Playing with Fire (5 page)

The slight woman pushed her chair next to Angela's. “Laura L'Angille. I will join you, thanks.” Her voice was high, almost childlike.

We filled Laura in on who we were, but we kept Angela's secret. No talk of being a reporter.

Laura came from Tupper Lake, which wasn't far from the hotel. She was into yoga and meditation, and she loved the outdoors. Oddly, she and Angela discovered a lot to talk about. They were a funny pair. Angela in her stylish maxi-dress and delicate gold sandals and Laura in her crunchy fabric sandals and woven jewelry.

“Vacationing so close to home?” Angela asked. She was good at getting information.

“I'm here for work,” Laura explained.

“Oh, a conference. This is a great spot for one,” Mrs. Randazzo remarked.

“Not exactly. They don't have conferences for what I do,” Laura said. “I'm a spiritual adviser.”

Laura explained that she combined herbal and spiritual practices to balance the body, mind, and spirit. She was concerned with inner peace and harmony. She hadn't had her business long, but she felt she was developing a following in the area.

Lily was delighted by her tales of healing people by using her psychic abilities to unearth their hidden troubles. I hung back, not trusting myself to say anything. Not trusting Laura.

Angela had stopped acting like a reporter and, by the time we finished sharing a gooey chocolate lava cake, was comparing favorite recipes with Laura. “Come to the Bearside with me and Beth,” she invited her. The Bearside was an adults-only pub on the hotel's lower level. Lily and I had already announced that we were heading to the game room.

“I wish I could, but I have to work,” Laura said.

“Work?” Angela raised her eyebrows.

“On the second floor,” Lily blurted. “You're communicating with the ghosts on the second floor, right?”

“Mr. Himoff hired me.” She lowered her voice, and we all huddled close. “He's having a problem with—”

“Ghosts!” Lily finished.

“Shhhhh,” Laura cautioned. “He doesn't want people to know. I shouldn't have said anything.”

“Come on,” Angela encouraged. “Spill the dirt. I love a good story.”

“Ever since he bought the hotel, guests staying in the rooms on one hallway have complained about hearing odd, mournful noises. There have been reports of the heat mysteriously turning on in the night and doors refusing to lock.” Laura glimpsed over her shoulder. No one seemed to be listening. “Things got so bad he had to comp the complaining guests.”

“Comp? What's that?” I asked.

“It means he gave them a night's stay complimentary. Free,” Mrs. Randazzo explained.

“One free night is no big deal. But he's had to give a lot, especially to stop the guests from posting bad
reviews online. Lots of free nights means losing lots of money,” Laura said.

“How do you figure in?” Angela asked.

“Mr. Himoff closed off the hallway several weeks ago, but he wants to use the rooms again, so I'm here to clear the negative energy.”

“How do you know it's ghosts?” I asked. “Couldn't the heating be wacky and the doors not work?”

“The building stuff has been checked by experts. Nothing is physically wrong.” Laura folded her hands. “Just spiritually. I'm here to encourage them to move on.”

“I don't think that's fair,” Lily said.

“Fair?” All the adults faced Lily.

“Yeah, how is it fair to force the ghosts from their home? I mean, what gives you or Mr. Himoff the right to kick them out?” Lily demanded.

“I like how you think,” Laura said. “It's a tricky question, but in this case, Mr. Himoff owns the building, and I've been hired to do a job.”

“Do you think you can do it?” Lily's mom asked.

Exactly what I was wondering. I wasn't getting any psychic vibe from Laura, but then again, I'd never guessed Mason had powers until he told me.

So maybe that's not my thing.

“Yes.” Laura sounded confident. “I'm sure I can.”

“Except for the weirdness down the hall, Helliman House is amazing,” I said as we entered the game room.
The walls were a glossy dark green, and low white leather sofas were gathered around tables that looked like tree stumps. One wall was lined with every video game imaginable. A pool table, Ping-Pong table, air hockey table, and a huge screen projecting a dance simulation game took up the rest of the space. Along the far wall, a bar with neon lights served sodas and fruity drinks with crazy straws.

