The Mediator #1: Shadowland Page 15

"That's why you're so angry," Jesse said wonderingly. "I should have known. You're going down there to get even with her for what she did to the priest."

  "So what if I am?" I exploded. "She deserves it!"

  He put his finger down, gripping the handlebars to my bike with both hands. And let me tell you, he was pretty strong for a dead guy. I couldn't budge the stupid thing with him hanging onto it like that.

  "Susannah," he said. "This isn't the way. This wasn't why you were given this extraordinary gift, not so you could do things like – "

  "Gift!" I nearly burst out laughing. I had to grit my teeth to keep from doing so. "Yeah, that's right, Jesse. I've been given a precious gift. Well, you know what? I'm sick of it. I really am. I thought coming out here, I'd be able to make a new start. I thought things might be different. And you know what? They are. They're worse."

  "Susannah – "

  "What am I supposed to do, Jesse? Love Heather for what she did? Embrace her wounded spirit? I'm sorry, but that's impossible. Maybe Father Dom could do it, but not me, and he's out of commission, so we're going to do things my way. I'm going to get rid of her, and if you know what's good for you, Jesse, you'll stay away!"

  I gave my kickstand a vicious kick, and at the same time, yanked on the handlebars. The move surprised Jesse so much, he let go of the bike involuntarily. A second later, I was off, spraying gravel out from beneath my back wheel, leaving Jesse in my dust. I heard him say a bunch of stuff in Spanish as I sped down the driveway. I think it was probably swear words. The word querida was definitely not mentioned.

  I didn't see much of my trip down into the valley. The wind was so cold that tears streamed in a pretty constant flow down my cheeks and back into my hair. There wasn't much traffic out, thank God, so when I flew through the intersection, it didn't really matter that I couldn't see. The cars stopped for me, anyway.

  I knew it was going to be trickier to break into the school this time. They'd have beefed up the security in response to what had happened the night before. Beefed up the security? All they had to do was actually get some.

  And they had. A police cruiser sat in the parking lot, its lights off. Just sitting there, the moonlight reflecting off the closed windows. The driver – doubtlessly some luckless rookie to have pulled so boring an assignment – was probably listening to music, though I couldn't hear any from where I stood just outside the gate to the parking lot.

  So I was going to have to find another way to get in. No biggie. I stashed the bike in some bushes, then took a leisurely stroll around the perimeter of the school.

  There aren't many buildings you can keep a fairly slender sixteen-year-old girl out of. I mean, we're pretty flexible. I happen to be double-jointed in a lot of places, too. I won't tell you how I managed to break in, since I don't want the school authorities figuring it out – you never know, I might have to do it again someday – but let's just say if you're going to make a gate, make sure it reaches all the way to the ground. That gap between the cement and where the gate starts is exactly all the room a girl like me needs to wriggle through.

  Inside the courtyard, things looked a lot different than they had the night before – and a whole lot creepier. All the floodlights were turned off – this didn't seem like a very good safety precaution to me, but it was possible, of course, that Heather had blown all the bulbs – so the courtyard was dark and eerily shadowed. The fountain was turned off. I couldn't hear anything this time except for crickets. Just crickets chirping in the hibiscus. Nothing wrong with crickets. Crickets are our friends.

  There was no sign of Heather. There was no sign of anybody. This was good.

  I crept, as quietly as I could – which was pretty quietly in my sneakers – to the locker Heather and I shared. Then I knelt down on the cold flagstones, and opened my backpack.

  I lit the candles first. I needed their light to see by. Holding my lighter – okay, it wasn't really my lighter, it was the long-handled lighter from the barbecue – to the candle's bottom, I dripped some wax onto the ground, then shoved the candle's base into the gooey dripping to keep it in place. I did this to each candle until I'd formed a ring of them in front of me. Then I peeled back the lid of the container holding the chicken blood.

  I'm not going to write down the shape that I was required to paint in the center of the ring of candles in order for the exorcism to work. Exorcisms aren't things people should try at home, I don't care how badly you might be haunted. And they should only be performed by a professional like myself. You wouldn't, after all, want to hurt any innocent ghosts who happen to be hanging around. I mean, exorcizing Grandma – that won't make you too unpopular, or anything.

