The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl)

by Paige McKenzie

  “Understand what?”

  “How sensitive you are. For you, the rest of the world doesn’t fade away. Instead, you feel the emotions of the spirits that touch you.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Aidan admits. “Perhaps because Helena held spirits close for so long when she was pregnant with you, you don’t know what it feels like not to absorb their stories.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to fit all of these pieces together. Their experiments made me weaker, not stronger. Just like all the characters in those mad-scientist stories, they opened me up to more risk. “So when I was born, Helena could tell right away that I would be”—I search for the right words—“abnormally connected to the spirits that touch me? She realized that your experiment was a failure, and she was so upset that she wanted to get rid of me altogether?”

  Aidan shakes his head. “Your moth—Helena,” he corrects himself, “would never be so irrational.”

  “Yeah, she sounds really levelheaded,” I mumble, looking at my feet. I kick the ground, knocking my lemonade over, sending a tiny splatter of mud into the air. It sticks to Aidan’s khaki pants, the first time I’ve ever seen him wear anything that wasn’t perfectly clean.

  “Our experiment went awry,” he explains, and I look up at my mentor/father’s face. His expression is serious, somber. Sad. “When you were born—” He pauses, like this is the part of the story that’s hardest for him to say out loud.

  What now? What could be worse than what he’s already said?

  “Helena was in labor for more than twenty-four hours. Our doctors and midwives were attending to her all along, but she refused all aid. She was certain you’d come in your own time. And she was right. At precisely 7:12 p.m., Central Standard Time, August fourteenth, there you were, screaming your head off like a wild thing.”

  He smiles, so I do too. It’s the kind of story most kids given up for adoption never get to hear. But then his smile vanishes.

  “Your screams were so loud that we didn’t hear it at first.”

  “Hear what?” I whisper.

  Aidan hesitates. Softly he finally says, “It started with one woman. A wail of agony like nothing I’d heard in all my years. And then another woman joined in, then another, like some kind of macabre chorus.”

  He takes a deep breath. “Within seconds they were pounding down our door with the news: each pregnant luiseach on the property had miscarried.”

  I look out at the crumbling cottages in front of us, tears beginning to fill my eyes. Did some of those women live here? Were they in these buildings when something inside their bodies snapped unexpectedly? Did they run from their homes desperately, their hands pressed to their centers like they thought they could hold their babies in from the outside?

  Reluctantly Aidan adds, “But that was just the beginning.”

  “The beginning of what?” I ask, sitting on my hands to keep them from trembling. I imagine woman after woman pounding desperately on the enormous door of the mansion.

  Aidan doesn’t break my gaze as he explains. “The news poured in from across the globe. By ten o’clock that evening we’d heard reports of miscarriages in places as far-flung as Eastern Europe and Australia, like a terrible shockwave sent ’round the world, some kind of collective falling down the stairs. Some mothers didn’t just miscarry—at least two women went into early labor and did not survive their ordeal.”

  Their ordeal? He means that they died, right? The same way he meant kill when he said eliminate.

  “I did all that, just by being born?” I stand and turn my back on Aidan, looking around desperately. Maybe if I can just put enough distance between my ears and Aidan’s words, it’ll be like I never heard them at all.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Aidan says firmly. He stands and grabs my arm like he can tell I want to run. “It was our fault. Your birth released a surge of unexpected energy that sort of jostled the spiritual plane. Helena was horrified.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?” I manage to croak. There’s a lump the size of a boulder lodged in my throat. Aidan is right about how sensitive I am. I never met the luiseach who died that day, but I feel like I’m mourning them. Crying for them. My tears get all mixed up with the sweat on my face, and when I lick my lips, all I taste is salt.

  Of course I wondered about my birth parents over the years, no matter how happy I was with Kat. I always thought they must have had their reasons for giving me up. But I never could have imagined . . . this. Never imagined I was just the product of some kind of test in breeding.

  “We gathered all of our people together and struggled to decide what to do next. Less than an hour after Helena gave birth, she stood beside me in the foyer of our home and debated. At first she wanted to imprison you, observe you like an animal in a cage, study you like a science experiment gone awry.”

  “At first?” I echo. I imagine them sitting in the room to the left of the stairs, the furniture uncovered to reveal plush velvety chairs and benches. The chandelier would have been back in place, hanging down from the ceiling, flooding the room with light. Maybe they passed my infant body around the room, a dastardly game of hot potato.

  “But then your mother’s second in command, a woman named Aura, suggested we destroy you. She believed your birth had released something truly evil. That by exposing you to dark spirits when you were so vulnerable, we’d released the darkest of dark spirits. A darkness that could actually kill a luiseach.”

  Months ago Nolan and I learned that a luiseach’s spirit—unlike the spirits of mere mortals—could not be taken, damaged, or destroyed by a ghost or a demon.

  Until, apparently, I came along.

  “You can imagine what happened after that,” Aidan says.

  “No,” I answer wearily. “I can’t.”

  “This idea spurred panic,” Aidan supplies. “Everyone rallied to Aura’s side.”

