Surrender (12 page)

But there were still so many rooms, so many hiding places. I needed someone who knew the school better than I did. So when Harry caught me searching the janitor's room on my way to Trig and said, “Looking to buy the place?” I considered enlisting him. Except the last thing I wanted was to involve Harry with Neos. If he got hurt, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

I answered, “Not enough closet space,” and hurried off to class.

As I waited for Trig to start, I traced the desk graffiti with one finger, then summoned Edmund, the man in the brown suit who'd taught history at Thatcher fifty years ago. He'd been haunting the place ever since, and might know something useful.

Hi, Edmund!
I chirped.
How's it going? Any, um, news?

He eyed me suspiciously.
What do you want?

Just to chat
, I said innocently.
Did you know there were ghasts living in the old cellar?

I'm dead, young lady, not stupid
.

Oh. Well, the reason I was down there is that I need to find Neos's ashes. They're here someplace
, I filled him in.
Where do you suppose they could be?

No, no, no
. He shook his head.
I'm not involving myself in any of
that.

Edmund, please. Don't be a wimp. I need your help
.

I do not know
, he said in his most officious teacher voice,
what gave you any indication that you could speak to me like that, but I'll have you know—

I'm sorry, Edmund, you're right. How about this: you help me find Neos's ashes and I'll—
I swallowed.
I'll dispel you
.

He'd been asking me to dispel him since we first met, but I'd refused. Dispelling still felt like murder to me, purely reserved for bad ghosts, or very nasty ghasts. Still, I needed his help, and this was his decision.

Give me your word
, he said, knowing I might not follow through without it.

I
hesitated.
I—are you sure?

Positive
. He looked completely resolute.

I took a deep breath. This felt so wrong, but with Natalie and Lukas wrapped up in themselves, I needed someone else. And this is what Edmund wanted.
I promise
.

Then we're agreed
, he said, almost cheerfully.
But you're quite a powerful ghostkeeper, can't you simply sniff them out? They must reek of Neos
.

I shook my head.
I've tried
.

Ah. Well, perhaps he's found some way to hide the spectral traces of himself. Have you checked the dean's office?

The dean's office was in a little building outside Thatcher's gates.
Hadn't even thought of it
, I admitted.

Hmm. And the attic is a good hiding place, if a bit obvious. Perhaps the old herbal room and the closet under the back stairs? You know, this is quite diverting. I always enjoyed a treasure hunt
.

If only we were looking for jewels
, I said, thinking of the evil that must fester in Neos's ashes. How was I ever going to defeat him now that I'd lost the dagger?

Edmund waved his hand in the air.
A small matter. There's still my reward
.

I took a circuitous route to the cafeteria, hoping to find some ghostly trace along the way, but all I found was Sara flirting with the two sophomores who'd taken her to Homecoming.

“Isn't it lunchtime?” she asked me.

“Yeah.”

“Then what're you doing here?”

“Um, looking for—” I didn't want to tell her about the ashes, either. “You. You ready?”

“Can we come?” one of the guys asked.

“No,” Sara told him, then hooked an arm through mine. “Let's go.”

As she propelled me down the hall, I glanced over my shoulder. The two boys followed us with their puppy eyes.

“What brought that on?” I asked.

“They're cute.”

“Is this about Natalie and Lukas?” I asked worriedly. “Because—”

“I've decided to focus on boys who actually like me, for once,” she said, a slight edge in her tone. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Not at all,” I said. “And they
are
kinda cute. Which one do you like?”

She smiled enigmatically. “Both of them.”

We found Harry sitting alone in the cafeteria, poring over a Herman Hesse novel. Natalie and Lukas were M.I.A., and I wasn't sure I really wanted to know what they were poring over.

I plopped down next to Harry. “World Lit?”

“Yeah. Better than
Beowulf
, anyway.”

Sara pulled out her panda-bear-shaped bento box and dug into her sushi. A little pretentious, but who was I to talk, with my hand-packed silver and linen? Harry neglected to bring lunch, so I passed him a hunk of fresh-baked bread.

I wanted to tell them about Max and the ghasts, but worried if I told them too much, they'd want to help, and I couldn't risk involving them.

So instead, we discussed Lukas and Natalie hooking up, and while Sara seemed jealous in theory—“because, let's face it, he is really hot”—she didn't seem that upset. Maybe it was her sophomore boys comforting her, or could be she was still hooked on Coby, or she was able to handle rejection well. In any case, I decided I didn't have to worry about her and pressed Harry for better gossip
than Lukas and Natalie, mostly because I couldn't figure out how their relationship would end well.

“Did you hear that Britta is dating one of her parents' friends?” he asked.

“No!” I said.

He nodded. “It's true, Monkeytoes. They were seen at—hey!”

The slice of apple I'd flicked bounced off his forehead and fell to the ground. “Do
not
call me that,” I said. “There's nothing wrong with my toes.”

“Monkeytoes is a term of endearment!” he protested, then his gaze flitted toward the cafeteria doors.

Natalie and Lukas strode in, glowing with happiness.

