The Mediator #4: Darkest Hour

by Jenny Carroll

  No reason. No reason at all. I did not have to put up with that kind of nonsense. Because that's what it was. Nonsense.

  Well, sort of scary nonsense, but still nonsense, all the same.

  So when I turned out the light that night, it was with a definite sense of satisfaction. I was, I felt, well protected from anything Maria might pull. I had with me beneath the covers a veritable arsenal of weapons, including an ax, a hammer, and something I could not identify that I had taken from Andy's workshop, but which had evil-looking spikes on it. Furthermore, I had Max the dog with me. He would, I knew, awaken me as soon as anything otherworldly showed up, being extremely sensitive to such things.

  And, oh, yes, I slept in Doc's room.

  I know. I know. Cowardly in the extreme. But why should I have stayed in my own bed and waited for her, like a lame duck, when I could sleep in Doc's bed and maybe throw her off the scent? I mean, it wasn't like I was looking for a fight or anything. Well, except for the whole not-doing-a-thing-she-said thing. I guess that was sort of indicative of looking for a fight. But not, you know, actively.

  Because, I have to tell you, while ordinarily I might have gone out looking for Maria de Silva's grave, so I could just, you know, have it out with her then and there, this was a little different. Because of Jesse. Don't ask me why, but I just didn't think I had it in me to go and rough up his ex, the way I would have if she didn't have this connection to him. I can't say I'm really used to waiting for ghosts to come to me....

  But this. This was different.

  Anyway, I had just snuggled down between Doc's sheets (freshly laundered – I wasn't taking any chances. I don't know what goes on in the beds of twelve-year-old boys, and frankly, I don't want to know) and was blinking in the darkness at the odd things Doc has hanging from his ceiling, a model of the solar system and all of that, when Max started to growl.

  He did it so low that at first I didn't hear it. But since I had pulled him into bed with me (not that there was a lot of room, what with the ax and the hammer and the spiky thing) I could feel the growl reverberating through his big canine chest.

  Then it got louder, and the hair on Max's back started standing up. That's when I knew we were in for either an earthquake or a nocturnal visitation from the former belle of Salinas County.

  I sat up, grabbing the spiky thing and holding it like a baseball bat, looking around wildly while saying to Max in a low voice, "Good boy. It's okay, boy. Everything's going to be all right, boy," and telling myself that I believed it.

  That's when someone materialized in front of me. And I swung the spiky thing as I hard as I could.

  C H A P T E R

  6

  "Susannah!" Jesse cried from where he'd leaped to avoid being struck. "What are you doing?"

  I nearly dropped the spiky thing, I was so relieved it was him.

  Max went wild with whining and growling. The poor thing was clearly having some sort of doggie nervous breakdown. In order not to risk his waking everyone in the house, and then having to explain why I was sleeping in my stepbrother's bed with a bunch of Andy's tools, I let him out of the room. As I did so, Jesse took the spiky thing from me and looked down at it curiously.

  "Susannah," he said when I'd closed the door again, "why are you sleeping in David's room, armed with a pick?"

  I raised my eyebrows, looking way more surprised than the occasion warranted. "Is that what that is? I was wondering."

  Jesse just shook his head at me. "Susannah," he said, "tell me what is going on. Now."

  "Nothing," I said, my voice sounding too squeaky and high-pitched even to my own ears. I hurried forward and got back into Doc's bed, stubbing my toe on the hammer but not saying anything, since I didn't want Jesse to know it was there. Finding me in my stepbrother's bed with a pick was one thing. Finding me in my stepbrother's bed with a pick, an ax, and a hammer was something else entirely.

  "Susannah." Jesse sounded really mad, and he doesn't get mad all that often. Except, of course, when he finds me sucking face with strange boys in the driveway, that is. "Is that an ax?"

  Damn! I shoved it back down beneath the covers. "I can explain," I said.

  He leaned the pick against the side of the bed and folded his arms across his chest. "I'd like to hear it," he said.

  "Well." I took a deep breath. "It's like this."

