I slammed my locker door shut, made a quick check for Billy and David, who’d been keeping their distance since the incident with the sinks in the bathroom, and then took off for the school exit.
“Alex. Wait.” Jason bolted toward me. “X, stop avoiding me. I’m not gonna let you. You may be able to ditch the team, but not me. Hannah already told me everything that happened inside that house, but I wanna hear it from you. Now spill.” Jason slung his backpack over one shoulder and looped his other arm through mine. “Let’s go.”
“Wanna walk?” I asked. I didn’t feel like being cramped on a noisy bus. Especially not if Jason wanted to talk.
Together we marched out the door. My hip hurt, but I ignored it.
“First, I don’t think you’re a freak—”
I opened my mouth, but Jason stopped me with his oh-shut-up look. “I know you. You’re probably freaking out that no one will believe you and that you’ll be sent away to some psychic institution for late bloomers.”
That wasn’t quite what I thought, but close enough. “Okay. So maybe I’m a little freaked out. I don’t want Dad to send me back to Dr. Midgley. And I definitely don’t want to end up shipped off to some psychic research center halfway around the world so they can study my brain.”
“You really think that would happen?”
I shrugged. “How should I know? When was the last time anyone older than ten became psychic?”
Jason held up a hand to count his fingers, then let it drop. “Um, as far as I know, never. You’re right. No adults need to know.”
“Except Aunt Elena and Frank,” I corrected him. “They’re the only ones who might have a clue about what’s happening to me.”
“Right. But there’s no way I’m letting you do this on your own. We’re brothers, X. Do you know how hard it was to know you were in that hospital and there was nothing I could do to help you? It was awful.” I’d never thought about that. Yeah, I guess that would be pretty hard. “I’m with you,” he grinned.
“Thanks.”
Jason nodded and got that face he gets when he’s thinking really hard about something. “Maybe you need to look at it like hunting.”
“Look at what like hunting?” My pulse rose even thinking about the time Jason and his dad had me along on a hunting trip. I’d nearly shot my own foot off.
Jason stopped. “Just hear me out. Okay?”
“Okay,” I groaned. “Shoot.” I smirked at my own pun and Jason rolled his eyes.
“Ghosts are pests, right?” he asked as we walked toward the town center.
“Definitely.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried not to think of the danger I’d felt in that house with the woman’s moans.
“So think about that. First, you try to deter them.” His voice rose an octave and got all quivery like he was onto something big.
“Deter them?”
Jason forged on, barely even acknowledging my question. “Sure. For rats you put down poison. They cross it, then they go crawl away somewhere to die. Obviously ghosts are already dead so you can’t use poison to kill them. But if you put a salt line around your house, it might work the same way. You remember reading about salt lines last year, right?”
“Uh, not really.” Leave it to Jason to remember the bits I’d forgotten. I’d focused on sigils and decided to let the town psychics do the rest. At home, Mom had always handled the salt. My stomach flip-flopped at the thought of Mom. I missed her so much, and wondered if Dad had been putting salt around the house. If not, maybe that’s how they were getting in?
“Now, take it a step further. If you get an aggressive ghost, then you need to become the hunter. The ghosts are your prey. So you need traps and weapons, right? Lures.”
“Why in Solomon’s name would I want lures? I’m trying to keep them away from me.”
“I know—I know. But if you know one of them is going to show up anyway, why not lure them to the spot you want them to appear in? Maybe have a trap ready and—” Jason clapped his hands shut. “Snap. You got one. Then it won’t bother you anymore.” He smiled like he’d come up with the cleverest plan on the planet.
“It’s a good idea, but isn’t that what the psychics at OPI are supposed to do?”
“I guess. Only time I’ve ever met one was when they gave us that presentation in fifth grade on ghost hunting . . . but if you want them to stop bothering you, then maybe your best defense is to start thinking like a ghost-hunting psychic.”
Darn it. I knew Jason was onto something, and I had a sinking feeling he was right.
We rounded the corner to Decatur Street with its colorful balconied buildings shoulder to shoulder, and I led the way to Elena’s Paranormal Investigation Services. An open sign hung in the window.
I reached for the door and Jason stopped. “Whoa.” He traced a finger along a faint, but glimmering sigil inscribed on the door. “You ever seen a seal like this?”
