The Sacrifice of Sunshine Girl

by Paige McKenzie

  I tuck the wallet into my pocket and head toward the door. Bastian can’t have gotten very far.

  “Griffith, where are you going? I have more stuff for you to do!” Tiffany calls out.

  “I’ll be back in a sec!”

  I spot Bastian up ahead, turning the corner.

  “Bastian!” I shout.

  He keeps walking, oblivious, muttering to himself. He trips on some invisible obstacle, steadies himself, and continues. I hurry my steps. The corridor is deserted, although I can hear the distant sounds of a sports team practicing in the gym: voices shouting, whistles blowing, balls bouncing with hollow thunk, thunk sounds. There are inspirational posters plastered above the rows of lockers: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF! NO PAIN, NO GAIN! IT’S OKAY TO FAIL AS LONG AS YOU TRY!

  I start to shout Bastian’s name again when a blast of cold hits me like a tidal wave and almost knocks me over. Where did that come from?

  And then I see. A group of light spirits—fifteen, twenty, more?—are drifting down the hall toward me. I know Lucio is somewhere nearby, probably sitting in his car in the parking lot—this is the end of his shift. Aidan and Helena can’t be too far away either. But I guess the spirits decided to come to me instead?

  They drift closer, closer. Suddenly the horrifying image of their deaths flashes in my head. A carbon monoxide leak killed all the residents of an apartment building just outside of Ridgemont.

  My chest tightens and I choke back a sob; two of them were little kids, ages two and four—practically babies.

  But there’s no time for sorrow. I can feel my pulse accelerating, my body temperature plummeting, my teeth starting to chatter. I have to move the spirits on, now, quickly. Right after New Year’s a horde of light spirits almost killed me by sending me into hypothermia (a fancy way of saying I almost froze) and cardiac arrhythmia (a fancy way of saying my heart rate shot through the roof), and Mom had to revive me with CPR. Later, in Mexico, Aidan nearly destroyed me trying to teach me how to handle groups of light spirits like this. I eventually managed to learn, and I began to get the hang of it, kind of. But I’m still far from an expert. In fact, on Saturday Helena sent a huge posse of light spirits my way, and I barely managed.

  I also need to move these spirits on quickly so they don’t turn dark, like Kirsten did.

  I shut my eyes and concentrate, trying to draw the spirits even closer.

  I’m here for you. Let me guide you to the other side.

  “Help me!” someone cries out.

  Startled, I open my eyes. Just up ahead, near a row of lockers, a figure lies crumpled on the floor, shaking and spasming.

  Oh my gosh.

  It’s Bastian.

  CHAPTER 17

  Kindred Spirits

  Bastian writhes on the floor, his knees curled up to his chest. The spirits move toward him and swirl around him, pleading for release.

  “Stop!” he begs.

  I run up to him and kneel down on the floor by his side. His teeth are chattering. His lips are blue.

  What’s happening? How can the spirits affect Bastian in this way? He’s human.

  But I can’t dwell on this bizarre turn of events because he looks like he’ll freeze to death if this keeps up. I’ll freeze too, for that matter. Maybe I should text Lucio for backup… but there’s no time. I jump to my feet and gather the swirling spirits to me, will them to me. I focus all my energy on them as I touch them one by one, trying to keep my own violent shivering at bay.

  I’m so sorry your lives were cut short. Let me help you move on and find peace on the other side.

  The spirits bloom into balls of bright light and disappear. None of them pulls a Kirsten and suddenly turns dark. Thank goodness. The two children go last. I bite back tears as I touch their chubby gossamer cheeks. The little boy and girl rub their eyes and give me sad, sleepy smiles as they vanish through my fingertips.

  In Mexico Aidan told me I had to turn off my empathy when dealing with spirits so I can be more effective. But how can I not feel this? Feel the terrible, gut-wrenching grief, especially when children are involved?

  But he’s right that I can’t let empathy make me lose my concentration, whittle away my strength. I have a job to do.

  A job that I really, really hate sometimes.

