The Mediator #2: Ninth Key

by Jenny Carroll

  Then he finally leaned back, and, embarrassed, wiped his eyes again and said, "Sorry."

  I said, "It's no big deal," even though, of course, it was.

  "Suze," he said. "Can I ask you something?"

  Expecting more questions about his mother, I said, "Sure."

  "Why do you smell like fish?"

  I went back to my room a little while later, shaken not just by Doc's emotional reaction to the message I'd delivered but also by something else, as well. Something I had not told Doc, and which I had no intention of mentioning to Jesse, either.

  And that was that while I'd been hugging Doc, his mother had materialized on the opposite side of the bed, and looked down at me.

  "Thank you," she said. She was, I saw, crying about as hard as her kid. Only her tears, I was uncomfortably aware, were of gratitude and love.

  With all these people crying around me, was it really any wonder that my eyes filled up, too? I mean, come on. I'm only human.

  But I really hate it when I cry. I'd much rather bleed or throw up or something. Crying is just …

  Well, it's the worst.

  You can see why I couldn't tell any of this stuff to Jesse. It was just too . . . personal. It was between Doc and his mom and me, and wild horses – or excessively cute ghosts who happened to live in my bedroom – weren't going to get it out of me.

  Jesse, I saw when I glanced up from the article I'd been staring at unseeingly – How to Tell If He Secretly Loves You. Yeah, right. A problem I so don't have – was grinning at me.

  "Still," he said. "You must be feeling good. It's not every mediator who single-handedly stops a murderer."

  I grunted, and flipped over another page. "It's an honor I could definitely have lived without," I said. "And I didn't do it single-handedly. You helped." Then I remembered that, really, I'd had the situation well in hand by the time Jesse had shown up. So I added, "Well, sort of."

  But that sounded ungracious. So I said, grudgingly, "Thanks for showing up the way you did."

  "How could I not? You called me." He had found a piece of string somewhere, and now he dragged it in front of Spike, who eyed it with an expression on his face that seemed to say, "Whadduya think, I'm stupid?"

  "Um," I said. "I did not call you, all right? I don't know where you're getting this."

  He looked at me, his eyes darker than ever in the rays of the setting sun, which poured unmercifully into my room every night at sundown. "I distinctly heard you, Susannah."

  I frowned. This was all getting a little too weird for me. First Mrs. Fiske had shown up when all I'd been doing was thinking about her. And then Jesse did the same thing. Only I hadn't, to my knowledge, called either of them. I'd been thinking about them, true.

  Jeez. There was way more stuff to this mediating thing than I'd ever even suspected.

  "Well, while we're on the subject," I said, "how come you didn't just tell me that Red was Doc's mom's nickname for him?"

  Jesse threw me a perplexed look. "How would I have known?"

  True. I hadn't thought of that. Andy and my mother had bought the house – Jesse's house – only last summer. Jesse couldn't have known who Cynthia was. And yet …

  Well, he'd known something about her.

  Ghosts. Would I ever figure them out?

  "What did the priest say?" Jesse asked me, in an obvious attempt to change the subject. "When you told him about the Beaumonts, I mean?"

  "Not a whole lot. He's pretty peeved at me for not having filled him in right away about Marcus and stuff." I was careful not to add that Father D was also still ballistic over the whole Jesse issue. That, he'd promised me, was a topic we were going to discuss at length tomorrow morning at school. I could hardly wait. It was no wonder I wasn't doing so hot in Geometry if you took into account all the time I was spending in the principal's office.

  The phone rang. I snatched up the receiver, grateful for an excuse not to have to go on lying to Jesse.

  "Hello?"

  Jesse gave me a sour look. The telephone is one modern convenience Jesse insists he could live very happily without. TV is another. He doesn't seem to mind Madonna, though.

  "Sue?"

  I blinked. It was Tad.

  "Oh, hi," I said.

  "Um," Tad said. "It's me. Tad."

  Don't ask me how this guy, and the guy who'd gotten away with so many murders, could be from the same gene pool. I really don't get it.

  I rolled my eyes, and, throwing the copy of Vogue onto the floor, picked up Gina's letter and re-read it.

  "I know it's you, Tad," I said. "How's your dad?"

  "Um," Tad said. "Much better, actually. It looks as if someone was giving him something – something my dad seems to have thought was medicine – that may actually have been having some kind of hallucinatory effect on him. Turns out the doctors think that might be what's making him think he's … well, what he thinks he is."

  "Really?"

  Dude, Gina wrote, in her big, loopy cursive. Looks like I'm headin’ out West to see you! Your mom rocks! So does that new stepdad of yours. Can't wait to meet the new bros. They can't possibly be as bad as you say.

  Wanna bet?

  "Yeah. So they're going to try to, you know, detox him for a while, and the hope is that once this stuff, whatever it is, is out of his system, he'll be back to his old self again."

  "Wow, Tad," I said. "That's great."

