I arrived at school early, Mom’s amulet tucked beneath my T-shirt, and hoped I’d be spared from my teammates’ concerned looks and high fives to each other about the first ghostball victory of the season. Seventh grade had just started, but I already felt left behind.
The halls were almost like a ghost town this early, so I shuffled my way to give my “Alex Lenard is able to return to work/school” paperwork to the seventh-grade secretary, then slowly headed to my new locker to enhance my sigils. Of course, all our lockers came with prefabricated sigils etched into the metal, but students were encouraged to add their own both for extra protection and so they wouldn’t forget what they’d learned in elementary sigil classes.
One by one the kids filled up the hallway. A few glanced at me, others stared. My teammates rushed over to me.
“Hey, Alex. Welcome back.” Ethan Quake, a teammate, slapped my back. “Hope you can come back soon. It’s not the same without you.”
My stomach churned and sweat broke out on my forehead. I shut my eyes and took a few calming breaths. “Thanks,” I mumbled. “I’m not sure if the doctors will let me play for a while.”
“Well, that’s okay. You should still come to practice to keep yourself sharp.”
I nodded, but had no intention of sitting in on practice. The last place I wanted to be was near a ghostball game.
Tommy bumped my fist and then headed off to class.
A few of the other guys gave me awkward high fives and then went their separate ways. Oh, this was going to be a long day.
The tardy bell rang as I collapsed into my desk for last period. Occult History. Basically, a historical overview about King Solomon and how angels had visited him and given him the knowledge to create the seals we used today. Jewish. Muslim. Christian. King Solomon was in all of the major religious books and we all used his seals.
I was not in the mood for a review of everything we’d already learned in elementary school. Oh, well, at least I’d come back to school on a Friday; I’d have all weekend to recover from the stares and whispers floating around me like gnats. I was no longer the school ghostball champion. Now I was Alex, the kid whose mom got killed in that car accident. The kid with a limp. At least they couldn’t see the scars.
“Buck up, man.” My best friend, Jason Anderson, grinned at me over his Occult History journal. Thankfully some things hadn’t changed.
Even though Jason was the opposite of everything I had been, he was always there for me. I was white. He was black. My hair stood on end. His hair was short and tidy. I was good at school and good with friends. Jason tolerated school and had one friend: me. Yep. Best friends— ever since first grade when he arrived from Jamaica and no one else would sit with him at lunch. They thought his accent was weird. I thought it was cool. And his mom always made sure we had the best macaroni and cheese on the planet. That was her specialty. Jason loved to eat and he liked to hunt. I didn’t hunt. I liked sports. He coped with them. He’d even joined the school ghostball team because I was on it. I suppose that was the biggest thing we had in common: loyalty. We always had each other’s backs. No matter what.
Jason hunched low and whispered, “Hey. You gotta come over for dinner next week. Mom’s planning to make a huge batch of mac ’n’ cheese just for you. Your dad wouldn’t let her bring any into the hospital because you couldn’t eat much and he said he’d end up eating it all and would get fat.” He chuckled softly, his gleaming smile infectious. “And she said we can play as many video games as we want. You know my mom. If you don’t come she’ll whup your backside.”
He winked and I couldn’t help but feel better. Even if I had changed, Jason was still Jason. And he was more than a friend. He was family.
“So is Grimes making you give your start-of-year presentation?” he asked, his mischievous brown eyes sparkling.
I shook my head no. Thankfully she’d taken pity on me and let me miss this assignment.
“For those of you who didn’t have the opportunity to give your presentation yesterday, you’ll have a chance today.” Ms. Grimes, our cool, punk-like Occult History teacher with maroon-streaked hair, picked up a clipboard and checked to see who still needed to present.
I slumped down in my chair, thankful to be seated in the back row, and leaned my head against the wall for a nap. Hopefully Ms. Grimes wouldn’t notice. And if she did, Jason would cover for me.
Several kids droned on about their summer breaks and how their mothers had made them wear T-shirts with sigils on them for extra protection over the summer break.
I’m not sure why parents still spent money on sigiled shirts. My mom had lectured on their ineffectiveness at conferences. Besides, the Third Pentacle of Jupiter tattoos we were all given at birth were nearly impenetrable—most of the time. Since the Great Unleashing in 1900, when a group of British and American spiritualists tore a hole between our world and the spirit world allowing spirits in, people took their precautions seriously, but still. Overkill much?
The Great Unleashing didn’t stop the scientists and inventors. They’d kept working with electricity, even when they found out spirits used the electrical currents to travel. That’s when the psychics became important to society. They were still blamed for letting spirits loose on us, but now people needed them to help control the ghosts.