  And Mecumba – Brazilian voodoo – isn't something people should mess with either, so I won't write down the incantation I had to say. It was all in Portuguese anyway. But let's just say that I dipped my brush into the chicken blood and made the appropriate shapes, uttering the appropriate words as I did so. It wasn't until I reached into the backpack and pulled out Heather's photograph that I noticed the crickets had stopped chirping.

  "What," she said, in an irritated voice from just behind my right shoulder, "in the hell do you think you're doing?"

  I didn't answer her. I put the photo in the center of the shape I had painted. The light from the candles illuminated it fairly well.

  Heather came closer. "Hey," she said. "That's a picture of me. Where'd you get it?"

  I didn't say anything except the Portuguese words I was supposed to say. This seemed to upset Heather.

  Well, let's face it. Everything seemed to upset Heather.

  "What are you doing?" Heather demanded again. "What's that language you're talking in? And what's that red paint for?" When I didn't answer her, Heather became – as seemed to be her nature – abusive. "Hey, bitch," she said, laying a hand upon my shoulder and pulling on it, not very gently. "Are you listening to me?"

  I broke off the incantation. "Could you do me a favor, Heather," I said, "and stand right there next to your picture?"

  Heather shook her head. Her long blond hair shimmered in the candlelight. "What are you?" she demanded rudely. "High, or something? I'm not standing anywhere. Is that … is that blood?"

  I shrugged. Her hand was still on my shoulder, "Yes," I said. "Don't worry, though. It's just chicken blood."

  "Chicken blood?" Heather made a face. "Gross. Are you kidding me? What's it for?"

  "To help you," I said. "To help you go back."

  Heather's jaw tightened. The doors to the lockers in front of me began to rattle. Not a lot. Just enough to let me know Heather was unhappy. "I thought," she said, "that I made it pretty clear to you last night that I'm not going anywhere."

  "You said you wanted to go back."

  "Yeah," Heather said. The dials on the combination locks began to spin noisily. "To my old life."

  "Well," I said. "I found a way you can do it."

  The doors began to hum, they were shaking so hard.

  "No way," Heather said.

  "Way. All you have to do is stand right here, between those candles, next to your picture."

  Heather needed no further urging. In a second, she was exactly where I wanted her.

  "Are you sure this will work?" Heather asked excitedly.

  "It better," I said. "Otherwise, I've blown my allowance on candles and chicken blood for nothing."

  "And things will be just like they were? Before I died, I mean?"

  "Sure," I said. Should I have felt guilty for lying to her? I didn't. Feel guilty, I mean. All I felt was relieved. It had all been too easy. "Now shut up a minute while I say the words."

  She was only too eager to oblige. I said the words.

  And said the words.

  And said the words.

  I was just starting to be worried nothing was going to happen when the candle flames flickered. And it wasn't because there was any wind.

  "Nothing's happening," Heather complained, but I shushed her.

  T
he candle flames flickered again. And then, above Heather's head, where the roof of the breezeway should have been, appeared a hole filled with red, swirling gasses. I stared at the hole.

  "Uh, Heather," I said. "You might want to close your eyes."

  She did so happily enough. "Why? Is it working?"

  "Oh," I said. "It's working, all right."

  Heather said something that might have been "goodie," but I wasn't sure. I couldn't hear her too well since the swirling red gas – it was more like smoke really – had started spiraling down from the hole, making a low sort of thundering noise as it did so. Soon long tendrils of the stuff were wrapping around Heather, lightly as fog. Only she didn't know it since her eyes were closed.

  "I hear something," she said. "Is this it?"

  Above her head, the hole had widened. I could see lightning flashing in it. It didn't look like the most pleasant place to go. I'm not saying I'd opened a gate to hell, or anything – at least I hope not – but it was definitely a dimension other than our own, and frankly, it didn't look like a nice place to visit, let alone live in for all eternity.

