The Guidance (19 page)

This is what I was destined to do.

Yes, you are, Kendall ...

"I'm done" I announce to Mom in the front waiting room.

The television blares out the latest episode of
Oprah
and whatever disease-of-the-day topic they're discussing. Wouldn't I make a great guest for her? I am a Chicago native, after all.

Mom gathers her things and comes over to hug me. "I've been thinking about you in there on that table and how scared you must be. I haven't been very understanding or open-minded through all of this, Kendall. I've been so convinced that there was something physically wrong with you that I didn't want to accept the possibility that you
actually
are psychic."

Wow, was there a preview of"Psychic Kids—How to Handle Them" on the next
Maury?

"And you know that would be so much easier to handle than a physical malady," she adds.

"Dur," I say with a laugh. "That's what I've been trying to tell you!"

"We'll get through this together, sweetheart. I know we will. Faith and family love and support. That's what matters the most."

I reach out for her hand. "I know, Mom."

"You are special, Kendall. My own precious gift from God. You'll never know how precious." She kisses me on the forehead and then hugs me again.

"How would you classify Kaitlin? She's more like a curse than a gift." I crack myself up.

Mom swipes at me and laughs. A good long one, like I haven't heard from her in a couple of months. "Let's go to the cafeteria and get a chocolate milk shake. I hear they're the best anywhere. They use real gooey chocolate fudge."

"Sounds decadent ... and perfect."

Ten minutes later, I find out she's absolutely right. This is
the best
milk shake evah. Made even more special because I'm sharing it with my mom.

"Just as I expected," Dr. Kindberg tells us in his office three hours later. "The CT scan came back clean as a whistle."

"Wasn't that fast?" Mom asks.

"I knew you were anxious, Sarah," he says. "What can I say? I pulled some strings."

"Thanks, Doc!" I chime in. "So, no brain tumor or other funk in my head?"

"Funk-free," he says with a straight face. "Your blood work looks fine. White blood count is normal. A slightly high blood pressure, but I'll attribute that to the 'white-coat syndrome' of being at the hospital around doctors and all the stress you've been under with these tests."

"So, I'm okay?"

"You're a perfectly healthy sixteen-year-old girl."

"Almost seventeen," I add. With a snicker.

Mom folds her hands over her purse. "What about the special tests you did, Dr. Kindberg?"

"Ah, yes. Kendall scored a seventy-nine percent on the objects test we did and an eighty-one percent on the scene images. Very high indeed. Some of the highest I've seen in a while." He runs his hand over his chin, deep in thought. "My professional diagnosis is that Kendall is exactly what she claims to be: a budding psychic. I am happy to work her into my regular rotation for therapy visits, just to keep up with her progress, but I don't feel that it's necessary."

Did my heart just stop beating? Did he just say I'm not a freakazoid?

Mom licks her lips; tension is emanating from her as she's trying to be more understanding. I can read it all over her, as if the words were printed on her cheeks.

"You don't?" she asks.

"I only offer therapy as a way to help Kendall with any questions or issues she has along the way. However, it seems she already has a support group in place with her ghost-hunting team, this fellow psychic Loreen Woods, and your priest. I would say that you and your husband, as well as Kendall's sister and friends, continue to treat her as a normal person ... only one with some very special abilities. You, Sarah, need to be more open-minded and just listen to Kendall and what she's experiencing at all times. It's very important that she knows she can come to you and doesn't have to hide anything from you."

I squint over at Mom as she struggles through this; her face is flushed and pale at the same time.

"I-I-I'm trying. I want to be happy for her, Dr. Kindberg, I do. I'm just so worried about her being scared and how I can help her through that." Mom's voice breaks on the last word.

I slip my hand in hers. "I'm not scared of the spirits, Mom. I promise." Okay, that Union soldier guy skeeves me out a lot, but it's just because I haven't gotten a handle on what his glitch is yet. "If anything upsets me, I promise to tell you. You can read all of my case files and look at our Ghost Huntress website. You will know exactly what we're doing."

Her eyes dance over my face. "I'd like that. I'd like to be involved as much as I can without hindering you in any way."

