Kissing Midnight (23 page)

“
Lux vos liberabit
?” I make it sound Spanish by mistake. “That’s Latin, right? What does it mean?”

“The light will set you free.”

Free
. It sounds so reassuring. For a second, I imagine my brother, bathed in warm light. I’d like to believe he’s free.

And I’d like to believe that bringing my secret to light will set me free, too. I’d like to believe it will only make things between Dev and me stronger. “Okay,” I say tentatively. “I can do that.”

“Promise me.” Dev takes my other hand in his, so he’s hold both tightly. “No matter what the ghost looks like, no matter what they say, you’ll do it.”

I imagine the monster from Westgate, its huge eyes burning in the dark. “You mean if it’s horrible? That I shouldn’t be afraid?”

“I mean, even if it looks normal, like a regular person. Even if it looks like an ordinary girl.”

Instantly I think of Jesse. It’s almost like he knows about her! I imagine her pale gray eyes looking at me with compassion. Could I send her into the light? “What if… What if they’re harmless?”

“How could you tell?” Dev’s eyes search mine with such intensity. For a minute I remember him standing outside the warehouse, how his blue eyes seemed to burn behind the wolf mask. “Trust me, Saintly, looks can be deceiving. You can’t tell the good from the bad just by looking.”

I certainly learned that at Westgate. The things I saw there could warp in an instant. They were never what they seemed. “True.”

“So promise me you’ll say it, no matter what. Do you promise?”

His eyes search mine. This matters so much to him.

He really loves me.

I look him in the eye. “I promise.”

Dev lets out his breath in a sigh of relief. “Good.” He smiles, and his whole face lightens. I feel lighter, too, like a weight has been lifted. Dev pulls me toward him, wrapping his arms around me. “Thank you,” he says quietly. “I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you. I couldn’t stand to lose you, too.”

I put my arms around him and hug him back, and for a minute I feel bathed in light myself. I’m glad I promised. I’m glad I told him the truth. I don’t want there to be any more deceptions and omissions and half-truths between us.

Lux vos liberabit
. The light will set you free.

I repeat the magic words over and over in my mind as we drive toward school, the rhythm of them blending with the slap of the windshield wipers as the snow comes down harder and wetter. Inside the car, I feel safe and warm. I have no idea if the words will really work, but knowing them makes me feel more secure. They remind me of my
abuela’s
furtive prayers to San Antonio, or the way she would cross herself the moment anyone mentioned anything bad, from gambling to cancer. Who knows if her prayers did any good, but they made her feel stronger, and isn’t that worth something? I’m inclined to think it is, and as we pull back into campus, I’m feeling more confident than I have in ages.

But some of my confidence drains away when I see Jesse. She’s waiting for me in the empty lobby of the dorm, and she looks like she has been up all night. Her bleach-blond hair is even messier than usual, and there are deep shadows under her eyes. They make her look more ghostly than ever. She stands up the minute she sees us, her expression full of relief. “You’re back! I’ve been waiting for you. I need to talk to you.”

I feel guilty, like I used to when my mom would sit awake on the couch, waiting for my brother and I to come home. But why? I didn’t ask Jesse to wait for me.

I don’t answer. I don’t want Dev to know I’m seeing her. Instead, I smile up at him. “You know,” I say, “I think I’ll go take a look around for Delia.”

Dev looks surprised. I’m sure he thought we were going to hang out, and I feel a pang of loss at the missed opportunity. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll come with you.”

I shake my head. “I think she’s feeling a little neglected lately.” It’s not exactly a lie. Delia isn’t used to being the one without a boyfriend, and she has been acting “off” lately. “I better go check in with her, make sure we’re cool.”

Dev smiles knowingly. “Ah. Girl talk. You want to tell her about our weekend.”

I duck my head. “Maybe.”

Dev takes both of my hands in his. He lowers his voice. “What are you going to tell her?”

I give him a goofy smile, and I know I’m blushing. “That it was amazing.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see Jesse scowl at the floor. Dev, however, looks victorious. “It was amazing for me, too.” He kisses me softly, his lips lingering on mine.

Jesse clears her throat impatiently.

Dev can’t hear her, of course, but I pull reluctantly away.

