The Mediator #1: Shadowland Read online

  I slipped into the house as quietly as I could. Fortunately, everybody except the dog was dead asleep. The dog looked up from the couch on which he was reclining and wagged his tail when he saw it was me. Some watch dog. Plus my mom didn't want him sleeping on her white couch. But I wasn't about to make an enemy out of Max by shooing him off. If allowing him to sleep on the couch was all that was necessary to keep him from alerting the household that I'd been out, then it was well worth it.

  I slogged up the stairs, wondering the whole time what I was going to do about Heather. I guessed I was going to have to wake up early and call over to the school, and warn Father Dom to meet Bryce the minute he set foot on campus and send him home. Even, I decided, if we had to resort to head lice, I wouldn't object. All that mattered, in the long run, was that Heather was kept from her goal.

  Still, the thought of waking up early to do anything – even save the life of my date for Saturday night – was not very appealing. Now that the adrenaline rush was gone, I realized I was dead tired. I staggered into the bathroom to change into my pj's – hey, I was pretty sure Jesse wasn't spying on me, but he still hadn't told me how he'd died, so I wasn't taking any chances. He could have been hanged, you know, for peeping Tomism, which I believed happened occasionally a hundred and fifty years ago.

  It wasn't until I was changing the bandage on the cut on my wrist that I happened to take a look at the thing he'd wrapped around it.

  It was a handkerchief. Everybody carried one in the olden days because there was no such thing as Kleenex. People were pretty fussy about them, too, sewing their initials onto them so they didn't get mixed up in the wash with other people's hankies.

  Only Jesse's handkerchief didn't have his initials on it, I noticed after I'd rinsed it in the sink then wrung out my blood as best I could. It was a big linen square, white – well, kind of pink now – with an edging all around it of this delicate white lace. Kind of fern for a guy. I might have been a little concerned about Jesse's sexual orientation if I hadn't noticed the initials sewn in one corner. The stitches were tiny, white thread on white material, but the letters themselves were huge, in flowery script: MDS. That was right. MDS. No J to be found.

  Weird. Very weird.

  I hung the cloth up to dry. I didn't have to worry about anybody seeing it. In the first place, nobody used my bathroom but me, and in the second place, nobody would be able to see it anymore than they could see Jesse. It would be there tomorrow. Maybe I wouldn't give it back to him without demanding some sort of explanation as to those letters. MDS.

  It wasn't until I was falling asleep that I realized MDS must have been a girl. Why else would there have been all that lace? And that curlicue script? Had Jesse died not in a gunfight, as I'd originally assumed, but in some sort of lovers' quarrel?

  I don't know why the thought disturbed me so much, but it did. It kept me awake for about three whole minutes. Then I rolled over, missed my old bed very briefly, and fell asleep.

  C H A P T E R

  13

  My intention, of course, had been to wake up early and call Father Dominic to warn him about Heather. But intentions are only as good as the people who hold them, and I guess I must be worthless because I didn't wake up until my mother shook me awake, and by then it was seven-thirty and my ride was leaving without me.

  Or so they thought. There was a huge delay when Sleepy discovered he'd lost the keys to the Rambler, so I was able to drag myself out of bed and into some kind of outfit – I had no idea what. I came staggering down the stairs, feeling like somebody had hit me on the head a few times with a bag of rocks just as Doc was telling everybody that Sister Ernestine had warned him if he missed another Assembly, he'd be held back a year.

  That's when I remembered the keys to the Rambler were still in the pocket of my leather jacket where I'd left them the night before.

  I slunk back up the stairs and pretended to find the keys on the landing. There was some jubilation over this, but mostly a lot of grumbling, since Sleepy swore he'd left them hanging on the key hook in the kitchen and couldn't figure out how they'd gotten to the landing. Dopey said, "It was probably Dave's ghost," and leered at Doc, who looked embarrassed.

  Then we all piled into the car and took off.

