Chapter 15

I tackled Lady Velma first.

“I’d like to help you,” I told her.

Ben was standing right behind me—he had to in order to keep his hand on my shoulder so he could see what was going on. But still, it made me nervous having him there. My mother was sitting a few aisles up, silently observing.

“I require no assistance, though if I may be so bold, young lady, I do believe you would benefit from a little attention to your comportment.”

Oh. Thanks so much for calling my outfit schlubby with the boy of my dreams standing two feet away.

“You need to move on,” I said.

Lady Velma pinched her lips together and narrowed her eyes.

“The next stop on our tour is the site of the future Biodome. We will move on at the time the printed schedule indicates.”

“We’ve already been to the—Lady Vel—I mean, uh… ma’am, your work here has been enormously important.”

At least I had her attention now. I tried to pretend Ben was somewhere else. Italy, maybe.

“And that work has made a difference, and you’ve educated many young people about Montreal, and been a wonderful tour representative for the city. But you’re needed somewhere else now. You need to cross over.”

“I will do no such thing,” Lady Velma declared. “I am a tour guide. That is my service.”

She sat down and crossed her legs primly, reaching up to pat her tortuous bun.

“She won’t go?” Ben whispered.

Ben’s first direct experience with me working as a medium was turning into a train wreck. I was filled with new resolve. I was not going to let a dead tour guide embarrass me in front of my soul mate. I thought furiously, then something came to me in a flash.

“Yes, that is exactly the point—you are a tour guide. You were needed in Montreal, but when you cross over, you’ll find they need you much, much more over there.”

“How do you mean?” Lady Velma asked.

“This place where you’re supposed to be—a lot of people go there every day. But the thing is, some of them get lost. I try to help them from my end, to get them heading in the right direction. But when they get to the other side, sometimes they’re really confused. They don’t know what to do, they don’t understand. If only there were someone like you on the other side—someone who takes charge, who knows how to guide people and explain to them where they are and where they need to go next. It is a very big job, I know, and probably more difficult than what you’ve been doing here. Maybe it’s a bit more than you’re willing to take on.”

Lady Velma stood up.

“Nonsense,” she said. “I never shrink from a challenge. You say people need guiding?”

“They do,” I said.

“Where are they?” she asked.

I looked around. This was the trickiest part. It was different for every spirit, and I’d only guided a few over so far.

“There is a light,” I said. “When you have the intention of crossing over, you’ll see it. Like the sun, but it will speak to you. Not with words—but directly into your heart. You’ll feel love coming from it, and intelligence.”

The sky was as bottle gray as it had been for the entire trip, but Lady Velma’s gaze fixed on a place in the front of the bus, next to Tim’s special motor coach operator’s seat.

“Yes,” Lady Velma said. “I see it. You are quite right, young lady… it is a wise and gentle thing that…”

Her voice trailed off and she stood staring, mesmerized.

“Go toward it,” I said. “Let it flow all around you. There will be people there waiting for you.”

She took a step toward the light, then paused, and looked around the bus.

“It’s okay,” Ben said.

Lady Velma stood still, and I was afraid she was going to change her mind and we were going to have to start all over again. But she reached up, unpinned her VELMA tour guide badge, and placed it on a seat. Then she turned and walked up the aisle.

When she reached Tim’s bus driver seat, the air around her seemed to shimmer and go out of focus.

“Oh my,” Lady Velma said.

Then she took a step forward, and she was gone. There was nothing where she had been standing except the windshield.

“You did it!” Ben exclaimed.

I blushed.

“She wanted to go,” I said. “On some level she knew—and she wanted to go.”

Ben squeezed my shoulder, and all the breath went out of my lungs.

“Well done, sweetie,” my mom chimed in.

Oh yeah. My, um, mom was on the bus too. Pull yourself together, I told myself.

“Now Britches,” I said, turning around and looking at him where he sat huddled in his seat. He was actually kind of hunky, for a dead guy.

Britches stared at me gloomily. Unlike Lady Velma, I knew he wanted off the bus. But how could I make him understand about crossing over? Especially when he seemed obsessed with this Hochelaga person?

My mother had stood up, and was staring at Britches with her arms folded across her chest. Britches looked from my mother to Ben to me. Frustration was written all over his spectral face.

“He’s not looking to cross,” my mother said. “He seems very attached to this plane of existence. He wants to go somewhere in our physical reality—he must have left others like himself there. He’s attached to it and wants to return. I think he wandered off with you two by mistake, like a moth following a flame.”

“But we don’t even know who he’s looking for,” I said.

“I might,” said Ben.

“Really?”

“I checked online, remember? And I found something. Hochelaga isn’t a person, it’s a place. It’s the Indian village where Jacques Cartier and his men camped. It was located somewhere on Mont Royal.”

Britches stood up. You’ll never, ever guess what he said.

Hochelaga?

Maybe you did guess.