“I think the ghosts down the hall make this place even better,” Lily said. “Laura's great. She's so serene, not freaky like you'd expect a spiritual adviser to be.”

“Lady Azura's not freaky,” I countered.

“Seriously?” Lily laughed.

I joined in. “Okay, but freaky good.”

“True,” Lily agreed.

I hoped she'd think I was freaky good too, when I told her.

“Are you girls better at this kind of pool than the
swimming pool?” Wyatt called from the pool table.

“I demolished you on that waterslide,” Lily countered.

“The girl's delusional.” Wyatt turned to Owen and a tall girl with a shaggy pixie cut and dark-mascara lashes. Both held pool cues.

“Owen, back me up here. Did I not win today?” Lily's face broke into a flirtatious smile.

“I have to say, man, you were looking a little slow on the descent.” Owen lined up the white ball and knocked the solid red ball into the far corner pocket.

“Wyatt has water on his brain,” the girl remarked. “Always has. Did you know he wore arm floaties until he was eight?”

“Don't listen to Kayla.” Wyatt elbowed her. “She's just jealous. She can't hit the ball to save her life.”

Kayla playfully poked his side with her cue. “You talk a good game, yet Owen is destroying you.”

“Just warming up till Lily and Sara arrived.” He passed pool cues to us. “They can be on my team. These girls are so tight. They never part.”

“It's a best friend thing,” Lily explained.

As we racked up the balls and began to play, Kayla
and Wyatt continued their competitive banter. Neither Lily nor I were sure who Kayla was or how she fit in. After a while, Lily asked, “How do you guys know each other?”

“We met long, long ago in Central Park when we were five.” Kayla had a very dramatic way of speaking. “We've been together for the good, bad, and ugly ever since.”

“Together?” Lily repeated.

“Eww! No, not that kind of together.” Kayla flung her willowy arms. “Our nannies were pals. We played together and we used to go to the same school, and now our families vacation together.”

“You go to different schools now?” I asked.

“I go to Cleveland, do you know it? It's a private school in the city for performing. You have to audition to get in.” Kayla jutted out her hip. “It's a good thing, because I'm never there and they're cool about it. They let you miss class if you're in a show.”

“Show?” Lily loved to sing and dance. “You're in a show in New York City?”

“I was in
We Are All Trees
. It ran off-Broadway.” Kayla was enjoying Lily's attention.

“Off-off,” Wyatt echoed. “Way off.”

Owen grunted, not looking up from the table. He seemed intent on calculating the perfect angle.

“You were on
Broadway
?” Lily had stars in her eyes.

Lily and Kayla stopped playing, so Kayla could tell her all about her theater glory.

I hovered between them and the table. Owen was on a roll, dropping one ball, then the other into the pockets as Wyatt groaned. Neither pair paid attention to me.

I watched Kayla dazzle Lily. “Hey, Lil,” I began, creating an excuse to drag Lily away. “We promised your mom we'd only stay for—”

I stopped myself. I know I was sometimes too quick to judge people. Kayla hadn't done anything bad, I reminded myself.

My phone buzzed. Mason. I glanced at his text.
DO IT YET?

I sighed. It hadn't been so easy to get Lily alone.

SOON,
I texted back.

An hour later, Lily scooped her arm through mine, and we headed up to our room.

“Laura!” Lily called as the elevator door opened
onto our floor. The air had a sweet, earthy smell. “What're you doing?”

Laura stood midway down the darkened not-in-use hallway. She waved a bunch of tiny dried sticks. “Quiet,” she warned, motioning us over. “I'm not supposed to attract attention from the guests.” She moved her bundle of sticks around the door frame of room 24. “I'm smudging.”

“Smudging?” I wasn't sure I'd heard right.

“Smudging lines up the energy of a space. Makes the positive outweigh the negative.”

“How do you do that?” Lily asked.

“This is white sage. It's an herb.” She held up the bundle of twigs with dried silvery-green leaves. “I light the sage. Then I walk from room to room with the smoking sage and chant. That's smudging. Like a housecleaning for spirits. Join me.”

Lily followed Laura to the next door. I started, then stopped.

A maid stood in my way.

