The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (33 page)

Ow.
One of the thorns stabs me in the thumb. I drop the bouquet abruptly. It hits the ground with a soft thud, the pretty pink petals scattering across the hospital's linoleum floor.

The scent of roses is heavy in the air when Cecilia finally confirms my fears: “Victoria passed away early this morning.”
Mom holds my hand as we walk back through the hospital.

“I'm so sorry, sweetie,” she says, but I don't say anything in return. I don't think I can. Not with this lump in my throat choking me. “I looked at her chart,” Mom continues. “She was just without oxygen for too long.”

I nod as though that explains things, but none of this makes the least bit of sense. I passed the test, didn't I? I got rid of the demon! How could Victoria still die?

I have to get out of this hospital. The creepy feeling is stronger than ever. It wasn't like this last night, in the emergency room, on the other side of the building—Victoria was one of the only patients, and the others were mostly New Year's Eve partiers who had partied a bit too hard, nothing life threatening. But right now, walking through the ICU, it's overwhelming. So many people hovering on the brink between life and death. I'm certain now that this feeling—the one I felt on my sixteenth birthday, the one I felt in our house with Anna there, in the professor's office—is my body's way of telling me that a spirit is near.

I walk faster, toward the exit, toward the car that Mom will drive away from here. But all at once I stop.

“Honey?” Mom asks, but I shake my head. The creepiness has shifted; instead of the weight of thousands of spirits that have come and gone from this building, I feel only one.

I close my eyes and concentrate, focusing on the sensation: the chill in the air, the hair prickling on my arms and at the nape of my neck. Then I gasp with understanding and open my eyes. Though Mom can't see her, there's an elderly woman with white hair and paper-thin freckled skin leaning against the wall across from where I stand. At once I know that she was sleeping
two floors above us mere seconds ago, but then her heart simply gave out. Her spirit was drawn to me—like a moth to a flame, just like Victoria said.

A light spirit. One that's ready to move on.

I extend my arms in her direction, and as she begins shuffling toward me I can feel her spirit—all the memories, all that she did and saw and knew—rushing toward me.

Her fingertips brush against mine, and suddenly I know that she had a good life: two children, four grandchildren, a beloved husband who passed away just six months ago. She's ready to see him again. An amazing feeling washes over me. It's not the least bit creepy—it's the opposite of creepy.

It's peace.

I smile.

“Honey?” Mom says again. I turn to face her. “Are you okay?” She wrinkles her nose the way she has a thousand times before, every time she tried to figure out what her dopey daughter was up to.

The feeling of peace is dissipating, replaced by grief over the loss of Victoria. Still, somehow it feels more manageable now than it did before.

“Not really,” I answer. “But I'm getting there.”

Mom takes my hand in hers once more. Arm in arm, we leave the hospital behind.

She Has Succeeded

I watched her confront the demon. I stood in her yard, a device of my own keeping me hidden and dry, even when the water demon drenched her house with rain, flooded it with water that seemed to appear from out of nowhere, from beneath the tiles of her kitchen floor, from the very air that she breathed.

The creature had saturated the house for months, thriving in this damp climate. The demon that Victoria couldn't conquer, who murdered her human family. The creature she gave up her powers to help destroy. I sensed Victoria's need throughout the night: she wanted the girl to succeed as much as I did, her feelings every bit as intense. But unlike me, she was focused only on saving her daughter; I'm trying to determine the future of our entire race.

I watched Sunshine every step of the way. Even as she was begging her powers to manifest I could feel that she was hoping for some other luiseach to come and finish the job. I felt it when she gave up hope, then sensed the change in her when she found stores of strength she didn't know she'd had. Still—even now—she is trying to plot her way out of her destiny.

But destiny is inescapable. I will teach her that. Perhaps it will be our first lesson.

The weapon took longer to manifest than I would have liked. The girl simply couldn't concentrate. Easily distracted by her concern for Katherine, for the boy—even for Victoria and Anna, whom she barely knew and couldn't possibly have loved already. She needs a stronger will, a sharper focus. There will always be distractions; she has to resist such things. If she isn't careful, they will become her greatest weakness.

Perhaps that will be our second lesson.

Today she helped her first spirit move on. She trusted her intuition long enough to allow the spirit to flow through her. She granted the spirit peace and, in so doing, found an instant of peace herself. I sensed the moment the spirit was released into the ether. I felt the smile on Sunshine's face.

She is ready. It is time for me to make my presence known.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The Mentor Arrives

The drive home from the hospital
is (of course) foggy. Last night's rain has all but washed away the snow. Only tiny patches of white remain. I lean my head against the window and stare at the homes we drive past. A shrunken snowman melts in someone's front yard, looking pathetic and defeated.

What exactly did I do back there? Did I help that woman . . . move on? It just felt natural, like Victoria said it would.

Not just natural. It felt
good.
I
liked
helping her find peace. For an instant I was at peace too. For once, just like Victoria said, I didn't feel awkward and clumsy and out of place. I felt like I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Maybe Victoria was right: I've never fit in because being a luiseach was what I was
supposed
to be doing instead. If I give up my powers, does that mean I'll never feel that kind of peace, that kind of
right
-ness, again?

I wish I'd been there when Victoria passed. I wish hers was the spirit I helped move on.

Maybe, finally freed from the confines of my house, Anna was with Victoria when she died. Maybe they'll never have to be apart again.

I really hope so.

Finally the tears make their slow, sad descent across my cheeks.

“Oh sweetie,” Mom says. “The doctors did all they could.”