  The temperature in the corridor stops freefalling; the air is gradually starting to get warm again. I peel off my vintage poodle cardigan and throw it on top of Bastian.

  “I’m calling 9-1-1,” I tell him, reaching for my phone.

  “I-I’m fine,” Bastian insists.

  “Yeah, no, you’re not.” I begin punching numbers.

  “Really, I am.” He struggles up to a seating position, coughs, and rubs his arms briskly with his hands. I startle. He actually does seem to be fine, or he’s on his way there anyway. Color is returning to his face. His lips are no longer blue.

  “Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?” a voice on the other end of the phone asks me.

  “I’m so sorry. I dialed by mistake,” I reply hastily.

  I end the call and instinctively put three fingers on Bastian’s wrist, the way Mom always does when she takes my pulse. His heart rate is accelerated, but over the next minute or so I can feel it slowing down, settling back to normal.

  I shake my head. None of this makes any sense. Bastian’s body reacted to those spirits the same way my body did… does. And he recovered the same way too—quickly. Can humans do this? Act like luiseach? Maybe Aidan knows the answer, or maybe Nolan can research it.

  Bastian stands up, still rubbing his arms with his hands. He regards me uneasily.

  “How did you do that?” he whispers. Behind his crooked tortoiseshell glasses, his eyes are wide and frightened.

  “Do what?”

  “You know… make the ghosts disappear.”

  I stare at him, shocked. “You saw all that?”

  “Yes. I can see ghosts. I can feel them too. Their fear, their coldness.”

  I tuck my phone back in my pocket slowly, buying myself time to think. Bastian can see and feel ghosts. That explains his reaction to Wesley in English class. And he almost froze to death just now in response to multiple spirits.

  My mind is racing, churning. What does this mean? Is he just one of those people who experience the spiritual world more vividly than others?

  Or…

  “How long have you been able to see and feel ghosts?” I ask him cautiously.

  “Yes, um… the first time was this past winter. At Wheedon, at my old school. In Washington, DC.”

  This past winter.

  “When this winter exactly?”

  “It was… let’s see… in January.”

  January.

  Bastian can see and feel ghosts. When he does, his heart rate spikes and his body temperature plummets.

  This all started in January. Which is when he turned sixteen, according to his learner’s permit.

  Sixteen.

  Does this mean…?

  No, it can’t possibly mean that.

  Can it?

  “Hey, Bastian?” I say, trying to keep my voice light and casual and no-big-deal. “Your birthday is January third, right? Or fourth? Sorry, you dropped your wallet back there, and I had to look inside to find out who it belonged to. Here.”

  I hand over his wallet and he takes it from me. “My birthday is January third, yes.”

  “And your first ghost episode happened around then?”

  His brow furrows. “It was shortly after my birthday. The middle of January sometime. I remember because of the long weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Listen, please don’t tell anyone about today. I beg you. If my mother and father find out, they will send me back to that… that place.”

  “What place?”

  “The clinic, the psychiatric hospital. They sent me there after that first time.”

  Footsteps. I look up to see Coach Martinez coming down the corridor, a soccer ball tucked under one arm.


  “Everything okay here?” Coach Martinez says, his gaze moving between Bastian and me.

  “Yes!” Bastian and I say at the same time.

  “We’re on our way to the spring dance committee meeting!” I add, fake smiling. “We thought it was in the gym, but it turns out it’s in Room 236.”

  “Very well. Carry on.”

  Coach Martinez smiles at us, and for a second his eyes glow red. But it’s gone in a flash and maybe I imagined it. Or maybe it was a reflection of the sunlight streaming through the windows.

  Or maybe…

  Coach Martinez smiles again, no glowy red eyes this time, and continues down the hall.

  Bastian and I wait in silence until he disappears around the corner.

  First things first.

  “Are you sure you didn’t have any of these… these ghost episodes before January?” I ask Bastian in a low, furtive voice. I don’t want anyone to overhear us, especially coaches who may or may not be under demonic influence.

  “No. That was the first one.”

