The Awakening (21 page)

As my tears begin to retreat, I reach over and turn on my white-noise machine. Natalie finishes up licking her back leg and then moves to my hand. The sandpapery scrape of her tongue against my fingers is oddly soothing.

Several moments later, I hear a whisper. So soft. So sweet. So caring.

"
I'm heeeeeeeeeeeeere...
"

"Emily? Is that you?"

"
Yesssssssssssssssss...
"

Lovely. Just what I need. Another ghost mucking around with me tonight.

Then I hear her distinct words through the white-noise maker.

"
I'm heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere ... for yooooooooooooou.
"

Yeah, whatever, ghost. "Not tonight, Emily. I've had a shitty day."

I roll over and pull my knees up to my chest. Eleanor meows and walks around to plop herself down around my head like some sort of live mouton. As her motorboat of a purr begins to lull me into a stupor, the tears begin to trickle again, warm and sticky on my pillow and leaving a wet spot. I don't care though.

I close my eyes tight, willing the fears, trepidation, and anxiety into a small corner pocket in the bottom of my stomach. There will surely be a nice ulcery hole there soon, in that place where all the pain goes.

I sigh.

I don't know what Emily the ghost wants from me. How can I help her when I can't even help myself?

Y
OU KNOW HOW
in all those teen movies, there's a point when the hero or heroine walks down the hall at school and all eyes seem to be on him or her? I always thought it was a device to have the audience focus on the character's accomplishment or achievement in the overall journey.

But shit like that really
does
happen in real life.

I'm not even kidding.

Celia and I are walking together to our lockers Monday on the way to lunch period, and I swear, it's like every pair of eyes at RHS is looking at
us.
Not in an outcast "oh my God what were you thinking wearing those jeans with that top" sort of way. They're checking us out in a kind of amazed awe.

"What's going on?" I whisper to Celia.

"Everyone knows," she says, barely moving her lips.

"Knows what?"

Sean "Okra" Carmickle limps down the hallway in front of us and stops. "Y'all got balls," he says.

Is this a good thing? "We do?"

"Yeah, I heard all about y'all going to the cemetery last night and ghost hunting like they do on those TV shows. Wow," he continues. "Never thought a bunch of girls would do something like that. Y'all a'ight."

Okra fist-bumps Celia, then me, and hobbles off to his next class.

"How did he know? How does everyone know?" I ask, looking about.

"Welcome to small-town living," Celia says. "You think in a city where people chase the fire truck that folks wouldn't find out about a bunch of teenagers sneaking into the cemetery to ghost hunt?"

"Hmmm, I never thought about it," I say.

Girls I don't even know nod as we pass. Guys I've never seen check us out and smile.

I hear the padding of sneakers on the floor approaching us and have a feeling who it is.

"Hey, Celia!"

"Hey, Clay," she mutters without looking up.

"You're Kendall, right? I'm Clay Price," he says, extending his hand to me in a polite way.

"Yeah, Kendall Moorehead. Nice to meet you."

"I know all about you," he says with a wide, perfect smile. "I heard y'all scaled the fence at the cemetery last night and had a'séance right there in the middle until the police showed up."

"Not exactly!" Celia snaps. "We were just ghost hunting and Kendall made contact with a spirit."

"Several," I correct.

"That's awesome," he says. "Can I go next time?"

Celia's cheeks stain and she starts getting flustered. "Things aren't really set in stone for our team yet, you know, and we're still trying to get all of the aspects of a proper ghost-hunting unit together. Right now, it's an all-female team and we may not have anything for you to do and—"

Clay laughs. "A simple
no
would suffice, Celia." He winks and then heads off. "Catch ya later."

My mouth falls open. "Why'd you do that?"

"We don't need him tagging along."

"Celia! It's obvious he's crazy about you."

"Which is exactly
why
I don't want him ghost hunting with us. Guys will just distract us from our investigations."

I chuckle deep in my throat. "Whatever you say, Cap'n."

Taylor rushes up, nearly out of breath. Her high ponytail swings vigorously as she weaves through the throng of students.

"Watch it!" a guy shouts out. "You'll put someone's eye out with that thing!"

