The Sacrifice of Sunshine Girl

by Paige McKenzie

  “No. But I really, really, really want it to go away.”

  “Of course, it could be something less symbolic. For instance, it could be the paranormal equivalent of a bruise or allergic reaction,” Nolan continues.

  A bruise or an allergic reaction? I consider these possibilities, which sound so everyday and no-big-deal, like I tripped and fell (which I do on a regular basis) or accidentally ate a scallop (which I’m mildly allergic to).

  If only.

  Just then Ashley breezes by with crabby old Vice Principal D’Angelo and flutters her fingers hello at us. Her gaze lingers on Lucio, who seems oblivious to the special attention. I offered to take her to the front office earlier and get her settled in, but she said she’d be fine. Which obviously she is. Mr. D’Angelo is cracking up at something she just said. I swear that girl could charm a pool full of hungry piranhas.

  I haven’t shown her the spider-web mark yet—I didn’t want to frighten her.

  “I’ll look into all this. I’ll also look into the business of light spirits morphing into dark spirits so soon after death,” Nolan is saying. “Oh, and what was it that the Kirsten spirit said to you?”

  “Ded-something,” I reply.

  Nolan pulls out his notebook and flips it open. “As in D-E-A-D?”

  “I’m not sure. It sounded more like a foreign word. Maybe Italian? Or Spanish? Ded… ded-ee…” I pause and shake my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t remember. Things were happening pretty fast and furious.”

  “No worries. I just learned about a search engine that searches for multisyllabic words with just one of its syllables. I’ll get on it.”

  Nolan looks adorable today in a moss-green flannel shirt and his buttery-soft brown leather jacket, given to him by his namesake grandfather. Lucio actually looks adorable too in his faded jeans and a black T-shirt with a picture of his motorcycle, Clementine.

  Waves of students pass by, talking and laughing. Lucio peers around curiously, shyly—which is weird, because I’ve never known Lucio to be shy. But I realize that he’s never been inside a real high school—or a real school of any kind. He spent his whole life at Llevar la Luz. The compound was his school, and Aidan has been his only teacher.

  “Do you want me—I mean, us—to show you around?” I say to Lucio. I glance at my wrist quickly; the spider-web mark is fainter and smaller now. Go away, I will it silently.

  “Thanks, but I’d better take off,” Lucio replies. “By the way, I’m meeting with your dad later this morning. I’ll fill him in on what happened with your Kirsten spirit. He might have some ideas? In the meantime I’ll be nearby. Just call or text if you need me, and I’ll get to you fast as lightning.”

  “That would be over three hundred million feet per second,” Nolan points out.

  “Yeah, I might be a tiny bit slower than that,” Lucio laughs. “Hey, so I’ll see you tonight at the library, dude. It’s on Bernadino Avenue, right?”

  “Right. At the corner of Second Street. I’ll be there at seven sharp.”

  “What’s this about the library?” I ask Nolan after Lucio leaves.

  “Your dad asked us to do some research.”

  “On what?”

  “Well, pentagrams, for one. Aidan wants us to figure out the significance of the pentagram and also how to stop or reverse the spell. I already uncovered some interesting information at the library yesterday afternoon. Lucio and I are going to pick up where I left off.”

  I’m not sure what I think about my boyfriend and the guy with a crush on me working together. They’ll get along just fine and never talk about me, right? Right? Although maybe I’m being a delusional, egocentric princess about this, acting like boys are fighting over me when really there are bigger, more important things happening.

  Like trying to stop a possible apocalypse.

  “Your friend Lucio is a pretty smart guy,” Nolan remarks.

  He says “your friend Lucio” with a funny catch in his voice. I know he’s asking me the question by not asking me the question.

  “We really are just friends,” I tell him softly. “He grew up at Llevar la Luz after Helena… after she had his parents killed.”

  Nolan stares at me. “Seriously? That’s horrible.”

  “Aidan is Lucio’s mentor, just like he’s my mentor and was Victoria’s mentor when she was a luiseach. But Aidan is also the only parent Lucio has ever really known. Which makes Lucio and me kind of like a brother and sister. You know, like, um… Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker?”