What seal? I hadn’t noticed a seal on her front door before—except the usual Third Pentacle of Jupiter, which everyone had. I looked closer. Complex lines and markings curved around one another, forming what I guessed was some sort of advanced protective sigil. I shivered. “I have no idea. But let’s see if she’s here and find out what she and Frank had actually caught on their equipment.”
Nerves coursed through me and I let the door to Aunt Elena’s office slam a little harder than I should, sending its tinkling chimes into a twirling vortex of trills.
Hannah’s voice drifted over the gentle thrum of the ceiling fan. Great. Just what I needed. I’d been avoiding her all day at school. Coming clean with Jason had been enough for one day. The last thing I needed was her harassing me about seeing ghosts.
I trudged to the back of the store, Jason following close behind.
Aunt Elena sat hunched forward in her office chair, Frank sat beside her, both looking at several monitors inscribed with some weird seals we never learned in elementary school. Hannah peered over their shoulders. When they heard me, they all looked up.
Hannah’s lips quirked into a smile. “I knew you’d come.”
“I’m glad you came to your senses.” Elena extended her hand toward Jason. “I assume you’re the infamous friend Jason I’ve heard about over the years.”
Jason shook her hand and gave her one of his best grins. “I don’t know about infamous, but it’s lovely to meet you.”
Oh. My. Gosh. Hannah giggled. She actually giggled, her pale cheeks flaring pink. Jason was turning on the charm here? With her?
Aunt Elena gestured to a couple of empty chairs nearby, which we promptly dragged over to the monitor. “Alex, Frank thinks you’re sensing a lot more than you let on.”
Frank looked at me with an expression that would suit a hungry wolf.
“Uh,” was all I could manage before I sat down.
“Have a look at this.” Aunt Elena motioned to the screen.
Jason eyed the spiky reading on the monitor, then glanced at a still image of me from the video. “I have no idea what we’re looking at, but cool.”
I took a deep breath and looked at the frozen video image. My face was pale. And, yeah, I did look sort of freaked out.
Aunt Elena clicked a few buttons and the video came to life. “Our EMF readings were off the charts when you were so agitated.”
“Agitated? He totally freaked,” Hannah snorted, her eyes giddy.
“And you wonder why he wouldn’t talk to you all day?” Elena wedged herself between us, almost making me want to hug her.
“Okay. Here we are.” Aunt Elena pushed another button. The screen went dark; hissing filled the silence. Then we heard something. Breathing.
I wasn’t sure if it was my breath or that creepy man-ghost. Then I spoke.
“Can you hear that?” Me, totally annoyed and a little freaked out.
“Hear what?” Hannah’s voice. Then my squinting face, hand shielding my eyes, filled the frame.
“Fast-forward it, Aunt Elena. Get to the good part,” Hannah huffed.
Good part? How could any of this have a good part?
Aunt Elena moved her mouse and clicked. “Here’s the footage from when Hannah came back with me and Frank. There. Listen.” She tilted her head toward the screen.
My back was to the camera, my hand outstretched, fingers grazing the wall. Then came a high-pitched voice. Thin and frail and frightened. “Please . . . please . . .” Tears choked her voice and garbled her words, but there it was. Caught on tape.
I stood frozen in the video, my breathing harsh and tight. The woman’s voice came back. “Oh, please. I beg you . . . He’s coming.”
I screamed. The camera panned over the floor, the wall, the ceiling.
“Turn it off.” I swallowed, feeling the blood drain from my face.
A scuffle and the screen went dark. Only Hannah’s voice. “The readings are off the charts.”
“Turn it off.” I wanted to break something. Make it all go away. But I couldn’t. It was real. All of it. And now I had proof. I turned away from Jason, trying not to cry in front of my best friend.
“Hannah, please flip the store sign to Closed.”
“Now? But it’s only four o’clock.”
“Do it now,” Frank growled at her, not taking his eyes off me.
Hannah silently obeyed.
Aunt Elena touched my arm. “Alex, Hannah told me that you’ve been seeing and hearing spirits since your mother died. She told me you’re worried that no one will believe you because you tested as an Untouched.” She tapped her finger lightly against her lips, then pointed to the screen. “But every time you responded in the video, it was in reaction to one of the voices on the tape. And our EMF readings correspond with it. Frank sensed it, too, and his infrared picked up cold spots behind the wall. So, whether you want to admit it or not, this is proof. You are psychic.”