  “Including Helena.” I expect it to come out like a question, but it doesn’t.

  “Yes,” Aidan nods heavily. “I couldn’t believe it. Helena and I had been partners throughout our marriage, running this campus together, training young luiseach together. But now she could only see what we’d done—what our science had done. Within minutes of Aura’s declaration Helena agreed that the only way to undo the harm we’d done was to eliminate it altogether. She thought that no luiseach would be safe to procreate while you drew breath. That eliminating you could undo the surge of power we’d released. It was as though all the conversations we’d had over the previous nine months had never happened. She insisted that luiseach must continue as they always had, even with our dwindling numbers—helping spirits move on one at a time, exorcising those we didn’t get to in time.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I saw our circumstances differently,” Aidan continues, raising his voice like he wants to make sure I’m listening. “I thought perhaps the surge of energy released when you were born was something else. A tragedy, yes, but not one without purpose.”

  “What did you think it was?” I ask, turning around to face him.

  “The next step on the evolutionary scale. Like the big bang or the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.”

  “That’s why you think luiseach are going extinct? You thought I set an asteroid in motion?”

  “Not exactly.” Aidan turns to face me and takes my hands in his. “I thought you were the asteroid. I thought you would be the luiseach to end all luiseach.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The Middle of Everywhere

  Spirits behave differently this close to the equator. What about the rest of us? Is the air different here? Like, if it’s thinner up at the North Pole, is it thicker down here? Because no matter how many times I try to take a deep breath to calm myself down, it feels like the oxygen can’t get in. I try to imagine exactly where we are on the map: somewhere north of Mazatlan, deep in the jungle, in the middle of nowhere. Come to think of it, we’re actually in the middle of everywh
ere: close to the equator, almost perfectly centered between the north and south poles.

  “I handed you to Victoria so she could take you up to the nursery,” Aidan continues, releasing my hands. “I knew you couldn’t understand what was happening, but I didn’t want you to hear us arguing about your fate.”

  “Victoria was there?” Aidan nods. Somehow the idea of my old teacher carrying me up the stairs to that breezy room is comforting.

  “It seemed like we argued forever, but it can’t have been more than an hour. The sound of your cries floating down from the second floor finally ended the argument.”

  “How?”

  “You were hungry, and your mother—Helena,” he corrects quickly, “refused to feed you. It was then that I knew there was no changing her mind.” His gaze drops to the ground, as though he can’t look at me when he says, “So I gave in. I offered to take care of the matter myself. I insisted on . . . finishing the job.”

  Finishing the job. As though murdering your own child is just a workaday task, like taking out the garbage or doing the dishes. Despite the shade from the trees above us, my skin feels like it’s burning.

  “But you didn’t finish anything.”

  “No. Victoria brought you to me, and we drove for hours. I didn’t have a car seat, so she sat in the back with her arms around you. I wanted to get you as far away as possible, but we didn’t have time enough to go far. I didn’t have anything to feed you, but you stopped crying when Victoria started playing with you.”

  “She played with me when I was just born?”

  He nods. “Luiseach are different from humans at birth. They can see clearly, form memories, even respond to what’s going on around them. She brought a toy from a nursery. Some sort of stuffed bird. She made it look like it was flying over your face. You were riveted.”

  “An owl.” Victoria must have put the stuffed animal back when they returned here. Years later, when her own daughter was born, she must have remembered the comfort that toy gave me and bought an identical toy for Anna.

  Ashley always thought I was weird for keeping a taxidermied owl in my bedroom. Now I know that some part of me was trying to replace the toy I loved.

  “I sped every mile of the way,” Aidan continues. “You fell asleep as we crossed the border into Texas. You were still asleep when we left you at the hospital. We drove back, stopping in the jungle to dig a grave so we’d be covered in mud when we returned. So everyone would believe I’d done what I said I’d do.”

  “You lied to Helena, to everyone.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because you thought I was the luiseach to end all luiseach.” That sounds even more ominous than The Last Luiseach did.

  “Not entirely,” Aidan shakes his head in surprise. “True, I didn’t agree with Helena, and I still don’t. I don’t believe luiseach can continue working as we have before. There simply aren’t enough of us left to do it—even before you were born, that was the case,” he clarifies quickly. “But that’s not why I didn’t eliminate you.”

  “Then why?”

  “I didn’t eliminate you because you were my baby.”

  “Oh,” I say softly, shifting my weight from one leg to the other awkwardly.

  “There was no scientific explanation for the way I felt about you,” he continues. “Mothers experience a release of hormones after they give birth to help them bond with their babies. I experienced no such thing, and yet I was even weaker than Helena. How could I kill a helpless creature looking up at me with my own eyes?”

  “Not just a science experiment?” I bite my lip to try to keep myself from crying (more), but the tears overflow anyway.

  I finally understand what Aidan meant when he said he didn’t abandon me: he gave me up to save me.

