Mr. Daniels, our math teacher, droned on about equations. Problems I could do in my sleep. And if I had one more sleepless night I would be doing them in my sleep. I needed to meet up with Jason and Hannah immediately after school. I needed to find that key and get it back to that house so that nasty ghost would go away.
After what felt like an eternity, the bell rang for lunch. I headed straight to the bathroom. Maybe some cold water on the face would help wake me up. Hannah and Jason didn’t need to know how little I’d been sleeping.
“Hey.” Billy’s voice echoed off the tiled walls and linoleum floor.
I groaned. I should have gone straight to lunch. I hadn’t even heard Billy and David come in.
“You may not want to play on the team anymore, but you don’t have to be rude.” Billy shouldered past me and I stumbled against the edge of the sink. Yep. That’ll leave a bruise.
So much for not burning bridges.
Then a deep growl sounded from one of the stalls.
Mr. Thomas, the shot-up janitor, hovered a few feet away. But his bloodshot eyes were open in wide-eyed terror. “Best get out of here, son. And quick.”
A shadowy figure shot through the white tile walls, blotting out the light like an eclipse.
One by one the hot-water faucets turned on. The mirrors began to fog and the lights shook in their sockets.
“Oh, crap.” David backed away staring at me. “He’s doing it, isn’t he?”
The lights shook more violently and the mirrors trembled. The sickening cold feeling wrapped its arms around me and squeezed. He couldn’t get me at home, but he could get me here. Sure we had sigils at school, but the feds only repainted them at the start of each term—if we were lucky and they weren’t shorthanded.
The mirrors cracked. Not fast, but slow. I watched the fractures as they wove their way through the glass.
Ignoring my old teammates, Mr. Thomas wedged himself between me and the splintering glass. “Duck, son. Now.”
I ducked. Actually, I dove straight under the sink and covered my head with my already bandaged arms.
“Freak,” David yelled, backing toward the bathroom door.
The mirrors exploded along with the most terrifying moan I’d ever heard.
Billy and David ran shrieking from the bathroom as the glass rained down around me. A shard sliced my battered arms, and cold, inhuman hands gripped my neck.
I tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled groan.
“Keep—away,” the voice snarled.
I shoved my hand deep into my jeans pocket and grabbed the bottle of holy water.
The invisible fingers squeezed harder. It took everything I had not to clutch at the frigid fingers and try to yank them from my neck. I pulled out the bottle and tried to flip off the plastic lid.
It slipped from my grasp and clattered to the floor.
The lights flickered out, plunging the room into icy darkness. Heavy breathing hissed in my ear and the ghost tightened his grip, making my heart pulse in my neck.
“I’ll have none of that done to one of my students,” Mr. Thomas growled, his voice fierce and protective.
The grip around my neck loosened and the malevolent spirit swung to stare at Mr. Thomas.
His face paled, but he stood his ground. “Get outta here, Alex. Go now.”
I scooted backward toward the bathroom door. Ghosts couldn’t kill each other, could they? They were already dead.
The evil spirit screamed and lunged itself at Mr. Thomas. “You shouldn’t have interfered.”
The two entities clawed at each other, hissing and screaming and wailing until I thought my eardrums would burst. Mr. Thomas hit the floor. “Go now, son. Save yourself.”
The dark spirit opened his mouth like a cavern and bit deeply into the janitor’s ghostly flesh. Mr. Thomas howled in agony, but looked at me with pleading eyes. “Run.”
I ran.
The bathroom door slammed shut behind me and I scurried into the hall. I needed to see Aunt Elena. I needed to talk to Frank. I needed to stop this evil entity from causing any more harm.
Heels pressed against the metal legs of the chair, I tapped my feet against the linoleum floor, nursed the claw marks on my neck with a damp paper towel, and waited. Waited for Principal Harper. Waited for Dad. Ugh.
Billy and David were in the principal’s office now. And he wasn’t happy. If I hadn’t been in trouble, I’d have laughed at the way Billy’s voice squeaked. We’d been teammates, true, but he and David had never been my favorite people.
“It was him. I swear it,” David whined. “He got all mad and started smashing mirrors . . .”
What a liar. I squirmed in my seat. I could barely stand to sit here and listen, but I wasn’t fixing to go barging into the principal’s office making more trouble. Principal Harper said something, but I couldn’t make out what. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
There was a scooting of chairs and a scuffle of feet and the door creaked open. Billy and David edged out, away from me. I gave them a leering scowl. If they thought I was actually causing the supernatural freak show, then good. I’d use it to scare them away. They’d never bother me about playing ghostball or not being polite again.
“Alex.” Principal Harper opened the door to his office wider. “Please come in.”
