Deception

by Lee Nichols

  I took a deep breath. Only one way to find out.

  I closed my eyes and felt the chill air go still around me. I’d never done this before, summoned a ghost who wasn’t already lingering in the Beyond. I knew I could—despite being new to ghostkeeping, I was powerful. Almost too powerful. Maybe if I hadn’t been, Neos would’ve ignored me, and Coby would still be alive.

  Well, I couldn’t change the past, but I could alter Coby’s future. I raised my face to the sky, letting the snowflakes tickle my cheeks, feeling the energy of the Beyond. It got easier all the time to identify the supernatural tug of ghosts. Of course, standing in the middle of a cemetery probably helped.

  My eyes shut, I heard the pounding of my heart and felt the blood rushing through my veins as my summoning energy expanded beyond my body. Tendrils of power flowered through the cemetery until I sensed Coby’s slumbering spirit curled nearby, as though waiting for me. I summoned him, tugging him gently toward our world.

  His spirit seemed to recognize mine and came willingly. With a sudden rush I knew that I’d succeeded. I opened my eyes, waiting for his soft arrival.

  Instead, when Coby’s ghost slipped into our world, a blinding burst of spectral lightning flashed. I jumped backward in surprise, and the wet snow combined with mud at the edge of the pit gave way.

  I yelped as I fell into the grave.

  “Crap!” I sprawled atop Coby’s casket on my butt. A noise I didn’t recognize escaped my throat—half revulsion and half amusement. The scent of freshly dug earth surrounded me. I covered my mouth with my hand, then noticed my palm was covered in grave muck. “Bleh!”

  I stood—yes, still on top of Coby’s casket—and prayed his parents didn’t return. This was bad. This was toss-Emma-back-into-the-mental-hospital bad.

  I spun, looking for a way out, and discovered Coby beside me, still in the suit he’d worn for Homecoming. Except now he was slightly transparent and his suit didn’t fit quite so well—and it didn’t seem possible, but he was even better looking.

  Welcome back, I said to him.

  Emma! You’re all dirty.

  Yeah. I, um, slipped.

  He stepped forward with a crooked grin to wipe my face. I knew I should’ve taken hand wipes to Homecoming.

  Wait, I said. You can’t touch me.

  The grin turned to a smile. Is this some kind of purity-ring thing?

  Actually, it was a ghosts-burn-ghostkeepers thing.

  No, I said. I, um … What’s the last thing you remember?

  He focused into the distance. Wait, yeah, what happened? I drove to your house and you looked so hot in that dress and … we stepped outside and … He didn’t quite pale, already being a ghost and all. It was like a bad dream.

  It wasn’t a dream, Coby.

  I didn’t know where to start, what to tell him first. Did he remember Neos, did he know his death was all my fault?

  He faded until I saw the dirt wall clearly behind him, and his face grew haggard and grim with memory. I watched his faint eyes as he recalled everything: Neos possessing his body, then trying to drown me in the pond; my turning into a ghost and battling Neos before fleeing and abandoning him.

  Who are you? he finally asked.

  I’m Emma. I’m still Emma.

  I mean what are you?

  I’m a ghostkeeper. I see and compel and communicate with ghosts. I dispel them and …

  And what?

  I summon them.

  Oh, God, he said. Oh, God. I’m a ghost!

  He faded, and I called out, “Coby! Coby, come back! I’m sorry—please, I’m so sorry!”

  The wind whispered through the bare branches of faraway trees, as he disappeared completely. Leaving me alone with my aching need to make things right with him.

  You’re sorry? he said, materializing behind me.

  When I turned, his face looked harder with knowledge and determination, and I flinched. He’d vanished into the Beyond, where time wasn’t the same, and he’d had a chance to think.

  Everything’s changed, he said, his voice rough.

  I know. How can you ever forgive—

  Forgive you? I’m dead because of you. And you still couldn’t leave me alone.

  He stepped nearer, and his grave grew smaller, the walls tightening around me. A wave of nausea rose from my stomach at the earthy smell and the knowledge that I was standing on top of Coby’s dead body—and at the look in his eyes, intent and furious. He was right—everything had changed—especially him.

  He took another step and raised his hand to hover at the bare skin of my cheek. I’ll burn you if I touch you, won’t I?

  Coby, please. Please don’t.

  Tears streamed down my face where he held his hand, a centimeter from my skin. I met his unearthly gaze. I couldn’t bear his transformation, or how much it reminded me of when Neos possessed him. This wasn’t the Coby I remembered. That boy never would’ve wanted to harm me, even if I deserved it.

  Give me one reason why, Emma, he said. One reason you shouldn’t have to share my pain.

  And that’s just it. I couldn’t. So I stepped into him, pressing his fingers to my face.

  Pain flared on my cheek for an instant before Coby pulled back.

