The Mediator #1: Shadowland Page 5

  Of course, I'd told my mother that I'd been practicing my tennis swing indoors, and the racket had slipped from my hands – an especially unbelievable story, since a racket was never found.

  It was as I was reliving this painful memory that a heavy wooden door opened, and a priest came out and said, "Mrs. Ackerman, what a pleasure to see you again. And this must be Susannah Simon. Come in, won't you?" He ushered us into his office, then paused, and said to the boy on the couch, "Oh, no, Mr. McTavish. Not on the first day of a brand new semester."

  Adam shrugged. "What can I say? The broad hates me."

  "Kindly do not refer to Sister Ernestine as a broad, Mr. McTavish. I will see to you in a moment, after I have spoken with these ladies."

  We went in, and the principal, Father Dominic – that was his name – sat and chatted with us for a while, asking me how I liked California so far. I said I liked it fine, especially the ocean. We had spent most of the day before at the beach, after I'd finished unpacking. I had found my sunglasses, and even though it was too cold to swim, I had a great time just lying on a blanket on the beach, watching the waves. They were huge, bigger than on Baywatch, and Doc spent most of the afternoon explaining to me why that was. I forget now, since I was so drugged by the sun, I was hardly even listening. I found that I loved the beach, the smell of it, the seaweed that washed up on shore, the feel of the cool sand between my toes, the taste of salt on my skin when I got home. Carmel might not have had a Bagel Bob's, but Manhattan sure didn't have no beach.

  Father Dominic expressed his sincere hope that I'd be happy at the Mission Academy, and went on to explain that even though I wasn't Catholic, I shouldn't feel unwelcome at Mass. There were, of course, Holy Days of Obligation, when the Catholic students would be required to leave their lessons behind and go to church. I could either join them, or stay behind in the empty classroom, whatever I chose.

  I thought this was kind of funny, for some reason, but I managed to keep from laughing. Father Dominic was old, but what you'd probably call spry, and he struck me as sort of handsome in his white collar and black robes – I mean, handsome for a sixty-year-old. He had white hair, and very blue eyes, and well-maintained fingernails. I don't know many priests, but I thought this one might be all right – especially since he hadn't come down hard on the boy in the outer office who'd called that nun a broad.

  After Father Dominic had described the various offenses I could get expelled for – skipping class too many times, dealing drugs on campus, the usual stuff – he asked me if I had any questions. I didn't. Then he asked my mother if she had any questions. She didn't. So then Father Dominic stood up and said, "Fine then. I'll say goodbye to you, Mrs. Ackerman, and walk Susannah to her first class. All right, Susannah?"

  I thought it was kind of weird that the principal, who probably had a lot to do, was taking time out to walk me to my first class, but I didn't say anything about it. I just picked up my coat – a black wool trench by Esprit, trés chic (my mom wouldn't let me wear leather my first day of school) – and waited while he and my mother shook hands. My mom kissed me good-bye, and reminded me to find Sleepy at three, since he was in charge of driving me home – only she didn't call him Sleepy. Once again, a woeful lack of public transportation meant that I had to bum rides to and from school with my stepbrothers.

  Then she was gone, and Father Dominic was walking me across the courtyard after having instructed Adam to wait for him.

  "No prob, Padre," was Adam's response. He leered at me behind the father's back. It isn't often I get leered at by boys my own age. I hoped he was in my class. My mother's wishes for my social life just might be realized at last.

  As we walked, Father Dominic explained a little about the building – or buildings, I should say, since that's what they were. A series of thick-walled adobe structures were connected by low-ceilinged breezeways, in the middle of which existed the beautiful courtyard that came complete with palm trees, bubbling fountain, and a bronze statue of Father Serra with these women – your stereotypical Indian squaws, complete with papooses strapped to their backs – kneeling at his feet. On the other side of the breezeway were stone benches for people to sit on while they enjoyed solitary contemplation of the courtyard's splendor, the doors to the classrooms and steel lockers were built right into the adobe wall. One of those lockers, Father Dominic explained to me, was mine. He had the combination with him. Did I want to put away my coat?

