School Spirits (Hex Hall Novel, A) (13 page)

S
everal minutes later, Dex and I were seated in a bright red vinyl booth at a place that called itself the Dairee Kween.

“What’s with the misspelling?” I’d asked when we’d pulled up.

“It used to be an actual Dairy Queen, but the corporate office made them close it down after a major rat outbreak in the kitchen. So the owners just reopened it, but changed the spelling to keep from getting sued.”

“That…does not make me want to eat here.”

Dex laughed. “The rat thing was like thirty years ago, according to my Nana. And it’s probably just a rumor anyway.”

He might have been right, but I made a note to skip the burgers. Besides, it’s not like I was ever going to eat here again. Mary Evans’s ghost was put to rest, and Mom and I would be moving on. Which was awesome and great and not at all sad-making.

“This is better than our regular PMS meetings,” Dex said once we had our food. “Those are sadly lacking in fries, I’ve found.” He reached past me for the ketchup. “And desecrating graves is a surprisingly fun bonding activity. I only defile the dead with my closest friends.”

“So we’re friends,” I said hesitantly, swirling a french fry in ketchup. Dex snagged a fry from my plate and popped it into his mouth.

“Yes,” he said, chewing. “And now that I’ve stolen
food from you, it’s official. You and me, friends for
life.”

“Good,” I said. “I…I like being friends with you.”

“Same.” He made my favorite grin, the one that was surprisingly goofy for such a handsome guy.

Wait a second. I’d known him for a few weeks. How did I have a
favorite grin
of his?

Our eyes met and held, and it was like there was
this…pulse between us. For a second I thought it was just Dex’s magic or power or whatever it was that
I was picking up on. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt—

Dex’s phone beeped, and as he looked down at it, the moment was lost. Which, to be honest, was kind of a relief. “My Nana,” he sighed. “Why oh why did I ever teach that woman to text?” As his thumbs moved over the keypad, I pretended to be super-interested in my fries. Really, I was studying him.

He certainly didn’t seem like a guy with anything to hide, but why had he been at Mary’s grave? It couldn’t just be a coincidence that he’d shown up when he did. Had he really followed me, or was there more to it than that? I needed to get closer to Dex.

The thought immediately sent a flutter through me, and I dropped my eyes back to my plate. Not close to him like
that
. Close in the general Finding Out Information way. “There,” he said, sliding his phone into his bag. “Apparently my curfew has been lengthened by an hour since I’m with you.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I told her I was with a lady who is quite the good influence
on me.”

“You
need
a good influence,” I told him, smiling a little.

Dex sat back in his chair, impressed. “Isolde Brannick. Are you flirting with me?”

I tossed a fry at his head. It bounced off his shoulder, and he winced theatrically, pressing his hand to his clavicle. “Easy, slugger! In your hands, a french fry is a deadly weapon.”

“No, I’m only deadly with dodgeballs,” I said, and he laughed.

“Flirting and joking! Within a few minutes of each other! Is this the side of Isolde that only her friends get to see?”

He was teasing, but it gave me the opening I’d been hoping for. “Yup. And speaking of…” I ventured. “Friends…they can…they can tell each other stuff, right? I just mean…if you had some kind of secret, or something you hadn’t ever told anyone, you could tell me. No matter…no matter what it was.”

Oh, smooth, Izzy. Seriously. Why didn’t I just grab him and yell, “TELL ME WHAT KIND OF MAGICAL POWERS YOU HAVE!” By the end of my little stuttering speech, I was blushing and Dex was frowning.

“A secret?” he asked, puzzled. Then his face suddenly cleared, and he shook his head. “Oh, right. Because of all the purple.”

“Purple?”

“The clothes, I mean,” he said, gesturing to his
coat. “I know that I’m fashionable and well-groomed, and yes, I have been known to rock the occasional man-bracelet.”

He lifted his wrist, jangling the bracelet I’d noticed earlier. I could see now that it was plain silver, just a series of links.

“But,” Dex continued, dragging another one of my fries through ketchup, “I also like ladies. And not as shopping buddies, but in the carnal sense.” His tone was light as always, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Not to mention, that spiel was so smooth, he had to have done it before.

I’d only thought I was blushing before. Now my face was probably the same color as the tabletop. “Dex, I wasn’t asking if you were…I didn’t think you…”

“Oh.” He took a drink of his soda. “Then you were just asking me to spill some…nonspecific secret?”

I shook my head. “Forget it.” This was obviously
getting us nowhere, so I decided to try a new subject. “Tell me more about your Nana.”

