Going through her drawers, I found a picture of her and Mr. Daniels and their three kids. She had a more recent picture of them on her bookshelf, but I liked this one better. They seemed like a happy family—not my perverted teacher and sporadically spazzy boss.
I immediately forgot about the picture and staples, though—and everything else— when Hanna came into the office. She passed me silently, going into the principal’s office, but she dropped me a note on the way.
I stared at the folded note a long time before actually reading it. Then I widened my eyes to the size of saucers, reading it again. It said, “Meet me in the cemetery.”
****
Luckily Hanna hadn’t tacked on “at midnight” to her message or I don’t think I would have showed. I mean, I had an evil spirit after me, wasn’t that spooky enough? Did we really need ambiance? I don’t think so.
And anyway, Hanna was terrified of me. The cemetery seemed like the last place she would want to meet me. Yet here we were, the five of us, waiting for Hanna, dead bodies all around.
Micah scanned the place. “My uncle’s buried here somewhere.”
He and Zack went to check out headstones. I was busy biting on my thumbnail, waiting for Hanna to get here and raise the dead—or vanquish the dead or whatever she was going to do.
Sawyer and Jeremy just stayed near me, Sawyer talking too much, Jeremy not talking at all. Finally, Hanna showed. “Let’s go over to my grandmother’s grave,” she said. “I’d feel better there.”
“Why the cemetery?” I asked.
“Because you can’t enter a protective circle with me—you can’t. But this land is blessed all over the place,” Hanna said. “Hopefully an evil spirit can’t easily enter. But I can’t take a chance on that. I can’t stay long.”
I swallowed, wondering why Kenzie could come here, but not a church. Here she just seemed to be asleep—like the place wiped her out, but I wasn’t sick or anything.
Hanna sat on her grandmother’s grave, making herself comfortable, sort of, but not really. She still seemed on edge. “Give me your hand.”
I gave her my hand, and she held it between hers, closing her eyes. “I’m going to talk to Kenzie, but in my head, so just be quiet everyone.”
Everyone was dead quiet, watching Hanna.
But she seemed to be having trouble. Finally she opened her eyes. “Kenzie won’t talk to me. She doesn’t want to leave. But I found out some stuff that links to her through you. She was in some sort of accident, a car accident—you saved her.”
I nodded, again amazed Hanna could read that—she seemed so … normal.
“Anyway, unless you can get her back with her body, you’re stuck with her,” Hanna said, rising to her feet. “Cause no one’s going to try to get her out, not when she’s got that guy looking for her. Like I said—we clairvoyants, we’re susceptible to spirits.”
“But I saw shadows,” I said. “Is that him?”
Hanna eyed me, as if afraid to talk about it. Finally, she nodded. “His minions. He has shadows looking for her. The thing is though, shadows can only look in a place once—unless the place is evil. Then they can kind of … dwell there.”
I swallowed. Although her words were terrifying, they were also a little bit comforting, a little bit. ‘Cause the shadows had already come to my room—I’d seen them. They couldn’t come back. Yay for that.
So, I was relieved—for a second. But then, Hanna’s next words had me shaking. Shaking, big time.
“But Jodi,” she said warningly. “You’re obviously susceptible to spirits too—you have one inside you.” She went on quickly, trying to reassure me. “You’re not as susceptible as me, obviously, or those shadows would have found you by now—you’d be gone. But they can get you, Jodi.” She gazed into my eyes, looking grim. “Watch out for the shadows.”
Watch out for the shadows. Watch out for the shadows. Dad’s warning swirled in my brain, made me dizzy, ready to faint.
But I had to focus. Stay with the world. Because I could see Hanna was ready to bolt.
“Okay,” I rubbed my forehead, trying to gather my freaked out thoughts, save my breakdown for another time. “The thing about me getting rid of Kenzie, though,” I said quickly, “I have to get her back to her body?”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Hanna said, not sounding like we had much chance. “Kenzie has to willingly be in proximity to her body—willingly. But she doesn’t want to go. And her body is in a hospital, right? Look, I’ve got to go.”
“Wait,” I called after her, “I have my dad’s ring. Can you just tell me about my dad?”
