Crossing Over (2 page)

I was afraid to tell her for several reasons. First of all, it was embarrassing. Second of all, if I told her, she would
know
. And then she’d be paying close attention to anything I said or did around Ben Greenblott—she’d want to discuss and dissect
it later. That might make me act weird. Or, it could be humiliating,
because it would inevitably lead to the conclusion that
Ben Greenblott did not care whether or not I existed.

Plus, right now nobody in the entire world knew that when I sat and stared out the window or off into space or sometimes even
when I was pretending to read, I was really lost in the imaginary world of Ben Greenblott. Or, more specifically, me and Ben
Greenblott. So, though it was almost killing me to keep the identity of my soul mate a secret, I decided I would remain silent
about it, at least for now. I could always change my mind later.

“Yep,” I said. Then I turned and gave Jac a smile that probably looked weird.

“Yep what? You really are acting strange, Voodoo Mama. Know what I think?”

She leaned in close to me. Oh no. She probably already knew. Jac knew me like nobody else in the world did. She could probably
tell everything I was thinking about Ben, whether I confessed it or not. I needed to change the subject, because if Jac confronted
me with the truth, I would have no choice but to fess up. Luckily, there was one other thing I hadn’t yet told her. I knew
it would make an excellent diversion.

“My mother had Orin over to dinner Saturday,” I told her. “He’s taking care of Max while we’re away, and he came by to get
the leash and his food bowls and chew toys and stuff.”

Jac looked simultaneously dismayed and thrilled. I was under standing orders to include Jac in any activity in which my mom’s
über-hot un-boyfriend Orin might appear. She grabbed my arm, then peeked over the seats to make sure our mothers were still
safe in their rows. She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut as the border guard and the squirrel strode up the aisle.

“All clear—bus driver, you’re good to go,” announced the guard.

Tim stood up and adjusted his uniform.

“Motor coach operator,” he declared. The border guard either didn’t hear or pretended not to. He got off the bus without another
word. But Tim had defended his title, and you had to respect him for that.

Squirrel man paused at the front of the bus, turned toward me, and jabbed his index finger in my direction. Then he pointed
two fingers in a V shape to his eyes and back at my eyes in the international “I’m watching you” gesture. So clichéd. Maybe
he was from one of those old-time uncool decades. There was a hissing sound as the bus door closed and the engine roared to
life. Jac had not released the death grip on my arm.

“Why didn’t you call me? How was he?
What was he wearing? You like Orin, right? I mean, he’s so good-looking, and he’s a healer
and helped you out with that demon thing at the Mountain House and the medium that was haunting your room—I still can’t believe
he knows all that stuff about fighting entities with energy… you like him, right? I like him. Your mom obviously likes him.
Do you think they ever might actually date? I think they might. But it’s cool with you? Did she dress up? Did you dress up?
What did you eat?”

It could have been irritating. It could have, but it wasn’t. Jac’s barrage of questions hit me more like a fresh breeze than
a gale-force wind. Odd as it sounds, it was way easier to talk about the cute guy in my mother’s life than to admit there
was a boy in mine, especially since they were just friends. And the fact that Jac was rarely able to talk about Orin
without
pointing out his gray-haired, shaggy handsomeness was also, at this moment, endearing rather than excruciating.

I glanced out the window. The road signs were now in French. I had just left the country for the first time in my life. We
got to miss a whole Friday of classes. We had an adventure ahead of us. I turned and smiled at Jac’s gleaming, eager face.

“Okay,” I said. “So what happened was…”

And Jac settled happily into her seat to hear the tale of a routine dinner with Orin as the bus sped toward Montreal.

Outside, the sky had darkened, and it began to rain.

We had only three days in Montreal, and Mrs. Redd was determined that not a second be wasted. So instead of going to our hotel
to unload after the three-and-a-half-hour trip, we drove straight to our first official tourist destination: the Basilique
Notre-Dame. I was tired and cranky and wanted nothing more than to unpack my suitcase and flop down on a hotel bed for a nap,
but when our bus pulled up to the massive cathedral, my jaw dropped.

