Spirits of the Season

by Phoebe Rivers

  Chapter 6

  “The best! The absolute best!” Janelle cried. She held the sweater up for me to see. Pale pink fluffy angora with crystal heart-shaped buttons and pink fake fur around the color. “It’s so you.”

  If I’d been dipped in a cotton-candy machine, I thought.

  “Wool makes me itch,” I said lamely.

  This shopping trip was making me itch.

  “Oh, I hear you, girlfriend.” Janelle replaced the sweater and rifled through a nearby rack of sparkly spandex tanks. “Scratchy fabrics are out. I always tell Chloe and Dina to treat their skin right. Softness is key.”

  “That’s why I always exfoliate and moisturize,” Chloe said. She looked exactly like her mom. Same long dark hair; same cat’s-eye glasses, except hers had rhinestones; same lilac-y smell. “I’m sixteen now, but I started when I was your age. You should too.” She peered at my face. “You actually have great skin. I’m really into makeup and skin.”

  “Thanks,” I yelled over the pop music blaring from the store’s speakers. A girl sang a chorus of “Honey, honey, honey,” accompanied by a reverberating techno beat.

  “Don’t you love Pink Sunrise?” Janelle asked. “It’s Dina’s favorite store.”

  “I’ve actually never been here.”

  “Obviously,” Dina muttered. She stood alongside her older sister, flipping through a display of pink earmuffs. Everything in the store was some shade of pink. The walls, the clothes, even the hangers.

  Doesn’t Janelle realize Dad doesn’t do stores like this? I thought. He was a fan of catalogs. He’d drop one on my bed and I’d fold down some pages and the clothes would arrive in a brown box at our door without musical accompaniment. Sometimes, in California, my aunt Charlotte took me shopping. But Aunt Charlotte only wore clothes made from natural fibers, like hemp, and without artificial dyes. Neon pink spandex was not part of her vocabulary.

  “Are you having fun?” Janelle asked eagerly. She really seemed to care. “I thought you’d enjoy a girly-girl day out.”

  “It’s great,” I lied with a forced smile. It might have actually been okay, maybe even fun, if I’d gone with Lily. There were some things in the store I liked, but all of it together, combined with Dina, was overwhelming.

  “This would look fantastic on you.” She pulled out a one-sleeved tunic top with magenta stripes and a pair of silver stretchy leggings. “You’ve got to lose the sweatshirts and jeans and discover your California-glam look. You’re so pretty, Sara! If we just spruce up your wardrobe a teeny bit, you would be a total knockout!”

  “I agree.” Chloe stood alongside her mother, looking me up and down. “She needs a whole new look.”

  “Makeover!” Janelle cried, reaching for three more pink outfits. “Dina, help me. Grab me some clothes for Sara.”

  “On it.” I saw the glint in Dina’s eye. There was no way I was trying on anything she picked.

  Thirteen tops, four skinny jeans, three leggings, a miniskirt, and forty-five minutes in the cramped dressing room later, Janelle had assembled an outfit that she declared was “out of this world.”

  “You are orbiting another planet in that, Sara!” she told me enthusiastically.

  I sort of liked it, actually—pale pink skinny jeans with a soft white tunic-style top that had a sprinkle of shimmer—until Dina came up behind me, scowling. “Alien. Another planet is right,” she whispered.

  Janelle insisted on buying the entire outfit for me, saying it was an early Christmas present. There was no way I could ever wear it to school, though. Dina would have everyone laughing at me. I followed Janelle out of the store and into the mall.

  People were everywhere.

  Pushing. Shopping. Talking. Waiting. Watching.

  I froze.

  “What’s wrong?” Janelle asked, turning back. Dina kept walking.

  “It’s just so crowded,” I murmured, trying to clear my suddenly spinning head.

  There were so many here. Groups of them.

  “Christmas brings the crowds,” Janelle explained. “Everyone loves to shop.”

  Even the dead? Spirits were all over. The weight of their presence sucked the air out like a vacuum. My body stiffened and my lungs tightened. The ghosts pushed at me, giving me no room to even stand.

