Darkest Hour

In fact, it was dawn before I finally managed to let myself back into the house - thank God Sleepy had left the front door unlocked when he'd come in from his big date. Still, I had to climb all those stairs. It was pretty slow going. At least when I got to my room and was finally able to peel off all of my sodden, muddy clothes, I didn't have to worry, for once, about Jesse seeing me in my altogether.

Because of course Jesse was gone.

I tried not to think about that as I crawled into bed and shut my eyes. This strategy - the not-thinking-about-Jesse-being-gone strategy - seemed to work pretty well. I was asleep, I think, before that thought had really had a chance to sink in again.

I didn't wake up until well past eight. Apparently Sleepy had tried to get me up for work, but I was too far gone. They let me sleep in, I guess, because they all assumed I was still upset about what had happened the day before, about the skeleton they'd found in the backyard.

I only wish that was all I had to be upset about.

When the phone rang a little after nine and Andy called up the stairs that it was for me, I was already up, standing in my bathroom in my sweats, examining the enormous bruise that had developed beneath my bangs. I looked like an alien. I'm not kidding. It was a wonder, really, I hadn't broken my neck. I was convinced that Maria and her boyfriend thought that's exactly what I'd done. It was the only reason I was still alive. The two of them were so cocky, they hadn't stuck around to make sure I was well and truly dead.

They'd obviously never met a mediator before. It takes a lot more than a fall off a roof to kill one of us.

"Susannah." Father Dominic's voice, when I picked up the phone, was filled with concern. "Thank God you're all right. I was so worried . . . But you didn't, did you? Go to the cemetery last night?"

"No," I said. There hadn't been any reason to go there, in the end. The cemetery had come to me.

But I didn't say that to Father D. Instead, I asked, "Are you back in town?"

"I'm back. You didn't tell them, did you? Your family, I mean."

"Um," I said, uncertainly.

"Susannah, you must. You really must. They have a right to know. We're dealing with a very serious haunting here. You could be killed, Susannah - "

I refrained from mentioning that I'd actually already come pretty close.

At that moment, the call waiting went off. I said, "Father D, can you hold on a second?" and hit the receiver.

A high-pitched, vaguely familiar voice spoke in my ear, but for the life of me, I could not place it right away.

"Suze? Is that you? Are you all right? Are you sick or something?"

"Um," I said, extremely puzzled. "Yeah. I guess. Sort of. Who is this?"

The voice said, very indignantly, "It's me! Jack!"

Oh, God. Jack. Work. Right.

"Jack," I said. "How did you get my home number?"

"You gave it to Paul," Jack said. "Yesterday. Don't you remember?"

I did not, of course. All I could really remember from yesterday was that Clive Clemmings was dead, Jesse's portrait was missing ...

And that Jesse, of course, was gone. Forever.

Oh, and the whole part where the ghost of Felix Diego tried to split my head open.

"Oh," I said. "Yeah. Okay. Look, Jack, I have someone on the other - "

"Suze," Jack interrupted. "You were supposed to teach me to do underwater somersaults today."

"I know," I said. "I'm really sorry. I just ... I just really couldn't face coming in to work today, bud. I'm sorry. It's nothing against you or anything. I just really need a day off."

"You sound so sad," Jack said, sounding pretty sad himself. "I thought you'd be really happy."

"You did?" I wondered if Father D was still waiting on the other line or if he'd hung up in a huff. I was, I realized, treating him pretty badly. After all, he'd cut his little retreat short for me. "How come?"

"On account of how I - "

That's when I saw it. Just the faintest glow, over by the daybed. Jesse? Again my heart gave one of those lurches. It was really getting pathetic, how much I kept hoping, every time I saw the slightest shimmer, that it would be Jesse.

It wasn't.

It wasn't Maria or Diego either - thank God. Surely not even they would be bold enough to try to take a whack at me in broad daylight....

"Jack," I said, into the phone. "I have to go."

"Wait, Suze, I - "

But I'd hung up. That's because sitting there on my daybed, looking deeply unhappy, was Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D.

Just my luck: Wish for a Jesse. Get a Clive.

"Oh," he said, blinking behind the lenses of his Coke-bottle-bottom glasses. He seemed almost as surprised to see me as I was to see him materialize there in my bedroom. "It's you."

I just shook my head. Sometimes my bedroom feels like Grand Central Station.

"Well, I simply didn't - " Clive Clemmings fiddled with his bow tie. "I mean, when they said I should contact a mediator, I didn't ... I mean, I never expected - "

" - that the mediator would be me," I finished for him. "Yeah. I get that a lot."

