Ruined 2 - Dark Souls (9 page)

At the rehearsal in Victory Hall, Miranda couldn’t focus on the music. It was all too stop-and-start anyway, because Peggy wanted the musicians and singers to keep going over certain things, and the high-pitched laugh of the woman playing the First Witch grated on Miranda’s nerves. The hall itself was dusty and cold. Rob sat three seats away, looking grumpy. Miranda wasn’t sure if he was still mad at her or if he was just annoyed to be away from Sally for five minutes. She knew he was planning to spend the rest of the afternoon “helping” at the White Boar, so at least she’d be free to meet Nick later on without any interference.

She had some time between the rehearsal and her appointment — going to see a guy nailed to a door a thousand years ago was hardly a
date
— with Nick. Miranda didn’t feel like doing anything, not reading, not sleeping, not sightseeing, not shopping. She marched down Goodramgate to Monk Bar at a quarter to six, hoping that Nick might arrive early as well. Six thirty was her curfew: That didn’t give them much time.

Tonight, Miranda was determined to ask questions. Nick might look “totally weird,” as Rob insisted, and he might be kind of spiky and intense sometimes, but unlike everybody else, he told the truth. Miranda wasn’t sure how she felt about him, exactly. She wished he was as handsome as the guy in the attic window, and as … what was the word?
Charismatic,
maybe. But she and Nick had
some kind of bond, a shared experience of death and sadness and ghosts. He’d never met anyone he could talk to about this; that’s what he’d told her. What they had wasn’t quite friendship and it wasn’t quite romance. It was something more unique. Like a conspiracy.

At Monk Bar, Miranda paced around, uncertain of where to wait. Nick made a big thing about seeing her first, and he was right: She never managed to spot him, even though he had such a distinctive look. But just before six, when someone on the other side of the street called her name, Miranda wasn’t relieved or excited. Her heart sank.

It wasn’t Nick. It was her father.

S
uch excellent timing,” Jeff said, helping himself to more rice. “I left the museum, walked down the stairs, and there was Miranda waiting for me.”

“That was very nice of you.” Peggy smiled at Miranda across the table. They’d been seated in the window because they were the first diners of the evening. The restaurant, the Rajah, was small, its walls swathed with vibrant red and pink saris and hung with gilt-flecked paintings of bejeweled women riding elephants. It looked, Jeff had whispered, like the inside of the bottle in
I Dream of Jeannie.
“You know how your father tends to get lost.”

Miranda couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t a lie, so she tore off a chunk of naan bread, dunked it into the lurid orange sauce of her chicken tikka, and stuffed it in her mouth. Of course, she’d forgotten completely that the Richard III Museum was in Monk Bar. She hadn’t thought for a moment that her father would
be leaving his “drinks thing,” as he called it, just as she was about to meet Nick.

Nick. Miranda hoped he wasn’t angry with her for standing him up. What else could she have done once her father had spotted her? The whole thing was so, so annoying. Maybe she’d never see Nick again now. Wondering if that awkward encounter outside the secondhand store would be their last meeting made Miranda feel miserable.

Luckily, nobody expected her to say much at dinner. Her mother was talking about how well rehearsals had gone today, and her father had various bad impersonations of museum workers to inflict on them. Between enormous greedy mouthfuls of lamb vindaloo, Rob was droning on about everything he was learning at the White Boar Inn, and how Sally’s father had even entrusted him with a key to the cellar. That morning, Peggy had been telling Rob not to spend all his time there, but now she and Jeff seemed delighted to hear all of Rob’s dull stories. Miranda noticed the significant looks her parents exchanged now and then, and she realized what was going on in the collective mind of the Parental Unit. After months of moping — depression, probably — Rob was suddenly a grinning chatterbox.
Look how happy Rob is,
they were thinking.
This is such a positive experience for him. He’s getting over the accident at long last.

That didn’t mean her parents would be thrilled about
her
choice of activity in York. That conversation would be a different story. “Mom, Dad, I’ve met this guy. His
brother committed suicide. He was a teenage runaway and he’s as pale as a vampire. And guess what: He can see ghosts, just like me! Yesterday we jumped off the city walls and climbed fences so we could break into a building site and listen to the ghosts of Roman soldiers. And today I was planning to meet him again on the down-low so I could see the ghost of someone nailed to a door by the Vikings.”

Yup. That conversation was a total non-starter.

