The Ghost and the Goth (20 page)

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

Delicious warmth spread across my skin. Huh, maybe Angela was right. It felt like I was floating in the most perfect pool on the most perfect summer day. Something about that … I frowned. It seemed familiar, as if I’d experienced it before or heard someone talking about it… .

I looked up slowly, feeling almost drugged with this sudden sense of peace, and noticed the golden hue of the light surrounding me. My happily sluggish brain put the pieces together. This was it, finally! The light had come for me, and it was just as Will had described it. Will!

“Wait.” I forced myself to focus long enough to push the words out. “Wait, I can’t just leave him. He needs …”

The light intensified, absorbing everything, including whatever thought I’d been trying to convey, into a big, white, happy glow of nothingness.

“J
oonie, what are you doing?” I fought to keep my voice steady.

“You know, it took me a while to figure this out.” She pushed Lily’s chair farther in and then turned and closed the door. “I always knew you were different. I just figured it was plain old crazy, like your dad and everything.” She sounded way too cheerful, eerily so. “Then that night, the first night they let us visit Lily in the hospital, you remember?” She continued without waiting for an answer. “Your mom had left, and you fell asleep in the chair. I decided to try the Ouija board. I thought maybe I could talk to her that way, you know, tell her to wake up.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “But something else happened instead, didn’t it?”

Gus.
That was the first time I’d seen it.

“I called to her and she came, didn’t she?” she asked. “You saw her.”

Alarm bells rang in my head. Maybe Alona had been right about Joonie after all. “J,” I said as gently as possible, “I’m glad you came to visit, but my mom’s working on getting me discharged so—”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Can’t have that. Not yet.” She darted around Lily’s wheelchair to grab one of the visitor chairs. She dragged it across the room and angled it under the door handle, wedging the door shut. “That’s better.”

She turned to face me again with a scary smile. “You can see them, can’t you? Ghosts, spirits, whatever. That’s why you’re always trying not to hear things, why you’ve always got your head down, so you don’t react to them.”

Oh, not good. I tried to redirect her attention. “Joonie, what are you doing with Lily? Is she supposed to be out of her room?” She seemed to be doing okay from what I could tell. She didn’t need a respirator to breathe, but I wasn’t sure how long she could be away from her IV. It was hard to see her this way, her eyes dull, face slack. She was empty.

Joonie waved her hand dismissively. “Her body is fine. They left her all by herself in the basement to wait for an MRI.”

That explained how Joonie had gotten Lily here, though not why she’d brought her to my room.

“You know, I tried doing this the easy way,” she said reproachfully. She pushed Lily’s chair closer, her eyes bright and her cheeks pink like she had a fever. “I tried to get you to come to the hospital. And yesterday, in the cafeteria, I know she was there with you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “She wasn’t.”

She frowned at me. “Nobody goes down into the first tier to pretend to make a call, Will.”

“It wasn’t her,” I insisted. “She’s not here.”

But Joonie continued like she hadn’t heard me. “I told her to talk to you, to ask you to help. We just need you to do a little favor, Will. That’s all.”

“What do you want?” The nurse’s call button was well out of my reach in these restraints, and I guessed that shouting for help probably wouldn’t get me very far, not with whatever evaluation Miller had on file for me.

“It’s easy. I want you help me put Lily’s soul back into her body.”

I stared at her. Apparently, the part of regular Joonie was being played by
Twilight Zone
Joonie tonight. “Are you crazy? I can’t—”

She shook her head fiercely. “Don’t tell me you can’t do it. Don’t lie!” Her face turned a violent red. “You’ve been lying this whole time.”

How long could it possibly take to discharge one patient?My mom would be back here any minute, right? She’d notice the door was stuck and call someone for help. The safest thing to do was probably just keep pretending this was normal. Sure. “What are you talking about?”

She tilted her head back with a harsh laugh. “Oh, like you don’t know.”

“Um, actually ...” I shrugged, or did the best I could with my current restrictions.

“Fine. You want to make me say it. All right.” She nodded and just kept nodding, like her head was loose on its axis. “I found Lily, she was my friend first.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “So far, I’m with you.”

