Dust to Dust (26 page)

I do a once-over of my body, too, to be sure. I'm filthy, but incredibly unbruised. “I'm fine, don't worry,” I say, zipping the sweatshirt over my bra.

Then the rest of my friends get back into the van, and they all look at me with the same question in their eyes.

“I fought the poltergeists,” I tell them.

“All we could see was a rainstorm on the hill,” says Dylan, his eyes as wide as saucers.

Then they listen, rapt, as I explain the feeling I had being possessed, the way Reena took me before I struck back. “I used your move,” I tell Dylan. “I don't think I've ever hit anyone so fast.” Then I hold up the ring. “And I got this back.”

Dylan pumps a fist in the air. “Amazing!”

“You're like a superhero!” screams Carson.

“Guys, this isn't a video game,” says Nick.

“He's right,” I say. “There were at least a half dozen Guides fighting, all in hand-to-hand combat with poltergeists who have no conscience.”

“Wow,” says Carson. Dylan's eyes are blazing with emotion—excitement, fear . . . I can't tell. Nick just leans over the middle console and gives me a hug. There's nothing romantic in it, but it's full of comfort and protection.

“I'm sorry I couldn't help,” he says.

“You are helping. Just by being here,” I whisper, squeezing back tighter.

This embrace, this physical connection, is something Thatcher can't give me. It's something I need from Nick, because even if he's not my love anymore, he's still one of the people I care about most in the world.

We stay like that for another few seconds, and then I back up into my seat. “We still have work to do. The Guides believe the poltergeists only have one night left before they'll have to return to the Prism. But I want to banish them for good before morning.”

Eli chuckles and runs his hand over his face. “How are we going to do that?” he asks. I like the way he says
we
.

“Seems like we should just go to Dixon's where they can't get to us and wait it out,” says Nick, thinking like Thatcher.

“We
should
go to Dixon's now,” I say. “But not to wait it out. To find out how to destroy the poltergeists.”

“But if they have to leave Earth tomorrow, why get ourselves in deeper?” asks Eli.

“If the poltergeists go back to the Prism, the Guides will be responsible for them,” I explain. “Instead of doing their haunting and helping people move on, they'll have to track the poltergeists forever to be sure that they don't come back to Earth. Don't you see? The whole balance of the Prism and Earth is at stake here. That's why we have to find a way to expel the poltergeists from both dimensions.”

“Why wouldn't Thatcher have mentioned that, though?” Carson asks.

“Maybe there are methods Thatcher and the Guides aren't aware of,” Dylan suggests. “Special spells and things that sensitive
people like my grandfather were able to pinpoint, but kept secret from the spirit world, as a way to protect the living.”

“What are we waiting for then?” I say.

And then all of a sudden, Eli puts his hand in the center of our group. Carson piles on. Then Nick. Then Dylan. I grin and put my hand on top with a smack.

“Go, Ghostbusters?” says Eli.

We all break up laughing, and then Nick starts the car.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

BACK AT THE MAIN table at Dixon's, we're ready to focus. We're in a safe zone for the moment, and we have Thatcher's ring.

Eli makes jokes about the dusty surfaces. Then he asks whether there's a house-elf around to tidy things up.

“Think of it as a nontraditional space touched by the wisdom of time,” I tell him.

“Nontraditional dust is more like it,” he says. “Is this place ever open to customers?”

“It's always open,” says Dylan.

“You don't find it—it finds you,” I tell Eli, and Carson winks at me.

Part of me knows I should do what Thatcher said and stay here tonight. It would mean keeping my friends safe. The poltergeists will only get more desperate, and more violent.

But another part of me knows that if we have a chance to banish the poltergeists for good, then we need to do it together. There's no way I can figure it all out on my own.

I look at the stacks that Dylan has put out on the center table. “Are these the books we need?”

“I think so,” he says.

Nick picks up a musty brown book with two fingers. “What are we looking for?”

Eli sinks into a chair. “How can I help?” he asks.

