Ninth Key (6 page)

Later, after dinner, kickboxing, and homework, a quesadilla congealing in my stomach, I decided, despite my dad’s warning, to try to tackle the Red problem one last time before bed. I had gotten Tad Beaumont’s home phone number — which was unlisted, of course — in the most devious way possible: from Kelly Prescott’s cell phone, which I had borrowed during our student council meeting on the pretense of calling for an update on the repairs of Father Serra’s statue. Kelly’s cell phone, I’d noticed at the time, had an address book function, and I’d snagged Tad’s phone number from it before handing it back to her.

Hey, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

I had forgotten to take into account, of course, the fact that Tad, and not his father, might be the one to pick up the phone. Which he did after the second ring.

“Hello?” he said.

I recognized his voice instantly. It was the same soft voice that had stroked my cheek at the pool party.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I panicked. I did what any red-blooded American girl would do under similar circumstances.

I hung up.

Of course, I didn’t realize he had caller ID. So when the phone rang a few seconds later, I assumed it was CeeCee, who’d promised to call with the answers to our geometry homework — I’d fallen a little behind, what with all the mediating I’d been doing…not that that was the excuse I’d given CeeCee, of course — so I picked up.

“Hello?” that same, soft voice said into my ear. “Did you just call me?”

I said a bunch of swear words real fast in my head. Aloud, I only said, “Uh. Maybe. By mistake, though. Sorry.”

“Wait.” I don’t know how he’d known I’d been about to hang up. “You sound familiar. Do I know you? My name is Tad. Tad Beaumont.”

“Nope,” I said. “Doesn’t ring a bell. Gotta go, sorry.”

I hung up and said a bunch more swear words, this time out loud. Why, when I’d had him on the phone, hadn’t I asked to speak to his father? Why was I such a loser? Father Dom was right. I was a failure as a mediator. A big-time failure. I could exorcise evil spirits, no problem. But when it came to dealing with the living, I was the world’s biggest flop.

This fact was drilled into my head even harder when, about four hours later, I was wakened once again by a blood-curdling shriek.

I sat up, fully awake at once.

She was back.

She was even more upset than she’d been the night before. I had to wait a really long time before she calmed down enough to talk to me.

“Why?”
she asked, when she’d stopped screaming. “Why didn’t you
tell
him?”

“Look,” I said, trying to use a soothing voice, the way Father Dom would have wanted me to. “I tried, okay? The guy’s not the easiest person to get hold of. I’ll get him tomorrow, I promise.”

She had kind of slumped down onto her knees. “He blames himself,” she said. “He blames himself for my death. But it wasn’t his fault. You’ve got to tell him.
Please
.”

Her voice cracked horribly on the word
please.
She was a wreck. I mean, I’ve seen some messed-up ghosts in my time, but this one took the cake, let me tell you. I swear, it was like having Meryl Streep put on that big crying scene from
Sophie’s Choice
live on your bedroom carpet.

“Look, lady…” I said. Soothing, I reminded myself. Soothing.

There isn’t anything real soothing about calling somebody
lady,
though. So, remembering how Jesse had been kind of mad at me before for not getting her name, I went, “Hey. What’s your name, anyway?”

Sniffling, she just went, “Please. You’ve got to tell him.”

“I said I’d do it.” Jeez, what’d she think I was running here? Some kind of amateur operation? “Give me a chance, will you? These things are kind of delicate, you know. I can’t just go blurting it out. Do you want that?”

“Oh, God, no,” she said, lifting a knuckle to her mouth, and chewing on it. “No, please.”

“Okay, then. Chill out a little. Now tell me —”

But she was already gone.

A split second later, though, Jesse showed up. He was applauding softly as if he were at the theater.

“Now that,” he said, putting his hands down, “was your finest performance yet. You seemed caring, yet disgusted.”

I glared at him. “Don’t you,” I asked, grumpily, “have some chains you’re supposed to be rattling somewhere?”

He sauntered over to my bed and sat down on it. I had to jerk my feet over to keep him from squashing them.

“Don’t you,” he countered, “have something you want to tell me?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s two o’clock in the morning, Jesse. The only thing I’ve got on my mind right now is sleep. You remember sleep, right?”