Dex’s face immediately brightened. “Basically, she is the bestest Nana in all the land. Bakes cookies, knits afghans, and lets me hang out past curfew with lovely ladies such as yourself. You should meet her someday. She’d love you.”

Was meeting Nana a serious thing? It kind of felt like it. I
really
needed to get those magazines. Making a mental note to stop by the drugstore I’d noticed on my way to the graveyard, I nodded. “I’d like that. And your parents, are they also the bestest?”

If Dex’s face had gone all shiny at the mention of his Nana, bringing up his parents had the opposite effect. His shoulders slumped a little, and something flickered in his eyes. “They died when I was little. Just me and my Nana for a while now.” He took a long sip of his Coke, rattling ice in the cup. I had the sense that it was less about being thirsty and more about dropping the subject.

“My dad died when I was little, too,” I heard myself say, and Dex lowered his cup.

This wasn’t part of my cover; this was the real deal, but he had shared something with me, so it felt right to return the favor. “He, uh, was a soldier.” That was literally all I knew about my dad. Men don’t tend to stick around in the Brannick family.

Dex nodded slowly. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

I hadn’t known my dad, so I didn’t miss him the way I missed Finn, but still I replied, “It does.”

A silence fell over the table, and I mentally kicked myself. I was supposed to be getting information out of him, not sharing personal feelings.

Ignoring the tiny voice that said maybe my interest in Dex was less than Brannick-y, I reached out and took his wrist. This time I was prepared for the little buzz that went through me. “You know, I actually like this man-bracelet,” I said, turning his wrist for a better look. I hoped it came off as jokey and kind of flirty, but really I was inspecting it for…well, anything. Maybe there were runes or something carved into the links.

Preening a little, Dexter leaned closer to me. “That’s because you’re a woman of taste. My Nana gave this to me. I have very strict instructions never to take it off.”

I looked up sharply at that. “Seriously? Never? Why?”

For the first time since I’d met him, Dex seemed a little uncomfortable. Taking his hand back, he shrugged. “Superstitious thing, I think. Nana, like you, has a touch of the Irish in her.” He turned his wrist, the silver gleaming in the fluorescent lights. “Supposed to be lucky, I guess.” And then he flashed that grin again. “And clearly it has been lucky, because I was wearing it when I met you.” He grabbed another fry from my plate. “My new best friend.”

In spite of myself, I laughed. “Oh, so now we’re best friends?”

He nodded very seriously. “Two fries I’ve stolen from you. That cements it.”

By the time Dex drove me home, I was thinking less about his bracelet and his Nana and whatever it was I felt when I touched him and more about how nice it was talking and laughing with a boy. Leslie and Everton didn’t seem to do much laughing. Mostly they were either crying or angsting or making overly dramatic declarations of love to one another. That had seemed kind of fun on the show, but I thought maybe this was better.

But those kinds of thoughts were pointless and stupid (and I clearly needed to stop watching
Ivy Springs
).
It’s a
job
, I reminded myself as Dex opened the passenger door for me.
He is a job. You don’t get to think things like how soft
his hair looks. Or how nice his eyes are.

Dex walked me as far as the front door, and when he stopped there, my heart pounded in my throat. Oh, God,
this was the part where kissing happened. I may never have been on a date, but I’d watched enough TV and read
enough books to know that when you eat food with a boy
and then he takes you to your door, kissing will occur.

And I was in no way ready for that. Kissing was another one of those things I’d meant to do more research on, just in case. Like, how did you know which way to turn your head? And what about teeth placement? What if there was a spit issue? Should I have taken Torin up on his offer to help me practice?
Trying to keep the panic off my face, I turned toward Dex. “Right. So. Good night, then.”

He gave a little bow. “Until tomorrow, Fair Isolde.”

And then he leaned forward.

My heart was in my ears, and my hands were
shaking. Okay, I could do this. It was just lips. Just lips pressing together, hopefully without spit. And tongues…
tongues… Okay, actually, no. I could
not
do this.

I was just about to pull back when Dex reached out and…ruffled my hair. “Sleep tight!” he called cheerfully as he jogged down the front steps.

“Um. You too,” I replied, but I was so dazed that I didn’t get that out until he was already in the car, pulling away.

Was he going to ruffle my hair all along? Had I just imagined the way he’d looked at my mouth? Or had he seen the naked panic on my face and changed his mind?

I walked into the house and turned to face the little mirror in the hallway. At least that confirmed that, yup, hair and face, totally the same shade. “Magazines,” I whispered firmly at myself. “Tomorrow.”

Torin’s face suddenly appeared, frowning. “Are you talking to me? And why are you all beet colored?”