“Now that's a sentence I never thought I'd hear from you,” I say to him, smirking.

“I think he's still in shock,” says Nick.

“I figure I'm in a dream, or maybe a nightmare.” Eli grins for the first time today. “So I'm just gonna go with it.”

“Okay, let's do this,” says Dylan, joining us at the table. “We know that incantations can at least reach the other side, because of the way Carson's worked on Callie this summer. We just have to find the right
one
.”

Dylan looks at me. “Callie, do we know everything—really
everything
—about your near-death? About your time in the Prism?”

I know what Dylan is getting at. The other night he asked me a question about being
physically
close to someone who died, and I was so taken aback by what my father had revealed to me about my mother that I couldn't bring myself to admit the truth to him. It was just too painful to reveal to a stranger.

But if we're going to succeed in this, I have to bare every
personal detail of mine, no matter how much it might hurt to talk about.

“Well, there is something I haven't told you. It's not about my time in the Prism, but . . .”

When I bite my lip, Dylan sees me getting emotional.

“It's okay, Callie,” he says gently. “Take your time.”

A tear runs down my cheek before I even begin to tell them about my mother and how she died in my arms.

When I finally start talking, telling them the story, the room gets so quiet, it feels like I'm speaking in outer space, where the only sound that exists is my voice.

“My father just told me about this,” I say. “I didn't remember any of it. But somehow, I think I've always known.”

By the time I'm done, everyone's eyes are glistening. Carson is holding my hand and Nick kneels next to my chair, his arm around my shoulder. Even Eli is leaning in sympathetically.

“You're a death spot,” says Dylan, understanding just as quickly as Thatcher had. “Of course.” He pushes up his glasses and bounds to the back of the bookstore, behind three rows of shelves and up a tall ladder, which he scales quickly. He reaches for a dark-green volume, and when he brings it back to the table, he lays it in front of me.

On the cover are two symbols: a glowing green moon, similar to the tattoo that ghosts who are preparing to merge with Solus have, and a charred dark spot, which appears on the necks of the poltergeists.

I stiffen at the sight of them.

“You know these marks,” says Dylan, reading me.

“Yes,” I say.

“Then this book is the one.” Dylan turns back to the bookshelves with renewed ardor, like all the wonders of the world are in this room, and maybe they are. When he looks at us again, he smiles. “I've read this book before; let me just . . .”

He starts to flip through the pages, and in ten seconds, he's found what he needs.

Carson's looking over his shoulder. “An incantation,” she says.

“Ancient words to move energy,” says Dylan. “The first settlers in Charleston used this technique to banish evil spirits, which I'm convinced were the same as the poltergeists we're dealing with now—though they weren't called that in the past.”

“That's it?” says Eli. “Well, let's go ahead and say the magic words.”

“It's not that simple.” Dylan glances down at the book again. “It says here that the incantation has to be a calling of energy—we have to target the specific poltergeists we want to banish.”

“If we can get rid of Reena and Leo, the rest of them will fall apart,” I tell him. “They're the ringleaders.”

“Right,” says Dylan. “Callie, do you know where they died?”

On the upper Wando. With Thatcher. “Yes.”

“Good. The incantation requires that we be in a place of great energy for them. Death spots qualify. So we have to go to each of their death spots, and—”

“They share a death spot,” I interrupt.

Dylan stares at me. “They share one?” he says.

I nod. “They drowned in the upper Wando River,” I tell him. “On homecoming night.”

“Yikes,” says Eli. “That sounds like one of those bad horror movies.
Death at the Lake
or whatever.”

I can feel him grinning in my direction, but I don't meet his eyes. I don't mention Thatcher, how he also died there. There's a part of me that wants to keep him separate from the poltergeists in my friends' eyes. He's not like them.

“Okay!” Dylan claps his hands together, like we're about to run out onto the football field for a big game. “The upper Wando it is.”

“Y'all . . . ,” I say. I don't want to tell them that the last time we were there, Thatcher possessed Nick. That might make them suspicious of Thatcher, when it was my fault for calling him to me that day. “I think the river is also a vortex.”

