The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (30 page)

“It's not a risk. Think about it. What more motivation could you possibly have? You'll be saving your mother's life—and mine. Two people you—” Nolan stops abruptly. “Two people you care about,” he finishes softly. “Anna's spirit too. That's three. Plus you'll know exactly when the demon takes full possession of Kat, because that's when she'll try to hurt me. It could work.” He looks up at Victoria, his dirty-blond hair mussed like a little kid's. “Ms. Wilde, what do you think?”

Nolan didn't ask what I think, but if he had, I'd say that if this is what my mentor had planned, then whoever and wherever he is, he is a big fat sicko.

“Please call me Victoria, Nolan.” She sits down in the chair across from us. “It's not ideal. But,” she adds slowly, “Nolan does have a point. Perhaps you're the kind of person whose strengths manifest only when faced with the proper motivation.”

“Perhaps,” I echo. “But we don't know for sure.”

“No,” Victoria agrees. “We don't.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Happy New Year

The morning of New Year's Eve
I have trouble getting dressed. I know, I know—it's the silliest of all possible problems I could have, considering the circumstances. Still, it's really frustrating me that there doesn't seem to be anything in my closet that's appropriate to wear to an exorcism.

Not that I have any clue what a person is actually
supposed
to wear to an exorcism—I don't think there's an etiquette guide to cover this particular event—but all my clothes are so brightly colored, and it seems like the kind of thing you should wear dark colors to. Like you're going to a funeral. Or robbing a house.

Or walking into battle.

I wish I had armor or camouflage, but I finally settle on the Levis I stole from Mom back in August and a navy blue top I found at my favorite thrift shop in Austin. It has tiny little white flowers embroidered on the cuffs of its long sleeves, but other than that, I think it is literally the darkest, plainest thing I own. Which feels like a kind of camouflage.

I slide Victoria's knife from its hiding place beneath Dr. Hoo's platform. Victoria made me take it home with me, just in case we were wrong about the whole midnight-on-New-Year's-Eve thing. But it still hasn't manifested itself into a powerful weapon that only a luiseach can wield. It's still just a knife.

Now I walk around my room with the knife in my hand, holding it out in front of me like it's a sword and I'm a master fencer. “En garde!” I shout to no one in particular.

I must look like a crazy person, swishing around the room with a knife. If Mom were to come in right now, surely she'd have me institutionalized.

But I know Mom won't come in. She hasn't stepped foot inside my room in weeks. Maybe she's forgotten that I live here.

I jab the knife once more, and I swear I hear a giggle coming from the air above me. “You better not be laughing at me!” I whisper up to Anna, but I can't help smiling a tiny smile myself. This morning we finished both our checkers game (she won) and our Monopoly game (I won).

Now that the fun is over, I say to her, “Let's hope your mom knows what she's talking about.”

Nolan comes over at 8 p.m., cradling a long, slim paper-bag-wrapped package in his arms. “For you.” He holds it out in front of him.

I peek inside. “Fireworks?”

“It
is
New Year's Eve,” he answers, a mix of nerves and hope in his voice. “If all goes well, we're going to have more than one reason to celebrate after midnight.”

I try to smile back at him, but my mouth won't cooperate.
Maybe after tonight I'll never actually smile again. If I fail, what would I have to smile about, with my mother gone and forgotten?

“That's awfully optimistic of you,” I finally manage to say.

“What can I say? I believe in you.”

I blush under his gaze, and he follows me into the kitchen, where I place the fireworks gingerly on the counter.

“And one more thing—” he adds, taking off his grandfather's jacket. “For luck.” He slips his arms from the sleeves. He's wearing a dark green, long-sleeved shirt underneath, jeans, and beat-up brown boots. He holds the jacket out to me, and when I don't take it, he lifts it onto my shoulders. It feels so right that suddenly I know why I had so much trouble getting dressed this morning: I was waiting to put this on.

“For luck,” I agree, sliding my arms into the sleeves. The jacket feels familiar, like I'm the one who's been wearing it every day for the past nine months, not Nolan.

“Here,” Nolan says, reaching over to roll the cuffs past my wrists. “We wouldn't want to risk—” He cuts himself off.

“Risk what? That my hands would get lost in the too-long sleeves and I wouldn't be able to wield my mystical magical weapon like I'm supposed to?”

Nolan doesn't answer, intent on pushing the sleeves up my arms. There are already so many unpleasant sensations floating around my body—knots in my stomach, dry mouth, sweaty palms—that for once his touch hardly makes much difference.

“Aren't you scared?” I ask softly.

“Of course,” Nolan answers.

“You don't look scared.”

Nolan looks up at me and smiles. “I've got a pretty good poker face.”

I shake my head. If I fail, Nolan could end up like Anna—not just dead, but his spirit tethered to the demon, trapped in a world of torment, at risk of being forgotten forever.

I take a deep breath and say, “Promise me you'll run, if things start to look bad. If it looks like I'm going to fail, just get out of here, as quickly as you can. Before the demon can—” The lump in my throat makes it impossible to say the word
kill.
Instead, I say, “Before it can hurt you.”

“I'm not going to leave you—”

“Just promise. Please.”

“Okay,” Nolan finally says, nodding. “I promise.”

He follows me into the living room, where Mom is sitting in a chair across from the TV like a zombie. (I wonder if zombies are real too. I'll have to ask Victoria when all of this is over.) Mom barely acknowledges Nolan's presence, though he politely says, “Hello Ms. Griffith.” I wonder whether she even remembers that she told him to call her that. She's wearing black jeans and a charcoal gray sweater, like maybe I'm not the only one who thought dark colors were the most appropriate wardrobe for tonight.