Luckily, Mom walked around the corner, and Torin immediately vanished. “That took longer than I’d
expected,” she said, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“I ran into that kid. The one I think is Prodigium. We, uh, grabbed some food.”

“And?” Mom asked expectantly.

“And I still don’t know what he is.” Taking a deep breath, I pushed my shoulders back. “So I wanna stay. A little longer. Just until I find out.” After all, there was a chance this whole thing wasn’t really over, no matter all the salt thrown on Mary’s grave. If Dex’s Possible Prodigium Powers had had anything to do with raising her ghost, I needed to know.

Frowning, Mom tossed the towel into the kitchen. “Do you think he’s anything dangerous?”

My knees felt watery and my heart was racing. Yeah, Dex was dangerous, all right, but not in the way Mom meant. I gave her my best Tough Chick Grimace. “No. But if he is, I’ll take care of it.”

She watched me for a long time, so long that I was afraid she was about to say no. Instead, she shrugged. “Okay, then. This one is all yours.”

I told myself that the relief flooding through me had everything to do with Mom’s trusting me, and nothing at all to do with getting to stay in Ideal.

“But you just get one more month,” Mom said. “No more. Anything longer than that can be dangerous for us.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. Mom never liked to work long jobs. The way she saw it, the longer you were in a place, the more you were expected to make connections, friends even. And Brannicks could never afford that. Too many questions.

“Mom,” I said, scuffing my toe against the linoleum. “About earlier—”

The light in the hallway was too dim to see clearly, but I could practically feel Mom frowning. “It’s nothing. Just…just, good night, Mom.”

The words seemed to hang there in the hallway. Then Mom turned away. “One month, Izzy,” she called, heading into the kitchen. “And then we’re going home.”

T
he next day, Dex wasn’t on the bus, but Romy and Anderson were. As soon as Romy saw me, she grinned and waved me over.

“Hey,” I said, finding my seat. “What are you doing here?” Anderson didn’t usually ride our bus since he had his own car.

He slumped in his seat, a little sheepish. “My parents may have gotten their credit card bill this month, and they may have discovered that I used their American Express to buy some stuff for PMS.”

“Check it,” Romy said, nudging Anderson. He opened his backpack, and I could make out some
black plastic device that I guessed was his EVP recorder. “I’m totally going to pay them back,” Anderson said,
zipping up his bag. “But it was on sale, so it made
sense to go ahead and buy it, you know?”

“Absolutely,” Romy agreed. “But it sucks that they took your car away.”

Anderson shrugged. “Just for a few weeks. And hey, it means I get to hang out with you guys more.”

I was apparently included in the “you guys,” but you wouldn’t have known that from the way Anderson’s gaze lingered on Romy.

Covering a smile, I asked, “So where’s Dex this morning?”

“He texted me that he was running late,” Anderson offered, lifting his legs to prop his feet on my seat. As he did, his leg brushed Romy’s, and I saw her give a little jump.

She cleared her throat, twisting her ponytail around one finger. “Did he say why?”

Anderson rolled his eyes. “You know Dex. He said it was because his Nana needed him to deliver a covert message to a Colombian drug runner, but he’d be in by lunch.”

I snorted with laughter, but Romy frowned. “I bet it was another asthma attack. He’s been getting them more often lately.”

“Is it bad?” I asked. “His asthma?”

Romy and Anderson nodded in unison. “He laughs it off, but yeah,” Anderson said. “It can be scary.”

The image of Dex gasping for breath suddenly flashed in my brain, and I felt my chest tighten.
A job, a job, a job
, I repeated in my head.

“He hasn’t lived here long, has he?”

Romy shook her head. “Just since August.” And then suddenly she turned to Anderson and said, “Okay, you need to go away for a second.”

His sneakers, which had been propped on the back of my seat, thudded to the floor. “Why?”

“Because Izzy and I need to talk girl stuff, and you can’t be a part of that.”

I don’t know if Anderson was just used to following Romy’s orders, or if he was terrified we’d start talking about Tampax, but in any case, he moved pretty quickly a few rows away. Reaching over the seat, Romy tugged my hand. “Come here.”

Moving over to the now-vacant seat beside her, I raised my eyebrows. “What is it? Something about
PMS? I mean, the ghost-hunting PMS, not the…regular kind. Unless you want to talk about that, because
we can.”

Romy waved her hand. “No, no business and not that kind of girl stuff. The more fun kind of girl stuff.” She leaned closer, her dark eyes sparkling. “Do you like Dex?”