  I had been surprised when I'd wakened Sunday morning to find myself shivering in my bed. I'd had to stumble out from beneath the sheets and slam my windows shut. A thick fog, I saw with dismay, had enshrouded the valley, obscuring my view of the bay. I thought for sure some horrible tropical storm had rolled in, but Doc had explained to me, quite patiently, that morning fog was typical in the Northwest, and that the Pacifico – Spanish for passive – was so named because of its relative lack of storms. The fog, Doc had assured me, would burn off by noon, and it would then be just as hot as it had been the day before.

  And he'd been right. By the time I returned home from the beach, sunburned and happy, my room had become an oven again, and I'd pried the windows back open – only to find that they'd been gently shut again when I woke up this morning, which I thought was sweet of my mom, looking out for me like that.

  At least, I hope it was my mom. Now that I think about it … but no, I hadn't seen Jesse since that first day I'd moved in. It had definitely been my mom who'd shut my windows.

  Anyway, when I'd walked outside to get into Mom's car, I'd found that it was freezing out again, and that was why I was wearing the wool coat.

  Father Dominic told me that my locker was number 273, and he seemed content to let me find it myself, strolling behind me with his eyes on the breezeway's rafters, in which, much to his professed delight, families of swallows nested every year. He was apparently quite fond of birds – of all animals, actually, since one of the questions he'd asked me was how was I getting along with Max, the Ackermans' dog – and openly scoffed at Andy's repeated assurances that the timber in the breezeways was going to have to be replaced thanks to the swallows and their refuse.

  268, 269, 270. I strolled down the open corridor, watching the numbers on the beige locker doors. Unlike the ones in my school back in Brooklyn, these lockers were not graffitied, or dented, or plastered with stickers from heavy metal bands. I guess students on the West Coast took more pride in their school's appearance than us Yankees.

  271, 272. I stumbled to a halt.

  In front of locker number 273 stood a ghost.

  It wasn't Jesse, either. It was a girl, dressed very much like I was, only with long blonde hair, instead of brown, like mine. She also had an extremely unpleasant look on her face.

  "What," she said, to me, "are you looking at?" Then, speaking to someone behind me, she demanded, "This is who they let in to take my place? I am so sure."

  Okay, I admit it. I freaked out. I spun around, and found myself gaping up at Father Dominic, who was squinting down at me curiously.

  "Ah," he said, when he saw my face. "I thought so."

  C H A P T E R

  6

  I looked from Father Dominic to the ghost girl, and back again. Finally, I managed to blurt out, "You can see her?"

  He nodded. "Yes. I suspected when I first heard your mother speak about you – and your … problems at your old school – that you might be one of us, Susannah. But I couldn't be sure, of course, so I didn't say anything. Although the name Simon, I'm sure you're aware, is from the Hebrew word meaning "intent listener," which, as a fellow mediator, you of course would be...."

  I barely heard him. I couldn't get over the fact that finally, after all these years, I'd met another mediator.

  "So that's why there aren't any Indian spirits around here!" I practically yelled. "You took care of them. Jeez, I was wondering what happened to them all. I expected to find hundreds – "

  Father Dominic bowed his head modestly, and said, "Well, there weren'
t hundreds, exactly, but when I first arrived, there were quite a few. But it was nothing, really. I was only doing my duty, after all, making use of the heavenly gift I received from God."

  I made a face. "Is that who's responsible for it?"

  "But of course ours is a gift from God." Father Dominic looked down at me with that special kind of pity the faithful always bestow upon us poor, pathetic creatures who have doubts. "Where else do you think it could come from?"

  "I don't know. I've always kind of wanted to have a word with the guy in charge, you know? Because, given a choice, I'd much rather not have been blessed with this particular gift."

  Father Dominic looked surprised. "But why ever not, Susannah?"

  "All it does is get me into trouble. Do you have any idea how many hours I've spent in psychiatrists' offices? My mom's convinced I'm a complete schizo."

  "Yes." Father Dominic nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I could see how a miraculous gift like ours might be considered by a layperson as – well, unusual."