"It's only," Clive said, apologetically, "that you're so ... "

I just glared at him. I really wasn't in the mood. Can you blame me? What with the concussion, and all? "That I'm so what?" I demanded. "Female? Is that it? Or are you going to try to convince me you're shocked by my preternatural intelligence?"

"Er," Clive Clemmings said. "Young. I meant that ... it's just that you're so young."

I sank down onto the window seat. Really, what had I ever done to deserve this? I mean, nobody wants to be visited by the specter of a guy like Clive. I'm almost positive nobody ever wanted him to visit when he was alive. So why me?

Oh, yeah. The mediator thing.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Clive?" I probably should have called him Dr. Clemmings, but I had too much of a headache to be respectful of my elders.

"Well, I hardly know," Clive said. "I mean, suddenly, Mrs. Lampbert - that's my receptionist, don't you know? - she isn't answering when I call her, and when people telephone for me, well, she tells them . . . the most horrible thing, actually. I simply don't know what's come over her." dive cleared his throat. "You see, she's saying that I'm - "

"Dead," I finished for him.

Clive eyes grew perceptibly bigger behind his glasses.

"Why," he said, "that's extraordinary. How could you know that? Well, yes, of course, you are the mediator, after all. They said you'd understand. But really, Miss Ackerman, I've had the most trying few days. I don't feel at all like myself, and I - "

"That," I interrupted him, "is because you're dead."

Ordinarily, I might have been a little nicer about it, but I guess I still felt a little kernel of resentment toward old Clive for his cavalier dismissal of my suggestion that Jesse might have been murdered.

"But that's not possible," Clive said. He tugged on his bow tie. "I mean, look at me. I am clearly here. You are speaking to me - "

"Yeah," I said. "Because I'm a mediator, Clive. That's my job. To help people like you move on after they've . . . you know." Since he clearly did not know, I elaborated: "Croaked."

Clive blinked rapidly several times in succession. "I ... I ... Oh, dear."

"Yeah," I said. "See? Now let's see if we can figure out why you're here and not in happy historian heaven. What's the last thing you remember?"

Clive dropped his hand from his chin. "Pardon?"

"What's the last thing you remember," I repeated, "from before you found yourself . . . well, invisible to Mrs. Lampbert?"

"Oh." Clive reached up to scratch his bald head. "Well, I was sitting at my desk, and I was looking at those letters you brought me. Quite kind of your stepfather to think of us. People so often overlook their community's historical society, when you know, really, without us, the fabric of the local lore would be permanently - "

"Clive," I said. I knew I sounded cranky, but I couldn't help it. "Look, I haven't even had breakfast yet. Can you get a move on, please?"

"Oh." He blinked some more. "Yes. Of course. Well, as I was saying, I was examining the letters you brought me. Ever since you left my office the other day, I've been thinking about what you said ... about Hector de Silva, I mean. It does seem a bit unlikely that a fellow who wrote so lovingly of his family would simply walk out on them without a word. And the fact that you found Maria's letters buried in the yard of what was once a well-known boarding-house . . . Well, I must say, upon further consideration, the whole thing struck me as extremely odd. I'd picked up my dictaphone and was just making a few notes for Mrs. Lampbert to type up later when I suddenly felt . . . well, a chill. As if someone had turned the air-conditioning up very high. Although I can assure you Mrs. Lampbert knows better than that. Some of our artifacts must be kept in highly controlled atmospheric climates, and she would never - "

"It wasn't the air-conditioning," I said flatly.

He stared at me, clearly startled. "No. No, it wasn't. Because a moment later, I caught the faintest whiff of orange blossoms. And you know Maria Diego was quite well-known for wearing orange blossom-scented toilet water. It was so odd. Because a second later, I could swear that for a moment ... " The look in his eyes, behind the thick lenses of those glasses, grew faraway. "Well, for a moment, I could have sworn I saw her. Just out of the corner of my eye. Maria de Silva Diego ... "

The faraway look left his eyes. When his gaze next fastened onto mine, it was laser sharp.

"And then I felt," he told me, in a tightly controlled voice, "a shooting pain, all up and down my arm. I knew what it was, of course. Congenital heart disease runs in my family. It killed my grandfather, you know, shortly after his book was first published. But I, unlike him, have been extremely diligent with my diet and exercise regimen. It could only have been the shock, you know, of seeing - thinking I was seeing anyway - something that wasn't - that couldn't possibly - "

He broke off, then continued, "Well, I reached for the telephone to call 911 at once, but it ... well, the telephone sort of ... leaped off my desk."

