The Ghost in the Glass House (16 page)

“Watch this,” Jack said, low in her ear.

She shook her head and reached for him, but only caught the corner of his invisible jacket as he brushed past.

Fear coursed through her. She didn't know what powers the spiritist might command. If he discovered Jack, could he hurt or banish him?

The spiritist took a long breath. Around the circle, the crowd drew in their own.

For a long moment, nothing stirred. Then the tip of the spiritist's tie twitched faintly, as if in a private breeze. But the spiritist, locked in his drama of communion with the other world, didn't flinch, or even seem to notice.

Clare's mother's eyebrows shot up in amusement at the trick, mingled with grudging respect.

Then the young man shuddered, as if an unseen hand had settled on his shoulder.

The crowd gave a blunted moan of fright.

Clare's hands closed helplessly at her sides.

The spiritist's head jerked as if someone had yanked it by the ear. His eyes sprang open. The crowd lurched back. For an instant, the spiritist's face blazed with raw challenge, like any cornered man's.

But as he took in all the eyes still fixed on him, he mastered his fear with admirable showmanship. His hands settled back on each knee. He squared his shoulders and let his chest swell under his well-cut vest. “There is a spirit here,” he announced, in a tone that made it clear that any surprise he had felt was only the bemusement of an expert confronted with an unusual specimen.

Clare's mother leaned forward.

“What kind of spirit?” she asked. Clare could tell her mother still thought she was only playing a part in a magic show. But Clare could barely draw a breath as she waited for the spiritist's answer.

He took a moment to gauge the crowd. “A woman,” he said.

Almost instantly a hank of hair stood up on the top of his head, as if someone had given it a healthy tug. The spiritist's face contorted with pain. Both his hands flew up to the spot, first to ward Jack off, then to smooth the hair down. Bridget's mother stared at him with horror and fascination, like a priest confronted by a living god whose actual speech contradicted all his beloved cant.

“What does she want?” Bridget's mother asked.

The young spiritist had not worked his way into the best circles of society by insisting on mystery when his client demanded answers. But he also knew better than to trap himself with specifics. He relied, wisely, on what he had already gleaned of the spirit's behavior. “To touch us in this world,” he said.

“She must be lonely,” Clare's mother said. “Do you think she would take my hand?”

The young spiritist measured Clare's mother, still uncertain if she was a convert or a heckler. “It requires sensitivity, and training,” he began.

“Won't you just let me try?” Clare's mother asked, and held her hand out over the grass. “What should I do?”

The young spiritist checked the crowd again and gave in. “Close your eyes,” he said.

Clare's mother obeyed, her hand still extended.

An unseen arm circled Clare's waist. She felt the brush of Jack's cheek against hers. “Come on,” he said, with a gentle tug back into the darkness that surrounded the glass house.

Across the crowd, Bram gave Clare a questioning frown.

“I don't feel anything,” Clare's mother announced.

“It may be very faint,” the spiritist prompted.

“Come on,” Jack said again, then vanished into the dark.

Around the crowd, eyebrows rose and lips curled. Figures began to shift, restless. The spiritist's reaction to Jack's teasing had been so genuine that it made the rest of his act ring false.

“I felt something just then,” Clare's mother said. “But it might have been the wind. How do you tell the difference?”

Bridget's mother's eyes narrowed.

A few guests drifted toward the buffet where Tilda had arranged her cakes, tiled with candied rose petals and violets. The hum of voices began to rise into the dark leaves.

The spiritist glanced around the thinning crowd, no longer gauging their response, but as if wondering where the next blow might come from.

Clare waited until Bram, still on the other side of the party, turned away from her to hear something Denby said.

Then she walked backwards into the darkness, following the curve of the glass house until she came to the door, where she slipped in.