  "Unusual? Are you kidding me?"

  "I suppose I have been rather sheltered here in the Mission," Father Dominic admitted. "It never occurred to me that it must be extremely difficult for those of you out in the, er, trenches, so to speak, with no real ecclesiastical support – "

  "Those of us?" I raised my eyebrows. "You mean there's more than just you and me?"

  He looked surprised. "Well, I just assumed … surely there must be. We can't be the last of our kind. No, no, surely there are others."

  "Excuse me." The ghost looked at us very sarcastically. "But would you mind telling me what's going on here? Who is this bitch? Is she the one taking my place?"

  "Hey! Watch your mouth." I shot her a dirty look. "This guy's a priest, you know."

  She sneered at me. "Uh, duh. I know he's a priest. He's only been trying to get rid of me all week."

  I glanced at Father Dominic in surprise, and he said, looking embarrassed, "Well, you see, Heather's being a bit obstinate – "

  "If you think," Heather said, in her snotty little voice, "that I'm going to just stand back and let you assign my locker to this bitch – "

  "Call me a bitch one more time, missy," I said, "and I'll make sure you spend the rest of eternity inside this locker of yours."

  Heather looked at me without the slightest trace of fear. "Bitch," she said, stretching the word out so it contained multiple syllables.

  I hit her so fast she never saw my fist coming. I hit her hard, hard enough to send her reeling into the line of lockers and leave a long, body-shaped dent in them. She landed hard, too, on the stone floor, but was on her feet again a second later. I expected her to strike back at me, but instead, Heather got up and, with a whimper, ran for all she was worth down the corridor.

  "Huh," I said, mostly to myself. "Chicken."

  She'd be back, of course. I'd only startled her. She'd be back. But hopefully when I saw her again, she'd have a slightly improved attitude.

  Heather gone, I blew lightly on my knuckles. Ghosts have surprisingly bony jaws.

  "So," I said. "What were you saying, Father?"

  Father Dominic, still staring where Heather had been standing, remarked, pretty dryly for a priest, "Interesting mediation techniques they're teaching out east these days."

  "Hey," I said. "Nobody calls me names and gets away with it. I don't care how tortured he was in his past life. Or hers."

  "I think," Father Dominic said, thoughtfully, "there are some things we need to discuss, you and I."

  Then he brought a finger to his lips. To one side of us a door opened and a large man, his face heavily bearded, looked out into the breezeway, having heard the crash of Heather's astral body – funny how much the dead can weigh – hitting the row of lockers.

  "Everything all right, Dom?" he asked, when he saw Father Dominic.

  "Everything's fine, Carl," Father Dominic said. "Just fine. And look what I've brought you." Father Dominic placed a hand on my shoulder. "Your newest pupil, Susannah Simon. Susannah, meet your homeroom teacher, Carl Walden."

  I stuck out the hand I'd just knocked Heather senseless with. "How do you do, Mr. Walden?"

  "Just fine, Miss Simon. Just fine." Mr. Walden's enormous hand engulfed mine. He didn't look much like a teacher to me. He looked more like a lumberjack. In fact, he practically had to flatten himself against the wall to give me room to slip past him into his classroom. "Nice to have you with us," he said, in his big, booming voice. "Thanks, Dom, for bringing her over."

  "Not a problem," Father Dominic said. "We were just having a little difficulty with her locker. You probably heard it. Didn't mean to disturb you. I'll have the custodian look into it. In the meantime, Susannah, I'll expect you back in my office at three, to, um, fill out the rest of those forms."

  I smiled at him sweetly. "Oh, no can do, Father. My ride leaves at three."

  Father Dominic scowled at me. "Then I'll send you a pass. Expect one around two."

  "Okay," I said, and waggled my fingers at him. "Buh-bye."

  I guess on the West Coast you aren't supposed to say buh-bye to the principal, or waggle your fingers at him, since when I turned around to face my new classmates, they were all staring at me with their mouths hanging open.

  Maybe it was my outfit. I had worn a little bit more black than usual, due to nerves. When in doubt, I always say, wear black. You can never go wrong with black.