“But she preferred you,” she snapped.

Baffled, I tried to follow her line of thinking. “Nothing ever happened between Lily and me. You know that. We were just friends, all of us.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Not
just
friends, not all of us.” She looked at me, as if willing me to understand.

Suddenly, it clicked. The way Lily’s presence used to make Joonie light up. How angry and hurt she’d been after their big fight last summer. How completely devastated she’d been after the accident, even though they hadn’t even spoken in months. Alona’s hints about Joonie having a crush.

“Oh, Joon. I didn’t know. I didn’t know you and Lily were …” I trailed off awkwardly. Sometimes my gift, my curse, whatever you want to call it forced me to live mostly in another world, trying not to see, hear, or feel certain things. Evidently I’d done my share of not seeing in this world, too.

“We weren’t,” she said wearily.

“Then I don’t understand.” Maybe it was just me and my repeated head injuries, but I still couldn’t figure it out.

Joonie came around the side of the wheelchair to lean against my bed and stare at Lily. I resisted the urge to scoot my lower body, at least, away from her. She was freaking me out a little.

“I kissed her once,” she said. “Did you know that?”

Obviously not.

“Last summer.” She smiled at the memory.

“Before the fight.” About boys. That’s what Joonie had said. They’d fought about boys. I closed my eyes at my own stupidity. Sure, they’d fought about boys, as in, Lily liked them and Joonie didn’t.

“What happened?” I asked, though now I could sort of guess.

“She ended it, fast. I thought she was going to run, but she didn’t. She just kind of looked at me and said, ‘I wondered.’ Then she proceeded to take my hand and tell me that while she cared about me very much, she didn’t feel
that
way.” Joonie rolled her eyes, and tears slipped down her cheeks, making dark streaks on her face. “Probably the nicest way anyone could have ever told me no, but I …” Her voice trembled.

“You panicked.”

She nodded.

That I understood. Keeping a secret for so long, it starts to feel like a vital part of you. You get so used to living with it that way, the idea of being exposed feels life-threatening.

“I … I said all kinds of awful things to her. Accused her of being a tease, leading me on, which she hadn’t. I told her to stay away from me and you, or … or I’d tell everyone she kissed me, that she’d forced me.”

For Lily, one who aspired to be included, dreamed of walking amongst the first-tier elite, Joonie’s threat would have been enough.

She looked at me, her eyes pleading for understanding. “I was just so scared. It’s hard enough at home already, and if people at school found out, word would spread, and you know someone would eventually tell my dad.”

Her father hated her dyed hair, torn clothes, and piercings. I was afraid to think of what he’d do if he found out her alternative choices extended beyond her look. He was more of an Old Testament kind of preacher.

“That night was my fault,” Joonie said. “If I hadn’t pushed her away …”

I shook my head. “No, J, listen. She tried to call me that night.”

“She did?” She sounded surprised.

“She didn’t leave a message, but she tried. I had my headphones on, so I didn’t hear it ring. She still counted us as her friends, enough to call when she needed someone. I didn’t tell you because I knew you blamed yourself for the fight. I was afraid you’d think that her calling me meant she felt like she couldn’t call you. I didn’t want you thinking you were somehow responsible. It’s not your fault. She called. She ...” I broke off when Joonie started to laugh, a harsh and horrible sound, full of anguish and sharp edges.

“Look at you, so earnest and innocent.” She smiled bitterly. “She called me, too, Will. Twice. I talked to her.”

I stared at her, the world as I knew it shifting and falling around me. “What?”

“Ben Rogers used her and threw her away, just like he always does, and her little teen-princess pals didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.” Joonie shook her head in disgust. “So she called me and I … I told her she got what she deserved.” Her voice broke, and her shoulders shook in a silent sob.

I shook my head in stunned disbelief. “And the second time she called?” I forced myself to ask.

“I hung up on her.”

“Joonie,” I breathed.

“I figure that was right about when she started crying so hard she couldn’t see and lost control over her car,” she said flatly.

“Oh, my God.”

She knelt down next to Lily. “So you see why we have to do this. I need to take it back. I need to undo it.”

