“It’s our ghost. We were there when Laura discovered it,” Lily explained the next morning while we water-skied with her mom and Angela. “If we tell Aunt Angela, she’ll poke around. She’s got that reporter’s mind, and she questions everything. She’ll probably want to try and disprove it. We need to check it out first.”
I didn’t want to search out ghosts, but I agreed. I was scared of the info Mrs. Randazzo might spill about me if we told.
“You won’t believe what happened after we left you guys last night,” Lily confided to Wyatt, Owen, and Kayla after we’d hooked up with the Teen Club for an afternoon hike up Mount Norma. I was surprised she was telling them. What happened to “our ghost”?
Pushing a tree branch aside to follow the narrow, rocky path leading up the mountain, I listened as Lily dramatically recounted Laura’s reaction. She didn’t know the half of it—the maid or the flames—but our new friends were fascinated with the possibility of a ghost in room 22.
“Lily, we so have to go check it out!” Kayla gushed. She’d dressed for the role of hiker in khaki shorts, a cute denim shirt, and hiking boots. I’d just thrown on cutoffs, a purple tank, and my gray sneakers. I wondered if Kayla had a costume for every activity.
“A ghost-hunting trip,” Wyatt said.
We hung back from the group leader, who gathered the other teens under a cluster of pines for a water break.
“Ghosts aren’t real,” Owen scoffed as he bent to examine another rock. He was looking for tiny fossils in the sandstones. Trilobites, he called them. He had a collection at home.
“You don’t know that,” Lily countered.
“Do you have any proof?” Owen asked. “In science, it rests on you to prove it, more than I need to disprove it.”
“Fine, Mr. Scientist,” Kayla said. “We’ll prove it. We’ll all go to the room after we get down from here.”
“You can’t,” I said. “The hall is off-limits.”
“Is it blocked?” Wyatt asked.
“Is there a sign or that yellow tape warning people away?” Kayla asked, teaming up with Wyatt.
“No,” I admitted. I shot Lily a meaningful stare.
She met my gaze, looking suddenly unsure. Was she wishing she’d kept this just between us? “We could get in trouble,” she said.
“Are you chicken?” Wyatt challenged Lily.
“Me? Please.” Lily rolled her eyes.
“Then you’re in?” he asked. “Room twenty-two?”
“All the way.” Kayla scooted over a tree root and wrapped her arm around Lily’s shoulder. “Aren’t we, Lil?”
“Sure.” Lily looked over at me. “Good, Sara?”
“Good,” I agreed, even though I knew it was a bad idea.
A very bad idea.
We ditched the frozen lemonade cooldown in the teen activity center and took the elevator to the second floor.
“This is dumb,” Owen muttered as we filed silently down the dim hallway.
“I’m with you on that,” I said quietly.
“Yeah?” He seemed pleased.
“Locked, locked, locked.” Wyatt rattled the knob on each door. We stood in a semicircle around the door to room 22.
“This is it?” Kayla asked. “I don’t feel anything.”
“Yes.” Lily grabbed the knob and twisted. “Not that it matters, since everything is locked. Maybe we should—” The door pushed open.
For a moment, we all stared in surprise. A hotel room similar to mine and Lily’s lay silently before us. Two queen beds with matching green bedspreads, a desk, a TV, an armchair, and a window looking out onto the lake. Nothing special.
Kayla entered and we all followed.
Wyatt bounced on a bed. “Scoot over, ghost!”
“Yoo-hoo, anyone home?” Kayla peeked behind the heavy curtains. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
“That’s not how Laura did it,” Lily said. “We need to be calmer.”
“Oh, like yoga. I take a yoga class in the city with Avani Patel. Do you know her? She meditates with all the big-name stars.” Kayla sat cross-legged on the floor and folded her hands by her heart.
Lily dropped down beside her.
Owen perched on the desk, but I stayed rooted in the center of the room. The pins-and-needles feeling had started in my foot.
I knew this was a bad idea.
“There’s nothing here.” My voice sounded more confident than I felt. “Let’s take a canoe out. Lil, we never got to do that yesterday.”
“Not now, Sara. Meditate with us.” She followed Kayla in a series of forced breaths.
“Omm . . . om . . . ,” Owen teased.
Lily giggled until Kayla shushed her.
“Ghost, oh, ghost! Show yourself!” Wyatt commanded.
My entire body prickled with an itchy heat. I scratched my neck. Then I saw her.
Waist-length red hair falling in loose waves.
Long, white cotton nightgown. Ruffles around the wrists and collar. Nothing a girl today would sleep in.
But she wasn’t from today.
She wasn’t even alive.
Her body had that shimmery, real-but-not-real quality I’d seen many times before.
She looked about sixteen. Her slender bare feet poked out from beneath the nightgown.
Wyatt continued to make jokes, calling for the ghost.
He had no idea she stood right here.
No one did. Except me.
Ghost girl reached out and placed her translucent hand on Lily’s dark hair.
Lily’s shoulders stiffened.
Had she felt something?
The ghost girl stroked Lily’s hair, as if petting her. Her dark eyes had no pupils, and she focused them on my best friend.
Lily squirmed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears.
Ghost girl crouched down. Closer to Lily. She ran her fingers down Lily’s bare arm.
Goose bumps sprang up, and with a slight shiver, Lily hugged her arms about her.
Ghost girl moved in closer. Nearly on top of her.
Closer. Closer.
What was she doing to Lily? I reached out to push her away.
A wave of hot air rushed over me as my hand connected with the spirit.
The ghost girl began to glow. A halo of orange light shone from around her body.
I squinted and pulled back. I’d never seen this before.
The air turned thick and suffocating. I gulped, desperate to wet my dry throat. My head throbbed. All I could see was the glow of orange.
Brilliant orange light.
And then the red-haired girl came back into focus.
No Lily. No Kayla. No hotel.
The red-haired girl sat on a large four-poster bed. Pale pink canopy. Ivory wallpaper with tiny pink flowers. A window with white curtains let in the humidity of a summer rain and the scent of lavender. The lake glimmered in the distance.
Another girl in a white nightgown sat beside her on the bed. Her face stayed hidden under a curtain of dark hair that the red-haired girl brushed with a silver-backed brush.
“Make my bed and light the light.” The dark-haired girl’s voice rang out clear and high.
“I’ll be home tonight,” sang the red-haired girl.
“Blackbird, bye-bye.” They finished the verse together with a failed try at harmony.
The dark-haired girl, her body smaller and narrower, bent over and let out a giggle. A deep, infectious giggle that caused the red-haired girl to smile.
The giggle grew louder.
The room grew hotter.
My skin burned. Laughter rang in my ears.
“What’re you doing? Why are you here?”
I sucked in my breath. She was talking to me!