Hanna had been hurrying away, but turned back to me, looking pained. “I can’t,” she said. “I’ve been with you too long.”
Sawyer stood. “Hanna, we really need your help.”
She groaned. Then came back to us. Sawyer seemed to know she would—if he asked.
“Just really fast,” she said, taking Dad’s ring. “Just whatever I get in a second, and don’t ask for more.”
We watched her as she held Dad’s ring. “Your dad saved that guy—I’m not going to say his name, but Kenzie knows. Actually, I probably shouldn’t say her name anymore either.” Hanna was quiet for a moment, listening or thinking or whatever she was doing. “I’m going to call the guy Ethan. He was into dark stuff, really dark.”
Hanna paused a long while before going on, seeming to see the events in her head. “The car accident—it mangled Ethan’s body. And your dad, from trying to help Ethan, was covered in Ethan’s blood—that’s how Ethan got to your dad—from his blood.” Hanna went silent, tilting her head. Then her eyes opened wide. She scrambled to her feet, tossing me Dad’s ring. “I can’t say anything else,” she said. “I’ve got to go, don’t follow.”
She ran off and we all stared after her, saying nothing. ‘Cause what could we say? We had promised we wouldn’t ask for more. And actually, I was too stunned to speak. Ethan had got to my dad through his blood. Got to my dad? What did that mean? Drove him crazy? Made him grab an axe? What?
CHAPTER 33
The next night at Sawyer’s the band couldn’t shut up, talking about demons and shadows and blood. They seemed to be talking extremely loud. Or maybe my ears were just suddenly over-sensitive. Just like the rest of me. I felt like I was going to fall apart—my whole body, piece by piece.
Sawyer gave me a tight hug, his body warming my shivering. “You okay?”
I shrugged, still trembling. I couldn’t stop shaking.
He held me tighter, smoothed down my hair. “We’ll get Kenzie back to her body.”
Right.
The guys huddled around Sawyer’s computer, keeping me/Kenzie out of the loop. So, I sat down with my laptop—trying to formulate my own plan. Looking up “evil spirits” and “blood” and “exorcisms” until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I closed my laptop feeling sick and yuck and sort of hopeless, only to find Jeremy’s eyes on me. It made my heart quicken, and for a second I forgot about evil ghosts or possessions—or anything. Then he got a call on his cell. He got up to take the call in the other room.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
He’d been looking at me all night, like he was worried about me. But he didn’t say anything, nothing at all—to me. He talked to the guys, like usual and played his guitar. But he kept his distance from me. He had ever since Thanksgiving night when we got in the fight about his “guest.” Or Kenzie. Or whatever the fight had been about.
Now he seemed to have decided to stay away. It hurt. Killed. But I pretended like I didn’t even notice. ‘Cause.
There was a knock at the front door. I went to get it, thinking it was the pizza guy. But there was no one there. I looked around outside, feeling chilled. Then I saw the note peeking out from under the welcome mat. A note from Hanna, drawing us back at the cemetery.”
***
Hanna was at her grandmother’s grave waiting for us. She got right to the point. “I can’t stay here wit
h you. But last night, I had a vision of your father’s last hours. I recorded it.” She threw a voice recorder into my lap. “Listen to it here. Then throw it away. I don’t want it back.”
Whoa. She had a vision?
I threw a sidelong look to Sawyer, remembering what he had told me the first day I met Hanna, She’s a witch.
“Don’t listen to it until I’m gone,” she said, already running away.
We all sat silently, for a moment. Then Sawyer pressed the audio button on the recorder. I closed my eyes, hearing Hanna’s voice, but … it was different. She was talking as though she was my dad, as though she could understand his thoughts.
As I listened, it was almost like I was there, like I was watching in a dream—a scene. There was Dad, in the living room. He was frantic. He wanted to rush to the hospital, reunite the evil Ethan-spirit dwelling in him back with Ethan’s body.
“I’ll get you out of here!” Dad yelled to Ethan.
