The Awakening (19 page)

Taylor reaches over to hug me. "We've got to get on this, ASAP!"

Getting a grip on my emotions, I deliberate over the printouts. "I just feel like everything starts at the house with Emily. The names on this list go back to the 1840s, Celia. Awesome work."

"Told you I was good with research."

I read off the names. "Elliott, Saunders, Curtis, Hinckley, Barrington, Richards..." Pausing, I breathe in deeply to see if I'm picking up anything on these names. "You know, I think I saw a couple of these names in the cemetery. We should go tomorrow and see if we can find anyone named Emily with one of these last names."

A mischievous grin crawls across Celia's lips. "Why don't we go right now?"

Taylor wrings her hands. "Now? Like, in the dark? It's almost nine."

"Ghost hunting is best done at night," Celia explains. "Especially in the dark. That's when the spirits come out. Like a witching hour. You know, researchers offer a wide array of opinions on the optimal time for successful ghost hunting. Some say dusk, others will tell you nine p.m., many say midnight, and then there are those that say it's three a.m., which is the exact antithesis of the time of Jesus's crucifixion."

"Celia, now's no time to get all deep on our asses," I fuss.

"Taylor asked. I'm just saying. These are all factors we need to take into account."

Taylor reaches for her camera bag. "There's so much to remember."

Celia grabs the list and three flashlights from the new box of equipment. She tosses one to each of us and says, "Follow me."

"Won't your parents hear us?" I ask.

Shrugging, Celia says, "Dad's watching TV in his den and Mom's probably zonked out on her medication du jour. If Seamus doesn't bark and give the game away, we won't be missed. Just leave the TV on and they'll never bother me."

Taylor fluffs her hair and puts the camera bag strap over her shoulder. "I'm ready when y'all are."

"'Why, then, to-night let us assay our plot,'" I say with a wink to Celia.

"Thanks, Helena," she says with a giggle.

Taylor's confused. "Huh?"

"Shakespeare—
All's Well That Ends Well,
" Celia explains.

I let out a deep sigh. "Let's hope so."

After sneaking out of Palace Nichols through the back slider doors, the three of us creep along in the darkness toward the cemetery. So far, so good. No weird feelings, sensations, or abnormalities. Ironically, Taylor's handling this whole actual ghost hunt quite well. She's far from the Barbie that Rebecca Asiaf accused her of being. And for that matter, what I'd judged her as in my head. Barbies would be home washing their hair, giving themselves home manis and pedis, or surfing Sephora.com for the latest top beauty products. They wouldn't be slipping their sneakered feet into the wrought-iron railings of a cemetery gate.

"Careful, Taylor," Celia whispers from the other side of the fence.

"Here, hold my camera case."

Celia catches the gray bag and sets it on the ground. Then she holds her hands up above her head to spot for Taylor as she swings her leg over the top of the gate and crawls down the other side.

"Come on, Kendall. It's a breeze."

Last time I climbed something was Jenny Enos's attic ladder in eighth grade. She'd said we could see into Walker Pittman's—a real eighth grade babe and a half—room from the attic window. All it got me was an allergic reaction to the dust mites and a nosebleed from her accidental elbow in my face when we were fidgeting with the binoculars.

I grasp the railing and hoist myself over the fence with little or no incident. There is a slight ripping sound, but these are old jeans, so I won't worry about it. With my grandma's crystal fisted in my right hand, I join the other two.

Our three flashlights cross like swords on the battlefield as we weave our way through the worn stone paths. The moon shines brightly above, casting a spot on our activities and outlining each of us in a blue-gray glow. Taylor's taking pictures left and right, following behind Celia with list in hand. I'm clutching the EMF meter like it's a lifeline, watching to see if the red lights catch any electromagnetic energies.

We find a Hinckley, a Richards, and a Barrington. "No one named Emily buried here," Celia notes. She points down toward the bridge where I'd seen the Union soldiers—or, rather, what appeared to be Union soldiers. "Let's go to the lower level."

"Don't you think that's risky?" Taylor asks. "Not that I'm, like, scared or anything.
Tout a fait le contraire.
"

On the contrary, I
am
starting to feel something. My eyes slowly shift downward, and I see that the EMF is flashing like a state trooper's light bar. "Celia..."