  We were late, of course. Assembly at the Junipero Serra Mission Academy begins promptly at eight o'clock. We got there at around two after. What happens at Assembly is, they make everybody stand outside in these lines separated by sex, boys on one side, girls on the other – like we're Quakers or something – for fifteen minutes before school officially starts, so they can take attendance and read announcements and stuff. By the time we got there, of course, Assembly had already started. I had intended to duck right past and head straight to Father Dominic's office, but of course, I never got the chance. Sister Ernestine caught us traipsing in late, and gave each of us the evil eye until we slunk into our various lines. I didn't much care what Sister Ernestine jotted down in her little black book about me, but I could see that getting to the principal's office was going to be impossible, due to the yellow caution tape strung up across every single archway that led to the courtyard – and, of course, all the cops.

  I guess what had happened was, all the priests and nuns and stuff had gotten up for matins, which is what they call the first mass of the morning, and they'd all walked outside and seen the statue of their church's founder with his head cut off, and the fountain with hardly any water left in it, and the bench where I'd been sitting all twisted and tipped over, and the door to Mr. Walden's classroom in smithereens.

  Understandably, I guess, they freaked out and called the cops. People in uniform were crawling all over the place, taking fingerprints and measuring stuff, like the distance Junipero Serra's head had traveled from his body, and the velocity it had to have traveled to make that many holes in a door that was made of three-inch-thick wood, and that kind of thing. I saw a guy in a dark blue windbreaker with the letters CBTSPD – Carmel-by-the-Sea Police Department? – on the back conferring with Father Dominic, who looked really, really tired. I couldn't catch his eye, and supposed I'd have to wait until after Assembly to sneak away and apologize to him.

  At Assembly, Sister Ernestine, the vice principal, told us vandals had done it. Vandals had broken in through Mr. Walden's classroom, and wreaked havoc all over the school. What was fortunate, we were told, was that the solid gold chalice and salver used for the sacramental wine and hosts had not been stolen, but were left sitting in their little cupboard behind the church alter. The vandals had rudely beheaded our school founder, but left the really valuable stuff alone. We were told that if any of us knew anything about this horrible violation, we were to come forward immediately. And that if we were uncomfortable coming forward personally, we could do it anonymously – Monsignor Constantine would be hearing confessions all morning.

  As if! Hey, it hadn't been my fault Heather had gone berserk. Well, not really, anyway. If anybody should be going to confession, it was her.

  As I stood in line – behind Cee Cee, who couldn't hide her delight over what had happened; you could practically see the headline forming in her mind: Father Serra Loses His Head Over Vandals – I craned my neck, trying to see over to the seniors. Was Bryce there? I couldn't see him. Maybe Father Dom had gotten to him already, and sent him home. He had to have recognized that the mess in the courtyard was the result of spiritual, not human, agitation, and had acted accordingly. I hoped, for Bryce's sake, that Father Dom hadn't resorted to the head lice.

  Okay, I hoped it for my sake, I admit it. I really wanted our date on Saturday to go well, and not be canceled due to head lice. Is that such a crime? A girl can't spend all her time battling psychic disturbances. She needs a little romance, too.

  But of course, the minute Assembly was over and I tried to ditch homeroom and hightail it to Father Dom's office, Sister Ernestine caught me and said, just as I was about to duck under some of the yellow caution tape, "Excuse me, Miss Simon. Perhaps
back in New York it is perfectly all right to ignore police warnings, but here in California it is considered highly ill-advised."

  I straightened. I had nearly made it, too. I thought some uncharitable things about Sister Ernestine, but managed to say, civilly enough, "Oh, Sister, I'm so sorry. You see, I just need to get to Father Dominic's office."

  "Father Dominic," Sister Ernestine said coldly, "is extremely busy this morning. He happens to be consulting with the police over last night's unfortunate incident. He won't be available until after lunch at the earliest."

  I know it's probably wrong to fantasize about giving a nun a karate chop in the neck, but I couldn't help it. She was making me mad.

  "Listen, Sister," I said. "Father Dominic asked me to come see him this morning. I've got some, um, transcripts from my old school that he wanted to see. I had to have them FedExed all the way from New York, and they just got here, so – "

  I thought that was pretty quick thinking on my part, about the transcripts and the FedEx and all, but then Sister Ernestine held out her hand and went, "Give them to me, and I'll be happy to deliver them to the Father."