“God, she looks beautiful,” I said.

“She looks happy,” Sara said.

“I guess a happy Natalie is a beautiful Natalie,” I said. “Not that she was so hard to look at before.”

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, with an odd look on his face.

Did he actually like Natalie? Great. Something else to worry about. I stuffed an orange slice in my mouth, trying to lose myself in its juicy sweetness.

After school, I waited for Natalie and Lukas at our usual spot at the front gates. I planned on telling them all about Max and the ghasts, but they didn't show. Either they were avoiding me because they knew I'd bug them about finding Neos's ashes, or because I'd reveal my true feelings about two ghostkeepers being involved. Or maybe they
didn't want a third wheel—which somehow made me feel worse.

I headed home alone, cursing the icy sidewalks and barren trees. As if I didn't have enough to make me feel crappy, the landscape was positively apocalyptic.

On the other hand, walking into a warm house that smelled of cookies baking wasn't so bad. I rushed into the kitchen and almost ran over a guy carrying a plate of cookies toward the table.

“Max!”

“In the flesh.” He popped one of Anatole's cookies into his mouth and sat in the breakfast nook.

Has my brother been bothering you?
I asked Anatole and Celeste, who was busy polishing a silver tea set.

Anatole made a disgruntled noise and his mustache bristled. Celeste said simply,
Ah! Thatz who 'e iz. I cannot zay I zee the rezemblence
.

I turned to Max. “What have you been doing to them?”

“So you
can
communicate with them. Mom told me, but …” He shrugged as if he couldn't believe it. Probably because he'd always been better than me at everything. And yeah, I resented him a little bit for it.

Max and I did not have one of those perfect sibling relationships. I don't know what it was, but he somehow brought out the worst in me. And the only time he was ever really nice to me was when he was seeing my former best friend, Abby.

Which reminded me. “Why did you dump Abby? You broke her heart.”

“I was afraid I'd lose my powers,” he protested.

“You idiot—she was weaker, she would've lost
her
powers, not you.”

Which she'd done anyway; Bennett absorbed her power after he started taking Asarum. Then I wondered: what was he doing now for power? Hitting up other unsuspecting ghostkeepers? A new worry. They never ended.

“Like you can talk,” Max said. “Mom says you're with
Bennett
? I told him to stay away from you.”

“Is
that
what you fought about all those years ago?”

“I was protecting you, Emma. Bennett was going to mess you up. You didn't know who you were—you were just a kid. God, you still are. Even if you do kill ghasts.”

“Did it occur to you that I might've wanted to know what was going on?” I could feel myself getting angry all over again.

“Mom and Dad said I couldn't tell you. At least I kept Bennett from sucking all your power before you even knew you had any.”

“Yeah, well, Mom and Dad are full of crap.”

Max started to snap at me, then shook his head. “Damn. I forgot what it was like, having a sister to argue with. I missed you, Em.”

And just like that, the steam went out of me. “Me, too. Where've you been all this time? Are you back for good?”

“Until we find Neos's ashes. I'm back enrolled at Harvard. And the Sterns swung me an internship, cataloging the Thatcher archives. That's what I was supposedly doing
there this morning. Now have another cookie and tell me everything.”

The only “everything” I cared about was the dagger. I explained that it had belonged to the original Emma and I used it to dispel wraiths. “How am I going to kill Neos without it?”

“Can't you use your power normally?”

“Sure, but Neos isn't like other ghosts, Max. I'm not sure if I can beat him
with
the dagger. Without it … I don't know.”

“We'll figure something out.” Max shook his head. “It's embarrassing.”

“It was an accident!”

“No,” Max replied. “I mean how little I know about you. My baby sister's a living legend, and my best story is about the time she got her butt wedged in a tire-swing,” he teased.

“Have I mentioned you're a jerk?”

I spent the rest of the week sneaking into offices and rummaging through the hidden hallways from when Thatcher had been Emma's mansion—and, of course, attending the occasional class. Edmund entered wholeheartedly into the spirit of the scavenger hunt, and I hooked him up with Max, so they wouldn't duplicate their efforts. They couldn't communicate, so they did a lot of frustrated miming, which I have to admit I enjoyed watching. Hopefully they'd stumble onto something soon, because I was having no luck myself.

On Thursday morning before school, I knocked on the door of the dean's office inside her little gate house building.

“Emma,” she said, after opening the door. “Something I can help you with?”

“It's a little embarrassing,” I said.

She gestured me into her office. “Come in, have a seat.”

I looked at the stack of folders teetering on the chair opposite her desk.

“Ah,” she said, making a face. “I'm putting the calendar together. There's Martin Luther King day, teacher workshops, Parents' Night—” She paused, eyeing me. “You didn't know about Parents' Night? Are your folks still away?”

“No.” Well, technically they were still
away
, just not missing anymore. But even if they were here, I didn't know if they'd want to go to Parents' Night. I shrugged. “Doesn't matter.”

After another moment of scrutiny, she grabbed the folders from the chair and told me to sit. “Now, then. What can I help you with?”