But Ethan didn’t want to go back—his body was mangled in the hospital, hooked to machines. He grabbed an axe—the one he used to kill Sophie. “I’ll maim you old man,” Ethan said. “Just enough to get us to an ambulance. They’ll try to stop your bleeding, touch our blood—my blood—and I’ll grab someone else’s body. After that, I’m going after your daughter.”
Ethan hacked Dad’s leg with the axe, maniacally laughing at the pain—apparently not feeling it, though he was sharing Dad’s body. Ethan hacked again as Dad crawled to his doctor’s kit. With his own blood Dad wrote on the wall, “Jodi Go Hospital.” Then Dad plunged his doctor’s scalpel into his own heart.
No more Ethan. No more Dad.
The audio ended there, but now I knew. Knew everything. Dad didn’t kill Sophie, Ethan did—wielding Dad’s body. And Dad had bludgeoned his own heart to protect me. And he wanted me to go to the hospital. He wanted me to reunite Kenzie’s spirit with her body. Be free of her and Ethan forever.
When we all finally piled into Jeremy’s car, I felt shaky and sick, but hopeful for once too, knowing Dad’s plan. I leaned against the front passenger’s seat window, texting Sawyer as I didn’t feel up to talking. All we have to do is go to New York, to the hospital where my dad worked—that’s where Kenzie’s body is.
“But I’m not going to go.” The words were in my head. But they weren’t mine. They were Kenzie’s. She was talking to me in my head, as though she could read my mind. “We’re not going to go. I like it here,” she said. “I’m going to stay.”
CHAPTER 34
Despite being totally freaked from the encounter at the cemetery, the guys were hungry. They were always hungry.
“How can you eat after that?” Jeremy groaned as he drove, heading home from the cemetery. “I feel like I’m going to puke.” He flicked me a look and his voice softened. “How are you doing, Jodi?”
His voice was full of concern, his eyes too. But it was his first words to say directly to me in days. So, it did abnormal things to my heart. “I’m okay. We can eat if they want.”
“You sure?”
I nodded.
So, Jeremy pulled into The Pancake House parking lot and we all filed out of his car and into the restaurant, cramming into a booth.
The waitress took our order as the guys talked over each other, amazed and spooked at what we had heard and seen. They rehashed the blood, the gore, talking as though it had been a movie, making theories as if they hadn’t quite got the plot.
Sawyer seemed to think everything was settled. “If you go to the hospital—to Kenzie’s body, she has to go back. That’s what your dad was saying.”
“Well, yeah, that’s what he thought,” I agreed, wishing it were that easy. If only! “But Hanna said Kenzie has to go willingly. How can I get her to go willingly?” My stomach shriveled. “She doesn’t want to go.”
With shaking hands, I glanced down at Hanna’s note, reading it again. She had left it on the windshield of Jeremy’s car. We found it when we were finally “undazed” enough to leave the cemetery.
The note said, “What I don’t understand is why Ethan’s spirit is still around. Your father stabbed his heart, ending his and Ethan’s life on earth. Yet, somehow, Ethan is still linked to earth. I think it has to do with Kenzie. But I don’t understand. The heart was severed. He should be gone.”
I bit my lip. If Hanna didn’t understand it, I sure didn’t. All I wanted to do was crawl under my covers and never come out. Ethan was a scary, crazy guy—a demon. And he had shadows after me. Shadows that could actually get me—make me gone.
I shuddered, feeling sick. But even as I worried about puking, my mind whirred trying to scheme up ways I could get Kenzie to willingly go to New York and into the hospital where her body was.
When the guys were almost done eating, Lindsey stumbled to our table, looking at Sawyer with desperation in her eyes. I swear, desperation. Why would she look at Sawyer like that? It made me feel alarmed, scared.
“I need a jump,” she said. “For my car. I was supposed to meet someone across the street. But he didn’t show and I … I just want to go home.”
I jerked my head up at her, obviously still slightly dazed. “You were going to meet at The Read Palm?”
Lindsey flicked me a withering look.
Jeremy bit back a grin. “I think she means the other side of the dry-cleaners.” He raised his eyebrows, his lips twitching. “The hotel.”
“Oh.” I slumped back in my seat, saying nothing else.
