The Mediator #4: Darkest Hour

by Jenny Carroll

  I just bunked up at him. "Father D," I said. "What are you talking about?"

  "Well, it's only that. . ." Father Dominic looked more embarrassed than I had ever seen him. I could not, for the life of me, figure out what was wrong with him. "I see that you changed …"

  I looked down at myself. I had changed out of my pink slip dress and into a black one that had little red rosebuds embroidered on it. This I had paired with some totally cute Prada slides. I had had a hard enough time choosing an ensemble. I mean, what do you wear to an exorcism? I totally did not need Father D dissing my duds.

  "What?" I demanded defensively. "What's wrong with it? Too funereal? It's too funereal, isn't it? I knew black was all wrong for the occasion."

  "Nothing's wrong with it," Father Dominic said. "It's simply that . . . Susannah, you mustn't attempt to use your, um, sexual wiles to influence Jesse's decision."

  My mouth dropped open. Okay. Now I was mad.

  "Father Dominic!" I sat up and yelled. After that, though, I was completely speechless. I couldn't think of anything to say except, "As if."

  "Susannah," Father Dominic said severely. "Don't pretend you don't know what I mean. I know you care about Jesse. All I'm asking is that you don't use your" – he cleared his throat – "feminine charms to manipulate his – "

  "Like I could," I grumbled.

  "Yes." Father Dominic's tone was firm. "You could. All I'm asking is that you don't. For the good of both of you. Don't."

  "Fine," I said. "I won't. I wasn't planning to."

  "I'm delighted to hear that," Father Dominic said. He opened a small, leather-bound book and began flipping through the pages. "Shall we begin, then?"

  "I suppose." Still grumbling, I lay back down. I couldn't believe Father D had just suggested what he had – that I would use my sex appeal to lure Jesse back to me. Ha! Father D was overlooking two simple things: one being that I'm not so sure I have sex appeal, and two, that if I do, Jesse had certainly never noticed.

  Still, Father Dominic had felt obliged to say something about it, which must mean he'd noticed something. Must be the dress. Not bad for fifty-nine ninety-five.

  As I lay there, a slow grin crept over my face. Father D had used the word sexual. About me!

  Excellent.

  Father D began reading from his little book. As he read, he swung this metal ball that had smoke coming out of it. The smoke was from the incense burning inside the metal ball. Let me tell you, it stank.

  I couldn't understand what Father D was saying, since it was all in Latin. It sounded nice, though. I lay there in my black slip dress and wondered if I ought to have worn pants. I mean, who knew what I was going to find up there? What if I had to do some climbing? People might see my underwear.

  You would have thought I'd be pondering more profound thoughts than this, but I am very sorry to report that the most deepest thing I thought about while Father Dominic was exorcising my soul was that when this was all over, and Jesse was home, and Maria and Felix had been locked back up in their crypt, where they belonged, I was going to have to take a really long soak in that hot tub Andy was installing, because let me you tell you, I was sore.

  And then something started happening above my head. A section of the domed ceiling disappeared, and was replaced by all this smoke. Then I realized it was the smoke from the incense Father D was waving around. It was curling like a tornado above my head.

  Then, in the center of the tornado, I saw the night sky. Really. Like the dome over the top of the basilica wasn't there anymore. I could see stars twinkling coldly. I didn't recognize any constellations, even though Jesse had been trying to teach them to me. Back in Brooklyn, you couldn't see the stars so well, because of the city lights. So other than the Big Dipper, which you can always see, I don't know the names of any of the constellations.

  It didn't matter. This wasn't the sky I was seeing. Not Earth's sky, anyway. It was something else. Someplace else.

  "Susannah," Father Dominic said gently.

  I started, then looked at him. I had been, I realized, half asleep, staring up at that sky.

  "What?" I asked.

  "It's time," Father Dominic said.

  C H A P T E R

  15

  Father Dominic looks funny, I thought. Why does he look so funny?

  I realized why when I sat up. That's because only part of me sat up. The rest of me stayed where I was, lying on the choir robes with my eyes closed.

  You know on Sabrina the Teenage Witch when she splits into two people, so one can go to the party with Harvey and the other can go to the witch convention with her aunts? That's what had happened to me. I was two people now.