  White Light. I remembered Lady Azura’s White Light. I tried to think happy thoughts. If I relaxed, they’d back off. Happy thoughts.

  “Ew, what is wrong with her?” Dina’s voice suddenly rang out. “Why does she look like that? I’m telling you, Mom, call her dad and have him get her. Normal people’s skin does not look that green.”

  “Are you okay?” Janelle asked me, worried.

  “Fine,” I croaked as I searched for an escape. Anywhere. Happy thoughts had no chance with Dina around. “How about we go there?” I pointed to a small makeup boutique that looked fairly empty.

  “We can try on makeup!” Chloe squealed. She grabbed my hand and hurried me over to a counter.

  “Maybe they have something for her gross green skin tone,” Dina said, just loud enough for me to hear and her mom to miss.

  I wanted to say something nasty back, but I knew it wouldn’t work. Dina could easily out-nasty me without even trying. My fingers fumbled at the neckline of my white sweatshirt and found my necklace. I knew the feel of each crystal. I reached for the smooth opal.

  I wish she’d stop being so mean to me, I thought.

  Dina didn’t say anything else. Had it worked? Or was she saving it for later, when her mom couldn’t hear?

  Dina dragged her mom away to sample nail polish, while Chloe brushed shades of blush on the inside of my wrist and chattered on about the right colors for me. I let her. I was happy to be away from all those spirits.

  Their neediness. Their noise.

  I gazed about. A few other customers sampled the makeup. All were living, except one. An older man in a pin-striped suit and jaunty red bow tie. He seemed out of place, even for a ghost.

  I watched as he silently followed an older woman through the aisles. She had a helmet of teased white hair and wore a simple navy dress and matching handbag. Every time she stopped, he stopped, as if they were truly shopping together. But they weren’t. She didn’t know he was there.

  Then she stopped and opened her handbag to pull out a tissue. With a flick of his invisible wrist, he slyly knocked a bottle of perfume into her open bag. No one saw. Not the salesladies. Not the old woman, who closed her bag without looking down.

  The woman headed past me. So did the spirit.

  I couldn’t believe it. The ghost had just shoplifted!

  “It’s her favorite,” he said in a scratchy voice.

  I turned to stare at him.

  “Sara, stop moving. We need the bright light to see what colors work.” Chloe tried to move my face back.

  I kept staring at him. Through him.

  “I’ve given my wife a bottle every Christmas since we fell in love in high school,” the man confided, his voice echoing strangely. “I still do.” He smiled at me, then followed her into the mall.

  Should I tell someone? I wondered.

  Tell them what? I would only get the old woman in trouble. I didn’t want to do that. She didn’t mean to steal.

  True love lived on, I realized, thinking about the old couple. It didn’t go away.

  I couldn’t stop wondering about it, marveling at it, as Janelle led us to the food court for frozen yogurt. Maybe the concept of love living beyond the grave was my White Light, because all the spirits seemed to back off and leave me alone while I thought about it. At least until Dina and I stood side by side at the toppings bar.

  “Healthy much?” Dina raised her eyebrows, as I scooped heaping portions of M&M’s and crushed Oreos into my paper cup.

  “Maybe you should try some sweetness,” I countered.

  “Ohhh! The alien has a comeback!” She pulled out her phone and began texting rapidly. What was she saying about me to her friends?

  So mu
ch for the power of the opal, I thought. I reached over Dina and her phone for the gummy bear ladle, started scooping . . . and he appeared.

  Squeezed right between me and Dina.

  The army guy. Paler and more upset than before. The stench of death turned my stomach.

  “Please lead me to her.” He grasped my outstretched arm with his one good hand. An icy sensation ricocheted toward my elbow.

  I tried to push him away. He wouldn’t leave and he wouldn’t let go. I held a spoonful of gummy bears frozen in midair.

  “Please,” he repeated.

  “No!” I whispered. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

  “You live with my love. You live in her house!”

  “I can’t talk to you now,” I hissed. “Later. When we’re alone.”