  “Did you have any more episodes between then and today?”

  “No. Well, perhaps. I have these dreams sometimes, and ghosts appear in them. Except the dreams don’t always feel like dreams. They feel real.”

  I nod slowly.

  “Why are you asking me these questions? And you never answered my question: How did you make those ghosts disappear?” Bastian asks in a trembling voice.

  I cross my arms over my chest. There is no way. No way. I was the last luiseach to be born. Bastian was born almost five months after me. He has to be human.

  And yet…

  An idea occurs to me. I glance around and spot a darkened classroom.

  It’s not locked.

  “Come with me,” I say, tugging on Bastian’s arm.

  “Why?”

  “Please, just trust me.”

  “I suppose, yes, all right.”

  Bastian follows me into the classroom, not very enthusiastically. I pull down all the blinds. Then I lean against the glass pane in the door so no light can enter from the hall.

  I gesture for him to stand next to me. He does, looking increasingly uncomfortable, because why is some girl cornering him in a dark room?

  I check out his pupils.

  They’re tiny. Just like mine. And they stay tiny, even after a full minute.

  Holy moly.

  “Bastian, have you ever heard the term ‘luiseach’?” I ask finally.

  CHAPTER 18

  A New Mentor

  It’s Thursday after school, and Nolan, Lucio, and I are hanging out on the front porch of my house. Well, not “hanging out,” exactly: I called a meeting so we could catch up and strategize. Lucio sits on the creaky old swing and rocks back and forth on his heels. Nolan and I sit on the ugly peeling-paint steps, a bowl of nacho cheese–flavored popcorn untouched between us. (Unlike Ashley, he’s not a big fan of the nacho cheese, and I have zero appetite.) The rusty bird thermometer that hangs from the railing says it’s 52 degrees out, which is chilly even for Ridgemont. Mom is still at work, although she texted before and said she’d be bringing home Thai takeout for dinner.

  Nolan pulls his notebook out of his backpack. “So where do you want to start? Lucio and I can fill you in on the research we’ve been doing at the library?”

  “Actually, I want to start with something that happened yesterday at the spring dance committee meeting, and then we can talk about that other stuff,” I announce.

  “Spring dance committee meeting? What even is that?” Lucio asks, confused.

  “Long story. I’ll tell you later. Anyway, first of all, you guys have to pinkie-swear you won’t tell anyone. That includes Aidan. Especially Aidan.”

  Wow, I sounded like Helena there! I touch the gold chain at my throat. I’m now keeping two big secrets from Aidan: Bastian and the necklace.

  The two guys exchange a glance. Lucio shrugs.

  “Yes, okay. We promise we won’t tell anyone,” Nolan says. “What’s going on?”

  I turn to Lucio. “Do you know of any luiseach who were born after me?”

  “Of course not. But you knew that already. You were the last one,” Lucio says, looking puzzled.

  “But how do we know for sure? How does Aidan know? I mean, is he omniscient? Does he have a luiseach crystal ball? Superman vision?” I persist.

  “Well, I know your m—… that Helena”—Lucio’s expression darkens as he says her name—“oversees her part of the luiseach community. Which is almost all the luiseach left on the planet. And she would have told Aidan if new luiseach kids were being born, right? Because that would change everything.”

  I nod slowly. “Yeah, but hypothetically speaking, could there be one or more luiseach couples out there who maybe split off from Helena’s community and she’s lost touch with them? And they had a baby or babies sometime after I was born?”

  “Hmm, good point. We should ask Aidan,” Lucio suggests.

  I shake my head. “No, that’s just it. I told you, we can’t ask Aidan. He would get suspicious.”

  “Suspicious about what?” Nolan pipes up.

  “Suspicious about… okay, guys, here it is. This is top secret. Like, double-triple-quadruple top secret.”

  Lucio and Nolan exchange another glance. “Go on,” Nolan says.

  “Argh, okay.”