"Sorry!" she sings. "Celia! Kendall! I'm so glad I found you. We're all anyone can talk about today. Isn't it the most exciting thing ever?"

"It's something, all right," I say.

"Look," she says. "I got this text message last period."

We gather around Taylor's pink Razr phone: Cum c me @ lunch.

"Who's it from?" I ask.

Taylor snaps her phone shut. "Rebecca. Asiaf."

"No way!"

"Way!"

"What does she want?" Celia grimaces. "Didn't we get enough from Bulldozer Becca already?"

I pop my head back and belly laugh. "Bulldozer Becca? Oh, yeah, I see that."

Nearly sparkling, Taylor says, "She may be coming around."

So we stash our books in our respective lockers and head toward the caf. My stomach is growling something fierce from missing breakfast this morning. I was too hung over from crying myself to sleep. And I didn't want to face my parents. I was grounded. What else was there to say or do? Barely in my new town for a full month and I am forbidden to do anything. My whole life in Chicago, I never had any problems. Then I move here, and all hell busts loose. It's not like I can hone my skills if I can't talk to Loreen. I bet if I try Googling
ghost hunting
or
psychics,
a red light and alarm will go off somewhere in the house, alerting my mother to my further "dabbling." This is no way to live. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

At the lunch counter, I pile fried chicken, green beans, mac 'n' cheese, and something called pear salad—a pear half with a dollop of mayonnaise and shredded cheddar on top of it—on my tray and follow Taylor and Celia to our table over by the window. The lunchtime music mix is playing out, so I know Rebecca Asiaf is around.

I'm halfway through my finger-licking chicken breast (and totally through with the ridiculously yummy pear salad) when I sense someone approaching our table. Instead of turning around, I return the forkful of chicken to my plate and wait for Rebecca to speak.

"Yo, Tillson. I told you to come see me when you got here."

"Oh, hey, Rebecca," Taylor says, all nice and friendly. "We were just eating first. Music sounds great today, as per usual."

Rebecca swings a booted foot over the bench and sits next to Taylor. She peers out at me through her dark, black-lined eyes and purses her blood-red lips. Most people going for the Goth look seem a little silly to me, like they're playing dress-up. Not Rebecca. The fashion suits her and makes it hard for me to believe that she used to do beauty pageants only a couple of years ago.

"Thanks," she says. "It's a Dirty South mix."

Celia pipes up bravely, and I want to give her props for being so assertive."What did you want to see us about, Rebecca?"

I focus on the hoop in Rebecca's lower lip and how the silver shimmers in the afternoon sunlight that's streaming in the window. She lifts her eyes and leans back a bit.

"Well, I felt compelled to tell you that I'm impressed."

Celia's brow shoots up. "You are? With us?"

"Us Barbies?" Taylor says a bit sarcastically.

I take another bite of my chicken to have something to do. (And to keep from saying something I shouldn't to this girl. Like, I know her home life is total crap.)

"What can I say? I was wrong, okay? When I'm wrong, I say it." Rebecca nods her head. "I'm completely blown away that you did what you did last night. Barbies don't put themselves out there for what they believe in like you did."

Wow.

I swallow the dry chicken. "Geez, thanks, Rebecca."

"Becca," she says. "To my friends, that is." She extends her hand, nails painted black and a skull-and-crossbones ring on her middle finger.
The better to flip you off, my dear
. "I'd like to be friends. 'Kay?"

I put out my own hand and shake. "I'd like that."

"And I'd like to join your group. You know, in your ghost hunting. It sounds pretty intense."

"All
right!
" Celia shouts out. She and Taylor high-five and then Taylor leans over and awkwardly squeezes Becca to her.

"This will be so awesome!" Taylor says.

I get the feeling Becca hasn't really belonged to anything in a while, so this may be a good thing for her. At least, my instincts tell me so. "Thanks, Becca. You won't regret this."

Celia pulls out her notebook and starts explaining. "See, Kendall has a ghost in her house that we think might be a threat to her family. There's also something going on at Mr. Moorehead's office and we don't know if it's the same entity following him to work or if there's something else there. We've taken a lot of pictures and have gotten some ectoplasm mist to show up in the digitals, but what we really want to concentrate on is the EVP work because the voice is not only coming through the white-noise machine in Kendall's bedroom, it's also in some digital recordings."

