Dust to Dust (19 page)

“How does anyone ever find it?” I ask.

“It finds you,” says Carson.

I give her a skeptical look, but her earnest gaze tells me that this is for real—or at least she believes it is.

“This place was founded by someone who understood that the knowledge in these books was worth protecting,” says Dylan. “Someone who could talk to the other side . . . like Carson can.”

She waves off the compliment, but her lips turn up a little, like she's pleased he's noticed. “I haven't mastered that yet,” she says. “But I'm trying.”

“You have natural talent,” says Dylan. “You just need the right words.”

Carson nods. “That's where the books come in.” She turns to me. “None of this stuff is online. I know, because when you were in a coma, I—”

She stops, looking sheepish.

“What?” I ask.

“She used an incantation from this book to try to bring you back,” says Dylan, holding up a dusty red volume.

I flash back to a séance Carson attempted in her room with Nick. Reena and I were standing on the sidelines watching, and I thought it all looked so silly . . . until my voice locked up and a strong vibration hit my core. I woke up in the Prism later, not knowing what had happened.

I remember the words Carson said that night. I close my eyes and recite them now: “By the light of the moon and the branch of the tree, I call the soul of Callie McPhee back to me. . . .”

When I open my eyes, Carson and Dylan are staring at me, their mouths hanging in parallel
O
s.

They turn and look at each other. “It was working!” squeals Carson.

“It almost did,” I tell her. “I was there. You almost brought me back.”

Carson and Dylan grab hands and do what I can only describe as a happy dance. I need to put a lid on this.

“Y'all, I know this is exciting for you,” I say. “But there are lives at stake here. Real people's lives.” I stare at Carson meaningfully.
Like yours
, I think.

They tamp down their enthusiasm, but it takes some effort. Having me here to confirm what they've been reading about and believing in must be like a little kid meeting the real Santa Claus. Except he doesn't exist. But the ghost world does.

“Anyway,” says Dylan, gesturing around the bookstore. “This space is protected.”

He looks up at the ceiling—all wooden beams and hanging lightbulbs, no glowing force field or double-reinforced orb of otherworldly safety—and I'm about to ask him more questions, but then Carson says, “Believe for once, Callie.”

I think about all the years when I dismissed Carson's ghost stories and her feeling of connection to the other side—to my own mother even. It wasn't fair of me, especially as she stuck by me through my cynicism and scoffing. She never lost her confidence, never wavered, and now I know that she was right all along. So maybe I owe it to her to believe now.

“Okay.” I lean in on my elbows and look up at Dylan like he's a teacher. “Continue.”

My best friend pulls a chair alongside mine.

Dylan beams at her as he starts to talk.

“Possession,” says Dylan, returning to the task at hand. “It's all about energy.”

“Right,” I say. “I had extra energy in the Prism. And it seems like I still have a lot of it, because I know that Leo used my energy today at school to possess Eli. I felt it happening.”

“A blessing and a curse,” says Dylan, and suddenly he sounds like Thatcher in Guide mode. “They're using your supply, but it's also what enables you to expel them from a body—that takes huge amounts of energy.” He digs through a corner pile on the table and finds a book with a plain brown cover. “This one talks about controlling energy and moving physical objects—telekinesis.”

I nod. “I did some of that in the Prism,” I tell him. “I was able to move things . . . sometimes.”

“It takes a lot of concentration, especially if you don't have a physical body,” says Dylan. Then he smiles at Carson. “Imagine trying to pick up a glass of orange juice with your mind!”

“Or blow dandelion seeds into the wind with your thoughts,” says Carson.

“Or take out the trash with brain waves!” says Dylan.

“Okay, okay!” I jump in. “I think we all get the idea.”

Dylan and Carson laugh together, and I'm almost charmed by how cute they look. But I'm also impatient—I need him to keep going, get to his point or what he thinks he knows, and tell me where the ring is.

“Sorry, sorry,” says Dylan, and he straightens his mouth into a line with some effort. “Do you remember how you moved things?”

I think back to Reena's instruction. And it's strange that I'm calling upon the teachings of my enemy in this moment. But at the time, I thought she was my friend.

We took a walk on Folly Beach. She led me to a bonfire, where I met two other poltergeists, Norris and Delia. It was there that she taught me how to blow out a flame using my memories of birthday-cake wishes and scented candles. “You have to
feel
yourself blowing out the flame before you can actually do it—almost like you're imagining it happening first,” she told me.

I nod. “I remember.”

“Today your energy worked for you on pure instinct,” says Dylan. “I've never seen anyone move as fast as you did, or as furiously.”

“You were there. I saw you outside my classroom.”

“I have chemistry on that hall last period. It was hard to miss the fight.”

“I don't know what I did in that hallway,” I tell Dylan honestly. “I didn't think—I just acted.”

“Well, it worked,” he says. “And we can review what happened if you like.”

“What do you mean?”

Dylan holds up his phone. “I caught most of it,” he says.

I freeze. “You recorded it?”

He comes over to me and sets the phone down. I stare at the white triangle Play icon for a moment before pressing it and watching myself move like a trained fighter. I review it twice—seeing how quickly I moved and what the final shove looked like, the one where I expelled Leo fully. I'm amazed at myself, at my own strength. Do I actually still have the ability to fight them, even without my extra energy from the Prism?

Or Thatcher's talisman?

Dylan leans in and says, “You were great. But if you learn how to harness that power a little better, you'll be more prepared for next time.”

“Next time?”

“You don't think they'll stop now, do you? Not when they're so close.”

Dylan's words make me shiver despite the musty heat in here. Reena and Leo are obsessed with living again. They won't stop
until they've killed someone to get what they want—a body.

And although Thatcher has told me he's searching high and low for them, maybe it's too late.

