Leaving Twyla by herself, I decided to forget about returning to my new house, because I’d be the only one there, and in this contemplative mood, that wasn’t very appealing. Besides, I had to start telling the others about Cassie, and since Scott was one of the ghosts who needed to know about her, I would start at Wendy’s, where he was still guarding.
When I arrived, he was outside her window while she sat on the sill, her short black skirt dangling off it while they chatted. It was like the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, and I had the sneaking suspicion that Scott had starred in similar productions of his own making when he was human.
They’d seen my travel tunnel come and go, so they greeted me casually.
“’Sup, Jensen?” Wendy asked, fake shooting me with her finger. At least someone was feeling playful tonight.
Scott added his own charming grin. “What’s your tale, nightingale?”
Wendy laughed like it was the most original thing she’d ever heard. She really needed to get out of the house more. But the good news was that she’d either forgotten the little fit of temper she’d had earlier, after I’d followed Gavin into his room for a private discussion, or she hadn’t been too angry at me for leaving her out of our conversation in the first place.
It also looked like Gavin hadn’t told her about that dark spirit possibly being her adoptive father. She was just too upbeat right now as she smiled at me in welcome.
Damn, I hated to crash the general good mood with my own piece of news. I mean, just because I’d seen how happy Cassie had been in the end, that didn’t mean others were going to interpret the circumstances that way, although Daniel had witnessed her euphoria, too, and he’d walked away fine. I’m not sure Twyla had gotten the same message, though.
I must’ve been terrible at masking my true emotional state, because Scott’s grin turned into a frown. “You don’t look so up, Jen.”
“It’s Cassie.”
“What about her?”
“She called her wrangler.”
Scott looked at me for a second, like he didn’t quite hear me. Then he lowered his head, hiding his face, but I could feel his energy dip.
Before I could tell him about Cassie’s jubilant exit, Wendy asked, “Scott, are you okay?”
She’d lifted her hand like she was going to touch him. But either she’d already discovered that she couldn’t make real contact with a ghost or she was hesitating in the way you hesitate when you haven’t yet touched the guy you were flirting with, and you’re not sure if you should.
Then she glanced at me, her dark eyes confused.
“Cassie’s gone,” I said.
She kept looking from me to him. “Did this wrangler take her somewhere?”
“A wrangler is a reaper,” Scott said quietly, lifting his head so I could see how tight his jaw was. “It escorts us to a place that ghosts never come back from.”
“Oh. Oh, that’s horrible.” Wendy stood.
There was so much death in this girl’s life. I was sorry we’d brought even more to her than she should’ve been dealing with.
“It’s not all that horrible,” I said. “Cassie wanted to leave this plane, and she was happy to do it.”
Scott was peering up at me. He was one of those guys who basically kept his reactions on an even keel, but his sad gaze couldn’t hide everything.
I added, “I’ve never seen Cassie want to go someplace so badly.”
Wendy said, “So she was fine with dying.”
That seemed to shake Scott out of his reticence. “She was dead already.”
She didn’t react to his blunt statement. “I’m just wondering why she can’t go into the light herself.”
“From what I know,” Scott says, “wranglers escort you.”
I kept silent, because I’d been close to going into a glare with fake Dean. He’d had one—a glowing lotus pool—in his star place, and he’d told me that he let his collected bodies go into them when they were ready to.
But fake Dean wasn’t a wrangler, so why should I trust his word about what that pool was? Maybe it wasn’t really a glare at all. Maybe that liquid gathering of light led to something much different. . . .
“I guess,” Wendy said, “that it isn’t very smart to get attached to ghosts when you guys can disappear on an even more permanent basis than you do when you die.” She snuck a glance at Scott, which he didn’t notice.
Oh, man. I wanted to let her know she was right about getting attached. I even felt a little protective of her with Scott.
It might be a good idea to get someone else to guard her from now on.
