Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

  “Oh, well, in that case…” He sits down on my bed and kicks off his slippers. “So what’s up?”

  I smile. “I don’t know, Jaxon. You’re the one in my bedroom at six-fifty in the morning.”

  “I just mean…You were acting a little jumpy yesterday, and your dad told me you woke up all shaken again today. You haven’t done that in a while.”

  I try to smile. I don’t want to tell him why. I want that spell we did to work and for these strange things to disappear. Return to the life I’ve been happy in recently. “I know there’s a normal out there, and I’ll be damned if I don’t find it.”

  He pushes his sun-kissed hair out of his eyes. It’s only April, and Jaxon already looks like he stumbled off a beach. “You mean doing witch training with my mom isn’t at the top of your ‘normal’ list?”

  I laugh. “Can you even imagine?”

  “Yes. Yes, I can. When I was in fifth grade, my mom decided that I needed to learn how to cook, and she invited my entire class to her bakery. Great in theory. Everyone stuffed their faces. But by the time the next week rolled around, there was a whole group of guys calling me Muffin.”

  “So you’re saying that if I did witch training with your mom, people might start calling me Witchy-poo or something?”

  “Actually, you do kinda look like a witchy-poo.”

  “Shut up, Muffin.” I push him lightly.

  He picks up one of my pillows and smacks me in the face with it.

  My mouth opens. “Oh, you’re so dead.”

  I jump on him, and he falls back into a mound of down comforter. He grabs my wrists and rolls on top of me, pinning me under his weight.

  He smells like pine trees. “You’re stronger than I thought. I mean, not that strong, but still.”

  “You mean I’m dangerous.”

  “I mean good thing for me you suck at fighting.”

  I laugh, and for a brief second my stomach flutters under his. “You just better hope I don’t learn magic, or I’ll give you a tail.”

  Jaxon grins. He adjusts his weight off me and onto his side, supporting his head with his hand. His eyes are focused, and the flutter in my stomach intensifies.

  “Will you go to the dance with me?” he asks. “I have a sneaking suspicion we would make an awfully good Titanic couple.”

  Titanic. “Wait, what?”

  “The Spring Fling.”

  Is Jaxon asking me out? Maybe he was flirting the other day. Not jokey fun flirting, but I-want-to-stick-my-tongue-in-your-mouth flirting. I reach out to touch his arm, but take my hand back. “Don’t you want to go with a date or something?”

  Jaxon looks out the window for a brief second, and when his eyes return to me, his smile has tension in it. “I would much rather go with you. Doesn’t have to be a big deal. I just, well, I think it would be good for you to have a little fun for once. Socialize.”

  The flutter in my stomach turns to anxiety. Please don’t do this. “I don’t know. I just…I don’t know.”

  Jaxon pulls back to get a better look at me. “You’re not going with someone else, are you?”

  I wish I could laugh at that. I wish that the major problem of my life right now was too many dance invites. “It’s not that. I just don’t think I’m gonna go at all.”

  “Come on, Sam. I know it’s been a little weird at school these past few months. But you have to jump in at some point.”

  I slide away from him and sit up. “It’s not just that.” It’s Ada and the dream, Alice’s bones, and a slew of weirdness that tells me I shouldn’t go anywhere near a Titanic-themed dance right now.

  Jaxon’s eyes focus on me like he’s trying to sort something out. “Well, what’s it about, then?”

  I pull at the edge of my comforter. Maybe I should tell Jaxon what’s going on. He’ll hate it, but at least I won’t have to hurt his feelings about the dance.

  Jaxon frowns. “You’re acting the same way you did right after…Does this have anything to do with that dude ghost that left?”

  My heart immediately and annoyingly starts pounding. Stop it, heart. Why should I care that Jaxon brought up Elijah? I stand up and step into my black slippers. “We’re gonna be late to breakfast.”

  Jaxon stands up, too. “I’m guessing by your reaction that’s a yes.”

