The Ghost and the Goth

12 Will

Normally, being trapped in the tiny, overheated, and infrequently used special ed room with Brewster coming in and out every ten minutes would have been a nightmare. Especially with Grandpa Brewster and the others knowing who I was and what they could do to get my attention. After the first fifteen minutes, I’d have been huddled under my desk, trying to protect myself from their shoves and pinches, and that would not have gone over well with Brewster.

But this morning … it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was quiet in the little room, which I suspected used to be a supply closet from the lack of windows and the holes in the wall where shelves used to be, and I was alone. Really and truly alone. Not a single ghost popped through to bitch and moan or try to trick me into talking.

Brewster stopped by midway through the morning and tossed Marcie at me. I probably should have been mad that he didn’t return her first thing, like he was supposed to. But no way was I using Marcie until I’d completely disinfected her headphones or bought new ones, and besides, I didn’t need the music. At times, the complete and utter silence around me actually made my ears ring. It was great. Whatever Alona was doing, it was working.

Then lunch happened.

Mrs. Piaget stopped by a little before noon. “I’ve got cafeteria duty today. Mr. Brewster is meeting with the superintendent at the regional office now, but he says you can come with me to get some food. You have to come back here to eat, though.” She gave me an apologetic smile.

“Okay.” I pushed back from my desk, stood up, and stretched. It felt good to be able to sit still and concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing instead of putting so much energy into blocking everything else out.

“You seem better today,” Mrs. Piaget said when I joined her in the main hallway.

“Not getting expelled really agrees with me.”

“I can see that,” she said with a startled laugh.

I followed her down the hall to the caf. Joonie, with her ratty old book bag strapped across her chest, waited right outside the doors, near the start of the serving line. She straightened up when she saw me, but her gaze flicked to Mrs. Piaget and she didn’t come any closer.

Mrs. Piaget hesitated and then turned to me. “Remember, food and then back to the room. Don’t give him any excuses.” No need to specify the “him” in this situation, I guess.

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Mrs. Piaget disappeared through the doors to the caf, and I approached Joonie. This close up, I could see something was clearly wrong. Purple shadows of exhaustion looked like bruises under her eyes, dark streaks of makeup were smeared on her cheeks, and one of the holes in her lip was empty and flaked with dried blood.

I resisted the urge to touch my own lip in reflexive sympathy. “What’s going on? Are you—”

From down the hall, a group of rowdy freshman surged toward us. Joonie grabbed my arm and yanked me into the caf, off to the side.

“They’re going to let her die.”

Who, the word came to the tip of my tongue, but I shut my mouth in time. I knew who, of course. “What are you talking about?”

She fiddled with the strap of her bag, plucking at one of the buttons she’d pinned to it. This one read, Let’s just say I have a problem with authority. It was a gift from Lily last year before everything went south.

“I went to visit Lily after school yesterday, and I heard some of the nurses talking.” She shifted her weight back and forth, pacing without taking a step. “It’s about her parents’ insurance or something. They’re going to take her feeding tube out and let her starve to death….” Her breath caught in her throat and she had to stop, choking on her emotion. “Or, they’re going to take her away, put her in some more permanent facility back in Indiana somewhere.”

I took an involuntary step back, her words like a slap out of nowhere. I knew, at some point, this day would come. I just hadn’t realized it would be today.

Her eyes welled with tears. “What are we going to do?”

Joonie and I had been there, visiting Lily, since the first day it was allowed. I’d touched her hand, seen her eyes. She was gone. The essence of whatever made Lily Lily had moved on a long time ago. She hadn’t even stuck around long enough to haunt her hospital room. Or the place where her car had crashed. I’d checked there, too. Just to be sure. So, there was nothing left to do. “Joonie, we can’t—” I tried.

“You don’t understand. It’s my fault she was there in the first place.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away.

“Why, because you guys had a fight months before and she stopped talking to us?”