Most of us weren’t psychics, and the Untouched just wanted to live our lives with as little paranormal interaction as possible. Now and then a kid who wanted to tick off his parents would rebel and wipe a sigil off his bedroom window. But most kids wouldn’t dare. There’d been enough cases of hauntings to scare us away from doing that—even with our wards. I soon lost track of my thoughts, my mind blipping in and out of sleep.
“My aunt gave this to me for my birthday. It’s a Deluxe Ghost Hunting Kit.” My cousin Hannah’s voice shattered my slumber. Oh, dear Lord, I had no idea she would be in any of my classes.
There she stood, all in black, with thick, round glasses that made it look like her eyes were bugging out of her head. She looked like a Pretender if I’d ever seen one.
Several girls giggled, but my eyes shot open and I leaned forward. Wait. Did she say Deluxe Ghost Hunting Kit? Was my cousin actually a Pretender?
Pretenders pretended to be psychic and their false claims had led to spirit-related injuries. Which made them as welcome as you’d expect. Paranormal investigators were okay—they did some good, even if they weren’t psychic.
Last time I saw her—granted it was before her father left two years ago—she couldn’t have cared less about the supernatural. I even remember Aunt Trudy getting mad at her for getting a C in warding class. Now she wore head-to-toe black, her dirt-brown hair with bangs that hung below her eyebrows. She opened a large, gunmetal-gray hardcover case. “It’s everything a serious paranormal investigator needs.”
If she heard the snickers echoing around the room, she didn’t seem to notice or care. Typical Hannah. She never cared what anyone thought of her. “It has a Gauss Master EMF meter. EMF stands for electromagnetic field. It lets you know if there are shifts in the electromagnetic field caused by electrically charged objects or entities. It also has a portable motion sensor to detect movement by unseen forms.”
“Woooooooo,” howled a burly boy called Billy at the front of the class. Everyone burst out laughing. Everyone except for Hannah and me and the teacher.
“That’s enough,” Ms. Grimes snapped. The class reluctantly settled down under her icy gaze. “I’m sorry, Hannah. Please continue.”
Hannah bobbed her head, a determined look in her eye. “Just because we’re Untouched doesn’t mean we can’t understand more about the paranormal. We can’t leave all the work for the psychics. If it wasn’t for local paranormal investigators, we’d have spirits running amok all over town.”
The class shifted uncomfortably, obviously not wanting to think about lurking spirits. No one did, even if it was part of our lives. It was a part we’d rather ignore until we had a problem. But Hannah pushed on, her eyes appearing nearly as big as the frames of her owl-like glasses. “The OPI is backlogged. And the town psychics can only do so much. That’s where paranormal investigators come in.” She lifted another gadget. “This is an EVP listener. EVP stands for electronic voice phenomena. There are some really cool EVPs different paranormal investigators have captured.” She pointed to some sort of temperature gauge. “And this is a digital local remote thermometer to check for dips in air temperature, which can sometimes indicate the presence of an entity.”
“That’s, ah, very interesting, Hannah.” Ms. Grimes sat on the edge of her desk, her hands twitching in her lap. “But isn’t it best to leave the paranormal investigations for trained psychics?”
Hannah patted the lid of her kit. “Of course we need psychics, but so many people are afraid of them or angry at them because they started the Problem. But paranormal investigators are normal people like you and me.”
Ms. Grimes put her hand to her heart like the thought of her becoming a paranormal investigator might make it stop beating.
“We can be an integral part of the ward system if given a chance. Paranormal investigators can be a town’s first line of defense—especially if the federal and town psychics are busy. There’ve even been cases where PIs have helped spirits cross over.” She grinned, excitement coloring her pale cheeks, her eyes darting around the room. “Trained paranormal investigators can help filter out the smaller cases from the bigger ones, giving more time for the government psychics to actually do their jobs. There is a place in the ghost-hunting arena for Untouched. We just need the proper training.”
Ghost hunters were freakish, and ghosts—well, they were plain scary. I’d lived my life surrounded by wards and sigils and no ghosts whatsoever, which was fine by me. And most of the population.
Ms. Grimes took a deep breath. “I see . . . Is there anything else?”
Hannah scanned the class. “Are there any questions?”
Jason raised his hand and I nearly slid under my desk. Was he trying to embarrass me?
Hannah reluctantly nodded to him.
“So, what type of phenomena have you actually captured with that stuff?” Jason asked.
“Nothing.”
A few kids looked at each other and rolled their eyes.
Hannah frowned. “I just received the kit. So I haven’t had a chance to capture anything—
yet. But I’m going with my aunt on an investigation this weekend and—”
“And, what?” sneered David, a boy with spiky brown hair. “You gonna capture a ghost in a bottle and bring it in for show-and-tell?”
Everyone laughed and Hannah’s cheeks grew pink.