  What are you doing? he asked. Haven’t you heard of dramatic effect? I don’t want to hurt you.

  You don’t? I wouldn’t blame you if you did.

  No. I just— He frowned at his semitransparent hand. I can’t believe I’m really dead. Forget about graduation. Forget about prom, forget about college. I’ll never play football, I’ll never hear music or—

  You’ll hear music, Coby. I’ll play whatever you want.

  His sad smile broke my heart. What am I supposed to do now?

  I don’t know. Go see your parents? Sara and Harry miss you. I don’t know what your life—

  He shot me a look. My what?

  Okay, wrong word. Your existence?

  A short nod.

  I don’t know what it’s going to be like being a ghost. I’m not even sure what it’s like to be a ghostkeeper. Sometimes I wish there were a manual. But I promise you two things. I’ll always be here for you. And I’m going to find Neos—I’m going to kill him for what he did to you.

  He nodded slowly, then met my gaze. I’ll help you do it.

  I smiled in relief that he didn’t hate me. I was just hoping you’d still talk to me.

  It’s not like I’ve got so many other people to talk to. And you need all the help you can get.

  Nah, I said, trying to reassure him. I’ve got everything under control.

  Other than being trapped in my grave? Too bad you’re not a ghost—if you were, you could do this. He shot me a crooked grin, like the old Coby, and vanished.

  He had a point.

  . . .

  Watching Bennett carry my suitcase to the car, I couldn’t help but remember that the last time we’d gone on a trip together, I’d ended up three thousand miles from home, seeing ghosts and battling wraiths. I hoped this journey—to meet the Knell—wasn’t quite so life changing.

  We left his Land Rover at the station and took the bullet train to New York. We sat in plush first-class seats, courtesy of Bennett’s family money, and a waiter brought snacks and drinks. They didn’t have chai, so I settled for English breakfast tea in a cute little plastic teacup, and watched the scenery as we glided down the track.

  It was painful sitting so close to Bennett. He’d changed into a navy linen button-down that made his eyes seem almost too blue. I found it hard to focus on what he was saying when I looked straight into them. The problem was, I really wanted to brush his dark bangs out of his eyes, and kiss his perfect lips, and run my hands over his chest, and … I gulped my tea.

  I couldn’t do any of that, because his sister was dead and he needed his ghostkeeping skills to find her killer. Which left me flushed and fiddling with my empty coffee cup—staring out the window, afraid that if I talked to him, I’d try to curl into his lap. They didn
’t cover this kind of agony in advice columns.

  His phone rang and he said, “Hey, look at this.”

  I turned from the window to his iPhone, expecting to recognize someone’s name in the caller ID. Instead, there was a picture of the sole of a shoe. Bennett swiped his thumb over the heel, which slid open to reveal a mouthpiece.

  “Bennett Stern,” he answered in a spy-like voice. “We’re on the train now. We’ll arrive at six o’clock.”

  He flipped the heel closed and turned to me, grinning.

  “You were talking on your shoe phone. To headquarters! Where’d you get that?”

  “Off a dead KAOS agent in East Germany.”

  He’d done that for me, because I’d mentioned the Knell reminded me of that Get Smart movie. I couldn’t help myself: I hugged him, then buried my face in his neck. I breathed in the scent of him, savoring every second. Then pressed my lips to his skin and he gasped.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, pulling away.

  “I’m not.”

  He leaned closer and kissed me. The train trembled and my heart beat faster. My eyes closed and I lost myself in the sweetness of it. We kept our hands to ourselves, like if only our lips touched, then maybe everything would be okay. A false hope, but it made it the sexiest kiss I’d ever experienced, feeling nothing except his lips on mine.

  When I regained my sanity, I turned my head to end the kiss, but that just gave him access to my ear. He nibbled. I melted. Then, once I rediscovered my bones, I stood shakily.

  “I, um, I’m gonna …” I fumbled for my bag. “I think I should sit somewhere else.”

  With his hands gripping the chair rails, he nodded.

  “Bennett,” I said, wanting him to look at me, to forgive me with those cobalt eyes.

  But when he did look, his face wasn’t forgiving—just sad.

  I stumbled over him and found an empty seat four rows back, next to the window. I leaned my head against the glass and watched the world outside blurring into grayness. The hours passed, and I wondered how much longer we could go on like this. This wasn’t some unrequited crush where you didn’t know how the boy felt, where if you threw yourself at him, he might recoil. I knew exactly how Bennett felt, and he knew exactly how I felt. We wanted each other, plain and simple.

  Okay, maybe not so simple. But I couldn’t allow myself to think there wasn’t some solution, and I spent the rest of the train ride trying to figure it out.

  As we pulled into Penn Station, Bennett slid into the seat beside me. “Tell me it’s worth it. Tell me this is going to be over soon, and we can be together.”