Scott’s eyes were pale in the moonlight as he watched me. “What was it like when she went, Jen? I’ve never seen a ghost taken by a wrangler, even though I know mine comes around every so often, like it’s reminding me I can summon it whenever I want.”
As I pulled on the memory of Cassie’s wrangling, I couldn’t keep a note of wonder out of my voice. “This is going to sound strange, but . . . the whole thing was transcendent. There was no fighting or screaming or begging to be left alone from Cassie. She had this look on her face as she went under the wrangler’s veil—acceptance. Relief like I’ve never seen before. Then she disappeared, and it was over. It was almost like . . .”
“What?” he asked.
I smiled. “Almost like the wrangler brought her home.” To her own perfect cottage in the woods. To a place she’d been searching for a long, long time but could never find.
“Home,” he said, just like he’d forgotten what the word meant. Then he said, “It makes sense. Cassie was always walking the line between the death we live here in Boo World and the even bigger death. She always said there was a hollowness in her, and I told her that this is just how a ghost is—hollow. She’d answer that I didn’t understand, and she wouldn’t say anything else. She was right—I never did understand, because I happen to like it here. Always have, always will.”
“So sad,” Wendy whispered as the night breeze brushed her sheer curtain over her and she idly pushed it away.
Scott watched her in a way that only a ghost could watch a human it was getting attached to.
For some reason, it made me think of Gavin’s sketches and how I appeared whenever he saw me through his own warped perception. He had an attachment, but it was far from this kind of innocence that I was seeing with Scott and Wendy.
“Want a break from guard duty?” I asked Scott.
“To do what?” He motioned around, toward the eerily quiet condo landscape. Lights glowed from neighboring windows, some semicovered by grand trellises. Outside the wall of Wendy’s courtyard, gas lamps flickered over the paradise-flowered walkways. The splash of the Edgetts’ fountain trickled. “This ain’t half bad, Jen. It’s . . .” He turned to Wendy. “How did you put it before?”
“Like a manufactured Eden,” Wendy said. “I was being kind of cynical when I said it, though.”
And that’s why I liked the girl.
She absently combed her fingers back through her pink-streaked hair and then wrapped it into a bun. Reaching over to the nearby desk to grab a pencil, she stuck it into her do, securing it. Scott was enthralled.
She didn’t notice. But I might’ve been wrong about that.
“I’d offer you guys a Red Bull,” she said, “or some sort of sophisticated cocktail so we could toast Cassie’s journey. But Scott showed me how drinks just go right through you.”
“Show-off,” I murmured to Scott, who’d taken to resting his arms over the sill as he looked up at Wendy. The kid was too cute for his own good.
Did she notice that? Probably, but she didn’t show it.
We all dawdled for a few seconds more until Scott softly said, “Cheers to Cassie then.”
“Cheers,” we repeated.
A few seconds went by. It turned into a minute. Then Wendy said, “All right. Since Cassie fought for me today, she would’ve wanted us to go on with the good fight, right?”
“Right.”
Scott and I were in stereo now.
She grabbed a computer-printed piece of paper from her desk, like she wanted to show me something on it.
I bit. “What’s that?”
“I’ve been doing more research.”
Scott made an aside to me. “And it ain’t for the schoolwork that her tutor has her do.”
“That’s enough from the peanut gallery,” she said.
He lifted an eyebrow like he was about to throw a flirt right back at her, and I didn’t want to encourage that. Why was I starting to feel like a chaperone?
“What’s your research on this time?” I asked.
“Your fake boyfriend.”
“Dean-o,” Scott said teasingly.
I stopped myself from swatting at him. Suddenly I was a part of the hormone circus around here?
Wendy said, “I couldn’t find any literature about what kind of entity he might be. But I did get an e-mail from Eileen about it.”
Ah, the paranormal cleaner. “What did she come up with?”
Reading from the paper, Wendy said, “Quote, ‘If this entity becomes a severe issue for your ghost, she’ll need to redouble her efforts to identify exactly what he is, because one of the only things I can think of that will neutralize a strong spirit like this is another spirit who is even stronger. That’s why we need to classify him. However, getting ahold of that stronger spirit would require a paranormal expert with abilities far beyond what I can offer.’”
