by Suzy Cox
That shocked her out of her soap-induced coma. “Out? Alone? In the city? Charlotte, do you really think that’s wise after everything that happened yesterday?”
She pushed her hair behind her ear and her glasses did their wiggle thing. It was totally her nervous habit.
“I mean, first off you over-apparited up the Empire State—and by the way, I’ve checked the local news and there are no stories about a small dark-haired girl disappearing on top of the Empire State Building, so that’s a major relief.” Yeah, because it’s the kind of story that makes the evening news, right? Whoa, kid skips a line without paying in New York shocker. “Then you mind-pulled us into David’s bedroom—and you very nearly turned into an apparition there too. Imagine if he and that blond girl had seen you as a spirit! They’d be shouting about ghosts all over New York. And that wouldn’t help our investigation, would it? Rule Five: We can appear to the Living when it helps our investigation. Not just because we feel like it. And not when …”
Blah blah blah. I’d stopped listening to her. I was really starting to like Nancy but sometimes she could drone on more than the previews before a new movie. My brain had skidded onto another subject already. And it was Nancy’s fault. “That blond girl.” Kristen. Eww. Even thinking her name made me want to punch a wall. Which would have been pointless seeing as my hand would just have gone straight through it.
I got that ghosts don’t sleep. But even if I was still alive, there was no way I would have gotten three seconds of shut-eye last night. I’d had something of “a day,” as my grandmother would say. If you triple “a day” by a trillion billion percent. And that does not lead to calm thoughts when the sun goes down.
Death, haunting lessons, extreme dizziness, the Empire incident. I’m not saying they paled in insignificance at the sight of that heinous head cheerleader preying on David in his moment of weakness and need, but it did not help. And that was before I even let myself miss my mom and dad.
I had a horrible feeling death was about to get worse before it got better.
All night I lay on my new bed in the Hotel Attesa and thought way too much. Not about what was going to happen to me now or how I’d get my Key but about everything—and everyone—I’d lost. Who hated me enough to commit murder? To push me in front of a speeding subway train, just to get me out of the way?
And out of the way for what?
By the time I heard the morning cabs honking outside, I still had no answers. It wasn’t like I was the kind of girl who made enemies—or friends—easily. Who was bothered enough about me to want me dead? All I knew was that I had to get out of the Attesa and do something. And when I said “out” what I meant was “check up on David and the evil cheerwhore.”
“Basically, Charlotte, it’s a bad idea. I know you’re new, but even you can see that.” Nancy was pleading now. Her green eyes all big and pleeease at me. Despite the fact that the General Hospital couple on-screen were now having a major fight—oh! another male character had come in brandishing a gun—Nancy hadn’t even noticed. That’s how serious she was about my stay-put-iness.
Whatever. I was serious too. My mind was made up.
“Look, the way I see it,” I said, “I may be here for some time, so the sooner I get a handle on the Rules, the better.” I patted my blazer pocket where my copy was kept, as if somehow having it on my person meant the wisdom would seep into my body and make me Nancy-smart. “And that includes when to apparite and when not to.”
One look at her face told me my argument was going nowhere. It was a shame Nancy would never have kids. If her daughter had ever tried the I-only-missed-my-ten-p.m.-curfew-because-I-was-studying-at-Carly’s-house line, Nancy would have seen right through it.
Time to change tack.
“I thought a lot during the night and I’ve realized what the trigger is that makes me apparite: It’s thinking about how much I miss David,” I said.
Nancy gave me her special mom-face again. Man, did she have it down. Did she practice it in the mirror before every new ghost came in for instruction?
“Like, on the observation deck,” I said, “I was thinking about David and boom! I went all pink and visible and glowy. Then in his bedroom, when I wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to be upset about me? Glow city.”
“Yes, that’s very perceptive of you, Charlotte,” Nancy said, going to pat my hand. I pulled mine away. “But with the greatest respect, you may know what your trigger is, but unless you can control it—control thinking about David in that way—then it’s no help.” She sighed. “Look, you haven’t even been dead for twenty-four hours yet.” I might not have known the difference between a proton and an electron in the chemistry quiz yesterday, but, like, I’d forgotten how long I’d left the Living for.
