A Guide to the Other Side (2 page)

I pointed to the space in front of the fridge, and of course my dad saw nothing. But to me, she was as fully formed and normal as any of my new kindergarten friends were. There was one difference, though, which I had spotted even back then as a little boy: The only way to know for sure if a person is a ghost is to watch his or her eyes.

Ghosts don't blink. They just stare at you like they're trying to break the record for the world's creepiest staring contest. You'd think there'd be more obvious ways to tell if people are dead or alive, but there's really not. They don't breathe, of course, but it's not like it's easy to tell if people are breathing when they're just standing there. And they're not transparent, either, as much as the movies like to think they are. They're as normal-looking as the next person . . . well, most of them, anyway.

My dad looked at the empty space and back at me and then back at the empty space.

“Baylor, buddy, you're telling me you see a little girl sitting right there right now?” he said, trying his best to laugh.

“He doesn't think I'm here,” Kristina said sadly. At the time she also didn't totally grasp the fact that she wasn't alive.

“I know,” I said, frowning at her. “I don't know why.”

“Tell him Mommy's baby is another boy, so he doesn't have to worry about having a girl yet.”

I told him what she'd said, and his mouth dropped open and his face kind of fell forward.

“Another boy?” my mom squeaked from the table. “Oh! Good!”

It would take another month for the doctor to be able to confirm that the baby was, in fact, a boy, and when they came home from the doctor's office that day, they were walking on eggshells around me.

Looking back, I now realize how scared they were.

  *  *  *  

At school Kristina tends to keep to herself. She follows me around, but she knows I can't sit there and talk to her. I don't try to hide my gift, and although most of the kids at school know what I can do, they don't really know about Kristina. It would just be too odd to have a full-on conversation with someone that nobody else can see or hear.

School that day was so slow. For a few periods I thought maybe some evil spirits were playing a trick on me and slowing the clock down. I even excused myself during one class, hid in a bathroom stall, and lit my emergency lighter while casting away all negative energy.

Kristina giggled from outside the stall.

“It's not funny, Kristina,” I said, the flame still lit as I envisioned myself covered in light.

“Actually, it is,” she said back. “Nobody's doing anything to you. It's just a boring day.”

By lunchtime I was ready to fall asleep, and I still couldn't shake the feeling that a spirit was at fault. At the lunch table I put my head down on my arms and closed my eyes.

“You okay, man?” my friend Aiden asked. We'd been pals since fifth grade, when I joined the band in elementary school. I was a band geek by choice, and Aiden was a band geek by default. He played the flute, was pudgy, and had terrible acne, and I was almost positive his mom cut his hair, though I'd never asked. But he was my best and most loyal blinking friend, and he'd stuck by me even after finding out my other best friend was my dead twin sister.

“I've been feeling terrible all day,” I said.

“Is it because Halloween's soon?” he asked, opening his red lunch box and unpacking a pepperoni sandwich. “I know all the poltergeists come out to play this time of year.”

I shot him a look. “I'm actually sort of worried that might be the case.”

“Oh, sorry, man,” he said. He took a bite of his sandwich, and a glob of mustard oozed down his chin. “Kristina hasn't done anything to help you?”

“How can I help you when I'm too busy watching this mess try to eat?” Kristina said from next to me on the bench. I chuckled, causing Aiden to furrow his eyebrows.

“What's so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said. “She said it isn't a spirit, so maybe I'm just being paranoid.”

We changed the subject when two other band members came to sit with us. Plus, I wanted to try to forget about my weird spirit problems, if only for a few minutes.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, and when the final bell rang, I texted Aiden and told him I was skipping band practice because I needed to get home and rest. I almost always walked to and from school—it's barely over a mile away from my house—but today I called my mom and asked her to pick me up.

“You're being such a baby, Baylor,” Kristina said. “I know you're not sick.”

“Then why do I feel so bad?” I leaned back against the brick wall of the admin building and curled myself into a ball.

“I'm not sure.”

“Well, if you can't make it stop, then you're not allowed to have an opinion.” Maybe I was imagining it, but even the sky seemed darker—a dull, lifeless gray.

My mom arrived a few minutes later, and I opened the front door of her black SUV to climb in.

“What's wrong, honey?” she said. “Is it a fever?” She held the back of her hand to my forehead and frowned, making almost the same face as Kristina, though I didn't tell her that. It was still weird that she didn't know what her own daughter looked like, despite talking to her every day.

“I don't think it's a fever,” I said. “I'm not sure what it is. I just feel terrible.”

“Let's get you home,” she said. “Did you say hi to Ella yet?”

When I was eleven, my parents welcomed a wonderful little accident named Ella into the world. To me and Kristina, though, she was no accident at all, as I reminded them when they told me Mom was pregnant.

“Remember what I told Dad when I talked to you both about Kristina?” I said. “‘He doesn't have to worry about having a girl
yet
.' I told you both about her six years ago!”

The look of shock on my dad's face grew exponentially worse after realizing it was going to be a girl. He had raised two boys so far. What the heck was he going to do with a little girl?

But it wasn't something he had to worry about, because Ella soon had him wrapped around her little finger. And I have to admit, I was right there with him. She was the cutest little thing I'd ever seen.

Plus, there was the whole fact that she could see spirits. Actually, most babies can—Jack was one of the twitchiest babies ever because of it—but Ella's ability seemed to be amplified thanks to me and Kristina working so well as a team. She couldn't communicate with them, and her ability would fade away in a couple years, but for now she could interact with Kristina and see the same spirits I could.

