Betrayal (13 page)

Simon ignored him. “I'm grateful that at a time when the Knell suffered such a terrible blow, they still found use for me. And I'm grateful that it involves working with three such talented ghostkeepers.”

“Aww,” said Natalie, “who knew you were such a softy?”

“Okay.” Lukas cleared his throat. “I'm grateful that instead of being sent to a home for disturbed kids for claiming to see ghosts, I'm living with people who are just as whacked as me.”

Nobody said anything for a moment, and I knew Natalie was thinking the same thing I was. Lukas was one of us. His parents hadn't been there when he needed them most.

“Do your mom and dad know you're here?” Natalie asked.

“I told my dad I got a scholarship to boarding school. I think he figured if I disappeared, so would the problem.”

“They didn't expect you home today?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Some pretty messed-up things were said when I left.”

“Give them time, Lukas,” Simon said. “My parents never understood, either, but we've managed to preserve our relationship. We just don't discuss it.”

“Man, but it's everything though, you know?” Lukas said. “You try to maintain, but the ghosts are always there in the background.”

We all nodded. We knew. Maybe that's why we all got along so well. We all lived this double life, we all doubted ourselves, and we all knew how it felt when people in your family turned their backs.

“How about you, Emma?” Simon asked.

I thought for a moment, then sent for the house ghosts:
Could you come into the dining room, please? Yes, even you, Anatole.

When they shimmered through the walls, I said, “What I'm most grateful for is you. My new family. The people who are actually there for me, day in and day out. The only ones who really understand me, and accept me, and …” I almost teared up. “If it weren't for you, I think I'd crawl into a black hole and never come out.”

“We love you, too,” Natalie said. She raised her crystal goblet—Simon had poured each of us half a glass of red wine—and said, “To Emma.”

“To Emma,” they echoed.

“And to all of you,” I replied before sipping my wine. “Especially Simon, for letting us have wine.”

I ignored Simon's look of hesitation. He was still worried someone here had betrayed us. But I knew he was wrong. This was my family. I trusted them with my life.

Now if only Bennett would walk through the door.

But he didn't. Not before dinner. Not during dinner. Not after dinner. He never showed.

I brushed my teeth and scowled at my reflection, then went into my bedroom. A moment later, I heard a tap on the door. Celeste came inside, her flowing red hair burnished by the light of the fireplace.

Maybe I should dye my hair
, I said.

She pursed her lips disapprovingly.
Your hair iz lovely. And so iz what you say at dinner, about family.

Thanks. I … you said he always came home for Thanksgiving.

If he cannot, he cannot. But Master Bennett, he iz a good man. You know thiz. Oh! I just remember.
She took a small black box with a red bow from her apron.
Thiz came for you.

I smiled happily. I loved gifts. Then I remembered Simon's warning about trusting no one—which came pretty naturally, actually.
Where'd it come from?

The special-delivery man.

You think it's okay? It's not, like, some kind of spectral mail bomb?

I do not know theez words. I think iz okay.

I ran my finger around the edge of the black box and didn't feel any sense of ghostly resonance, so I opened the lid and found a nest of red tissue paper inside. Buried beneath the layers was an iPhone.

That iz not jewelry
, Celeste said, clearly unimpressed.

I grinned as I grabbed the phone and turned it on. Weird. Who'd send me a phone? I swiped to unlock it and found a shoe-phone icon and I knew the answer. There was also a little
1
next to the mail application, which I touched with my finger.

A message had been sent to EmmaVaile at an account I didn't recognize. It was from BennettStern at the same network.

Four words: “I'm grateful for you.”

I felt my face light up with joy.
It's from Bennett.

Iz still not jewelry
, Celeste said, but she looked pleased for me. Then she faded away, leaving me alone with my gift, which I liked a thousand times better than any bracelet.

I tried to e-mail him back, but the account no longer existed. I flipped through the other applications and found the phone loaded with apps and ringtones. Then I clicked the music. He'd loaded a hundred songs, all of them about love. Some I recognized, some I didn't.

I plugged in the white buds and settled into one of the playlists. As the beats began to throb, I was grateful, too. Grateful he hadn't forgotten me.

13

On Saturday, we trained with Simon all morning. Then when Lukas and Natalie headed off for a run together, I worked with the Rake all afternoon. At least with him I could insist on hooking my new iPhone to the stereo, even though he hated every single song except for a couple by Outkast. Go figure.

I couldn't beat him with a dagger—not without using my powers—but I'd come pretty close a couple of times. When he finally sheathed his sword and vanished, my arms ached and my shirt was damp with sweat. But for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel completely spent after a spar. Maybe I was getting stronger.

