Violet

40

Aunt Clara had no idea the next morning that Lily and I had gotten rid of both the tadpoles and a ghost maid in the bathroom. She really must have slept quite deeply not to notice anything, even if she had her wax earplugs in. When Mr. Woods arrived around dawn, she just rolled over in bed and slept on, but that wasn’t unusual. Lily and I did almost the same thing, just put on our earmuffs and turned our backs on him. I don’t think he liked that much, because he emptied out Aunt Clara’s suitcase and strewed her clothes everywhere. But that turned out to be a good thing, because then we could just say that Mr. Woods must have stolen the food as well. It wouldn’t be a good idea to admit that we had thrown it out in the night, full of wrinkles and mold.

Aunt Clara looked bleary-eyed, though, when she hauled herself out of bed, and Lily and I weren’t allowed to speak before she had had her first coffee, which Lily got from the vending machine. It was almost noon before she decided that the day had begun and told Lily to put on her makeup. Then I fed her crackers, which we also got from a vending machine. They were very dry and salty, and I didn’t like them very much.

“You look awfully perky this morning.” Aunt Clara sat on one of the chairs of the motel room with her legs crossed and her foot dangling an inch or so off the floor. Her high-heeled shoe was gleaming like a black beetle. “According to your sister, you were close to death last night. Obviously all you needed was some rest, just like I said.”

“This time,” Lily said before I could reply. “This time she got better, but we don’t know what would happen if there was a next time—”

“Oh, we’ll find out soon enough.” Aunt Clara sounded very smug, and a shiver of worry rose from my toes all the way up my spine. I really didn’t want to be sick again.

“You can’t be serious!” Lily rose from the bed where she had been sitting next to me and placed herself in the middle of the room. Her brow was wrinkled up with worry. “You can’t keep doing this, Aunt Clara! Violet isn’t built for it—”

“No? She looks perfectly fine to me,” she said—which was true, but only because of Lily. “It’s as I have said all along; she only needs to get used to it, and she won’t feel those unpleasant side effects anymore.”

“She faints and vomits,” Lily shouted.

“I’m not supposed to speak with them like that,” I added. “Maybe other mediums are, but I’m not.”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Clara said with a snort. “It’s a goddamned gift. And if you truly hate it so much, you know what to do to make it all stop. Put the ghosts back, and you are free—or is it that you can’t?” Her green eyes narrowed as she frowned at me.

“Of course not,” Lily replied lightning fast. “It’s just that we think you deserve the ghosts, for making them be ghosts.”

“And the need to torment me outweighs your concern for your sister’s welfare?” Her eyebrow rose in a way that made me aware that she didn’t believe us. “I have quite lost my patience with you two. You clearly know nothing of how these things work. I do, though. I have read the book, and I tell you that Violet will be fine.”

“But she won’t!” Lily cried.

“I don’t like it,” I said at the same time. “I don’t like being sick and I don’t remember what happens. It’s not supposed to be this way!”

“Well, I don’t care one jot,” Aunt Clara said. “You will do as I say, and that’s the end of it.” I think she was still a bit tired from the night before, because her eyes were still swollen and she didn’t even try to pretend to be nice—or even like us. I wished I could go back in time and tell Mama not to bother with the Christmas gifts.

There was no point in fighting with Aunt Clara, though—not when she had decided and was in a grumpy mood. No matter what Lily and I said, she wouldn’t listen, but it squeezed painfully in my chest when we got into the car—leaving Lily behind again to worry alone in the motel room. I hoped she would call Dina and that Dina could make her feel a little better. The only thing that made me feel better was that I saw Irpa up in the tree again, and that she made happy noises when she saw me. When the station wagon rolled out of the parking lot, she took flight and followed, which made me feel calmer at once.

I wouldn’t be all alone out there.

We drove for a very long time. All the roads were dusty and had plenty of cracked pavement. On each side of us were fields of yellow grass and shrubs with almost no leaves on them. We saw a dead fox—full of smoke—and lots of candy wrappers and soda cans littering the sides of the road. I missed Lily like crazy, because I didn’t even know where I was going, and being sick was horrible—though I did feel better now than I had in a long time, thanks to Lily. Sometimes, when I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw Irpa flying behind us, and that was good, because it meant that if something bad happened to me, she could fly back to Lily and maybe show her where I was.

The new client’s house was on a small farm set away from the main road. It looked a bit run-down, although the woman who lived there looked spry and happy, wearing a yellow caftan and lots of wooden beads around her neck. Her hair was almost as wild as mine. Despite Lily’s complaining about how it was hard to comb through, I liked my hair because it was wild—so wild that it threw off all the ribbons and hair bands Lily tried to put in it. I wondered if it was the same way for the client—Samantha Carlsen, call me Samantha—and if she, too, couldn’t take as much as two steps without her shoelaces coming undone. She limped a little, though, and I could feel that there was something wrong with her foot. I felt it so much that it was as if my foot was hurting, too, and I had to concentrate not to limp myself when we walked over to her house. I didn’t want her to think I was making fun of her.

When we went inside, Samantha wanted us to sit down on a brown couch, and both Aunt Clara and I winced when we saw the woven rug under the wooden table. It was made in a fancy red-and-blue pattern, and it wouldn’t be good if I vomited on it. Aunt Clara made Samantha roll it up before we started.