  He brought his face even closer. His gray eyes were so clear it was as if they were windows, and I could see deep into him. I saw his longing, his misery, how lost he was.

  His emotions swirled inside me. His sadness became my sadness.

  “She misses me terribly.” His icy grip on me tightened. “You must know that she is missing me.”

  “You’re him!” I cried. I flung my hand in the air, loosening his grip and sending the spoonful of gummy bears flying.

  “Hey!” Dina screamed, as the candies pelted her in the face.

  Suddenly it all made sense to me. This must be the guy the spirit in the rocking chair cried about all the time. Her missing love.

  “She cries for you,” I whispered, digging the spoon back into the bucket of gummy bears.

  “Take me back to her. Please?” the army guy pleaded.

  “You want me to take you?” I asked.

  “Seriously?” Dina burst out laughing. “You are seriously talking to the gummy bears. O-M-G! Priceless!”

  I spiraled back to reality. Dina was videotaping me with her phone.

  What was I doing? What was I saying? I was talking to candy! I must look crazy.

  “I got it at all.” Dina grinned, holding up the screen for me to see. “You’re actually telling the little gummy guy you’ll talk to him later when you’re alone!”

  “Give me that!” I yelled, reaching for Dina’s phone.

  “As if.” Dina grabbed my sleeve. “We’re going to the bathroom, Mom,” she called to Janelle. She dragged me across the food court into a ladies’ room that was littered with wet toilet paper.

  “I’m going to post this on every website imaginable,” Dina announced triumphantly. “Every kid at school will see this and know what a total freak you are!”

  I cringed. I’d worked so hard to be normal here. Not a girl who talked to ghosts. Or gummy bears. With one click, she would ruin it all.

  I couldn’t let that happen. “What do you want to delete it?”

  “Simple.” Dina checked the stalls to make sure we were alone, then turned to me. “Help me break up my mom and your dad.”

  Chapter 7

  I was expecting some horrible, humiliating deed. I was not expecting Dina to suggest something I’d been up all night thinking myself.

  I stared at her. She stared back, one hand on her hip, the other grasping her phone. What was she up to? I wondered.

  “Why don’t you like my dad?”

  “Are you going to help me or am I posting this video?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t have to.” She thrust the phone toward me. “I have the video. In or out?”

  I wasn’t sure how I felt. I didn’t think Janelle and my dad were a good match, but Dad was happy, and Janelle seemed to really like my dad. It wasn’t right for me to mess with that. Then again, if I didn’t help Dina, I’d be stuck spending even more time with her. Not to mention the issue of the video. I had no choice.

  “In,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”

  Dina bit her glossed lip. For the first time, she seemed unsure. “I’m still perfecting my plan. I’ll get back to you.”

  She had no plan, I realized.

  “Let’s go. My mom’s going to miss us.” Dina tucked her phone in the pocket of her black jeans.

  “What about the video?” I demanded. “You need to delete it.”

  “Not so fast. Not until they’re broken up. But don’t worry, you have my word.” She noticed my raised eyebrows. “Trust me, Sara. We’re friends now.”

  All at once, I wondered about that wish I’d made on the opal earlier. This wasn’t how I’d thought it would turn out.

  Dad was asleep. The house was quiet. Except for the crying.

  I tiptoed down the darkened hall, careful to avoid all the squeaky floorboards.

  I stopped outside her room. The pink room with the high ceilings. The Room of Sadness.

  I twisted the glass doorknob and entered slowly. Her chair faced a window and doors leading to a balcony overlooking the bay. The light of the moon shimmered through the glass, making her long white nightgown glow. The young woman didn’t stop rocking or weeping. I didn’t know if she knew I stood beside her.

  “Um . . . hi,” I started. I’d never talked to a spirit without him or her talking to me first. I wasn’t sure how to begin. “I’m Sara.”

  I waited. She held her thin hands to her face, unable to control her sobs.

  “I know you’re sad. I mean, I can hear you crying.” I felt silly standing here at midnight talking to what my dad would see as an empty chair. But it wasn’t empty. I knew that.