  “It’s…I’m just not going to the dance. I don’t want to go,” I say with more frustration than I intended. Great. Now I’ve made it sound like it is because of Elijah. I turn away from his look. I hate that I’m flustered and that Jaxon can see it.

  “Do you still have feelings for him?”

  I walk into the hall. “I really don’t want to talk about this.” How did we even get on this topic anyway?

  “That figures.” No more jokes and smiles.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You can’t even look at me when you talk about this.”

  I move fast down the stairs, my pulse quickening. I can’t explain everything to him while I’m like this. I need to calm down, think it through. “He’s gone, Jaxon. And he’s not the reason I’m saying no to you. I’m just saying no. I don’t have to give you a reason.”

  “Real nice, Sam.” His frustration matches mine. “I’m the closest friend you have as long as we don’t talk about anything important. But the moment I ask you a personal question, you run away.”

  Damn him for being right. I cross the foyer and open the side door. “Jaxon…” Alice stands on the other side with her hand raised to knock. “Alice?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Alice says, and steps in.

  Jaxon looks from her to me.

  “Seriously, Sam. Alone,” Alice says.

  “Right, you’ll talk to her,” Jaxon says under his breath. He walks out the door, and it slams shut behind him.

  How did that fight even happen?

  “Looks like your morning is going as well as mine is,” Alice says.

  “You have no idea,” I say.

  She walks straight for the living room and I follow. We sit down on one of the white fluffy couches, and she drops her bookbag on the coffee table, which is actually an old trunk.

  “I found this on my nightstand this morning.” She pulls an antique key from her pocket and holds it out to me.

  I examine the metal tag. Engraved on one side is 1ST CL ST RM D33. Some of the detail is rubbed smooth. “What the…?”

  “It was just there staring at me when I woke up,” Alice says, looking at the key like it has some nerve.

  “Could it have come from someone in your house?”

  Alice shakes her head.

  “Are you saying you think someone snuck in and left it in your room?”

  “It wasn’t there when I went to sleep. And no one got into my room overnight without me noticing. I’m a light sleeper. As in a piece of dust lands on my cheek and I bolt upright.”

  “So you’re saying…” A chill runs down my back.

  “I don’t see another explanation.” She twists a black onyx ring on her finger. “It had to be a ghost.”

  I look at the key. “Spirit,” I correct her.

  “Okay, well, I want you to teach me how to see them.”

  “What? No way. I just asked you to do a spell to help me not see them anymore.”

  “You can’t just stop seeing spirits, Sam. That isn’t a door you can shut. And if one was looming over me in my sleep, which is very possibly what happened last night, I wouldn’t even know it. You can see spirits. Maybe you’re not interested in taking it as an opportunity. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to try. Yes, I want you to join our circle, and yes, you would make us stronger. But whether you do or you don’t, you have to stop being such a baby and realize what a gift you have.”

  I set my jaw. “I get that you’re freaked out. I am, too. But do not guilt-trip me after everything that happened.”

  “By ‘everything that happened,’ I assume you mean your stepmother trying to kill us.”

 
I stare at her hard. “Don’t do this, Alice.”

  “I’m gonna do this. We’ve been keeping your secret about her. You deserve that for what you did for us. It goes without saying. But we don’t deserve you shutting us out. You’re acting like you’re the only one this happened to.”

  I hand the key back to her and stand up. “I really don’t want to have this conversation.” Which is now the second time I’ve said this since I woke up.

  She grabs my wrist. “Look at Lizzie. She couldn’t deal with what happened, and she shipped herself off to some boarding school. Hiding yourself away in a made-up normal world you think you want is just the same. You can’t make what Vivian did go away no matter how much you avoid us or how much you avoid magic. And yeah, there’s a price you pay for having power and keeping secrets. So stop being selfish! You can’t do this alone, and neither can we.”

  I pull her hand off my wrist and walk away from her. Screw school. If Murphy’s Law is running the show today, I’m going back to bed.