Jesse ignored me. He does that a lot. “I had a visitor of my own not too long ago. I believe you know him. A Mr. Peter Simon.”

“Oh,” I said.

And then — I don’t know why — I flopped back down and pulled a pillow over my head.

“I don’t want to hear about it,” I said, my voice muffled beneath the pillow.

The next thing I knew, the pillow had flown out of my hands — even though I’d been clenching it pretty tightly — and slammed down to the floor. As hard as a pillow can slam, anyway, which isn’t very hard.

I lay where I was, blinking in the darkness. Jesse hadn’t moved an inch. That’s the thing about ghosts, see. They can move stuff — pretty much anything they want — without lifting a finger. They do it with their minds. It’s pretty creepy.

“What?”
I demanded, my voice squeakier than ever.

“I want to know why you told your father that there’s a man living in your bedroom.”

Jesse looked mad. For a ghost, he’s actually pretty even-tempered, so when he gets mad, it’s really obvious. For one thing, things around him start shaking. For another, the scar in his right eyebrow turns white.

Things weren’t shaking right then, but the scar was practically glowing in the dark.

“Uh,” I said. “Actually, Jesse, there
is
a guy living in my bedroom, remember?”

“Yes, but —” Jesse got up off the bed and started pacing around. “But I’m not really
living
here.”

“Well,” I said. “Only because technically, Jesse, you’re dead.”

“I
know
that.” Jesse ran a hand through his hair in a frustrated sort of way. Have I mentioned that Jesse has really nice hair? It’s black and short and looks sort of crisp, if you know what I mean. “What I don’t understand is why you told him about me. I didn’t know it bothered you that much, my being here.”

The truth is, it doesn’t. Bother me, I mean. It used to, but that was before Jesse had saved my life a couple of times. After that, I sort of got over it.

Except it does bother me when he borrows my CDs and doesn’t put them back in the right order when he’s done with them.

“It doesn’t,” I said.

“It doesn’t what?”

“It doesn’t bother me that you live here.” I winced. Poor choice of words. “Well, not that you
live
here, since…I mean, it doesn’t bother me that you
stay
here. It’s just that —”

“It’s just that what?”

I said, all in a rush, before I could chicken out, “It’s just that I can’t help wondering
why
.”

“Why what?”

“Why you’ve stayed here so long.”

He just looked at me. Jesse has never told me anything about his death. He’s never told me anything, really, about his life before his death, either. Jesse isn’t what you’d call really communicative, even for a guy. I mean, if you take into consideration that he was born a hundred and fifty years before
Oprah
, and doesn’t know squat about the advantages of sharing his feelings, how not keeping things bottled up inside is actually good for you, this sort of makes sense.

On the other hand, I couldn’t help suspecting that Jesse was perfectly in touch with his emotions, and that he just didn’t feel like letting me in on them. What little I had found out about him — like his full name, for instance — had been from an old book Doc had scrounged up on the history of northern California. I had never really had the guts to ask Jesse about it. You know, about how he was supposed to marry his cousin, who it turned out loved someone else, and how Jesse had mysteriously disappeared on the way to their wedding ceremony….

It’s just not the kind of thing you can really bring up.

“Of course,” I said, after a short silence, during which it became clear that Jesse wasn’t going to tell me jack, “if you don’t want to discuss it, that’s okay. I would have hoped that we could have, you know, an open and honest relationship, but if that’s too much to ask —”

“What about you, Susannah?” he fired back at me. “Have you been open and honest with me? I don’t think so. Otherwise, why would your father come after me like he did?”

Shocked, I sat up a little straighter. “My dad came
after
you?”

Jesse said, sounding irritated,
“Nombre de Dios
, Susannah, what did you expect him to do? What kind of father would he be if he didn’t try to get rid of me?”

“Oh my God,” I said, completely mortified. “Jesse, I never said a word to him about you. I swear. He’s the one who brought you up. I guess he’s been spying on me or something.” This was a humiliating thing to have to admit. “So…what’d you do? When he came after you?”

Jesse shrugged. “What could I do? I tried to explain myself as best I could. After all, it’s not as if my intentions are dishonorable.”

