near the knobby knees of a tall, slender cypress. And then another splash, but this time she caught sight of the fish and gave a sigh of relief.
Bolstering her courage, she reminded herself if she didn’t solve the mystery, the ghost girl would never let her sleep in peace. So Emily took a step into the primordial soup as warm as a hot bath, slightly cooler the deeper she got. Something flittered by in her peripheral vision, and she turned and nearly fell, then laughed at herself for being so fearful when the monarch butterfly landed on a leaf. But whispered words in the distance grabbed her attention next, and she jerked her head around.
“She be not the one, the she-devil,” a gravely voice said.
“Nay. Grab her, lads! She wouldst make a man forget his troubles.”
She was certain those speaking in the old world language were ghosts, but her heart raced just the same. Expecting just the ghost girl, she wasn’t prepared to deal with a whole slew of spirits.
The sound of something moving through water headed in her direction. She tried to climb back onto solid ground, and then remain where she was, willing herself to confront the ghosts, if that was what was coming toward her. But the mud had oozed into her shoes, and the glue-like silt held her in place like gigantic octopus suction cups. She tried to wriggle her shoes free without losing them, when a twig snapped behind her. Her head swiveled around, and she saw another of her worst nightmares—Red.
He fisted his hands at his sides, his face as cherry as his hair. “I saw you come in here and wondered what you were up to. Looking for toads for your witch’s potion?”
If he’d seen her come here, why had he waited so long? Afraid to come into the jungle? Not half as sure of himself when he didn’t have his gang of thugs to egg him on?
She tried to break loose of the soil so she could move to higher ground and face the punk, without success.
“Why don’t you take a little swim and prove to me you’re not a witch? I hear witches can’t swim.”
Turned the wrong way, she couldn’t face him and stop what he intended to do next. He reached out to shove her, but something crashing through the scrub brush toward them stopped Red.
“Emily?”
Ohmigod, Michael!
“Emily, where are you?” He sounded angry and worried at the same time.
Red gave her a sinister smile, then shoved her into the swamp. Immediately, she fell and landed on her knees in the brackish water, while Red took off running deeper into the twisted vines and brush, swearing as he went.
Afraid she’d leave her sneakers behind, Emily continued trying to pry her shoes loose. No way could she walk back through this inhospitable terrain without wearing something on her feet.
“Here, Michael!”
“Jeez, Emily, what in the world are you doing?” he asked, racing to reach her at the water’s edge.
“My shoes are stuck.”
He didn’t say a word, didn’t help her, and she glanced back at him to see what he was doing. He was staring at her, his arms crossed over his chest, his brows pinched together in an annoyed frown.
“Well, help me, Michael, would you? Please?” She imagined she looked a sight on her hands and knees, soaked up to her thighs and elbows in green water.
“On one condition…you don’t come in here again.”
“I won’t lie to you, Michael.”
“You said there was nothing wrong when you were at my place. But it wasn’t exactly the truth now, was it? Why did you come to the swamp if there wasn’t anything the matter?” He waded into the water and pulled her up, but she gasped when she lost her shoes.
“No, no, I’ve got to get my shoes.”
He carried her to the bank and sat her down. “Stay!” Then he walked back into the water and dug around, trying to locate her shoes. He finally found one, then the other. Tugging, he fell backward when the soil gave up its grip on the rubber soles.
Sitting waist deep in the swampy water, Michael shook his head. “Your father just arrived home.” He climbed out of the soup and handed her sneakers to her.
“Oh, no,” she said, emptying the mud from them. “He’ll ground me forever if he sees me looking like this.”
Michael squeezed the muddy water from his T-shirt. “You can come back with me, and we can wash our clothes. Then you can do your homework with me like we agreed. By the time you return home, no one will know any different.”
“Sorry, Michael,” Emily said, feeling more than sheepish. “But you wouldn’t believe me if I’d told you the truth, and you wouldn’t have come with me anyway.”
He helped her to stand, and she wrung out her shirt as best she could.
“So tell me what happened.”
“A ghost girl was at my house. I was afraid she might hurt my mother. But when I reached my house, she was across the street, waiting for me. I had to see what she wanted.” She looked up at him and saw the disbelief in his expression. Fine, she didn’t expect him to believe her anyway. “How come you knew where I was?”
He wiped her cheek with his T-shirt. “Mud splatter.”
She groaned.
“I had a premonition Red was stalking you. I didn’t know when it would happen, but when I ran over to your house, I found your book bag on the front porch. Then I saw Red heading into the swamp. I told Granny where I’d be, then took off running, hoping I wouldn’t find you here. I should have known better.”
“Oh. I thought maybe Granny read my thoughts.”
“She can’t—always. You know how it is. So did you see Red?”
Emily glanced up at Michael. He was concentrating on her so hard, she knew she couldn’t get away with not telling him the truth. “He pushed me into the swamp. Said he wanted to see if a witch could swim.”
<
br /> “Jeez, Emily.”
“He wouldn’t have gotten the best of me if I hadn’t been turned around. If I could have faced him—”
“You don’t need to be tangling with the likes of him. I asked Granny if she knew anything about his family, and she said his father has been up on charges of beating his mother. So maybe Red thinks that’s the way men should treat women. I don’t want you near him.”
Emily sighed deeply and took Michael’s grimy hand. “Right, boss.”
He inclined his head and gave her a severe look. She smiled. “I said all right.”
“Yeah, but it’s the way you said it that has me bothered.”
As soon as they reached the street, Emily let loose of Michael’s hand. “You go first so in case either of my parents look out the window they won’t see us together.”
He shook his head. “You go first. I’ll follow. I’m not leaving you behind to face any more perils.”
Her hero. She nodded and ran like the wind, hoping she wouldn’t get caught. But as soon as she reached Granny’s house, she worried how she’d feel about the way Emily looked. Why would she want Emily’s muddy clothes and shoes messing up her laundry room?
But right after Emily was through thinking the thought, Granny opened the door and motioned for her to come in. “Hurry. We’ll get you all cleaned up.”
Michael bolted into the foyer right after Emily, and again shook his head at her. She was certain she hadn’t heard the last of what he thought of their swamp adventure.
Chapter 6
With emotions fluctuating between feeling joy at discovering kindred spirits, and the bond she felt with Michael, Emily returned home, almost as clean as when she’d gone over to his place, except her shoes were now tinted a pale green and brown. She grabbed up her book bag, and entered her house, then hurried into the living room to put away the books like she’d promised her mother.
Her father glanced up from a thriller he was reading, sitting in the only chair that had been cleared. His blond brows rose, and she immediately figured her mother had told him about Michael, and Dad was going to give her another be-careful-of-guys lecture. Though before now, she hadn’t needed it.