“A vortex and a death spot . . .” Dylan rubs his chin like he's thinking. “The energy will be really powerful there.”

“We should go now,” says Carson, “before it gets dark.”

I shake my head. “I'm nervous,” I say. “I think I should go alone.” We can't risk Carson and Eli being there.

“We need Carson,” says Dylan. “She's the only one who's been able to use an incantation effectively. She has to read the words.”

I look over at Nick to back me up—but he doesn't. “Dylan's right,” he says.

Eli stands up and walks to the tiny window in the front of the bookstore. He looks out for a long moment, and we all stare at his back, wondering if he's going to break from us and leave. I couldn't blame him if he did.

I walk up to him and touch his shoulder gently. “Eli, you don't have to—”

He turns around with a small grin on his face. “If you think I'm going to sit in a bookstore while there's a poltergeist asswhuppin' going on, you're crazy, Callie.”

I smile as he puts his arm around me and walks back to join the group. I'm encouraged, but I'm also scared. I don't know if he truly understands the danger, if any of them do.

“We're wasting time, Callie,” says Carson. “You said that tonight might be our last shot.”

I lock eyes with Dylan, and I see his wisdom, his caution. Eli is already by the door, ready to go. I look at Nick, so strong and kind, willing to help in any way he can. And Carson, my Carson, unafraid even though she's in so much peril.

But maybe us all being there is the key. I haven't felt this strong, this determined . . . ever. What we're dealing with is an invisible energy, a magic, a chemistry. And I feel something powerful when we're all together.

“Okay,” I say. “Let's do this.”

“There's something else we need,” says Dylan.

“What?” asks Nick.

“Personal items of Reena's and Leo's . . . something from when they were alive.”

“Oh yeah!” says Carson. “Callie, when we called to you in the séance, I used the amber pendant Nick gave you—the heart-shaped one.”

My hand goes up to my neck automatically, but it's not there. It
hasn't been since Thatcher gave me the ring.

“I know—and it almost worked.” I frown. “I guess we do need something of theirs. But we can't find an address for Reena's family now . . . and Leo's . . .” We all shudder collectively at the memory of the Doberman.

“Good thing I pocketed this,” says Carson, dropping the LC-engraved cuff link on the table. It moves for a few seconds and then spins to a stop.

“You stole that?” I asked.

“We were looking for Thatcher's talisman,” says Carson. “I just had a feeling we might need something of Leo's.”

Dylan beams. “Brilliant instincts,” he says. “What about Reena? How can we get something of hers?”

“Her family moved,” says Carson. “I'm not sure what we can do to—”

I interrupt and stop her with one word: “Wendy.”

“Wendy?” Dylan raises an eyebrow.

“Thatcher's sister,” I say, nodding at Carson, whose eyes light up. “She knew Reena, too.”

“Hey, Callie.” Wendy's voice on the phone is friendlier than I expect. “I've been thinking about you.”

“Same here,” I say. “How are you?”

Carson, listening in, rolls her eyes at me and makes a hurry-up motion with her hands. Small talk is not on the poltergeist-fighting timetable.

“Better,” says Wendy. “It's funny. I think . . . I think something is shifting in me. I feel . . .”

“More peaceful?”

“Maybe,” she says.

“Wendy, Thatcher has been there with you. He only wants the best for you, and for you to move on from his death.”

“It's hard to forget what happened after he died,” she says, her voice hardening a little. “But I'm trying. I heard what you said, that he probably wasn't himself. I'm actually home this week, helping my parents clean out his room. It was my idea. I . . . I just thought it was time.”

A lump forms in my throat and I have to swallow it down before I respond. Even though I still don't know what happened between Wendy and Thatcher—or what kind of threat she felt from him—what I do know is Thatcher has been splitting his time, trying to protect me and go to Wendy, helping her heal—all the while searching every corner of our Charleston for the poltergeists.