  "Yeah. It's going to take a while, though, since I guess he's been taking this stuff since right after my mom died. I think . . . well, I didn't tell anyone, but I'm wondering if my uncle Marcus might have been giving this stuff to my dad. Not to hurt him or anything – "

  Yeah, right. He hadn't been trying to hurt him. He'd been trying to gain control of Beaumont Industries, that's all.

  And he'd succeeded.

  "I think he really must have thought he was helping my dad. Right after my mom died, Dad was way messed up. Uncle Marcus was only trying to help him, I'm sure."

  Just like he was just trying to help you, Tad, when he pistol-whipped you and swapped your Levis for swim trunks. Tad, I realized, had some major denial going on.

  "Anyway," Tad went on. "I just want to say, um, thanks. I mean, for not saying anything to the cops about my uncle. I mean, we probably should have, right? But it seems like he's gone now, and it would have, you know, looked kind of bad for my dad's business – "

  This conversation was getting way too weird for me. I returned to the comfort of Gina's letter.

  So what should I bring? I mean, to wear. I got this totally hot pair of Miu Miu slacks, marked down to twenty bucks at Filene's, but isn't it Baywatch weather there? The slacks are a wool blend. Also, you better get us invited to some rockin' parties while I'm there because I just got new braids, and girlfriend, let me tell you, I look GOOD. Shauna did them, and she only charged me a buck per. Of course I have to babysit her stinking brother this Saturday, but who cares? It's so worth it.

  "Well, anyway, I just called to say thanks for being, you know, so cool about everything."

  Also, Gina wrote, I think you should know, I am very seriously thinking about getting a tattoo while I'm out there. I know, I know. Mom wasn't exactly thrilled by the tongue stud. But I'm thinking there's no reason she has to see the tattoo, if I get it where I'm thinking about getting it. If you know what I mean! XXXOOO – G

  "Also, I guess I should tell you, since my uncle's gone, and my dad's . . . you know, in the hospital … it looks like I have to go stay with my aunt for a while up in San Francisco. So I won't be around for a few weeks. Or at least until my dad gets better."

  I was never, I realized, going to see Tad again. To him, I would eventually become just an awkward reminder of what had happened. And why would he want to hang around someone who reminds him of the painful time when his dad was running around pretending to be Count Dracula?

  I found this a little sad, but I could understand it.

  P.S. Check this out! I found it in a thrift shop. Remem
ber that whacked-out psychic we went to see that one time? The one who called you – what was it again? Oh, yeah, a mediator. Conductor of souls? Well, here you are! Nice robes. I mean it. Very Cynthia Rowley.

  Tucked into the envelope with Gina's letter was a battered tarot card. It appeared to have been from a beginner's set since there was an explanation printed under the illustration, which was of an old man with a long white beard holding a lantern.

  The Ninth Key, the explanation went. Ninth card in the Tarot, the Hermit guides the souls of the dead past the temptation of illusory fires by the roadside, so that they may go straight to their higher goal.

  Gina had drawn a balloon coming from the hermit's mouth, in which she'd penned the words, Hi, I'm Suze, I'll be your spiritual guide to the afterlife. All right, which one of you lousy spooks took my lip gloss?

  "Sue?" Tad sounded concerned. "Sue, are you still there?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I'm here. That's really too bad, Tad. I'll miss you."

  "Yeah," Tad said. "Me, too. I'm really sorry you never got to see me play."

  "Yeah," I said. "That's a real shame."

  Tad murmured a last good-bye in his sexy, silky voice, then hung up. I did the same, careful not to look in Jesse's direction.

  "So," Jesse said without so much as an excuse-me-for-eavesdropping-on-your-private-conversation. "You and Tad? You are no more?"

  I glared at him.

  "Not," I said, stiffly, "that it's any of your business. But yes, it appears that Tad is moving to San Francisco."

  Jesse didn't even have the decency to try to hide his grin.

  Instead of letting him get to me, I picked up the tarot card Gina had sent me. It's funny, but it looked like the same one Cee Cee's aunt Pru had kept turning over when we'd been at her house. Had I made that happen? I wondered. Had it been because of me?

  But I was certainly no great shakes as a conductor of souls. I mean, look how badly I'd messed up the whole thing with Doc's mom.

  On the other hand, I had figured it out eventually. And along the way, I'd helped stop a murderer....

  Maybe I wasn't quite as bad at this mediating thing as I thought.

  I was sitting there in the middle of my bed, trying to figure out what I should do with the card – Pin it to my door? Or would that generate too many curious questions? Tape it up inside my locker? – when somebody banged on my bedroom door.

  "Come in," I said.

  The door swung open and Dopey stood there.

  "Hey," he said. "Dinner's ready. Dad says for you to come downst – Hey." His normally idiotic expression turned into a grin of malicious delight. "Is that a cat?"

  I glanced at Spike. And swallowed.

  "Um," I said. "Yeah. But listen, Dope – I mean, Brad. Please don't tell your – "

  "You," Dopey said, "are … so … busted."