Spirit Prophecy (The Gateway Trilogy Book 2) (38 page)

“Okay, fine, I need your help. Do it for me, okay? And anyway, I think you’ll be more than willing when you find out what it is.”

“Still listening, but refusing to look at you,” Milo said, arms crossed.

“Jess has to go to London tonight and I want you to go with her.”

Milo dropped his arms and his jaw simultaneously. “London? Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Hannah said.

“Wait a minute!” I said. “What is the point of that? What possible good will it do for Milo to come with me?”

“I don’t know what good it will do you, but it will make me feel better,” Hannah said. “And besides, now I’ll be able to communicate with him and make sure you’re okay.”

I held up my phone again. “I have a cell phone. The obnoxious spirit guide is superfluous.”

Hannah smirked. “You might lose your cell signal. I never lose my Milo signal.”

“Lucky us,” I grumbled. “Well, whatever, he doesn’t want to go anywhere with me, do you?”

“Of course I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” Milo said. “But I do want to see London, so if you’re going, I’m tagging along.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, dropping my head into my hands. Of all of the moments for Milo’s contempt for me to fail! “Hannah, I know you’re nervous, but can’t you just give me a break here? I’ve got enough to worry about without Milo floating around in my wake criticizing my wardrobe choices and lamenting my love of black, okay?”

“I know,” Hannah said. “That’s why he’s going to promise not to do any of that tonight.” Milo whipped his head around to stare at her. “Come again?”

“You two are going to be around each other a lot, so you might as well get some practice learning to live with each other,” Hannah said, passing a stern look between us as though we were a pair of toddlers tugging on opposite ends of the same teddy bear. “Milo, I know you’re dying to travel, so here’s your chance. You can go with Jess to London and have a look around; now that you’re Bound to both of us, you should be able to travel that far away from me as long as she’s with you. But you also need to be nice to her and stay in touch with me so that I know everything is okay.”

Milo all but stuck out his bottom lip in a cartoonish pout. “Can’t you and I just go together?”

“I hope we can eventually, but I don’t know when that will be, and in the meantime, don’t you want to take a stroll through the shopping districts? I bet Savvy would know where to send you.”

“Sloane Street,” Savvy said at once. “It’s like walking down a runway during London’s fashion week.”

Milo’s eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas. Savvy had said the magic words.

“And anyway,” she went on, “we need to use a ghost to get across the wards. This will simplify things.”

“What do we need a ghost for?” I asked.

“You’ll see,” Savvy said.

Hannah jumped in before I could demand a better explanation. “See? It all works out! So Milo, all you need to do is come if Jess calls you, but otherwise you can window shop to your heart’s content. What do you say?”

Milo glanced over at me and tried to reassume a nonchalant air. “Well, I guess I could find something to occupy myself while she’s there.”

“Jess? Any more objections?”

I had plenty, but none that wouldn’t sound petulant. “Fine, I’ll bring him.”

Hannah smiled at last. “Great. Have a nice time, and please try not to get caught.”

“Right.” I grabbed my bag, slung it over my shoulder, and followed Savvy out of the door.

“You don’t look as nervous as I thought you would,” she said, clapping me on the back as we started down the hall. “You’ve got some faith in ol’ Savvy then, eh?”

“I’ve got faith in your wardrobe choices,” I said. “Mini skirt and four inch heels? At least I know we won’t be shinnying down drainpipes or climbing over hedgerows.”

“Says you,” Savvy said. “Have you got your drawing stuff?” I patted my bag. “All in here.”

“Great. Take the main staircase and meet me on the northwest corner of the courtyard in ten minutes. We need to skirt along the edge of the woods if we’re going to get off the grounds without being seen. Milo, you can come with me.”

“Fab,” Milo said.

“See you in a few,” I said, and started for the main entry hall.

