Indelible (31 page)

But more than that, I had no idea what the Clutch would expect me to do in exchange for information. For all I knew, I was about to make a deal with the devil. A shiver went down my spine because I felt like I was indeed about to sell my soul.

DJ arrived quickly, waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

“Are you sure about this?” He asked.

“No.” I sighed. “But I don’t see another choice.

He looked like he wanted to say more but simply shook his head. “I think you’re going to regret this.”

We walked side by side in silence until I stopped and turned toward him. “That night at the internship party you told me you needed my help. That you all did.”

He pushed the sleeves of hoodie up on his arms. “I did. We do.”

“Who exactly needs my help? What can I do?”

“Do you think I’m the only one they forced to do their bidding? They have lured a lot of people in. Just like they’re doing to you.”

“Okay, but how can I help?”

“I don’t know. I just felt like you could.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

He looked me square in the eye. “You haven’t. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep them from dragging you in. I wish I could have done more.”

I gave him a weak smile. “That isn’t your fault.”

We didn’t talk again as he escorted me to the same room we had met in before. There weren’t as many members of the Clutch there, maybe a dozen, this time, no doubt because the meeting had been called on such short notice. DJ gave my hand a quick squeeze before shrinking into the shadows.

“Miss Silva,” said a deep voice in the darkness. Even with my heightened projection senses I couldn’t see his face but I recognized Mr. Crosby’s voice. “I would be lying if I said I hadn’t expected to hear from you again. Are you here to apologize for throwing my kind offer back in my face?”

I bit my tongue until the words I wanted to retort were swallowed. “You said you knew what was wrong with Brent.”

“Based on your breaking and entering into the school’s records room, it would seem that you have figured it out as well. Did you get our note?”

“Yes. Can you really help?”

“We can.” He offered no further explanation.

“How can I believe you?” I tried to keep the hope that had sprouted in my chest from overflowing. “How can I know you have a cure?”

“You’ll just have to trust us.”

“Can you give me a sample to prove to me what you’re saying is the truth?”

“We’ve already provided a small sample to Mr. Springsteed. But you want us to give you more?” The entire room laughed. “We’re businessmen, Miss Silva. We don’t believe in giving anything away for free. After you do something for us, then we’ll help Brent.”

Here it was. Bargaining time. “What do you want me to do?” I asked, my voice hollow. “I won’t agree to anything until I know exactly what you expect from me.”

“We’ll start you out easy. We need you to talk to Sophia Pendrell. We need you to find out where she has hidden the key.”

“Key?”

“On the table you will see a picture. We need that key.” It was the same photo of the key Cherie had showed me. “We believe this is what Sophia Pendrell’s spirit was guarding in that compartment.”

It unnerved me to hear how much they already suspected. How much did they really know? I fought the urge to look at DJ. The sneak. He had let Sophia believe I had stolen it, and apparently he had convinced the Clutch I had taken it, too.

“The key she was guarding has vanished. You were our first suspect, obviously. But we ruled you out.”

“Is that what you were looking for when you destroyed my room?”

“Yes, and also when we searched your bag, your friends’ bags and rooms, and your parents’ home as well.”

I tried to fight off the horrid feeling of knowing they had searched my parents’ house. I felt so violated.

“You could have asked. I’ve never seen this key before.”

“We would have, but you could have lied. Our searches were very thorough, though. We know you don’t have it.”

“I know what I saw!” I felt DJ’s head snap up. “She saw the ghost. She opened the compartment!”

His moral outrage was so strong and convincing I almost believed I had taken it too.

“Y-yes!” A different voice snapped. “A-a-and if, uh, you weren’t so stupid and c-cowardly, running from uh, a g-ghost you c-c-couldn’t even see, we’d uh, have it now.”

“Shut up, you stammering fool!” Mr. Crobsy yelled.

It didn’t matter if Bryan Pendrell shut up or not. I had recognized his distinctive voice. Apparently the rotten apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

“I-I w-won’t. You aren’t our uh, supreme leader. W-w-we have a right to speak too.”

