Graveyard Slot

by Michelle Schusterman

  I grinned. “Mean.”

  “Yeah. Especially considering I hid it at the bottom of her stocking so it was the last thing she pulled out.”

  “Meaner,” I said, laughing. Up ahead, the door to the catacombs stood slightly ajar. Oscar and Thiago were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the grass along the side, leaning against the crumbling stone. Thiago was talking animatedly, waving his hands in the air. As we got closer, I realized he was speaking English—and pretty well, too. Maybe he was more comfortable talking when his sister wasn’t around. Oscar was listening intently, and both were totally oblivious to our presence.

  “Hi,” I said. They looked up, clearly startled. “Where’s Hailey?”

  “She asked Abril to take her to some market,” Oscar replied.

  Jamie frowned. “Why?”

  “She didn’t say. We were down there taking pictures of the catacombs and talking to Guzmán, and as soon as we got up here she said she had to go to . . . ah . . .” He looked at Thiago. “What’s it called?”

  “Plaza Dorrego.”

  “Oh right—I think that’s where Mi Jin took her yesterday to get souvenirs,” Jamie said. “Is it close?”

  “Um . . .” Thiago gestured over his shoulder. “San Telmo is the neighborhood. Not very far. A few bus stops.” His voice was much softer than it had been a minute ago, and he smiled shyly at us.

  “She took the bus?” Jamie sounded rather alarmed. “I’m gonna call her. She’s not supposed to go off anywhere without telling me since Dad’s in meetings all day.” He walked a few steps away, pulling out his phone. I settled on the grass on Oscar’s other side. He eyed the crusty dead flower as I laid it in my lap, mouth twitching like he wanted to laugh.

  “How was your date?” He said it very, very quietly.

  “Good.” I said it very, very quietly, too. “How was yours?”

  Oscar’s eyes narrowed slightly, although not exactly in an angry way. More like in a very-funny-but-seriously-shut-up-now kind of way. So I did, arranging my face into an innocent expression as Jamie sat down with us.

  “They just got off the bus,” he said. “Should be here any minute. She wouldn’t tell me what they were doing, though. What happened with Guzmán?”

  “Nothing interesting, really,” Oscar said. “He brought everything else of Brunilda’s that he found in the trunk: a rosary, shoes, some old books, stuff like that. Here, I took pictures of it all.” He pulled my Elapse out of his pocket and handed it to me. “I couldn’t use it for very long though,” he added. “I started feeling sick after a few minutes, just like at the park yesterday. I think everyone did. Guzmán didn’t say anything, but even he looked kind of pale.”

  I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah . . .” Oscar’s brow creased. “Why are you so surprised? You told her our Ana theory, right?” he added to Jamie, who nodded.

  “I know, it’s just . . .” I trailed off, gazing at the Elapse. Nothing made sense anymore. If my camera actually did have an effect on everyone’s anxiety levels, maybe Ana really was possessing it. But then what about the scratches in the bathroom? What about all the panic attacks I had when my camera wasn’t even on?

  “You guys, you guys, you guys!” Hailey came sprinting toward the church, cheeks red with exertion. Abril followed a few seconds later, at a less frantic pace. Jamie opened his mouth when Hailey plopped down next to him, but she waved at him to be quiet before he could say a word.

  “Yeah, I know, I was supposed to call you, but whatever, Jamie, I was with Abril and she knows where she’s going and it’s not like Dad’s even gonna care. Anyway.” Hailey took a deep, shaky breath. “Oscar, you took a picture of Brunilda’s journal, right?”

  “Yup. Several.”

  Hailey grabbed the Elapse out of my lap and flipped it on. She scrolled through a few photos, then turned the viewfinder so we could see. “Okay, look at it really closely,” she said, flipping to the next picture, and then the next. “Leather cover. Look at the stitching, the red-and-yellow pattern. And then here, the initials BC engraved in a bronze plate in the corner. Look at the shape of the plate—like a sand dollar, right?”