We had decided that I would use my sketchbook as a pretext for getting out onto the grounds. The grounds were big enough that, if anyone was looking for me, I could claim to have been out there the whole time, and that they must have missed me. It also gave me an emergency excuse if I was caught sneaking in after curfew. Oops, I dozed off outside while I was sketching this beautiful drawing of whatever. I might still get reprimanded, but probably not punished. As I rounded the last landing to the entrance hall, luck was on my side; Celeste was just coming out of the dining room.

“Hi Celeste,” I called with a wave.

“Hello, Jess,” Celeste said with a smile. “Where are you off to?”

“I thought I’d do a little twilight sketching,” I said, lifting the flap on my bag so that my sketchbook was clearly visible. “There’s a full moon tonight, so the shadow play should be pretty spectacular.”

“Wonderful,” Celeste said. “Karen tells me you draw beautifully. I’d love to see some of them sometime, if you wouldn’t mind showing me, of course.”

“Why would I mind?” I asked, pulling the book out.

“Well, I know how some artists can be about their work,” she said, with half a glance behind her. Fiona was sitting just inside the dining room, hunched over a book and a soup bowl in a posture that promised she would pounce on and claw to shreds the first person to disturb her ruminations.

“We’re not all quite so…well, we’re not all like that,” I said, flipping the book open to a sketch of one of the fountains and handing it to her.

“This is just splendid!” Celeste said. “Karen was quite right to brag.” She lowered her voice and whispered, “How is going with Fiona?”

I grimaced. “She still lets me come to classes, and last week she didn’t throw anything the whole session. That’s about the best thing I can say about it.”

“Don’t take it personally. She’s the castle curmudgeon, and always has been.” Celeste handed the sketchbook back to me. “Have fun then, but don’t lose track of time out there. Curfew starts at 10:30.”

“I’ve got my watch,” I said, raising it up for her to see. “See you later.”

“Don’t forget you also have a paper due Monday!” Celeste called after my retreating back.

“Finished it!” I called back as I slipped out the door. No need to mention that she would probably make me rewrite it.

I walked casually along the gravel path that led to the courtyard, stopping here and there to examine a flower or a statue, just in case anyone was watching me from the windows. I ran my hand along the smooth weathered stone of the castle wall, turned the corner, and picked up my pace in the shadows of the cloister’s ivy-covered roof. By the time I reached the spot where Savvy and Milo stood waiting for me, I was jogging.

“Alright?” she asked.

“Yeah, good,” I said a bit breathlessly. “I saw Celeste and told her I’d be out sketching.”

“Brilliant,” Savvy said. “Right, let’s go then.”

We skirted the shade of the castle into the fringe of trees and put a few yards of foliage between us and the lawns before we turned and started for the far end of the grounds. Savvy covered the ground unnervingly fast in her heels, and I started to wonder if we would indeed be scaling walls or climbing trees. After about fifteen minutes, we reached the furthest corner of the grounds, where the trees thinned to a smattering of bushes and intersected with the road which divided it from the fields and farms beyond.

Savvy checked her watch. “The cab should be here any minute. We should try to cross the ward before it gets here or it’s going to look dodgy.”

“Don’t we just … walk across?” I asked. “It’s not an electric fence or anything.”

“Sure, we could just step through, but they’ll know,” Savvy said, cocking her head back in the direction of the castle, the top towers of which were just visible over the trees. “That’s how I got caught the first two times I snuck out. The wards will let us through, but they also alert the Caomhnóir that we’re crossing. Two of them were waiting for me right here when I got back.”

“Great, so how are we supposed to leave without being detected?”

“With a little help from the dearly departed,” Savvy said, pointing first at Milo, and then into the trees, where another ghost I’d never seen before was emerging from the woods.

“This is Seamus,” she said by way of introduction. The ghost named Seamus gave a sweeping bow in my direction. He was dressed like he’d just dismounted a white steed on the cover of a trashy romance novel. And from the look he was giving Savannah, he’d have dearly loved her to be the wench clasped swooning in his burly arms.