I’d figured Joonie and Lily would work their issues out, and didn’t think a whole lot more about it. Until Joonie and I’d arrived for the first day of our senior year, Lily’s junior year, and watched as Lily, dressed in a short skirt and tottering unsteadily on high heels, clung to the fringes of the junior-class elite. She’d walked past us like she didn’t know us, her nose up in the air. Two and half weeks later, she’d lost control of her mom’s station wagon and wrapped it around a tree.

I shook my head. “J, don’t do this to yourself. You tried to apologize for whatever happened, and she wouldn’t listen. She chose to hang out with those people, and she chose to go to that party. We didn’t have anything to do with that.”

As I said it, I realized it was true. Maybe I could have changed things, maybe I could have saved her if I’d heard my phone that night. But she was the one who’d chosen to dump us as friends. All I’d done was miss a phone call from someone who hadn’t spoken to me in months. She didn’t even leave a message.

I felt lighter suddenly, relieved in some way. I would still have given anything to see Lily whole and healthy again, even if she didn’t want to be my friend. The fact that I wouldn’t, though, was not my fault. It was the combination of a hundred factors, only one of which — answering my phone — I’d had control over.

However, my words did not have the same effect on Joonie. “You don’t understand,” she said tonelessly, her eyes fixed on some invisible point in the distance.

I caught her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “You have to stop. This wasn’t your—”

It was at that exact moment I saw Alona on the stage, surrounded by every dead person I’d ever seen haunting the halls at Groundsboro High, and I knew I was in trouble.

First, if you’re wondering why our cafeteria has a stage, it’s the same reason we have cafeteria tables on different levels. Our cafeteria doubles as an auditorium, which some flipping genius dubbed a “cafetorium.” As you walk out of the lunch line, you’re on the same level as the stage but directly across the room from it. Then there are steps leading down to the various tiers of tables. Alona’s crowd, the so-called first tier, hang out, ironically enough, on the lowest level, what serves as the orchestra pit when the drama club decides to shed its student-written, angsty, and apocalyptic plays for the rare cheerful musical. It’s the farthest from teacher supervision, so no surprise in their choice there. From there, the level of popularity decreases as you go up. Joonie, Erickson, and I eat in the glass-enclosed courtyard when it’s nice enough, which puts us completely off the map as far as popularity is concerned. All the better.

But the stage … the stage was the holy grail for the first-tier crowd. Clearly, it was a position they felt should be theirs — sitting high above the disgustingly average crowd — but this was one benefit they were denied. Ever since some kid, no doubt a first tier, broke his leg jumping off the stage a few years ago, no one is allowed up there during lunch except the members of the drama club, and then only if they’re preparing for a production. This winter, everyone got high on the fumes when they painted sets for their spring production, Death and Sundaes. I have no idea what it was about, but it involved a lot of black-and-red painted sets and complaining from the first-tier girls when the occasional spatter came flying in their direction.

So, really, I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Alona had taken advantage of her invisible-to-most-of-the-world status to claim the stage for herself. Still, it was more than a little shocking to find her sitting on a barstool behind a section of what appeared to be a 1950s diner countertop (another prop … don’t ask, I have no idea how it relates to death or sundaes), taking what appeared to be notes while ghosts waited patiently in a long and winding line for their turn to speak with her individually.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

Joonie snapped out of it enough to look at me, really look at me. “Are you okay?” She rested her cool fingers on my arm. “You look like you’ve seen a—”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. Pulling away from her light grip on my arm, I started down the stairs, heading toward the stage. I won’t be as melodramatic as to say that the entire cafetorium noticed and held their collective breaths, but I did see heads turning. After all, I hadn’t been lower than the third tier since starting here almost four years ago. That was just like asking one of the first- or second-tier jocks to hit you, a fight you’d also be blamed for starting.

“Will, what are you doing?” Joonie’s loud whisper followed me down the stairs, but I didn’t turn back.