  Damn!

  "Uh," I said, backing away. "Never mind. I guess I'll just … I'll see him after lunch, then."

  Sister Ernestine gave me a kind of Aha-I-thought-so look, then turned her attention to some innocent kid who'd made the mistake of coming to school in a pair of Levi's, a blatant violation of the dress code. The kid wailed, "They were my only clean pants!" but Sister Ernestine didn't care. She stood there – unfortunately still guarding the only route to the principal's office – and wrote the kid up on the spot.

  I had no choice but to go to class. I mean, what was there to tell Father Dominic, anyway, that he didn't already know? I'm sure he knew it was Heather who'd wrecked the school, and me who'd broken Mr. Walden's window. He probably wasn't going to be all that happy with me anyway, so why was I even bothering? What I ought to have been doing was trying as much as possible to stay out of his way.

  Except…except what about Heather?

  As near as I could tell, she was still recuperating from her explosive rage the night before. I saw no sign of her as I made my way to Mr. Walden's classroom for first period, which was good: it meant Father D and I would have time to draw up some kind of plan before she struck again.

  As I sat there in class trying to convince myself that everything was going to be all right, I couldn't help feeling kind of bad for poor Mr. Walden. He was taking having the door to his classroom obliterated pretty well. He didn't even seem to mind the broken window so much. Of course everybody in school was buzzing about what had happened. People were saying that it had been a prank, the severing of Junipero Serra's head. A senior prank. One year, Cee Cee told me, the seniors had strapped pillows to the clappers of the church bells, so that when they rang, all that came out was a muffled sort of splatting sound. I guess people suspected this was the same sort of thing.

  If only they had known the truth. Heather's seat, next to Kelly Prescott, remained conspicuously vacant, while her locker — now assigned to me – was still unopenable thanks to the dent her body had made when I'd thrown her against it.

  It was sort of ironic that as I was sitting there thinking this Kelly Prescott raised her hand and, when Mr. Walden called on her, asked if he didn't think it was unfair, Monsignor Constantine declaring that no memorial service would be held for Heather.

  Mr. Walden leaned back in his seat and put both his feet up on his desk. Then he said, "Don't look at me. I just work here."

  "Well," Kelly said, "don't you think it's unfair?" She turned to the rest of the class, her big, mascara-rimmed eyes appealing. "Heather Chambers went here for ten years. It's inexcusable that she shouldn't be memorialized in her own school. And, frankly, I think what happened yesterday was a sign."

  Mr. Walden looked vastly amused. "A sign, Kelly?"

  "That's right. I believe what happened here last night – and even that piece of the breezeway nearly killing Bryce – are all connected. I don't believe Father Serra's statue was desecrated by vandals at all, but by angels. Angels who are angry about Monsignor Constantine not allowing Heather's parents to have her funeral here."

  This caused a good deal of buzzing in the classroom. People looked nervously at Heather's empty chair. Normally, I don't talk much in school, but I couldn't let this one go by. I said, "So you're saying you think it was an angel who broke this window behind me, Kelly?"

  Kelly had to twist around in her seat to see me. "Well," she said. "It could have been...."

  "Right. And you think it was angels who broke down Mr. Walden's door, and cut off that statue's head, and wrecked the courtyard?"

  Kelly stuck out her chin. "Yes," she said. "I do. Angels angered over Monsignor Constantine's decision not to allow us to memorialize Heather."

  I shook my head. "Bull," I said.

  Kelly raised her eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"

  "I said bull, Kelly. I think your theory is full of bull."

  Kelly turned a very interesting shade of red. I think she was probably regretting inviting me to her pool party. "You don't know it wasn't angels, Suze," she said acidly.

  "Actually, I do. Because to the best of my knowledge, angels don't bleed, and there was blood all over the carpeting back here from where the vandal hurt himself breaking in. That's why the police cut up chunks of the rug and took them away."