  And then I couldn't think of any way to explain it, other than the truth.

  And I couldn't tell him that.

  Jesse must have read in my face the fact that I was trying to think up a lie, since he suddenly unfolded his arms and leaned forward, placing one hand on either side of the headboard behind me, and sort of capturing me between his arms, though he wasn't actually touching me. This was very unnerving and caused me to slump down very low against Doc's pillows.

  But even that didn't really do any good, since Jesse's face was still only about six inches from mine.

  "Susannah," he said. He was really mad now. Fed up, even, you might say. "What is happening here? Last night I could swear I felt … a presence in your room. And then tonight you are sleeping in here, with picks and axes? What is it that you aren't telling me? And why? Why can't you tell me?"

  I had sunk down as low as I could, but there was no escaping Jesse's angry face, unless I threw the sheet up over my head. And that, of course, wouldn't be at all dignified.

  "Look," I said as reasonably as I could, considering that there was a hammer digging into my foot. "It's not that I don't want to tell you. It's just that I'm afraid that if I do …"

  And then, don't ask me how, the whole thing just came tumbling out. Really. It was incredible. It was like he'd pushed a button on my forehead that said Information Please, and out it all came.

  I told him everything, about the letters, the trip to the historical society, everything, finishing up with, "And the thing is, I didn't want you to know, because if your body really is buried out there, and they find it, well, that means that there's no reason for you to hang around here anymore, and I know it's selfish, but I would really miss you, so I was hoping if I didn't mention it you wouldn't find out and everything could just go on like normal."

  But Jesse didn't have at all the sort of reaction to this information that I thought he would. He didn't sweep me into his arms and kiss me passionately like in the movies, or even call me querida, whatever it means, and stroke my hair, which was wet from my shower.

  Instead, he just started laughing.

  Which I didn't really appreciate. I mean, after everything I had gone through for him in the past twenty-four hours, you would think he would show a bit more gratitude than to sit there and laugh. Especially when my life might very well be in mortal peril.

  I mentioned this to him, but that only made him laugh harder.

  Finally, when he was through laughing – which didn't happen until I'd pulled the hammer out from under the covers, something that sent him into fresh peals, but what was I supposed to do? it was still digging into me – he did reach out and sort of ruffle my hair, but there wasn't anything the least bit romantic about it, since I had put Kiehl's leave-in conditioner on it and I'm pretty sure it got on his fingers.

  That just made me madder at him than ever, even though technically it wasn't his fault. So I took the ax out from beneath the sheets, too, and then pulled the covers up over my head and rolled over and wouldn't talk to him anymore. Or look at him. Very mature, I know, but I was peeved.

  "Susannah," he said in a voice that was a little hoarse from all the laughing he'd been doing. I felt like punching him. I really did. "Don't be like that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I laughed. It's just that I didn't understand a word you just said, you were talking so fast. And then when you pulled out that hammer – "

  "Go away," I said.

  "Come on, Susannah," Jesse said in his silkiest, most persuasive voice – which he was using on purpose to make me go all squishy. Except that it wasn't going to work this time. "Let go of the sheet."

  "No,
" I said, clutching the sheet tighter as he plucked at it. "I said go away."

  "No, I won't go away. Sit up. I want to talk to you seriously now, but how can I do that when you won't look at me? Turn around."

  "No," I said. I was really mad. I mean, you would have been, too. That Maria was one scary individual. And he'd been going to marry her! Well, a hundred and fifty years ago, anyway. Had he even known her? Known that she wasn't anything like the girl who'd written those idiotic letters to him? What had he been thinking, anyway?

  "Why don't you just go hang out with Maria," I suggested to him acidly. "Maybe you two could sit around and sharpen her knives together and have some more laughs at my expense. Ha ha, you could say. That mediator is so funny."

  "Maria?" Jesse pulled on the sheet some more. "What are you talking about, knives?"