"If you'll trust me with Loreen, like you've been doing, then she can help me hone my abilities. After all, she's already gone through this and wants to make things easier for me."

Mom swallows hard but then nods her head. "All right, Kendall. Whatever is best for you."

"I've got your blessing?"

"Yes, sweetheart. Just be careful."

As she and I hug tightly, I peer over her shoulder at Dr. Kindberg. He winks and smiles at me.

Everything's going to be fine. Just like I knew.

Mom dabs her eyes with her knuckle. We finish up with Dr. Kindberg and agree to check in with him regularly or whenever needed, and then we head out.

In the elevator, Mom smiles and clutches my hand, swinging it back and forth in the space between us like we used to do when I was a little girl and we'd walk along the shore of Lake Michigan. This is a great Mom moment. You know ... one you'll remember in the years to come and feel the special love and connection with the woman who gave you life.

"Do we have to go straight back to Radisson?" I ask.

"No. Why?"

I shift weight from one leg to the other. "Maybe we can go to dinner or something. The two of us. I can tell you all about our cases and the things I do during an investigation."

"I'll go one better than that." She whips out her cell phone and speed-dials a number. "David, it's me. Yes, dear. Everything's okay. All of Kendall's tests came back normal. I'll tell you more later. Right now, Kendall and I are going to have some girl time. If it's okay with you, we're going to stay here and shop and see the city—"

"Ooo, let's go to the Georgia Aquarium!"

Mom waves at me and continues. "I'm going to use some of your Starwood Points and check us into the Westin in Buckhead. How's that? Okay, dear. We love you too.

"How does that sound?" she asks with a vibrant smile.

"Like total perfection."

And it is. The next day, Mom and I shop together, have an amazing dinner at the Buckhead Diner, get pampered with a massage, manis, and pedis, and I get to see Nandi, the ginormous manta ray at the aquarium.

During all of this, Emily silently disappears into the background to give Mom and me room. But not before she whispers:

You're lucky to have Sarah Moorehead in your life ...

Tell me something I don't know.

"I missed you."

"I missed you too," I say to Jason Saturday night at the football game. Mom and I got home from the ATL just in time for him to pick me up. I'm wearing my new Lip Service Teacher Hit Me with a Ruler plaid jacket and a black asymmetrical skirt that totally rocks. "Wait until you see all my new clothes. I got this sick Abbey Dawn by Avril Lavigne T-shirt and a Kill City striped hoodie. Oh, and we went to A and F for—"

"Kendall, don'tcha think this is a conversation more suited for Taylor?"

I laugh in spite of myself. I've never been a fashion bug, but I'll admit that shopping with Mom was amazing fun and I got carried away with all of the stores at our fingertips.

"You're right, Jason. Sorry!"

"No need." He chuckles and snuggles next to me on the bleacher seat. "I bet you'll look hot in all of 'em."

I blush clear down to my Ed Hardy "Love Kills Slowly" slipon shoes. What? I'm not addicted to designer clothes. I'm not!

"Jaaaason."

"I'm your boyfriend. I'm allowed to tell you you're hot."

"I think you're hot too," I confess, blushing even harder.

Celia and Clay return from the concession stand with sodas and popcorn. She clears her throat at our bout of PDA and then sits next to me.

Jason lets out a holler as the football team runs onto the field. Taylor squeals when she sees Ryan. She has her camera and her video recorder with her tonight so she can capture his feats on the field. "Come on, beat Hillside like they're rented mules!" she screams.

I laugh so hard that I almost choke. "Why do people want to beat rented mules? Are they different from regular mules?"

"You're so literal-minded sometimes, Kendall," Jason says.

"Sorry, it's the Midwesterner in me."

We watch our team run Hillside up one side of the field and down the other. Halftime comes and goes with the band and a dance routine. We all make silly faces and huggy poses for Taylor's video. It's so much fun to have a gang to hang out with like this. I actually feel normal.

That is, until toward the end of the game, when I begin to sense spirit energy around us. I can feel it weaving among the people, as if it's seeking out someone in particular.

Jason interrupts my thoughts by knocking me on the arm and then pointing down at the cheerleaders. "Courtney looks like she's doing a striptease at the fifty-yard line."

