Mortals: Heather Despair Book One

by Leslie Copeland

  "Sam?" I called.

  A pale face illumed in the corridor, its black eyes boring into mine. Like the figure from my vision! But who—or what—was it? For an eternity, those black holes met mine, tugging at my soul, stilling my breath. Then I gasped deep the night air. The figure wavered, before darkness swallowed it into shadows.

  A distorted, frozen feeling overwhelmed me, dead electricity in the air, like energy and silence all at once. What was this feeling? I took another step down the corridor. Part of me wanted to chase after the dark figure, measure its depths with warm human hands. I hung balanced on the edge of deep blackness, but my neck prickled, and my heart folded inward. Suddenly spooked, I raced back to the teardrop trailer and crept inside.

  —Good. You're okay.

  Sam's grin flashed from a dark corner. He sat on the floor, arms wrapped around his long legs, too tall for this trailer.

  Like much of Bruce's junk, the teardrop trailer had seen better days. Once, it probably contained a mattress that made the tiny, four-foot-high space a comfortable sleeping compartment. Now it had only a dirty, hard floor and a ragged camping cot someone tossed in as an afterthought. Other than the cot, the interior was bare—the cupboards stripped away, the windows without curtains.

  I crouched on the dirty floor next to Sam, then leaned against him, shivering for human contact.

  "Sam, I saw someone," I whispered. “Just now.”

  A shriek issued through the night air and I jumped.

  Sam grunted. His message dripped with disgust.

  —Listen to that! I'm sick of them and their fighting. They never shut up.

  "I saw a ghost," I said.

  He nodded. Tight-lipped as always, he said nothing. I waited, feeling his impatience flicker between us—impatience to get away from all this and live free. I looked out the teardrop's eye-shaped window. In the double-wide, a lit candle floated from room to room, visible through the windows: Bruce and Shirleen, screaming at each other by candlelight.

  I held my notebook in a moonbeam, flipping through until I found the page with the weird writing.

  "I got a vision while I was writing. Something contacted me. It wrote 'Cross over.' See?" I held it up to show him. "Then—you saw what happened. I nearly shocked everyone. What was that, Sam?"

  He blew out a breath, long and slow.

  —I don't know.

  "Why don't you know? You should know! Listen, when I came outside, a creepy junkyard specter was waiting for me. Right out there!” I pointed in the general direction.

  Sam shook his head.

  "What? Now you don't believe me?" I said.

  —I do. Heather, I do. There are things in this junkyard—well, I don't need to scare you.

  "What things? What things in the junkyard?" I peered out the eye-shaped window at shadows that twisted and morphed in fantastic shapes. Jaws bristling with teeth, faces cemented in screams, knives and axes and twitching, gargantuan spider legs . . . I blinked hard. Sent them back to shadows, but my pounding heart remained. Sam chuckled.

  —Let's just say the one you need to worry about goes by the name of Bruce.

  I gulped. "Have you seen these—things?" I certainly had.

  —No. I hear them, though. They never shut up either.

  Sam winced and untangled headphones from his pocket. His ears plugged with music, he rolled away from me and curled up on the floor.

  I wanted to ask him, What is making this happen?

  But I knew he wouldn't tell me until he was ready. Not even by mind message. Sam had always been the strong, silent type.

  A moonbeam flittered through the eye-shaped window and revealed the spidery words on my open notebook page. Cross over.

  Images flashed through my mind: the figure in the gray vortex of my vision, the black-and-white shape in the junkyard corridor. There are things in this junkyard . . . I shivered, the base of my spine tingled, and a zing of electricity shot up my back to the crown of my head. My hands touching the notebook glowed.

  Sam said to worry about Bruce. I thought Bruce was the least of my problems.

  Chapter Two

  Gone Sam

  Hours later, Sam and I lay on the trailer's creaky cot, Sam resting his feet on the ceiling, me with my feet halfway up the wall. My notebook shoved under the cot. The midnight silence of the junkyard seeped through us.

  "Sam?" Maybe now, I could ask him.

  —Don't talk out loud. They could hear you.

  "I don't always like to mind message. It's creepy," I said.

  —Oh, and zapping things with blue electricity isn't creepy at all, I guess.