I pulled the bloodied tissue from my neck, crumpled it, and tossed it in the trash.
“Did Billy do that to you?” Principal Harper closed the door and examined the scratch marks on my neck before looking down at the bandages on my arms.
“No, sir.”
“Then how did it happen?”
“I’m—I’m not sure,” I lied.
“Okay, then sit down and tell me exactly what did happen.”
I sat on the well-worn brown sofa that took up most of the wall and tried to figure out how to get out of this. “Um . . . Well, David and Billy followed me into the bathroom. They started giving me a hard time about not rejoining the team, and then . . .” What could I say? That an evil ghost showed up, busted out the mirrors, and tried to strangle me? Never mind that the school’s dead janitor had come to save me. I’d be hauled off to be tested as the first ever kid to become psychic at age twelve, and would never see my father or Jason again. “Things started to happen. Billy pushed past me and I hit the edge of the sink. Then I ducked when I heard the glass cracking.”
“So, Billy pushed you?”
“Sort of.”
“And David?”
I shook my head. “He was just standing there.”
“Then what made the glass break?”
“I’m not sure. I didn’t see—”
Three heavy raps interrupted the interrogation.
“Come in,” Principal Harper huffed.
The door swung open. Dad. I swear he looks a foot taller when he’s angry.
“Principal Harper.”
“Mr. Lenard.” Principal Harper stood and shook Dad’s hand. They both sat and I swallowed the ostrich egg of fear lodged in my throat.
“Alex was just telling me what happened. About the scratches on his neck.”
Dad leaned forward and took a closer look. “Scratches?” His eyes widened. “And bruises. Are they bullying you, son?”
I saw fear and relief and hope swirling in Dad’s face. If only it were that easy.
But I couldn’t full-out lie. “They’re trying to get me to rejoin the team, but no. They’re not bullying me. They ran off when the mirrors broke.”
“You broke mirrors?” Dad’s voice rose an octave.
“No,” I moaned. “I don’t know how they broke.” So, I started over and retold Dad what I’d told Principal Harper.
“And you didn’t see what broke the glass?” Skepticism dripped from Dad’s voice. Principal Harper didn’t look convinced either. After the windows breaking in my room two days in a row, this didn’t look good. I needed to get outta here and over to Aunt Elena’s.
“Did you do it?” Principal Harper asked what Dad was thinking. “You can tell us, Alex. Was it an accident because you were afraid?”
“No.” I cracked my knuckles and hoped they believed me.
“And what about the marks on your neck?” Dad knew I was keeping something from them; I heard that edge in his voice.
I shrugged. I didn’t want to lie anymore and he didn’t want to hear the truth.
“I’ll talk to Billy’s and David’s parents. We take bullying very seriously,” Principal Harper said right away.
Great. That was the last thing I needed on top of everything else, Billy and David being blamed for bullying and my whole team hating me.
Principal Harper flipped to a business card in his Rolodex. “And I’ll call the town psychic’s office; we’ll have someone put up an additional ward and check the school’s sigils just to be sure nothing’s gotten inside.”
Dad’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head—like the thought of a ghost in the school would make my “condition” worse. It’s not that we’d never had a nasty ghost in school before; we had—but it had been years. And when we had, they’d evacuated all Untouched and brought in the federal psychics. “Mr. Lenard, I think you should take Alex home for the rest of the day.” He handed Dad something small and made of glass.
A wave of panic crashed over me. The holy water bottle. I’d forgotten it on the bathroom floor.
“What’s this?” Dad read the label with a gasp.
“The janitor found it in the bathroom among the broken glass. We thought it might be Alex’s, maybe something to comfort him because of what happened with his mother . . .” Principal Harper shifted uncomfortably.
Dad took the bottle and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Take him home and let him rest.”
“Oh, I will.” Dad led me out of the office and didn’t bother to look back once until we were standing outside the car.
I expected Dad to scream or blame or question. But he didn’t. The anger from Principal Harper’s office had vanished into a thin, tortured silence.
Dad leaned over the roof of the car, holding the nearly empty bottle of holy water between us. “Come on, champ. Whatever happened—you can tell me.” Dad had that look in his eyes. The look that says he cares, but that he’s totally afraid of what might come out of my mouth.
I rested my palms on the car’s cool, metal roof, tracing one of the inscribed sigils with my index finger. Aunt Elena had proof. I had witnesses. Could we convince Dad that I could really see ghosts? That I’m really a psychic? I let a slow breath out through my nose. “No, Dad. I can’t.”
“Why not? Who else are you going to be able to talk to if not me?”
“You’ll never believe me.”
“Try me. And you’d better start with the truth if you want this back.” Dad held up the bottle of holy water.
