CHAPTER 29

Since the school had been evacuated, we held the emergency meeting of PMS at Romy’s house. Romy’s mom had gone overboard with the snack options, laying out three different kinds of chips on the counter, as well as two kinds of soft drinks.

Once we’d gotten our food we followed Romy up to her room.

Romy immediately clambered onto her bed, sitting cross-legged in the middle. Anderson sat next to her, while I took the desk chair and Dex folded his long body onto a bright green beanbag chair.

“Okay,” Romy said, dusting crumbs off her hands, “I think we can all agree there’s some seriously crazy stuff going on at Mary Evans High.”

“I don’t know, Rome,” Dex said, crossing his ankles. “Hedgehog violence is a lot more common than you’d think.”

“What I still don’t get,” Anderson said, grabbing a handful of chips, “is why she went from floating some chalk to this whole reign of terror thing.”

“There never was a haunting before,” I said, finally getting it. “Floating chalk, locker doors opening, all of that was BS, just stories people told.” I was too freaked out and thinking too fast to even pretend I didn’t know much about the paranormal. “This is the only haunting Mary Evans High has ever had, and it’s because someone used magic and freaking summoned a ghost.”

All three of them stared at me, but I didn’t care anymore. This had gone too far, and after what had happened in the gym today, Mary would be stronger than ever. We didn’t have any more time.

I took a deep breath. It had come to this. “And I think I know who.”

I walked over to Romy’s desk and pulled out her bracelet, dangling it on one finger as my other hand fished in my pocket for the charm I’d found in the cave. “This belongs to you, doesn’t it?” I asked her.

Very carefully, Romy put her can of soda down. “Yeah. What are you saying?”

I could feel Anderson’s and Dex’s eyes on me as I said, “You run a ghost-hunting club, but you didn’t have any ghosts to hunt. So maybe you stumbled across a spell somewhere. Hedge magic,” I said. “You just thought you’d call up a couple of local spirits. Nothing too dangerous, nothing that could hurt anyone. But hedge magic can be tricky, and something went wrong. And people are getting hurt, Romy.”

Her face was a mask as she took all of that in. Finally, she got off the bed and snatched the bracelet out of my hand. “That is my bracelet, and yes, that is my charm. But I lost it weeks ago. I certainly wasn’t hanging out in a cave, conjuring up ‘hedge magic.’ And what does that even mean?”

“It’s something—”

“Don’t say you read it on the Internet.”

“You do say that a lot,” Dex said, and for once he didn’t sound like he was joking. In fact, I could swear that was actual suspicion on his face as he watched me. “First the salt thing, now witches summoning ghosts…’”

Romy was looking at me weird, too. “What salt thing?”

Glaring at Dex, I said, “It was nothing. And besides, it didn’t work.”

“All this stuff did start happening when you showed up,” Anderson said, his voice very quiet. I threw up my hands.

“What the heck? You said you’d been investigating the Mary Evans thing since Mr. Snyder. And that was months ago.”

“There weren’t any hedgehogs trying to blow up the gym months ago,” Anderson offered.

“It has nothing to do with me,” I insisted, but even as I said it, a shiver ran down my spine. That was true. They’d had one incident before I came here. Now all hell had broken loose. Had I somehow unleashed all of this?

“You seem to know an awful lot about ghosts for someone who claims to not care about the paranormal,” Romy spit out.

Anderson was nodding slowly, and even Dex seemed troubled. “The thing with the salt,” he repeated. “The day after that, Beth ended up nearly becoming roadkill.”

“I was trying to trap Mary’s ghost,” I fired back. “Not help her kill Beth.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Anderson’s face went hard. “You saw her at the graveyard the night before Beth nearly got mowed down?” he asked Dex.

Dex nodded. “She did say she was trying to keep the ghost in the grave.”

“Which clearly didn’t work.”

“If I were trying to get Beth killed, why would I have saved her life?”

“Like you said, you didn’t want anyone to get hurt,” Romy said. “You felt guilty.”

“No, I didn’t!” I said. Or rather, yelled. Romy actually flinched. Trying to soften my tone, I added, “I didn’t feel guilty because I have nothing to feel guilty about. I didn’t call forth any ghosts. You did.”

“No,” Romy said through clenched teeth, “I. Didn’t.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, so frustrated I wanted to shake her. “You didn’t. Some other person came in here and stole your bracelet and started doing spells all over the place. The point is, we need to stop it. This ghost is dangerous, Romy. And you can’t stop her with a blinking box and a tinfoil hat.”

Romy swung an accusatory glare at Dex. “Stop talking about the hat.”

“That’s what you’re choosing to be upset about?”

“If our blinking boxes and tinfoil hats are so stupid to you, Izzy, maybe you shouldn’t be in PMS anymore,” Anderson said.

I was surprised at how much that stung. And even more surprised that Dex stayed quiet. When I looked over at him in the beanbag chair, he was staring at the carpet, chewing his thumbnail.

“Fine,” I said, wishing my voice hadn’t wavered. “Go ahead. Deal with the crazy, murderous ghost on your own. I was just trying to help.”

“We don’t need your help,” Romy said, and to my horror, my eyes started watering. Before the group could see that, I grabbed my backpack and, with as much dignity as I could muster, walked out of Romy’s room, closing the door behind me.

The walk to my house didn’t take long, but with every step, I got angrier and angrier. This is what happened when you get involved with regular kids. Stupid kids, who summoned a ghost and probably were going to get killed by it. And that was fine. That’s what happened when people messed with stuff that was way over their heads. So sue me for trying to step in and use, oh, I don’t know, a thousand years of bloodline and experience and training to keep them safe. Let them wear their tinfoil hats. And let Dex—

The tears nearly spilled over then, but I stopped just outside my front door and took a deep breath. No. I wasn’t going to cry over him.

Them. Whatever.

Mom’s car was parked in the driveway, so I called out for her when I went inside.

“In here,” she answered from the kitchen.

I walked down the hall, and was surprised to find Maya standing next to the sink with Mom.

“What are you—” I started to say, but before I could get out any more, Mom turned to me. She wasn’t smiling, but her eyes were practically shining. “It’s Finn,” she said. “We got a lead on Finn.”