by Meg Cabot
"I can tell." Paul reached up and felt his nose. Since we were in the spirit world, and not the actual one, it was no longer bleeding. His clothes weren't wet, either. "You know the fact that we're up here means that our bodies, down there, are unconscious."
"I know," I said, glancing nervously up and down the long, fog-enshrouded hallway. Just like in my dreams, I couldn't see what was at either end. It was just a line of doors that seemed to go on forever.
"Well," Paul said, "that should get Jesses attention, anyway. Your suddenly dropping off into a coma, I mean."
"Shut up," I said again. I felt like crying. I really did. And I hate crying. Almost more than I hate falling into bottomless pits. "This is all your fault. You shouldn't have antagonized him."
"And you," Paul said with a spark of anger, "shouldn't go around kissing - "
"Excuse me," Craig interrupted. "But could somebody maybe tell me exactly what - "
"Shut up," Paul and I said to him, at the exact same time.
Then, to Paul, I said, a catch in my voice, "Look, I'm sorry about what happened at your house. Okay? I lost my head. But that doesn't mean that there is anything going on between us."
"You lost your head," Paul repeated tonelessly.
"That's right," I said. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I did not like this place. I didn't like the white plumes of fog that were licking my legs. I didn't like the tomblike stillness. And I especially didn't like that I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me. Who knew where the floor might drop off from underneath?
"What if I want there to be something between us?" he asked.
"Too bad," I said shortly.
He glanced over at Craig, who was beginning to wander down the hall, regarding the closed doors on either side of him with interest.
"What about shifting?" Paul asked.
"What about it?"
"I told you how to do it, didn't I? Well, there's other stuff I can show you. Stuff you've never even dreamed you could do."
I blinked at him. I thought back to what he'd said that afternoon in his bedroom, about soul transference. There was a part of me that wanted to know what that was all about. There was a part of me that wanted to know about this very, very badly.
But there was an equally big part of me that wanted nothing whatsoever to do with Paul Slater.
"Come on, Suze," Paul went on. "You know you're dying to know. All your life you've been wondering who - or what - you really are. And I'm telling you, I have the answers. I know. And I'll teach you, if you'll let me."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "And what do you get out of this magnanimous offer of yours?" I wanted to know.
"The pleasure of your company," he said with a smile.
He said it casually, but I knew there was nothing casual about it at all. Which was why, in spite of how much I was dying to find out more about all the other stuff he claimed to know, I was reluctant to accept his offer. Because there was a catch. And the catch was that I was going to have to spend time with Paul Slater.
But it might be worth it. Almost. And not because I'd finally be getting some insight into the true nature of our so-called gift, but because I might, at last, be able to guarantee Jesse's safety ... at least where Paul was concerned.
"Okay," I said.
To say Paul looked surprised would have been the understatement of the year. But before he could say anything, I added, gruffly, "But Jesse is off-limits to you. I really mean it. No more insults. No more fights. And no more exorcisms."
One of Paul's dark eyebrows went up. "So that's how it is," he said slowly.
"Yes," I said. "That's how it is."
He didn't say anything for so long that I figured he wanted to forget the whole thing. Which would have been fine by me. Sort of. Except for the Jesse part.
But then Paul shrugged and went, "Fine by me."
I stared at him, hardly daring to believe my own ears. Had I just engineered - at great personal sacrifice, it had to be admitted - Jesse's reprieve?
It was Paul's nonchalance about the whole thing that convinced me I had. Especially his response to Craig, when the latter reached out and rattled one of the doorknobs and called, "Hey, what's behind these doors?"
"Your just rewards," Paul said with a smirk.
Craig looked over his shoulder at Paul. "Really? My just rewards?"
"Sure," Paul said.
"Don't listen to him, Craig," I said. "He doesn't know what's behind those doors. It could be your just rewards. Or it could just be your next life. No one knows. No one has ever come out through one of them. You can only go in."
Craig looked speculatively at the door in front of him.
"Next life, huh?" he said.