“It’s amazing that you can apparite already—it takes some new ghosts weeks to learn what you can do already. You have a real talent.” Cue: big, encouraging smile. “But why don’t you practice some more with me and Lorna, first? Even Tess can be helpful, if you get her in the right mood.” As if. “Then, in time, when everything you’re feeling about your death is less raw, then I’m sure you’ll be able to control your powers better. Or maybe you’ll be out of here so quickly that you never have to master them.”
Nancy looked at me kindly. “That’s just what I think anyway.”
She had a point.
It was just that I didn’t want to hear it. Not in the least.
“But—but—but—,” I said, “you’ve taught me the most important lesson I need to know.”
Nancy looked at me blankly.
“How to unapparite.” Was that even a word? “How to stop myself appearing to the Living as an apparition.” That sounded better. Well, a bit. I went on. “If I start to app … to become an apparition, all I have to do is blow. That’s what you said, right? Then all of my energy goes out and I’m back to being an invisible dead girl. No one is freaked out. All good.”
“Yes …”
“So, really, you have nothing to worry about.” I beamed. Smile and she will believe you. “So I’ll head out, do some preliminary investigations …” Phew, she was nodding. “And if I, you know, feel the glow, I’ll just blow my energy out and think myself right back here. I promise. No drama.”
Nancy blinked. Was this good? Bad? A sign I’d talked her into a coma? Was she just thinking about what she was missing on TV?
“Okay,” she said finally.
“Okay?” Really?
“Okay,” she said. “You’re right. You know the basics. I’ve taught you well. You seem to be one of the fastest learners who’s ever come through these doors. As long as you promise me, PROMISE,”—oh, Harsh Nancy look—“that if you start to apparite you will either think yourself back here or become invisible again, then okay. Go.”
Result!
“So, where are you off to first?” Nancy asked.
“Back to my high school. If we’re ever going to solve my murder, I need to figure out why someone wanted me dead. Maybe if I watch the kids there for a while, I’ll get some clues as to who that could be. I dunno, maybe I annoyed someone without realizing it? Though I have no idea who. I guess it’s as good a place to start as any.”
“I think that’s an excellent plan,” Nancy said. “We need to be getting out in the field.”
The field. This girl really had watched too many cop shows. Maybe she was addicted to them as well as daytime soap operas?
“Lorna and I will stay here, see if there are any similar cases in old files, do more research, check for leads. When you’re back we’ll talk about what you discovered, and plan the investigation from there.”
“And Tess? Edison?” Much as they were, like, not even qualifying for the bottom two places on my favorite-four-dead-people-I-know list, I was still super-curious as to how they fitted into Nancy’s operation.
“They … Well, Tess helps out when she can. And Mr. Edison Hayes … he does his own thing,” she said diplomatically.
Hmmm … It s
eemed that I needed to do some investigation into what went on with the ghosts inside the Attesa.
“Okay, well, I’ll be off then,” I said, trying to sound confident. Now there was nothing standing in my way, I kind of wished there was. Did I really want to go out there—out among the Living—alone? What if I saw something I didn’t like? And let’s face it, what with me having been murdered yesterday, that was pretty darn probable.
“Great. See you soon,” Nancy said, turning back to her soaps, all nonchalant.
Damn her. Was she playing me? Was this like the time when I was seven and Mom said, “Yes, honey, of course you can drop out of school to audition for Zoey 101” because she knew if she said I could, I’d totally forget the idea?
“See you,” Nancy said again, retuning the TV screen.
Fine. Let Nancy try and pull her mind games. I was not going to be played. I was sixteen. I was dead. What was the worst that could happen?
I looked up at the clock in HHQ. Five thirty a.m. Right about now, most of my classmates would be asleep. I still wasn’t in a place to see how my parents were doing. But there was something—well, someone—I needed to see before I headed to school. Without looking at Nancy again, I walked out of HHQ, quietly shutting the door behind me.