I just looked at him. I had to admit, by this time I was feeling sorry for him. I mean, he had been murdered, just like Jesse. And by the same hand, too. Well, more or less.

"I couldn't reach it," Clive said sadly. "The telephone, I mean. And that . . . that's the last thing I remember."

I licked my lips. "Clive," I said. "What were you saying? Into the dictaphone. Right before you saw her. Maria de Silva, I mean."

"What was I saying? Oh, of course. I was saying that though it would bear further investigation, it did seem to me as if what you suggested, and what my grandfather always believed, might possibly have merit...."

I shook my head. I couldn't believe it.

"She killed you," I murmured.

"Oh." Clive was no longer blinking or tugging on his bow tie. He just sat there, looking like a scarecrow somebody had pulled the pole out from under. "Yes. I suppose you could say that. But only in a manner of speaking. I mean, it was the shock, after all. But it's not as if she - "

"To keep you from telling anyone what I said." In spite of my headache, I was getting mad all over again. "And she probably killed your grandfather, too, the same way."

Clive did blink then, questioningly. "My . . . my grandfather? You think so? Well, I must say ... I mean, his death was rather sudden, but there was no sign of - " His expression changed. "Oh. Oh, I see. You think my grandfather was killed by the ghost of Maria de Silva Diego to keep him from writing further about his theory concerning her cousin's disappearance?"

"That's one way of putting it," I said. "She didn't want him going around telling the truth about what happened to Jesse."

"Jesse?" Clive echoed. "Who is Jesse?"

We were both nearly startled out of our wits by a sudden knock on my door.

"Suze?" my stepfather called. "Can I come in?"

Clive, in a flurry of agitation, dematerialized. I said come in, and the door opened, and Andy stood there, looking awkward. He never comes into my room, except occasionally to fix things.

"Uh, Suze?" he said. "Yeah, urn, you have a visitor. Father Dominic is - "

Andy didn't finish because Father Dominic appeared just behind him.

I can't really explain why I did what I did then. There is no other explanation for it other than the simple fact that, well, in the six months I'd known him, I'd come to really feel something for the old guy.

In any case, at the sight of him, I jumped up from the window seat, completely involuntarily, and hurled myself at him. Father Dominic looked more than a little surprised at this unbridled display of emotion, as I am normally somewhat reserved.

"Oh, Father D," I said, into Father Dominic's shirtfront. "I'm so glad to see you."

I was, too. Finally - finally - some normalcy was returning to my world, which seemed to have gone into a complete tailspin in the past twenty-four hours. Father Dominic was back. Father Dominic would take care of everything. He always did. Just standing there with my arms around him and my head against his chest, smelling his priestly smell, which was of Woolite and, more faintly, the cigarette he'd snuck in the car on his way over, I felt like everything was going to be all right.

"Oh," Father Dominic said. I could feel his voice reverberating inside his chest, along with the small noises his stomach was making as it digested whatever it was he'd scarfed down for breakfast. "Dear."

Father Dom patted me awkwardly on the shoulder.

Behind us, I heard Dopey say, "What's with her?"

Andy told him to be quiet.

"Aw, come on," Dopey said. "She can't still be upset over that stupid skeleton we found. I mean, that kind of thing shouldn't bother the Queen of the Night Peo - "

Dopey broke off with a cry of pain. I glanced around Father D's shoulder and saw Andy pulling his second-oldest son down the hallway by the rim of his ear.

"Cut it out, Dad," Dopey was bellowing. "Ow! Dad, cut it out!"

A door slammed. Down the hall in Dopey's room, Andy was reading him the riot act.

I let go of Father D.

"You've been smoking," I said.

"Just a little," he admitted. Seeing my expression, he shrugged helplessly. "Well, it was a long drive. And I was certain that by the time I got here, I'd find you all murdered in your beds. You really have the most alarming way, Susannah, of getting yourself into scrapes...."

"I know." I sighed, and went to sit on the window seat, circling one knee with my arms. I was in sweats, and I hadn't bothered putting on makeup or even washing my hair. What was the point?