“You going to meet Brody?” Sawyer asked, maybe looking out for her since the other night Brody got sort of violent, thinking Lindsey was cheating on him. Also, she looked ready to cry.
But Lindsey rolled her eyes. “No, not Brody. But another loser. Look,” she went on quickly, “can you give my car a jump? Please?”
She was looking right at Sawyer—only Sawyer—like the rest of us weren’t even here. He gave me a sidelong look. “Sure,” he said hesitantly. “We’ll all give you a jump.”
While Sawyer was paying the bill, I went to throw water on my face—for the third time tonight, trying to wash away the scene from earlier today. Get it out of my head. But the memory—it would haunt me forever.
“I’ll meet you guys across the street,” I said, heading for the bathroom.
Only moments later, Lindsey came in, using the sink next to me to get the car grease off her hands.
“I don’t know what was up with Mrs. Daniels the other morning,” I said to her, just to, you know, make conversation, since she seemed so shook up.
But Lindsey flashed me a pained look, then totally changed the subject. I mean, totally changed it. “I think Sawyer’s hot,” she said bluntly, giving me an evil stare, like I’m going after your guy, wench.
After she let those words sink in, she went on all haughty-like. “I don’t think you’re fair to him. I see the way you look at Jeremy—he tried telling me some lame story, how you two were working on a play that night at The Game Shop.” She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You should let Sawyer go.”
She said this sort of challenging-like. But hey, I’d basically just seen my dad get whacked by a demon—watched him carve out his own heart. She was nothing.
“You should mind your own business,” I said, turning to leave.
Only just then, Eve came out of the bathroom stall, looking smug. “Oh Lindsey, Lindsey, Lindsey,” she said. “You don’t know Jodi. She has to have every guy she lays her eyes on. It’s a sickness, like nymphomania. She has what I call skank-syndrome.”
Perfect. Drama in the bathroom. Way to top off a cemetery gore fest.
“Whatever.”
I left the bathroom, and The Pancake House. But then, so did Lindsey, as we were going to the same place—you know, across the street to the hotel. We stomped towards it in silence.
When we got around back to the parking lot, the guys already had Jeremy’s car juicing up Lindsey’s.
“Oh … got a message,” Lindsey said, and I could actually read her phone fr
om where I stood. It said, “Meet me at Dover’s Ridge. 10:00. Alone.”
Lindsey frowned. “The message says come alone. But will you come with me?” She gazed up at Sawyer, pleadingly.
Sawyer looked slightly amused, but perplexed. “What do you need me for?”
“I just want you with me,” she said, then added, “I really do have information for you. Really. If you come, I’ll give it to you. I promise.”
Sawyer gave me another sidelong look, like, what should I do? And I shrugged, ‘cause I wasn’t going to tell him.
“No I can’t,” he said. “We’re kind of busy. We have some weird stuff going on right now.”
It seemed like Lindsey was going to protest. I was pretty sure she was, but I couldn’t really concentrate. Not on her words, not on anything.
The world started spinning, tilting. I stumbled back, feeling woozy and dizzy, my sight turning black. I was losing it. Fast. I knew Kenzie was coming. I tried to hold, stay. Frantically, I snapped at my rubber bands. Snap, snap, snap. But she was coming.…
CHAPTER 35
I woke in Jeremy’s arms. He was staring at me, the morning sun from the window lighting up his sensual brown eyes. For a moment, I simply stared back, sleepily content. Warm and cozy. Feeling ahhhh.
For a moment.
Then awareness started to seep in. At least enough to realize we were in bed—my bed. I shot up, my heart going ballistic.
“Don’t worry.” Jeremy closed his eyes, leaning his head against the pillow. “We didn’t do anything.”
My heart was spazzing out of control. “Wh—why are you here?”
“You didn’t want to be alone—Kenzie didn’t. She was pretty upset last night.”
My stomach dropped. “Why? What happened?”
He looked at me intently a moment, his eyes troubled, then he looked away. “Nothing. No big deal.” But the nervous tremor in his voice had every nerve inside me standing on end. He slumped out of my bed, putting on his jacket. “I better go.”
The Stranger Inside Page 24
