Revived Spirits (17 page)

“The Oriental boy helps?” Minnie says.

“His name is Adam,” I say.

“What powers have you got, boy?” Minnie asks, pointing her corncob pipe at Adam.

“Uh...I can use the Internet,” Adam says, his voice shaking.

Miss Minnie’s eyes widen. “Then you’ve got powers I never even heard of.”

Adam looks like he’s about to explain something, but he smiles and stops. I guess it’s more fun to be thought of as a powerful sorcerer than a computer nerd.

Mom and Granny are in deep conversation with Dave, so I lean closer to Miss Minnie and whisper, “We’ve been trying to help someone else lately, but it’s not going well.”

“How come?” Miss Minnie says. She’s starting in on a chicken thigh.

“Well, it’s this girl whose mom is in jail for drugs.” I wonder if Miss Minnie even knows what I mean. “Not like medicine, you know, but bad drugs.”

“Dope?” Miss Minnie says, around a mouthful of chicken.

“Yeah, that. But the mom’s ex-boyfriend planted it in her car. At least we’re pretty sure he did, but I can’t use the Sight on him because he can feel me in his head.”

“Because of the dope,” Miss Minnie says. “I run into that with people a time or two myself.”

“So we’re stuck,” I say, “and he’s never gonna go to the police and tell them the truth because he’s not sorry he did it.”

Miss Minnie licks her fingers. “Well, you know what you
gotta
do then?”

“No,” I say.

She grins. “You’ve
gotta
make him sorry.”

On the way to Miss Minnie’s cabin, there were six passengers in Mom’s car. Now, on the way home, there are seven. The seventh passenger doesn’t take up much room, though. He’s in the mirror with Abigail.

According to Minnie, the solution to the Daryl
Chumley
problem is a good haunting—the kind that John Henry can provide and can hopefully provide a few lessons to Abigail too. “Night after night,” Minnie said, “the spirits of children haunting him, telling him they know what he did, ordering him to confess to the police. In no time at all”—and here she snapped a chicken bone in two— “he’ll break.”

Having John Henry in my room is like playing host to the world’s scariest toddler. He climbs my bookcase and jumps to the mantel, knocking over knickknacks and laughing. Adam is watching in horror, but unlike last night, he can’t see John Henry. He can only see the destruction John Henry leaves in his wake. With every crash and bang, Abigail winces. I’ve noticed she’s standing guard over the tea set she and I used to play with when I was little.

We planned this meeting to figure out the details of the haunting of Daryl
Chumley
. But John Henry doesn’t seem to be planning anything except the demolition of my room.

“Maybe we should just talk and let him do his...thing,” Adam says as John Henry flings himself into my beanbag chair over and over.

“I agree,” Abigail says. “After all, he can’t hurt himself. He’s dead.”

“Nope, the only thing he can destroy is my property,” I say. “So I guess the first thing to figure out is how we get you and John Henry to Daryl’s place.”

“Oh,” Abigail says, “that won’t be a problem as long as we get directions to where Mr.
Chumley
lives. Since the ritual last night I’ve discovered I don’t need the mirror. I can go wherever I choose, and so can John Henry. I think he just went in the mirror with me last night because”—she wrinkles her nose like she smells something bad— “he likes me.” She shakes off the thought, then says, “Here, I’ll demonstrate.” She leaps through the window like it’s nothing, then waves to me as she floats in midair on the other side.

“Wow,” I say.

“What did she do?” Adam says. When I explain, he says, “Cool.”

Once Abigail’s back in the window, she says, “So as you can see, travel is not a problem.”

“What I don’t understand,” Adam says, “is how you two are going to haunt Daryl if he can’t see you? Grownups can’t see ghosts, right?”

John Henry gets up from the beanbag chair and sticks up his index finger in a “wait” gesture. He dashes to my desk, grabs a piece of paper and a pencil, and writes furiously, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. After a few minutes, he brings the paper to Adam, and I read,
If the man can feel the Sight he
probly
can see ghosts. The dope makes him crazy, and crazy people can see things other people
cant
see. When I was alive people said I was crazy.

Adam’s thought is so clear I think for a second that he said it out loud:
Why does that last statement not surprise me?

“So,” I say, “Abigail, it seems like you and John Henry have this under control. I guess Adam and I will sit this one out.”

John Henry holds up his finger again and then scurries back to the writing desk. He sits down and writes for a few minutes, then hops down and brings the paper back to me. I read,
Muranda
cos
you have the Sight your spirit can come with us while your body sleeps. Your friend
cant
do it unless he can use his
majik
powers to go.

Adam, reading over my shoulder, says, “No, I don’t guess my magic Internet can help me there.”

Looking at Adam, I’m afraid I might cry. “But it doesn’t feel right to leave you out. You’re moving this summer. This might be our last time we get to do something like this together.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, but I can tell he feels bad. “I can still help a little, right?” He takes his laptop out of its case. “I’ve got my air card, so I can get directions to Daryl
Chumley’s
house. Would Abigail and John Henry like to watch me use my super Internet powers?” He opens up his laptop, and soon the screen shows a map with a red line showing the route from my house to Daryl
Chumley’s
house in Morgan.

John Henry’s eyes are wide, and his mouth is hanging open. He and Abigail applaud wildly.

Tonight’s the night.

