Shade

by Marilyn Peake

  Kailee replied, “I’m not sure they’re around here anymore. I mean, we never find anyone else here. My guess is they moved on and forgot all about this trunk.”

  In the end, we decided that we’d walk back to Kailee’s house, tell her mom we were going out to get a snack and then use her van to pick up the entire trunk. We figured it would be better for the entire trunk to be missing than for most of the ledgers to be gone from a suddenly empty trunk. We thought that maybe the owner of the trunk would just blame themselves or someone they knew for misplacing it. The basement was awfully messy. For extra protection, we piled a heap of stuff where the trunk had been.

  Kailee hated to lie, so after we placed the trunk in the back of her mom’s van, we went out to a 24-hour diner for snacks. We all ended up getting pie and ice cream. I tried the apple crumb pie. It was delicious.

  Back at Kailee’s house, she chatted with her mom to keep her occupied while George and I carried the trunk upstairs to Kailee’s bedroom. Man, was it heavy! I thought my arms were going to fall off.

  After Kailee rejoined us, she spent awhile picking out the perfect place for the trunk. Deciding the best approach would be to hide it in plain sight, she stuck it in a corner, threw a lace covering over it and placed a lamp on top. It worked. The trunk blended in with the décor so well, it looked like it had always been there.

  Kailee downloaded her photographs of the lake into a computer and called it a night.

  George went off to the guest bedroom to sleep. I hopped under the covers on the other side of Kailee’s bed, threw half of the star-spangled quilt over me and fell fast asleep.

  That night, I dreamt of the moon in the lake. It became a dinner plate. Upon its shiny surface, a dead fish. And then the fish was me.

  I woke up covered in sweat.

  CHAPTER 16

  The next day, I had Kailee drop me off at my house before she and George caught the bus to school. She wasn’t happy about it. It made the morning too hectic and rushed. But I felt it was important. I told Kailee and George that I needed to skip school because I wasn’t prepared for classes. That was half the truth. The other half was that I wanted to talk to Brandon and his grandmother about the ledgers as soon as possible to find out if they could see anything, help me figure out what to do next. I had to go to work at The Daily Buzz later that day, but I knew I could afford to skip school. My grades were good, so my teachers wouldn’t care.

  I snuck into my own house after Kailee dropped me off. I heard my mother moving around in her bedroom as I walked through the front hallway and kitchen, so I hightailed it up the stairs to my bedroom as quickly and quietly as possible. A few stairs creaked, but my mom didn’t seem to notice. Our old house was forever creaking and moaning with age, so we had long ago learned to block out those types of sounds.

  Once inside, I locked the door to my bedroom. I dragged out the Ouija Board, just in case it was necessary to catch the attention of the ghosts in my life. I set it up on my bed, put my fingertips on the planchette and whispered, so that my mother wouldn’t overhear me talking out loud, “Brandon ... Brandon’s Grandmother Harper Yates ... Are you there, either of you? I desperately need your help.”

  Seconds later, they both popped into the room.

  Brandon appeared stunned to see his grandmother. He just kind of stared; he looked frightened. I assumed he felt guilty and worried about whether or not his grandmother was angry with him. She floated over to him, put her hands on his shoulders and gazed at him with the sweetest expression on her face. She told him, “You look wonderful, Brandon. Your color is good. I see light in you. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to move on to a higher level soon, if you choose.” Then she gave him a protective hug that seemed to last forever.

  When she released him, Brandon said, “Grandma, I’m so relieved to see you, you have no idea. Before I lose you again, can you tell me if there are ways for me to get in touch with you out here in the afterlife? I’ve been lost. I’ve been completely unable to find you or Neil or Mom and Dad. I have no idea how the afterlife works.” He paused for a split second. His eyes widened. As though realizing something quite suddenly, he asked, “Oh ... and do you know where they are? Neil and my parents?”

  Grandmother Harper Yates simply answered, “Why, yes, of course.”

  Brandon sat down on my couch. He put his head in his hands. Something really weird happened after that. I think there must be some kind of strange telepathy in the afterlife. It scared me. I don’t ever want to be able to do that.

  Two adults who turned out to be Brandon’s parents and his little brother, Neil, popped into the room. They appeared without warning, just kind of materialized from thin air. Brandon was speechless.

  As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, he and all of his family members were covered with a blanket of special effects that looked and shimmered and danced like the aurora borealis. I could no longer hear a word of what the Yates family members were saying. I couldn’t even see them very clearly. They were shielded, protected by a wall of mesmerizing green light.

  Or maybe I was the one being shielded, protected. Maybe I couldn’t handle what was going on in there.

  Eventually, the northern lights display stopped. Brandon explained a little bit to me about what had just happened inside their secret meeting. Apparently, his grandmother had felt guilty for not giving enough attention to Brandon’s Dad when he was growing up. Brandon’s parents had felt guilty for giving into their addictions and neglecting him and Neil when they were growing up. Everyone, except Neil who was an innocent child, finally admitted their sins against family. They vowed to move on into the afterlife in more loving, productive ways. They all forgave each other.