Father D didn't seem to notice my heinous appearance. He went on, as if we were back in his office, discussing student government fund-raising, or something completely innocuous like that, "I've brought some holy water. It's in my car. I'll tell your stepfather that you asked me to bless the house, on account of yesterday's, er, discovery. He might wonder at your suddenly embracing the Church, but you'll just have to start insisting upon saying grace at supper time - or perhaps even attending Mass from time to time - to convince him of your sincerity. I've been doing a bit of reading on those two - Maria de Silva and this Diego person - and they were quite devout. Murderers, it appears, but also churchgoers. They will, I think, be quite reluctant to enter a home that has been sanctified by a priest." Father Dominic looked down at me with concern. "It's what could happen when you set foot anywhere outside this house that's worrying me. The minute you - Good heavens, Susannah." Father Dominic broke off and peered down at me curiously. "What on earth happened to your forehead?"

I reached up and touched the bruise beneath my bangs.

"Oh," I said, wincing a little. The wound was still tender. "Nothing. Look, Father D - "

"That isn't nothing." Father Dominic took a step forward, then inhaled sharply. "Susannah! Where in heaven's name did you get that nasty bruise?"

"It's nothing," I said, scraping my bangs down over my eyes. "It's just a little token of Felix Diego's esteem."

"That mark is hardly nothing," Father Dominic declared. "Susannah, has it occurred to you that you might have a concussion? We should have that x-rayed immediately - "

"Father Dominic - "

"No arguments, Susannah," Father D said. "Put some shoes on. I'm going to go have a word with your stepfather, and then we're going down to the Carmel Hosp - "

The phone jangled noisily. I told you. Grand Central Station. I picked it up, mostly to give myself time to think of an excuse why I didn't need to go to the hospital. A trip to the emergency room was going to require a story about how I'd come to obtain this latest injury, and frankly, I was running out of good lies.

"Hello?" I said into the receiver while Father D scowled down at me.

"Suze?" That all-too-familiar high-pitched little voice. "It's me again. Jack."

"Jack," I said, tiredly. "Look, I told you before. I'm really not feeling well - "

"That's just it," Jack said. "I got to thinking that maybe you hadn't heard. And then I thought I'd call and tell you. Because I know you'll feel better when I tell you."

"Tell me what, Jack?"

"About how I mediated that ghost for you," Jack said.

God, my head was pounding. I was so not in the mood for this. "Oh, yeah? What ghost was that, Jack?"

"You know," Jack said. "That guy who was bugging you. That Hector guy."

I nearly dropped the phone. I did drop it, actually, but I flung out my hands and caught the receiver before it hit the floor. Then I held it back up to my ear with both hands so I would be sure not to drop it again - and make certain I was hearing him right. I did all this with Father Dominic watching me.

"Jack," I said, feeling like all the wind had been knocked out of me. "What are you talking about?"

"That guy," Jack said. His childish lisp had gone indignant. "You know, the one who wouldn't leave you alone. That lady Maria told me - "

"Maria?" I had forgotten all about my headache, all about Father Dom. I practically yelled into the phone, "Jack, what are you talking about? Maria who?"

"That old-fashioned lady ghost," Jack said, sounding taken aback. And why not? I was shouting like a lunatic. "The nice one whose picture was in that bald guy's office. She told me that this Hector guy - the one from the other picture, the little picture - was bugging you, and that if I wanted to give you a nice surprise, I should exer - I should exor - I should - "

"Exorcise him?" My knuckles had gone white around the receiver. "Exorcise him, Jack? Is that what you did?"

"Yeah," Jack said, sounding pleased with himself. "Yeah, that's what it was. I exorcised him."

CHAPTER 11

I sank down onto the window seat.

"What - " My lips felt numb. I don't know if it was a complication of my concussion or what, but all of a sudden I couldn't feel my lips. "What did you say, Jack?"

"I exorcised him for you." Jack sounded immensely pleased with himself. "All by myself, too. Well, that lady helped a little. Did it work? Is he gone?"

Across my room, Father Dominic was looking at me questioningly. Small wonder. My conversation, from his end, had to sound completely bizarre. I hadn't, after all, had a chance to tell him about Jack.

"Suze?" Jack said. "Are you still there?"

"When?" I murmured through my numb lips.

Jack went, "What?"

"When, Jack," I said. "When did you do this?"

"Oh. Last night. While you were out with my brother. See, that Maria lady, she came over, and she brought that picture, and some candles, and then she told me what to say, and so I said it, and it was really cool, because this red smoke started coming out of the candles, and then it swirled and swirled, and then over our heads this big hole opened up in the air, and I looked up inside it, and it was really dark, and then I said some more words, and then that guy appeared, and he got sucked up right inside."