I can see Becca's dark green eyes begin to enlarge with the information overload. Celia must pick up on it too, because she says, "Don't worry, I'll teach you what all the acronyms stand for. Basically, what you'll be doing is heading up our EVP—electronic voice phenomenon—branch of the group. For that we really need someone who specializes in recording equipment and someone who can manipulate the sound data using the software I've got on my—"

A realization rushes in hard to my brain and I slam my fist to the table. "Damn it!"

Jumping at the sound, Celia says, "What? Did I tell too much?"

"No, I'm sorry, Celia. It's not you." I let out a long sigh and feel my psychic headache starting to come on. Or maybe it's just the residual pounding from last night's cry-fest. "It's just that now that everything's falling into place, I can't do anything because I'm grounded."

"You're grounded? For what? Last night?" Celia asks.

"Yeah. Busted."

"That's jank," Celia says with a strong sigh.

Becca frowns. "So you're not ghost hunting anymore?"

I bite my bottom lip. "I'm not allowed out of the house other than for school activities. I can't go over to Celia's or Taylor's, and I'm forbidden to see Loreen."

Taylor reaches over and pats the top of my hand. "We'll all go over and talk to your mom, sweetie. It'll be okay."

I shake my head.

Becca clicks her tongue. "I gotta get back over to the boards. Look, keep me posted. If you're hunting and need me on the team, I'm there. Just let me know."

"Thanks, Becca, you're the best," Taylor says, ever happy and jovial, no matter the challenge.

"We'll do all we can until your parents come around," Celia assures me. "Maybe we can show them some of the evidence we've collected?"

Head in hands, I say, "That'll only make things worse. Mom's kind of religious and none of this sits right with her. She's not going to let me off the hook from last night. She thinks we were careless and acting in a dangerous manner. It doesn't help that she holds Loreen responsible for what happened to me. Mom thinks she's bewitched me or something."

Celia fingers her bangs while she thinks. "Well, I'm still testing out equipment and getting our notes and stuff organized. Taylor and I can archive the photos and tag them, and then when your folks let you out again..." She trails off. Then she glances over my shoulder and quickly moves her eyes to her food.

"Hey, y'all," I hear next to me.

Taylor's perkiness fades and she glowers. "Jason." I watch her toy with a bite of her green beans. She pops in a mouthful and then says through clenched teeth, "What have I done wrong now? I'm eating vegetables. One of the essential food groups. I don't see how that can cause you to come over and correct me."

He drops his head down and then reaches up with his hand to scruff at his short gold hair. "Taylor, I told you last night I was sorry. We'll talk later, okay?"

"Whatever, Mr. Bossy McBosserton."

I stare at the mac 'n' cheese on my plate that's turning into something that resembles wallpaper paste. Or maybe that's just the way my tongue feels as I sit here and await the next wave of attack from Jason.

"You mind if I talk to Kendall for a mo'?"

Celia glances at me and I nod that I'm okay. She scooches her tray out of the way and into her hands. Taylor joins her, and suddenly, I'm left alone with Jason and his clear blue eyes.

I place a forkful of the cheesy noodles into my mouth and chew slowly. If I'm eating, then I'm less likely to tell him to go screw. Sad. My dreams and visions showed us being so close, not butting heads like this.

"Look," he says. He stops and puts his hands one on top of the other on the table. "I'm an asshole, okay?"

I can't help but laugh. "No argument there, skippy."

He seems flustered. "I'm trying to apologize here."

"Then stop being so judgmental—especially about me. You know nothing about me."

"I know."

"And you're always acting like an adult. Like a parent. Like
my
parent. Hell, I come to school and hang with my friends to get away from adults who are always telling me what to do. But there you are to pick up the slack."

"I know."

I flail my arms about to make my point. "You're sixteen, Jason. Just like me. Just like Taylor. Just like Celia."

He reaches out and nabs my wrists in his large hands. Lightning bolts shoot up my arms, down my torso, and go rapid-fire down my legs, like my entire circulatory system has been seared from the inside. "Kendall. I said I'm sorry. Okay?"