  Except that only one of them was conscious. The other half was just lying there with her eyes closed. And you know what? That bruise on my forehead really did look disgusting. No wonder everyone who saw it recoiled in horror.

  "Susannah," Father Dominic said. "Are you all right?"

  I tore my gaze from my unconscious self.

  "Fine," I said. I looked down at my spiritual self, which appeared to me to be exactly the same as the person beneath me, except that I was glowing a little. An excellent fashion accessory, by the way, if you can get it. You know, that all-over spectral glow can really do things for a girl's complexion.

  Plus something else. The bruise on my forehead? Yeah, it didn't hurt anymore.

  "You don't have much time," Father Dominic said. "Just half an hour."

  I blinked at him. "How am I supposed to know when half an hour is up? I don't have a watch." I don't wear one because somehow they always end up getting smashed by some recalcitrant spirit. Besides, who wants to know what time it is? The news is almost always disappointing.

  "Wear mine," Father Dom said, and he took off his enormous steel-link man watch and gave it to me.

  It was the first object I picked up in my new ghostly state. It felt absurdly heavy. Still, I managed to fasten it around my wrist, where it jangled loosely, like a bracelet. Or a prison shackle.

  "Okay," I said, looking up at that hole above me. "Here goes nothing."

  I had to climb, of course. Don't ask me why I hadn't thought of this. I mean, I had to reach up and grab the edges of that hole in time and space and boost myself up into it. And in a slip dress, no less.

  Whatever. I was about halfway in when I heard a familiar voice shriek my name.

  Father Dominic spun around. I leaned down from the hole – through which I could only see fog, gray fog that spritzed my face damply – and saw Jack, of all people, running down the church aisle toward us, his pale face white with fear, and something trailing behind him.

  Father Dominic reached out and caught him just before he flung himself on my unconscious form. He obviously didn't see my legs dangling from the enormous tear in the church ceiling.

  "What are you doing here?" Father Dominic demanded, his face almost as white as the kid's. "Do you have any idea what time it is? Do your parents know you're here? They must be worried sick – "

  "They're – they're asleep," Jack panted. "Please, Suze forgot … she forgot her rope." Jack held up the long white object that had been skittering along behind him as he'd run between the pews. It was my rope from our first attempt to exorcise me. "How is she going to find her way back without her rope?"

  Father Dominic took the rope from Jack without a word of thanks. "It was very wrong of you, Jack," he said disapprovingly, "to come here. What could you have been thinking? I told you it was going to be very dangerous."

  "But …" Jack kept looking at my unconscious half. "Her rope. She forgot her rope."

  "Here," I called, from my celestial hole. "Toss it up here."

  Jack looked up at me, and the anxiety left his face.

  "Suze!" he yelled delightedly. "You're a ghost!"

  "Shhh!" Father Dominic looked pained. "Really, young man, you must keep your voice down."

  "Hi, Jack," I said from my hole. "Thanks for bringing the rope. How'd you get down he
re, anyway?"

  "Hotel shuttle," Jack said proudly. "I snuck onto it. It was coming into town to pick up a lot of drunk people. When it stopped near the Mission, I snuck off."

  I couldn't have been prouder if he'd been my own son. "Good thinking," I said.

  "This," Father Dominic moaned, "is the last thing we need right now. Here, Susannah, take the rope, and for the love of God, hurry – "

  I leaned down and grabbed the end of the rope, then tied it securely around my waist. "Okay," I said. "If I'm not back in half an hour, start pulling."

  "Twenty-five minutes," Father Dominic corrected me. "We lost time, thanks to this young man's interruption." He took a pocket watch from his coat with the hand that wasn't clutching the other end of the rope. "Go now, Susannah," he urged me.

  "Right," I said. "Okay. Be right back."

  And then I swung my legs into the hole. When I looked down, I could see Father Dominic and Jack standing there, peering up at me. And I could also see me, asleep like Snow White, in a circle of dancing candle flames. Although I doubt Snow White ever wore Prada.

  I got up and looked around me. Nothing.