  I leaned closer. “Right . . .”

  Turning the camera off, Hailey stuck her hand in the little purse slung across her shoulders. “In other words, it looks exactly like . . . this.”

  She pulled a leather journal out with a flourish, beaming proudly. For a moment, we all stared at it: the red-and-yellow stitching, the bronze sand-dollar plate with the initials BC. Jamie made a move to grab it, but Hailey held it out of his reach. “Did you take that from Guzmán?” he exclaimed, and she shook her head and smiled.

  “Nope. Check it out.” Hailey opened the journal and held it so we could watch as she flipped through the pages. “Blank. It’s brand new.”

  “There’s a small shop that sells handmade leather journals, bags, things like that,” Abril explained. She looked almost as excited as Hailey. “El Dólar de Arena. The Sand Dollar.”

  “I saw it when I was with Mi Jin yesterday,” Hailey added. “Then this morning when I studied Guzmán’s journal up close, I noticed the plate was shaped like a sand dollar, and I remembered it looked like the sign for that shop.” She bounced a little on her knees. “So Abril took me, and we found a journal exactly like Brunilda’s, and they do custom engraving, so I had them make one with her initials.”

  “Then I asked the owner if he knew Guzmán,” Abril said. “I described him—very tall, you know? He’s pretty memorable—and the owner said yes, he remembers someone like that coming in about a year ago and buying a journal like this.”

  “So it’s not really Brunilda Cano’s journal,” Hailey finished triumphantly. “Guzmán bought it, and he wrote all the entries. I know that doesn’t prove he’s faking the séances, but it’s something, right? Maybe for some reason he’s lying about her being possessed!”

  “Maybe he’s lying about her even existing,” Jamie said, giving me a pointed look.

  “No, Guzmán has official records of her,” Abril said. “Inés told us. He shared it all with his students—her birth certificate and death certificate, things like that. She saw them.”

  “Maybe he faked those, too.” I sat back against the wall, still gazing at Hailey’s journal. “He didn’t get them from the library—Jamie and I couldn’t find anything about her there. All those books on local history and genealogy, all those records, and there was literally nothing about Brunilda Cano in the card catalog. But we found that picture Guzmán has, the one of the convent. The caption says the nun he told us was Brunilda is actually named María Carmen Romero.”

  “Then we went to the cemetery behind the church,” said Jamie. “María was buried there, and lots of other nuns. No Brunilda.”

  “So . . . so you think Guzmán invented her?” Abril’s forehead was crinkled. “But why would he do that?”

  I slipped my camera back in my pocket. “I don’t know, but we need to find Jess and tell her before P2P bases an entire episode on the ghost of a person who doesn’t even exist.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A DEADLY CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY

  To: acciopancakes@mymail.net

  From: Maytrix@admin.P2P.net

  Subject: Just a heads-up

  Hi, Kat!

  Hope everything’s going well in BA. Just wanted to alert you to something that came up on the forums recently, since you haven’t logged in for a while. A new user named kbold04 joined and posted some inappropriate stuff in the thread about your blog and . . . well, you, to be honest. Another member alerted me to his post pretty quickly. IMO, the content qualified as harassment, and I deleted it and sent him a warning. Then he posted the same junk again (what a shock, right?). We have a three-strikes policy, so next time he does it, I can just delete his account.

  The problem is, if this guy is really pe
rsistent, he can just create a new account. We get trolls all the time—usually they give up after a while. Hopefully this one’ll just go back under his bridge.

  Can’t wait for the catacombs episode! I really love Graveyard Slot, btw. So glad you and Oscar are on the show.

  Maddy (aka Maytrix)

  P2P Fan Forum Founder/Admin

  PS—jamiebaggins was the member who told me about both posts. Thanks to him, they were barely up for an hour. He’s really been looking out for you! ;)

  “HEY.”