"Or eternal salvation," Paul said. "Or, depending on how bad you've been, eternal damnation. Go on. Open it and find out whether you were naughty or nice."
Craig shrugged but he didn't take his eyes off the door in front of him.
"Well," he said. "It's gotta be better than hanging around down there. Tell Neil I'm sorry I acted like such a ... you know. It's just that, well, it's just that it really wasn't very fair."
Then, laying a hand on the doorknob in front of him, he turned the handle. The door opened a fraction of an inch . . .
And Craig disappeared in a flash of light so blinding, I had to throw up my hands to protect my eyes.
"Well," I heard Paul saying, a few seconds later, "now that he's out of the way . . ."
I lowered my arms. Craig was gone. There was nothing left where he'd been standing. Even the fog looked undisturbed.
"Now can we get out of here?" Paul heaved a little shudder. "This place gives me the heebie-jeebies."
I tried to hide my astonishment that Paul felt exactly the way I did about the spirit plane. I wondered if he had nightmares about it, too. Somehow, I didn't think so.
But I didn't think I'd be having any more of them, either.
"Okay," I said. "Only . . . only how do we get back?"
"Same thing," Paul said, closing his eyes. "Just picture it."
I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth of Paul's fingers inside my arm, and the cool lick of the fog on my legs . . .
A second later, the awful silence was gone, replaced instead by the sounds of loud music. And screaming. And sirens.
I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was Jesse's face, hanging over mine. It looked pale in the flashing red and white lights of the ambulance that had pulled up alongside the deck. Beside Jesse's face was CeeCee's, and beside hers, Jake's.
CeeCee was the first one to go, "She's awake! Oh, my God, Suze! You're awake! Are you okay?"
I sat up groggily. I did not feel very good. In fact, I felt a little as if someone had hit me. Hard. I clutched my temples. Headache. Pounding headache. Nausea-inducing headache.
"Susannah." Jesses arm was around me. His voice, in my ear, was urgent. "Susannah, what happened? Are you all right? Where ... where did you go? Where's Craig?"
"Where he belongs," I said, wincing as red and white lights caused my headache to feel a thousand times worse. "Is Neil ... is Neil all right?"
"He's fine. Susannah." Jesse looked about as shaky as I felt. . . which was pretty shaky. I didn't imagine that the past few minutes had been all that great for him. I mean, what with me being slumped over, unconscious, and for no apparent reason and all. My jeans were wet from where I'd landed in water from the hot tub. I could only imagine what my hair looked like. I feared passing a mirror.
"Susannah." Jesse's grasp on me was possessive. Delightfully so. "What happened?"
"Who's Neil?" CeeCee wanted to know. She glanced worriedly at Adam. "Oh, my God. She's delusional."
"I'll tell you later," I said, with a glance at CeeCee. A few feet away, I could see that Paul, too, was sitting up. Unlike Neil, over where the sliding glass door used to be, he was doing so without the aid of an EMT. But like Neil, Paul was coughing up plenty of chlorinated water. And not j
ust his jeans were wet. He was soaked from head to toe. And his nose was bleeding profusely.
"What've we got here?" An EMT knelt down beside me, and, lifting my wrist, began to take my pulse.
"She passed out cold," CeeCee said officiously. "And no, she hadn't had anything to drink."
"Lotta that going around here," the EMT said. She checked my pupils. "You hit your head, too?"
"Not that I know of," I said, narrowing my eyes against the annoying glare of her little penlight.
"She might've," CeeCee said, "when she passed out."
The EMT looked disapproving. "When are you kids going to learn? Alcohol," she said severely, "and hot tubs do not mix."
I didn't bother to argue that I hadn't been drinking. Or, for that matter, sitting in the hot tub. I was, after all, fully dressed. It was enough that the EMT let me go after telling me that my vitals checked out and that I was to drink plenty of water and get some sleep. Neil, too, was given a clean bill of health. I saw him a little while later, calling for a cab on his cell phone. I went up to him and told him that it was safe to use his car now. He just looked at me like I was crazy.