I showered and threw on some clothes and knocked on the study door to talk to Simon, but he was buried in a book, as usual. Celeste was busy tidying, and Anatole was in a rage over seitan—some kind of meat substitute. I couldn't find Nicholas anywhere, to play video games or marbles.

So I dragged my laptop up to Bennett's room in the attic. I hadn't been up there in a while and it made me miss him all the more. Just the way the room looked was so him. Sort of casual, but classic, with its antique bed and dresser, childhood books and old video games. Though I wanted to snoop through his stuff, I knew he wouldn't like it, so instead I plopped onto his bed and stared up at the A-frame ceiling with its exposed beams.

I considered researching the amulet. Or Neos's final resting spot. Or trying to contact my parents again. Or checking into the mythology of the sirens. I still needed to figure out how I was going to tune her out.

Instead, I read a graphic novel I found in the bookcase. About twenty seconds after I finished and turned on my laptop, Natalie burst into the room.

“Do you even know
how
to knock?” I asked, embarrassed to be caught in Bennett's room.

“Why bother? It's not like you're ever doing anything interesting. Get dressed.”

I eyed her. She was wearing black matchstick jeans, knee-high leather boots, and a magenta sweater that fell off one shoulder.

“Isn't your shoulder cold?”

“My shoulder is cold,” she said, “but I am hot. C'mon, get dressed.”

“Why, where are you going? Emphasis on the ‘you.' ”

“
We
,” Lukas said, stepping inside, “are going to a party.” He was dressed in his usual T-shirt and jeans. Not that he didn't make them look good.

“I dunno,” I said, fiddling with my laptop, as Lukas eyed the room. He'd probably never been up here.

“C'mon,” he said. “Get out of your black hole.”

“It's comfy in here.”

“Simon says”—Natalie gave the words a little spin—“we can't go without you.”

“You mean he trusts
me
?” I said.

“Yeah. That's how un-fun you are.”

I frowned. Considering me their chaperone
was
kind of insulting.

Natalie tossed a black miniskirt and tights at me. “Put this on.”

“Fine,” I said, shutting my laptop.

Lukas dutifully left the room, and I slipped out of pajama bottoms and into my tights and skirt. Natalie handed me a black long-sleeved T-shirt with red exposed seams.

“Not too much black?” I asked.

“Not for you,” she said. I wasn't sure she meant because of my blond hair and fair skin or my personality. Better not to ask.

I took one last lingering look at Bennett's room, wishing he were here to go with us. Then I descended the stairs and shut out the light.

We took the Yaris. I drove, and Natalie gave directions across town to the strip of coast, almost like a causeway, that led to the Neck, the beyond-rich part of town.

“It's on the Neck?” I asked, worried we'd run into Harry and Sara, who both lived over there.

“No,” she answered. “Turn here.”

I took a right into a beach parking lot. There was a chain across the entrance, but someone had knocked over the wooden post it was attached to, leaving the chain on the ground. The Yaris rattled over the metal links.

“Are you sure this is right?” I asked, parking among a scattering of cars. “Whose party is it?”

“Anna from my Chemistry class,” Natalie said. “She said they'd be over by the bluffs.”

Outside, a chill sea breeze whipped at us, and I immediately regretted wearing my tights and peacoat instead of my jeans and down jacket. “Why didn't you tell me we were going to be outside?”

“Because you would've worn ratty jeans and that gray sweater. What's the point of a party if you're not going to look cute?”

I glared at Lukas in his jeans, big winter coat, and fleece hat.

“Sucks to be a girl,” he said, smugly.

We plodded through the sand toward the bonfire blazing down the beach.

The thing about Harry's parties was that all the kids from Thatcher were invited. You never felt like you were crashing, even though his house was bigger than six average mansions combined. Everyone felt welcome, because
everyone
was there, even the kid who wore the green tracksuit over his uniform. To parties he wore red.

But a party on the beach was something more intimate. A dozen people sat around a fire built in the sand. Rocks and shells lined the pit they'd dug and filled with driftwood. Britta and her friends shared nips from a designer flask, and the guys cracked Rolling Rocks. A joint passed between two linebackers I recognized from watching football practice when Coby was on the team. I was sure they were big fans of mine.

The thing that really stopped me, though? Harry and Sara, sipping from a thermos they handed back and forth. I guess a flask wasn't big enough.

“Well,
this
was a bad idea,” I said, backing away from the firelight before anyone noticed me.

Even Natalie paused. “Possibly not one of my best.”

“Cowards,” Lukas muttered.

“Maybe we should just go home,” I said, hopefully.

“They're only human.” Natalie bit her bottom lip, then turned to Lukas. “Dude, take one for the team. Suck up to Britta, so she doesn't pick on Emma.”

“And what, you're gonna flirt with the linebackers?” he said.

She grinned. “If I absolutely must.”