Maybe they're untouchable.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

OVER THE NEXT HALF hour, something unexpected happens. Carson, Dylan, and I actually start to have fun. Dylan keeps turning back to his books to give me more instruction, more ways of honing my energy.

“Let's use this.” Dylan turns and pulls out a silver candelabra from the cabinet behind us.

Carson giggles.

“Are you for real?” I ask him.

“What?” he asks, a smile in his voice. “Too stereotypical ghost?”

At first I think I won't be able to do anything. I tested my energy already in class, and nothing happened. But somehow, right now, I start to feel the power again. I remember what it's like to not have a body, and the body that I have now isn't getting in my way.

When I face a wall covered with old pictures and dusty papers,
I focus on a black-and-white postcard of a fountain that looks like it's somewhere in Europe—Italy, I think. I imagine its scalloped edges on my fingers, its slight weight in my hand. I close my eyes, but inside my mind I can see the postcard clearly; I can smell its musty paper scent, feel the slight ridge on the corner where the stamp is still stuck.

I know I'm moving the postcard before I open my eyes, because I hear both Carson and Dylan take breaths in, like they're seeing a rainbow, or a snowflake, for the first time. It crosses my mind that it's usually only in childhood that people make that sound—that breath intake that signals pure delight. I open my eyes and see the postcard floating across the room toward Carson, and I exhale in absolute wonder.

I am moving an object with my mind.

Carson plucks the card out of the air.

“Ouch!” she says, dropping the card and looking at her fingers.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Just a shock.”

“Sorry, Cars.”

“Are you kidding? Don't be sorry! That was amazing!” My best friend rushes up to me and puts an arm around me, squeezing my shoulders.

“It was,” says Dylan, still beaming. “Your energy is really high. That's a good thing.” He picks up the postcard and places it back in its spot on the wall.

It is good
, I think, amazed. I'm using the imagined touch that I
called on in the Prism to interact with earthly objects. I'm not saying it's as easy as snapping my fingers, but it's doable.

“Does it make you tired?” asks Carson.

I shake my head no. “It takes a little concentration, but it's not bad,” I say, wondering what Thatcher would think of me playing with powers. I'm sure he feels they are better left forgotten, even with the poltergeists still at large.

“Well . . . I have good news and bad news,” says Dylan.

“Bad then good,” says Carson. “Always.”

Dylan looks at me and I nod in agreement.

“The bad news is that there are only certain locations where you can use this power,” he says. “This bookstore, this spot specifically, happens to be an energy vortex. It channels energy from both this world and from the other side, and it's one of only a handful of spots like that in Charleston.”

No wonder I couldn't use my energy in physics class. But that means . . .

“So I can only protect myself in certain locations?” I ask. “What if the poltergeists strike somewhere else? Somewhere outside of a vortex?”

“That's the good news,” says Dylan, picking up a small yellow book and tapping it with his finger. “According to this text, they can only ‘strike,' as you put it, in these particular locations, because that's where your energy is present, and they have to draw on you to achieve possession.”

I take in what he's said.

“Is there a list of these . . . what did you call them? Vortexes?” I ask.

Dylan points to the wall, where there's an old map with ragged edges—like something you'd imagine a pirate tucking into his pocket—in a glass frame.

“The areas that are circled in dotted lines represent vortexes,” he says.

“They're not very big,” I say, staring at the map.

“No, they're just pockets. Maybe the size of a small backyard.”

“And what are they exactly?” I try to listen hard, because this is the type of thing I can easily pretend to understand but not really grasp.

“It's like Earth and the Prism are divided by a thin layer of fabric.” Dylan gestures as he talks, just like Carson does when she goes on a monologue. Right now he's stretching out an imaginary piece of material between his hands. “The fabric is mostly smooth, but in certain parts, it's bunched up—almost like it's sewn with a tighter weave in those spots. Those are vortexes. The connection is closer between worlds, so the energy is higher.”

“What makes the connection closer in those specific spots?” I ask.

Dylan looks to the map on the wall. “The way it's laid out here seems to suggest that the vortexes exist in places where there were mass deaths.”

“Mass deaths?” I lean forward.

Pointing to the map, Dylan fingers one spot that looks like it's the harbor. “This was a Civil War battle site,” he says. Then he
moves his hand to another location. “And there was a horrible hotel fire here in 1902.”

“So the places where a lot of people died at once . . . those are now vortexes.” I stand up and walk to the map to look with him.

“Right,” Dylan says. “And there are a bunch in Charleston.”

“Our city has always been a ghost town,” says Carson as she comes over to join us.

My eyes travel over the map carefully. The landmarks on it are old and outdated . . . it's hard to know where they are in today's geography.

I point to one spot that has familiar points of reference around it, and Dylan comes up beside me. “This is—” I start.

“School,” Dylan finishes. “I know. The hallway where you and Leo fought must be a vortex. And there may be some that aren't on the map . . . it's from 1912, so any multiple deaths since then could have created more.”

I scan the map again to see if I can locate the point where the poltergeists took control of my car. We must have passed through a vortex where they were waiting in that moment.

I take a picture of the map with my phone. If Reena and Leo are ready for a fight, I'm going to give it to them.

“Good idea,” says Dylan. “You can use the map to help you avoid these places.”

I pocket my phone. “That wasn't why I took the picture.”

Carson sighs at me. “Callie, don't even think about charging headfirst into these spots. We know how dangerous it is.”

“So I'm supposed to run away from the poltergeists?”

“Not run away . . .
avoid
.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Yeah, well, they're the ones threatening me.”

Dylan looks at me with intense eyes. “We don't know what exactly they can do. And it's not just you they're trying to hurt.” His voice quiets and then he says, “‘Often the test of courage is not to die, but to live.' Vittorio Alfieri, Italian poet.”