The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (29 page)

I shake my head. “What's it supposed to look like?”

“It's a weapon,” she says breathlessly. “A weapon that only a luiseach can wield. Concentrate. Don't you see it?”

“See what?”

“See something more than just an ordinary knife?”

I pick up the knife and hold it up in front of me, turning it over in my hands. I squint and stare at it, then I squeeze it tight. I drop it to the floor with a hollow
thump
against the carpet. All the while it stays an ordinary old knife.

“What do you see when you look at it?” I ask.

“It doesn't matter what I see,” Victoria replies. “The weapon manifests itself differently for each of us, based on our strength and our needs—and based on the strength and power of the demon we're using it against, of course.”

“What do you mean by strength and power? Are you saying that on midnight on New Year's Eve my mother will be as strong as Superman?”

“Not exactly. Your mother will be incapacitated, but her body—possessed by the demon—will be powerful.”

“But if her body is going to have superhuman strength, how am I supposed to overpower it? You said you couldn't destroy this demon, and you've been doing this for a lot longer than I have. It's only been a few months since my sixteenth birthday.” Tears spring to my eyes. If she couldn't destroy this demon, how am I supposed to? What kind of a mentor gives his mentee a task that even a seasoned luiseach couldn't overcome? I feel like I'm destined to fail.

“It's been fifty-one years since I turned sixteen,” Victoria says.

“But—” Nolan does the math automatically, “That would make you sixty-seven years old.”

Victoria nods, and I lean forward, studying her face. There is barely a line on her forehead. Her eyes are ringed with dark circles—guess she doesn't sleep much, just like me—but there aren't crow's feet peeking out at the corners. She smiles, and I see that her lips are full and thick, her teeth bright white. Either Victoria has the world's greatest plastic surgeon, or . . . I think back to some of Nolan's earlier research.
Luiseach live long lives.
They—we—must age at a different rate too.

“It's true that I couldn't defeat this demon, but it wasn't just because I wasn't strong enough. I was away for my work when the demon murdered my family.” She pauses. “I should have been there.” Her words are tight and clipped. “In the months prior to the murders Anna had been complaining that her father was distant. I thought she was just upset that I'd been traveling so much and was trying to get me to spend more time at home. I promised I'd make it up to her when my work was done.” Victoria swallows; the pain of making a promise to her daughter that she couldn't keep is written on her face. Suddenly I'm able to see each of her sixty-seven years etched on her skin.

“Distant how?” Nolan asks.

“It's hard to explain. At first it was small. Little things that only Anna or I would have been able to recognize. He still went to work, did his job, picked Anna up after school, bought groceries, made sure there was dinner on the table. Anna said he just seemed, somehow . . .” She trails off, searching for the right word.

“Absent,” I supply.

“Yes.” Victoria nods sadly. “Anna complained of missing him when he was right there with her.”

“Just like my mom.”

“Just like your mom,” Victoria agrees.

“But couldn't you—I mean, luiseach can feel spirits, can't they? Couldn't you feel there was a demon in the house? I mean, when you were home?”

“So many spirits followed me everywhere. My mentor had trained me to tune them out—let another luiseach help them move on—so I could concentrate on our work.”

Victoria stands up and turns so that her back is to us. She takes a shallow, ragged breath, like she's trying not to cry. I glance at Nolan. Maybe all these questions are too much for her. We're practically forcing her to relive her family's murder.

“I'm sorry—” I begin, but Victoria holds up her hand, cutting me off.

She turns around to face us, her pale face flushed with color. “You're stronger than the demon. I promise you that.”

I shake my head. I've never felt strong. I get winded walking up a couple of flights of stairs. I've been picked last for every team in every gym class I've been in since kindergarten. “I can't even kill a spider,” I insist, shuddering. “Believe me, I'm kind of a weakling.”

“You're stronger than you know,” Victoria says, and it sounds like a command. “Your parents—” She pauses. “You are descended from two of the most powerful luiseach in history.”

Now it's my turn to stand and turn my back on everyone else. Victoria does know who my birth parents are after all! Maybe all luiseach know, if my birth parents are two such powerful and important pillars of the community.

“Who are they?” I'm not sure I want to know, but I have to ask. Butterflies flutter in my belly, and I hold my breath as I wait for an answer.

“I can't tell you that.”

I exhale. “Did you know they abandoned me?”

“It's complicated—”

“Actually it's not complicated. You don't abandon a helpless baby.”

“One day you will understand. Your father—”

“I don't have a father,” I say firmly, biting my lip to keep from crying. “I have a mother—
one
mother—and her name is Katherine Griffith. She's the
only
mother I want. Believe me, I'm not interested in meeting the mother who left me all alone to be found at my mom's hospital.”

“It wasn't your mother who left you. Your father—he was trying to protect you.” She says it like it's perfectly reasonable.

“That's a pretty pathetic way to protect a baby.” Stubbornly, I brush away the tears streaming down my face.

I hear Nolan stand up behind me. I step away before he can try to put his arms around me. Still I can feel the heat of his body, just inches away from mine. Not as comforting as a hug, but it still feels good. Well, not actually
good
—nothing feels good right now—but better, somehow.