However, the second my foot touched down on the first-tier carpet, a ripple of noise and movement spread through the room, people turning to whisper and watch. Normal conversations died down until it grew quiet enough that I could have sworn I heard the rustle of the carpet fibers beneath my shoe when I took my first step.

Alona’s crowd did nothing at first but stare. After all, this was their inner sanctum; no one dared to knowingly trespass here, and those who found themselves here by some kind of accident or misunderstanding (new kid; geeky guy under the illusion that because Misty had asked to cheat off his chemistry test that he would be allowed to acknowledge her existence; the occasional utopian fool who thought that popular people “are just people too,” etc.) usually broke quickly under the weight of a nasty stare from so many perfect faces, and ran away. But not me, oh, not me.

I stayed away from Alona’s friends and edged closer to the table of junior-class elites, the second table pushed up against the stage. They still thought they were better than me, but they’d hesitate longer on starting a fight, waiting for the seniors to react first.

When close enough, I pulled the cell phone from my pocket. “What are you doing up there?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Who are your new friends?”

At first, I didn’t think it would work. How would Alona hear me, let alone know that I was talking to her? In this particular case, though, the ear-ringing silence that accompanied my approach into forbidden territory actually benefited me.

“Will?”

I heard her voice, but I dared not look up at the stage. At this angle, I’d look crazy, staring at nothing. Well, crazier.

Seconds later, her white gym shoes appeared, and she knelt down, her blond hair swinging over her shoulders, releasing that familiar, sweet, perfumey scent. “What are you doing down here?” She sounded perplexed. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“What am I doing? What are you doing?” I asked through clenched teeth. “You’ve got half the Groundsboro cemetery up there with you.”

She glanced back over her shoulder, as if she hadn’t been aware of this fact until I mentioned it. “Yeah, well, they just keep showing up. I think someone’s passing out flyers or something.” She laughed.

“Oh, ha, ha. It’s very funny. What are you doing up there?”

She shrugged. “Taking notes. As your spirit guide, it’s my job to—”

“As my what?” This time, I couldn’t help but stare up at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Your spirit guide. You know, someone who helps you work with the spirits.” She paused thoughtfully. “I’m kind of like your manager.”

“My what?” I said weakly. I couldn’t seem to stop repeating myself.

“Manager. You know, like you’re the talent and I’m the one who hooks you up with the people who need you. Besides, it keeps them quiet”—she jerked her head toward the ghosts behind her—“if they think someone is listening, and it gives me a chance to do something nice, right?” She shifted slightly to stare at someone or something over my right shoulder.

“But I—” I didn’t even know where to begin.

“Oh, heads up. Nine o’clock. You’re about to get your face beat in.” She turned her head and gave me a sunny smile. “See, I’m being helpful already.”

I started to turn to my left, but then, remembering Alona’s previous difficulty with the clock concept when facing me, I turned to the right instead — three o’clock — to find Chris Zebrowski and Ben Rogers approaching.

“If you get out of here right now, they’ll probably leave you alone.” Alona pushed herself back up to her feet.

“Wait,” I said.

“I can’t. Do you see how long this line is?” She rolled her eyes with a sigh. “I’m going to be here all day.” She shook her head and started back toward her position at the counter.

“Alona,” I whispered as loudly as I dared. Nothing like shouting a dead cheerleader’s name in the middle of the cafeteria to get people to stare at you. Not that I needed the help.

“What’s up, Will Kill? You lost?” Ben Rogers’s oily voice came from behind me.

I turned to find him and Chris behind me, ready to face off. Ben had his hands in his pocket, a deceptively relaxed pose, but tension ran through his shoulders. He might have been a rich, lazy son of a bitch, but he didn’t shy away from a fight. Next to him, Chris, Alona’s ex, made no pretense that this was anything but a fight. A shorter, stockier guy with years of experience on the wrestling team, he stood with his feet apart and fists at the ready.

“No freaks allowed in the first tier,” Chris added.