Paul wasn't as lucky as Neil and me. His nose turned out to be broken, so they trundled him off to the ER. I saw him moments before they wheeled him away, and he did not look happy. He peered at me around the splint they'd taped to his face.
"Headache?" Paul asked in a phlegmy voice.
"A killer one," I said.
"Forgot to warn you," he said. "It always happens, postshifting."
Paul grimaced. I realized he was trying to smile. "I'll be back," he said in a pretty sad imitation of the Terminator. Then the EMTs returned to cart him away.
After Paul was gone, I looked around for Jesse. I had no idea what I was going to say to him . . . maybe something along the lines of how he wasn't going to have to worry about Paul anymore?
Only it ended up not mattering anyway, because I didn't see him anywhere. Instead, all I saw was Brad, panting heavily, and coming my way.
"Suze," he cried. "Come on. Some idiot called the cops. We've got to hide the keg before they get here."
I just blinked at him. "No way," I said.
"Suze." Brad looked panicky. "Come on! They'll confiscate it! Or worse, arrest everybody."
I looked around and found CeeCee standing over by Adam's car. I called, "Hey, Cee. Can I come over and spend the night at your house?"
CeeCee called back, "Sure. If you'll tell me everything there is to know about this Jesse guy."
"Nothing to tell," I said. Because there really wasn't. Jesse was gone. And I had a pretty good idea where he'd gone, too.
And there wasn't a thing I could do about it.
18
"Face it, Suze," CeeCee said as she wolfed down her half of a cannoli we were sharing the next day at the feast of Father Serra. "Men suck."
"You're telling me," I said.
"I mean it. Either you want them and they don't want you, or they want you and you don't want them - "
"Welcome to my world," I said, glumly.
"Aw, come on," she said, looking taken aback by my tone. "It can't be that bad."
I wasn't in any sort of mood to argue with her. For one thing, I had only just, a little less than twelve hours later, gotten over my postshifting headache. For another, there was the little matter of Jesse. I wasn't all that keen to discuss the latest developments there.
It wasn't like I didn't have enough problems. Like, for instance, my mom and stepdad. They hadn't been too homicidal when they'd gotten home from San Francisco and discovered the shambles that had once been their home . . . not to mention the police summons. Brad was only grounded for life, and Jake, for going along with the whole party scheme - not to mention providing the alcohol - had his Camaro fund completely confiscated to pay whatever fines the party ended up costing. Only the fact that David had been safely at Todd's the whole time kept Andy from actually killing either of his two elder sons. But you could tell he was totally thinking about it anyway . . . especially after my mom saw what had happened to the china cabinet.
Not that either Andy or my mom was particularly happy with me, either - not because they knew the busted up china cabinet was my fault, but for not ratting my stepbrothers out in the first place. I would have intimated that blackmail had been employed, but then they would have known that Brad had something on me that was worthy of blackmail.
So I kept my mouth shut, glad that for once, I was more or less guiltless. Well, except where the china cabinet was concerned - though happily, no one but me knew it. Still, I knew I couldn't shirk my culpability there. I pretty much knew where any future babysitting earnings were going to go.
I am pretty sure they were thinking about grounding me, too. But the feast of Father Serra they could not keep me away from, on account of how, being a member of the student government, I was expected by Sister Ernestine to man a booth there. Which was how I'd ended up at the cannoli stand with CeeCee, who, as editor of the school paper, was also required to put in an appearance. After the preceding evening's activities - you know, massive brawl, trip to the netherworld, and then all-night gabfest accompanied by copious amounts of popcorn and chocolate - we were neither of us at our best. But the surprising number of attendees who plunked down a buck per cannoli didn't seem to notice the circles under our eyes . . . perhaps because we were wearing sunglasses.
"Okay," CeeCee said. It had been pretty dim of Sister Ernestine to put CeeCee and me in charge of a dessert booth, since most of the pastries we were supposed to be selling were disappearing down our throats. After a night like the one we'd had, we felt like we needed the sugar. "Paul Slater."
"What about him?"
"He likes you."
"I guess," I said.
"That's it? You guess?"
"I told you," I said. "I like someone else."
