“Few of us?” Mom echoes. “Few of who?”
“Luiseach,” I say quietly. “Luiseach.” I repeat the word, louder this time. “It’s an ancient species of guardians who’ve been around as long as humans have been living and dying. It’s their job to help spirits move on after people die. And to exorcise spirits who’ve gone dark.”
Mom looks at me like I’m speaking Chinese. I’m tempted to tell her the word luiseach is actually Celtic in origin, that it means light-bringer, although Nolan thinks the word might be so old that it predates the Celtic language altogether. He was going to look into it, and if anyone can find out, it’s Nolan.
“This is absurd,” Mom declares. “You don’t even have proof that you really are my daughter’s birth father, and you certainly can’t just show up sixteen years after abandoning her in a hospital and lay claim to her with these outrageous stories.” Unlike me, clearly Mom isn’t tongue-tied around Aidan. “I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve here, but you can’t just brainwash my daughter into believing fairy tales. I’d like you to leave right now, and if you don’t, I’m calling security.” She reaches for the phone at the side of my bed, but I can see that her hands are shaking. Still, she tries to sound as calm and authoritative as Aidan as she says, “My daughter is recovering from a serious cardiac episode, and I don’t think this kind of stress—”
Before she can finish, Aidan takes hold of her arm, shocking her into silence. She drops the phone.
Mom’s face goes slack, her eyes closing heavily. “What are you doing?” I ask frantically, sitting up and reaching for her. Immediately I get tangled up in the myriad wires and tubes I’m connected to.
“Don’t worry,” Aidan says.
“Don’t worry?” I shout. “The last time you did something to her she was possessed by a homicidal demon!”
It’s the most I’ve ever said to him, and much to my surprise, the words slipped out easily. My worry for Mom’s safety is so much bigger than my fear of and anger at Aidan.
“I’m showing her what happened on New Year’s Eve,” he explains calmly.
I’m overwhelmed by the idea of Mom seeing what we went through on New Year’s. I wasn’t sure whether I was ever going to tell her about the danger we were all in that night. I knew she’d blame herself, even though it wasn’t her fault. My eyes well up with tears as I watch her face, knowing she’s experiencing those horrifying moments for the first time.
“I don’t know if . . .” my voice fades away, unsure how to express my thoughts.
“It’s all right. I’ll show her something more positive now,” Aidan says, as if he’s reading my mind. “I’ll show her a little of what you and I can feel. The spirits that float through this hospital, coming loose from their bodies as death grows near. The spirits that have left this place behind, leaving nothing more than a shadow in their wake.”
Even though Mom is here in the room with us, it feels like she’s somehow absent.
“I’m not sure I can feel that,” I protest, but Aidan nods slowly. “You can.” His voice is soft but insistent. “Close your eyes. Concentrate.”
I don’t want to take my eyes off Mom, but I also want to know exactly what she’s feeling right now, so I let my eyelids drop. “Concentrate,” Aidan whispers.
“On what?” I squeeze my eyes tight.
“Relax. Let it flow over you. Open yourself up to receive it.”
I take a deep breath and try to relax all of my muscles, rolling my shoulders down my back, slouching so my stomach curls into a C. Almost like I’m trying to fall asleep.
And then I feel it. It’s nothing like the cold shiver that a spirit’s actual presence or touch brings; it’s more like a hum, a heartbeat, a sense that the very air is alive, a sort of electric charge in the air.
“Wow,” I say, opening my eyes. For just a second I swear Aidan smiles at me.
“Consider that your first lesson,” he says. He doesn’t add: Just imagine what you might learn if you come with me and begin your training. He doesn’t have to. I can’t help but raise one eyebrow as a response.
Quick as a snake, he lets go of Mom and she drops onto my bed, sitting up straight as a ruler. When she opens her eyes, I see a look of absolute wonder coming over her freckled face as she realizes that the world is much more mysterious than she ever believed it could be. She blinks, her gaze landing on Aidan as though she’s seeing him for the first time. I reach out and take her hands in mine.