Oui, Hochelaga,” Ben told him. “Vous pouvez rentrer. You can go back there.”

Wow, Ben’s French accent was great. Really great. How terrifically disturbing was that?

Le mont,” Ben said. “Le mont. Hochelaga et sur le mont.

Ben was pointing at Mont Royal, visible in the distance. He was showing Britches how to get back.

La-bas?” Britches asked.

“Yes, oui,” Ben said, nodding in an exaggerated way. He pointed again. “Le mont. The mountain or hill. Hochelaga.

Ah, oui!” Britches exclaimed.

“You can go right now,” my mother said to Britches. “Look—regardez. Close your eyes and see it here,” she tapped her head. “See Hochelaga. Voyez.”

Britches seemed to understand the half French, half pantomime. I really wanted Britches to get home. In fact, I was incredibly eager to see the last of him. But I was supposed to be the medium here, and yet it was my mother and Ben who had gotten through to the ghost.

Or had they? Britches was still standing there, plain as day, with his eyes closed. I racked my brain for a word in French, but I couldn’t come up with it. So I said it in English instead, but I didn’t just say it. I felt it. I conjured up the energy, the feel of the word, and I broadcast it in Britches’s direction.

“Home,” I said.

He opened his eyes for a moment and gave me a quizzical look. Then an expression of understanding crossed his face. He closed his eyes again. And just like that, he was gone.

“That’s it!” Ben exclaimed.

“Nice,” my mom said.

“What did he do?” Ben asked.

“In his dimension, given that he’s basically in an out-of-body state, he can more or less focus on a place and be there. He just has to be able to know that’s where he wants to go.”

Sounded like Stargate.

“So why didn’t he just wish himself back to start with?” Ben asked, and I was glad he did, because it sounded better coming from a newbie.

My mother looked thoughtful.

“Maybe he’d never left Hochelaga before. He attached himself to you two because you could sense him, and he followed you. Before he knew it he was somewhere unfamiliar. He probably had no idea what was happening to him. He was probably quite confused and disoriented and decided his safest bet was to stick with a couple of familiar faces.”

“Sounds like every day in the cafeteria,” I said, and Ben laughed.

The only thing better than making a cute boy laugh is making a cute boy you are totally into laugh.

Even if your mother is right there.

“So that just leaves Beige Girl,” I said.

“Do you know her story at all?” my mother asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve never gotten so much as a peep out of her. She’ll look at me, so I know she can see me. But nothing else.”

My mother scooted into the seat in front of Beige Girl, and leaned over the back.

“Hi,” she said.

Beige Girl looked at her with mild interest, but said nothing.

“Maybe in French?” Ben asked.

My mother shook her head.

“She’s holding a book. Did you see it?”

“No,” I said.

“A Montreal tour guide of some kind. Title is in English. I don’t think language is the problem here.”

We stood around, trying not to stare at her. I don’t think Beige Girl cared. All she wanted to do was look out the window.

Through the same window, I could see our group was beginning to meander back toward the bus.

“I think we’re running out of time,” I said nervously.

“We may not be able to do anything,” Mom said.

“We can’t help her?” Ben asked.

“Not everybody wants to be helped. Sometimes, it’s better to just wait it out and see if an opportunity presents itself. Maybe something will happen on the way back that triggers something in her. That would be the time to act.”

“But we’re heading home right after we eat,” I said. “What if nothing gets triggered by then? What are going to do, just leave her on the leprechaun bus for all of eternity?”

My mother smiled at me.

“Things have a way of working themselves out, Kat,” she said. “If there’s a way home for her and that’s what she wants, we’ll help her find it. If not now, then someone else will help her, at some other time. In some other place.”

I was afraid she was going to start singing. Which, granted, would have been very unlike her.

“Okay, okay,” I said quickly. “They’re back.”

Yoshi was the first one on the bus. He looked at the three of us suspiciously, like he was backstage security for U2 checking for hysterical groupies.

“I’m gonna sit,” Ben said. “Hey, thanks, Mrs. Roberts.”

“Jane, and you’re welcome,” she said. “Don’t forget about dinner.”

Ben went back to his now Velma-free seat.

Me—changing colors again—this time more of a strawberry pink.

“Are you okay?” my mother asked me.

I wasn’t expecting the question, and I looked carefully at her face. She looked peaceful, with a tinge of fatigue, and a smidgen of amusement. I felt tears spring to my eyes for reasons I couldn’t really pinpoint.

“I’m fine,” I said.

She nodded, pulling her old cardigan sweater closed over her neck like she was cold. She leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek.

“I like him,” she murmured.

Then, before the aisles were clogged with Satellite Girls and Random Boys, she went back to her seat.

Jac was right behind Yoshi, craning her neck and leaning around him trying to get a glimpse of me, and to catch my attention. I waved.

“What happened?” she mouthed.

I smiled. It’s not like I was going to shout the story across the bus.

When Jac reached me, I would tell her everything.