  Or maybe you can. Because as I looked around at the gaping faces, I didn't see a single black garment in the lot. A lot of white, a few browns, and a heck of a lot of khaki, but no black.

  Oops.

  Mr. Walden didn't seem to notice my discomfort. He introduced me to the class, and made me tell them where I came from. I told them, and they all stared at me blankly. I began to feel sweat pricking the back of my neck. I have to tell you, sometimes I prefer the company of the undead to the company of my peers. Sixteen-year-olds can be really scary.

  But Mr. Walden was a good guy. He only made me stand there a minute, under all those stares, and then he told me to take a seat.

  This sounds like a simple thing, right? Just go and take a seat. But you see, there were two seats. One was next to this really pretty tanned girl, with thick, curly honey-blond hair. The other was way in the back, behind a girl with hair so white, and skin so pink, she could only be an albino.

  No, I am not kidding. An albino.

  Two things influenced my decision. One was that when I saw the seat in the back, I also happened to see that the windows, directly behind that seat, looked out across the school parking lot.

  Okay, not such an inspiring view, you might say. But beyond the parking lot was the sea.

  I am not kidding. This school, my new school, had a view of the Pacific that was even better than the one in my bedroom since the school was so much closer to the beach. You could actually see the waves from my homeroom's windows. I wanted to sit as close to the window as possible.

  The second reason I sat there was simple: I didn't want to take the seat by the tan girl and have the albino girl think I'd done it because I didn't want to sit near anyone as weird looking as she was. Stupid, right? Like she'd even care what I did. But I didn't even hesitate. I saw the sea, I saw the albino, and I went for it.

  As soon as I sat down, of course, this girl a few seats away snickered and went, under her breath, but perfectly audibly, "God, sit by the freak, why don't you."

  I looked at her. She had perfectly curled hair and perfectly made-up eyes. I said, not talking under my breath at all, "Excuse me, do you have Tourette's?"

  Mr. Walden had turned around to write something on the board, but the sound of my voice stopped him. Everybody turned around to look at me, including the girl who'd spoken. She blinked at me, startled. "What?"

  "Tourette's Syndrome," I said. "It's a neurological disorder that causes people to say things they don't really mean. Do you have it?"

  The girl's cheeks had slowly started turning scarlet. "No."
<
br />   "Oh," I said. "So you were being purposefully rude."

  "I wasn't calling you a freak," the girl said, quickly.

  "I'm aware of that," I said. "That's why I'm only going to break one of your fingers after school, instead of all of them."

  She spun around real fast to face the front of the classroom. I settled back into my chair. I don't know what everybody started buzzing about after that, but I did see the albino's scalp – which was plainly visible beneath the white of her hair – turn a deep magenta with embarrassment. Mr. Walden had to call everyone to order, and when people ignored him, he slammed his fist down on his desk and told us that if we had so damned much to say, we could say it in a thousand word essay on the battle at Bladensburg during the War of 1812, double-spaced, and due on his desk first thing tomorrow morning.

  Oh well. Good thing I wasn't in school to make friends.

  C H A P T E R

  7

  And yet I did. Make friends, I mean.

  I didn't try to. I didn't even really want to. I mean, I have enough friends back in Brooklyn. I have Gina, the best friend anybody could have. I didn't need any more friends than that.

  And I really didn't think anybody here was going to like me – not after having been assigned a thousand word essay because of what happened when I sat down. And especially not after what happened when we were informed that it was time for second period – there was no bell system at the Mission School, we changed class on the hour, and had five minutes to get to where we were going. No sooner had Mr. Walden dismissed us than the albino girl turned around in her seat and asked, her purple eyes glowing furiously behind the tinted lenses of her glasses, "Am I supposed to be grateful to you, or something, for what you said to Debbie?"

  "You," I said, standing up, "aren't supposed to be anything, as far as I'm concerned."

  She stood up, too. "But that's why you did it, right? Defended the albino? Because you felt sorry for me?"

  "I did it," I said, folding my coat over my arm, "because Debbie is a troll."