Victoria arrives at nine, dressed in her usual dark, long witchy clothes. When I open the door to let her in, I hear thunder rumbling in the distance. Still, I think it might actually be warmer outside than it is inside. At least for me.

“We're just sitting in the living room, watching the clock.” I gesture for her to follow me into the next room. But when I turn around, Mom is standing behind us, blocking the way. She barely moved when Nolan got here. Why does she care now that Victoria is here?

“Mom,” I say, trying to sound like this isn't the single weirdest night of my life, “This is my . . .” I don't know what to
call her. My friend? My teacher? My nonmentor? Finally I say, “This is Victoria Wilde. She's from our school.”

Another rumble of thunder. Rain begins splashing against the windows and the roof.

Mom narrows her eyes. “Have we met?” she asks, holding her hand out to shake Victoria's.

“Not exactly,” Victoria answers with a trembling smile. It takes me a second to understand what she means. My mother has never met Victoria, but the demon living inside of her has.

Victoria takes my mother's hand and pumps it up and down enthusiastically. When she finally releases her I see that the edges of her long-sleeved sweater are wet where my mother touched it.

Where the demon touched it.

Mom leads the way back into the living room. On TV the ball is dropping in New York City; there, it's already midnight.

Here the seconds tick by. I sit in the center of the sofa, Nolan and Victoria on either side of me, like I'm the meat in the middle of a luiseach sandwich. I'm sitting on the knife. Whenever whatever is going to happen begins, I'll reach for it and hope it does whatever it's supposed to do.

“How will we know when it's time?” I whisper to Victoria, my mouth so dry that I can barely get the words out. I cough.

“Believe me,” Victoria says. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “You'll know.”

I can feel the cold of the blade through my jeans.

At 11:48 p.m. Mom stands. In unison, like we're performing some kind of carefully choreographed dance, Nolan, Victoria, and I stand and turn. We watch her go into the next room.

“Should I follow her?” I whisper. Victoria nods anxiously. I slip the knife into my back pocket, blade down, so that the end is sticking halfway out, and I follow my mother into the kitchen.

“Whatcha doing?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

“I thought I'd make some popcorn for you and your friends,” Mom says brightly. She doesn't bother turning on the lights as she reaches into the pantry.

“That's nice,” I answer. Mom walks around the countertop island in the center of the kitchen and puts a packet of popcorn into the microwave; the machine lights up and hums when she turns it on. The sound of kernels popping fills the room.

Pop-pop. Pop-pop.

“Why don't you go sit down with your friends?” Mom says. “I'll bring it out when it's ready.”

“It's okay, I don't mind waiting.” A fake sort of buttery smell wafts from the microwave. Normally it'd make my mouth water, but tonight my throat is dry.

Pop-pop. Pop-pop.

“Sunshine, really, don't be silly. Go into the other room.” Mom leans back against the kitchen sink and the water begins running. The sink doesn't drain; instead, it fills up. Like a small steel bathtub. “Your friend Nolan can help me,” she adds, her eyes gazing past me, focusing on something behind me.

I turn around and see Victoria and Nolan, hovering in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, watching us. Hanging on every word. Mom locks eyes with Nolan, the demon's intended victim.

Victoria shakes her head slowly, keeping her eyes focused on Mom. Her way of telling me:
Don't take your eyes off her.

The microwave beeps. The popcorn is finished. But neither Mom nor I make a move to get it out. The machine beeps again,
reminding us that our food is ready. The buttery smell shifts; now it smells like something is burning. Water begins flowing over the edge of the sink.

What happens next, happens so fast that later, I won't be sure how it happens at all.

Nolan is next to my mother on the other side of the counter. Mom's arms are wrapped around him. Her eyes don't look like her eyes at all; instead of almost gray, they're dark black, so that the iris is indistinguishable from the pupils. Her hair is suddenly completely soaking wet.

Nolan is several inches taller than Mom, but she's holding him from behind with just one arm. He's struggling against her, but he can't seem to get free. She presses his head toward the sink, his face hovering just inches above the water.

I guess this is what Victoria meant when she said I'd know when it started.

I reach for the knife, but my hands are shaking so hard that I can barely wrap my fingers around it. My muscles are about as useful as a bowl of Jell-O. I manage to hold the blade out in front of me, but it still looks like just a rusty old knife. Mom lowers Nolan's face into the sink. He struggles against her hold, water splashing up and drenching the countertop, but he's no match for her strength.

“Come on!” I shout at the ceiling, at the luiseach gods or my mentor or whoever is in charge of all this. I stare at the knife and beg, “Manifest already!” My hand is shaking so hard that I'm scared I'm going to drop it.

“Don't let go, Sunshine!” Victoria shouts from the doorway. Mom turns her eyes from me to Victoria, like she's noticing the other woman's presence in our house for the first time.

Mom smiles, but her smile doesn't look like any smile I've ever seen on her face before. In fact, it doesn't look like a smile at all; smiles are warm, friendly, joyous—this is something else entirely. Her teeth are inhumanly white, practically glowing in the dark of the kitchen. Water drips out of her open mouth. Her eyes have turned an eerie sort of blue, like they're not eyes at all but rather tiny swimming pools.

She lifts Nolan's head from the sink and smashes his skull against the counter. She releases him and he falls to the ground, unconscious. The mildew smell is so strong that I think I will choke on it.

“Nolan!” I scream. I drop to the floor and crawl around the island, crouch over his body. Oscar appears at my side and starts licking Nolan's face, a dog's version of CPR. I can hear Lex mewing from the countertop above us.

I put the knife down beside Nolan and lean down over my friend. I can feel his breath on my face—at least he's still breathing. For once, being this close to him doesn't make my skin crawl. Blood pours out of a gash in his forehead. He couldn't run away now if he wanted to.