A Guide to the Other Side (6 page)

I had other things on my mind, though. Bigger, scarier things.

Namely, the fact that my sister kept being forced away by a silent, creepy man covered in a white sheet who had apparently recruited many more demons to help him . . . help him what? Kill me? Attack me? Scare me? Send me a message?

I had no idea why any of it was happening. A simple note or a few quick words would have been a tremendous help, but I got nothing. So I sat there in my dirty Halloween costume, my back against Tommy's grave, and wondered aloud to Kristina all those thoughts.

“It's so random,” I said. “I have nothing to go on. It's like I'm being attacked for no reason.”

Kristina nodded. “It doesn't make sense.”

“Didn't you say my ‘protection' had been amped up? What happened?”

“If there was really a hundred of them chasing after you, the extra protection probably didn't help much. These are evil beings, Baylor. They're infiltrating our defenses in ways I can't understand, and it definitely doesn't help that I can't get a look at them to see what we're dealing with.”

“Then I need to fight back, Kristina,” I said. “What can I do?”

She stared at me for several seconds and began to pace.

“First things first, you need to begin surrounding yourself with light every hour. Twice a day clearly isn't enough. Carry a candle and set an alarm to remember to light it. We'll keep several candles lit at night, too.”

“Great. More candles. Got it,” I said, picking at the grass. “I'm not going to lie, Kristina, I'm getting a lit bit tired of having to rely on freaking candles. There's got to be a more powerful weapon I can use, maybe something that's actually a weapon and not what kids blow out on their birthdays after making a wish that won't come true.”

She stopped moving and shot me a look. “Candles are fine for now,” she said tersely.

“So there is something else!” My eyes narrowed into slits. “You've been keeping it from me!”

“You know the drill, Baylor,” she said, pacing again. “We're not ready yet.”

I rolled my eyes. Of course.

“Plus, I want to see if the disturbances will continue once Halloween is over.”

It was a good point. In just a few hours the costumes would be peeled off and tossed away by everyone in the city, and the negative energy would begin to fade—not all at once, of course, but it wouldn't be maxing out at its current wattage.

“So we'll wait,” I said. “I'll layer myself with plenty of light, and we'll hope that the visits stop now that this terrible day is ending.”

“I think that'll do for now,” she said, nodding. “And if it doesn't, we'll come up with a plan.”

I smiled grimly. “Tiki torches?”

  *  *  *  

A bit later I called my mom and asked her to come pick me up at the cemetery. When she arrived, she got out of her car and ran over to me, looking frantic. She squeezed my face and then sort of attempted a hug, but after she saw how dirty I was, it turned into more of a pat on the back.

“What happened to you?” she asked, shaking mud off her hand.

“It's kind of a long story,” I said. “I'll tell you back at the house so Dad can hear it too.”

I spent most of the ride home deflecting concerned texts from Aiden. He wasn't mad or anything, just really confused, since I'd dropped my bag of candy and then disappeared without anyone noticing. He said he'd bring the candy to me on Monday, but he couldn't guarantee there'd be much left, because Mrs. Kirkwood thoroughly enjoyed the spoils of Halloween.

  *  *  *  

Mom and Dad were not happy once I relayed all the events of the last couple of days.

“That thing was in our house and you didn't bother to mention it until now?” my mom shrieked. She had begun chopping random vegetables midway through the story, even though it was nearly eleven o'clock at night. She'd plowed through two onions, a red bell pepper, and a lumpy sweet potato by the time I finished.

“I didn't know the Sheet Man was going to return,” I said. “I thought it was a one-time visitation.”

“One-time visitation,” she scoffed under her breath. “Till the thing came back with a hundred of his dead little demon friends and made you almost get hit by a semitruck.”

My dad sat across from me at the table, his chin pushed back into his neck, creating four additional chins. He was looking at his hands, and I wasn't sure if he'd heard a word I'd said.

“It was either the truck or a hundred Sheet Men getting their wispy hands on you,” Kristina said from her spot at the head of the table. She'd been reminding me of details to add in.

“That's true,” I mumbled.

“What'd she say?” Dad asked, looking up suddenly.

“She said it was better to nearly get hit by a truck than to have a hundred of those things finally catch up to me.”

My mom threw down her knife, which clanged violently onto the counter, and marched over to me.

“Kristina, I don't know where you are, but you need to do something, okay?” my mom sputtered. “You need to make sure this can't happen again.” She looked at me, then quickly turned to stare out the window into the blackness, but not so quickly that I couldn't see the tears welling up. “I've already lost you,” she said, her voice cracking. “I can't lose another one.”

Kristina's mouth hung open slightly. I had never seen her speechless before. She rose from the table and walked over to Mom. She tried to hug her, but as always, her body just sort of sank in, making them look like Siamese twins.

My mom shivered violently and her shoulders jerked back. “I've never gotten the chills that bad before!”

“Kristina just hugged you,” I said.

She shot me a strange look, a mixture of sadness and panic, then hurried back to her cutting board and resumed her violent chopping.

“Well, this has been a stranger night than usual,” I said after another minute of silence. Part of me wondered if I should have just kept all this to myself. The stress of hearing this story would do no favors for my dad's rapidly graying hair.

My dad nodded, throwing his hands open. “I don't know what to say, Baylor. I feel so helpless. If those guys wearing sheets were real people, I'd say forget the police and just hunt them down myself. But in this situation . . . I don't know what to do.”

