Morning mist clung to the ghostball field like spiderwebs. I shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for the ghostball to appear. I caught a quick glimpse as it streaked past; the swirling symbols on the ball that trapped the poltergeist inside flared gold. The ball dodged right, then left. I dashed after it, barely aware of Mom and half my school screaming my name from the sidelines. If I made this goal, my team would win the play-offs and we’d be headed to the state championship!
It was now or never.
I ran straight for the jittering ghostball. And kicked it with all my strength.
The poltergeist energy that powered the ball didn’t stand a chance. I grinned as the ghostball soared through the air and straight into the goal at the opposite end of the field.
Cheers erupted from the sidelines, and before I could catch my breath, my best friend and teammate, Jason, had shot off the bench and into the middle of the players. He helped hoist me above their heads. I’d done it, and we’d won the play-off game! Next week we’d head for the Louisiana State Ghostball Championship!
I whooped and pumped my fist into the air. I was the first ever sixth grader at Rey Middle to score the final point to take us to a championship game.
Our team captain, Tommy Lord, and my other teammates surrounded me. “Alex. Alex. Alex.” They chanted like wild banshees set loose on a battlefield.
“You were awesome, X!” Jason grabbed me and gave me a half-hug, half–back slap. I laughed and yanked on his ghostball shirt, glad he was part of the team and our victory. The only reason he was even on the team was because of me. He secretly hated ghostball. Unless he was watching his home team, the Jamaican Nationals. My grin was so big I felt like my face would split in two.
“Great job, champ!” Mom plopped a quick kiss on my head before I could stop her. Oh, well, one kiss wouldn’t hurt my rep too much, and we’d won! Nothing could be better than that. Mom put her arm around me and gave me a squeeze. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks.” Still smiling, I looked around and my heart dropped. “Where’s Dad?”
Mom’s smile wavered, but she forced it to stay in place. “He had an unexpected showing for a client. But don’t worry. He’ll be there at the championship game.”
Right. It was like Dad to miss the important stuff. And for what? Some stupid real estate sale. I shoved away the twinge in my chest and focused on the people still chanting my name. On the people that really mattered. I forced all my cheerfulness into my voice and hugged Mom and Jason back. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
A week later and it was time for the championship game . . . but first, I had to renew the protection against ghosts in my room. The wards—protective symbols to stop them from getting inside. If I didn’t renew my wards, Mom would never let me hear the end of it. Just imagine if a ghost got into the house while we were away at the game. She’d never let me play again! Then my life would be over.
I added a dab of white paint to the pentacle on my bedroom window, making sure each of the five points of the star were enclosed by a circle, and then hung a Seal of Solomon from a nail in the wall. Perfect. No ghosts would get through that. We had to use magical symbols, called sigils, to ward against ghosts. If we didn’t, they’d get inside and wreak total havoc.
I pulled on my team jersey, grabbed my warded cleats and game bag, and headed for the car.
Mom was already waiting, keys in hand. “Ready for the big game, champ?”
“Definitely.” I hurled my bag and myself into the backseat. What an awesome way to end my sixth-grade year.
“And your wards and sigils have been renewed?” Mom adjusted the rearview mirror and then checked the Third Pentacle of Jupiter she had painted on the interior roof of our station wagon along with every other protective psychic symbol she knew how to paint; never mind that Seals of Solomon and wards against spirits were also etched in the glass of every car window as soon as it rolled off the production line. As an occult historian, she was ultra-paranoid.
“Mom.” I rolled my eyes and scratched at the sigil at the base of my skull, a miniature black Third Pentacle of Jupiter that was tattooed on every child as soon as it was born and blessed. Mine always itches when I’m nervous. When I was younger my parents worried that I might be one of the 4 percent of the population who is actually psychic, and that I’d be apprenticed to some psychic far away so I could learn to protect the Untouched. The Untouched. Those are the people who can’t hear or see ghosts. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. I’m as Untouched as you can get. “There were no breaches in my room or my cleats. All of my sigils are fine.”
She glanced in the rearview mirror again. “I still don’t understand why you have to play ghostball. Maybe you can try soccer next year?”
“Mom—” I flopped myself against the backseat and clicked on my seat belt. “Soccer is so boring. Ghostball is fun. We have to kick the ball everywhere we want it to go in soccer. With ghostball you never know where it’ll go on its own.” But that wasn’t what was nagging her. What she really wanted to know was why I’d play a game where a sigil could get damaged, letting a poltergeist loose. She bugged me about that at least sixteen hundred times a week, which is nuts, because if that ever did happen—a huge IF—then the team psychic would handle it.
