Deception (16 page)

“Maybe like their dad’s La-Z-Boy?” Britta sneered.

“Industrial design,” Mr. Jones said, “is a fascinating subject.”

“How about, like, architecture?” I said, widening my eyes in an imitation of Britta. “Then I could, like, write about my entire estate.”

A few kids laughed and Britta hissed, “What’ve
you
got? You’re just freeloading off the Sterns.”

That struck a nerve. “I’ve got my ponies,” I continued, “and, like, sometimes Mummy and Daddy buy me a friend.”

At that, Britta burst into tears and called me a bitch.

Then the light-haired ghost boy reached out and pinched Britta. Which would’ve been funny if I didn’t get blamed. And if I hadn’t sort of felt she was right, that I had been a bitch. Did I really have to stoop to her level?

Mr. Jones made me apologize and I got my first detention and demerits at Thatcher. I couldn’t help feeling manipulated by the ghost jocks. They snickered in the corner, as though they’d planned this all along.

I wanted the darker one to pinch the other one, see how he liked it. I willed him to do it.

And he did. I watched as he reached over and goosed him on the bottom.

Ow! Why’d you do that?
The light-haired ghost punched him in the arm.

He winced and said,
I don’t know. I think
she
made me do it.

They turned bitter faces toward me.

Was it possible? Had I
compelled
him? Only one way to find out. I willed the light one to slap his own butt and the dark one to pat his head and rub his tummy.

They did it! Their eyes bulged at me in indignation. I almost burst out laughing, but remembered myself just in time. I didn’t want a second round of detention.

Oh my God! I could compel ghosts! I wondered if I could make them disappear, too. Not dispel them, just compel them to go away. I
pushed
at them with my mind, willing them to just leave, like when you will your number to be picked for a lottery. Only that never works and this did. It didn’t take much effort as I watched their furious faces fade into the ether, while they continued to whack themselves silly.

The class bell rang, but I remained at my desk, my heart beating faster. I almost wanted to summon the ghosts back, to see if I could. But I knew I didn’t need to. They’d come if I beckoned.

Mr. Jones noticed me and told me I couldn’t talk him out of detention. Then said he knew I wasn’t living with my family, so if I wanted a different assignment …

My family. Full of ghostkeepers. But did any of them have powers like mine? Able to summon, compel,
and
communicate with ghosts? I pulled the amulet I’d found in my mother’s jewelry box from inside my shirt. If I were home in San Francisco, there’d be loads of heirlooms to choose from, like Nefertiti’s head. But this was the closest thing I had. I rubbed the cool jade spirals. Somehow I felt that researching the origin of the amulet would give me a clue to my parents’ lives. Maybe even into their secrets.

“No, I’m good,” I said.

Sadly, my punishment didn’t end with detention. After I explained what had happened with the ghost jocks at school, Martha decided it was unsafe for me to roam the streets without learning more control.

“You have to admit, it’s kinda cool I can do all that,” I said with a grin.

“Into the ballroom, missy,” she said repressively.

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t say no to her. Maybe because my mother wasn’t exactly motherly and Martha was like a sweet grandma who always offered wise, loving words and cookies warm from the oven (even if she compelled someone else to bake them). Plus, she’d been Bennett’s nanny, and I was certain she held the secret to figuring him out.

It was all so
Karate Kid
—
minus the headband
—
as I practiced in the middle of the ballroom. Martha drilled me in summoning, communicating, and, despite my reluctance, compelling. It was one thing, getting even with the ghost jocks, but I was uncomfortable compelling Nicholas, who’d offered himself as a test subject. It was easier to just ask him to do things. But I did learn how to dampen my reaction to ghosts and to protect myself from the frostbite of physical contact
—
which were useful. After an hour and a half, Martha suggested a hot chocolate break.

We sat in the kitchen, and she said, “The Knell isn’t going to believe this. Believe
you
.”

“Who’s Nell?”

“The Knell, with a
K
. They’re the … the CIA of the ghostkeeping world.”

“You mean they eavesdrop on our phone calls?”

“They track the identities of ghosts
—
their appearances and abilities. And their crimes.”

“Crimes? Like ghasts, you mean?”

Martha sipped her cocoa. “Mm. When they hear what you can do, they’ll want to recruit you.”

“Recruit me? I’m still in high school.”

“You’re uniquely talented, Emma. Communicating is rare enough, but you …”

“Can do all of it.” Summon, communicate, and compel.

She nodded. “As far as we know. You haven’t dispelled yet.”

“And I’m not about to try.” I was willing to do a lot for Martha, but not that.

She’d urged me to practice on a strange ghost I’d summoned, but I couldn’t be as blasé about ghosts as she and Bennett were. They treated them like second-class citizens, but they were still people, right? I mean, dead people were people, too.

I wouldn’t dispel any of them without good cause. Or even
with
good cause. The man in the brown suit wanted me to dispel him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

We practiced for another hour before Martha again brought up the Knell.