She wore the crisp, green cotton Helliman House maid uniform. Her dark hair circled her wide cheeks in a chin-length bob. The skin under her eyes was
puffy, and her shoulders slumped with exhaustion. She carried a set of fresh sheets in her arms.

Arms that shimmered.

Arms barely visible.

The tingling started in my foot.

I swallowed hard. The maid wasn't alive.

A purple plastic watch that all the department stores advertised last year circled her wrist. The maid hadn't died that long ago if she was wearing that watch.

I glanced at Laura and Lily, still busy waving sage. Was this the ghost Laura was smudging out?

The maid headed toward them. Another pain shot through my chest, and I knew. The maid had died from a heart attack.

Had something here caused her heart to stop?

“It's working,” Laura whispered suddenly. “There's a presence.”

Lily froze. I watched Laura closely. She knew the maid was here!

“With the heat of this fire, I purify this space.” Laura raised the smoking sage and chanted. “Be gone, be gone, be gone.”

And she was.

I blinked. The maid had disappeared. Totally gone.

Laura inhaled deeply. “The spirit has moved on.”

“Really?” Lily cried. “You saw a ghost? And then you saw it leave?”

“I have heightened senses, so I feel them. I feel their energy, and I can feel it move on,” Laura explained. “No one actually sees the dead.”

Not true
, I thought. But I wasn't going there. Not yet.

Suddenly I had new respect for Laura. She wasn't a fake.

“So that's it?” Lily asked. “Ghost gone?”

“Hard to say.” Lily reached into a canvas tote at her feet and pulled out two more sage bundles. “Let's cover the hall together. Then I'll move onto the second level of cleansing myself.”

Stepping up to room 22 across the hall, I raised the herbs. I was itching to call Lady Azura and fill her in on smudging. Did she know about it? It seemed so much easier to smoke out a spirit than all the work Lady Azura did with séances.

“It's not a song, Lily,” Laura said, correcting her melodic
“Be gone, be gone.”
“To get rid of the negative, focus inward and let your intention out as you chant.”

I did as Laura instructed and how Lady Azura had taught me. Closing my eyes, I blocked the sound of Laura and Lily's chants and pulled into myself. The energy swirling about settled itself in me. My body felt weightless.

Then a burst of heat. Hot, thick air blanketed my face.

My eyes opened to a wall of orange-yellow flames.

Flames crackled and danced inches before me.

A wail rose from the fire. A cry of pain. Someone was trapped in there. In the fire. A girl screaming.

Lily? Was it Lily screaming?

“Lily!” I cried.

“Shhh, Sara. We don't want to get Laura in trouble.”

Lily stood beside me, eyes bright with adventure. She pirouetted, then pretended the sage was a bouquet of flowers she'd caught onstage. She giggled her familiar lilting laugh.

I stared at the closed door to room 22. No fire. No flames.

What had just happened?

Laura appeared by my side. She stared at the door, as if seeing through it, and her body stiffened. Her hand reached for the doorknob, then pulled back.

“Time for bed,” she announced suddenly. Her smiled was forced. She'd felt something. Someone.

Lily and I protested, but Laura insisted, “It's late. We're done here for the night.”

She ushered us to our room and handed us over to Lily's mom, who was already in her nightgown.

Later, after Lily and I were both tucked into our beds and the adjoining door to her mom's room was closed, Lily got up and flicked on the bathroom light. “You won't tell Miranda or Avery?”

“Of course not,” I promised. I was the only one of our friends who knew Lily was still afraid of the dark. I liked that she trusted me.

Lily slipped back under her covers. “What happened back there? One minute Laura was all ‘let's smudge together,' and then she couldn't get us away fast enough.”

“I know.” I didn't tell Lily about my vision, if that's what it was. It happened so fast. Maybe I made it up.

“Laura sensed something behind that door. I saw it in her face.” Lily sat straight and slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sara, there's a ghost in room twenty-two!”

“It's our ghost. We were there when Laura discovered it,” Lily explained the next morning while we water-skied with her mom and Angela. “If we tell Aunt Angela, she'll poke around. She's got that reporter's mind, and she questions everything. She'll probably want to try and disprove it. We need to check it out first.”