“They're not half as scary as Britta,” he said.

Still, he obediently went in for the kill. There was something predatory about him as he prowled over and threw himself at Britta's feet. She made what was clearly a cutting remark, which he answered with what was clearly a joke. One of her friends giggled, and in another minute he had Britta leaning toward him, looking gorgeous in the light of the fire. I pitied him for the terrible sacrifice.

Meanwhile, Natalie spotted Anna and dragged me over to say hi. Anna was the type of girl who grew up to be a soccer mom. Cute and nice, yet very conscious of the social pecking order. She was pleased to see Natalie, not so much me.

I gave her a weak smile, aware of Harry and Sara staring at me across the bonfire. The smoke distorted their unfriendly expressions and gave them a sickly cast despite the warm glow of the fire.

I lowered my head, grabbed a beer from the cooler, and took a seat as far from them as possible, where the firelight faded into dark shadows. I nursed my beer as a dozen more kids arrived at the party, a few of them even sitting with me for a minute. Well, Kylee from Fencing did, and two boys who I'm pretty sure thought I looked desperate for a little attention.

I shivered and watched the ocean swells, checking out Harry and Sara every few minutes; they were getting progressively drunker. Then hammered. Then beyond wasted.

I wanted to leave, but Natalie's laugh sounded through the night a few times. She lived for parties, she loved dancing and laughing and flirting. She deserved a little uncomplicated fun. Lukas didn't deserve anything, because he was
still
flirting with Britta, but I figured I'd give them another hour before I made them leave.

Sitting with my second beer, I watched sparks from the bonfire rise in a swirling column toward the dark sky, then fade away. I hugged myself, wishing Bennett were here to keep me warm. I wondered where he was, if he was missing me. If he felt as lonely as I did without him.

Then I heard Harry's forceful, cultured voice suddenly rise from the chatter. “No man is an island, entire of itself.”

He took a deep swig and continued speaking, but I couldn't make out the words. I didn't have to. I knew the poem by John Donne—I'd read it in English Lit last year. Leave it to Thatcher to have a class drunk who spouts poetry. He turned toward the water and lifted his thermos high and raised his voice, shouting at the ocean until the other kids quieted.

Then he staggered toward the lapping water and despite his drunkenness his voice rang out in the cold evening air:

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore, never send to know

For whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

He drained his thermos and tossed it into the waves. Then he started shoving through the frigid water after it, speaking again, though his words were lost in the surf.

He looked almost comical, walking fully dressed into the waves—but that water was freezing. I felt a deep stirring of unease. Something wasn't right. I looked back at the kids around the bonfire. Nobody seemed worried. Where were Natalie and Lukas?

I called to Sara: “Tell him to come back.”

A girl I didn't know said, “Shut up, QBK.”

“Don't be mean to Emma,” Sara croaked in her deep voice. “She only wantsh to help.”

Then she laughed hysterically. If possible, she was even more wasted than Harry.

“Sara,” I said, trying to rub the tingle of impending disaster from my arms. “He's going to drown.”

“Shtop whining.” She threw an empty beer bottle at me, though she was so drunk she missed by twenty feet. “And start beering.”

She found that hilarious, and the other kids around the bonfire laughed with her. I trotted into the darkness toward the water's edge, yelling for Harry, who was wading deeper and still reciting an inaudible monologue.

My shoes sank into the wet sand. I followed him along the shore as the tide dragged him further down the beach, calling for him and for help.

And I finally heard someone say my name:
Emma
.

“Natalie!” I said. “Harry's drunk, we need to—”

I'm here. I'll help you.

“Thank God! Go tell—”

And I realized I'd been hearing the voice
inside
my head. That it wasn't Natalie. The voice continued,
Don't worry. There's nothing to fear. You're fine, Emma
—
you're more than fine.

For a moment, I thought it was my mother's voice—then Martha's. It was kind, with an undertone of strength, gentle and soothing as a lullaby.

“Where are you?” I peered down the beach, but couldn't see anything in the darkness under the dim sky.

I'm here. I'm here with you. Your family and friends, they're all gone, they left you, but I'm here. I'm always here for you.

The bitter wind stirred, and pretty lights shimmered beside me. The voice took on a girl's form. She was a few years older than me, with short dark hair, wide eyes, and scarlet lips. The girl from my dream. She smiled at me with even, white teeth, and I felt I knew her. She was like an older sister, who understood everything about me. She could take all my pain, my failures and responsibilities, and make them disappear.

That's right, Emma
, she said.
You don't need anything except me.

“We need to help Harry.”

I'll take care of everything.

I smiled as my worries drifted away. For the first time in a long time, I felt at peace. I didn't know what I'd been worried about. She'd take care of me; she'd take care of everything.