It towered above the city square where it
was built. Even with the miserable gray background of the storm clouds and drizzling
rain, the whole stone structure stood out, as if it were glowing from within.

“It’s gigantic,” I whispered to Jac. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“Well, Notre Dame in Paris,” she said. “And Montmartre. And of course Winchester Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey in London.
St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, obviously. And, oh, what’s that one on the thing by the place…?”

Oh. I had momentarily forgotten that Jac had traveled to cello competitions all over the world. I was probably the only one
on the entire bus who had never been to Europe, let alone out of the country.

“Oh, but no, I mean yeah, it’s just amazing!” Jac said quickly, with way too much enthusiasm. “No, it’s more beautiful than
any cathedral I’ve ever seen. Really, there’s just something… about it!”

I smiled. I appreciated the gesture. Jac’s father was some sort of computer guy who earned a good living, so the Grays had
money, and we didn’t. My father had left us four years ago with barely a few words since. There were things Jac had done and
seen that I might never experience. Of course, that went both ways. Jac had never been yelled at by a dead person, nor had
she been instrumental in guiding a confused and very deceased medium into the light, or chased by a black demonic cloud. The
house next door to hers had never been haunted by a whole slew of spirits that wouldn’t leave her alone, and restless ghosts
didn’t toss books around in the school library to get her attention. And still, despite all those differences, we were best
friends. The middle-school medium and the cello genius.

“
Alors, mes enfants
,” Mrs. Redd was saying. “
Écoutez.
”

Why did she insist on speaking to us in French? Mrs. Redd was a round dumpling of a woman, only about Jac’s height, which
is tiny. She was almost as wide as she was high, and she favored large men’s shirts that came down to her knees and made her
look like the Liberty Bell.

“
Nous attendons notre… notre…
all right, we’re waiting for our guide, Sid, to join us, and then we will proceed, immediately, into this magnificent cathedral.”

On cue, Tim the Motor Coach Operator pushed a button and the door hissed open. A young, dark-haired man in a leather jacket
and a black-and-white checked scarf wrapped around his neck got onto the bus. He was so different from what I’d expected—I
thought tour guides were always frumpy middle-
aged women—that I assumed for a minute that he was dead.

“He’s adorable,” whispered Jac.

Not dead, then.

There was a PA system on the bus, which the guide turned on.

“Hey, guys,” he said, in a slightly accented voice. “I’m Sid.
Je m’appelle Sid. Qui parles français
?”

Judging by the shouted responses of “Moi,” a great many more people, especially girls, could miraculously respond to a French
question when it was spoken by Sid rather than Mrs. Redd.

“It’s okay, though, we can talk in English, too. I know you are tired, but we’re gonna go into this amazing cathedral right
now, la Basilique Notre-Dame, and it’s gonna blow your minds. It’s better than French rap music even, so get ready.”

Mrs. Redd looked a little suspicious, like maybe even a Canadian shouldn’t mention French rap and the Basilique Notre-Dame
in the same sentence, but a great cheer had begun in the back of the bus. Sid had navigated the sixty-second window of opportunity
eighth graders generally give an adult before they are judged “cool” or “uncool,” and the verdict was clear. Sid was cool.

We filed off the bus. My mom stood off to one side staring up at the cathedral. She must have felt my eyes on her, because
she turned and gave me a quick wink. Jac’s mother was standing about four feet away, fiddling with an iPhone, not even noticing
the cathedral. She looked even more severe than usual. I smiled at my mother and wondered how she was going to survive three
days with Jac’s mom. Actually, I wondered how
I
was going to survive it.

From the sidewalk, I could now see the
cathedral in its entirety. It loomed up like a castle, complete with two huge rectangular
towers at each end. There were three massive arched wooden doors in front with larger stone arches over them, and three more
between the two square towers, each housing a statue. Staring up at the old stone and stained glass, I felt I had tumbled
through the centuries, back hundreds of years.

“Nice,” Jac said.

Nice.

“Okay, guys, so we’re gonna walk in,” Sid was saying.

“We’re going to walk in,” Mrs. Redd repeated, like she was translating for us. Except that Sid was, you know, speaking English
already.