  "Just one more minute," I said, as more and more snaky red limbs wrapped around her slender cheerleader's body. "And you'll be there."

  Heather tossed her long hair. "Oh, God," she said. "I can't wait. First thing I'm going to do, I'm going to go down to the hospital and apologize to Bryce. Don't you think that's a good idea, Suzie?"

  I said, "Sure." The thunder was getting louder, the lightning more frequent. "That's a great idea."

  "I hope my mom hasn't gotten rid of my clothes," Heather said. "Just because I was dead. You don't think my mom would have gotten rid of my clothes, do you, Suzie?" She opened her eyes. "Do you?"

  I shouted, "Keep your eyes closed!"

  But it was too late. She had seen. Oh, boy, had she seen. She took one look at the red wisps wrapped around her and started shrieking.

  And not with fear, either. Oh, no. Heather wasn't scared. She was mad. Really mad.

  "You bitch!" she shrieked. "You aren't sending me back! You aren't sending me back at all! You're sending me away!"

  And then, just when the thunder was getting loudest, Heather stepped out of the circle.

  Just like that. She just stepped out of it. Like it was no big deal. Like it was a hopscotch square. Those red wisps of smoke that had been wrapped all around her just fell away. Fell away like nothing. And the hole above Heather's head closed up.

  Okay. I admit it. I got mad. Hey, I'd put a lot of work into this thing.

  "Oh, no you don't," I growled. I strode up to Heather and grabbed her. Around the neck, I'm afraid.

  "Get back in there," I said, from between gritted teeth. "Get back in there right now."

  Heather only laughed. I had the girl by the throat, and she only laughed.

  Behind her, though, the locker doors started humming again. More loudly than ever.

  "You," she said, "are so dead. You are so dead, Simon. And you know what? I'm going to make sure that the rest of them go with you. All of your little freaky friends. And that stepbrother of yours, too."

  I tightened my grip on her throat. "I don't think so. I think you're going to get back where you were and go away like a good little ghost."

  She laughed again. "Make me," she said, her blue eyes glittering like crazy.

  Well. If you put it that way.

  I hit her hard with my right fist. Then, before she had a chance to recover, I hit her the other way with my left. If she felt the blows, she made no sign. No, that's not true. I know she felt the blows because the locker doors suddenly started opening and closing. Not closing, exactly. Slamming. Hard. Hard enough to shake the whole breezeway.

  I mean it. The whole breezeway was pitching back and forth, as if the ground beneath it was really ocean waves. The thick wooden support pillars that held up the arched roof shook in ground that had held them steady for close to three hundred years. Three hundred years of earthquakes, fires, and floods, and the ghost of a cheerleader sends them tumbling down.

  I tell you, this mediation stuff is no damned fun.

  And then her fingers were around my throat. I don't know how. I guess I got distracted by all the shaking. This was no good. I grabbed her by the arms, and started trying to push her back toward the circle of candles. As I did so, I muttered the Portuguese incantation under my breath, staring at the swaying rafters overhead, hoping that the hole to that shadowy land would open up again.

  "Shut up," Heather said, when she heard what I was saying. "Shut your mouth! You are not sending me away. I belong here! A lot more than you!"

  I kept saying the words. I kept pushing.

  "Who the hell do you think you are?" Heather's face was red with rage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a planter packed with geraniums levitate a few inches off the stone balustrade on which it had been resting. "You're no one. You've only been at this school two days. Two days! You think you can just come in here and change everything? You think you can just take my place? Who do you think you are?"

  I kicked out a leg, and, pulling on the arms I held at the same time as I swept her feet out from under her, sent us both crashing to the hard stone floor. The planter followed, not because we'd knocked it over, but because Heather sent it hurling through the air at me. I ducked at the last minute, and the heavy clay pot smashed against the locker doors in an explosion of mulch and geranium and pottery shards. I grabbed fistfuls of Heather's long, glossy blond hair. This was not very sporting of me, but hey, the geraniums hadn't been very sporting of her.