“Joonie.” I pulled against the restraints, trying to sit up. “You can’t. She’s gone. Really and truly gone.”

She sighed. “I thought you might say that.” She reached for the Ouija board resting across Lily’s legs. The second her hands touched the planchette, shadows flickered and swirled to life in the corner of the room behind her. Gloomy Gus.
Crap
. I’d never seen a ghost respond so promptly. It was … weird.

“I know you’re lying,” she said, her tone devoid of any emotion. “I’ve seen what happens to you when I call to her on the other side. She’s angry with me for what I said and with you for helping me.”

“She’s not angry. It’s not her. It’s …” In truth, I didn’t know what it was. This close, with Joonie right here in front of me, I could see a thin wisp of smoke leading from Joonie to the growing monstrosity that was Gus. Like a leash or …a pipeline.

I froze.
Energy is just energy until it finds me.
That’s what I’d told Alona. If Joonie, in her efforts to communicate with Lily, was sending out massive amounts of negative energy—all that guilt, grief, and shame flowing from her, oozing from her every cell—what was to say my presence wouldn’t cause it to manifest in the same way as a ghost? The door—or rather the call, to use the analogy I started with Alona—went both ways. It was usually energy from the dead side using me to take form, but why couldn’t intense energy, focused through a Ouija board, from the living side do the same thing? That would explain Gus’s lack of personality (other than angry) and why I’d never seen a ghost like it before. It wasn’t a ghost at all.

“I’ll call her,” Joonie said. “You just help me get her back where she belongs.”

How was I supposed to do that? Even if we could somehow reach Lily, which we couldn’t, it wasn’t like stuffing an unwieldy pillow back in its case. There has to be a connection between body and soul. But wisely, for once in my life, I kept my mouth shut. “Okay, I can help you. I need my hands, though.” To get the hell out of here.

She cocked her head to one side and gave me an evaluating look. “No. I don’t think so.”

“You want me to help, I need my hands.”

She frowned, and Gus expanded, spreading out from his corner with tendrils headed straight for me. “No, you’ll only try to run.”

Really? Was there any sane person who wouldn’t at this point? I shook my head. “No, I won’t. I want to help you.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said fiercely. Her fingers on the planchette turned white with the force of the pressure she applied, and Gus oozed forward.

I flinched and turned away.

Joonie sucked in a breath and looked around the room. “She’s here, already?”

“It’s not her, Joonie. Please, I promise you.” If Gus came crashing down on me and I couldn’t run …

Across the room, the door handle suddenly rattled back and forth. “Will?” My mother called. “What’s going on in there?”

I took one look at Joonie’s eyes, warning me without words to stay quiet, and shouted, “Mom, get help.”

After that, things happened kind of fast.

Gus surged forward. It crested above me like some kind of horrible wave and then flung itself down on me. I screamed, and it poured down my throat, filling my airway and sealing off my lungs.

“William!” My mother beat against the door frantically.

I couldn’t breathe, and the sheer coldness of Gus penetrated to my very core. Fighting back took more energy than I had, and everything, including my weak flailing in self-defense, had dropped into slow motion. Except for me dying; that was happening fast enough.

A bright flash of light appeared suddenly in the center of Gus and burst outward, tearing it to shreds. The horrible pressure on my chest and throat eased, and I sucked in air by the lungful, coughing and sputtering all the while.

“Can’t leave you alone for a second, can I?” an all-too-familiar voice asked.

I blinked my watering eyes, clearing my vision sufficiently enough to see Alona standing next to my bed. She looked …amazing. More beautiful and somehow more real. Like I’d only been seeing a projection of her true self before. Her hair was shinier, her eyes brighter. In short, she looked like a vision. So much so that I began to wonder if I hadn’t already started the great transition.

“Dead?” I croaked.

She snorted. “Not hardly. This time, anyway.”

At that point, Joonie seemed to notice a difference in that I was breathing again and not struggling to live.

Gus began gathering the shreds and wisps of itself, building again.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Alona reached over the arm of Lily’s wheelchair and started pushing the planchette around the Ouija board. I couldn’t see what letters she picked, but Joonie, quite helpful in her messed-up and out-of-it state, called them out loud.