“I just don’t like the game . . .” she muttered. Translation: I won. It was such a silly thing to worry about and she knew it. Poltergeists were supposed to be really nasty, but they’d never been alive. It’s not like we were playing with people’s souls. She pushed the remote and the garage door creaked open, revealing a gray sky. “Dad has to show a house this morning, but he’ll try to meet us at the game.”
I dug my fingernails into my hand, leaving little crescent-shaped marks. Yeah, right. Typical Dad.
We drove in silence watching the usual morning fog clear from the twisted Mississippi River. She merged onto the main roadway and gasped.
In the rearview mirror, I saw her eyes widen.
She slammed on the brakes. Our car swerved, jerking the seat belt hard across my chest. Metal screeched. A horn blared. Glass smashed and flew everywhere. My heart launched itself into my throat and strangled my cry.
Sound and motion melded together.
The side of the car crunched down on my hip and searing pain screamed down my leg. Then everything went black.
A rhythmic beeping was the first thing I heard. The throbbing in my leg pounded like a jackhammer. I tried to move my toes, but couldn’t. My eyes were crusted closed, but I didn’t want to open them anyway. Everything hurt. My body was broken.
Someone squeezed my hand. Okay, maybe that didn’t hurt. I pried my eyes open and looked up. “Mom?” I croaked.
Mom was there holding my hand, worried but uninjured. “I’m here.”
My leg was in a cast and hanging from some strap-like thing attached to the hospital bed. A jumble of tubes and wires ran to and from my body. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I’ll never play ghostball again.” That was all I could say. Fear and anger battled inside me. How could this have happened? Why?
But Mom just squeezed my hand harder, and instead of the everything’s-going-to-be-all-right smile she usually gave me when I was hurt, there was only sadness. “You’re alive. And you will heal. That’s what matters.”
Mom slipped something cool and smooth into my palm. Her Nazar Boncuğu amulet—a bright blue-and-white glass eye that protects the wearer from evil. She got it at a conference of occult scholars in Turkey, and hadn’t removed it since. “You need this more than I do.”
“Why? There are plenty of hospital sigils.”
Her neck, usually decorated with the brilliant blue eye, now looked pale and vulnerable. Mom glanced toward the door, which was wide open, then back at me. “I have to go. But remember, I love you.” With one last squeeze of my fingers, she stood and walked out the door.
My heart sped up and battled its way into my throat. Why would she be leaving me here? Alone? Like this? And why in Solomon’s name had she given me her amulet? A wave of pain crashed over me and I settled back against the stiff hospital bed, inhaling the sickening scent of antiseptic.
I looked from my casted leg to the tubes in my arm, to the window. Large, strange symbols were etched there. Psychics’ symbols. Far more complicated than any seals I knew how to draw. Hospitals took ghosts seriously, especially here in New Orleans—the most haunted city in America. They had to. If one crazy ghost broke through an old ward or damaged sigil, a dozen or more lives would be snuffed out—and that was if the federal psychics arrived in time. I glanced at the small alcove I’d grown so accustomed to in my gram’s hospital room before she passed: the prayer station, complete with a Bible, Torah, Koran, and an iron ghost trap etched with several Seals of Solomon.
If someone died and didn’t want to cross over, the hospital psychics would be ready, no matter which religion the ghost had practiced. But only if the spirit lingered. Most cross over. It’s when they don’t that the trouble starts and the feds are called in. I shivered.
“Who left this open?” A nurse came in, made a tutting sound, and closed the warded door to my room.
Seeing I was awake she scurried to my bedside and checked the beeping machine. “You’re very lucky to be alive. Your father will be so glad to see you awake.”
She walked out of the room with no further explanation. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious. Days? Weeks? Maybe Mom left because she needed a break and Dad was taking over. That made sense.
I slipped Mom’s amulet around my neck and tucked it beneath my hospital gown so I wouldn’t lose it.
A few minutes later, Dad came in, his eyes swollen and puffy and red.
“It’s okay, Dad.” I forced my words through a parched throat. “I’m okay.” I looked at my mangled leg and cringed. “Well, sort of.”
He sat next to me and took up my hand. The same hand Mom had just let go of.
“Did Mom go home to get some rest? She looked tired.”
Dad swallowed hard. “She . . .” His voice cracked. “She didn’t make it.”
“Didn’t make what? She was just here.”
Dad stroked a strand of hair from my face. “She died, Alex.”
A sick, sinking sensation writhed in my stomach. That was impossible. It had to be. “She was just here.” I held up my hand, entwined with Dad’s. “Holding this hand.”
He squeezed my fingers harder. “She died in the car accident, son. Three days ago.”
My world blurred with tears. She couldn’t be dead. She’d just been here, holding my hand.
Hadn’t she?