  She shrieked, kicking and writhing like an eel while I half dragged, half shoved her toward the circle of candles. She'd started levitating other objects. The combination locks spun out of their cores in the locker doors, and careened through the air at me like tiny little flying saucers. Then a tornado rolled in, sucking the contents of those lockers out into the breezeway, so that textbooks and three-ring binders were flying at me from four directions. I kept my head down, but didn't lose my hold on her even when somebody's trig book hit me hard in the shoulder. I kept saying the words I knew would open the hole again.

  "Why are you doing this?" Heather shrieked. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

  "Because." I was bruised, I was out of breath, I was dripping with sweat, and all I wanted to do was let go of her, turn around and go home, crawl into my bed, and sleep for a million years.

  But I couldn't.

  So instead, I kicked her in the center of the chest and sent her staggering back to the center of the circle of candles. And the minute she stumbled over that photograph of herself she'd given to Bryce, the hole that had opened up above her head reappeared. And this time, the red smoke closed around her as suffocatingly as a thick wool blanket. She wasn't breaking out again. Not that easily.

  The red fog had encased her so thickly, I couldn't see her anymore, but I could sure hear her. Her shrieks ought to have waked the dead – except, of course, she was the only dead around. Thunder clapped over her head. Inside the black hole that had opened above her, I thought I saw stars twinkling.

  "Why?" Heather screamed. "Why are you doing this to me?"

  "Because," I said. "I'm the mediator."

  And then two things happened almost simultaneously.

  The red smoke surrounding Heather began to be sucked back up into the spinning hole taking Heather with it.

  And the sturdy pillars that supported the breezeway over my head suddenly snapped in two as cleanly as if they'd been two inches, and not two feet, thick.

  And then the breezeway collapsed on top of me.

  C H A P T E R

  18

  I have no idea how long I lay beneath the planks of wood and heavy clay tiles of the crumpled breezeway. Looking back, I realize I must have lost consciousness, if only for a few minutes.

  All I can remember is something sharp hitting me on the head, and the next thing I knew, I'd opened my eyes to consummate blackness, and a feeling that I w
as being smothered.

  A favorite trick of some poltergeists is to sit on their victim's chest while he or she is just waking, so that the poor soul feels he or she is being smothered, but can't see why. I couldn't see why, and for a second or two I thought I'd failed and that Heather was still in this world, sitting on my chest, torturing me, getting her revenge for what I'd tried to do.

  Then I thought, Maybe I'm dead.

  I don't know why. But it occurred to me. Maybe this was how being dead felt. At first, anyway. This must have been how it was for Heather when she woke up in her coffin. She must have felt the same way I did: trapped, suffocated, frightened witless. God, no wonder she'd been in such a bad mood all the time. No wonder she'd wanted so desperately to get back to the world she'd known pre-death. This was horrible. It was worse than horrible. It was hell.

  But then I moved my hand – the only part of me I could move – and felt something rough and cool resting over me. That's when I knew what had happened. The breezeway had collapsed. Heather had used her last little bit of kinetic power to hurt me for sending her away. And she'd done a splendid job because here I was unable to move, trapped underneath who knew how many pounds of wood and Spanish tile.

  Thanks, Heather. Thanks a lot.

  I should have been scared. I mean, there I was pinned down, completely unable to move, in utter darkness. But before I had time to start panicking, I heard someone call my name. I thought at first I might be going crazy. Nobody knew, after all, that I'd gone down to the school except for Jesse, of course, and I'd told him what would happen if he showed up. He wasn't stupid. He knew I was performing an exorcism. Could he have decided to come down anyway? Was it safe yet? I didn't know. If he happened to step into the circle of candles and chicken blood, would he be sucked into that same dark shadowland that took Heather?

  Now I started to panic.

  "Jesse!" I yelled, pounding on the wood above my face, causing dirt and bits of wood to fall down onto my face. "Don't!" I shrieked. All the dust was making me choke, but I didn't care. "Go back! It isn't safe!"

  Then a great weight was lifted off my chest, and suddenly I could see. Above me stretched the night sky, velvet blue and spotted with a dusting of stars. And framed by those stars hung a face hovering over me worriedly.