T
HE CONTENTS OF THE
glass house had been shuffled so thoroughly that when Clare first stepped in she wasn't sure it was the same place. Of all the familiar furnishings, only the piano, buffet, and a few chairs remained, pushed back against the glass walls. The books had been stacked in neat piles on the buffet, the silver vases filled with daisies. Only the carpets, free of furniture, still lay in familiar layers. Even the light was wrong. Instead of filtering down through the leaves, it streamed from a dozen tapers in the chandelier overhead. Its light made the carpets glow like gems, but the whole house seemed to tremble each time the flames guttered in the wind.

Jack laughed in welcome as she stepped in. But without furniture to blunt the sound, his voice bounced from glass to glass so that it was impossible for her to tell where it had come from.

Clare frowned.

The head of one of the daisies from the buffet popped off and began to weave unsteadily toward her through the air.

“Do you think he'd like a flower?” Jack asked, his voice still full of glee from his prank on the spiritist. “The door's open. I could carry it out.”

Clare disarmed him in a single motion.

“I'd rather you had it, anyway,” Jack said. “You're prettier than him.”

Clare cupped the daisy in her hand so the petals wouldn't break, and ignored the compliment.

Undeterred, Jack tried a distraction. “Watch this,” he said.

A moment later, the chandelier lurched, then began to dance. The flames jerked and flattened in the sudden wind. Crystal drops clanged against the chandelier's glass branches. Hot wax rained down on the carpet below.

Clare sprang back.

“Clare,” Bram said from the door. “Are you all right?”

The chandelier gave one final clumsy swoop, then began to rock back to stillness, like a swing after a child abandons it.

Bram came across the carpet and laid a hand on the small of Clare's back. Heat from it bled through the thin fabric of her dress. “What happened?” he said.

“Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?” Jack asked.

Bram started. His gaze swung around the room. When it found nowhere else to settle, it returned to Clare.

Before she could answer, Bridget and Denby pushed into the glass house. Bridget clutched Denby's hand, but both of them stared at Bram.

Instinctively, Clare stepped away from him. When she did, she knocked into Jack. She could feel her shoulder crash into his chest, and the brush of his jacket on her hand. His fingers twined through hers.

She looked down to see if her hand gave anything away. It didn't.

Denby looked up at the black dome around them. “You hardly need to come down to the cave, Clare,” he said. “You've got your own right here.”

Clare bristled. “It's not like a cave,” she said. “During the day.”

“I thought your mother said they hadn't opened it all summer,” Bridget said with a sharp look.

Behind her, Teddy appeared in the door. In his rumpled white suit, lit up by candlelight, he glowed like an apparition. “I bring spirits,” he announced, pulling a silver flask from the striped lining of his jacket with a grand and sloppy flourish. “Spirits and libations.”

He offered the flask to Denby. Denby took it, slugged back a gulp, then lifted his chin against the burn as he handed it back.

Teddy held the flask out to Bram. Bram glanced at Clare, a question still in his eyes. But he walked over to take it.

Bridget reached for the flask as Bram finished. He lifted it high, out of her grasp, and looked at Teddy.

Teddy smirked and shook his head. “Sorry, little sister,” he said. “I'm not so drunk I'm going to serve you your first whiskey.”

“It's not my first!” Bridget insisted, and made another grab.

Bram passed the flask to Teddy over her head. Teddy secured it in his jacket pocket again. “Who gave you whiskey?” he asked. “The librarian at the ladies' club?”

Beside Clare, Jack stifled a laugh. Clare glanced at Bram, but if he had heard anything, he didn't show it.

Bridget retreated to Denby with the air of a mistreated soul appealing to her only protector. She collected his hand, then checked to make sure she still had Bram's attention. “We could play a game,” she suggested. “What about post office?”

“It's just one room,” Teddy pointed out. “There's no place to go.”

“There's the whole forest,” Bridget countered.

Teddy shook his head dismissively. “It's a kid's game,” he said. “And Clare's never even kissed anyone.”

All the eyes in the room fastened on Clare.

Clare's own eyes only widened for a moment, but that was enough.

“Wait,” Bridget demanded. “
Have
you?”

Jack lifted Clare's hand, kissed it, and let it fall. To the rest of them it must have looked like a gesture of helplessness.