  I shrugged at Sam, and he shrugged back.

  "I have to leave," he said.

  The big yard light flared on, buzzing like an insane cicada. I shook my head no. He'd threatened to leave plenty of times, but always, he'd promise to stay until he was eighteen, in November. This time, he sounded dead serious.

  "You can't leave. What about me and Mom? What would—"

  "Dad say? I think—I know—Dad would say to leave. Even if Mom won't," said Sam.

  My stomach knotted up. He'd leave me here to deal with Bruce? And facing the—things? I didn't want to deal with any of this alone. Only Sam got me. Probably. He'd never said otherwise. Not that he ever said much of anything.

  "Okay." I made my voice strong, sure. "If you're going to leave, then take me."

  Sam twisted his face away. "I can't. Not yet. I know some place I can go, but you can't go there," he said.

  I blinked back tears welling up. "Can't you at least tell me where you're going?"

  Sam put his hand to his forehead. Let out a long, slow breath. Like Dad used to do.

  "Dad wouldn't say to leave me here," I told him.

  "Yeah. That is what he says. I still think it's dangerous, but I—I guess you can come. It has to be tomorrow," said Sam.

  "Why tomorrow?" I frowned at Sam in the dark. "Can you hear Dad?" I reached to search his mind, but his thoughts slipped away like ice before I could catch them. Sam didn't give up secrets.

  "Stop that," he said in a tired whisper.

  "What's happening to us, Sam? What's happening to me?" I said.

  Sam looked into my eyes, unfazed by their golden strangeness. "I will tell you this. What Dad believed—the spiritualism—most of it is true. Maybe all." He turned his back to me.

  "We leave tomorrow," he said.

  "Okay, tomorrow," I agreed. Sam always promised he'd get me out of here somehow. Finally, it was coming true.

  I watched his back swell and fall, his breath slowing into sleep. If I stilled, I sensed the junkyard breathing, too—the tangled mass of junked vehicles, piles of metal, chunks of wood, and old tires lived a life all its own. Inhaling dark figures and strange shapes. Exhaling weird energy, dead electricity. I lay transfixed in its spell, nearly trancing with it.

  Something scraped against the trailer's skin. I bolted up, then blew a relieved sigh, and unlatched the door. A tiny black Chihuahua scrambled through.

  "Sybil! Poor girl, where have you been? Shh. Lie down," I whispered.

  Little Sybil curled catlike inside my sweater and whined. Months ago, I'd found her limping by the highway in Carrizozo, a weak skeleton. Sam had warned me then that Bruce wouldn't welcome a dog. As so often, Sam's prediction came true. Bruce wouldn't allow her inside the double-wide, claiming fleas would take over. Sybil had to live by stealth in the junkyard, eating whatever I could scrounge for her. Bruce complained every so often but let her stay. He said a dog that small would be eaten by rats anyway.

  I didn't believe that. Sybil had learned the junkyard paths and crevices, knew the heights and holes better than anyone. Not rats, nor snakes that fed on rats, could out-twist her in this junkyard. But coyotes. There was real danger. Sooner or later, if Sybil didn't stay hidden—I shuddered and tucked my sweater closer around her. She was so tiny. Surely, I could smuggle her along.

  Half-dreaming how to hide Sybil, my eyes drifted up, up�
��through the overhead window. Behind the teardrop, an old school bus loomed, parked close, like a head-on collision frozen in time. The cracked windshield and twisted hood bespoke a crash. I sometimes stared at that bus, wondered at its story, how it got here, how it crashed. So many mysteries in this junkyard. That pale, glowing face I'd seen earlier, the ghost with black eyes like holes—who was it? I drowsed, my mind playing dream-tricks with the face. It stretched wider, the black eyes deeper, the mouth open in a cascade of showering golden light. I shaded my eyes with one hand.

  "Too bright," I said, then I opened my eyes, rubbing sand from them. The brilliant morning light showed the trailer door open to the blue desert sky.

  I searched the inside of the trailer. Sam wasn't there. Sybil was still curled asleep inside my sweater. Sand on the floor—sand blew in the sun-filled doorway. The piles in the corners meant the door had been open for hours. He'd left early.

  —Sam! Where are you? Don't leave me here!