I held up my hands in the “don’t shoot” position, my fingers wrapped around my cell phone. “No trouble here, guys. Just taking a call, and I needed better reception. I’m leaving.” As much as I hated their privileged asses, I wasn’t about to start a fight on their turf. I’d get blamed for it and I’d lose. Two against one wasn’t fair. Sixteen against one, as it would end up being when all the sheep jumped in to follow their leaders, was a bloodbath.

I started to walk around them, back toward the stairs, but I didn’t get very far. A small wisp of black smoke appeared out of nowhere in the center aisle, on the second-tier steps. It looked like exhaust from an oil-burning car. I stopped, my heart pounding in dread. Almost instantly, as if it had been waiting for me to see it, the little wisp of smoke grew to a roiling and seething mass of black vapor.

“Um, Killian? Gloomy Gus straight-up noon,” Alona called from behind me, tension threaded through her voice.

For once she had the clock right. “Yeah, I see him,” I said tightly.

I heard her drop down from the stage, landing lightly on the ground behind me. “So what’s the plan?” Her voice shook a little, and yet she was still there with me.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what, Will Kill?” Ben eased around to stand in front of me. He smiled, showing a little too much teeth. Chris followed him, slamming his meaty fist into the palm of his other hand in a rather effective use of a cliché.

Damn, I’d forgotten about them.

Everyone in the caf was watching, waiting to see what happened next. Joonie, at the top of the center aisle, seemed to be praying, her hands tucked securely inside her bag, her eyes half closed and her lips moving silently.

Then Gloomy Gus, as Alona had apparently dubbed him, lurched forward suddenly, pouring toward us in a rush.

“Alona, get out of here now,” I said sharply and without thinking. The without-thinking part turned out to be kind of key.

“What did you say?” Chris demanded.

Oh, shit.

Twenty minutes later, I sat in the nurse’s office with an ice pack against the left side of my face. Okay, so lessons learned: first, talking to a guy’s dead girlfriend in front of him, even when he’s moved on to greener pastures, is a big mistake. Second, the entity once known as my father, now known as Gloomy Gus, did not like competition. He disappeared, thank God, the moment Chris hit me. Third, Alona Dare may be my spirit guide, whatever that is, but Mrs. Piaget is my guardian angel. She got Mr. Gerry to break up the fight, and remained firm in her conviction that Chris had taken the first swing. I got another detention, but I could live with that.

I leaned back in the uncomfortable molded-plastic chair in the nurse’s office, wincing at the new ache in my ribs, and pressed the bag of ice cubes tighter against my swelling cheek.

The chair next to me wiggled and jolted, sending little shocks of pain through my side.

“What is your deal?” I said to Alona, who couldn’t seem to sit still, moving from one position to another. We were, fortunately, alone for the moment. Judging that it would not be wise to stuff both Chris and me into such a small room, Nurse Ryerson had stepped out to take care of him. Yeah, I managed to get in a swing or two. Bloodied his nose, at least.

She shifted her feet to the floor and stared at them for a long second before looking over at me. “You defended me. Why would you do that?”

“That’s what’s bothering you?” I asked. “Technically, I was just defending myself from your boyfriend’s fists of fury.” I opened my mouth and wiggled my jaw experimentally. Damn, wrestlers could really pack a punch, maybe even more so than the various football players who’d whaled on me in my younger years.

She shook her head with an impatient noise. “Not him. Though”—a faint smile appeared on her face—“that must have really pissed Misty off to see you two fighting over me.”

I rolled my eyes. “We weren’t fighting over—”

“Also, smooth move shouting my name in the middle of the cafeteria.” She slapped my shoulder hard, and the sensation traveled down to my ribs, making me grunt in pain. “But what I meant was you trying to protect me from Gloomy Gus.”

“Oh.”

“You were just covering your own ass, right? I mean, I’m your spirit guide now and you probably love the idea of bossing me around too much to give it up this soon.”