The thing was, Nick’s story was way too complex to even begin to discuss. He wasn’t just a high-school-dropout Goth. The little pieces that Miranda had learned so far were sad and odd, like his brother dying young in that terrible way, and being refused a funeral in the Minster, or Nick running away from home and losing all contact with his parents. There were so many things she
didn’t
know, of course. Why had he come back to York now? Why was he staying for such a short time? What had drawn Nick back to the place he’d grown up, and what was driving him away, Miranda didn’t know. He made her feel nervous, even a little afraid, though he hadn’t done anything to put her in danger. Not yet, anyway. He seemed to be in control of all these ghost encounters, not scared and confused the way she was. Why he was offering to show her things … well, that was another mystery. Maybe he was lonely, she thought. Maybe he couldn’t talk to his Goth friends about his “gift,” just as she couldn’t fathom discussing it with Bea or Cami or any of the kids at school. Perhaps he’d tried to tell someone about what
he could see, the way she’d tried to tell Rob yesterday, and they just didn’t want to know.

“So, what else did you do today?” Peggy was asking, and Miranda struggled to find something plausible to say. Rob looking at her in a mean and suspicious way didn’t help.

“Mainly … um, wandering around,” she said, trying to be as vague as possible.

“Any shopping?”

“We did some shopping this morning,” Rob said. He looked straight at Miranda. “In a secondhand store, near that hall place where you were rehearsing.”

Miranda glared at him. He better not say anything about bumping into Nick. She would never forgive him. Nick was
her
secret. The second her parents found out she’d made friends with the Earl of Emo, as Rob called him, she’d probably be forced to spend every day page-turning for one of the singers or doing archival research for her father. She fixed her most steely gaze on Rob, willing him to shut up.

“It was pretty lame,” he said at last, reaching for what was left of Miranda’s naan bread. “Hey, does anyone want the rest of that chicken thing? I’m starving.”

According to Miranda’s cell phone, it was just after three in the morning. She’d woken up feeling a little sick — too much rich Indian food, she thought ruefully. In Iowa right now, it would be only nine in the evening.
If she could send texts, she could see what the girls were doing, maybe. But her phone couldn’t send anything to the U.S. or receive anything, either, as she and Rob had discovered in Manchester airport. And anyway, what would the girls back home have to say? What happened on
Glee
that night, maybe. Who was and wasn’t going to Matt Angeli’s holiday party. Nothing that meant anything. Everything back home seemed more than thousands of miles away: It felt totally irrelevant.

The attic bedroom was stuffy and too hot. Miranda kicked off her quilt, swung her legs out of bed and padded over to the window. She pulled back a curtain and peered out. Nothing but silence and darkness. The Christmas streetlights were out, and no stars were visible. In the attic across the street, Miranda couldn’t make out anything in the room beyond the window. It was just too dark.

She moved to twitch the curtain back into place, but something stopped her. A light flickering — the tiniest light. A candle.

The ghost was there.

Miranda froze, still clutching one of the curtains. He looked even more breathtaking this time, his face like chiseled marble. She was staring at him, she knew, but it was like staring at someone up on the screen of a movie theater. He was an idol, someone to gawk at, to admire. What he was thinking when he looked at
her,
Miranda wasn’t sure. She was just a teenage girl wearing pajamas from the Garnet Hill catalog, her auburn hair messy and
her eyes crusted with sleep. But there was something about his intense gaze that made her feel special. Picked out in some way. Only a few people could see ghosts: That was what Nick had said. The way this ghost looked at her — it was as though there was something between them. As though he
knew
her.

The ghost held up his right hand, just as he had last time, and a burst of cold, an injection of it, seemed to pierce her through the glass. Miranda pressed her own hand against the window. She knew what to expect now, the surge of cold playing through her veins, from her fingertips to her toes. And this time she wasn’t overwhelmed by shock; she had enough sense to notice details about the ghost. The sleeves of his shirt drooped, like a pirate’s shirt. She’d thought his fingers were dirty, but it was really just his fingertips, as though he’d been dipping them in something like ink — or blood. The wound across his neck, clearly visible, was a purple line.

Tonight he wasn’t smiling at all, but his eyes were warm, velvety dark. Miranda wished there weren’t two closed windows — and a stretch of very cold open air — separating them. She wanted to talk to him, like she’d talked to that little girl ghost, Mary, in the street. Maybe, like Mary, he had something to tell her. She’d seen him three times now: That had to mean something. When she saw Nick again — if she saw Nick — she’d ask him.

The ghost opened his mouth. Was he trying to say something? Then the flame of the candle leapt, just for
an instant, and died. Everything was dark again — inside, outside. He was gone.

Miranda peeled her hand off the glass and staggered back to bed. The sharp jolt of cold had stopped as soon as the candle went out, but she still felt shivery. She pulled the quilt back up onto the bed and snuggled down, her heart racing. What was he going to say to her? What did he want her to know?