  I examine the glossy black-and-white-checkered floor below my feet. The fancy French-themed café is filled with white wicker furniture and women wearing delicate lace gloves. Green vines wind their way up white-latticed walls. A quartet plays classical music over the din of luncheon conversation, and the many windows stream light and fresh salty air.

  Salty air. I tense. Outside the windows, the sunlight glistens off the water. What is this? Another dream? This doesn’t feel like the last one. My thoughts are clearer.

  I want out. I wind through the tables of finely dressed families toward a door leading to the deck. As I pass two men at a table, I accidentally brush against one’s shoulder. I stop. He has a white beard and is wearing a bow tie.

  “Sorry,” I say, but he doesn’t respond.

  “I hear President Taft invited you himself, Mr. Stead,” the other man says, and stirs sugar into his tea.

  “Right you are,” Mr. Stead says.

  I walk right up to the table. “I said I was sorry.” But they don’t so much as glance in my direction.

  I wave my hands between their faces. No reaction.

  “Heeelllooo!” I don’t even get to be part of my own dream?

  I smack the table between their plates, but oddly, it doesn’t make a noise. I try to lift a plate, but it’s as though it was cemented to the table. That’s it. I’m going to get their attention if it’s the last thing I do.

  My gaze falls on a small silver sugar spoon. I grab it with both hands and pull. Nothing. I concentrate harder, and picture lifting it with my mind. It sways slightly. “Gotcha!” I tighten my grip and focus more energy at it. It lifts six inches into the air.

  The men stop talking at once.

  “Ya see me now, don’t you?” I ask, rather satisfied with myself, even though I know they’re looking at the spoon and not me.

  They push their seats away from the table. Mr. Stead’s chair collides with my side. I try to step away, but I lose my balance. And as I fall toward the checkered floor, I take the spoon with me.

  “Hey!” My eyes fly open. “Watch what you’re…” I’m in my bedroom. There’s no one to yell at.

  “What the hell?” In my right hand is a small silver spoon. Whatever residual sleepiness I had immediately disappears.

  This isn’t supposed to happen. No one takes things from their dreams. There’s nothing to take—dreams aren’t real. I close my eyes for three seconds and open them again. The spoon is still there.

  I jump out of bed. I need to tell the girls; I need to…My argument with Jaxon this morning and my fight with Alice come rushing back to me. And even if I wanted to talk to them, they’re both at school.

  I shove the spoon into my nightstand drawer and pace in my room. I need air.

  I throw on some clothes and walk into the hall.

  “Dad!” I yell.

  “You okay?” he calls up.

  “Yeah,” I yell back, making my way down the stairs. “Just going for a walk.”

  He enters the foyer at the same time I do. “Want some lunch before you go? Or a snack? Banana?”

  I pull my hair into a messy ball on top of my head and put my jacket on. “Nah. I’m not hungry. I think I spent too much time napping. I’m starting to feel antsy.”

  “You have a minute? I want to show you something.”

  I hesitate, looking at the door. “Yeah. Of course.”

  I follow him into the hall, and he opens the door to his old-fashioned office, complete with a sepia-toned globe and tall bookshelves.

  “Did you know this study was my dad’s once? For most of my childhood, it was off-limits. Of course, that didn’t stop me and Mae from snooping through his drawers when we saw the opportunity.” He winks at me and walks behind his enormous desk.

  “Were you and Grandpa close?” I know even less about him than about my grandmother. He died when my dad was in college, and Dad almost never talked about him when I was growing up. Come to think of it, he’s been doing a lot of reminiscing recently. As long as he doesn’t want to reminisce about Vivian, I’m fine with it.

  “He didn’t talk to me much.” He laughs. “I used to take it personally and try to goad him into conversation. But he said what he thought and that was that. Even when he got mad at me.” He points to the plush armchair on the other side of the desk. “Whenever I did something wrong, he’d have me sit there and retell what I did, using only the facts. No feelings, no reasons. Then he’d ask me what kind of punishment I thought I should have.”

  “That sounds like a sweet deal.”