  I jumped when I heard Oscar’s voice behind me, and I closed my inbox quickly before sliding my phone into my pocket. My heart was still racing from reading Maddy’s e-mail. I wasn’t sure which was worse: knowing the same person was saying all that horrible stuff about me in the forums, or knowing that Jamie had read it and didn’t say anything. Both made me feel the same: angry and ashamed.

  “Hey.” I scooted over on the sofa as Oscar sat next to me. “Are they still talking about Guzmán upstairs?”

  Oscar nodded. Hailey had given Jess the journal a few hours ago, and I’d explained everything we’d learned about Brunilda to the rest of the cast. We were supposed to meet Guzmán and his students for the séance in less than an hour, and they were debating how to handle it: confront him before we started filming, or bust him on camera. If they did it before, he might refuse to even hold the séance, and then pretty much everything else we’d filmed for this episode would be useless. But exposing him while filming was pretty risky, for obvious reasons. Guzmán had a lot at stake—his job, his reputation—and there was no way to predict how he’d react.

  “Where are Jamie and Hailey?”

  “Video chat with their mom,” Oscar replied. “Thiago and Abril went home to tell Inés about the journal. They’re coming back tonight while we’re filming, though.” He kept fidgeting in a nervous sort of way, wiping his palms on his knees, pulling at a loose thread on his shorts.

  “Hey, about Thiago,” I said. “I’m sorry if I . . . I mean, I was just teasing you about the date thing. I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

  Oscar smiled slightly. “You didn’t. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Okay. But for what it’s worth . . .” I hesitated, chewing my lip. Oscar fell still, his eyes fixed on the table. “I think maybe he likes you,” I blurted out. “So, you know, if you like him, too, you should tell him. That’s all.”

  He was still smiling, but now it looked forced. “Why, because that worked out so well last time I did it?”

  “What, with Mark?” I made a face. “Come on, not everyone’s that big of a jerk.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m just saying, you can’t let what happened with Mark—”

  “Stop,” Oscar interrupted. “You don’t get it. It’s not like . . . like that.” He pointed at the dried-up flower Jamie had given me, which was lying on the table. “I know this stuff is easy for you and that’s great, but just . . . don’t give me advice, because it’s not the same thing. Okay?”

  I swallowed hard. “Okay, fine.”

  “Anyway, I need to talk to you about something else.” Oscar shifted a little, still avoiding my gaze. “When the rest of the cast gets down here, I think we have to tell them about Ana.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “If we’re going to try to get her out of your camera, it should be a part of the show.” I started to respond, but he cut me off. “I know, I know. You hate being on TV, blah blah blah. It’s a ghost-hunters show, Kat. You have to tell them about this.”

  My spine stiffened. “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “I knew you’d do this,” I said, my voice rising a little. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about seeing Ana in the first place.”

  Oscar stared at me. “You’ve seen her?”

  “At the waterfall, through my camera. And guess what? Before I dropped it into the water, I had pictures of her! And pictures of I WANT OUT written all over the cave behind the falls—which she also scratched all over my bathroom a few nights ago, by the way. I even have video of her when I was practicing recording myself so I wouldn’t be so freaking nervous about being on camera. Trying to just get over it, like someone told me to do.”

  “What . . . why didn’t you tell me?” He sounded more mad than hurt, which just made me even angrier.

  “I wanted to tell you about it, but I knew you’d do this—force me to tell Jess all about Ana so we’d have to cover it on the show.” I was breathing heavily now, tears prickling the corners of my eyes. “Never mind that I didn’t even want to be on the stupid show in the first place.”

  Oscar shook his head in disbelief. “You do realize that this whole catacombs episode might be completely ruined if it turns out Guzmán made Brunilda up, right? This story about Ana is something, at least. I can’t believe you haven’t told anyone just because you don’t like being on TV. Your dad’s job is at stake here, and my aunt’s.”

  I snorted. “Please, don’t pretend that’s the reason you want to tell them. This is about you getting more camera time, more Graveyard Slot videos, more fans gushing about you and—”

  “Oh my God, Kat!” Oscar yelled. “Why are you so mad about that? And who cares what the fans say?”