I didn't say anything. What could I say? The kid had just described an exorcism - at least, all the ones I'd ever experienced. He wasn't making it up. He had exorcised Jesse. He had exorcised Jesse. Jesse had been exorcised.

"Suze," Jack said. "Suze, are you still there?"

"I'm still here," I said. I guess I must have looked pretty awful, since Father Dom came and sat down on the window seat next to me, looking all worried.

And why not? I was in shock.

And this was a different kind of shock than I'd ever felt before. This wasn't like being thrown off a roof or having a knife held to my throat. This was worse.

Because I couldn't believe it. I simply couldn't believe it. Jesse had kept his promise. He hadn't disappeared because his remains had, at long last, been found, proving he'd been murdered. He'd disappeared because Maria de Silva had had him exorcised....

"You're not mad at me, are you?" Jack asked worriedly. "I mean, I did the right thing, right? That Maria lady said Hector was really mean to you, and you would be really thankful - " There was a noise in the background, and then Jack said, "That's Caitlin. She wants to know when you're coming back. She wants to know if you can maybe come in this afternoon, because she has to - "

But I never did learn what Caitlin had to do. That's because I had hung up. I just couldn't listen to that sweet little voice telling me these horrible, awful things for one second more.

The thing was, it wouldn't sink in. It just wouldn't. I understood intellectually what Jack had just said, but emotionally, it wasn't registering.

Jesse had not moved on from this plane to the next - not of his own free will. He had been ripped from his existence here the same way he'd been ripped from life, and, ultimately, by the very same hands.

And why?

For the same reason he'd been killed: to keep him from embarrassing Maria de Silva.

"Susannah." Father Dominic's voice was gentle. "Who is Jack?"

I glanced up, startled. I had practically forgotten Father D was in the room. But he wasn't just in the room. He was sitting right beside me, his blue eyes filled with bewildered concern.

"Susannah," he said. Father Dom never calls me Suze, like everyone else does. I asked him why once, and he told me it was because he thought Suze sounded vulgar. Vulgar! That really cracked me up at the time. He's so funny, so old-fashioned.

Jesse never called me Suze, either.

"Jack's a mediator," I said. "He's eight years old. I've been baby-sitting for him up at the resort."

Father Dominic looked surprised. "A mediator? Really? How extraordinary." Then his look of surprise turned back to one of concern. "You ought to have called me straight away, Susannah, the moment you realized it. There aren't many mediators in the world. I would like very much to speak to him. Show him the ropes, as it were. You know, there's such a lot to learn for a young mediator. It mightn't be wise for you to undertake educating one, Susannah, given your own comparative youth...."

"Yeah," I said, with a bitter laugh. To my bemusement, the sound caught in my throat on a sort of sob. "You can say that again."

I couldn't believe it. I was crying again.

What was this, anyway? I mean, this crying thing? I go for months dry as a bone, and then all of a sudden, I'm weeping at the drop of a hat.

"Susannah." Father Dominic reached out and grabbed my arm. He gave me a little shake. I could tell by his expression he was really astonished. Like I said, I never cry. "Susannah, what is it? Are you crying, Susannah?"

I could only nod.

"But why, Susannah?" Father Dom asked urgently. "Why? Jesse? It's a hard thing, and I know you'll miss him, but - "

"You don't understand," I blurted. I was having trouble seeing. Everything had gotten very fuzzy. I couldn't see my bed or even the patterns on the pillows on the window seat, and they were much closer. I raised my hands to my face, thinking maybe Father Dom had been right, and that I should get that X-ray after all. Something was evidently wrong with my vision.

But when my fingers encountered wetness on my cheeks, I was forced to admit the truth. There wasn't anything wrong with my vision. My eyes were simply overflowing with tears.

"Oh, Father," I said, and for the second time in half an hour, I threw my arms around a priest's neck. My forehead collided with his glasses, and they went all crooked. To say that Father Dominic was startled by this gesture would be an understatement of the grossest kind.

But judging by the way he froze up when I uttered them, he was even more surprised by the words that came out of my mouth.

"He exorcised Jesse, Father D. Maria de Silva tricked him into doing it. She told Jack that Jesse had been b-bothering me, and that he'd b-be doing me a favor, getting rid of him. Oh, Father Dominic - " My voice rose to a wail. "What am I going to do?"

Poor Father Dominic. I highly doubt he has hysterically weeping women throwing their arms around him all that often. You can totally tell. He didn't know how to react at all. I mean, he patted me on the shoulder and said, "Shhh, everything will be all right," and stuff, but you could tell he was really uncomfortable. I guess he was afraid Andy was going to walk by and think I was crying because of something Father Dominic had said.

