Hourglass

In other words, it could help keep me safe. Since she’d told me that, I’d never taken the pendant off, not even to bathe. I’d almost forgotten about it.

“The obsidian gives me some protection,” I admitted, “but I don’t know how much or for how long.”

“I promise you, this ghost isn’t a baddie,” Vic said. “Wraith. Whatever. She’s awesome. At least, I think she’s a she.”

Lucas asked, “Have you talked to this thing? Communicated with it somehow?”

“Not exactly, but—”

“So how do you know it’s ‘awesome’?”

“The same way I know I’m being mocked,” Vic said, eyes narrowing. “I can just tell.”

I still wanted to tell Vic to back his car out of the driveway and take me and Lucas back to our hotel. Yet I knew we could only afford a few more nights there, and that only because we’d gotten a lucky deal. Vic would loan us whatever cash we needed, but I wanted to borrow as little as possible. If we couldn’t stay on his property through July and early August, we’d have to ask him for thousands. I really preferred not to do that.

My hand still clasped around the pendant, I said, “I’ll go in.”

“Bianca, don’t.” Lucas looked furious, but I put one hand on his arm to steady him.

“You and Ranulf wait out here. If you hear any screaming or the windows ice over—”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Lucas said.

“I said if, okay?” Now that I’d made the decision, I didn’t want to sit around worrying; I wanted to do it and get it over with. “If that happens, you guys come in and help. Vic and I will try it this time. We won’t stay here if the wraith causes a problem.”

Although Lucas still looked displeased, he nodded. Vic clambered over his driver’s side door without even opening it. As I got out, I could hear Ranulf’s knees crack as he straightened his legs and gave a long sigh of relief.

Vic’s parents weren’t home, so the house was empty. Their place was gorgeous, more like something in a magazine than any real home I’d ever been in. The foyer was tiled in green marble, and a small chandelier hung from the thirty-foot ceiling. Everything smelled like furniture polish and oranges. We walked up a central staircase that was broad, white, and flowing. I could imagine Ginger Rogers dancing down those steps in a dress of ostrich feathers; certainly a movie star would belong here more than me in my cheap little sundress.

Of course, Vic didn’t quite seem to belong here either—and this was his house. I wondered if his carefree goofiness was maybe his way of rebelling against the perfect order his parents had established.

“She only shows up in the attic,” he said, as we walked along the parquet hallway upstairs. The paintings on the wall looked old. “That’s her special place, I think.”

“You actually see her?”

“Like a figure in a sheet or something? Nah. You just know she’s there. And every once in a while—Well, we’ll try it. Don’t want to get your hopes up.”

My one hope at that moment was not to get freeze-dried by a wraith. Silently thanking my parents for the pendant, I watched as Vic opened the door to the attic stairs and started to climb. I took a couple of deep breaths before I followed him.

The Woodsons’ attic was the only messy part of the house. The clutter was nicer than in most attics, I suspected. A blue-and-white Chinese vase sat on a dusty desk as wide as a bed and probably almost a hundred years old. A dressmaker’s dummy wore a jacket of yellowing lace and an old Edwardian ladies’ hat still jaunty with plumes. The Persian rug underfoot looked genuine, at least to my uneducated eye. Although the air smelled musty, it was a nice sort of musty, like old books.

“I like it up here,” Vic said. His face was more serious than usual. “This is probably my favorite place in the whole house.”

“This is where you feel comfortable.”

“You get it, huh?”

I smiled at him. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Okay, let’s just sit down here and see if she shows.”

We sat cross-legged on the Persian rug and waited. My nerves reacted to every creak of the wood, and I kept looking nervously at the one small window behind the dressmaker’s dummy. The panes hadn’t frosted over.

“I’m going to give you the cash, instead of Lucas,” Vic said as he played with the shoelaces of his Chucks. “I’ve got about six hundred dollars on hand—and you’re taking it all. Usually I’d have more, but I just bought a new Stratocaster.” He hung his head. “I feel stupid, blowing that much money on a guitar I can hardly play. If I’d known you guys were going to need it—”

“You couldn’t have known. Besides, it’s your money to spend however you want. It’s good of you to share it with us.” I frowned, momentarily distracted from the suspense of waiting for the ghost. “Why give it to me instead of Lucas?”

“Because Lucas would probably refuse to take more than a hundred or so. Sometimes he’s too proud to admit he needs help.”

“We’re not proud.” I remembered jumping the subway turnstile with some embarrassment. “We’re way too screwed for that.”

“Lucas is always going to have a pride thing going on. Always. You’re the reasonable one.”

My lips twitched. “I wish I could tell him you said that.”