“Katherine,” Aidan begins. “Kat,” he corrects himself. “There’s a reason you named your daughter Sunshine.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Tears
Aidan excuses himself politely, leaving me alone with Mom. She’s wearing a cream-colored cardigan over her pastel scrubs, and she’s pulled the sleeves down over her wrists, just like I do. I wonder whether she got cold when she felt the spirits too. She looks more than a little dazed, and when I squeeze her hands, I’m surprised to discover that my own are trembling.
I’m seriously frightened. More frightened than I was in the parking lot hours earlier. Maybe even more frightened than I was when we moved into a haunted house.
What if my mother never looks at me the same way again?
Even though I sometimes think of Nolan as one of my best friends—and even though I’ve been calling Ashley, my best friend in Austin for just about as long as I can remember—the truth of the matter is I’ve always only had one best friend. And even though it might sound super-dorky-cheesy, I don’t care: my mom is my best friend.
The idea that anything could change terrifies me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I begin. “I’ve only known about Aidan since New Year’s Day.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Mom stares into my eyes. The look of wonder is stripped from her face. Her always-pale skin looks a few shades whiter than usual. She turns to face the door like she’s wondering who might show up next. Nurses rush back and forth in the hallway; doctors stand around examining charts. A bouquet of balloons floats by on its way to the maternity ward to congratulate a new parent. I can see Mom’s hands shaking, and I reach out to hold them.
“Mom?” I prompt. “I know this is a lot to take in—”
“Understatement of the century,” she says softly.
I nod. “I know.”
“Has he introduced you to your mother?” Her voice cracks on the last two syllables, and I put my arms around her.
“You’re my mother,” I insist fiercely, hugging her so tight it must hurt, but she doesn’t complain. Finally, when it feels like she’s stopped shaking, I say, “And no. He hasn’t told me anything about the woman who gave birth to me.” I choose my words carefully. “It’s just one of a long list of questions I have for him.”
Mom nods. “I think I’ve started a list of my own,” she says, then sighs. “I always knew this day would come.”
“You did?” I ask incredulously, smiling awkwardly, again raising my eyebrow without meaning to. Mom knows what I’m thinking.
“I didn’t mean the whole magical powers part of it,” Mom answers. She manages a small smile as she brushes tears from her eyes. We’re both crying now, but eventually Mom catches her breath and continues, “I meant that . . . I guess all adoptive parents wonder about the day their children’s birth parents might show up on their doorsteps, right? Though to be honest, I thought the odds in your case were pretty slim, given how we found each other.”
I nod. Someone—Aidan, perhaps?—left me at my mother’s hospital as an infant. There were no official papers for my birth parents to sign before they gave me away, no records hidden in some bureaucratic vault somewhere revealing who they had been.
“But,” Mom continues, now serious and dry-eyed. “I always knew it was a possibility. And I wanted that for you,” she adds quickly. “If you wanted to know, then I wanted you to have every detail about where you’d come from and why your parents gave you up. So I guess . . .” She pauses. “I g
uess part of me is relieved Aidan showed up.”
“Relieved?” I echo. That’s just about the last word I’d have expected her to use right now.
Mom nods slowly. “I was scared sometimes, worried that you’d want to know where you came from and we’d never be able to find out and you’d never have the closure you needed.”
“I still don’t have closure,” I protest. “This feels like the opposite of closure actually. It feels like the beginning of something that’s going to change everything. I’m not even technically human anymore.” I bite my lip. Technically I never was human—I was born a luiseach.
Mom shifts on the bed, lying down beside me and putting her arms around me. I rest my face against her shoulder just like I did when I was a little kid. “There’s one thing it hasn’t changed, Sunshine. One thing it never, ever could.”
I swallow. “What’s that?”