  I waited. My hands formed fists with the effort of messaging. No answer—the message fell flat and dead. Why did he leave? He promised he wouldn't leave me! I searched the tiny space for clues. No note. No tracks. Nada.

  Sybil rolled out of my sweater and stretched with a squeaky yawn.

  "Sybil, where's Sam?" I said. The little dog sniffed around and yipped, cocking her head at me. She had no idea.

  "I'll tell you where he is!" Bruce shaded the doorway, clothes dusty with sand, stubble spiking his chin.

  I jumped back and hit my head against the ceiling, hard. Sybil barked an alarm, then hid behind my leg.

  Bruce leered, then said, "I sent him packing. That's where he is!"

  Chapter Three

  The Paranormals

  —Sam, where are you? Please let me know you're okay!

  Dead and flat again. Sitting in the doorway of the teardrop trailer, I clasped my hands, and sent out a mental alert that usually made him come running at top speed. Nothing—as if he didn't exist.

  Glaring across the sand lot at the double-wide, I wiped away another tear.

  Stop. Stop crying. It wasn't helping me solve this. And I needed to solve this. I blew my nose, wiped away the last of the tears. Tried to think. What happened to Sam?

  I didn't doubt Bruce would love to get rid of Sam and me both. But all he said was, "I sent him packing." Then he stomped off, wordless.

  "Where?" I followed, questioning him. "Why?"

  He turned away, his face a blank stone. Shirleen, too. She only glared when I demanded to know where Sam was. Bizarre, even for them.

  The bus horn sounded from the highway. I made my decision. Grabbing my notebook from the teardrop trailer, I ran for it. My feet pounded the sand as Sybil galloped at my heels. At the last minute, I scooped her into my backpack. The bus was already rolling away, back onto the highway. I sprinted after it, waving and yelling. It screeched to a stop, and the bus driver opened the door.

  "Late again, huh?" The bus driver grinned. He was a jovial, rotund man who never seemed to mind putting up with my nonsense. I clawed my way on board, panting, and mouthed a "thank you." He just bobbed his head and cranked the gear shift. Soon we were rolling along the highway, toward town.

  Escape—to the Portales Espirituales high school. As the bus jolted along the highway and Sybil squirmed in my backpack, I plotted my next move. This was it. I was running away, just as Sam and I planned last night. Somehow, I’d find him.

  I watched sagebrush and creosote bushes whiz by the bus windows, desert vegetation lodged in sandy hills. Sam's disappearance was largely my fault. I let that fight get to me. Then things got weird. What if I called the ghost somehow? Our father used to call ghosts. I shivered.

  Or what if I just ticked Bruce off, scared him enough that he got rid of Sam? Maybe Bruce got tired of the freak show, and I didn't much blame him. All he and my mom wanted was a normal life, even a shabby one. They never asked to have kids who communicated with their minds and called down blue electricity. They wanted to work, eat hamburgers, watch TV. Normal.

  The bus rumbled its way up the high school drive and jerked to a stop. I swarmed in with the rest of the crowd. Amid the high school's right-angled halls and comfortable jumble of bodies, I hid my golden eyes behind my hair. I hurried to put away my books. Then to carry out the first step of a desperate, despairing plan to find my brother.

  Struggling with my locker, I waited. Those two would get here soon. Yeah, I was a little early this morning, but they always came by.

  My friends were in this geeky club for investigating strange occurrences. Sam's disappearance would be right up their alley. If Sam was somewhere in Portales Espirituales, they'd find him. But what if he'd gone somewhere else—somewhere weirder?

  Buried in thought, I almost tripped over Oskar Chandler, who was bent down, digging through his bag. He didn't carry a backpack like a normal person. No, Oskar had this creaky leather satchel that looked about a hundred years old. A little strange—but Oskar himself is extremely hot. He gazed up at me with his big hazel eyes, blue with little flecks of green in the center. My mind turned to goo.

  I smiled too brightly. "Sorry!" I said, with a high, nervous giggle. "You're just so easy to fall over!"

  So easy to fall over? Was that supposed to be flirting? I am not good at this.

  I lowered my eyes. Inside the bag, words shone gold on black spines: The Casual Spiritualist's Handbook . . . Ancients and Foretellings . . . The Ghost Tracker's Guide.