“Shut up!” Mr. Crosby’s voice rang with superiority and the room fell quiet. “As I was saying, it is of no matter that the first key has vanished. There are two. Christopher left them both to his wife when he died. You will go to her and ask her where this other key is.”

“I’m not sure I can get Sophia to speak with me. She hates me. She’s still trying to kill me. She recently put me in the hospital.”

“We are aware of her actions toward you.”

In the gloom I searched out DJ’s face, the corners of his eyes tightened. Had he been spying on me for them when he claimed to be helping me? My eyes accused him and he dropped his gaze, pleading guilty.

I could’ve turned him in right then and ended it all. Taken the cure and left him to the Clutch. I wanted to turn him in. I opened my mouth to denounce him, when I thought back to all he’d done for me: the way he’d tried to warn me away, the way he’d replaced Taffy, and the way he’d cared for me after Sophia had attacked. His green eyes looked up again as if sensing I was about to rat him out, and pleading with me for clemency. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ruthless enough to save Brent by overthrowing DJ. I clenched my jaw shut.

After all I still had other options. There was a second key and my grandma could make Sophia talk. And if for some reason that didn’t work then . . . well I’d deal with that bridge when I came to it. I turned away from DJ.

“So what is your answer?” Mr. Crosby asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

I pressed my lips hard against my teeth. “I’ll do it.”

As I walked alone back to my room, I hoped I hadn’t I made a promise I couldn’t keep, because Brent’s life depended on it.

v

The next morning, I found DJ. “I need the key.”

“No.”

“You can make a copy of it, but I need it to save Brent’s life.”

He shouldered his backpack. “And I still need it for my leverage.”

I stepped into his path as he moved around me. “DJ, please.”

He gently pushed me aside. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because we each have our own causes to fight for and Brent isn’t mine.”

I stared after him, completely speechless, surprised by his callousness. “I know you have it. I’ll tell them.”

He turned and gave me shrug. “No, you won’t.”

He started back the way he was going. I grabbed an apple I had in my backpack and threw it at him. It smacked him right in the back of the head. It may not have been a rock, but it served the purpose. It didn’t feel as satisfying as I had hoped it would. He rubbed the back of his head but didn’t bother turning to look at me. I cut the rest of my classes and called Vovó.

“How do you get a ghost to talk to you?” I asked before she could even say hello. “How do you calm them down long enough to reason with them? It’s time Sophia found her peace.”

“You’re ready to help Sophia? You’ve forgiven her for attacking you?” I could hear the joy in her voice. “Cherie and I have worked out the details, but we were waiting for you.”

“Yeah, sure. She’s forgiven.” I kicked off my shoes and dropped to my bed. “I need her calm so I can get some information from her.”

Vovó clicked her tongue and I imagined her disapproving look. “Yara, you mean you want to do this now because she can help you?”

“No.” I answered too fast for it to be believable. “Well, yes.”

“You still don’t understand what it means to be a Waker.”

“I get it.” I lied down, staring up at my ceiling. “We help ghosts cross over.”

“You don’t get it.” She let out a weary sigh. “You know the words but not what they mean. I hope this conversation with Sophia will help you learn.”

v

At lunch, Cherie and I ate in our room. We needed privacy so I could fill her in on everything. She had been justifiably angry that I had gone to see the Clutch. After the way they had handled Brent, she was upset that I would trust them enough to meet with them, especially alone. But when I filled her in on all the details, she grudgingly admitted we didn’t have a whole lot of other options. When I told her of my plan to talk with Sophia, any lingering anger melted away, replaced by genuine excitement. She had been gathering information for a long time and was ready to put into motion the plan that she and Vovó had drawn up.

“So Vovó says the two of you have all the details worked out. What do you have?”

“Your grandma thinks we need to remind Sophia of her life, and build a relationship of trust with her.”

“And we do that how?”

“By making the room where we talk a peaceful place for her. We fill it with her favorite things. Things that will remind her of her life.” She tapped her pencil eraser against her lips. “Jasmine is her favorite scent. She loved classical music, romantic sonnets, her son and her husband.”

“That isn’t much to go on.”