The words sounded like something she would say, the bitchy arrogance of them, but beneath that, I could hear the question she wasn’t asking, the vulnerability she was trying to hide. Had anyone ever defended her in her life, except for when it benefited them? True, she didn’t seem like she needed much protection, but everyone wants to feel like someone’s looking out for them.

She had her head tipped down, pretending to examine her nails. The glossy curtain of her hair hid her face from me. It was the perfect time to say something classy, something that would convince her that even though she drove me crazy sometimes, I admired her strength, even more now that I knew some of what she must have lived through to get it.

“Um …” My heart beat fast in the back of my throat, and the words, any words, seemed to have vanished from my brain.

She made a disgusted sound. “Never mind. Forget it.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulder.

“Hey,” I protested. “You have to at least give me a chance to—”

The door to the nurse’s office edged open and Joonie poked her head in, looking around. It didn’t take long. The office consisted of a small desk, two chairs, and a cot. The other door leading out of the room led to a microscopic bathroom. “You alone?” she whispered.

Alona rolled her eyes.

“Yeah,” I said.

Joonie frowned at me and slipped all the way into the room. “Then who were you talking to?” She slung her book bag down on the floor in front of the chair next to mine, right on Alona’s feet.

Alona yelped. “Watch it, freak.”

“Nobody. I wasn’t talking to anyone. It’s nice of you to stop by.” I glared at Alona.

“Fine. Fine,” Alona grumbled. “She’s a good friend. Blah, blah, blah.”

“Hello? Killian?” Joonie waved her hand in front of my face. “I’m over here.” She moved over to sit in Alona’s chair and Alona scrambled out of the way to avoid being sat on. “Are you okay?” Joonie’s gaze felt too intense, and I had to look away.

“I’m fine.”

“I just saw you walk into first-tier territory to take a freaking pretend phone call. Yesterday you had a seizure in the hallway—”

I waved her words away. “I’m fine, okay?” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Alona frowning at something on the floor.

“No, not okay.” Joonie fidgeted with the silver rings in her ear. “You’re acting completely bizarre even for you, and I can’t worry this much about you and Lily, okay? There’s not enough of me.” She gave me a shaky smile. “So, just tell me what’s going on.”

Alona knelt on the floor near Joonie’s feet, her head cocked to one side. “Check this out,” she whispered, completely unnecessarily. Then, using the effect of my presence around her, she pulled back the top of Joonie’s tattered and broken-zippered book bag. The corner of a flat wooden board, decorated with numbers and letters, stuck out. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it until …

I jumped up out of my seat. “Jesus, Joonie, is that a Ouija board?” Yeah, it was just a creepy but harmless kid’s game … unless you happen to be playing with one around someone like me.

Joonie stopped, her mouth hanging open midword to stare at me and then guiltily at the floor. Her face flushed red and then paled. “I have to go.” She stood up and yanked her bag from the floor before bolting from the room.

“Joonie, wait,” I said.

She didn’t answer, nor did she stop, and the door to the nurse’s office slammed shut after her.

I turned to Alona, who now leaned back against the nurse’s desk, her arms folded across her chest and a smug look on her face. “How did you do that? How did you know it was in there?”

Alona shrugged. “I’m dead. I know everything now. Like how you look for a little personal time every morning before—”

“Stop,” I snapped, trying to pretend my face wasn’t turning red. “Death doesn’t make you, or anyone else, omniscient.” Which meant she was an alarmingly good guesser or I was shockingly predictable. “Try again.”

“You are no fun.” She sighed. “The edge of the board stuck out for a second when she dropped her stupid, ugly bag on me. Took me a second to recognize it is all.” She shrugged. “What’s the big deal anyway? Other than it’s total proof of her freakiness that she carries that thing around with her.”

I shook my head. “It’s more than that.”

“You don’t think that thing actually works … do you?” She arched an eyebrow at me.

“Around me, it does.”

“Right.”

