Haunted Read Free Page B

settle down, Susannah, in a structured environment like the one we offer here at the academy.”
    I sniffed. I couldn’t help it. Father D. really had no idea what he was up against.
    “And if he doesn’t?” I asked.
    “Well,” Father Dominic said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Now run along. You don’t want to waste the whole of your lunch break in here with me.”
    Reluctantly, I left the principal’s office, carrying the dusty old tome he’d given me. The morning fog had dispersed, as it always did around eleven, and now the sky overhead was a brilliant blue. In the courtyard, hummingbirds busily worked over the hibiscus. The fountain, surrounded by a half-dozen tourists in Bermuda shorts—the mission, besides being a school, was also a historic landmark and sported a basilica and even a gift shop that were must-sees on any touring bus’s schedule—burbled noisily. The deep green fronds of the palm trees waved lazily overhead in the gentle breeze from the sea. It was another gorgeous day in Carmel-by-the-Sea.
    So why did I feel so wretched?
    I tried to tell myself that I was overreacting. That Father Dom was right—we didn’t know what Paul’s motives in coming to Carmel were. Perhaps he really had turned over a new leaf.
    So why could I not get that image—the one from my nightmares—out of my head? The long dark hallway and me running through it, looking desperately for a way out, and finding only fog. It was a dream I had nearly once a night, and from which I never failed to wake in a sweat.
    Truthfully, I didn’t know which was scarier: my nightmare or what was happening now while I was awake. What was Paul doing here? Even more perplexing, how was it that Paul seemed to know so much about the talent he and I shared? There’s no newsletter. There are no conferences or seminars. When you put the word mediator into any search engine online, all you get is stuff about lawyers and family counselors. I am as clueless now, practically, as I’d been back when I was little and known only that I was…well, different from the other kids in my neighborhood.
    But Paul. Paul seemed to think he had some kinds of answers.
    What could he know about it, though? Even Father Dominic didn’t claim to know exactly what we mediators—for lack of a better term—were, and where we’d come from, and just what, exactly, was the extent of our talents…and he was older than both of us combined! Sure, we can see and speak to—and even kiss and punch—the dead…or rather, the spirits of those who had died and left things untidy, something I’d found out at the age of six, when my dad, who’d passed away from a sudden heart attack, came back for a little post-funeral chat.
    But was that it? I mean, was that all mediators were capable of? Not according to Paul.
    Despite Father Dominic’s assurances that Paul likely meant well, I could not be so sure. People like Paul did not do anything without good reason. So what was he doing back in Carmel? Could it be merely that, now that he’d discovered Father Dom and me, he wished to continue the relationship out of some kind of longing to be with his own kind?
    It was possible. Of course, it’s equally possible that Jesse really does love me and is just pretending he doesn’t, since a romantic relationship between the two of us really wouldn’t be all that kosher….
    Yeah. And maybe I really will get that Homecoming Queen nomination I’ve been longing for….
    I was still trying not to think about this at lunch—the Paul thing, not the Homecoming Queen thing—when, sandwiched on an outdoor bench between Adam and CeeCee, I cracked the pull tab on a can of diet soda and then nearly choked on my first swallow after CeeCee went, “So, spill. Who’s this Jesse guy anyway? Answer please this time.”
    Soda went everywhere, mostly out of my nose. Some of it got on my Benetton sweater set.
    CeeCee was completely unsympathetic. “It’s diet,” she said.