welcome 2 california. ghosts love the sun.
After a moment’s hesitation, I clicked on the username. A new tab opened to a white page with Error 404 on the top left. Below, letters began to appear, as if someone was typing.
we’ll be waiting, Kat.
Then the browser closed, and I was staring at the desktop covered in Dad’s folders.
“Oookay . . .” I reopened the browser and logged back into my dashboard. The comment was gone.
After a few seconds, I closed the laptop and tiptoed over to the bed. Picking up the Elapse, I sat down gingerly next to Oscar. This was probably the first time he’d slept soundly in the last few weeks.
So I examined the Elapse as quietly as I could. It had a few new features, but otherwise looked and felt just like the one Grandma had given me right before Dad and I had left Chelsea.
I hadn’t wanted to admit it then, but we’d been running away. Both of us. Living in the same house after Mom left had been hard. Everything reminded me of the way our lives had been before, and I knew it must have been the same for Dad. Passport to Paranormal had been our escape. And at some point—I wasn’t sure when, Brussels? Salvador?—the show had become our new life, and I’d stopped wishing for things to go back to the way they had been.
Things were different now. We were still with the show, but we weren’t running away anymore.
We were moving on.
“Dontaympisher,” Oscar mumbled, and I snickered.
“What?”
He squinted up at me, his eye bloodshot. “Don’t take my picture.”
“I wasn’t going to.” I pointed the Elapse at the ceiling. “No offense, but you could use some more beauty sleep.”
“Mmph.” Oscar rubbed his face, then stared at the camera, looking a little more alert. “Did I miss anything? Take any videos of creepy girls in the mirror?”
I snorted. “No. Although I got a creepy comment on my blog.”
Oscar sat up. “A troll?”
“No, just something about California having ghosts.” I paused. “That are waiting for me, apparently.”
“That’s weird.” Oscar wrinkled his nose. “Wait . . . you didn’t say anything about moving to L.A. on your blog yet, right?”
“Nope.”
“So how did . . .”
I grinned. “No idea. So what should my first picture be?”
“Huh?”
Lowering the Elapse, I aimed the viewfinder at the TV and shrugged. “New camera, you know? I guess I feel like the first picture I take with it should be important.”
“Oh.” Oscar was silent for a moment. “We could go back to that fortress tomorrow morning. Or walk to the river. Or . . . didn’t Mi Jin mention something about an observation deck?”
“Yeah.” I thought about it, turning the Elapse over and over in my hands. “Actually . . . how about this?” I held the camera up with one hand, aiming the lens at us, and pressed the side of my head against Oscar’s. I scrunched up my nose and stuck out my tongue, and I knew without looking that Oscar was making a goofy face, too.
Click!
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Final Girl Page 16
