The voice had come from Laura. She stood in the doorway, her body rigid, her eyes angry slits.
The bed and the pretty floral room were gone. So was the dark-haired girl.
The red-haired spirit remained. Next to Lily.
Wyatt motioned to Owen, and the two boys dodged around Laura and out the door. Cowards.
“We just—” Lily began to explain.
Laura held up her hand and moved toward Lily. We watched as she turned both palms skyward. “There’s an energy here. A strong energy.”
“A ghost? There’s a ghost?” Lily asked. She stood. There were only inches between her and the spirit.
Laura nodded. I remained frozen.
“Oh, please, I don’t feel any ghost,” Kayla scoffed.
“I do,” Lily said quietly. “I think.”
“Seriously?” Kayla widened her eyes.
“Who are you?” Laura asked.
“Kayla Graham.”
“Well, Kayla, if you are going to be here”—Laura gave each of us a pointed look—“although none of you should be here, I need you to be quiet and contain your negative energy.”
Kayla opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. She’d noticed Lily was captivated by Laura.
The red-haired girl’s eerie gaze remained fixed on Lily. She didn’t care about Kayla or Laura—or me.
But I could feel her.
Her heat.
Her energy.
Angry. Negative.
Much more negative than anything Kayla threw off.
“She’s lost,” Laura said quietly. Her eyes fluttered closed. “She wants to go home.”
“Where’s home?” Lily turned, squaring her body with the spirit’s shimmery form.
The ghost girl bent to grasp Lily’s hand. I jolted from my stupor and yanked Lily’s other hand.
“We need to go,” I announced. My voice came out hoarse. I pulled Lily with me toward the door. “I hear your mom.”
That wasn’t true, but I wanted Lily out of there.
Away from her.
“Lily, Kayla,” I called. “Come on.”
Surprisingly, they followed me into the hall. The air felt twenty degrees cooler out here.
Laura shut the door behind us, leaving her and the red-haired girl alone in the room.
“That was amazing,” Lily gushed after Kayla left to find her parents and we returned to our room.
“What?” Lily’s mom asked. “The view from the top? Did you see any animals?”
I could barely remember the hike. The red-haired girl crowded my brain.
Lily told her mom and aunt all about Laura and the ghost in room 22. As she’d predicted, Angela was all questions. “This will make a great angle for my article,” she decided. “A haunted hotel. Perhaps it will make teens want to visit?”
I stayed quiet. No one noticed. With Lily, I was always the quieter one.
My thoughts shifted to Laura. Was she okay? Should I go back?
I chewed my lip. Mr. Himoff had hired Laura. This was her job, I reasoned. Not mine.
All during dinner—a cookout down by the lake—I watched for Laura. She never showed up.
After another night in the game room and a dance tournament that the girls rocked, Lily and I slid into our beds.
I lay back on the pillow and thought about that horrible heat that had covered my body.
“Sar? You awake?” Lily asked in the darkness.
“Yeah.”
“I felt it today. The ghost. I felt it.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s hard to explain.” Lily kept her head on her pillow. “It was like a pull.”
“A bad pull?” I remembered the anger. My fear that the girl would hurt Lily. That she wanted something from her.
“No.” Her voice was heavy and already dreamy. “I think the ghost was looking for something. Do you believe me?”
“I wish I knew more about the ghost. It’s weird to feel something—to feel someone—and not know if it’s a guy or girl, young or old.”
I pressed my fingertips together. Should I describe the girl with the flame-colored hair and pitch-dark eyes? Should I explain the odd glow?
I could tell her everything.
“I think the ghost is a girl,” I began.
“Me too.”
“I kind of know it.” I took a deep breath. “Remember how I came to live with Lady Azura last year? I never told you why. Well, I guess I sort of did. I told you that my dad needed help raising me. That’s kind of true, but it’s not the make-lunches-for-school, take-her-shopping kind of help. It’s help that Lady Azura is good at because she has powers. Powers that let her see and talk to the dead. Powers that I have too. Powers that I was born with. I can”—I squeezed my eyes tight even though the room was dark—“see the dead and hear them and talk to them.”
Lily said nothing.
My heart threatened to burst from my chest as I waited. Was she so freaked out that she couldn’t find anything to say?
“Lily?”
Nothing. The whir of the air conditioner filled the silence.
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
“Lil?”
I rolled over and, in the dim glow cast off from the bathroom, watched Lily’s blanket move ever so slightly up and down. I heard her soft, rhythmic breathing.
Perfect. Just perfect.
I’d finally told her my secret, and she’d slept right through it.