  Okay. So I hadn't been totally up front with him. I hadn't told him the whole story. Yeah, the part about the letters and the historical society and the hole and all. But the part about Maria showing up with the knife – the reason, in fact, that I was sleeping in Doc's bed with a bunch of tools? Hadn't mentioned that part.

  Because I'd known how he was going to react. Exactly the way he did.

  "Maria and knives?" he echoed. "No. No."

  That did it. I rolled over and said to him, very sarcastically, "Oh, okay, Jesse. So that knife she held to my throat last night, that must have been an imaginary knife. And I must have imagined it when she threatened to kill me, too."

  I started to roll back over in a huff, but this time he caught me before I got turned all the way and swung me back around to face him. He wasn't, I saw with some satisfaction, laughing now. Or even smiling.

  "A knife?" He was looking down at me like he wasn't sure he'd heard me right. "Maria was here? With a knife? Why?"

  "You tell me," I said, even though I knew the answer perfectly well. "Someone's been dead and gone for as long as she has, it would have to take something pretty big to bring her back."

  Jesse just stared down at me with those dark, liquid eyes of his. If he knew anything, he wasn't saying. Not just yet.

  "She – she tried to hurt you?"

  I nodded, and had the satisfaction of feeling his grip on my shoulders tighten.

  "Yes," I said. "And she held it right here" – I pointed to my jugular – "and she said if I didn't tell Andy to stop digging, she was going to k – "

  Kill me, was what I was going to say, but I didn't get a chance to, because Jesse snatched me up – really, snatched, that's the only way to describe it – and held onto me very tightly for someone who had thought the whole thing a big funny joke just a few seconds before.

  This was, I must say, extremely gratifying. It got even more gratifying when Jesse said some stuff – though I didn't know what it was, because it was in Spanish – into my wet hair.

  But that death grip (excuse the pun) he had me in didn't need any translating: he was scared. Scared for me.

  "It was a really large knife," I said, enjoying the feel of his big strong shoulder beneath my cheek. I could totally get used to this. "And very pointy."

  "Querida," he said. Okay, that word I understood. Well, sort of. He kissed the top of my head.

  This was good. This was very good. I decided to go in for the kill.

  "And then," I said, doing a very good imitation of sounding like I was crying, or at least, was pretty close to doing so, "she put her hand over my face to keep me from screaming, and one of her rings cut me and made my mouth all bloody."

  Oops. This one did not have the desired effect. I should probably not have brought up my bloody mouth, since instead of kissing me there, which was what I'd been aiming for, he pulled me away from him so he could look down into my face.

  "Susannah, why didn't you tell me any of this last night?" He looked genuinely baffled. "I asked you if something was wrong, and you never said a word."

  Hello? Hadn't he heard anything I just said?

  "Because." I was speaking through gritted teeth, but you would have, too, if the man of your dreams was holding you in his arms and all he wanted to do was talk. And about his ex-girlfriend's attempt to murder you, no less.

  "It obviously has something to do with why you're here," I said. "Why you're still here, I mean, in this house, and why you've been here so long. Jesse, don't you see? If they find your body, that proves you were murdered, and that means Colonel Clemmings was right."

  Jesse's bewilderment seemed to increase, rather than lessen, thanks to this explanation.

  "Colonel who?" he said.

  "Colonel Clemmings," I said. "Author of My Monterey. His theory of why you disappeared is not that you got cold feet about marrying Maria and went off to San Francisco to stake a claim, but that that Diego guy killed you so he could marry Maria himself. And if they find your body, Jesse, that will prove you were murdered. And the most likely suspects are, of course, Maria and that Diego dude."

  But instead of being dazzled by my excellent sleuthing skills, Jesse asked, in a shocked voice, "How do you know about him? About Diego?"

  "I told you." God, this was irritating. When were we going to get to the kissing? "It's from a book Doc got out of the library. My Monterey, by Colonel Harold Clemmings."

  "But Doc – I mean, David – is at camp, I thought."

  I said, frustratedly, "This was a long time ago. When I first got here. Last January."

  Jesse didn't let go of me or anything, but he had an extremely odd look on his face.