  I'm serious. There was nothing there. Just that black sky, through which a few stars burned coldly. And then there was the fog. Thick, ever-moving, cool fog. I should have, I thought to myself with a shiver, worn a sweater. The fog seemed to weigh down the air I was taking into my lungs. It also seemed to serve as a muffler. I couldn't hear a sound, not even my own footsteps.

  Oh, well. Twenty-five minutes wasn't long. I sucked in a chestful of damp air and yelled, "Jesse!"

  It was a highly effective move. Not that Jesse showed up. Oh, no. But this other guy did.

  In a gladiator outfit, no less.

  I'm not even kidding. He looked like the guy from my mom's American Express card (which I frequently borrow, with her permission, of course). You know, the broom sticking out of his helmet, the leather miniskirt, the big sword. I couldn't see his feet on account of the fog, but I assumed that, if I could, he'd be wearing lace-up sandals (so unflattering on people with fat knees).

  "You," he said, in this deep, no-nonsense voice, "do not belong here."

  See. I knew the slip dress had been a mistake. But who knew purgatory had a dress code?

  "I know," I said, giving him my best smile. Maybe Father D was right. Maybe I do have a tendency to use my sexuality to get what I want. I was certainly laying on the girlie thing thick for the Russell Crowe type in front of me.

  "The thing is," I said, fingering my rope. "I'm looking for a friend. Maybe you know him. Jesse de Silva? He showed up here last night, I think. He's about twenty, six feet tall, black hair, dark eyes – " Killer abs?

  Russell Crowe must not have been listening closely, since all he said was, "You do not belong here," again.

  Okay, the slip dress had definitely been a mistake. Because how was I supposed to kick this guy out of my way without splitting the skirt?

  "Look, mister," I said, striding up to him and trying not to notice that his pectoral muscles were so pronounced, his breasts were bigger than mine. Way bigger. "I told you. I'm looking for someone. Now either you tell me if you've seen him, or you get out of my face, okay? I'm a mediator, all right? I have just as much right to be here as you."

  I did not, of course, know if this was true, but heck, I've been a mediator all my life, and I haven't gotten squat for it. As far as I was concerned, somebody owed me, but big.

  The gladiator seemed to agree. He went, in a completely different tone, "A mediator?" He looked down at me as if I were a monkey that had suddenly sat up and started saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

  Still, I must have done something right, since he said slowly, "I know the one of whom you speak."

  Then he seemed to come to a decision. Stepping to one side, he said in a commanding voice, "Go now. Do not open any doors. He will come."

  I stared at him. Whoa. "Are you . . . are you serious?"

  For the first time, he showed some personality. He went, "Do I seem to be joking to you?"

  "Um," I said. "No."

  "Because I am the gatekeeper. I do not joke. Go now." He pointed. "You have not much time."

  Off in the distance, in the direction he was pointing, I saw something. I don't know what it was, but it was something other than fog. I felt like hugging my new gladiator friend, but I restrained myself. He didn't seem the touchy-feely sort.

  "Thanks," I said. "Thanks a whole lot."

  "Hurry," the gatekeeper said. "And remember, whatever you do, do not go toward the light."

  I had given the rope a yank so that Father D would give me some slack. Now I just stood there with it in my hands, staring at the gladiator.

  "Don't go in the light?" I echoed. "You're not serious."

  I swear to you, he sounded indignant. "I told you before, I do not joke. Why do you think I would say something I do not mean?"

  I wanted to tell him that the whole don't-go-into-the-light thing was way overplayed. I mean, Poltergeist One through Three had pretty much run that line into the ground.

  But who knew? Maybe the guy who wrote those movies was a mediator. Maybe he and the gatekeeper were pals or something.

  "Okay," I said, sidling past him. "Gotcha. Don't go in the light."

  "Or open any doors," the gatekeeper reminded me.

  "No doors," I said, pointing at him and winking. "You got it."

  Then I turned around, and the fog was gone.

  Well, not gone, really. I mean, it was still there, licking at my heels. But most of it had given way, so that I could see I was in a corridor lined with doors. There was no ceiling overhead, just those coldly winking stars and inky black sky. Still, the long corridor of closed doors seemed to stretch out forever before me.