“This is not reassuring,” I said.
“Word.” Wendy put down the paper. “We might be talking about heavy-duty priest stuff, Jensen.”
Oh. Just . . . oh. I didn’t want to go near that unless it was totally needed. “Fake Dean’s backed off me lately, which makes me wonder what he’s up to. At least he’s kept his word about staying out of my new house, though. Maybe I can put him at arm’s distance until he gets ultimately bored of me.”
Just saying that made me miss him a little. How had that happened?
But I couldn’t have him both ways.
Wendy hopped on top of her desk to sit. “If you think that’ll work, then do it. But keep in mind that Eileen’s hooked up to a sweet network. Someday, I might even be able to do an apprenticeship with her and her peeps.” She shrugged with a smile. “Eileen says I’m a rare gem, you know, because I can interact with ghosts. All she can do is intuit your feelings. But I shouldn’t act like she got a raw deal, because what she does is valuable. She specializes in helping ghosts cross over to the other side if they need it.”
Cassie reentered my mind. She hadn’t needed the help.
Scott said, “Not all ghosts are smart enough or think straight enough to call their wranglers.” He paused, like the idea that Cassie wasn’t here anymore had come back to him, too. “I’ve also heard of ghosts that are so gung ho about still being in Boo World that they ignore their wranglers. They’re ruled by their tethers.”
I elaborated for Wendy. “A tether is a reason for staying here.”
“Got it,” Wendy said. “But as far as the tethered ghosts go, you already said that Cassie called her wrangler, so I kinda guessed that they don’t take you by force.”
“Only bad humans are taken by force when they die,” Scott said. “We can make a good guess about that because . . .”
I subtly widened my eyes at him. Farah Edgett, Wendy’s adopted sister, had been the person he was talking about who’d been dragged away by her wrangler after she’d died.
Scott kept his lip zipped.
A thought nudged me. “Do you guys think that the dark spirit we saw today has a wrangler?”
I watched Wendy’s face for any sign that Gavin had talked with her about Daddy Most Dangerous, but her expression didn’t change. I would’ve even done some empathy on her if I didn’t respect her boundaries. You couldn’t just bust into every human on a whim.
“If that dark spirit does have a wrangler,” Scott said, “it’s doing a punk job.”
Our conversation lagged again, until Wendy said, “Cleaners are the most useful when a ghost is too strong to cross over or really doesn’t want to leave. Then those spirits have to be expelled. Sometimes they’re attached to the property itself, or sometimes they’re attached to someone.”
Like the dark blob is attached to you and Gavin, I thought.
“You know what else is fab, though?” Wendy asked.
Scott was all ears, grinning up at her. “Spill.”
“I’m going to learn astral projection soon,” Wendy said.
“I read about that somewhere,” I said, “back when I was alive. It was in a novel. . . .”
I searched for the story line, then remembered. The book had been about two girls who used astral projection—an out-of-body experience—to switch bodies or something, and one girl turned out to be super-evil, and she tried to keep the other girl’s body—
Crap. “Wendy, maybe you want to stay far away from that.” God, I wished I could remember the title of the book, but I’d read it when I was a kid.
“Oh, Eileen says astral projection is safe,” Wendy said. “Also, I’ve looked into it, because how amazingcakes would it be if I could see what it’s like in your dimension someday? I think I could do that with astral projection.”
“Cool,” Scott said.
Of course he liked the idea. But I knew that further pooh-poohing it in front of Wendy might be a bad thing, making her want to try it even more.
It turned out that I didn’t have to say a word because there was a knock on her bedroom door.
Even before Wendy called a “Come in,” I knew it was Gavin. My essence gave a tiny roar, like it was revving. Scott cracked up a little, giving me a knowing grin.
“Get bent,” I said.