“That is so cool.” Hannah’s enthusiasm was annoying as she bounced toward us from the storefront like nothing on the planet could possibly scare her.
“No,” I said, studying the faded design on the carpet. “It’s not.”
“So you admit it, then?” Hannah’s face glowed with triumph.
I looked from her to Aunt Elena to Frank to Jason. Would they really believe me? Would they help me? Or would they tell Dad and have me sent away?
Frank’s dark eyes were serious, and for the first time I noticed a tattoo in the hollow of his throat—a symbol, one of Solomon’s Seals, but not the Third Pentacle of Jupiter. Inside the circle was a pointing hand inscribed with Hebrew. If I remembered correctly, it was rare and very powerful: the Fourth Pentacle of the Moon. A sigil meant to protect the body and soul from all evil.
Frank’s eyes met mine and he gestured to a nearby chair. “We need to talk. Now.”
There was no way I was going to make it home for dinner. So I called Dad and told him I wanted to hang out with Hannah and Jason, which Dad was totally cool with. Thankfully. We ate Chinese food from little paper cartons while I told Elena and Frank everything. About the accident. About my broken hip and leg. About the surgery. About seeing Mom in the hospital. About how Dad and the psychiatrists thought I was seeing things as some sort of post-traumatic psychosis.
“And I thought things were getting better.” I stared at my scuffed-up Nikes. The ones I wouldn’t toss out even though my feet were starting to press so hard against the tips my toes hurt. Mom had bought them for me—a week before the accident—and I wasn’t going to lose them, too. “When I first got home I didn’t see a thing. I figured, you know—” I dug a toe into the carpet. “I figured I was healing.”
“But there’s nothing wrong with you.” Frank crossed his arms over his chest, the tattoo of the gargoyle on his forearm staring at me. “In fact, we need more people like you. The Problem isn’t going to go away on its own.”
Aunt Elena’s face lit up. “You could take him on—”
“I’m retired. I’m not taking on another apprentice, Elena,” Frank growled.
There was more than anger in his growl, there was sadness, too. But I didn’t care. I was relieved. I was damaged and I didn’t want to be an apprentice or a psychic. “I’ll never fully heal—ever. Not my hip, and obviously not my mind.”
“You’re cool, X.” Jason thumped my shoulder and gave me an awkward nod. Oh, Jason. Thank God for you. I think I could’ve grown horns out of my head and he’d still be there for me.
“Tell us what else you’ve seen.” Aunt Elena gave me an encouraging nod.
“Well, after those first few days home, I saw Mrs. Wilson. And since then . . .” I told them about the janitor and about what I’d seen and felt at the haunted house. About the evil spirit in my bedroom.
“Ghosts don’t usually follow people from the place they’re attached to . . .” Aunt Elena tapped a finger against the table, stood, and went to a bookshelf. She selected a fat volume and skimmed through the pages. “Unless,” she said, scanning the text.
“Unless what?” Hannah leapt up and went to read over our aunt’s shoulder.
“Unless the ghost is particularly strong,” Frank finished for her and looked straight at me. “Or unless the haunted has an object belonging to the deceased. It’s easier for them to attach to someone if that person has something that belonged to him.”
Jason gave me one of his You didn’t, did you? looks.
Elena glanced over at me. “Did you take anything from the house?”
I shook my head, then stopped. I thought back to the living room. To the basement door. “The basement door,” I sputtered. “It was locked. I put the key in my pocket.”
“What on God’s green earth were you thinking?” Frank bellowed. Hands slamming the table, he nearly startled me out of my chair, making me feel like a complete idiot.
Elena grabbed me by the shoulders. “Where is it now? Do you have it?”
“It’s—it’s at home. On my bedside table.”
Jason mouthed the word lure.
I wanted to tell him to shut up, but I was too freaked out.
Elena looked at the clock. “It’s too late tonight, but I’ll get in touch with Mr. Barrett and see if we can go back tomorrow.”
“No way. I’m not going back in there,” my voice rose, threatening to crack.