“Fine,” Dev says, “you go catch up with Deals while I put my stuff back in my room. But can I catch up with you later?”

My heart flutters. “Can’t stand to be away from me?”

His eyes meet mine, serious. “Trust me. Every minute counts.”

I couldn’t agree more. Right now I’m dying to be alone with Dev, but Jesse is bouncing impatiently on her toes. “Just give me a half an hour,” I say, “Then meet me back at my room, okay?”

“Okay.” He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. “See you then.” He shoulders his overnight bag and heads back out the doors into the bright December cold.

I wait until he’s well out of sight before I head for the little student lounge off the lobby. It’s deserted, the lights off, shades drawn. Jesse follows me through the door, and I lock it behind us so no one will come in. “What is it?”

“Are you okay?” She looks genuinely worried.

“I’m fine.” I keep my voice a low whisper, even though I know we’re alone. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I mean, besides the fact that I’m talking to a ghost.

“I didn’t know where you went or how to find you.” I can tell she’s hurt, even though she’s trying not to show it, and I feel guilty for standing her up. But why should I? I don’t really know this girl, and I don’t owe her anything. It’s not like she’s really part of my life. She’s not part of anyone’s life, really.

“Listen,” I say lamely, “about the other night. I didn’t mean to ditch on our plan. Dev surprised me with an overnight. I didn’t know I would be leaving.”

“It’s fine,” she says quickly. “I’m glad you went. Safer for you that way, and it means I got the chance to do a little investigating in the library. I found something in the school archives, a picture of the ghost girl I told you about and an article about her disappearance.”

I feel cold. I don’t want to talk about disappearances and deaths and ghosts, not now when my life is finally getting warm and sunlit and normal. “I’m sorry she disappeared,” I say evenly, “and I’m sorry she died, but I can’t get sucked into it. If it was in the archives, it’s old news. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“A hundred years old. Yes.” Jesse looks me in the eye. “And it has everything to do with you because the boy standing with her in the picture is Deveraux Renard.”

I stare at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it was him! His name, his face. He looked exactly like he does now.”

“But that’s impossible.” My legs feel weak. “You said it was a hundred years ago.”

“It was. New Years Eve, 1899. That’s the last time anyone saw her.” Jesse reaches for my hand. Her eyes are full of sympathy. “Saintly, I know you don’t want to hear this—”

“Then why are you saying it?” I can feel the tears pricking in my eyes. Just when my life was getting better! At Por Toujours I feel like I had finally gotten my head above water, taken a big gulp of air, and now Jesse is dragging me back under, into the insanity. I can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry, Saintly.” Her voice is gentle. “But you have to hear me. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I know Dev Renard is a threat to you. If you stay with him, he’s going to hurt you.”

“You don’t know that.” I want to cover my ears so I don’t have to listen to her. “You don’t know Dev at all!”

“Do you? I mean, do you really?”

“Yes!” I do know Dev. Maybe not everything about him, but a lot. Enough.

“How well?” She’s watching me closely. “What do you know about his past?”

“Enough to know he wasn’t alive a hundred years ago! That picture can’t be him! It has to be a coincidence, someone who looks like him—”

“Who else looks like him?”

“Or a relative! Maybe he’s a legacy student. Maybe he had an ancestor here—”

“I thought the same thing. But it was him, Saintly. I know it.” Jesse’s eyes are steely with determination. “I could tell. As soon as I saw it, I had this feeling…”

“Oh, you had a feeling! I should just go by your feeling? Hang my whole life on your feeling?” But the truth is, I’m having the same feeling, a horrible, cold emptiness, like I’m being hollowed out at the core. It’s like an instinct I never knew I had is setting off an alarm system deep inside me.

I squash it down. “Where is this picture, then?”

She looks down at her hands, embarrassed. “I tried to bring it to you, but my hands don’t always work to pick up physical things. I have to concentrate hard or they slip right through. I managed to tear it out, but when I got outside—”

“So there’s no picture.”

She shakes her head, ashamed. “I tried to hold onto it, but I couldn’t. It slipped through my fingers and the wind took it.”

“The wind took it.” I’m studying her.

She sees the skepticism in my eyes. “You don’t believe me? Why would I say it if it isn’t true?”