“Hi, baby Ella,” I said, looking at her through the rearview mirror. I was too exhausted to turn my body around. “Seen any scary spirits today?”

She smiled widely at me for a second before turning her attention back to the baby doll she was holding. She had the most squeezable cheeks of any one-and-a-half-year-old I'd ever met, and they were soon to be overtaken by her ultracurly hair. Now that she was out of her late-night crying phase of life, I loved Ella a ton.

“Did . . . did Kristina say anything about your being sick?” my mom asked. She always spoke in a hushed tone when it came to Kristina, who could hear just fine at any volume.

“Nope, doesn't know a thing,” I said. “Really helpful.” Kristina was probably happy Mom had asked after her, but the thought of turning to look at her made me queasy.

When we got back home, I essentially crawled upstairs and found Kristina already in my room with her arms crossed.

“You're starting to worry me,” she said. “It must be all the Halloween energy. What else could it be?”

“It's never affected me like this before, though,” I said.

“Maybe things are changing.” She almost sounded excited. “Maybe I need to have a talk with one of my spirit guides tonight while you sleep.”

“Please do. I'll take all the help I can get.”

Without another word I passed out.

  *  *  *  

I woke with a start hours later, but I couldn't see the clock. It was dark outside, but the light was still on from earlier.

“Kristina?” I called out.

No response. I thought that was weird but remembered she was going to talk to her guides. Feeling better about her absence, I reached over to turn the lamp off.

When the room went dark, a horrible chill passed through every pore of my body. I sat up in bed, shivering, and in the corner of my room, right in front of the window, stood a man with a white sheet draped over his head.

He seemed very tall, but that could have been because I was in bed. He was perfectly still, almost like a statue, and the edge of the sheet was precisely ruffled like a coiled snake near the floor. Most people would have screamed, but I've experienced some weird things in my day.

But then I noticed the eyes. They were two small holes in the sheet, just big enough for the pupils, and even through the dark all I saw was shiny black pools of menace staring right at me. I forgot how to use my lungs, and as I gasped for air, it felt like the world was closing in on me. The second I saw those eyes, I knew something was wrong.

An evil spirit had breached my barrier.

“BE GONE, SPIRIT!” I SHOUTED
, but it didn't move. The eyes gleamed like black sulfur, but it still made no motion. The sheet didn't sway an inch.

I reached out for my lamp and clicked it on, and as the light filled the room, the demon vanished. A final chill overtook my body, and I exhaled heavily. I looked down and saw my hands shaking.

“Baylor!” Kristina shouted as she materialized from nowhere. “What happened? I couldn't access your room. One second I was here, and the next I was trapped outside.”

I turned to her, and I'm sure my face was as white as the sheet that had covered that man.

“Baylor, it's okay,” she said as she sat on my bed. “It's over. Whatever happened, it's over. Tell me what you saw.”

I looked at my hands, unable to quell the shaking.

“It was some sort of terrible spirit, Kristina,” I finally said. “I turned the light off, and a person wearing a white sheet was standing in the corner. His eyes, Kristina . . . it was like the devil was looking at me.”

“Then what happened?”

“I told him to leave, and when he wouldn't go, I turned the light back on and he disappeared, and then you came back, and now we're talking, and my hands won't stop shaking.”

“Demon dung!” she said, her voice hushed. “I need to speak with my guides right away.”

“No! Don't go. What if he comes back?”

“Light some candles,” she said. “Place them all around the house and ask for more good spirits to stand guard.”

I nodded. “Okay, I'll go get some from downstairs.”

“That will keep whatever it was at bay for now.” She paused for a moment, looking at my shaking hands. “Whatever it was, Baylor, it was really bad. I'm surrounded by positive energy, just as you are, and I couldn't even share the same space as it. I've never encountered anything like it before.”

“Forget the candles,” I said, springing out of bed. “I'm lighting the fireplace, and the grill, and I'm going to find a freaking torch to carry around.”

  *  *  *  

After I had secured the premises with the candles—placing a few extras in Ella's room—I dug through the china cabinet in the dining room. I found what I was looking for tucked away behind the plastic plates and rolled-up tablecloths: a four-wick candle. My mom kept a few candles like this for special occasions, and I was pretty sure tonight qualified as more special than her boring book club.

With all four wicks lit, I went back up to my room feeling like I was holding a nuclear bomb.
Try and get me now, Sheet Man!
Whatever that thing was, it wouldn't be back. Not tonight, anyway.

Even so, I couldn't shake the image of those black eyes. It was bad enough seeing an exaggerated version of the classic ghost—
oh, a sheet over your head, super original—
but to see it unmoving and unblinking and unspeaking, with those deadened, haunting eyes? I felt threatened. Someone or something was trying to intimidate me, in my own home no less, and I didn't like it.

  *  *  *  

“They have no idea how it happened,” Kristina said the next morning, fresh from a powwow with her spirit guides. “The fact that I couldn't be around it made them all incredibly nervous. They're setting up extra protection around the house.”

“Well, that's good,” I said. “Except now I'm more freaked out than I was last night. Shouldn't your spirit guides know everything? Isn't that what they're there for?”

“They know everything about
us
,” she said. “Not random evil spirits who make you wet your bed, Baylor.”