Teddy began to laugh.

Bridget stared at Clare, her eyes wide and undefended. Hurt was such a foreign expression on Bridget's face that Clare could barely recognize it. She stared back, struggling to understand what had wounded her friend.

Then Bridget turned the same injured look on Bram, and Clare knew.

Bridget's math would have been perfect if she hadn't forgotten to calculate on the hidden world. It had only been a few weeks since Clare had been forced to admit she'd never kissed anyone. Who else could Clare have kissed since then, besides Bram?

Almost as quickly as the hurt had appeared in Bridget's eyes, it winked out, replaced by cold fury.

“Bridget,” Clare said, and stepped toward her.

“What?” Bridget demanded.

“It isn't what you think,” Clare said.

“What do I think?” Bridget snapped.

“It's a ghost,” Clare began. “The boy—”

Now Bridget's eyes narrowed with disbelief and rage. “Those lies won't work on me,” she said. “I've heard them all my life.”

She glanced around the room and discovered Denby only a step away. She seized his hand so they stood shoulder to shoulder like a pair of Jack's tin soldiers lined up for battle.

“Come on, Denby,” she said. “We'll play our own game.”

She pulled him out of the glass house, into the night.

Teddy let out a burst of ferocious laughter. He caught Clare around the waist and pressed in for a sloppy kiss. She turned her head so his lips met her cheek, not her mouth, but the smell of liquor still filled her throat. “I knew it, princess,” he said, his face so close that her eyes couldn't focus. “I always knew all about you.”

Clare slammed the palms of both her hands against his chest.

Still laughing, he released her. He brushed at the side of his face as if to shoo away some creature that had landed there. Then he executed a graceful bow and turned for the door. As he shambled across the room, he swatted a few more times at some invisible annoyance. Then he disappeared into the night.

Clare turned to Bram, who had stood by this whole time but not raised a hand to help her. She had thought she might find anger or derision in his eyes. Instead, he seemed lost.

“So, you,” he said haltingly. “And . . . Teddy?”

“No,” Clare said. “No, no.”

The surge that had given her the strength to fend off Teddy had left her shaky. Her limbs felt strangely light. She had a strong impulse to catch Bram's arm, lay her head on his chest, and close her eyes. But he was looking at her like a worried child.

“But then,” he asked, “. . . who?”

His hand flew to his ear and his face twisted in sudden pain. A moment later, he flinched again. This time he swatted at his other ear. Then he stumbled forward, as if someone had pushed him from behind.

“Jack!” Clare said, slapping at the air beside Bram. “Stop it!” She found the faint mass of Jack's torso, but when she tried to catch at it, he slipped through her hands.

Bram ducked as if something had just struck him in the face. His eyes sought Clare's, begging an explanation.

“Jack,” she said again, glaring into thin air.

This time Bram jerked as if someone had landed a blow to his ribs. His expression turned dark. He scanned the whole glass house again, still empty except for Clare and himself. Then he headed for the door.

Clare followed. When Bram slipped into the night, she felt Jack catch her hand.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Clare brushed past without an answer.

Outside, the knot around the young spiritist had disbanded. Guests stood now in small groups beneath the maples. Bram cut through the party and up the hill. He didn't stop until he had reached the garden below the kitchen windows, where he turned and saw Clare.

She climbed the last steps to the crest, breathless.

“Clare,” he said. His eyes gleamed like water in the dark. “What was that?”

“I'm sorry,” Clare said.

“Who's Jack?” Bram asked.

“He's just—” Clare began, then hesitated. “Just a boy,” she said. “Who lives in the glass house.” She took one of Bram's hands and pressed both hers to it, palms flat on either side. Compared to Jack's touch, Bram's hand was so solid and warm that it made everything around them seem less real. The big house beside them receded. The voices of the guests faded under the trees.

As gentle as ever, Bram pulled free. “Clare,” he said. “That's not just a boy down there.”

Then he went back to the party, hands in his pockets, leaving her alone in the dark on the hill.