  Later, after I’ve taken a shower and gotten dressed—a T-shirt decorated with Audrey Hepburn’s face instead of Care Bears, jean shorts with the knife tucked safely into a back pocket—Aidan is waiting for me in the kitchen, standing at the stove over a pot of soup. He’s changed into a fresh pair of khakis and a white button-down. He fills a bowl for me. I sit down and begin eating, surprised by how hungry I am.

  After a few spoonfuls, I ask, “Helena found out, right? That you didn’t . . . eliminate me?”

  Aidan sits in a squeaky wooden chair across from me. “It didn’t take long for Helena to discover what I’d done.”

  “How did she know?”

  “Helena believed that killing you would undo the surge we’d released when you were born. A year went by, and no luiseach became pregnant. Even with our dwindling numbers, a drought like that was unprecedented. When Helena confronted me, I couldn’t lie to her.”

  “Why not?”

  He smiles. “I was never very good at lying to the people I loved. It was a miracle I was able to keep it from her for as long as I did.”

  I blush, just like any teenager might when her parents talk about loving each other. Ashley always hated it when her parents got lovey-dovey in front of her. Eww, gross, she’d moan, acting like she might throw up.

  “Helena was furious,” Aidan continues. “She insisted that with you alive, our extinction was inevitable, and I couldn’t disagree. She demanded I tell her what I’d done with you, insisted she would find you and eliminate you herself. When I refused, she left.”

  “And that was the beginning of the rift?”

  He nods slowly, like moving his head up and down hurts. Helena didn’t just leave this place. She left him. “One by one, as the years went by and no more luiseach were born, those who stood by my side joined her. I could hardly begrudge them their choice,” he concedes wearily. “They’re frightened about our future, frightened of what our extinction will mean for the human race.”

  I lift another spoonful to my lips. “So Helena isn’t the only luiseach who wants me eliminated?”

  Aidan shakes his head and slowly answers, “Lucio and I are the only remaining luiseach who want you alive.”

  I drop my spoon with a clatter. Tomato soup splashes across the table, onto my T-shirt and even onto Aidan’s white button-down. I really shouldn’t be allowed to eat brightly colored food like tomato soup and cherry pie and grape juice. But Aidan doesn’t seem to notice. At least, he doesn’t seem to care.

  “That’s why I brought you here,” he explains. “Once you passed your test, it would only be a matter of time before she found you. She’d be able to sense you now that your powers had been awakened. All luiseach parents can after their offspring turn sixteen. But she and her people cannot step foot inside this compound, not after the way they abandoned it. It’s part of the magic that protects this place. They would need the express invitation of someone who still lives here—yours, Lucio’s, or my own.”

  This place isn’t just a campus. It’s not even a hiding place. It’s a fortress.

  And everything—whether I live or die, whether humanity survives after the extinction of the luiseach—hinges on what I saw in Aidan’s lab this morning. Whether or not those spirits can move on by themselves.

  “Has a single spirit been able to do it?” I don’t have to explain what it is.

  “No.” His voice drops an octave. “I’ve been trying for sixteen years, and it’s never happened.”

  “Sounds like the other side of the rift has the upper hand.”

  He nods. “But just after you passed your test, something happened that never happened before.”

  “What?”

  “One of the spirits escaped. Lucio’s been tracking it, but—”

  “I know,” I say. “He told me. It’s on the verge of going dark. That shouldn’t happen. Not here.”

  “Exactly,” Aidan says, snapping his fingers.

  “How can you sound so happy about it?” I shudder, thinking of Anna’s spirit refusing to move on. Of the demon that nearly destroyed her.

  “Because it means that the spirits are behaving differently.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “I don’t—
not exactly,” Aidan concedes. “But I do have a theory.”

  I lean back in my chair even though the wood digs into my shoulder blades. “Something tells me I’m not going to like your theory.”

  Aidan smiles, raising his eyebrow. His cat-green eyes, mirror images of my own, don’t blink when he says, “I think the difference is you. I’ve wondered for years what your gifts might be, what skills you might possess. I’ve always believed it would be your destiny to change everything.”

  “So then you think Helena was right. Maybe I am dangerous somehow.”

  “No,” Aidan says firmly. “But I no longer think I can teach spirits to move on by themselves. However, I’m beginning to believe you can.”

  It’s a good thing I’m not eating anymore because I think I would be choking right now if I were.

  Most dads just want their kids to get good grades, go to college, that kind of thing. My mentor/father wants me to change the world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Failure

  The next day at dawn, instead of taking me back to the playground, Aidan leads the way to his lab. Remembering what happened the last time I was here—can that really have been just a day ago?—I climb the steps slowly, shaking as I put one foot in front of the other. If Aidan notices my nerves, he doesn’t say so, but clearly Lucio does notice, because he reaches up—he’s one step behind me on the stairs—and slips his hand in mine. His grip is reassuring. You can do this, it says.

  I’m not so sure. Aidan’s lab is filled with dozens of spirits.

  I squeeze Lucio’s hand back.

  Both Aidan and Lucio carry enormous flashlights, but the thin beams of light do little to break up the darkness. It should be a million degrees in the long, windowless hallway at the top of the stairs, but it’s so cold that I can see my breath.