Betrayal (21 page)

“Come here, my little Fury,” Simon said.

Natalie crossed the hall to him, a stubborn glint in her eyes, and he spoke quietly to her. I wanted to go comfort her, but Bennett stopped me. “Let them talk.”

“She
is
kind of like one of the Furies,” I said; I knew from Latin classes they were goddesses of revenge.

“If anyone's a Fury, it's you,” Bennett murmured back.

Before I could respond, I noticed the Sterns in the hallway that led to Mr. Stern's office. They stood disapprovingly, eyeing the scene Natalie was making. She was taking this harder than I expected, and I wished Lukas was here to make a joke and ease the tension. After Simon comforted Natalie for another minute, Mrs. Stern cleared her throat.

Simon winced. “Ah, yes. One more thing.”

“They're kicking us out?” Natalie hiccupped.

“No, no,” Simon said. “Quite the opposite. The Sterns have agreed to act as your guardians.”

I glanced at them, thinking Simon should've added the word
reluctantly
somewhere in that sentence.

Natalie snorted. “Another day, another guardian.”

“I know.” Simon laid a hand on her shoulder. “You get tossed around a lot. And if it were anyone else, I'd worry. But you two will be okay.”

Natalie sniffled some more, then pecked Simon on the cheek and crossed the room to fiercely hug Bennett. She gave the Sterns one last evil look, then ran upstairs in a burst of tears. Yikes. Not her most shining moment.

“Well, she's a bit high-strung,” Mr. Stern said, and I was surprised at how deep and warm his voice was.

“How about this, Dad?” Bennett said. “You hold off judging Natalie until after you battle Neos a couple times, then we'll see who's high-strung. She doesn't have half of Emma's power—hell, she's a
summoner
—and she's faced down a vicious nightmare without flinching. You have no idea what we've been dealing with.”

“Bennett,” his mother said warningly.

“When Neos killed Olivia,” Bennett asked his father, “what did you do?”

“Bennett!” his mother snapped.

“I mourned,” his father said.

“Well, right, yes,” Simon blurted. “We should be on our way. I'm sure Natalie will be just fine. She's got Emma to look after her.”

“But who's going to look after Emma?” Bennett asked.

I leaned into him, standing as close as I could without actually touching him. I hated that we had an audience for our final moments together. Especially when that audience was his parents and Simon. “Just come back to me safe,” I answered. “That's how you can take care of me.”

“I promise,” he said. Then he kissed me, a full-on everything-you've-got kiss, like he didn't care that his parents were standing twelve feet away from us. And at that moment, neither did I.

That night, I stood at my bedroom window, hoping I'd see Bennett's Land Rover pull into the drive, knowing I wouldn't. I waited anyway, thinking maybe Coby would come strolling through the maples. But he'd been spending more time with Harry and Sara now that they knew he was a ghost. They couldn't see or talk to him, but the three of them found ways to communicate.

I wanted someone to distract me, to help me forget about missing Bennett, and for a moment, I thought the figure drifting through the trees was Coby, granting my wish. I opened my window, a half-smile on my face—then realized it wasn't him. It was another ghost, a woman wearing a long white nightgown. I didn't know who she was, but for some reason the sight of her wandering through the trees reminded me of mad Ophelia in Shakespeare's
Hamlet
. Like when she got closer, I'd see flowers woven through her hair and a crazy look in her eyes.

Except as she shifted from the darkness of the maples into the moonlight, I recognized her. “Rachel?”

I thought I saw her smile faintly before she turned, her attention suddenly on the distant tower of Thatcher, peeking over the museum's walls.

Aunt Rachel
, I said, sputtering in surprise.
What
…
what are you—how are you—

She didn't answer. She drifted in the direction of Thatcher, then faded into the Beyond before she hit the old stone wall.

Rachel was dead. I saw her die. No, I did more than that: I killed the wraith inside of her, the only thing keeping her alive. And she was a ghostkeeper. Ghostkeepers didn't become ghosts unless they killed themselves, like Neos had.

My aunt Rachel couldn't be a ghost. Except she was. Unless that wasn't my aunt Rachel. In which case … who—or what—was it?

The Haunting Emma series by Lee Nichols

Deception
Betrayal

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

First published in Great Britain in September 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

First published in the USA in March 2011 by Bloomsbury Books For Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

This electronic edition published in September 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Text copyright © Lee Nichols 2011
The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4088 2046 9

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