CHAPTER 21

The 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 boyfriend’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 something. 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?

“Rome!” Dex called after her. She didn’t turn around but she did raise her hand and flip him off.

Dex just sighed. “Well, that’ll be with us for a while. Romy can hold a grudge like no one’s business.”

“You shouldn’t have picked on her,” I told him as I put my things in my backpack.

“I didn’t!” he cried. “I just pointed out that her theory is insane.”

“Which she saw as picking on her,” I said once we’d joined the flow of students heading toward the parking lot. The buses lined up under an awning.

“Okay, so maybe I could have phrased it a little nicer, but life at Mary Evans High is rough enough for Romy. The PMS thing has already made her a target. If she starts spouting off about a ghost wanting to kill the homecoming queen…” He shook his head. “There would be no end to the crap they’d give her.”

“So you were trying to protect her by…being mean to her?”

By now we were outside. While the other, luckier kids who had their own cars walked through the parking lot, Dex and I took our places on the sidewalk. Romy was several feet away, very pointedly not looking at us.

“I just know how tough it can be when everyone thinks you’re some kind of freak,” Dex said, his voice suddenly tight. “When I was a kid—”

He broke off, staring somewhere beyond my shoulder. “What the hell?”

I turned, catching a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. A car down at the far end of the parking lot was driving toward us. And it was going…fast. Way too fast considering the fact that kids were walking out to their cars. One of those kids passed me, and I realized it was Beth.

She froze, staring down the parking lot at the car. “Oh my God,” I heard her mutter. And then the car was moving faster, and it seemed to dawn on me and Beth at the same time that it was headed for her.

And that no one was behind the wheel.

I didn’t think. I launched myself toward Beth, shoving someone out of my way. I heard a pained cry, but by then I was already to Beth. The two of us went stumbling into a parked car, my elbow smacking the side-view mirror so hard I bit my lip. Beth crumpled to the ground between two cars as I fell nearly on top of her.

Just behind us, I could hear the squeal of rubber, the sick crunch of metal on metal. And shrieking. There was a lot of shrieking.

“Are you okay?” I asked Beth, which was probably a stupid question seeing as how she was pale and sobbing.

“What happened?” she kept asking. “What was that?”

It was a really good question.

I stood up and took in the chaos raging around me. The car had plowed right into one of the parked buses. Luckily, no one had been on it, and all the kids waiting to board seemed to have gotten out of the way.

A flash of movement caught my eye, and I turned back to Beth’s car. There, sitting in driver’s seat, was the spirit of Mary Evans. She was a lot fainter than she’d been the night of the basketball game, and no one else seemed to see the ghost, but there was no doubt in my mind that’s who she was.

In a flash, she was gone, and I could almost convince myself that it had been a trick of the light.

I had laid salt all over that grave. It wasn’t possible for her to be out and wreaking havoc.

Unless I’d screwed up somehow. But it was spreading salt. How hard was that?

But Dex had been there that night. Could he have done something that made the banishing not take? I scanned the crowd for Romy and Dex, finally finding them back on the sidewalk, near the school. I made my way toward them, stepping over Ben McCrary. He was lying on the grass, clutching his shoulder. Apparently he was who I’d shoved. Oops. “Um…sorry,” I said, but he made a shrieky sound and scuttled farther away from me.

“Are you guys okay?” I asked once I’d reached Romy and Dex.

“Us?” Romy asked, pushing her hair out of her face. “You’re the one who just leapt on Beth Tanner like a ninja.”

“Yeah,” Dex added. “That was…if I say hot, does that make me a perv?”

In spite of all the adrenaline coursing through me—or maybe because of it—I started laughing. And once I’d started, Dex joined in, and then Romy was laughing, too. The three of us stood there for a long time, cracking up while everyone around us looked horrified.

But when I turned back to the bus, my laughter died in my throat. Two teachers were helping Beth up from the ground. Coach Lewis was there, too, gesturing at the crowd. “Back up, back up!” By now, a siren was wailing in the distance, and a group was starting to form around the wrecked car.

“Wow,” Dex said softly, as though the seriousness of what had happened was just starting to sink in. “She really could have been hurt.”

I watched him carefully. None of this made sense. If Dex had screwed up the banishing on purpose, he was the best actor in the world. He looked genuinely freaked out right now.

“She could have died,” Romy said, and then she closed a hand around my wrist. “But you saved her.”

I tried to smile back and not think that if I’d done my job right, she wouldn’t have needed saving at all.