She’d whispered it, but I still looked around, hoping no one had overheard. “First off, shhhh! And…yeah, of course I do. I like all of you.”

“No, but I mean do you
like
him? You know, in the carnal sense.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve clearly been spending too much time with Dex.”

Romy smiled and poked me in the middle of my chest with one lime-green fingernail. “And so have you, if what my sources at the Dairee Kween tell me is correct. Were you two on a date there last night?”

“Please,” I hissed. “The shushing. Could you at least try? And no, we weren’t on a date. We were just…hanging out.”

“In the sexy way.”

There it was again. That giggle. That sound I supposedly didn’t make. “No,” I whispered, trying to look stern. “In the
friendly
way.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Romy said, narrowing her eyes.

“What about you?” I said, ducking my head closer. “I saw you jump when Anderson’s leg brushed yours.”

Now it was her turn to hiss, “Shhhhh!”

Smiling, I leaned back in my seat. “Ah, I see. It’s
different when the shoe is on the other foot.”

“There are no shoes on any feet,” Romy insisted, but the tips of her ears had gone pink. “Anderson and I are just friends.”

“So we’re just two awesome, ghost-hunting girls
with two boys who may be cute, but are most definitely nothing more than friends,” I said, and Romy grinned.

“We are. Which is why I’m going to share this with you, even though I was going to hog it all to myself for the ride.”

With that, she reached into her backpack. I don’t know what I expected her to pull out. A tinfoil hat, maybe. A pamphlet on twenty-first-century ghost-
hunting techniques.

Instead, she whipped out a glossy issue of
Rockin’
Grrls!
magazine, complete with articles like, “What His Dog Says About His Kissing Style!” and “Is It Wrong to Be in Love with Your Stepbrother?”

“Perfect,” I said.

Romy and I spent the rest of the bus ride reading
Rockin’
Grrls!
, and then I spent the walk to class telling her all about
Ivy Springs
.

“So this Leslie chick works at a circus?” Romy asked as we slid into English.

“Not, like, all the time. Only since her mom married a trapeze artist.”

Romy stared at me. “Okay, I clearly need to see this show immediately. You said you own it?”

When I nodded, Romy pointed at me. “Then you are going to bring it to my house next week, and we’re going to watch all of it.”

“There are over sixty episodes,” I told her, raising my voice a little to be heard over the third bell.

“Make it next Friday, then. You can spend the night, and we’ll do a whole marathon.”

“Awesome,” I said, and was surprised to find that I really meant it. And not so that I could ask her more about Dex, or try to find out what she knew about supernatural stuff. Just because hanging out with Romy and watching Leslie and Everton fight/make out/break up/get engaged for a few days sounded like…fun. Lots of it, actually.

Mrs. Steele announced that we’d be doing group work this morning, so we all started moving our desks, forming little circles. Apparently we’d been paired up based on who sat closest to us, so in addition to Romy, our group included Adam.

Ugh.

I braced myself for the awkward, and Adam more than delivered. Barely looking at me, he opened his binder and leaned as far away as he could.

Another desk bumped mine, and I glanced up to see Beth, Ben McCrary’s girlfriend. I expected her to give me the cold shoulder, what with my dislocating her
boy
friend’s
shoulder, but she didn’t even seem to know who I was. In fact, as we got to work on the assignment—answering a series of discussion questions about
Macbeth
—Beth didn’t pay attention to any of us. Her eyes were far off, distracted, and when Romy asked her to copy down question four, Beth blinked at her like she wasn’t even speaking English.

“What?”

“Question four?” Romy repeated, lifting her eyebrows. “‘How does the supernatural influence Macbeth’s actions?’”

Beth just shook her head. “I…I don’t know.” She gave a little shiver and crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “And can we please skip the questions about the supernatural?”

Romy glanced at me. “That’s, like, half the questions.”

“Lotta ghosts in
Macbeth
,” I offered, tapping my pen against my paper. Beth looked me, huge dark circles under her eyes. She blinked twice before turning back to Romy.

“You do that ghost-hunting club, right?”

On my other side, Adam snorted but didn’t say
anything. Romy flashed him a quick glare.

“Yeah,” she told Beth. “Why?”

Beth swallowed, her throat working convulsively. “Have you ever seen a ghost?”

Now Adam folded his arms, entire body radiating disdain, but neither Romy nor I paid him any attention.