  Nolan frowns. Is he remembering that Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker kissed before they figured out they were related? And not a peck on the cheek kiss either, but a borderline make-out kiss?

  Fortunately the first-period warning bell sounds. Saved by the bell!

  “Algebra. Gotta go.” I lean over to hug him—then stop, overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. I step back and take some deep breaths.

  “Sunshine?” Nolan asks, worried.

  “I’m fine. It’s just, um…”

  When I was born Aidan cast some weird luiseach spell on me that keeps me from being able to have close physical contact with anyone I’m in love with. He explained all this to me in Mexico, why I felt woozy and sick every time I touched Nolan or Nolan touched me. Apparently, Aidan wanted me to focus on my luiseach duties and not get distracted—I seem to recall that he also used the words “weakened” and “compromised”—by a boyfriend. I think he also had a nice luiseach husband in mind some day so I could contribute a bunch of nice luiseach babies to our waning population. (A luiseach and a human can’t produce a luiseach child.)

  I’m not sure how Nolan and I managed to share that amazing, epic, Jane-Eyre-and-Mr.-Rochester’s-first-kiss kiss on Saturday when we thought it was the end of the world. Maybe fear, adrenalin, and our intense feelings for each other trumped Aidan’s draconian antilove magic?

  I’ve almost forgiven Aidan for this control-freak-father move. Almost.

  “I’m going to tell Aidan to lift the spell,” I announce, suddenly inspired. “Yes, that’s it! He has to! You and I can’t keep… that is… we should be able to… um, whenever we want, and…” I stop, flustered, heat creeping into my cheeks.

  “Actually, I think Aidan’s right,” Nolan declares.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I mean, not for forever. Just until Dubu is apprehended and you’re safe again.”

  “But—”

  “Your life is at stake, and I don’t want me… us… to get in the way. I don’t want our relationship to distract or weaken or compromise you, like Aidan said. If anything happened to you…” He clears his throat and shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, not looking at me.

  “Oh, Nolan…” I reach out to touch his arm, but he moves away. My heart sinks.

  “So you’re telling me you agree with Aidan?”

  “No. Yes. Well, just for now. I am your protector, after all. I have to protect you no matter what.”

  This day isn’t turning out as I expected. Light spirits are acting different, and so is my boyfriend.

  CHAPTER 10

  Sense and Sensibility and Spirits

  By the time fourth period English rolls around, I’m in a better mood. Nolan texted and asked me out on a coffee date after school. The spider-web mark on my wrist has faded and shrunk some more and is almost completely gone. Big relief.

  Also, English is my favorite subject, and according to the online syllabus we’re doing Sense and Sensibility this week. Of course, I’ve already read it fifteen times and memorized my favorite passages, but still… you can never read enough Jane Austen.

  As the late bell rings, I hurry into Room 124 and scoot into an empty seat behind Tiffany Ramirez and in front of Linus Wing. I peer around. I know Nolan isn’t in this section—I think he might have Mr. McAllister for English?—and neither, apparently, is Ashley. Oh well.

  Someone else is missing too.

  I tap Tiffany on the shoulder. “What happened to Ms. C
hen?”

  She turns around. Her perfume smells like honeysuckle and butterscotch, and her lip-gloss is neon orange. “What? She just had her baby, like, last night. Babies, plural. Twins. We have a sub.”

  I remember Ms. Chen’s big, exciting baby announcement from last fall. “But she wasn’t due till next month, right? I heard her telling Ms. Ferguson she was going to become a mom on Mother’s Day.”

  Tiffany shrugs. “I guess the twins came early. Where have you been anyway?”

  Before I’m forced to improvise a cover—family emergency, lingering mystery illness, anything but “in the middle of a Mexican jungle training to fight demons and help ghosts pass into the afterlife”—she rushes on. “Oh, hey, do you want to join the spring dance committee? We’re totally looking for volunteers.” She reaches into her backpack, pulls out a yellow flier, and thrusts it at me with a smile that reveals two rows of sparkly purple braces.

  “Um, I’m kind of—”

  “Just think about it, okay, Griffith? It’s a super-fun time, and you get community service credit.”