  I take a deep breath and plunge into the story about Bastian, starting with his arrival in Victoria’s, a.k.a. Ms. Warkomski’s English class on Monday, for Lucio’s benefit, and ending with what happened yesterday after school with the group of light spirits. And, of course, his tiny pupils that are just like mine.

  “So… I kind of told Bastian I thought he might be a luiseach,” I finish.

  “Wait. You did what?” Lucio erupts.

  “I had to,” I say defensively. “I mean, if someone had told me I was a luiseach when Mom and I first moved into this creepy old haunted house—no offense, house!—I wouldn’t have been so confused and scared. Seriously, I thought I was going insane the first time I heard Anna’s ghost. And the fact that I was the only one who could hear or see her made me feel extra-insane.”

  Nolan rakes a hand through his tawny hair. Usually that means he’s thinking complicated thoughts. “Okay, so how did Bastian react?” he asks.

  “He was confused and scared, like I was at first. Also skeptical. He’s sort of like Mom—you know, scientific and rational and all ‘there’s no such things as ghosts.’ Even though he can see them,” I reply.

  “You said the light spirits were drawn to him?” Nolan continues.

  “Yup.”

  “And he started to go into a state of hypothermia?”

  “Uh huh. And his heart rate went all wacky-crazy.”

  Nolan nods and writes something in his notebook. “Got it. So what do you know about his background?”

  “Well, we talked afterward, and he told me a little bit about himself. He’s adopted, for one thing, and he doesn’t know anything about his biological parents. Like me for most of my life. His adoptive dad is a professor at Georgetown Law School. The dad is on sabbatical, which is like a vacation from teaching. They’re living at their family’s mountain retreat in Ridgemont for half a year or something while his dad writes a book on… international law? Treaties? War crimes? I can’t remember. Next year Bastian will go back to the Wheedon Academy, which is his regular school. His adoptive mom is a psychotherapist… no, a psychiatrist. That means she’s a doctor.”

  “So what’s your assessment of Bastian? One to ten, ten being definitely luiseach, and one being definitely not luiseach?” Lucio asks.

  “Hmm. I’d say eight and a half,” I reply.

  “Really.” Lucio stands up suddenly and grabs the chain to still the creaky swing. “Eight and a half is serious. We have to tell Aidan immediately.”

  I stand up too. “No! I already said. That’s the opposite of what we need to do. First of all, Bastian swore me to secrecy. Okay, yes, I know
I told you guys, but that’s because I need your help, and in any case, it can’t go any further. We are the inner circle. Second of all, if Bastian is a luiseach, and I’m pretty sure he is—eight and a half sure—then that’s a big deal. A huge big deal. It means my birth wasn’t the end of luiseach births. If Aidan finds this out, he would tell Helena because, well, he’d have to. Then what? They might want to capture Bastian and perform sicko science fiction experiments on him to find out if he’s special… to find out why he’s special. Or they might want to capture and/or harm Bastian’s biological parents, whoever they are, because they left the fold or whatever.”

  A muscle works in Lucio’s jaw. Ugh. Stupid me, reminding him of what happened to his mom and dad.

  “Yeah, fine,” Lucio agrees gruffly. “I guess we should keep this between the three of us. For now. But Sunshine, you know what this means?”

  “What?”

  “The dude needs a mentor. And it sounds like you’re it.”

  Me… a mentor?

  “I can’t be a mentor. I’m just learning how to do all this stuff myself!” I protest.

  “Seems like you don’t have a choice, though,” Lucio declares.

  Lucio is right.

  CHAPTER 19

  Bizarre Love Quadrangle

  An hour later Nolan and Lucio and I are still on the porch, immersed in our conversation about Bastian and the guys’ library research too. The sun is beginning to set, and I can see the first streaks of purple and gold through the pine branches.

  Ashley’s little blue hybrid pulls up in front of the house. She gets out and skips up to the porch, swinging her dance bag over her shoulders. She’s wearing a gray Austin High hoodie over a black leotard, plus pink capri tights, leg warmers, and flip flops, despite the cold temperature. Each of her toenails is painted a different color. Her blond hair is swept back in a sleek ponytail.