“There is sometimes…spillage,” she explained to Samantha, who gave her a strange look. She had made herbal tea for us, which she gave us in large, glazed ceramic mugs. Mine was brown, while Aunt Clara’s was red. Samantha’s mug was green. The tea tasted minty.

Aunt Clara had shopped again on our way there, but she had been in a hurry, so all Samantha’s mother—who was the ghost we were looking for—would get was a few strips of bacon, a carton of juice, and some pieces of strawberry candy, which she put into ceramic bowls while explaining to the client, as she always did, how my “methods” were “unorthodox.” I, for one, was looking at the art on Samantha’s walls: lots of rainbows and waterfalls. I thought she had to like nature a lot.

Samantha lit a green candle, and we all held hands as usual, and I was preparing for something to come and knock me away again, but this time, no matter how long I stared into the flame, it didn’t happen.

Aunt Clara became impatient and started squeezing my hand really hard. “Think about her, dear,” she said in her fake-happy voice. “Think about Edith Carlsen.” I did. I thought about her for a good long while, and then Samantha let go of our hands to find a picture of a smiling gray-haired woman. After, I thought about her some more, but I wasn’t knocked away.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “She just won’t come through.”

“Perhaps it is the bacon,” Samantha suggested, and shifted on the chair so all her beaded necklaces clattered together. “Mother never much liked it.”

“Let’s try for a little while longer.” Aunt Clara sent me an ice-cold look, but it didn’t help, because Edith still didn’t come. Not even when we changed the bacon for pickles and tomatoes, and the orange juice for real wine. Edith just wasn’t there. Samantha even gave me a brooch her mother had used to hold in my hands—it had pretty blue stones—but it didn’t help either.

We just sat there holding hands while the minutes ticked by, and not as much as a speck of mold appeared on the tomatoes.

Finally, Samantha became restless and a little annoyed. It didn’t help even when Aunt Clara said, “I swear this has never happened before,” and, “Perhaps poor Violet is ill.”

I wasn’t ill, though. I felt just like myself, except that no one came and knocked me away.

We couldn’t just sit there forever, so in the end, we had to leave, and I think Samantha for one was happy that we did. The smile she gave us when we walked out the door was very stiff, and so was Aunt Clara’s. She was angry that we wouldn’t get paid, of course.

When we arrived at the car, Irpa sat on the hood and cocked her head at me until Aunt Clara chased her away. She sent me happy thoughts, though, all the way into my head, which made me dread the car ride back a little less. She also told me why it hadn’t worked by showing me an image of Mrs. Carlsen walking through a door.

Despite the good thoughts, the car wasn’t a happy place. Aunt Clara looked like an angry bull as we drove along the road. She even made bull sounds, snorting and breathing heavily. She had to swerve not to hit a car that came in the other direction, and I was so frightened that I lifted my arms to shield my face, in case the windshield exploded.

“I should have splurged for beef,” Aunt Clara finally said. Her jaws worked hard, grinding her teeth together. “No wonder the lady wouldn’t come when all she was offered was supermarket bacon. I sure wouldn’t have come back for that.”

“It wouldn’t have helped,” I muttered. “She wasn’t there anymore.”

“What do you mean there?” Aunt Clara barked.

“She had gone. She wasn’t a ghost. I can’t talk to them if they’re gone.”

“Gone? Like to ‘the beyond’?”

I nodded. “I think we were just lucky before, that Mr. Arthur and Mr. Brewer were still there. I can’t talk to them if they’ve gone.”

“What kind of nonsense rule is that?” Aunt Clara sounded very angry. “Why didn’t you mention this stupid quirk before?”

“I wasn’t sure before,” I said quietly. “This is the first time I didn’t find them.”

“Well, other mediums speak to all kinds of dead, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t—”

“It’s different for me,” I said, feeling angry myself now. “That’s why I need all the food…I’m not here to help the living; I’m here to help the dead.” I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my head so I was looking out on the yellow landscape. I didn’t say what was on the tip of my tongue, even if it wanted to slip out: It’s Lily who helps the living.

I don’t know how I knew that, but I did.

“Help the dead, huh? So it’s like a calling now?” I didn’t need to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes. “And you are absolutely certain this isn’t some ruse? Something you and your sister have cooked up because you are averse to doing a day’s honest work? Perhaps you aren’t as innocent as you pretend to be—not as unable to control what unfolds? Perhaps we didn’t meet a ghost today because you decided not to let it come through.”

“No,” I said. “She was gone.”

“Then why didn’t you just lie? Make something up?” She sounded very confused.

“Because I wouldn’t even know what to say,” I told her. “And I don’t want to lie!”

“Well, then, tell me one thing, Violet. What use are you to me if you cannot speak to all the dead, but just a select few? Why should I bother to keep you and your sister around if you cannot get rid of my ghosts or compensate me for my suffering? Why shouldn’t I just send you back and let Mr. Skye sort you out? You are likely to be separated, but that’s no skin off my nose.”

“You need the money,” I whispered, still not looking at her. This wasn’t a feeling. I knew it because Lily had told me.

I don’t know exactly what happened then, but the words worked like the tap of a magic wand, and Aunt Clara didn’t say any more after that.