  “Not even close. He would look at me with those we-both-know-what’s-right eyes until I named something way too severe. Mae used to laugh until she cried when I told her how those conversations went. And I know you think she’s nothing but sweet, but don’t let her fool you. She’s an expert troublemaker.” He pulls out a drawer of the desk and hands me a photo. “That is proof.”

  In the picture my dad looks about nine years old. He’s tied to the tree in the backyard and covered head to toe in mud. And there’s a girl around his age standing a few feet away, holding a mud ball.

  I start laughing. “Way to go, Mrs. Meriwether.”

  He pauses. “So about staying home today—”

  “I’m fine,” I say too quickly. “Just a bad night of sleep. I figured I’d be passing out in class. Not a big deal.”

  “You’d tell me if it was a big deal?”

  “Yeah.” I put the photo on his desk and pull my sleeves down farther than they’re supposed to go. “I think I’m gonna take that walk now.”

  His eyebrows knit together.

  I stand up and force a smile. “Dad, stop worrying. I’m fine.”

  He doesn’t look entirely convinced. “When you get back, I’ll cook us up some of those pumpkin raviolis in sage butter you love and garlic bread. I have a couple of stories about Mae that will make you fall right out of your chair.”

  I laugh. “Extra garlic?”

  “Is there any other way?”

  “I’m so in for that.” I blow him a kiss and head out of his office and out of the house.

  I exhale loudly into the crisp spring air as I zip my jacket closed and turn down my street toward town. Maybe I’m being stupid. Maybe Dad wouldn’t freak out the way I think he would if I told him I was seeing spirits. No, he definitely would. What am I even thinking right now?

  Tree roots fight to break through the old brick of the sidewalk and small purple flowers are just beginning to appear in gardens. I once told Elijah that purple flowers were my favorite because they were unapologetically bold. And all he said was “Like your language.” I smile at the memory.

  The shops are busy, even at this time of day. People are starting to get that spring itch where they just want to be outside, even though it hasn’t truly warmed up yet. I can tell by the double takes from some of the pedestrians that they know who I am.

  “Girl,” a voice says, and I turn to my left.

  An older
woman with salt-and-pepper hair down to her waist has her door cracked open. Her face is mostly shadowed, and she’s wearing a drapey black dress. She stares at me pointedly and waves me to come in.

  There’s nothing indicating what kind of store it is. The windows are blacked out. There isn’t even a sign, just old brick and a worn black door.

  “Um, I’m good, thanks,” I say, and stick my hands in my pockets.

  “You’re not good or well,” she says. “Come inside.”

  People pass me on the street and shoot sideways glances at us.

  “Thanks, but I…I don’t have any cash.”

  Her face wrinkles into a frown. “You think I want your money?”

  “I just meant…”

  A couple of pedestrians have stopped to watch us. The weird part is, they look more shocked to see her than me. She opens the door wider and retreats into the dark room. Screw it. I slip inside, and the door clicks shut behind me.

  “Hello?” I turn from side to side. “It’s pitch-black. I can’t see a thing.”

  “Come in, come in,” she says with a muffled voice.

  “I am in.”

  No response. You’ve got to be kidding me. I put my hands out in front of me and take careful steps in the direction her voice came from. My hands hit a wall, and I follow it down a dark twisty hallway. The farther I get from the door, the more uneasy I get.

  “I’m going to leave,” I say, not entirely confident that I could find my way out of this maze. What did I just get myself into?

  “Brave but impatient,” she says just as I collide with a curtain.

  I’m not sure I like being analyzed out loud. I push the curtain aside and step into a perfectly circular room lit by candles in chest-high, wrought-iron candelabras. The walls are covered with black velvet curtains, and the floors are a mishmash of colorful rugs and pillows. There’s a faint smell of lemon and ginger.

  She sits in the center of the room on a pillow next to a low round table. Did I make a mistake?

  “So what’s all this about?” I say.

  “You.”

  I shift my weight from one foot to the other, ready to bolt if need be. “Me?”

  “This is exactly my point. You’re not paying attention. Do you think I invited you off the street randomly?”