"Right," CeeCee said. "Jesse."
"Right," I said. "Jesse."
"Who doesn't like you back?"
"Well. . . yeah."
CeeCee and I sat in silence for a minute. All around us, mariachi music was playing. Over by the fountain, kids were batting at piftatas. The statue of Junipero Serra had been adorned with flowered leis. There was a sausage and peppers stand right alongside the taco stand. There were as many Italians in the church community as there were Latinos.
Suddenly, CeeCee, gazing at me from behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, went, "Jesse's a ghost, isn't he?"
I choked on the cannoli I was scarfing down.
"W-What?" I asked, gagging.
"He's a ghost," CeeCee said. "You don't have to bother denying it. I was there last night, Suze. I saw . . . well, I saw stuff that can't be explained any other way. You were talking to him, but there wasn't anyone there. And yet someone was holding Paul's head under that water."
I went, feeling myself turn beet red, "You're nuts."
"No," CeeCee said. "I'm not. I wish I were. You know I hate stuff like that. Stuff that can't be explained scientifically. And those stupid people on TV, who claim they can speak to the dead. But - " A tourist came up, drunk on the bright sunshine, the fresh sea air, and the extremely weak beer they were serving over at the German booth. He put down a dollar. CeeCee handed him a cannoli. He asked for a napkin. We noticed that the napkin dispenser was empty. CeeCee apologized. The tourist laughed good-naturedly, took his cannoli, and went away.
"But what?" I asked nervously.
"But where you're concerned, I'm willing to believe. And some day," she added, picking up the empty napkin dispenser, "you are going to explain it all to me."
"CeeCee," I said, feeling my heart start to return to its normal rhythm. "Believe me. You're better off not knowing."
"No," CeeCee said, shaking her head. "I'm not. I hate not knowing things." Then she shook the empty dispenser. "I'm going to go get a refill. You okay on your own for a minute?"
I nodded, and she went away. I don't know if she had any idea how badly she'd shaken
me. I sat there, wondering what I ought to do. Only one other living person knew my secret - one other person besides Father Dom and Paul, of course - and even she, my best friend Gina, back in Brooklyn, didn't know all of it. I had never told anyone else because . . . well, because who would believe it?
But CeeCee believed it. CeeCee had figured it out for herself, and she believed it. Maybe, I thought. Maybe it wasn't as crazy as I'd always thought.
I was sitting there, trembling, even though it was seventy-five degrees and sunny out. I was so deeply absorbed in my thoughts, I didn't hear the voice that was addressing me from the other side of the booth until he'd said my name - or a semblance of it, anyway - three times.
I looked up, and saw a young man in a pale blue uniform grinning at me. "Susan, right?" he said.
I looked from him to the face of the old man whose wheelchair he was pushing. It was Paul Slaters grandfather and his attendant. I shook myself and stood up.
"Um," I said. "Hi." To say I was feeling a bit confused would have been the understatement of the year. "What are you - what are you doing here? I thought... I thought..."
"You thought he was housebound?" the nurse asked with a grin. "Not quite. No, Mr. Slater likes to get out. Don't you, Mr. Slater? In fact, he insisted on down here today. I didn't think it was appropriate, you know, given what happened to his grandson last night, but Paul's at home, recuperating nicely, and Mr. S. was adamant. Weren't you, Mr. S.?"
Paul's grandfather did something that surprised me then. He looked up at the nurse and said in a voice that was perfectly lucid, "Go and get me a beer."
The nurse frowned down at him. "Now, Mr. S.," he said. "You know your doctor says - "
"Just do it," Mr. Slater said.
The nurse, with an amused glance at me as if to say Well, what are you going to do? went off to the beer booth, leaving Mr. Slater alone with me.
I stared at him. The last time I had seen him, he'd been drooling. He wasn't drooling now. His blue eyes were rheumy, it was true. But I had a feeling they saw a lot more that was going on around him besides just Family Feud reruns.
In fact, I was sure of it, when he said, "Listen to me. We don't have much time. I was hoping you'd be here."