“I'm sorry,” Victoria says, “It will all become clear—”

“When?” I answer, turning around, my tears splashing hotly against my cheeks and chin. But I'm not sad anymore. I'm angry. “When will it be clear? Once the demon is exorcised using some kind of magical luiseach weapon that I can't see? Once my mentor finally comes out of the shadows and reveals himself and explains why the test he set up for me put the only family I have—the only family I
want,
the person who would
never
choose to abandon me—in danger?”

Once more the warmth of Victoria's house feels oppressive.
I pull my hair into a ponytail and unwrap Mom's scarf from around my neck. I walk to the window, throwing it open. The curtains blow back and I stand there, letting the wind wash over me.

“I'm beginning to think that luiseach—luiseaches,
blah,
whatever the plural is—are the bad guys. They
desert
their children. They place
innocent
people in jeopardy.” It actually feels good when the breeze makes goose bumps blossom on my arms and legs. I turn around to face Victoria, the wind at my back. “I don't want anything to do with any of this,” I sniff, swallowing the lump in my throat and pressing the heel of my hand against my forehead.

“I know this is difficult,” Victoria says quietly. “There are so many questions I can't answer.”

“
Won't
answer,” I mumble, wiping away my remaining tears with my sleeve.

“But I can tell you that the first step toward clarity will come with freeing your mother from the demon's hold—and even if you don't want anything to do with any of this, I know that more than anything you want to save her.”

She's right. Maybe my mentor designed it this way on purpose. You can't exactly skip a test when the results are so important to you. I lower my hand from my forehead so that I'm covering my eyes.

I take a deep breath and drop my hands, shut the window, and walk back to the couch. I lift the knife off the floor and stare at it once more.

Still, all I see is a rusty old knife.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Heavy Metal

“
Maybe it needs to be activated
for Sunshine to see it,” Nolan offers.

“What do you mean, activated?” I don't think it has an on-off switch.

He shrugs. “Maybe since . . . I don't know. Maybe since you haven't passed the test yet, you're not able to see it.”

“But how can I pass the test if I can't see the weapon I need in order to pass the test?” I ask wearily.

“Maybe it will show itself when you need it.”

I look at Victoria, who nods intently. “He could be right,” she says slowly. “Perhaps when the demon confronts you—with all of its strength and power—you will find the motivation you need to see the weapon.”

“Is that how you saw it?”

“It was given to me in a time of great need. I saw it immediately—but then, I needed it immediately.”

“And you've been able to see it since then, whether you need it or not?”

“I always see it in the form it was in the last time I used it.”

“But then can't you use it on my mother? I mean, I know you're not supposed to be a luiseach anymore, but if you can see the weapon—”

“It doesn't work that way.” Victoria shakes her head. “It's not my test to pass. Anyway, it would be useless to try right now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Confronting her now would be useless. You need to wait until the demon takes full possession of her.”

“Midnight on New Year's Eve,” Nolan says slowly.

Victoria nods. “At any other time it will just be your mother you're attacking, not the demon.”

“What does the weapon look like for you?” Nolan asks Victoria.

Victoria hesitates before answering, like she's not sure whether she's supposed to share that piece of information. Finally she responds. “It's a rope.”

“A rope?” I echo. “That doesn't sound particularly supernatural.”

Victoria smiles almost wistfully, as though she's remembering the days she wielded the rope with pleasure. “It wasn't just any rope. It was a rope that was stronger than iron. Once bound by it, it was impossible to break free. It was a rope with edges as sharp as steel, so that even the slightest touch was like being cut by a knife.”

“Did you cut a lot of people doing luiseach work?” I ask, queasy at the thought of all that blood—another reason to give up my powers when this is all over.

“Just one,” she answers softly. “My husband.”

I loosen my grip on the knife the tiniest bit. “What?”

“By the time I arrived home it was too late.” Her usually melodic voice loses some of its music as she continues. “My husband and my daughter were already dead. Still, I grabbed my weapon and tied it around my husband, tighter and tighter. I thought I could squeeze the demon out, strangle him out. But a postmortem attack proved to be useless. The demon was already gone, and he'd taken my daughter's spirit with him.”

“I'm sorry,” I whisper, blinking back tears. I imagine Victoria opening her front door, slipping off her coat, calling for her family and wondering why they weren't answering. I imagine her walking up the stairs, never thinking for a second of the horrors that were waiting for her in her daughter's bathroom. Maybe Anna's body was floating in the bathtub, her cheeks still pink with life; perhaps her husband's flesh was still warm when she wound her rope around it. I envision my graceful, composed art teacher wailing with grief. I can't imagine anything more terrible. It makes me want to drop this knife and never pick it up again.

Instead, I force myself to tighten my grip.

“What if it doesn't—” I pause, struggling to remember the word Victoria used earlier. “
manifest
for me in time?”

“It will,” Nolan says firmly.

“How do you know?”

“Because you'll be ready to fight. You won't be scared, and you won't be weak. People find all kinds of hidden stores of strength when they're fighting for their lives. They do things they never knew they were capable of.”

I shake my head. “But the demon can't kill me, remember?”

“I know,” Nolan nods. “But it can kill me.”

“What do you mean?”

“At midnight on New Year's Eve I'll be standing right beside you. The demon will attack me—a human—the same way it attacked Anna, right?” He looks at Victoria for confirmation. She bows her head solemnly.

“When your mother tries to hurt me,” he continues, “the weapon will manifest. Because you'll need it to protect me.”

“You don't know that for sure. I can't ask you to take that kind of risk.”