“I’m serious.” I lowered the ice bag from my face so I could see her more clearly. “For regular people, it’s no big deal, but for me …” I paused. “Okay, imagine you’re trying to make a call to someone in another country, but you don’t have a phone.”

“Am I stupid in this example? How do you call without a phone?”

“Just shut up for a second. I’m trying to explain.” I took a deep breath. “You want to call, you’re concentrating all your efforts on communicating, but with no phone, nothing happens.”

“Duh,” she muttered.

I ignored her. “Give someone a Ouija board, and you have a phone but no service.”

She nodded.

“Use a Ouija board around me and suddenly, you’ve got a phone with the megaservice package. Except instead of just sending voices, it’s like opening a doorway between the two places. The Ouija board acts as a focus, helps you concentrate and send your energy, but it can’t go anywhere without me. Me, whatever I am, I give it power and a place to go, a conduit to travel. Remember, I’m caught in the middle just like you, but I can interact with both sides. Energy on either side is just energy until it finds me, and then it has weight and substance and form….” A trickle of ice water leaked from the bag and ran across my hand, and I shivered from more than the cold.

“So Joonie calls up a couple of dead relatives to come through the doorway for a chat.” She shrugged. “What’s the big deal?”

“No,” I said firmly. “People who are gone, really gone, can’t be reached. And reaching out like that … you never know who you’re going to get. Just because you’re dialing a particular person, so to speak, doesn’t mean it’s going to be that person who answers.”

She frowned.

I sighed. “It’s like the telephone is ringing, and anyone walking by can pick it up. And some of those who are stuck in between are not people you want to be messing with.” Sometimes people were crazy before they died. Sometimes dying made them crazy … or crazier. Grandpa B., Liesel, and the rest of them, they were annoying sometimes, but not particularly harmful. That was not the case with others I’d seen and been careful to avoid.

She gave me a scathing look. “I get what you’re saying. I’m not stupid.” She paused, lifting one hand to her mouth to nibble at her thumbnail before she caught herself and pulled her hand away. “I was just wondering … how many times have you seen Gloomy Gus? I mean … you know who.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said dryly. “Ten, twelve times, maybe.”

“What makes you think that’s … your dad?”

I let out a slow breath, lifting the watery ice bag up to my face. “Because I’ve seen a few suicides come through here, and they’re sort of like that, not whole.” I gave her a sideways glance. “That’s how I knew you didn’t hurt yourself intentionally, no matter what Leanne Whitaker is saying.”

“Bitch,” Alona muttered.

“What were you doing that day anyway?” I asked.

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “My question came first. Why do you think it’s your dad?”

I watched her for a long second, and she met my gaze steadily. I opened my mouth to tell her to forget it, but the story of that last morning with my dad poured out of me instead. It was the first time I’d told anyone, except Dr. Miller and Joonie, and I regretted it even as I was still speaking. But Alona just nodded thoughtfully.

“That still doesn’t explain why you think it’s him, though. Surely there are other people who’ve …” She made a face.

With a sigh, I continued. “It … he seems particularly focused on me. Whenever he shows up, he always comes straight after me.” I lifted a shoulder, wincing at the pain in my ribs. “He’s the only suicide that I’ve known personally.”

“They all look like that?” She pressed. “Big black clouds of smoke or whatever?”

“No, I’ve never seen one like this before. He’s … more waves of emotion than anything else. But I’ve seen lots of different things over the years. What are you getting at?” I asked impatiently.

“Your dad died, like, three years ago, right? That’s what you said.” She stared at me, daring me to challenge her.

“Yeah, so?”

“When did you start seeing Gus?”

Suddenly, I didn’t like the direction this was heading. “That doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes it takes a while for spirits to find their way—”

“When?” She kicked at my shin lightly.

I bent down and rubbed my leg with my free hand. “I don’t know, about eight or nine months ago, I guess.”

Actually, I knew exactly when I’d seen him the first time. It had been the first night the doctors would allow Joonie and me to visit Lily after her accident. My mom had come with us. And after I’d seen Lily and what my gift had indirectly caused, that’s when I’d realized I couldn’t stay.