  “I think,” I tried again, “that you’re really missing someone. Someone you love.”

  She rocked on. I couldn’t tell whether she didn’t hear me or was just ignoring me.

  This is a waste, I thought. I stepped back, then pictured the soldier. He was real. His sadness was real too. They needed my help.

  I focused on the two of them. The pretty, slender woman with her long, honey-colored waves and the brave soldier in his smart uniform. I could imagine them as they used to be years ago.

  Together.

  “I saw him today,” I blurted. “He’s here—well, nearby—and he’s looking for you. He misses you. Oh, and he’s handsome, too.”

  I left out the part about his arm, in case she didn’t know about his injury.

  I waited, but she didn’t answer. She cried and rocked in her chair, as if I wasn’t there.

  “I need you to ask for my help,” I explained. “That’s the only way it works.” If a spirit didn’t request your assistance, you were powerless no matter what you thought was best. I’d learned that when I’d once tried to help the spirit of Jayden’s brother.

  The young woman said nothing. She was lost in her own sorrow.

  I waited as long as I could bear it, then left, closing the door behind me. I stood in the hall, shivering in my thin T-shirt and flannel boxers, too wound up to go back to bed.

  Then I heard footsteps.

  Lady Azura was prowling around downstairs.

  Two slices of yellow cake with two forks were already set out when I reached the kitchen.

  “Milk or lemonade?” Lady Azura asked. Her back was to me. She stared out the window into the darkness.

  Still waiting.

  “Milk,” I answered. “How do you do that? Know when I’m coming?” She was always ready for me.

  “You have strong energy.” She brought the carton and sat beside me at the table.

  The young woman’s sobs drifted down the stairs, creating a background hum.

  “You hear her, right?” I asked.

  Lady Azura raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Sadness reminds you to appreciate happiness all the more.”

  “There’s a lot of things to learn in this house.” I thought of how the crying woman wouldn’t talk to me. “A lot of things I don’t know.”

  Lady Azura stopped chewing her cake and swallowed hard. “We learn things when the time is right.”

  “But I want to be involved.” I really did want to make the woman stop crying.

  “He just can’t tell you r
ight now.”

  I realized we weren’t both talking about the sad spirit upstairs. “Are you talking about my dad? What’s going on with you two?”

  Lady Azura sucked in her breath. “I can’t say. I made a promise.”

  “A promise?” I was so frustrated. “It’s not fair. I live here too.” Then I blurted out what I’d been worrying about so much the last few days. “Do you want us out?”

  “Out?” She seemed surprised. “No, of course not. I just . . . He and I don’t . . .” She didn’t finish. Shaking her head, she squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Don’t what?” My hands clenched into fists in front of me on the table. “I have a right to know if it has to do with my dad.” Anger and frustration churned together inside me. The questions, the fear, and the doubt whirled around like a tornado, clouding my vision, making it impossible to focus. Lady Azura reached over and put her hands over mine.

  Then I saw her.

  A frail woman stood before me in a long black dress. A black hat with a black feather in front masked her face in shadows. I breathed in the sweet smell of freshly cut grass and damp earth and realized, oddly, that we were suddenly outside and it was summer. The woman’s thin shoulders heaved up and down. With a shaky gloved hand, she brought a handkerchief up to her face to dab her eyes. Her hand knocked back the hat’s brim, and I gasped.

  “You!” I cried.

  “Me, what?” Lady Azura asked.

  I shook my head and blinked several times. Lady Azura sat in front of me wrapped in her white silk robe, yet I had just seen her outside, wearing black and weeping. A vision. I’d had a vision.

  What did it mean?

  Lady Azura was crying because she was at a funeral, I realized. I wanted to ask her about it, but I couldn’t.

  I was afraid to know who had died . . . or who was going to die.

  Chapter 8

  “You never told me what happened.” Lily leaned forward, resting her head on the back of my chair. Her class had just filed into the row behind mine in the auditorium.

  “Nothing much.” I examined the snowflake I’d painted on my thumbnail with Wite-Out. If I turned to look at Lily, she’d know I was keeping stuff from her.