When she finally fell asleep, Miranda dreamed of walking along the city walls at dusk. Jenna was there, pleading with her to go on a double date with that cute Spanish exchange student, Alejandro. In the distance, the ghost watchman she and Nick had seen was pacing the battlements, holding a shining lantern. Miranda walked past Jenna, ignoring her pleas. All she wanted to do was get close to the ghost. As she grew closer, she could see that he was talking, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Press your hands down,” Nick’s voice told her, and the dream-Miranda dropped to her hands and knees. She was crawling along the stone walkway, the stones vibrating beneath the palms of her hands. The ghost wore a black coat, just like Nick’s. It flapped open in the wind, the long tails wafting with every step. When she got closer, she realized that the man walking toward her along the walls wasn’t the ghost at all. It was Nick, and he wasn’t smiling. He was angry.

Someone was banging on the door downstairs — banging, banging, banging. Then there were thudding
footsteps, and agitated voices. Miranda opened her eyes, still feeling groggy. She didn’t know if it was nighttime or morning, or if she was dreaming or awake. Her father was bellowing Rob’s name.

Miranda squinted at her cell phone: It read 7:53. Rob’s door squeaked open.

“What?” he called, sounding sleepy.

“Sally’s here,” Jeff shouted up the stairs.

Miranda groped around the floor for a sweater to pull over her pajamas. Why was Sally coming by so early in the morning? The White Boar Inn didn’t open for hours and hours, so they could hardly need Rob’s amateur services at this very minute.

In the hallway, she bumped into Rob, still in his usual sleep gear of boxer shorts and an Iowa Hawkeyes T-shirt. Miranda followed him down the stairs. Sally was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. Jeff and Peggy were both standing, looking very serious. When Rob approached Sally, she started crying.

“What is it?” he said, hurling himself at her feet, one protective arm thrown around the chair. Miranda stood on the landing, swallowing back panic. Something terrible must have happened.
No more accidents,
she prayed silently.
Please, no more accidents.

“There was a break-in at the pub,” Jeff explained. “The pub cellar. It was vandalized — that’s right, isn’t it, Sally?”

Sally nodded, brushing tears away.

“What do you mean, vandalized?” asked Rob.

“Everything thrown around,” Sally said, sniffing. “Barrels disconnected, beer poured everywhere. It’s just a mess.”

“But everyone’s okay?” Rob asked in a low voice, and Sally nodded again. Miranda exhaled, relieved that nobody seemed to have been hurt. “Just a break-in, right?”

“It wasn’t a break-in, though.” Sally looked up at Peggy and Jeff, her face pale and streaked with tears. “That’s the mystery. No sign of a forced entry at all, the police say.”

“The police?” Rob echoed.

“They’re over at the pub now. The door leading down there was locked, and the access in the alley — you know, the trapdoors. They were locked, too. Locked and bolted.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Peggy said, her voice anxious, glancing over at Jeff.

“I know,” Sally said. “That’s why they want to see Rob.”

“Me? Who wants to see me?”

“My parents. The police.” Sally looked as though she was about to cry again. “You’re the only other person with a key.”

“They didn’t think
I
did it?” Rob frowned. He stood up slowly.

“They don’t know what to think,” said Sally, her eyes welling up. “That’s why I got so angry, and then all upset. I’m so stupid — I know this crying doesn’t help. But it’s so unfair to blame you.”

“They’re
blaming
me?” Rob ran his hands through his hair. He looked like a cornered animal.

“Not blaming — that was the wrong word.”

“I’m sure they’re not blaming anyone.” Jeff sounded gruff. “But of course they want to talk to you, to see if you can help shed any light on all this. Sally, what about the employees who left last weekend? Maybe one of them still has a key.”

Sally shook her head.

“They handed them in. And anyway, Dad had the locks changed on Monday, just to be safe. That’s why nobody understands how this could have happened.”

“I’ll go talk to them now, if that’s what you want.” Rob looked at Sally, and she started to get up, pushing her chair back. “I just have to get dressed.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Jeff.

“Okay,” said Rob, and he bounded off up the stairs.

“I think I’ll go with you, too.” Peggy put down the coffee mug she’d been cradling throughout the conversation. “Rather than just stand around here worrying.”

“I’ll go get dressed, then,” said Miranda, turning on her heels.

“No need for you to come,” said her father.

“You’re staying here,” said her mother, practically at the same time.

“Why?” Miranda was indignant. Sally flashed her a sympathetic look.

“There’s no need to make a family excursion out of this,” said Peggy. “You can just stay here and have your breakfast. We’ll be back soon.”

“Very soon.” Jeff nodded. “Once we explain to Sally’s parents about Rob’s condition …”

“No!” Miranda was amazed at how quickly she’d reacted, and how loudly she’d shouted. Everyone looked at her. “I don’t think Rob would want you to … explain things. Or say … anything about … anything. You know.”

Sally looked completely befuddled. Miranda wondered if she should ask Sally to go wait outside in the street while she ordered her parents to keep their mouths shut about Rob’s claustrophobia. He would go nuts if he knew they’d breathed a word about it.