Damn! Wait a minute, though
— “You have
intentions
?”

I know it’s pathetic, but at this point in my life, even hearing that the
ghost
of a guy might have intentions — even of the not dishonorable sort — was kind of cool. Well, what do you expect? I’m sixteen and no one’s ever asked me out. Give me a break, okay?

Besides, Jesse’s way hot, for a dead guy.

But unfortunately, his intentions toward me appeared to be nothing but platonic, if the fact that he picked up the pillow that he’d slammed onto the floor — with his hands this time — and smashed it in my face was any indication.

This did not seem like the kind of thing a guy who was madly in love with me would do.

“So what did my dad say?” I asked him when I’d pushed the pillow away. “I mean, after you reassured him that your intentions weren’t dishonorable?”

“Oh,” Jesse said, sitting back down on the bed. “After a while he calmed down. I like him, Susannah.”

I snorted. “Everybody does. Or did, back when he was alive.”

“He worries about you, you know,” Jesse said.

“He’s got way bigger things to worry about,” I muttered, “than me.”

Jesse blinked at me curiously. “Like what?”

“Gee, I don’t know. How about why he’s still here instead of wherever it is people are supposed to go after they die? That might be one suggestion, don’t you think?”

Jesse said, quietly, “How are you so sure this isn’t where he’s supposed to be, Susannah? Or me, for that matter?”

I glared at him. “Because it doesn’t work that way, Jesse. I may not know much about this mediation thing, but I do know that. This is the land of the living. You and my dad and that lady who was here a minute ago — you don’t belong here. The reason you’re stuck here is because something is wrong.”

“Ah,” he said. “I see.”

But he didn’t see. I knew he didn’t see.

“You can’t tell me you’re happy here,” I said. “You can’t tell me you’ve
liked
being trapped in this room for a hundred and fifty years.”

“It hasn’t been all bad,” he said with a smile. “Things have picked up recently.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. And since I was afraid my voice might get all squeaky again if I asked, I settled for saying, “Well, I’m sorry about my dad coming after you. I swear I didn’t tell him to.”

Jesse said softly, “It’s all right, Susannah. I like your father. And he only does it because he cares about you.”

“You think so?” I picked at the bedspread. “I wonder. I think he does it because he knows it annoys me.”

Jesse, who’d been watching me pull on a chenille ball, suddenly reached out and seized my fingers.

He’s not supposed to do that. Well, at least I’d been meaning to tell him he’s not supposed to do that. Maybe it had slipped my mind. But anyway, he’s not supposed to do that. Touch me, I mean.

See, even though Jesse’s a ghost, and can walk through walls and disappear and reappear at will, he’s still…well,
there.
To me, anyway. That’s what makes me — and Father Dom — different from everybody else. We not only can see and talk to ghosts, but we can feel them, too — just as if they were anybody else. Anybody alive, I mean. Because to me and Father Dom, ghosts
are
just like anyone else, with blood and guts and sweat and bad breath and whatever. The only real difference is that they kind of have this glow around them — an aura, I think it’s called.

Oh, and did I mention that a lot of them have superhuman strength? I usually forget to mention that. That’s how come, in my line of work, I frequently get the you-know-what knocked out of me. That’s also why it kind of freaks me out when one of them — like Jesse was doing just then — touches me, even in a nonaggressive way.

And I mean, seriously, just because, to me, ghosts are as real as, say, Tad Beaumont, that doesn’t mean I want to go around slow dancing with them or anything.

Well, okay, in Jesse’s case, I would, except how weird would that be to slow dance with a ghost? Come on. Nobody but me’d ever be able to see him. I’d be like, “Oh, let me introduce you to my boyfriend,” and there wouldn’t be anybody there. How embarrassing. Everyone would think I was making him up like that lady on that movie I saw once on the Lifetime channel who made up an extra kid.

Besides, I’m pretty sure Jesse doesn’t like me that way. You know, in the slow dancing way.

Which he unfortunately proved by flipping my hands over and holding them up to the moonlight.

“What’s wrong with your fingers?” he wanted to know.

I looked up at them. The rash was worse than ever. In the moonlight I looked deformed, like I had monster hands.