  “Uh, you?” A dry laugh escaped my throat. “You love the attention—you’re obsessed with reading about yourself on the forums. Probably because it’s all lovey-dovey stuff that doesn’t make you hate yourself.”

  Oscar’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, are you talking about that one comment? The one that said you looked like a boy or something?”

  “It was more than one,” I said defensively. “He’s been—”

  “So what, a random person you don’t even know says a few mean things about you, and suddenly you’re too traumatized to be on TV?”

  My face burned. “Considering you’ve been bullied, I kind of thought you’d understand.”

  “You think a few stupid comments on a video is being bullied?” Oscar rolled his eyes. “Please.”

  “You know what, Oscar?” I stood up, trembling. But before I could finish the thought—and I wasn’t completely sure what the thought was—the elevator doors slid open.

  “They’re done!” Hailey hurried toward us, followed by Jamie. “Jess said they decided to film the séance, then pull out the journal and confront Guzmán on the show.” She danced a little on the spot. “It’s going to be dramatic, I bet . . .” Trailing off, she looked from me to Oscar. “Er, is everything okay?”

  “Fine,” I said shortly, grabbing my camera. “So we’re heading to the church?”

  “Yeah, Jess said they’d be down here in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll meet you guys there, okay?” Without waiting for a response, I headed to the exit. I couldn’t even look at Oscar.

  I was crossing the street, hanging the Elapse around my neck, when I heard someone running up behind me. “What’s going on?” Jamie asked, panting slightly. “Are you okay?”

  “Fantastic,” I said. “Thanks for telling me about that jerk in the forums, by the way.”

  It came out much harsher than I intended, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. I was mad at Oscar, not Jamie.

  He stopped on the sidewalk, and I turned to face him. “How’d you find out about the forums?” he asked.

  “Maytrix e-mailed me.” I rubbed my eyes. “Thank you for reporting it and getting them to delete his posts. I mean it,” I added, and Jamie’s shoulders relaxed slightly.

  “You’re welcome. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.” He sounded nervous. “I should’ve, but . . . I don’t know. We were having fun, and I didn’t want to upset you.”

  I waved my hand. “It’s fine, really. I’ve gotten used to his stupid comments.” That was a total lie, but hey. Maybe if I faked indifference, I’d feel it eventually.
<
br />   “Gotten used to them?” Jamie repeated. “I thought you weren’t checking the forums.”

  “Oh . . .” I started walking again, mentally cursing myself. “Yeah, the same person left a few comments like that on my blog. It’s no big deal.”

  “What?” Jamie’s expression darkened. “Did you tell anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe we should—”

  “It’s fine,” I said firmly. “Don’t worry about it.”

  The Elapse bumped against my chest as we walked the rest of the way to the church in silence. Oscar was going to tell the cast about Ana whether I wanted to or not, and I’d told him everything. About the messages in the cave and the bathroom. About my embarrassing video. The one with Ana in the mirror.

  He’d tell the others, and then they’d realize Ana was possessing me, and it all would end up on TV. I couldn’t let that happen.

  I had to figure out how to exorcise Ana tonight. Alone.

  While everyone else was busy running extension cords and setting up equipment, I sneaked off to the sacristy, a small room on the north side of the cathedral. Jess had filmed Dad in here yesterday, since it was one of the places mentioned in Brunilda’s fake journal. The sacristy, I’d learned from Dad’s segment, was where priests prepared for services and rituals. Fitting, since I had a ritual of my own to perform.

  “Okay,” I said, walking over to the ornate gold mirror hanging next to a small closet. “Step two: exposure. Come on, Ana. I know it’s you.”

  I stared at my reflection, waiting for . . . what? I had no idea. Red Leer had revealed his identity when I asked Lidia, “Who are you?” and she’d spelled his name on the Ouija board.