  Oskar gave me one furtive glance and darted away, lugging his bag after him.

  Sybil whined, and I let her poke her head out of my backpack. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be judging Oskar. He didn't have a live animal in his bag. But he was into some weird stuff anyway.

  Like me, Oskar seemed a shadow person. Lurked around the edges a lot, avoided people. I had good reasons to be furtive, but for him, it made no sense. He was hands-down the hottest person in this school. He wore a long coat most of the time, but I saw him once with it off, and wow! Perfect auburn hair, hazel eyes, a finely chiseled face, his body trim and muscular—I just kept staring. And staring.

  I could never get him to talk to me, or even smile. He just stalked around in the shadows wearing that long coat, even in the heat, carrying that antique bag.

  But today, he walked about ten feet, then turned and beamed. I froze in shock, then—

  "Hi, Oskar!" My friend Trenton Minch had finally arrived. He waved and grinned at Oskar like a maniac, his round face all dimples, his springy blond hair bobbing as he danced around. Oskar smiled widely, showing all his gorgeous teeth. Oh my god, he was beautiful. My heart thudded in my chest. Trenton squealed and waved again. Oskar gave Trenton one last heart-stopping smile, then walked away.

  "Hmmm," I said to myself. "He never smiled at me that way." Well, Trenton was pretty funny. He made everyone laugh. Maybe even Oskar.

  Trenton came bouncing over. "Heather!"

  "Hi, Trenton," I said.

  "I'm fabulous, thank you," he said, even though I hadn't asked. "Please tell me you have the homework assignment? I'm way too distracted in English class." He rolled his eyes in the direction Oskar had gone. "Did you see him?" He clasped his hands before his heart and sighed.

  I sighed too. "I did. The hotness almost blinded me."

  Trenton laughed. I handed him a crumpled assignment sheet from my binder. He pointed to Heather Despair, written at the top. "I can't believe that's your real name," he said for the one millionth time.

  "It's real." I frowned, struggling with my locker door. "Despair" was Sam's real name too. My locker finally popped open, the door almost smacking my face, and disgorged a glut of books. Notebooks flew across the floor, pages and pages of my writing visible to all. I blinked hot shame and frustration. What use were all these stupid words? They wouldn't bring back Sam or my dad. They wouldn't put my family back together. I bent over, snatching armfuls of notebooks.

  "Here, let us help." Lily Benavidez had arrived. She bent to help m
e pick up my books. A straight-A student who played by the rules, Lily never seemed embarrassed of her literary and scientific tendencies. Her hair was black and spiked and often had pink streaks, and under it enormous glasses, and under that, always a sedate argyle cardigan of some type. She resembled a punked-out librarian.

  Trenton scrambled around grabbing books and papers, still singing my name. "Heather Despair, Heather Despair. Here you go," he said, extending my books to me with a gallant smile. He never tired of saying my name, ever.

  "Shh, Trenton!" If only he would shut up, before he called attention to my weird name!

  "Just ignore him. If he doesn't spaz out every half hour, he'll explode," said Lily. She took Trenton by the shoulders. "Trent—you know Heather hates her last name. Suppose we called you Trenton Lloyd Minch?"

  Trenton grasped his chest as if the mere mention of his middle name had wounded him. "How dare you bring up 'the Lloyd'?" he moaned. "Liliana Renée Benavidez!"

  Lily shrugged. "I like my name."

  They strolled off together, chattering non-stop, arguing as only best friends can.

  "Wait," I said. Time to put my plan into action. "PEPPER! I want to hire them."

  They both froze and turned slowly around.

  "Did you say PEPPER?" Lily stared.

  "It's PEPPIC! Portales Espirituales Paranormal Phenomena Investigation Club!" said Trenton in his shrillest voice.

  "That's quite a mouthful," I said, smirking.

  "Paranormals for short," said Trenton.

  "Okay, whatever. Are any investigators from PEPPIC for hire? Because I think I have . . . a case."

  "A case?" Lily's eyes opened wide behind her huge glasses.

  "Interested?" I said.

  Lily looked around the hall, like maybe some other club was going to steal this chance. "Trenton and I might be available. What's this about?" she whispered.