“And what do we need Seamus for, other than undressing us with his eyes?” I asked, edging away from him.

“He can undress me with anything he wants,” Milo said.

“Down boy.”

Savvy said, “I started trying to figure out if there was any other way across. I noticed ghosts crossing back and forth all the time, as though the wards didn’t exist. Spirits can cross the wards whenever they want as long as they aren’t hostile. Then, in class, Siobhán told us about corporeal habitation and it came to me. I started to wonder if we could use them to get ourselves across without being detected. And I found Seamus swaggering around the woods here, so I decided to…experiment.”

Milo and I looked at each other. He looked at least as wary as I felt.

“You mean you let Seamus…possess you?”

“Well, it sounds mental when you put it like that!” Savvy said, throwing her hands up in the air.

“It is mental!” I said. “I’ve had the serious displeasure of corporeal habitation, and I really don’t want to repeat the experience, especially not for something stupid like sneaking out for a beer!” A shiver rocked its way through my body as I remembered, all too vividly, that night in the library bathroom, William flying at me, madness in his eyes —the crippling agony that followed as he forced his way inside my body.

“I’m not just doing it for a beer!” Savvy said. “I’m doing it for my freedom! And anyway, I remember you telling us about that, and this isn’t the same thing. That ghost forced his way in and then tried to pry the Gateway open. That’s why it was so painful —it wasn’t a habitation, it was an assault. I’m talking about inviting a spirit in. It’s a completely different experience.”

I hesitated. “Okay, I’m listening.”

“You just have to give them permission, like,” Savvy said. “Just sort of—make room for them, yeah? It’s a bit of a disorienting feeling, but it don’t hurt or nothing. And once the ghost is in there with you, you can just stroll right across the wards, no problem. The ward senses the ghost first, and doesn’t seem to notice the fact that it’s borrowed a body. Problem solved!”

I could still feel all my doubts etched onto my face, and Savvy could see them, because she gestured to Seamus, who came to stand right beside her.

“Watch, I’ll do it first,” she said, and turned to face Seamus. “You ready, then?”

“Oh, yes, if you wish it,” Seamus said, in a much softer voice than I expected. It was like watching a lumberjack open his mouth and sing soprano. Milo stood transfixed, his eyes darting rapidly between the two of them.

Savvy closed her eyes, and stood very still. Seamus strode forward, his expression hungry, and stepped into Savannah like she was an open doorway. She inhaled sharply, and then opened her eyes.

I clapped a hand over my mouth and spoke in a muffled voice from behind it. “Savvy? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s still me,” she said, with a trace of impatience. “I could let him speak, if I wanted to, but I’ve got the control. I can hear what he’s thinking though, the cheeky bugger,”

She turned, smirking at whatever Seamus was thinking, and walked purposefully across the ward. The only tiny betrayal of its existence was a hint of an undulation in the air, like the dull shimmer of a heat haze. She stood with her back to us, completely still for a moment, and then Seamus appeared beside her, smiling broadly.

Savvy turned and grinned at me. “See? Piece of cake. Feels a bit funny is all. Go on, then, before the cab gets here.” I looked at Milo, who was still eyeing Seamus with unabashed interest. “I’m supposed to let
him
do that?”

“I don’t want to be seen in that outfit, it’s against my religion,” Milo said, crossing his arms. “And I don’t want her to know what I’m thinking.”

“I’m sorry, but when have you ever not said exactly what you’re thinking?” I said, rounding on him. “Huh,” Milo said, cocking his head to one side in consideration. “Good point.”

“Look, you don’t have to use him if you don’t want to. Seamus can do it again,” Savvy said.

I took one look at Seamus, who was waggling his eyebrows at me, and turned back to Milo. “Okay, okay, fine, just make it quick.”

I closed my eyes and braced myself. With a thrusting sensation like the undertow in the ocean at high tide, I felt Milo cross my threshold. My head spun with a dizzying sensation as twice as many thoughts as usual flew across it.”