“That’s quite enough, David. I’m sure Hannah will keep us posted if she finds anything.” In small movements, Ms. Grimes renewed the ward on her desk. “Thank you, Hannah.”
Hannah closed the case among barely veiled snickers. Most Untouched wouldn’t be caught anywhere near paranormal equipment. Sure we used wards and sigils like sunscreen, but we didn’t want to invite the paranormal into our lives any more than it already was. Most Untouched hate psychics. We simply accepted them as a part of life.
I couldn’t believe my two aunts and cousin now lived next door to me. And that my cousin was in my Occult History class. Why in Solomon’s name did Hannah have to be into that stuff? Being a psychic—or even a Pretender—was like being the smartest kid in school with bad breath and body odor. You steered clear of them. If my old teammates found out she was my cousin, I’d never hear the end of it. Jason would make fun of me, but I could deal with him.
It wasn’t long after Hannah’s presentation that the final bell rang. Jason took off fast, reminding me about his doctor appointment after snickering about my cousin’s presentation.
I tossed my books into my backpack and bolted through a throng of kids toward my locker, trying to avoid Hannah. I hit a wet patch and limp-skidded straight into the door with a metallic bang.
A couple eighth-grader jocks laughed, but I tried to ignore them. I slowed down, stood up tall, and focused on my combination, not letting them see my tears.
Before I fumbled through my new locker combination and dumped my books, someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hey, Alex,” a girl’s voice squeaked. Hannah.
“Hey.” I forced a smile. “I didn’t know you’d be in one of my classes.”
“Cool, isn’t it?” She tried to smile, but failed. She stared at me with red-rimmed eyes that said she’d been crying. “At least I know one person here.”
A surge of guilt swept through me. I never thought that she might actually feel lonely here. Maybe she hadn’t even wanted to leave her old friends or school or home in the first place.
“Hey, Lenard.” My old ghostball captain, Tommy Lord, walked up and looked from me to Hannah. “Making new friends?”
I opened my locker, tossed in a book, grabbed the ones I’d need for the weekend, and slammed the door shut. “No.”
Hannah stuck out her hand, which Tommy shook like a wet fish. “Actually, I’m Alex’s cousin, Hannah Stevenson.”
Why can’t I be invisible?
Tommy’s eyes widened at me. “Your cousin? Wow.” Tommy let her hand drop and Hannah bolted down the hall—away from the awkwardness.
Great. Not only did she dress like a freak show, but news about her paranormal interests must already be spreading. That’s just what I needed on top of everything else.
“I know you’ve been out of the game for three months and all, but we need you back. You and Jason both. It’s not the same without you.” Tommy frowned and gave a little shake of his head that made his sandy brown bangs fall into his eyes.
“Jason quit?” I asked.
“You didn’t know?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t wanted to talk about ghostball, not even to Jason.
“You’re our best player and with you out and Jason gone, it’s been—hard. So, I’m hoping if you get back to it, he will, too. We need to rebuild our team. What do you say?”
No pressure. “Umm . . . I can’t play, Tommy.” I gestured to my leg. “It was pretty bad. I can’t play for a while.”
“Well, you can still come to practice so you’re ready to get back to it soon as you’re healed.”
“Maybe.” There was no way I was going to play ghostball again, but I didn’t want to get into that right now. Jason might go back, but I doubted he’d rejoin if I didn’t. I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder, turned toward the bus, and stopped dead.
An elderly, dark-skinned janitor stood in front of me, a man I’d never seen before. His gleaming smile was overshadowed by the five oozing bullet holes in his translucent body. Two in his face, three in his chest. Dark blood still seeped from them. “Don’t you let anyone pressure you, son. You’ll adjust to your new situation soon enough.”
The tingle of dread I’d felt in my bedroom spread through my gut, and my breath caught.
“You all right there?” the kind, croaky voice asked.
Shivers slithered over my skin and my heart slammed against my ribs like a bird trying to escape its cage.
A hand landed with a thud on my shoulder, jolting me with terror. Tommy Lord looked down at me. “Just think about it, okay, Lenard?” Tommy was totally unaware of the bloody apparition not four feet from us.
My gaze flickered nervously from Tommy’s face to the dead man. Chills spilled down my spine. Two ghosts in one day. It’s not possible. If you’re not psychic by age ten, you’re never psychic. So they can’t be real. I can’t be psychic. I’m having hallucinations or something.
“I’ll think about it,” I mumbled and tore away from Tommy, hobbling as fast as I could to the bus. Three months ago, I’d have done anything for Tommy Lord and our ghostball team. Now, he’d think I was some sort of freak who was too scared to talk. But there was no way I was up to facing a shot-up ghost, if he was even real.
I spared one final glance backward. The bullet-holed janitor stood there leaning on his ghost mop, smiling.