“It hasn’t changed how much I love you. You could tell me you were descended from a family of wolves or rabbits or aliens, and I would still love you all the same.”
I start crying all over again, but I’m smiling too, breathing in the scent of Mom’s mango-scented shampoo.
“As a matter of fact,” Mom continues, “this actually explains a lot.”
“It does?” I ask, my teary eyes wide.
Mom reaches out and tucks one of my curls behind my right ear. “I knew you were special,” she concedes, shaking her head. “I just didn’t know there was a name for it.”
By the time I wake up in the morning and the doctors have checked up on me, it’s clear there’s no reason for us to stay here any longer; they could run a million tests and never find out what’s wrong with me. Anyway, it’s not wrong with me anymore. For now at least.
Mom’s sitting in the chair beside the bed, exactly where she sat when Aidan showed up last night. It looks like she hasn’t slept a wink.
“’Morning, Sunshine,” she says groggily.
“There’s something else I have to tell you.”
“Okay.” Mom takes a deep breath. She sits up straight, like she’s bracing herself for something big. Guess I can’t blame her after last night.
“Aidan isn’t just my birth father. He’s also my mentor.” Ever since he showed up, in fact, I’ve been calling him my mentor/father in my head. I can’t think of him without imagining a slash cutting its way between the two words. Neither word feels natural.
“What does that mean?” Mom asks.
I recite the facts I know by heart. “Every luiseach has a mentor. When they turn sixteen, they’re supposed to begin working with them. Training, I guess.”
“What kind of training?”
I shrug. “I don’t really know. Nolan’s been trying to research it—”
“Nolan was there on New Year’s!” Mom interrupts, remembering some of what Aidan helped her see just hours ago. Sometimes I forget she wasn’t exactly all there over the past few months when Nolan and I became close. She probably doesn’t even remember the times he came over, helping me figure out what the heck was happening to her.
“Nolan is my protector,” I explain. “A luiseach has both a mentor and a protector. We didn’t know he was mine until New Year’s Day either.”
“As though you didn’t have enough going on that day.” Mom grimaces, and I know she’s thinking about Victoria. I bite my lip and wrinkle my nose, a habit I got from her. I sit up, my paper-thin hospital gown wrinkling beneath me. Instantly I decide not to tell Mom that Victoria isn’t actually dead anymore. Her entire belief system has already been monumentally shaken; I don’t want to completely shatter her understanding of the way the world works. She doesn’t need to know that sometime after the doctors and nurses declared her dead, Victoria stood up and walked out of the hospital, every bit as alive as she’d been before the water demon attacked her.
“Umm . . . right. It was a big day. But anyway, the point is that ever since New Year’s, Aidan’s been trying to get me to start working with him.”
“And you don’t want to?” Mom asks gently, leaning forward. She swallows. I’m sure the idea of me doing much of anything with this near-stranger is scary for her. I know it is for me.
“I don’t know what I want,” I answer honestly. “Actually I want to go back to six months ago when you and I still lived in Austin and I didn’t know anything about ghosts or ancient Celtic words or mentors or demons or any of it. I want to un-become a luiseach.”
“Honey, it sounds to me like this isn’t something you can un-become. You didn’t even become it to begin with. You were born this way.” Before I can explain you can (sort of) un-become a luiseach, Mom continues. “But maybe . . .” She takes a deep breath, hesitating, like whatever she’s about to say next is going to be difficult. “Maybe you should start working with Aidan.”
“Really?”
“I’ve been thinking about this all night.” She nods solemnly. “I know Aidan helped me see what you two are, but I still don’t fully understand what happened to you yesterday, and I know it wasn’t safe. Your heart was beating so fast, I thought that you couldn’t possibly survive it. So . . . if there’s some sort of luiseach training that can get your body under control so whatever happened to you in the parking lot never happens again, then I don’t think you should risk going another second without learning everything you can.”