“Right after I told my mom I wasn’t sticking around after graduation.” She’d fled the hospital in tears. That was more than enough probably to call my father from wherever he’d been residing. I’d promised to take care of my mother — it was the last thing I ever said to my father.

“So you’re saying that your dad, who knew you were a ghost-talker, was just hanging around waiting for three years for you to do something to piss him off before he tried to talk to you…or kill you, as the case may be?”

When she put it that way, it sounded ridiculous, but Alona didn’t know how things worked. Hell, sometimes I didn’t even know how they worked. Besides, who else, or what else, could it be?

“You ever see it when Joonie is not around?” Alona asked quietly.

I froze. Against my will, my mind played back all my encounters with the angry ghost and every time, sure enough, Joonie was nearby, if not standing right next to me. “No,” I said firmly. “Not possible.”

“Why not?” Alona stood up. “Because she’s your friend? Did you not see her in the caf today?”

I hadn’t realized Alona had noticed her, too. Joonie could have been praying, like I thought. Or maybe she was trying to concentrate on the Ouija board in her bag … No. I shook my head. I wouldn’t allow Alona’s prejudice to taint my thoughts.

“And I don’t even want to tell you the weirdness I witnessed from her in your room yesterday. She’s, like, in love with you or something, but …” Alona frowned. “No, that’s not quite right, either. Something is really wrong with that girl.”

“Stop it,” I snapped. “You don’t know her. You don’t know anything that we’ve been through in the last year.”

“Oh, what, the mysterious Lily?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Why don’t you tell me? I’ve asked enough times.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. Joonie has no idea what I can do, so she’d never even think of what you’re suggesting. Not to mention there’s no reason, even if she did. She wouldn’t want to hurt me. She’s my friend.”

Alona dropped into the seat next to me and twisted to face me, tucking her legs beneath her. “Then why,” she asked quietly, “did she run away when you asked her about a stupid board game in her backpack?”

Direct hit. When had I ever doubted Alona Dare’s intelligence? “She was probably just embarrassed,” I insisted. But I’d seen the look on Joonie’s face a few minutes ago. If that wasn’t guilt, it was a close cousin.

“Uh-huh.” She tossed her hair back over her shoulders. “I may be pretty, but I’m not stupid. She is hiding something.”

“It’s not …” Suddenly, I remembered Joonie’s shift in intensity, from worrying about Lily to asking me questions. What was that all about?

“I could follow her, I’m real stealthlike these days.” Alona turned in her seat again, stretching her long legs out in front of her, and I found myself staring.

“Hey, my face is up here.” She snapped her fingers at me, and I jerked my gaze upward.

“You don’t have to follow her,” I said. “It’s Friday. I know exactly where she’s going after school.” No way would Joonie miss a visit to Lily, not after what she’d told me today.

“So are we going, too, or what?” Alona idly flicked a piece of … ghost lint? … off her shorts.

I grimaced. “I have detention right after school.” I thought about it. “Actually, I have detention today and Monday. I can’t afford to skip it.”

She brightened. “Oh, good, then you’ll have some time to do a little work.”

Alarm bells rang in my head. “What are you talking about?”

She raised the hem of her shirt, revealing smooth tanned skin over a tight stomach, her belly button a tiny divot in the taut surface — cheerleading does a body good — and reached into the waistband of her shorts to pull out a stack of small but neatly folded pieces of paper. “Sorry,” she said. “No pockets.”

I cleared my throat. “No problem.”

She handed me the papers, and I took them, still warm from her skin, and unfolded them. The top one read: R. Brewster. Wants forgiveness from son for being antigay toward him, and grandson to reconcile with his father. Anon. letters?

Lifting the first sheet aside, I read the second one, or started to, anyway. Liesel Marks and Eric … I looked over at Alona. “What is all of this?”