The truth? Dad didn’t want the truth. Not really. But he wouldn’t let it go. Not this time. I took a deep breath and pushed back every ounce of fear and doubt I’d had since all this craziness began. “Okay . . . you remember how I was seeing things . . . seeing ghosts?”
Dad’s face went pale. “You can’t see ghosts. No one in our family has ever been psychic. Including you. You’re not one of those criminals who tried to destroy the world with their séances and are now fighting to put the spirits back where they belong. Their kind can never make up for what they did. You are Untouched.”
I clenched my teeth and looked at Dad. “Look, I know you think I’ve got post-traumatic stress or something. But I don’t. And I know you think psychics are nothing more than legal criminals—”
“They are. If it weren’t for them, the Unleashing wouldn’t have happened. People died because of them.”
“The psychics who did that are dead.” I could hardly believe I was defending psychics when my mom had spent her life digging up occult history to help the Untouched battle against what they’d done. “The psychics today are only trying to help. Mom would’ve understood. I’ll bet you couldn’t stand that she studied the occult, could you?” I took a huge gulp of air and tossed my hands in the air. “Psychics are not bad people. They’re just people. People who see and hear ghosts. It’s not like they have a choice about becoming psychic. And I know kids aren’t supposed to become psychic after they turn ten, but I did. I don’t know how and I don’t know why. But I did see Mom in the hospital.” I held up her amulet, which dangled around my neck. “That’s how I got this. She gave it to me. Not the nurse.”
Dad opened his mouth, but I charged on. “There’s a ghost in our house. There are ghosts at school. And I can see them. The feds don’t have them under control like they want everyone to believe. Sooner or later you’re going to have to face it.”
“I’ll tell you what I have to face.” Dad’s cheeks reddened and his voice quivered. “I have to face losing clients and sales that we need because my son thinks he sees ghosts. We have the town’s top psychics warding our homes and schools and there’s no way there are spirits in both places at once. Becoming a psychic at twelve? It’s ridiculous. Even ten is old. All this is in your mind because you can’t get over the fact your mother is dead.”
His words hit me like a sledgehammer right in the chest, making the already gaping hole there even wider.
Dad’s face immediately softened, like he couldn’t believe what he’d just said. I know I couldn’t. “Alex . . . I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, chest throbbing with the ache of losing Mom made even worse by hearing him say it. “No, you’re not. You’ve moved on. I haven’t. I won’t—ever. She was my mother.”
“And she was my wife,” Dad snapped, some of his anger returning.
“Yeah she was . . . and I know she’s—dead. But that doesn’t mean I’m not telling you the truth. And it doesn’t mean I’m imagining things.”
Dad rubbed his hand across his forehead, fury and concern battling for first place. “Not this again, champ.”
“I’m not your champ. Not anymore. Don’t you get it? When Mom got killed in the car accident, everything changed. I changed. I don’t play ghostball. I don’t hang out with my teammates. I don’t do anything normal anymore because I’m not normal. I can see ghosts. I can hear them. Not just now and then. Every day. At home. At school. And they’re not in my head.” I yanked down my collar and pointed at the claw marks on my neck. “A ghost did this to me. A ghost broke the mirrors. A ghost broke my windows.”
“Stop. Just stop.” Dad’s voice came out in a hiss.
He might be angry, but I was angrier. He asked for it, and now he was getting it. “No. You wanted the truth and that’s what I’m telling you.”
“Oh, I hear what you’re telling me. You’re telling me that I’m not spending enough time with you. So you’re resorting to breaking mirrors, scratching your own neck, and making up stories to get my attention.” Dad thumped the roof of the car with a palm. “Well, Alex. You have my attention. All of it.” Dad’s fist tightened around my bottle of holy water. “I had to leave an important client meeting to come here. And now the principal thinks—I don’t know what he thinks. But you’ve broken out two bedroom windows, now school mirrors. What’s next? I will not have you hurting yourself.”
“I’m not doing it.” I shouted so loudly that a bird in a nearby tree flapped into the air with a screech, and two teachers out on break strained their necks to make sure no students were trying to kill each other.
Dad lowered his voice. “You’re going to see Dr. Midgley on Monday morning. We’re going to get to the bottom of this. I’ll not have our lives swallowed up by—”
“By what? By Mom’s death? You don’t get to move on and pretend none of this happened. I still love her.”
Dad slammed his hand into the roof of the car, leaving a fist-sized dent.
“I love her, too,” Dad hissed. “Now get in the car. And you are going to see Dr. Midgley. First thing. Monday.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Dad threw his lanky self into the car and slammed the door. Great. Dad was in denial, but I knew I’d changed. I knew I was psychic. I knew that unless Elena and Frank helped me put a stop to my evil visitor, I was in deep trouble.