“I don’t want to meet them,” I said. “I’ve got enough problems.” I was barely surviving Thatcher and missing my parents. I didn’t want to get involved in fighting off ghasts or whatever they did. I only wanted to be with the house ghosts.

“But you already have,” Martha said. “Bennett is a member.”

“Are you?”

She got a distant look on her face. “Not anymore.”

I would’ve questioned her further, but Anatole rang the bell for dinner. As Martha refused to talk business at meals, I had to leave it for another time. But my mind was racing with questions. Why hadn’t Bennett told me he was working for the Knell? Why had Martha quit? And what did they know about my parents?

It seemed the more I settled in Echo Point, into being a ghostkeeper, the more I realized how little I knew.

18

The rest of the week followed the same routine. School, ghostkeeper training with Martha, then sneaking into the ballroom for more abuse from the Rake after homework and dinner. The Rake didn’t say five words to me all week, but I kept going back, despite his surliness. There was something about his presence that comforted me, perhaps the echoes of the original Emma’s memories.

So life was going pretty okay in Echo Point. Ghostkeeping felt more natural all the time. At least Nicholas no longer danced like a marionette when I compelled him. I’d done as Bennett asked and made friends at school
—
actual humans
—
and was even acing Trig, despite the lack of help from the man in the brown suit. Turned out his name was Edmund. Well, he’d always be the man in the brown suit to me.

Then in class on Friday, Harry paused during a rant in Latin about my dowdy uniform and switched to English: “SILF at three o’clock.”

“Would you stop with that?” I said. “You’re like ten years too late with it.”

Lately, he’d been using the ILF part of MILF to describe anything he liked: pizza was PILF, Coke was CILF, and
S
obviously stood for “student.”

“Et tu es a taedium sus,”
*
I said, though I couldn’t help but glance at the door.

And there stood Natalie.

Yes, that Natalie. Slim as ever, dark and beautiful with her flowing hair and fitted uniform.

My stomach dropped, and I felt my world crash around me. Natalie would instantly be best friends with Sara. Coby would ask her to the Halloween party. And Harry would start being snide to me. Well, snid
er
.

And I’d go back to being the girl with no friends.

“What’s
she
doing here?” I said.

“You know her?”

“Yeah, she’s more like a BILF.”

“Good,” Harry said. “You can introduce me.”

“Since when do you need an introduction? And I’m not talking to her.”

Even if she stood right at the edge of my desk. “Hey,” she said. “Long time no see.”

“Not long enough.” Okay, so I broke already. I’d never been good at the silent treatment. Just ask Max. If you could find him.

“Yeah, I was hoping we could talk about that,” Natalie said.

Harry cocked his head. “Talk about what?”

“Not now,” I told Natalie. “Or Gossip Girl here will repeat it to everyone.”

“Don’t believe a word she says,” Harry told Natalie, standing politely to greet her.

“Yeah,
I’m
the liar,” I muttered.

He ignored me and took her offered hand. “I’m Harrison. Very pleased to meet you. You knew the frumpy one in San Francisco?”

“We partied together,” she said. “Briefly.”

Instead of saying something biting and perfect, I just goggled at her. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Natalie showing up was like some recurring nightmare, worse than anything the ghosts had thrown at me. What could she possibly be doing here? Besides torturing me.

She and Harry flirted outrageously until class started. She probably thought I had a crush on him like Jared. Well, she was welcome to him. Coby, too. Just as long as she never met Bennett, everything would be fine.

After Mr. Z introduced the new student, Natalie mentioned that we knew each other, so he paired us for the weekly dialogue.

“Don’t hate me,” she said in Latin.

“You’re horrible. Why shouldn’t I hate you?”

“Quoniam tu es non bonus proculi exosus,”
*
she said.

I didn’t know what to say to that. “How come you speak so well? You didn’t take Latin in San Francisco.”

“I’m beyond what they offered.” She eyed me archly. “We’re always advanced at Latin, hadn’t you noticed?”

“We who?”

“Phasmatis custodies.”

Custodians of phantasms? Oh God. Ghostkeepers.

She saw my expression and nodded. “We’re good at dead things
—
including dead languages.”

“No way.” No way that backstabbing, Jared-kissing Natalie from San Francisco was a ghostkeeper. “You’re lying. Again.”

“I never lied, I
—
”

“You said you were my friend. And now you’re saying you’re a ghostkeeper
—
” Except how much could I reveal about that? The more Martha talked about the Knell, the more they sounded like the Mafia. “Not that I have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fine.” She frowned in concentration, and a befuddled old man wearing nothing but long johns appeared beside us. She wrinkled her nose. “Where are all the cute ghosts when you want them?”

“You didn’t just …”

She raised one brow. “I did.”

Thank you,
I told the old ghost.
Sorry to, um, interrupt.
I shooed him back to wherever he came from, poor old guy.

“Where’d he go?” Natalie asked.

I executed a flawed but recognizable Gallic shrug. Martha wasn’t the only one who’d been practicing.

“You got that from Celeste, didn’t you?” she asked.

She knew Celeste? Did she know Bennett? Who the hell was she? My sharp intake of breath caught the attention of Mr. Z.