  Kelly wasn't the only one who gasped. Everybody kind of freaked out. I probably shouldn't have pointed out the blood – especially since it was mine – but hey, I couldn't let her go around saying it was all because of angels. Angels, my butt. What did she think this was anyway? Highway to Heaven?

  "Okay," Mr. Walden said. "On that note, everybody, it's time for second period. Susannah, could I see you a minute?"

  Cee Cee turned around to waggle her white eyebrows at me. "You're in for it now, sucker," she hissed.

  But she had no idea how true her words were. All anybody would have to do was take a look at the Band-Aids all over my wrist, and they'd know I had firsthand knowledge of where that blood had come from.

  On the other hand, they had no reason to suspect me, did they?

  I approached Mr. Walden's desk, my heart in my throat. He's going to turn you in, I thought, frantically. You are so busted, Simon.

  But all Mr. Walden wanted to do was compliment me on my use of footnotes in my essay on the battle of Bladensburg, which he had noticed as I handed it in.

  "Uh," I said. "It was really no big deal, Mr. Walden."

  "Yes, but footnotes – " He sighed. "I haven't seen footnotes used correctly since I taught an adult education class over at the community college. Really, you did a great job."

  I muttered a modest thank you. I didn't want to admit that the reason I knew so much about the battle of Bladensburg was that I'd once helped a veteran of that battle direct a couple of his ancestors to a long buried bag of money he'd dropped during it. It's funny the things that hold people back from getting on with their life…or their death, I should say.

  I was about to tell Mr. Walden that while I'd have loved, under ordinary circumstances, to stick around and chat about famous American battles, I really had to go – I was going to see if Sister Ernestine was still guarding the way to Father Dom's office – when Mr. Walden stopped me cold with these few words: "It's funny about Kelly bringing up Heather Chambers that way, actually, Susannah."

  I eyed him warily. "Oh? How so?"

  "Well, I don't know if you're aware of this, but Heather was the sophomore class vice president, and now that she's gone, we've been collecting nominations for a new VP. Well, believe it or not, you've been nominated. Twelve times so far."

  My eyes must have bugged out of my head. I forgot all about how I had to go and see Father Dominic. "Twelve times?"

  "Yes, I know, it's unusual, isn't it?"

  I couldn't believe it. "But I've only been going here one day!"

  "Well, you've made q
uite an impression. I myself would guess that you didn't exactly make any enemies yesterday when you offered to break Debbie Mancuso's fingers after school. She is not one of the better-liked girls in the class."

  I stared at him. So Mr. Walden had overheard my little threat. The fact that he had and not sent me straight to detention made me appreciate him in a way I'd never appreciated a teacher before.

  "Oh, and I guess your pushing Bryce Martinson out of the way of that flying chunk of wood – that probably didn't hurt much, either," he added.

  "Wow," I said. I guess I probably don't need to point out that at my old school, I wouldn't exactly have won any popularity contests. I never even bothered going out for cheerleading or running for homecoming queen. Besides the fact that at my old school cheerleading was considered a stupid waste of time and in Brooklyn it isn't exactly a compliment to be called a queen, I never would have made either one. And no one – no one – had ever nominated me before for anything.

  I was way too flattered to follow my initial instinct, which was to say, "Thanks, but no thanks," and run.

  "Well," I said, instead, "what does the vice president of the sophomore class have to do?"

  Mr. Walden shrugged. "Help the president determine how to spend the class budget, mostly. It's not much, just a little over three thousand dollars. Kelly and Heather were planning on using the money to hold a dance over at the Carmel Inn, but – "

  "Three thousand dollars?" My mouth was probably hanging open, but I didn't care.

  "Yes, I know it's not much – "

  "And we can spend it anyway we want?" My mind was spinning. "Like, if we wanted to have a bunch of cookouts down at the beach, we could do that?"

  Mr. Walden looked down at me curiously. "Sure. You have to have the approval of the rest of the class, though. I have a feeling there might be some noises from administration about using the class money to mend the statue of Father Serra, but– "