"Yeah, just a sec."

"No. I think you need to come over here. Now."

Even in the moonlight, I can read the excitement on her face. "The meter is going apeshit! Awesome!"

"What does that mean?" Taylor asks while snapping some brightly flashed digital pictures.

Celia shows her the device. "It means there are high measures of electromagnetic energy present, and that usually means spirits are trying to manipulate the energy fields to make things happen, like to manifest themselves." She focuses on me, her hair pushed out of her eyes for almost the first time. "What are you feeling, Kendall?"

I swallow the dry lump in my throat. Then I close my eyes tight.

"You have to talk to me," she says in a voice as calming as my mom's. "Just tell me what's going on with you. Taylor, take pictures around Kendall."

Stretching my hands out in front of me, I can tell they're trembling something fierce. I don't have to open my eyes to know this. "You see that, right?"

"Yeah," Celia notes.

"There's a lot going on here."

I feel the camera flash on my skin. My hands are tingly. "My lips are numb." Anticipation is in the air like I've never felt, crackling all around. "There's some serious energy surrounding me. By my knees," I instruct.

I sense Celia move the EMF meter near me and know that her readings are continuing to spike off the chart. "Something's definitely causing this," she says.

The numbness increases and it's like I've gone to get my teeth pulled. I know my face is there, I'm touching it with my fingers, but I don't feel a damn thing. A ringing sounds in my head, reverberating from ear to ear. I can't answer it and it won't go away.

"Talk to me, Kendall." Celia's voice remains calm.

"Strong, strong energy. Like wintertime, when you get out of the car too fast and your coat rubs up against the upholstery and then you touch the door and it shocks you into the middle of next week."

"Good description," Taylor says. "Should I switch to the infrared camera, Celia?"

"Good call." Turning her attention back to me, Celia asks, "Are there any spirits here?"

I nod.

"Should you dowse?"

"Not yet." I swallow again, and my throat tenses up. My chest hurts with the same empty hollowness it had when Smokey, our black and white cat, slipped out of our house and got run over by the FedEx truck. Sadness cascades over me like an ocean wave. My breathing becomes shallow and uncontrollable.

"There's ... there's ... so much ... so much
sadness,
" I manage to get out.

Click. Click. Click.

I block out Taylor's photographing and just concentrate on my surroundings. It's so dismal and ... full of lives cut short, of heartache and heartbreak and physical suffering. Of course, it
is
a cemetery, so one would assume these things are in the atmosphere. But the sensations literally encompass me, garroting me with their persistent fingers.

Opening my eyes slowly, I see them. All around me. Scattered about the cemetery.

"Holy freakin' crap," I can only whisper.

"What?" Celia asks.

Click. Click. Click.

I hold my fist to my chest. "There are so many of them."

Taylor's hair flips over her shoulder as she whips her head around. "So many what?"

"
Ghosts.
"

Her hand flies to her mouth, and I beg her with my eyes not to completely freak out.

Then there's shouting and screaming. Not from Celia, Taylor, or me. From
them.
Calls for attention and pleas for help. It's like being on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange at the height of trading. The school took us to the Merc on a field trip one time, and I remember the vibrations from the voices and noise echoing clear into my bones, almost. How people can do that all day, I'll never know. But it's like that for me now, and the voices are only getting more boisterous. I slap my hands over my ears, as if that's going to do any good.

"Kendall! Talk to me!" Celia screams.

"They're everywhere, Celia!" I twist to the left. To the right. I swat. I cover my face. "They're all over me!" Faces, eyes, hands. Grasping and reaching, pulling me to them. Jesus! I can't believe no one else can hear or see this.

Celia's face joins theirs, breaking through the furor. "Kendall! What are you seeing?"

"I can't hear you all at the same time. Shut up, would you? Stop talking. One at a time. Get in line or something! Take a friggin' number!" A deli I'm not, so my pleas go unheeded. The face of an older woman. The war cry of an Indian in full headdress. The musty smell of a wrinkly old man. The rebel yells of a Confederate soldier. The bloodcurdling cries of a cholera-stricken baby. "It's too much. Please stop!"

"What's too much, Kendall?" Celia is begging. "Let me help you."