But as I started up the Attesa stairs, something made me stop. Maybe I’d developed some weird, spooky sixth sense since I’d been here, but I definitely felt someone behind me. Standing in the shadows. Watching. Someone who’d probably been listening to Nancy and me too. And it totally creeped me out.
I whipped around—the hallway was dark anyway, but with the door to HHQ shut, just a few shafts of light from the lobby illuminated the corridor. Nancy couldn’t have gotten out of the office without me seeing, and Lorna was hardly the boo!-surprise! type. Which—unless some other dead teen had shown up in the night and no one thought to mention it—left only two dead people it could be.
“Hello?” I said into the darkness. “Who’s there?”
A small orange light appeared in answer. Glowing faintly at first, then strengthening, and fading again. I squinted. Whoever was holding the light took a step closer to me. The ember glowed again. Suddenly I realized it was the tip of a cigarette; its lit end burning more brightly every time someone inhaled.
And—as he walked toward me like a guy who had never ever been in a hurry—I could see that someone was Edison.
He stopped an arm’s reach from my spot, his head cocked to one side, like he was trying to figure me out, then took another draw. I guess when you’re dead you don’t worry what the surgeon general says those things do to your lungs. Edison wet his lips, opening his mouth a crack, and slowly blew the smoke right at me. I desperately tried not to dissolve into a coughing fit. Yep, Edison was just the kind of guy to be skulking in the shadows.
Standing one step up the Attesa stairs, I was almost tall enough to be on eye level with him. It should have made me feel more confident, but it didn’t. Edison kept on looking down at me, way too intently. His green eyes seemed to pop like fireflies in the darkness—his all-black getup making the rest of his tall, thin body blend in with the darkness. I stared back, trying not to let on he was scaring me. God, would he just say something?
“All that stuff about the Rules? It’s BS,” he said, finally releasing me from his gaze and taking another deep drag. Edison’s breath must really reek. Kissing him would be horrible. Like licking a stale, ghostly ashtray.
Not that kissing him was something I was thinking about. At all.
“They were made up by the Goody Two-Shoes who was here before that one.” He pointed his thumb at the door to HHQ. His mouth rose into a grin, one that made me want to run and find my mom. “The Rules are only there to keep newbies under control. To make sure you don’t do too much thinking for yourself. Or draw attention to us.”
What? I was sure Nancy wouldn’t—couldn’t—lie. She was too logical for that. Even with Tess around.
“So here’s the news flash, angel.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear; his lips in danger of grazing my skin, “you’ve got nothing to lose by breaking them. And a whole lot more to gain—some of it seriously fun.” Edison leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “When you want to know what you’re really capable of now, you come find me,” he said. “Or maybe I’ll come find you …”
He turned and walked back into the darkness. Leaving a small plume of smoke behind him. And me staring like a tool.
Agh! What was the point of that? Didn’t he think I’d been through enough already?
What I was really capable of? Sorry, but being able to apparite and port myself anywhere in the city just by thinking about it seemed pretty “capable” to me. And what was all that mumbo jumbo about the Rules not being entirely true? I didn’t want to think that, because right now they—Nancy and Lorna—were the only things keeping me sort of sane.
No, screw Edison, I thought. He’d done nothing to prove he had my best—or any of my—interests at heart so far. How did I know I could trust Lucky Strikes breath, anyway? I shut my eyes and focused. Focused on what I knew and where I wanted to be. Not on what some pretentious dead boy with gorgeous green eyes, a nicotine habit, and a James Dean complex had to say about the afterlife.
I focused. Just as I had in Washington Square Park. Just as I had up the Empire State Building. And waited for the familiar sick feeling to wash over me.
For the second time in twenty-four hours, David’s bedroom here I come....
Chapter 8
IN DAWN’S STARTER LIGHT, DAVID’S ROOM looked like something from a washed-out dream. Pale fingers of light stretched from the gaps between the curtains across his bed, giving everything a tired white glow. Except, by now, I was pretty sure this wasn’t a dream, washed out or not.
