Deception (29 page)

When I regained my sanity, I turned my head to end the kiss, but that just gave him access to my ear. He nibbled. I melted. Then, once I rediscovered my bones, I stood shakily.

“I, um, I’m gonna …” I fumbled for my bag. “I think I should sit somewhere else.”

With his hands gripping the chair rails, he nodded.

“Bennett,” I said, wanting him to look at me, to forgive me with those cobalt eyes.

But when he did look, his face wasn’t forgiving
—
just sad.

I stumbled over him and found an empty seat four rows back, next to the window. I leaned my head against the glass and watched the world outside blurring into grayness. The hours passed, and I wondered how much longer we could go on like this. This wasn’t some unrequited crush where you didn’t know how the boy felt, where if you threw yourself at him, he might recoil. I knew exactly how Bennett felt, and he knew exactly how I felt. We wanted each other, plain and simple.

Okay, maybe not so simple. But I couldn’t allow myself to think there wasn’t some solution, and I spent the rest of the train ride trying to figure it out.

As we pulled into Penn Station, Bennett slid into the seat beside me. “Tell me it’s worth it. Tell me this is going to be over soon, and we can be together.”

He’d never asked me for reassurance before, not like that. I wanted to comfort him, tell him this would all end, and our lives would go on together. But I still owed him the truth.

“It’s not just your sister, Bennett,” I said. “It’s not just finding Neos and killing him.”

“What is it, then?” he asked.

As the train squealed to a halt, I looked into his eyes. “It’s you. The you I fell in love with is a ghostkeeper. That’s the only you there is. How can I ask you to give that up?”

“I want to,” he said. “For you.”

“I love that you want to. Maybe that’s enough.” And I had no right to ask for more.

He shook his head, unconvinced, as we gathered our bags and the other passengers started to exit. I followed Bennett through the station and onto the street, where the air was cold and a grim sky peeked between the looming buildings.

Moments later we were in a taxi, heading downtown.

The avenues of Midtown began to narrow and the taxi turned into a cramped neighborhood of brick buildings and little quaint shop fronts filled with antiques and cool clothing. I tried not to look like a tourist while gawking at everything. Even jaded urbanites gawked sometimes, right?

Bennett told the cabdriver to stop at the corner, and we grabbed our bags and stood on the sidewalk. It began to snow and my senses flared at the sights and smells. I almost staggered under the impact of all the spirits lingering along the streets.

Two male ghosts in navy uniforms passed a flapper from the twenties, who winked gaily at a young ghost who looked like he died in some kind of disco accident. The ghosts roamed in packs of two and three, greeting each other and commenting on the snow, and generally acting as though they weren’t dead.

“Pretty intense, huh?” Bennett said.

“Wait
—
is that
Elvis
?”

“Don’t be silly,” he scoffed. “That’s just a chubby guy in a white jumpsuit. What would Elvis be doing here?”

He led me down the cobblestoned street, past narrow brownstones with ornate wrought-iron fences and ancient trees growing between the sidewalks.

“Ghostkeepers live here, don’t they?” I said.

“Yeah, mostly people heavily involved with the Knell.”

As dusk crept over the rooftops, I watched a boy much like Nicholas climb a streetlamp, light a long match, and fiddle with the glass. The lamp lit instantly
—
but from electricity, not his flame.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “They’re not like the ghosts in Echo Point.” Or even the ones I’d remembered from my childhood, before my parents had my ability suppressed. “It’s like they don’t know they’re dead.”

“Maybe it’s the street,” he said. “It’s one of the oldest in New York. Or maybe it’s the Knell or how many ghostkeepers live here. No one’s really sure, but somehow it gives them the sense that they’re still alive. They forget they’re ghosts.”

We passed a small private park where a few old guys played chess at tables under the streetlamps. A younger ghost, eccentrically dressed and familiar, moved a rook.

“Is that … ?”

“The actor?” A movie star who’d recently died of an overdose. “Yeah.”

“Have you asked if it was suicide or an accident?”

He looked at me. “No.”

“Oh, right.” He couldn’t communicate with them and I felt like a jerk for bringing it up.

The block dead-ended at a white stone behemoth of a house, with columns and turrets and arches and things that might’ve been flying buttresses for all I knew. It looked like an institution, but there was no sign; instead, ornate iron gates and heavy trees stood guard.

“What did it used to be?” I asked, expecting Bennett to say it belonged to the first governor of New York or a Rockefeller or, I don’t know, the pope.

“It’s always been the Knell.”

We headed toward the gate, then Bennett stopped and gave me a strange look, one I couldn’t decipher.

“What?” I asked.

“I should’ve prepared you.” He tilted his head. “I didn’t tell you before, because I didn’t know how, but there’s something inside. You’re not going to like it.”

“Well, that’s nice and cryptic.” I took a steadying breath. “They’re going to help us find Neos and my parents. That’s all that matters.”

Then the iron gates swung open and the house received us.

Copyright © 2010 by Lee Nichols
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First published in the United States of America in June 2010
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in June 2010
www.bloomsburyteens.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Nichols, Lee.

Deception : Haunting Emma / by Lee Nichols.
—
1st U.S. ed.

p.     cm.

Summary: When seventeen-year-old Emma's antique-collector parents vanish and her
brother's college roommate shows up to become her guardian, he takes her from San
Francisco to Boston, where she discovers that she is a powerful "ghostkeeper," which both
explains troubling incidents from her past and presents difficult new dilemmas.

ISBN 978-1-59990-308-8 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-59990-421-4 (paperback)

[1. Ghosts
—
Fiction. 2. Supernatural
—
Fiction. 3. Missing persons
—
Fiction.

4. Interpersonal relations
—
Fiction. 5. High schools
—
Fiction. 6. Schools
—
Fiction.

7. Boston (Mass.)
—
Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Haunting Emma.

PZ7.N5412De 2010     [Fic]
—
dc22     2009031191

ISBN 978-1-59990-562-4 (e-book)