  And I wasn't supposed to open any of those doors. Or go into the light.

  Well, the second part was easy. I didn't see any light to go toward. But how was I not supposed to open one of those doors? I mean, really. What was going on behind them? What would I find if I opened one, just a crack, and peeked in? Alternate universe? The planet Vulcan? Maybe a world where Suze Simon was a normal girl, not a mediator? Maybe one where Suze Simon was homecoming queen and the most popular person in the whole school, and Jesse wasn't a ghost and could actually take her to dances and had his own car and didn't live in her bedroom?

  Then I stopped wondering what was behind all those doors. That's because coming down the hallway toward me – as if he'd just materialized there from out of nowhere – came Jesse.

  He looked pretty surprised to see me. I don't know if it was the fact that I was standing there in what was, I suppose, heaven's waiting room, or if it was the attractive length of cord around my waist, which did not, I have to admit, go with the rest of my outfit.

  Whatever it was, he looked pretty shocked.

  "Oh," I said, reaching up to make sure my bangs were covering my unsightly bruise. "Hi."

  Jesse froze in his tracks and just stared at me. It was like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He didn't look any different from the last time I'd seen him. I mean, the last time I'd seen his ghost. The last time I'd seen him, of course, it had been a view of his rotten corpse, and the sight had, of course, made me lose my supper.

  But this Jesse was a lot easier on the eyes.

  Still, if I'd expected any sort of joyful reunion – a hug or, God forbid, a kiss – I was in for a disappointment. He just stood there, staring at me like I'd grown two heads since the last time we'd bumped into each other.

  "Susannah," he breathed. "What are you doing here? Are you – you're not – "

  I caught his meaning at once and went, with a nervous laugh, "Dead? Me? No, no, no. No. I just, um, I came up here because I wanted to, um, you know, see if you were all right...."

  Okay, could I be any lamer? I mean, seriously. I had pictured this moment in my head a thousand times since I'd first decided I was going to come after him, and in all my fantasies, no explanation
s were ever necessary. Jesse just threw his arms around me and started kissing me. On the lips.

  This, though. This was way awkward. I wished I'd prepared a speech.

  "Um," I said. What I really wished was that I could stop saying um. "See, the thing is, I wanted to make sure you were here because you wanted to be. Because if you don't want to be, well, Father Dom and I thought maybe it would be possible for you to come back. To, um, finish whatever it is, you know, that was keeping you down there. In my world, I mean. Our world," I corrected myself, quickly, remembering Father Dominic's warning. "Our world, I mean."

  Jesse continued to just stare at me.

  "Susannah," he said. His voice sounded weird. I figured out why a second later, when he asked, "Weren't you the one who sent me here?"

  I gaped at him. "What? What are you talking about?"

  Now I knew what was so weird about his voice. It was filled with hurt. "Didn't you," he asked, "have me exorcised?"

  "Me?" My own voice rocketed up about ten octaves. "Me? Jesse, of course not. I would never do that. I mean, you know I would never do something like that. That kid Jack did it. Your girlfriend Maria made him do it. She was trying to get rid of you. She told Jack you were bothering me, and he didn't know any better, so he exorcised you, and then Felix Diego threw me off the porch roof, and Jesse, they found your body, I mean your bones, and I saw them and I threw up all over the side of the house, and Spike really misses you and I was just thinking, you know, if you wanted to come back, you could, because that's why I've got this rope, so we can find our way back."

  I was babbling. I have a tendency to do this even when I am not standing in purgatory. But I couldn't help myself. Everything was just kind of spilling out. Well, not everything. I mean, I totally wasn't going to tell him why I wanted him to come back. I wasn't going to mention the L word or anything. And not even because of Father D's warning, either.

  "That is," I went on, "if you want to come back. I could see why you'd want to stay here. I mean, after a hundred and fifty years and all, it's probably a relief. I imagine they'll be moving you along soon, and you'll be getting a new life, or going up to heaven, or whatever. But I was just thinking, you know, it wasn't fair of Maria to do what she did to you – twice – and that if you want to come back and figure out what it was you were, you know, doing down there on earth for so long, well, I'd just give you a hand, if I could."