  “How is the spring dance committee community service?”

  “Ms. Sayed’s in charge, and she arranged it with Principal Henderson. The proceeds from the dance are going to a local charity. Come on, Griffith, it’s time you gave something back, don’t you think? There are a lot of needy people out there. Life isn’t all about makeup and boys and fancy vacations, you know?”

  “Um, excuse me?”

  At that moment the sub—or the person I’m assuming is the sub, anyway—enters the room, teetering precariously on platform shoes. She doesn’t look like a teacher at all but more of an eighties rocker: dyed platinum blond hair, black lace tutu over leopard-print leggings, and puffy hot-pink top. Chunky glasses dominate her pale, pretty face.

  I squint. There’s something familiar about her. Where have I seen her before?

  “Hello, class. I’m Ms. Warkomski,” she announces in a squeaky voice. Turning around, she writes on the board: W-A-R-K-O-M-S-K-Y. Flustered, she quickly erases the Y with the palm of her hand and replaces it with an I.

  An English teacher who doesn’t know how to spell her own name? This isn’t good.

  Ms. Warkomski peers over the top of her glasses, spots the teacher’s desk, and sits down carefully, fluffing and smoothing her black lace tutu. She riffles through some papers, picks up a pen, sets it down, and picks up another.

  “So!” She adjusts her glasses and smiles at us. “Let’s discuss books, shall we?”

  Let’s discuss books?

  “Has anyone read anything good lately?” she goes on.

  Several people giggle.

  A guy in the front row—Isaac, I think—raises his hand. “Ms. W? We’re doing Sense and Sensibility this week.”

  Ms. Warkomski nods quickly and pushes her glasses up her nose. “Oh, right. Of course! I love Charles Dickens, don’t you? Who can tell me his main themes in this novel?”

  Charles Dickens?

  And then it slowly dawns on me.

  Ms. Warkomski isn’t Ms. Warkomski—she’s Victoria in disguise.

  Aidan must have planted her here to help keep an eye on me. Just like he planted her in my art class last fall. That was the class where I met Nolan, where we bonded over our mutual dorkiness and speculations about the strange new art teacher who dressed like a member of a witch’s coven.

  Victoria didn’t know how to fake being an art teacher either. I remember her opening line during the first class: Let’s make some art, shall we?

  “H-hello?”

  Another latecomer. This time it’s a student: skinny, shoulders hunched, dark blond bowl cut. He’s dressed in a navy blazer that’s two sizes too big for him, a white button-down shirt, and wrinkled khakis. Also tortoiseshell glasses that are crooked on his thin, pock-marked face. He’s standing awkwardly in the doorway with a slip of paper in his hand while his other hand rests on a brand-new-looking rolling backpack.

  “Oh! Come right on in! The more the merrier!” Victoria calls out.

  The student walks into the room and immediately trips. A fellow tripper! His cheeks flame crimson as he rights himself and offers Victoria the slip of paper, his eyes averted.

  Victoria reads over the slip of paper. “I see! It seems we have a new student. Welcome, new student! Please take a seat. It says here your name is… how do you say that?”

  “B-Bastian,” he stammers. “Bastian Jansen.” He glances around, slinks into an empty seat across from Tiffany, and parks his backpack next to him.

  “Hello, Bastian Jansen! Class, please welcome your new classmate!” Victoria trills.

  Tiffany leans across the aisle and hands Bastian a yellow flier. “Welcome to Ridgemont High! You should totally join our spring dance committee!”

  Bastian takes the flier from her and stares at it.

  “It’s upside down,” I whisper.

  He rights it immediately and stares at it some more.

  Victoria beams. “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Let’s talk about Charles Dickens, shall we?”

  I sigh and lean back in my seat. Should I correct her or let someone else do it? Victoria’s babbling on about the name Charles and did his family call him Charles or Charlie or Chuck, and eventually I start to tune her out. I pull my English binder out of my backpack and find a clean page. My last notes from December are on Shakespeare’s play Hamlet.

  To be or not to be, I write next to the old notes. If I assume my father’s noble person. I doodle Hamlet’s sword, a cup of poison, a skull. Then I cross all that out and doodle a picture of Lex Luthor. Then Oscar. Then a pentagram.