  Strange. This all seemed to happen within seconds, my time.

  After they had dealt with their family problems, Brandon’s parents and little brother disappeared. I wondered: Would Neil ever age, now that he had traveled beyond death?

  Next, Brandon and his grandmother offered to help me brainstorm ideas for how I might find the missing girls from my high school. Let me tell you, it felt great to have support from family members, even if they were more borrowed family than my family and even if they were ghosts.

  We all sat down on my couch, like in family portraits I had seen online and in TV shows. Brandon’s grandmother said she could ‘see’ certain things if she concentrated. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she said to me, “I have a really strong feeling about this ... You cannot go back to the abandoned house where you and your friends hang out, house number 1052. It’s no longer safe. There are some very dangerous people connected to that house and they’re planning to go back. They have unfinished business there.”

  Unfinished business? My heart completely freaked out. If I had been Grandmother Yates’s age, I would have had a heart attack right there on the spot. I confided in her and Brandon about the trunk I’d taken out of that house with my friends. I asked them, “Do we need to put it back?”

  Brandon looked to his grandmother for the answer. She said, “No. No, definitely do not put it back. The trunk appears to be part of the key to finding the missing girls.” She stared off into space for a bit. When her bright blue eyes refocused on mine, she said, “You and your friends are going to need to be very careful. You are walking into dangerous territory, investigating a snakes’ nest that the snakes do not want disturbed. I’m going to give you the name of a psychic who lives in the neighborhood where you found the trunk. I have it on good authority that she has quite a bit of insight into the world of missing people ... and she lives right in the same neighborhood where you found the ledgers.”

  I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Wait. Are you saying the ledgers are somehow related to my missing friends?”

  Giving off the comforting scent of homemade cookies once again, Grandmother Yates grasped my hand in her own. She said, “Yes. Yes, very closely related. If you can find it, look for their names in the current ledger, the one that
had not yet been placed in the trunk.” Then she went over to my desk and jotted something down on a slip of paper. Handing it to me, she said, “This is the name of the psychic. She lives in house number 1068 on the same street where you’ve been hanging out. Go see her.”

  By the time I looked up from the piece of paper, Brandon and his grandmother had disappeared. I felt like crying. I wanted them to stay by my side.

  The words on the paper said: Gabriella Underwood, House #1068.

  That’s it. Nothing more.

  I was on my own. Again.

  I texted George and Kailee: when u get out of school text me. i have some ideas and impt info. i also have work. can we meet 2night but not at clubhouse?

  Kailee texted back an hour later: sure, meet at my house?

  George answered both our text messages in one brief statement: sounds good.

  Worn out from the intensity of the day so far, I decided to take a nap before going into The Daily Buzz.

  Work went by more slowly than it had on my first day there. Writing announcements was so repetitive, it had already lost its charm. I wanted to spice up the announcements somehow. I typed: Jaida Bond will be marrying James Best. I wanted to add: And it would be Best if the groom took the bride’s last name, as he would then be James Bond. I refrained.

  Hours later, I handed my work into Ms. Sims, chatted with her a bit, and then took a bus over to Kailee’s neighborhood. In order to ignore the other passengers, including an annoying set of twins with squeaky voices who kept finishing each other’s sentences, I played games on my cell phone.

  Partway through a fast-paced game with frogs and bugs and leaping lizards, the game froze and my phone delivered a text message from Brandon: Good luck. My grandma says good luck, too.

  Sometimes life was stranger than fiction.

  I typed thnx with a smiley face, changed thnx to Thanks! for old-fashioned Brandon and his grandmother, and added I really appreciate that! because I really did, more than they would ever know. They were my new family. Or at least that’s how I thought about them.

  I went back to making frogs jump out of the way of leaping lizards to grab the bugs they both wanted. Take that, leaping lizards! No bugs for you! The competition is stiff here.

  When I got to Kailee’s neighborhood, I texted her. She texted me back that her front door was unlocked and I should just come on upstairs.

  George was already there. They were typing data from the ledgers into the computers.

  I sat down on Kailee’s bed. “Hey, what’re you guys doing?”

  I looked over at the trunk. Kailee had added a few more things on top: novels and poetry books, a clock, a rainbow-colored vase. It was starting to look a lot more like a table than a trunk.

  George answered me. “We’re going to try to type every ledger entry into the computers. There’s a wealth of information here. We’re hoping the computer can identify lots of patterns and help us find missing people.”

  I hopped up and looked over their shoulders. “That’s pretty cool. Hey, I have another tip about how we might find Annie and the other girls.” I hesitated, then added, “Brandon’s grandmother appeared to me, gave me some information.”

  George and Kailee stopped typing and turned around. I shared with them the name and address of the psychic who apparently lived in the same neighborhood as the house where we had found the ledgers.