“Not seen, exactly,” Romy said, her eyes practically glowing as she moved closer to Beth. “But sensed, sure.
I can show you all kind of notes on ghostly activity
in—”

“I saw a ghost in my house,” Beth blurted out. Then she swung her head from one side to the other, making sure no one could overhear. Her blond hair hung limply around her shoulders, and when she laid both hands on her desk, I saw that they were trembling. “I mean…I think I did. For the past few nights, I’ve heard these weird sounds outside my room, like someone was walking down the hall. But when I got up, th-there was no one. And I thought I was just hearing things, but then last night—” She broke off, chewing her lip. Romy had her fingers curled around the edge of her desk, and even Adam seemed interested now. There was no disguising the real terror in Beth’s voice. “I woke up, and there was this…this shape standing by my bed. All glowing and hazy, and I tried to yell, but it was like my throat wasn’t working, and then it just…it just vanished.”

Romy was practically vibrating with excitement, but I frowned. Last night? I’d sealed Mary Evans in her grave last night. There was no way she could be floating around Beth Tanner’s house.

Beth caught my expression. “You don’t believe me,” she said flatly.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not that, it’s just—”

“Maybe you were dreaming,” Adam suggested, and Beth’s lower lip wobbled.

“I wasn’t… You know what? Just forget it. It was stupid anyway.” With that, she slammed her notebook shut and got up, asking Mrs. Steele if she could go to the restroom.

As she left, Adam folded his arms on top of his desk, leaning toward me. “Do you think it’s drugs? I bet it’s drugs. I took an awareness course about drugs last year. At the
community college
.”

I was still staring at the door, so it took me a moment to realize Adam was looking at me.

“Huh?”

“Beth Tanner. On drugs. Is she? Because I’m voting yes.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Adam,” Romy snapped. “She was really freaked out.” Twisting in her desk, Romy faced me. “We should talk to her. When she gets back. Maybe PMS could go over to her house, see if we can pick up any energy readings—”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Adam groaned, and Romy turned back around.

“You should take this more seriously,” she said. “Look at what happened to Mr. Snyder, and now Beth. You could be next.”

I knew Romy was doing that thing she did a lot—assuming everyone knew exactly what she was thinking. But Adam didn’t know about the picture of him with Beth and Mr. Snyder, or Romy’s theory that Mary was seeking revenge on the founding families of Ideal, so he just stared at her, eyes wide.

“Um…what the hell does that mean?”

Romy’s face was bright red, but the bell rang, saving her from having to answer. Adam shoved his desk back and began gathering his things, muttering something about “freaks” under his breath.

As Romy and I headed for the door, she turned to me. “It had to be Mary that Beth saw, right? Which means her spirit isn’t just tied to the school.”

I just nodded, lost in thought. It
couldn’t
be Mary. I knew how to deal with ghosts, and the salt thing had never failed. Was there another ghost prowling the halls of the school?

I saw Beth one more time, during P.E., but she just sat on the bleachers, surrounded by her friends and still looking kind of gray. I tried to catch her eye, hoping to talk to her a little more about what she’d seen, but every time our eyes met, she looked away.

By the end of the day, I’d nearly convinced myself that Beth was wrong. The doll had unsettled her, and who could blame her? A mutilated Barbie that looks like you strung up in your locker? That would upset anyone. Still, worry slithered through me. This was supposed
to be a simple, easy job. I couldn’t have screwed
this
up, too.

Romy and Dex were both waiting for me by my locker when the last bell rang, and if a little thrill ran through me at seeing Dex standing there, seemingly okay, I tried my best to ignore it. He had his shoulder against the door, leaning down to listen to Romy. As I got closer, I could hear her saying, “Maybe Mary has some sort of grudge against those families.”

“So the ghost of Mary Evans is pissed off at the descendants of
some
people who did some
thing
. For some
reason
,” Dex summed up. When Romy nodded, he bent down, taking her shoulder. “Rome, can you hear yourself when you talk?”

Irritated, Romy rolled her shoulder, knocking Dex’s hand off. “Why are you even in PMS if you don’t believe in this kind of stuff?”

“Because this school is so boring, I thought I might actually die, and ghost hunting seemed like a fun way
to spend some time,” he replied. “And it is fun. I like creeping around abandoned buildings, and scouring
cemeteries, and pouring salt on—Oof!” He grunted as my elbow slammed into his ribs.

Looking down at me, Dex made a face, but added, “Fries. I like pouring salt on fries after I’ve creeped around abandoned buildings and scoured cemeteries. It’s just…this seems like a stretch, Romy.”

Romy pressed her lips together, and I wasn’t sure if she was hurt or angry. Finally, she spit out “Whatever” and stormed away from us. I stood there, torn. Dex and Romy were both my friends, but now they were mad at each other. Was I breaking some kind of girl code by
not
walking away with Romy?