I close my eyes again, but I can feel them in front of me, next to me, behind me, above me. A jarring dissonance of voices, buzzing together in an unharmonious opus with no conductor. "You can't help, Celia. You can't see them." Tears sting my eyes, and every fiber of my being is on the highest of high alerts.

Celia's so composed. "Tell me about the ghosts."

Click. Click. Click.

"I can't. Can't think. Can't anything." I shake my head, eyes still squoze—
yes, I know that's not a real word
—shut. "Loreen told me this happens." I struggle to exhale as I explain. "That when spirits recognize someone that can see them, it's like a neon light over your head and they become like puppies, suddenly yapping at your feet for attention. It's seriously too much. They're coming at me too fast. Sooooooo many. Make it stop, Celia."

She grabs my upper arms and holds firmly. My knees wobble underneath me and I don't think I can sustain my body's weight. My heart quickens to the point where I can hear the blood whooshing in my ears, and then nothing. A steady beep of a monitor sounds, and I hear a doctor pronounce, "His heart has failed. We've lost him." My eyes fly open to see, on my right, the grave of Edmund Kline Stanley. "He's here," I say as I point. "He had a heart attack in the eighties. In 1985, to be exact." My temple is flaming with searing heat and throbbing like nobody's business. "Over there, someone died of a gunshot wound to the head." Aches and nausea from my stomach cause me to double over. I bend to my waist, praying for the pain to go away. "S-s-stomach. Stomach cancer behind me."

Celia helps me up; the red light on her EMF meter is solidly in the high zone.

Click. Click. Click.

Taylor pulls the camera away from her face. "What are they saying to you, Kendall?"

"Everything. It's all jumbled together. So many of them." It's like being the most popular girl at the school dance—not that I'd know—and everyone's pulling you in a different direction, singing various songs to you. They're shouting, "Dance! Dance!"

A whispered scream rips from my windpipe as an aggressive spirit shoulders all the others aside and is seriously in my face. I mean: In. My. Face. "Back off, buddy!" I scream.

"What? Kendall! Damn it!" I hear Celia's frustration and I know she needs more info, but I can't concentrate on that right now.

"He's on me. Literally. What do you want?"

He laughs at me. Not anything sinister or evil. Playful. Jovial. Like he wants to entertain me. I just want to go home. Why is this happening?

Son of a bitch! It hits me! Loreen told me I need to protect myself whenever I go into a situation like this. Not like I have holy water in the kitchen cabinet at home, but I could have strapped on my cross or said a prayer or surrounded myself in God's love and light—anything. I did nothing. And now they're everywhere. Completely invading my personal space.

Mr. Aggressive, though, truly takes the cake. He wants in.

"In? He wants in?" I ask out loud. "What does that mean?"

Celia's mouth drops. "He wants you to channel him, Kendall."

"Channel? Like, let him speak through me?"

"Exactly."

"Don't you even think about it, Kendall Moorehead!" Taylor shouts, her voice trembling. "Oh my God. What are we doing here? This isn't right!"

I try to explain. "His pain is intense."

With that, I collapse to my knees. My entire body hurts, like there's poison filling my veins. I break out in a massive sweat, unable to control the slightest motion of my limbs.

Let me in...

"No! Not just no,
hell
no!"

"Fight him, Kendall. We don't know who he is or what he wants," Celia instructs with such force that I think for a minute she's an exorcist.

Gritting my teeth, I seethe. "I'm trying. He's ... so ... sooooo strong."

Taylor drops her camera to the ground and reaches for her cell phone. "This has gone too far! I'm calling nine-one-one!"

"And telling them what?" Celia says sarcastically. "'Hello, my friend is being taken over by some crazed spirit in the graveyard. Can you send an ambulance?' No, we have to help her." Celia kneels next to me and grabs my arms again. "Kick him out, Kendall. Tell him to piss off."

I'm not exactly sure how to fight him off.
Oh, Loreeeeee
eeeeeen! Why didn't I listen to you? Looooooooooooooreeeeeeeeeen! Can you hear me? Can you feel me? Help me!

He laughs at me inside my head.

Beeps. More beeps. Oh, it's Taylor dialing the phone.

I reach out to her. "No ... we'll ... I'll ... get in trouble."