After entering the room, Gavin practically bowled me over with his life force; it was amping as he tucked his hands under his armpits and stood with his legs apart. So hunky. And, with that, I officially became the main act in tonight’s hormone circus.
“I’m going to guess that you aren’t talking to yourself in here,” he said to Wendy.
“Scott and Jensen are with me.” She was so very good at the whole casual defiance thing with him, checking her nails instead of making eye contact.
“Scott,” he said. “He’s the hot-rod kid.”
What do you know—he made no mention of me. It was like Gavin knew that ignoring me was the surest way to get my goat.
“Did you hear me say that Jensen’s here?” Wendy asked.
“Loud and clear.”
Scott leaned close enough so that his energy buzzed against mine. “He’s still not a fan of yours, huh?”
“Slightly.” Then again, there’d been that moment today, when Gavin had tried to touch me, when the look in his eyes had shaken and rattled me until I’d nearly fizzed out. . . .
Was he a fan? Or the complete opposite?
Wendy was on a roll. “The sooner you accept that Jensen’s going to be around here a lot, the better off you’ll be.”
“I’d rather have the other eighties girl around.”
Low blow!
“Twyla?” Wendy asked. “Gav, you’ve never actually met her, so how can you say that?”
“You’ve told me about all your new friends.”
“Then you know that Twyla’s such a bitch to me.”
Scott and I laughed, and he interjected, “She’s like that to everyone, Wen.”
“Like, shocker,” she said, laughing, too.
Over in Totally Human World, an oblivious Gavin said, “I’ve asked you not to use that kind of language in the house.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He went stiff, lowering his arms to his sides, like he was ready for a fight, but not necessarily with Wendy.
“I’ve also asked you not to say that, even if you’re kidding.”
Wendy flopped into her desk chair in front of her computer. “Gav, you’re the closest I have to a dad. You practically raised me. Plus, you boss me around enough
to be one.”
Gavin took in a breath, and when his gaze strayed to the window, where Scott and I were still drifting, it was almost like he could see me. Was he wondering if this was the right time to tell Wendy what we believed to be true about the dark spirit?
But he couldn’t see me, otherwise he would’ve witnessed my encouraging nod. Tell her.
Could he feel my energy reaching out to him? Because he crossed the room in a few slow strides, then as deliberately as a person closes a book after it’s finished, he shut the windows on me and Scott.
“Wet rag,” Scott said, swirling down to the air-conditioning unit and taking a seat.
I didn’t stick around long enough to see Wendy’s reaction to his news through the glass window that was now half-covered by curtains . . . and half-covered by Gavin’s broad back as he turned away from me once again.
• • •
Leaving Scott to guard Wendy for now, I shot over to Amanda Lee’s, and what I found there made me hover in the driveway with unexpected hesitation.
Under the closed shutters of the casita’s windows, lights were strobing so fast that it looked like stutters of starlight.
The last time I’d seen that was at a ghost party. So what the hell?
I took off toward the door, slipping through the crack and stretching myself ultrathin so I could get through quickly. I was only halfway inside when I caught sight of the gaggle of ghosts.
Old Seth, with his dusty beard, cowboy hat, gun belt, and boots, was hunkered on top of the love seat, sucking on the end of a wire from a lamp that was flickering. His form was intact, of course, and not the bent and broken shape it’d no doubt been after he was beaten to death in a brawl with a neighbor over a fence line ages ago. A festive group of Mexican women from Old Town, garbed in the long party dresses they’d been wearing when their wagon’s horse had been upset by a rattlesnake, flanked Old Seth. They had more cut cords raised to their lips, just like tequila shots. On top of my car battery, Twyla sat, looking exactly like a maudlin half-and-half saloon girl with her corset, petticoats, and crazy hair as she sang “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago, her voice cracking whenever she got to the high parts. She was holding her hand out toward a wall, where pictures of Cassie were flashing by like they were in a slide show. They were images Twyla was conjuring up and throwing into Boo World, one at a time.
Another One Bites the Dust Page 18