“What does it look like? I met with all your spirits and wrote down what they wanted.” She flicked her hair away from her eyes. “Hey, did you know that if you die or transition or whatever with something you get to keep it? Thank God that one girl died with a pen and notebook in her purse or I would have had to remember all of this.” Leaning closer to me, she pointed to the papers. “I even negotiated for you and got you out of making personal visits or phone calls.” She sat back in her chair with a shrug. “Basically, all you have to do is write some letters, find a few lost items. That kind of thing.”

“No,” I said flatly.

She whipped around in her seat to face me, her hair hitting me in the eyes as she turned. “Are you kidding? I spent my whole morning on this.”

I lowered my ice pack and glared at her. “Oh, gee, I’m sorry. Whatever are you going to do with the rest of eternity?”

She took a deep breath, opened her mouth … and then stopped. Holding her hands out in front of her, she inhaled and exhaled slowly.

“What are you doing, meditating?”

“No, I’m trying to calm down so I don’t kick your ass,” she said through clenched teeth.

I swallowed back a sigh. “I appreciate what you tried to do, really, and you helped me out by keeping them occupied but—”

“Listen, I wasn’t cool with this either in the beginning.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “I mean, seriously, who am I to be your message girl?” She rolled her eyes. “But if you just listen to what they’re asking for, it’s not—”

“I’m not getting into this again.” I held up my hands, papers in one and the ice bag sloshing in the other.

“All they want is what you have. To be able to speak and be heard. That’s it. Apparently, whatever you are”—she looked down her nose at me—“is pretty rare. Except maybe in Puerto Rico.”

“What?”

She ignored me. “So, if you walk away, they might not get this chance again.”

“Chance to do what? Send me on a bunch of useless errands that don’t help anyone? I told you. This doesn’t work.” I held the papers back out to her.

She folded her arms across her chest. “What if it wasn’t you and it was your dad trying to get through and some ghost-talker wouldn’t help him?”

I froze. “My dad is none of your business.”

“Really? It seems to me that he’s very much my business since you think he’s the one showing up here, knocking you around, and trying to kill you, which, let me tell you, would put a serious crimp in my plans to get out of here.” She shuddered. “I don’t even want to know what happens if a spirit guide lets her person get killed.”

“Alona, just leave it alone,” I said wearily.

She examined the tips of her nails. “I think the whole reason you want that scary black cloud thing to be your dad is because at least then you have some kind of contact with him. Otherwise, he just left you hanging, and you of all people know he could have come back to talk to you if he wanted—”

“Enough,” I shouted, and threw the papers at her. They fell to the ground with a dry raspy sound like dead leaves.

“What is going on here?” Nurse Ryerson burst in through the door. She stopped short when she saw me alone in the room.

“Nothing,” I said tightly. “Nothing’s going on in here.”

“Damn right about that,” Alona muttered. She stood up and stepped over the papers on the ground, careful to avoid them.

“I thought I heard …” Nurse Ryerson’s voice faltered. She poked her head in farther to check behind the door, as though someone might be hiding back there.

“That shouting, you mean?” I asked.

She nodded.

I gave a shrug. “Not from in here.”

She frowned and slowly backed out the door.

Alona started to follow her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I demanded in a whisper.

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Clearly, you don’t need me, and I don’t have to go to class anymore. One of the few benefits of being dead.”

“What about—”

“The spirits? The ones that have been bothering you? I don’t know,” she snapped. “I had worked out a deal where if you agreed to help them, they’d leave you alone. I guess that’s off the table, though, right?”

I sighed. “Alona.”

“Good luck with class,” she said with faux cheer. “Hope you like musicals. I’ll make sure to tell them Annie is your favorite.”

“Wait, just wait a—”

Without another word, she slipped through the closed door, humming “Tomorrow” under her breath.

Great. Not only do I have an angry spirit guide, but an angry spirit guide with a vindictive streak and an unnatural knowledge of show tunes. Better and better already.