“Is everything all right here, ladies?” he asked.

“Fine,” Natalie said.

“I was shocked,” I said, “by her correct usage of the dative case.”

“Excellent,” he said, and strolled past Harry, who in the nick of time stopped trying to translate MILF into Latin.

Natalie and I had three classes together, including Fencing. Which was great. Now she and Sara would have some quality time together and become best friends. Both beautiful, both freakishly self-confident and, well, let’s just say I was happy I’d always been nice to Kylee. After Natalie and Sara met, we’d have plenty of time together.

To delay the inevitable, I tried rushing Sara out of the locker room. But Natalie, of course, didn’t let me. She chatted with me like we were friends, then introduced herself to Sara.

Despite my worries, they were not a match made in heaven. Sara turned on the frost
—
that polite rich-girl chill she did so well. I didn’t know why she did it, but I loved her for it.

Of course, class itself wasn’t great. First, Natalie looked tons better in her fencing costume than I did. Then Coach paired the two “new girls” after the drills, called “Play!” and Natalie kicked my ass.

I was tempted more than once to ignore the rules, change my grip, and see what I could
really
do. The Rake had drilled me in switching hands in the middle of a fight and slashing at the femoral artery. Or the eyes. Or wrist.

But instead, I took an honorable beating. At least the jock boy ghosts hadn’t appeared.

At lunch, Harry asked Natalie to sit with us, and flirted outrageously, completely infatuated. She called him Harrison, making him her slave forever.

After lunch, Coby walked me to Advanced Biology. “So what’s the story?”

“With Harry? Hormones.”

“With you and Natalie.”

“Oh. No story really.” Then I realized this was Coby
—
I trusted him. “We were friends, or at least I thought we were. She encouraged me to have a party
—
because my parents are gone, you know? Then when the cops came, she told them I was living alone, plus I’m pretty sure she called them in the first place. So I spent the night in a halfway house and ended up here.”

“So she’s evil.”

“Incarnate.”

Coby half smiled. “On the other hand …”

“If you say she’s hot, I’ll bite you.”

“ … If it weren’t for her, you’d still be in San Francisco. And I kind of like that you’re here.”

“Oh,” I said.

He laughed. “You’re welcome.”

I liked that he got my awkward randomness. We stopped outside the classroom door and I said, “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” And suddenly, I was looking forward to it.

I obsessed about Natalie all through fifth and sixth period and then found her waiting at my locker when school was over. Thatcher’s lockers were all housed in lounges; apparently there was a lot of negotiating and jockeying each year for the best spots. You had to be voted in. Thankfully, I’d missed all that and was assigned to the “Lame Lounge” with the other nerds. Though, I did yearn for the club chairs, fireplace, and potted palms.

Guess who was given a locker next to mine? I would’ve left her there, but I needed my books.

“Go away,” I said, twirling the combo on my locker.

“I can’t,” she said. “I need you to forgive me.”

“Fine.” I grabbed my backpack. “I accept your apology.
Now
will you go away?”

“No,” she said. “I want to explain. Will you at least listen?”

I headed out of the lounge and down the front steps of the school without answering, walking quickly to outpace her.

She trotted beside me toward the gates. “Please.”

“Stop following me.”

“I didn’t want to do it, Emma.”

I blinked back tears. I couldn’t believe she was here
—
and a ghostkeeper. As if she’d devoted her life to ruining mine. Kids streamed through the gates and I noticed Harry heading in our direction. If he saw this, he’d turn our argument into gossip about a catfight.

“C’mon then,” I said.

We walked a block in silence, before shuffling through a drift of fallen leaves. “Just say it, Natalie. How can you explain what you did?”

“You never would’ve left San Francisco if we’d just asked,” she said.

“ ‘We’ who?”

“The Knell,” she said.

“The Knell?” I stopped walking. “So you work with Bennett?”

She bit her lower lip. “He didn’t tell you.”

“Let me get this straight.” I started walking again, faster this time, my growing anger causing me to pick up speed. “The Knell sent you to pretend to be my friend and then ruin my life so Bennett could drag me to Echo Point.”

“The friendship part wasn’t pretend.”

“I’d hate to see what you do to people you
don’t
like. Why not just tell me who you were and what you wanted?”

“Hi, we’re ghostkeepers!” she said chirpily. “We see dead people
—
and so do you! Wanna fly across the country and live in a haunted house with us?” She followed me up the driveway to the museum. “We weren’t sure how much you knew. I kept dropping hints, hoping you’d open up, but you never did. Bennett thought
—
”

“That I was only pretending.”

She nodded. “And your parents … I don’t know. Emma, the Knell’s like the army, and I’m just a private. They give the orders, I salute. Like Fencing class, except nobody yells ‘Play.’ ”

I refused to smile. “Are you even sixteen? Or are you some kind of ghostkeeper narc, infiltrating my school to get close to me?”

“I’m sixteen,” she said, and for a moment her confidence faltered. “I just never finish a school year in one place.”