My boyfriend was lying asleep on his bed. All five feet eight inches of him curled up in an old shirt and boxer shorts. I stared at David, as if he were an animal in the city zoo. With his mop of messy hair and faded blue tee, he looked almost happy. Like there were no worries inside his head. I’d never seen David asleep before. You’d think after all the months we’d dated, all the hours we’d spent talking and planning and learning everything about each other, I’d have seen him like this: properly relaxed. But I hadn’t. Nice Charlotte was glad he’d found some peace after everything he went through yesterday. Nasty Charlotte was kinda pissed he’d taken a few hours off mourning her to crash out.
My plan had been to come here—to train myself not to apparite around him, my trigger—but then I saw it. Curled up in his right hand. The square of pink paper. An old movie ticket. The memento he’d joked he’d keep forever. I couldn’t believe he actually had.
As soon as I saw the crumpled piece of pink paper, I was back there: back in the movie theater, back nervously folding and unfolding my own ticket as the lights of the movie flashed on the screen in front of me. Back where it was last spring—a week after that afternoon in Washington Square—and I’d somehow ended up at the movies sandwiched between David and Leon Clark, the meathead captain of the lacrosse team. Watching some truly terrible rom-com.
“Dude, this is lay-ay-ame,” Leon said, throwing popcorn into his mouth, but more onto the floor. If he wasn’t so generally ripped (if ripped was your thing) and in charge of the most successful sports team in our school, would Leon ever score one date? Let alone be a prom king shoo-in? I double doubted it.
Leon turned, burping popcorn breath at me.
Actually scratch that. Even if he were fitter than ARod and a multi-multi-and-then-some-millionaire, you would not get me on a date with Leon Clark.
I still hadn’t figured out how I ended up here.
Earlier that afternoon, I’d been leaving school with Ali, when I walked past David and Leon in the corridor. Leon hadn’t said more than three words to me since, like, sixth grade when I got some spinach stuck in my braces at lunchtime and he called me Charlotte Boogerman for the rest of the semester. But now David was calling me over and persuadin
g me to go see this pathetic film with him and Leon “to say sorry for running off the other day.”
Ali raised her eyebrows and made her excuses, but I didn’t know how to say no. So there I was, sitting between the hot new boy who was totally my type and Leon the jerk who so was not, trying to concentrate on Cameron Diaz’s latest love dilemma. Which obviously called for her to run around in a short skirt.
Seeing as Leon had shotgunned both the armrests on his chair, David and I were kinda sharing one. Every time he laughed at the movie (which was, thankfully, not all that often) the hairs on our arms touched. I wished he’d notice and move his arm away, because just sitting next to him was making my stomach do all kinds of belly flips. Which I kept telling it there was no point in its doing, after what I’d seen with David and the redhead the week before.
Halfway through the movie, Leon’s cell started going crazy with this insanely stupid Yankees’ ringtone. “Way-hey-hey!” He didn’t bother to try to talk quietly, even though he was getting death stares from everyone in the theater. “Dude, I have to jet. It seems there’s a young lady who needs my attention. If you know what I mean.”
Ew. He actually winked before he sprinted up the aisle. Leaving me and David—holy crap—alone.
David stared after him, then turned to me and shrugged. He put his arm back on the rest next to mine, accidentally tickling my skin as he did.
My heart was pounding so loud, I was pretty sure everyone in a two-row radius could hear it. Now that Leon had gone, why didn’t he just move? I felt my palms start sweating. Get a grip, Charlotte, I told myself. He’s only here because he felt bad ditching you for his hot girlfriend. Or maybe he wants help with his art project—he knows that’s your best subject. If Ali had come with you, you could drag her into the restroom and she’d tell you to stop being so pathetic. When Cameron finally got her man and he pulled her in for a slow movie kiss, I thought I was going to lose it. I wasn’t even interested in the stupid film, but sitting this close to a guy I liked, who was totally attached, while we watched movie stars make out was just too weird. I wished the credits would roll already.