“If you want that spirit to leave you alone, then we have to return the key. And we certainly can’t leave that poor woman trapped down there.” Frank began pacing.
Hannah’s face got really pale and Jason shuffled from one foot to another like he was going to pee his pants.
“I’ll go with you,” Hannah whispered. And for a moment I was actually glad she was there—sort of.
“Yeah, me, too.” Jason stood beside her, but didn’t sound convinced. Still, I knew where I went, he’d follow. We always had each other’s backs.
Elena selected another text. The subtitle said something about helping earthbound spirits cross over. I shivered. I so didn’t want to do this.
“I’ve helped spirits cross into the light before, Alex. Not as often as Frank, but this should help, don’t you think?” She showed the book to Frank, who read the title and nodded.
She handed me the book and smiled. A smile that reminded me too much of Mom when she understood that I was afraid but was going to make me do something I didn’t want anyway. “You wouldn’t want to be killed and left trapped in a basement wall, would you?”
A shiver crawled over my arms. “No,” I whispered. “Of course not.”
“Right,” she said, with a hand on my shoulder. “Then we can’t leave her there. We must help her. You must help her.”
“Why does it have to be me?” I winced at the whine in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. The last place I wanted to be was where some lady had been killed. Especially when the killer still lurked there and knew where I lived.
“Because she reached out to you,” Frank said, crouching in front of me, his Fourth Pentacle of the Moon tattoo peeking out from beneath his collar. For once his voice was soft, almost kind. “Because you have a gift that many psychics and paranormal investigators only dream of having. And because you have the power to send her murderous husband away from this world and set his wife free.”
“Jason, Hannah, come with me,” said Aunt Elena, who led them toward the storeroom. “We’re going to get a few things together for Alex.”
Hannah opened her mouth to protest, but a scowl from Frank sent her scurrying.
Frank took an empty chair beside me. “Look, Alex. I know what it’s like to lose your friends because you’re different. When I tested as a psychic, my whole life changed. Then, when I was named a Class A Psychic, my life changed again.” He rolled up his sleeves revealing more tattoos on his upper arm. He pointed at a small Seal of Solomon there. “Do you know this one?”
“Um . . . it’s a Third Pentacle of Saturn?” I guessed. I hadn’t paid as much attention in my elementary warding as I should.
“You’re right, but you can’t be unsure about your seals. You have to know them. I got this when I was confirmed a Class A Psychic. The rest I’ve acquired over the years.” He ran his fingers over the various seals and symbols on his arms. “Some are for protection . . . others—others are reminders.” He stared at me hard. “You can’t escape who you are. You have to embrace it. You’ll keep your true friends and make new ones. Friends that are like you. Friends who understand.”
I didn’t want new friends, and I didn’t want to be different. I wanted to be the same old Alex who’d won ghostball championships. The same old Alex who lived with his mom and dad and didn’t see ghosts. I wanted to be Untouched.
Frank rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want another apprentice, but I also won’t leave you alone to deal with this. I’ll do some reading tonight. Tomorrow we’ll go to the house and see what we can do to rid you of your troublesome spirit and bring peace back to the place.”
I barely nodded and tucked the book Aunt Elena had given me into my backpack. I supposed I didn’t have a choice.
Aunt Elena bustled back into the room holding a glass bottle; Hannah and Jason followed her, both lugging large bags of salt. “This is holy water from the Jordan River,” she said, and handed me the bottle.
Holy water. Great. I hadn’t been to church in months. Not since before Mom died. But I remembered enough from Sunday school and warding class to know what that meant.
“The Jordan River’s where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist,” Hannah offered, plopping her bag on the ground beside Jason’s.
“I know that,” I snapped without meaning to.
“Right,” said Elena, her face serious. “If that man—yes, Alex, he is only a man, even if he’s in spirit form—gives you any more trouble, sprinkle him with the holy water.”
Frank didn’t look convinced, but I took the bottle anyway. I needed all the help I could get.
Elena ignored Frank’s scowl and kept talking. “It won’t drive him away completely, but it should be enough to keep him away until we can return the key, free his wife, and make him go to the other side.”
I gripped the bottle in my sweaty palm and hoped Elena was right. There was no way I would sleep in my room again if that monster was still in it.