“No, but I enlarged a portrait I found of her with Lee and Christopher. Audrey has some jasmine perfume she let me have. We’ll play some classical music. In an article I found about her wedding, it said that Christopher read her lines from her favorite poem. I have a copy of that. Your grandma thinks that will be enough.”

“I had no idea you were doing so much work on this. When did you do it?”

“Oh, here and there.” Cherie studied her feet. “Those time-slip pills really helped.”

“So you think we can do this tonight?”

Cherie nodded. “But it’ll have to be after curfew. I have a study group tonight and I can’t miss it.”

The way she emphasized her need to attend a study group caught my attention. She usually had no problem blowing them off. “Are you doing okay with school? You seem to be studying more than normal.”

Cherie waved her hand in the air, dismissing my question. “My problems don’t matter.”

I couldn’t believe she thought that. “Cherie, your problems matter.”

She ground the tip of her pencil against her pad of paper. “But mine aren’t life and death.”

“They’re still important.”

“It’s nothing really. I heard back from Stanford.”

“What?” She had my full attention. “When? Today?”

I was almost bouncing up and down when I noticed Cherie wasn’t smiling and I knew something was wrong.

“I was wait-listed. I’m the first one in my family not to be accepted automatically. I’ve used a lot of time researching Sophia and tanked a few tests. My grades had to be perfect and they haven’t been. Actually last year’s grades weren’t that great either. I spent the first few months too wrapped up in the curse to really focus.”

I didn’t know her grades had suffered last year. I didn’t know any of this.

Guilt tore throw me like a hunting knife. “Your dream isn’t coming true because of me?” I fell back on my bed and threw my arm across my eyes.

“Stanford isn’t my dream, it’s my—”

“I’ve been your best friend since elementary school. It is your dream. You and your parents may disagree about whether to major in history, but Stanford is your dream. Being a Waker is not only stealing my future now, but yours too.” I rolled over and faced Cherie. “That’s it. You’re no longer involved in this. You focus on school.”

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d act like this.” Cherie picked up her pillow and bunched it in her lap. “This is part of my dream too. I want to help because I like it.”

I knew it was true but I searched her face just to be sure. “Okay. But tomorrow night I’m going to quiz you. I’m personally making sure you ace the rest of the school year.”

Cherie gave me a grin. “Thanks.”

“You’re problems matter, Cherie. They are every bit as important as mine.” She opened her mouth but I talked over her. “Don’t even bother trying to argue.”

“I wasn’t. I just had an idea where we could talk to Sophia. They haven’t finished remodeling the pool in the alumni house right?”

“They haven’t even started in that room yet. Lesley was just complaining about that again today. It looks like they won’t get to it for another month or two now.”

“Perfect.” Cherie rubbed her hands together. “That means they probably haven’t started on the changing rooms either. They have exactly one mirror apiece, and there won’t be anyone there that late either.”

It did sound perfect. “Only one mirror? That’s good. It’ll limit how much damage she can do. You’ll wait outside though. She is dangerous.”

Cherie raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “She can only hurt you.”

I shook my head. “That’s only partly true. When she gets really angry she seems able to break things. And you’ll be at a disadvantage because you wouldn’t be able to see her.”

Cherie held up her hands. “We’ll see. But, based on your previous encounters, you’re in danger too. I’m staying close.” Cherie stuck her chin out in defiance but finally nodded. “Okay. So how are you going to protect yourself?”

“Well, first I’ll have my grandma with me. “

“Woo-Hoo!” Cherie said.

“And then I’ll have my grandma.” I grinned. “We’ll have some other Waker stuff too. We’ll have to make sure we turn off the smoke detectors if there are any in there. Vovó likes to burn candles, and herbs and things.”

“Speaking of fires, I did find something interesting out about one of the curse victims.”

“What?”

“Well, Karl Sundberg loved fire.”

He was one of the victims whose name I kept forgetting. “Okay.”

“His house burned down when he was a kid, and his dorm room caught fire twice. That was during his first two years here, but after that he totally changed. No more fires. I’m assuming that’s because Thomas had control of his body.”