I sit up. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, man. I don't know what kind of Kool-Aid she's been drinking. Check her out."

The team has just gotten a first down, and the cheerleaders are going crazy. Taylor moves toward the fence to get a better camera shot of Ryan. When several people in the crowd start mumbling and laughing, I see her spin the camera around on Courtney.

"
What
is she doing?" Clay asks.

I glance down at her. Instead of leading the cheer of "First and ten, do it again, go, go, go," she's looking down at her body, and—no, she did'unt!—she's feeling herself up! She's rubbing her own boobs like she's never felt them before.

"This is totally rental porn," I hear from some guy behind me.

And it just gets better. Next thing we know, she goes over to her bag and pulls out chewing tobacco. She begins to chaw away on it, spitting on the ground.

"Did she just grab herself between the legs like she's ... adjusting herself?" Celia asks with shock on her face.

Jason seems embarrassed for her. "It's like she's playing pocket hockey."

"Oh my God." She's lost her mind. I smack Jason on the leg. "Stop watching her!"

"Kendall,
everyone
is watching her."

It's true. I peer out onto the field, and even the safety for Hillside is so distracted by the sideline show that he totally misses Ryan when he sprints by him and into the end zone.

While the crowd erupts into cheers, I watch as Courtney takes her sweater off. Thank heavens the cheerleader sponsor is out on the field with a letter jacket and covers her up. What in the world would possess Courtney to do that? Then I stop my own thoughts at the word
possess
. My skin itches. Something's not right in suburbia.

"Kendall, are you all right?" Jason asks.

"We've got to gather the team and look at the video that Taylor's shooting."

He groans. "Not another investigation. Come on, Kendall."

"We have to, Jase."

The ghost huntresses have work to do.

"Roll it back, Taylor," I say Sunday afternoon, glued to the television set. We're all at Casa Nichols, spread out in Celia's room watching the video from the football game last night. Even Seamus, her bulldog, seems engrossed. "Watch what she does right there."

Sure enough, Courtney Langdon grabs her crotch in front of the several hundred people who have turned out to see RHS play Hillside.

"Why is she doing that?" Taylor asks. "Bless her heart."

Celia turns her eyes on Taylor. "Bless her nothing. She's a bitch."

Taylor's mouth falls open. "She's still a person, and she's making a fool out of herself."

I watch closer as Courtney keeps scanning around her, like she's seeing something in her peripheral vision. Then you can see her pompoms moving next to her; her head jerks quickly to see what's going on. She's definitely aware that something is around her.

Celia leans forward. "This is the best part. Watch this."

Riveted, we all stare glassy-eyed as Courtney throws down her pompoms and lets out what can only be described as a war cry and charges the field. Coaches nearby drop their clipboards as they dash off after the wayward cheerleader.

My mouth drops open. "What the hell?"

Taylor points.
"Absolument incroyable!
Absolutely unbelievable!"

This was the most bizarre occurrence of the night. As the players are shaking hands after the game, Courtney barrels into the crowd and completely tackles one of the visiting team's players. She starts pounding him with both of her fists until one of the RHS guys pulls her off him, her legs still flailing about.

"Holy shit. She's gone," Celia notes. "Is that your professional opinion?"

"She's off the chain. What's happened to her? Is she possessed?"

I think for a mo' and then say, "Not according to Loreen. Spin that back,Taylor." After the tape resets to where Courtney's looking around her like something's there, I explain. "See how she seems to be spotting something out of the corner of her eye? Well, that's more of a sign of an oppression than an actual possession. If she were possessed, she wouldn't be so aware of what's going on around her. Here, she's sensing something's not right and may even be seeing the spirit in her peripherals."

"I don't get it," Taylor says.

"Well, Loreen tells me there's a fine line between spirit oppression and possession ... being that possession is nine-tenths of the law." I try to laugh, but the joke falls flat. "I mean, if she were possessed, she wouldn't really have any control of her body at all. Thing is, we see her cheering one minute like there's nothing wrong and then, all of a sudden, she's aware of a shift in energy around her and she starts acting like a weirdo. Here, where she's touching herself, it's like it's not her at all. There's a faraway look in her eyes, like she's taken a step back and let someone else take control."