I nod, but the truth is, I'm not sure the doctors had a chance. They had no idea what they were
really
dealing with. They thought it was a woman who'd been submerged in rain and flood water. Not that it would have made much difference if they
had
known. It's not like the hospital has a doctor who specializes in demonic injuries who could have saved the day if only we'd told them the truth about what happened last night.

Shouldn't my mentor be here by now? I hated this test, but I passed it. I got rid of the demon, saved my mother's life, and protected Anna's spirit. I'm ready to meet him, ready to make a deal, just like Victoria did. Ready to give up my powers, no matter how good it felt to use them this morning.

Mom turns into the driveway. Through the fog I see Nolan sitting on our front porch. He doesn't have his jacket—I'm wearing it, and I don't plan on taking it off anytime soon—so he's bundled up in a heather gray sweatshirt with a scarf, his breath coming out in puffs of steam. His blond hair peeks out from the corners of his gray hat, pulled down low over his amber eyes.

“What's he doing here?” I ask. His big Chrysler isn't in the driveway; he must have walked here from his house.

Trying to lighten the mood, Mom smiles. “Guess he just can't stay away.”

“It's not like that,” I insist, but I'm blushing. Because maybe
it's not like that, but it's also not entirely
not
not like that, and I'm pretty sure Mom can tell.

I guess that's the one good thing about her absence the past few months. She would have been teasing me about Nolan the whole time.

Nolan stands up as I approach. He holds out a folded piece of paper.

“What's that?” I ask without taking it. From inside the house Oscar barks. Mom opens the front door, and he bounds out onto the porch, leaping for joy. I guess we're not the only ones who are happy the demon is gone. Mom crouches down to pet him, and he starts covering her face with doggy kisses, his way of saying,
I missed you I missed you I missed you.

“Victoria asked me to give it to you.”

“Victoria?” I echo. “When? Before last night?”

“No,” Nolan shakes his head. “She stopped by my house this morning.”

Mom turns from Oscar to us. “What?” she says, straightening up to stand.

“You mean, her spirit visited you?” I say carefully, and Nolan looks at me like I'm crazy. Butterflies flutter gently in my stomach as I wait for his answer.

“Of course not. Victoria dropped it off and told me to give it to you. Besides, if it were her spirit, I wouldn't have been able to take the letter. I'm not the luiseach here—you are.”

“What's a luiseach?” Mom asks.

Nolan and I exchange a look with a capital L, and the butterflies in my belly flap their wings harder. I shake my head. I know I can't keep this a secret forever, but I'm just not ready to tell Mom yet. She's a scientist, and it's not going to be easy to convince her
that her daughter is some kind of paranormal-guardian-angel thing. No way do I want to start arguing with her all over again. Not when I just got her back.

“I'll explain everything eventually,” I promise.

“Does it have to do with all that creeptastic stuff you haven't been able to stop talking about since we moved here?” she asks.

“I never called it creeptastic, Mom. You did.”

“What did you call it?”

“I preferred just plain old creepy.”

“Well, I like creeptastic better.” Mom grins and I groan. I lean forward and wrap my arms around her. I inhale deeply, smelling the familiar combination of her perfume and shampoo. She rocks me back and forth like I'm a baby. Which, I guess—to her at least—I still am.

“I'm sorry I haven't been myself lately,” Mom whispers into my hair. I shake my head, because she has nothing to be sorry for. None of this is her fault. My mentor did this to her—did this to
us
. Put my mother at risk, Victoria at risk, Anna's spirit at risk—all just to test me.

If he ever shows up, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind, as Mom would say. For the first time the expression sounds horrifying to me, needlessly
graphic,
like I'm literally going to split open my skull and offer up a chunk of my brain. This guy has messed with my mind enough; I'm not about to give him any free access to it.

Mom lets me go. “I'll let you and Nolan talk,” she says solemnly, stepping inside the house. Oscar trots along behind her.

As soon as the front door is closed Nolan asks, “How could Victoria's spirit have visited me anyway? She'd have had to be—”

“Gone,” I finish for him, a lump rising in my throat once more. “We just came from the hospital. They told us she passed away early this morning.”

I expect him to look devastated, but instead he calmly shakes his head. “Not possible. It was after ten when she rang my doorbell.”

I feel shivers up and down my spine but not the same cold ones I felt in the hospital. These are shivers of something else. Understanding. I chew my bottom lip and pull the jacket's leather sleeves down over my wrists, trying to work out what all of this means.

“But . . . Victoria wasn't a luiseach anymore,” I begin softly.

Nolan understands what I'm thinking immediately. After all, he's the one who told me:
A luiseach's spirit—unlike the spirits of mere mortals—cannot be taken, damaged, or destroyed by a ghost or a demon.

“She gave up her powers,” he says slowly. “But she was still
born
luiseach.”

She must have retained some of the qualities of being a luiseach despite what she gave up. After all, she saw Anna last night somehow. And her house was so warm and cozy, as though she had the power to keep spirits—and the chill that comes with them—away.

“So the demon could hurt her,” I say, thinking out loud, “but not
destroy
her.”

“She must have flatlined at the hospital,” Nolan surmises. “They declared her dead and sent her off to the morgue—”

“And then, when no one was looking, she simply stood up and walked away,” I finish. The lump in my throat vanishes.

“To my house so she could give me this.” He holds Victoria's letter out in front of him. Carefully I take it from his hands. Nolan
and I lower ourselves onto the front porch steps as I unfold the pages.