  Below that, I write:

  Why are luiseach dying in a pentagram pattern?

  Why every four years?

  How did they die? Were they killed, and if so, by whom? Humans? Other luiseach? (It can’t have been demons because demons can’t permanently destroy luiseach.)

  What will happen if/when the fifth and final death occurs?

  If we stop Dubu, will that stop the pentagram spell?

  Out of the corner of my eye I notice Bastian is doodling too—is that a castle? Or a cathedral? He’s a good artist. I wonder where he transferred from. Obviously someplace where they wear navy blazers and khakis to school.

  I decorate my pentagram drawing with stripes and polka-dots and smiley faces. Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around, and Linus Wing whispers, “Is there a test in history?”

  I flip to a blank page in my binder and write: No idea. I hold it up for Linus to see. Just then I notice that the spider-web mark on my right wrist has reappeared. Except the shape has changed—the thin black lines are in a slightly different formation.

  I bite my lip to keep from crying out. What’s going on?

  A cold wind sweeps through the room.

  Startled, I drop my binder to the floor. Papers flutter everywhere. Linus picks up a few, as do Bastian and Tiffany.

  I take the papers from them and stuff them back into my binder. I glance around nervously—is it Kirsten again? Or Dubu?

  No, it’s a teenaged boy. A light spirit, not dark. Not yet anyway. He perches on the windowsill next to the bust of Shakespeare and kicks his feet against the flimsy radiator grate steadily, rhythmically. His name is Wesley, and he suffered from severe depression. Finally it became too much for him and he jumped off the High Falls Bridge.

  Victoria is copying words onto the blackboard from Ms. Chen’s computer: Elinor Dashwood, Colonel Brandon, love, marriage, socioeconomic class. She’s finally figured out to Google “Jane Austen.” I twist slightly in my chair and reach my hand toward the windowsill, toward Wesley. He’s frowning at his shoes as he kicks at the radiator grate with a sound only I can hear. Clang, clang, clang.

  Wesley, it’s okay. I’m here for you. You’ve suffered a lifetime of darkness. Now it’s time for you to feel peace, serenity, closure.

  I need him to come closer so I can touch him and help him move on. Part of me is afraid, thou
gh—what if he pulls a Kirsten and turns into a dark spirit? But I can’t let fear rule me. It’s my duty to help light spirits, and at the moment Wesley is a light spirit.

  Surrender, Wesley. Surrender to the light. It will be so wonderful there, I promise.

  Wesley stops kicking and raises his gaze. He looks at me with a curious expression.

  Actually, he looks past me. At someone else.

  I turn around.

  He’s looking at… Bastian. And Bastian seems to be looking right at him too.

  “Bastian?” I say in a low, surprised voice.

  Bastian shakes his head and covers his ears with his hands like he’s trying to tune something out. He bends over his notebook and resumes his doodling. His pen scratches furiously across the white page.

  Can Bastian see Wesley? But that’s not possible.

  Then, just like that, Wesley’s spirit blossoms into light and vanishes—quietly, peacefully.

  But I didn’t do that. I didn’t even touch him.

  The skin on my right wrist prickles.

  My spider-web mark has vanished too.

  Cat and Mouse

  It would probably be more efficient if I just ended her life right now. I have the means and the ability… and multiple opportunities, given how freely she goes about her business. I thought he would hide her away somewhere, perhaps in Llevar la Luz or one of the other luiseach compounds, as it is difficult for me to penetrate their protective magic.

  But no.

  Perhaps he believes he can use her to draw me out of the shadows? He is arrogant, as always. Arrogant and foolish. Just like that time in Constantinople.

  Although he does seem to be keeping tabs on her. I have noticed him shadowing her. Also his pupil, that boy who believes himself to be an orphan.

  And also my beloved.

  Does she know? That I am here?

  Strangely it turns out that I do not mind the wait with regards to the girl. Efficiency is not the priority. I am starting to relish the prospect of a cat-and-mouse game—the slow, delicious tango of stalk, retreat, repeat. The prophecy will be fulfilled, so why not savor the ride?