  George said, “A psychic? Really?”

  I explained that even the police use psychics when they’re stumped. I added, “And, anyway, even if she’s a total fraud as a psychic, she lives in the same neighborhood as our clubhouse. Maybe we could get her to talk about the neighborhood. It could lead to real clues about the ledgers. I mean, what other house can we just walk up to, knock on the door and ask for a nice long talk about the neighborhood?”

  We agreed to call ahead, make an appointment. We found the psychic listed on the Internet. She didn’t exactly have a website, but she had a blog with contact information.

  George made the phone call, arranged an appointment for Saturday afternoon. He told Gabriella Underwood of house number 1068 that we were doing an article about psychics for our high school newspaper. I guessed we would now have to write that article. Not good to lie to a psychic, especially one recommended by a ghost from the afterlife.

  CHAPTER 17

  On Saturday at the appointed time, George, Kailee and I approached the residence of Gabriella Underwood. Her house looked like a Victorian. It was smaller than the one I lived in, but much nicer. Looked like it had recently been painted: light blue with red and black trim. A sign outlined in colorful lights on the front yard announced: Psychic Gabriella Underwood—Reasonable Prices to Learn Your Future!

  We studied her front door for a moment and chose the knocker rather than the doorbell. It was a metal dragon with blinking purple eyes. Seriously, how could you not choose that knocker?

  We knocked twice. The door opened.

  There stood ... not what I had expected. I’m not sure what I had expected. Maybe someone with a headscarf ... or very colorful dress ... with boots, maybe. Someone who looked like a gypsy? Yeah, that was it. Someone more gypsy in appearance. Instead, at the door beyond the dragon with pulsating purple eyes, was a little old woman in a yellow suit. At closer observation, she was wearing a scarf. But it was only a small silk scarf: purple-and-blue paisley, tucked into the collar of a thin black cardigan. The woman had gray hair, stylish for someone her age, I supposed.

  She smiled at us. “Why, hello!” Then she turned to George. “Are you George from the Central High School newspaper, The Tiger’s Tale?”

  George replied, “Yes. And these are the two other people I told you about, Kailee and Shade.”

  She invited us inside her house. When we entered, she shook our hands in introduction and told us to call her Gabriella. As she shook my hand, she stopped and wrapped both of her hands around mine. I noticed that her eyes were light purple with a speck of blue in the right one. She said, “Oh, my, Shade. I sense a darkness about you.”

  I was mortified. How could she say that to me in front of my friends from school? Of course I had darkness about me. Life was a daily struggle! If she brought up my cutting, I swear ... I swear...

  I didn’t have time to decide a plan. She said, “I don’t mean you are the darkness, my dear. If anything, you are the light. I sense a tremendous amount of light within you. You are somewhat of an old soul, sent to guide others more immature and troubled than yourself.”

  Ha! She had gotten that right! Shake hands with a psychic and what do you get? I knew there was a joke in there somewhere, but I was trembling too much to think of it. My brain had psychic tremors and I was, completely out of character for me, speechless.

  Gabriella continued, warmly rubbing my hand within her wrinkled and veined ones, “I sense you are carrying too much darkness for one so young. After the interview for your high school paper, I would be happy to consult my crystal ball, help you see the things you need to see to bring the light to shine upon the darkness.”

  I realized this might have something to do with Annie and Misty and Ursula, rather than my immature mother for whom I always had to be the responsible old soul. I managed to shake my head and mumble something like, “Sure. Thank you.”

  Gabriella led us into a cozy room where a fire blazed in a fireplace. It had a wooden mantle into which had been carved the faces of wizards with wonderfully crazy hats. A calico cat looked up lazily from where it had curled up on an overstuffed chair. The room had the look of a cottage living room. The ceiling was high and made of polished logs, giving it the atmosphere of a mountain cabin.

  I sat down with George and Kailee on a couch that had been upholstered with fabric featuring country-cottage-style flowers. We sank into it, the cushions were so wonderfully thick. Gabriella offered us hot chocolate. We immediately accepted.

  After serving us the most delicious hot chocolate upon which tiny marshmallows floated on islands of whipped cre
am, Gabriella sat down in a massive chair that appeared to dwarf her. On an end table next to her, a crystal ball rested on a silver stand.

  She began, “So, what would you like to ask me?”

  Our questions suddenly seemed lame. They were nothing but a guise to follow through on the advice of Brandon’s grandmother, a grandmotherly ghost, and consult this psychic to see if she knew anything about the girls from Central High who had gone missing.

  Thank God we had at least planned out specific questions ahead of time, so that we wouldn’t be floundering around in our minds and tripping over our tongues to make up questions on the fly.

  George started. “How long have you been a psychic?”

  Lame! Lame! Lame! I wanted to crack myself over the head with the walking stick leaning against the wall next to the fireplace.