I close my eyes, remembering how it felt yesterday. I thought I’d never catch my breath; I thought my heart would explode from the effort of beating so quickly. What will I do if there’s another accident nearby, maybe a bigger one? What if next time Aidan doesn’t show up in time to help all those spirits move on before they become too overwhelming?
“I’m new to all this, but I know I want my daughter safe. And,” Mom adds shyly, dropping her gaze, “it will give you a chance to get to know Aidan, to find out all the bits and pieces of your history that I can’t tell you. To ask all of those questions you haven’t had a chance to ask yet.”
I reach out and take her hand in mine. She’s right, of course. Training with Aidan would be the perfect chance to start going through my list of questions one by one.
As long as I am a luiseach, I need to get these spirit-sensations under control. Seriously, that should be lesson number one on the very first day of luiseach training, right?
“How do we get in touch with him to let him know what you’ve decided? Do you have his cell phone number?”
The idea of Aidan with a cell phone at his ear is so absurd that I almost burst out laughing. Instead I just shake my head and blink, looking around the empty hospital room. A lost spirit hasn’t visited me since yesterday, which can only mean one thing: Aidan is close. I’m pretty sure he already knows.
That Woman
That woman approached me today, the one who worked alongside Aidan for all those years, nearly as close to him as I used to be.
She claims she was married. She claims she had a child of her own, one whose life was taken by a demon. And she claims that after years of standing by Aidan’s side, he forced her to give up her powers in exchange for helping her poor daughter’s beleaguered spirit move on.
She says Aidan never made good on his promise. She says her daughter’s spirit still lingers here on Earth. Yet that woman can’t find it, so even I can’t help the poor child move on.
That woman won’t stop crying.
I want to turn her away, but I know how it feels to be betrayed by Aidan, just as I know how it feels to trust him with the most sacred parts of yourself. After the things we exposed to that child while she was in the womb . . . just thinking about it makes me tremble. That baby, and the things we did to her—all of it was a mistake.
As became crystal clear the very instant she was born.
I trusted Aidan to do what had to be done. I trusted that woman too. I thought they understood the girl had to be destroyed, no matter how tiny her pink hands and feet, how piercing her cries, how round her little mouth, or how green her enormous eyes.
/> It was months before I realized he didn’t do what we’d discussed. That he’d allowed the child to thrive. I must admit it: for one selfish instant I was relieved. More than relieved—I was overjoyed. But I shoved my joy aside. Such feelings didn’t matter: the child must be eliminated, no matter my personal feelings on the matter. There was the greater good to bear in mind.
Aidan refused to see reason. He wouldn’t reveal the child’s location. I did everything in my power to find her. Most of our people rallied to my side, but even our collective powers weren’t enough to locate her. The child was only an infant when Aidan took her, and by the time I discovered what he had done, it was impossible to distinguish her from the other lost and abandoned children. We checked every foster home, every adoption record, but there was no sign of her. Aidan erased all traces of the girl.
So I waited. It was only a matter of time. Now that she has come into her powers, I can sense her. After all, my blood pumps through her veins as well.
And now, here is that woman telling me that Aidan used her offspring for the girl’s test. Telling me she knows where the girl is now. Weeping as she admits that for all these years her loyalties were misplaced. She offers to lead me to her.
I won’t think about what that baby might have grown up to look like, sound like, act like all these years later. I won’t hope she was raised with love and support, that she had a good life up until now. I won’t be proud of her for passing her test.
I will only find the girl—and eliminate her.
CHAPTER FIVE
Danger
Aidan is waiting at the house when Mom and I get home from the hospital, wearing yet another perfectly pressed suit. This one is slate gray, with a pale blue tie secured tightly around his neck. I wonder if he even owns a pair of jeans, like the ones I’m wearing as I close the car door behind me. I wonder if he thinks that my mother is a slob because she’s still wearing the scrubs she wore when he met her, the same ones she slept in, sitting beside my hospital bed all night long.
The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl) Page 3