  "Are you saying that you've known about this … how I died … all along?"

  "Yes," I said, a little defensively. I was getting the feeling that maybe he thought I'd done something wrong, prying into his death. "But, Jesse, that's my job. That's what mediators do. I can't help it."

  "Why did you keep asking me about how I died, then," he demanded, "if you already knew?"

  I said, still on the defensive side, "Well, I didn't know. Not for sure. I still don't. But Jesse – " I wanted to make sure he understood this part, so I pulled back (and he unfortunately let go of me, but what could I do?) and sat up on my heels and said, very slowly and carefully, "If they find your body out there, not only is Maria going to be really mad, but you . . . you're going to move on. You know? From here. Because that's what's been holding you back, Jesse. The mystery of what happened to you. Once your body is found, though, that mystery will be solved. And you'll go. And that's why I couldn't tell you, you see? Because I don't want you to go. Because I I – "

  Oh my God, I almost said it. I can't even tell you how close I came to saying it. I got out the L and then the O just seemed to follow.

  But at the last minute I was able to save it. I turned it to " – like having you around and I would really hate not seeing you anymore."

  Swift, huh? That was a close one.

  Because one thing I know for sure about guys, along with their inability to use a glass and lower the toilet seat and refill ice trays once they are empty: they really cannot handle the L word. I mean, it says so in just about every article I've ever read.

  And you have to figure this is true of all guys, even guys who were born a hundred and fifty years ago.

  And I guess my not using the L word paid off, since Jesse reached out and touched my cheek with his fingertips – just like he had done that day in the hospital.

  "Susannah," he said. "Finding my body is not going to change anything."

  "Um," I said. "Excuse me, Jesse, but I think I know what I'm talking about. I've been a mediator for sixteen years."

  "Susannah," he said. "I have been dead for a hundred and fifty years. I think I know what I am talking about. And I can assure you, this mystery about my death you speak of … that is not why I, as you put it, am hanging around here."

  A funny thing happened then. Just like in Clive Clemmings's office, earlier that day, I just started crying. Really. Just like that.

  Oh, I wasn't sobbing like a baby or anything, but my eyes filled up with tears and I got
that bad prickly feeling behind my nose, and my throat started to hurt. It was weird, because I'd just, you know, been trying to act as if I were crying, and then all of a sudden, I really was.

  "Jesse," I said in this horrible sniffly kind of voice (acting like you're going to cry is way preferable to actually crying, as there is much less mucus involved), "I'm sorry, but that's just not possible. I mean, I know. I've done this a hundred times. When they find your body out there, that is it. You're gone."

  "Susannah," he said again. And this time he didn't just touch my cheek. He reached up and cupped the side of my face with one hand …

  Although the romantic effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was half laughing at me. To give him credit, though, he looked as if he were trying just as hard not to laugh as I was trying not to cry.

  "I promise you, Susannah," he said, with a lot of pauses between the words to give them emphasis, "that I am not going anywhere, whether or not your stepfather finds my body in the backyard. All right?"

  I didn't believe him, of course. I wanted to and all, but the truth is, he didn't know what he was talking about.

  What could I do, though? I had no choice but to be brave about it. I mean, I couldn't very well just sit there and cry my eyes out over it. What kind of fool would I seem then?

  So I said, unfortunately in a very mucusy manner, since by that time the tears were sort of spilling out, "Really? You promise?"

  Jesse grinned and let go of my face. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, lace-trimmed thing I recognized. Maria de Silva's handkerchief. He'd used it before to bind up various cuts and scrapes I'd sustained in the line of mediation duty. Now he used it to wipe my tears.

  "I swear," he said, laughing. But just a little.

  In the end, he persuaded me to come back to my own bed. He said he'd make sure his ex-girlfriend didn't come after me in the night. Only he didn't call her his ex-girlfriend. He just called her Maria. I still wanted to ask him what he'd been thinking, going out with a ferret-faced ice bitch like her, but there never really seemed to be a right moment.