  He’d never asked me for reassurance before, not like that. I wanted to comfort him, tell him this would all end, and our lives would go on together. But I still owed him the truth.

  “It’s not just your sister, Bennett,” I said. “It’s not just finding Neos and killing him.”

  “What is it, then?” he asked.

  As the train squealed to a halt, I looked into his eyes. “It’s you. The you I fell in love with is a ghostkeeper. That’s the only you there is. How can I ask you to give that up?”

  “I want to,” he said. “For you.”

  “I love that you want to. Maybe that’s enough.” And I had no right to ask for more.

  He shook his head, unconvinced, as we gathered our bags and the other passengers started to exit. I followed Bennett through the station and onto the street, where the air was cold and a grim sky peeked between the looming buildings.

  Moments later we were in a taxi, heading downtown.

  The avenues of Midtown began to narrow and the taxi turned into a cramped neighborhood of brick buildings and little quaint shop fronts filled with antiques and cool clothing. I tried not to look like a tourist while gawking at everything. Even jaded urbanites gawked sometimes, right?

  Bennett told the cabdriver to stop at the corner, and we grabbed our bags and stood on the sidewalk. It began to snow and my senses flared at the sights and smells. I almost staggered under the impact of all the spirits lingering along the streets.

  Two male ghosts in navy uniforms passed a flapper from the twenties, who winked gaily at a young ghost who looked like he died in some kind of disco accident. The ghosts roamed in packs of two and three, greeting each other and commenting on the snow, and generally acting as though they weren’t dead.

  “Pretty intense, huh?” Bennett said.

  “Wait—is that Elvis?”

  “Don’t be silly,” he scoffed. “That’s just a chubby guy in a white jumpsuit. What would Elvis be doing here?”

  He led me down the cobblestoned street, past narrow brownstones with ornate wrought-iron fences and ancient trees growing between the sidewalks.

  “Ghostkeepers live here, don’t they?” I said.

  “Yeah, mostly people heavily involved with the Knell.”

  As dusk crept over the rooftops, I watched a boy much like Nicholas climb a streetlamp, light a long match, and fiddle with the glass. The lamp lit instantly—but from electricity, not his flame.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “They’re not like the ghosts in Echo Point.” Or even the ones I’d remembered from my childhood, before my parents had my ability suppressed. “It’s like they don’t know they’re dead.”

  “Maybe it’s the street,” he said. “It’s one of the oldest in New York. Or maybe it’s the Knell or how many ghostkeepers live here. No one’s really sure, but somehow it gives them the sense that they’re still alive. They forget they’re ghosts.”

  We passed a small private park where a few old guys played chess at tables under the streetlamps. A younger ghost, eccentrically dressed and familiar, moved a rook.

  “Is that … ?”

  “The actor?” A movie star who’d recently died of an overdose. “Yeah.”

  “Have you asked if it was suicide or an accident?”

  He looked at me. “No.”

  “Oh, right.” He couldn’t communicate with them and I felt like a jerk for bringing it up.

  The block dead-ended at a white stone behemoth of a house, with columns and turrets and arches and things that might’ve been flying buttresses for all I knew. It looked like an institution, but there was no sign; instead, ornate iron gates and heavy trees stood guard.

  “What did it used to be?” I asked, expecting Bennett to say it belonged to the first governor of New York or a Rockefeller or, I don’t know, the pope.

  “It’s always been the Knell.”

  We headed toward the gate, then Bennett stopped and gave me a strange look, one I couldn’t decipher.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I should’ve prepared you.” He tilted his head. “I didn’t tell you before, because I didn’t know how, but there’s something inside. You’re not going to like it.”

  “Well, that’s nice and cryptic.” I took a steadying breath. “They’re going to help us find Neos and my parents. That’s all that matters.”

  Then the iron gates swung open and the house received us.

  Copyright © 2010 by Lee Nichols All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in the United States of America in June 2010

  by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers

  E-book edition published in June 2010

  www.bloomsburyteens.com

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

  Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

  Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Nichols, Lee.

  Deception : Haunting Emma / by Lee Nichols. — 1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When seventeen-year-old Emma's antique-collector parents vanish and her brother's college roomma
te shows up to become her guardian, he takes her from San Francisco to Boston, where she discovers that she is a powerful "ghostkeeper," which both explains troubling incidents from her past and presents difficult new dilemmas.

  ISBN 978-1-59990-308-8 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-59990-421-4 (paperback)

  [1. Ghosts—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction.

  4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction. 6. Schools—Fiction.

  7. Boston (Mass.)—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Haunting Emma.

  PZ7.N5412De 2010 [Fic]—dc22 2009031191

  ISBN 978-1-59990-562-4 (e-book)