“We light candles,” I said, smiling sarcastically at Kristina, who stuck her tongue out at me. “And we stay positive.”

He attempted to smile, but it resembled that same sort of pained, teeth-baring grimace that he'd worn after finishing his first marathon a couple of years ago. He stood, walked to the hall closet, and pulled out the duffel bag of candles we had stockpiled inside.

“Let's get to work.”

We finished protecting the house in less than ten minutes, and afterward I went up to bed while my mom was throwing all the ingredients into a pot to make some veggie chili.

“Might as well,” she said. “I won't be sleeping tonight anyway.”

In the bathroom I finally peeled off my dirty pink costume and looked at myself in the mirror. Man, I was gross. My entire face was flecked with mud and grass, and everything else ached from the extensive tumbling I'd done off the side of the road.

I took what must have been a thirty-minute shower and then collapsed into my bed.

“Good night, Baylor,” said Kristina, who was lit up by the glow of the ten massive candles I'd placed around my room earlier.

“Good night, Kristina,” I said, yawning. “Thanks for your help tonight.”

“Of course,” she said. She hesitated a moment. “I just wanted to say, before I go for the night, that I'm sorry I didn't protect you better.”

“It's not your fault,” I said, my eyes closed. I secretly wished she'd go.

“I know,” she said. “But I still feel like I let you down.”

“You didn't,” I said lightly, peeking my eyes open. “You did your best.”

She looked odd, though, and if I hadn't been so tired, I would have pressed her on the subject. But before I knew it, she'd vanished, and I passed out not five seconds later.

I SPENT ALL SUNDAY IN
bed, my body positively on fire from the tumble the night before, but between the frequent bowls of veggie chili delivered by my mother and the hours of TV that I mindlessly watched, I began to feel somewhat better.

Monday, however, was dreadful. I could barely walk, and I'd completely forgotten about a science quiz I needed to study for.

“What kind of a ridiculous jerk gives a quiz the Monday after Halloween weekend?” I mumbled to Kristina on my way to the next class. “And you wouldn't even help me out with any of the answers. I bombed that so bad.”

“You know I can't help you, Baylor!” Kristina said. “We've been over this maybe a million times.”

“It wouldn't hurt anyone to help me out a little bit.”

“That's what you think,” she said ominously.

I ignored her comment and marched on, somehow getting through the day and looking forward to band practice. I thought about skipping it, but since I'd missed Thursday, I felt like I had to go.

I'd started playing the tuba on a whim a few years ago. I had tried out for soccer because I liked how much I got to run, but I quit during my first game. There were far too many ghosts on the field, and I could barely tell who was a player and who was dead. Twenty minutes in I stomped off the field and told my parents I couldn't play anymore.

Playing the tuba, on the other hand, has become my saving grace. Whereas running around in soccer allowed my mind to be too receptive to all the spirits around me, playing the tuba forces me to concentrate on the music. The sound helps block out all the chatter. After a few minutes of staring at sheet music, I almost transform into someone who can't talk to dead people. I'd never admit this to Kristina, but it's nice to feel truly alone, even if it's only for a little bit.

Four years later, and I'm still playing the tuba. I've learned to play the guitar and the piano, too, but I prefer the tuba. There's something about wrapping that instrument around my body and blasting music out of it that makes me feel like I'm in my own little world with no one to bother me.

The band instructor, Mr. Gilbert, was a short man with long, curly red hair. He wore a tie every single day, and today it was decked out in little Snoopy drawings.

“Looking good, Mr. G.,” I said as I limped into the giant room. There were a bunch of skylights that lined the ceiling, casting a dull, wintry light over the room, and flimsy blue soundproofing material covered every wall.

“Glad to see you're feeling better, Baylor,” he said, “though that limp doesn't look too great.”

“Took a nasty spill on Halloween,” I said. “Collecting free candy is hard work.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “Children,” he said, shaking his head and smiling.

I got my tuba from the instrument closet and said hey to Aiden before taking my place in the semicircle of chairs. He'd given me the surprisingly full bag of Halloween candy at lunch.

“I had to hide it from my mom in my dirty-clothes hamper,” he'd said. “You know how she gets.” I'd searched for some Twix while trying not to think about my candy languishing next to Aiden's filthy underwear for two days.

As he unpacked another pepperoni-and-mustard sandwich, he'd asked, “So where'd you disappear to, anyway? Why'd you drop all your candy?”

I'd sort of frowned at him and said, “Believe me, Aiden, you do
not
want to know.” He'd widened his eyes and didn't ask anything else about it.

Today we were prepping for the parade that would take place downtown on Main Street the weekend before Thanksgiving. We'd be near the end of the parade, and Mr. G. felt confident that tackling a Christmas medley would set the mood for the holiday season.

“A classic medley!” he said. “Something we've never done before but that's been done to death by everyone else in America.”

“Then why are we doing it, if it's been done before?” asked one of the saxophonists.

“Because we live in Keene, New Hampshire,” he said slowly. “Our town loves anything festive.”

It was true. Our town was infamous for its huge pumpkin festival, trying to break a Guinness world record for the most jack-o'-lanterns lit at once, and at Christmastime the downtown square transformed into a majestic, brightly lit wonderland.

Mr. G. passed out the sheet music and asked us to play through everything once so he could gauge what needed the most work. We started with a rough rendition of “Jingle Bells,” followed by “The Little Drummer Boy,” and finally finished with an interesting mash-up of “Silent Night” and “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”