“We won’t leave until you’ve fallen asleep,” Abigail says. She and John Henry are standing at the front of my bed.

“I’m afraid I’m too excited to sleep,” I say. “But I got Granny to make me a cup of chamomile tea, and it usually knocks me right out.” I pick up my half-empty mug and drain it.

I don’t know how long it took me to fall asleep, but what I do know is that right now I’m standing by the bed, watching myself sleep. It’s the strangest feeling I’ve ever had. “So my body is there,” I say, pointing at the bed. “But my spirit is here?”

“Exactly,” Abigail says. “Hold up your hands and look at them. They’re translucent like mine.”

I do. They are.

“You’ll have to hold my hand. And John Henry’s,” Abigail says.

John Henry looks a little too happy at the prospect of holding hands with me, but I clasp his tiny paw anyway. And then we’re out of my room, soaring through the mist, over the trees, over the roads, alongside owls and bats. If my body were with me, I’d probably feel like puking, but since I have no body to weigh me down, I feel light and free.

“I forgot to tell you,” Abigail says as we swoop downward. “Daryl
Chumley
may be able to see you in your spirit form too.”

“Really?” I say. “So what does that mean?”

Abigail smiles. “That means you get to help with the haunting.”

We swoop down, down until we’re inside the walls of the dirtiest apartment I’ve ever seen. We’re standing in the kitchen, where the sink and counter are piled high with dishes crusted with what was once food. The kitchen table is a mess of empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays.

“Well, it’s certainly not very homey,” Abigail says, crinkling her nose in distaste. “Though I suppose I shouldn’t have expected it to be.”

In the next room, a TV is blaring. John Henry grabs our hands and drags us toward the noise. All that’s in the living room are a milk crate with a TV on it and the filthy, green, duct-taped recliner where Daryl
Chumley
sits. He’s staring at the TV, which is playing some show about people who own dangerous pets who end up eating them, and smoking something awful-smelling out of a pipe. His eyes are bloodshot, his pupils huge.

John Henry lets go of Abigail’s and my hands and tiptoes behind the TV where he rips the plug out of the wall.

“What the—” Daryl says, but what he sees next stops all words. John Henry jumps out of the TV screen and charges toward him yelling, “
Yaaaaaaah
!”

Abigail whispers, “That was quite effective, wasn’t it? John Henry’s repulsive, but you have to admit he’s good at what he does.”

Daryl is frozen in his seat, gibbering, “
Wha—wha—wha
?” John Henry snatches the pipe from his hands and throws it. It smashes into the cheap paneled wall.

“No!” Daryl stands up. “It
ain’t
real! It
ain’t
real!” He heads toward the kitchen where Abigail and I are standing in the doorway.

“Oh, but it is real, Mr.
Chumley
,” Abigail says. “My friends and I are very real, aren’t we, Miranda?”

“We are,” I say.

“You”—Daryl jabs his finger in my direction—“you’re that girl.”

“I’m the spirit of that girl. I left her body behind.” I decide I’m kind of getting into this being a ghost thing.

“No,” Daryl says, shaking his head. He backs away from us until he bumps into the recliner where John Henry is happily tearing off the duct taped patches and ripping out the stuffing.

Daryl looks from John Henry to Abigail and me. “
Wha
—?”

“I’ll tell you exactly what, Mr.
Chumley
,” Abigail says. “We, the spirits of children, have come here because you have destroyed the spirit of a child.
Caylie
June, who used to live with you as if she were your own.”

“I...I never laid a hand on
Caylie
June.” His eyes dart to the front door, which John Henry is blocking.

“Hitting a child is not the only way to hurt her,” Abigail says.

“Yes,” I say. I feel a surge of confidence. No matter what I say, Daryl
Chumley
can’t hurt me. I am not in my body. “Like taking her mother away from her,” I say. “Like getting her mother locked in jail even though she didn’t do anything.”

His jaw hangs open. “How—how?”

“How do we know?” Abigail says. Her tone is coy and a little girlish. “Mr.
Chumley
, are you confessing?”

“No!” Daryl covers his ears with his hands. “And even if I was it wouldn’t matter cause none of this is real. I’m just seeing this on
accounta
what I was smoking.”

Abigail floats over to the front door. “John Henry, why don’t I take your post while you show Mr.
Chumley
just how real we are?”

John Henry rises off the floor and zips across the room and into the kitchen, a silver streak. When he returns he’s balancing a huge stack of the dirty dishes from the sink. He sets down the stack, picks up a plate, and flings it, Frisbee style, into the wall where it crashes and shatters to bits. Then he picks up another and does the same.

“No!” Daryl is yelling at the top of his lungs. He lets loose a loud stream of curses. “No! This has got to stop! This has got to stop! When is it going to stop?”

“We have no plans to be anywhere else,” I say, watching John Henry pick up a plate in each hand, then fling them in opposite directions.

“Oh, no, we’ll stay all night,” Abigail says. “And not just tonight. But the night after that and the night after that—”

“Every night, all night,” I say, “until you confess to the police about what you did to
Caylie’s
mother.”

John Henry slings a plate that hits Daryl right in the nose. He yells “
Ow
!” and curses and cups his hands over where it hit. When he pulls his hands away, they’re covered in blood. “He broke my nose!” Daryl says. “If he
ain’t
real, how did he break my nose?”