“How should I know? You said I was only one who could see you. Maybe you don’t want me spending time with Dev. Maybe you’re mad I stood you up. Maybe you’re jealous because I’m alive and in love and—”

“No! It’s none of that!”

“Or because you see me moving on with my life and you can’t!”

“I’m just trying to help!” But I can tell by the way she looks away that something has struck close to the nerve, and it gives me hope. How do I know she hasn’t made it all up?

I wish I was making this all up. A week ago, I would have considered Jesse a figment of my imagination, and it would have made perfect sense. This is exactly the sort of thing people make up to sabotage themselves when things start going right. I don’t feel like I deserve Dev, so I’m making up reasons I can’t have him. I can almost hear what Dr. Sterling would say about survivor’s guilt. Jesse is my way of dragging myself back down. “How do I know
you’re
not the threat?”

Jesse takes a step back, hurt registering in her gray eyes as surely as if I’d slapped her.

But she’s not going to drop it. “It isn’t just the picture. I spied on that ghost, Charlotte.”

I watch her warily. “The one who was trying to warn me about something.”

“About Dev, I’m sure of it. But they aren’t trying to warn you anymore. I heard her talking with another ghost and they said they were running out of time, so they had to change the plan.” She takes a deep breath. “Saintly, she said they were going to kill you.”

“No.” I turn away from her. “That doesn’t make sense. They can’t save me, so they’re going to kill me themselves?”

“I don’t understand it, either.” Jesse looks helpless. “I know there’s something we’re missing, some explanation, so I went to his room to try to find it.”

“You’ve been messing around in Dev’s room?”

“I had to. And there’s a box, there, Saintly. I can’t explain it, but it has this… darkness about it. There’s a face on the handle that looks like it’s in agony, and there are words carved into it. ‘Bold, be bold, but not too bold…’”

“Or your hearts blood shall soon run cold.”
My mind finishes the quote for me against my will, and it all comes back to me. Those are the words carved into the door in my dream. But it doesn’t make any sense. I’ve never seen the box, so how could I dream about it? I feel like my life is collapsing around me like a house of cards, all the things I’ve tried to keep separate falling into each other, dragging me down with them. I shut my eyes, grabbing hold of the back of the couch beside me. I’m shaking. What does it mean? If the dream was really a warning, is Jesse right? Was it trying to warn me about Dev? I press my thumb hard against the heart tattoo on my wrist, like I’m putting pressure on a bleeding wound. Dev is the only good thing in my life right now. I can’t afford to lose him. I remember the way he held me in the car, the way he whispered
I couldn’t stand to lose you, too.

“Saintly?” Jesse reaches out to touch me, but her cold hand slides right through me as I jerk away.

“I don’t believe you.” My voice trembles. I open my eyes to see Jesse watching me, her face full of concern. She looks so sincere, so worried. But what was it Dev was saying in the car? Looks can be deceiving. Things aren’t always what they appear to be, and you can’t tell good from bad by looking.

And I promised.

“Saintly?” Jesse takes a step back. I can tell by her expression that something must have changed in mine. “What are you thinking?”

“
Lux vos liberabit!”

For a second, Jesse stares at me, confused. And then she understands what I’ve done and a look of pure horror comes over her face. “No. You can’t.”

But I already did, and there’s no undoing it. I feel a rush of power surge through me. There’s a sizzling sound and a smell like ozone and a patch of nothingness opens above Jesse’s head, as if someone has ripped a hole in the air itself. As we stare, it burns quickly outward until the entire space where the ceiling used to be is full of dazzling light, so bright I have to look away.

But Jesse can’t look away. She’s staring right at it, her eyes wide with a mix of horror and awe. A hot wind blows through the hole in space, rattling the closed blinds. It smells sweet like fresh grass, but it’s restless, hungry—and real. A real that makes the room around us seem fake in comparison. A real that even I can’t deny.

Jesse tears her gaze away from the light, a look of betrayal in her eyes. “I can’t go! I have to make sure you’re okay!” But I’m not sure there’s a choice anymore. The wind is beginning to swirl around her, tugging at her jacket, whipping her short blond hair. “Saintly, you have to close it! I’m not ready to go yet!”