“Okay, so this is a very famous church,” Sid called over his shoulder, as we trotted on the walkway behind him like ducklings.

“Very famous,” Mrs. Redd echoed. “To put it in perspective for you all, none other than
Celine Dion
was married here!”

“What, that chick who sings the
Titanic
theme song?” called the shortest and squattest of the random jock boys. “Outstanding!”

It was starting to rain as we gathered by the central wooden door. It looked as if it had been built for giants. I felt a
surge of excitement and happiness.

“Hey, Spooky, is your mom even allowed to go in there?” I heard.

I turned to see Brooklyn Bigelow, rocking her newest razor-cut trendy hair, which was colored and highlighted within an inch
of its life. I stayed away from Brooklyn whenever possible, but I’d had enough encounters with her to know she had an exaggerated
contempt for all things supernatural, which she declared to be “against religion,” though she
did not seem to have any functioning
knowledge of what religion was.

She thought my mother, who made no attempt to hide the fact that she communicated with the dead for a living, might as well
have a little pair of devil horns sticking up through her hair. I also knew Brooklyn’s supposed disgust concealed a very real
terror of all things ghostly. It was knowledge I tried not to take advantage of, though at times like this it was very, very
difficult.

“You have something in your teeth,” I said, before turning away.

“Ew—you do,” Jac echoed at her, squeezing my arm.

Brooklyn was always suspicious of anything I said to her, but her vanity was more powerful, and she ducked her head and began
fishing in her gargantuan purse for a pocket mirror.

“She thinks she’s some kind of genius for coming up with the name Spooky,” I said, flushing with irritation.

“She stole it from
The X-Files.
I hate her,” Jac declared.

And just like that my irritation dissolved. Sometime it’s enough for your best friend to state she hates the same person you
do. It’s just enough.

We walked through the big wooden door through a small, screened ticket area. When our line moved beyond the screen, I stopped
in my tracks and gasped.

It was so huge. It was so ethereal. It was so
beautiful
.

Enormous wooden columns lined each side of the church, a delicious mix of wood and paint and gilt. The air smelled like incense
and candles and furniture polish. The ceiling, impossibly high, was a rich blue and covered
with golden stars. At the far
end behind the altar stood something I hardly knew how to describe—a building-sized golden framework of arched windows and
towers housing life-sized painted statues of various figures, prophets, or saints, I guessed. Behind the framework the wall
had been painted to look like a deep blue sky dotted with clouds.

I was speechless.

I looked around to see how everyone else was taking it.

Sid was standing in the center aisle counting us, Mrs. Redd at his side imitating his counting. Beside her stood Mrs. Gray,
who looked like she was trying in vain to get a signal on her iPhone. My mom was sitting in one of the pews, her eyes closed.

The other students were standing stock still at various places in the center aisle staring, open-mouthed, grabbing each other
and
pointing at things. A few had started taking pictures. I was almost gratified to see that even Brooklyn Bigelow looked
stunned by the magnificence of the architecture around her. So she was human after all. A little, anyway.

And Ben Greenblott. He had walked over to one of the huge carved wooden pillars, and as I watched he reached out very gently
and brushed the wood with his fingertips. Then he closed his eyes, like he was absorbing the feel of the wood. For a moment,
he looked as beautiful and ethereal as any of the statues in this church.

Yep—it was definitely love.

Ben had apparently caught Brooklyn’s attention, too. She had arranged herself in one of her
Entertainment Tonight
poses—one hand on her hip, the other twisting a lock of her hair through several well-manicured fingers. She shot Ben a look
through lowered
eyelids, but he seemed totally unaware of her. I wanted to hurl a prayer book at her silly flirting head.
Didn’t she know Ben Greenblott was way too good for her?

Sid was talking now—his voice went in and out of my consciousness as I tried to recover from the daze I felt.

“… building completed in 1829… gothic style… hand painted…”

But another voice was intruding.

“
… la… C’est mal, la fenêtre… elle est trop claire… trop chaude… elle ne marche pas, la fenêtre…
”