Which was ridiculous, of course. As if anything anybody said could make me cry.

After a few minutes of Father Dom saying, "Shhh, everything will be all right," and being all stiff, I couldn't help laughing.

Seriously. I mean, it was funny. In a sad, pathetic kind of way.

"Father Dominic," I said, pulling away and looking up at him through my streaming eyes. "Are you joking? Everything is not going to be all right. Okay? Nothing is ever going to be all right ever again."

Father Dominic might not have been a very good hugger, but he was all there in the hanky department. He fished his out and started dabbing my face with it. I'd seen him do this before with the little kids at school, the kindergartners who were crying over dropped ice cream cones or whatever. He really had the whole dabbing thing down.

"Now, Susannah," he said as he dabbed. "That isn't true. You know that isn't true."

"Father," I said. "I know it is true. Jesse is gone, and it is totally my fault."

"How is it your fault?" Father Dominic looked down at me disapprovingly. "Susannah, it isn't your fault at all."

"Yes, it is. You said so yourself. I should have called you the minute I realized the truth about Jack. But I didn't. I thought I could handle him myself. I thought it was no big deal. And now look what happened. Jesse's gone. Forever."

"It is a tragedy," Father Dominic said. "I cannot think of a greater injustice. Jesse was a very good friend to you ... to both of us. But the fact is, Susannah" - He'd managed to clean up almost all my tears, and now he put his handkerchief away - "he spent a good many years wandering in a sort of half-life. Now his struggles are over, and he can perhaps begin to enjoy his just rewards."

I narrowed my eyes at him. What was he talking about?

He must have read the skepticism in my face, since he said, "Well, think about it, Susannah. For one hundred and fifty years, Jesse was trapped in a sort of netherworld between his past life and his next. Though you can lament the manner in which it happened, he has, at last, made the leap to his final destination - "

I jerked away from Father D. In fact, I jerked away from the window seat. I stood up, strode away a few paces, and then whirled around, astounded by what I'd just heard.

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "Jesse was here for a reason. I don't know what it was, and I'm not sure he did, either. But whatever it was, he was supposed to stay here, in this 'netherworld,' until he'd worked it out. Now he'll never be able to. Now he'll never know why he was here for all that time."

"I understand that, Susannah," Father Dominic said in a voice I found infuriatingly calm. "And as I said before, it is unfortunate - a tragedy. But regardless, Jesse has moved on, and we should at least be glad he's found eternal peace - "

"Oh my God!" I was shouting again, but I didn't care. I was enraged. "Eternal peace? How do you know that's what he's found? You can't know that."

"No," Father Dominic said. I could tell he was choosing his words with care now. Like I was a bomb that might go off if he used the wrong one.

"You're right," Father D said quietly. "I can't know that. But that is the difference between you and me, Susannah. You see, I have faith."

I was across the room in three quick strides. I don't know what I was going to do. I certainly wasn't going to hit him. I mean, the trigger to my anger mechanism might be oversensitive, but I'm not about to go around punching priests. Well, at least not Father Dom. He is my homeboy, as we used to say back in Brooklyn.

Still, I think I was going to shake him. I was going to put my hands on his shoulders and attempt to shake some sense in him, since reasoning did not appear to be working. I mean, seriously, faith. Faith! As if faith ever worked better than a good ass-kicking.

But before I could lay a hand on him, I heard someone behind me clear his throat. I looked around, and there was Andy, in his toolbelt and jeans and a T-shirt that said Welcome to Duck Bill Flats, standing in my open doorway and looking concerned.

"Suze," he said. "Father Dominic. Is everything all right in here? I thought I heard some shouting."

Father Dominic stood up.

"Yes," he said, looking grave. "Well, Susannah is - and very rightly, too - concerned about the, er, unfortunate discovery in your backyard yesterday. She has asked me, Andrew, to perform a house blessing, and I of course said I would. I've left my Bible in the car, however ... "

Andy perked right up. "You want me to go get it for you, Father?" he asked.

"Oh, that would be wonderful, Andrew," Father D said. "Just wonderful. It should be on the front seat. If you could bring that to me, I'll get to work straight away."

"No problem, Father," Andy said, and he went away, looking all happy. Which is easy to be if you, like Andy, haven't the slightest clue what's going on in your own house. I mean, Andy doesn't believe. He doesn't know there's a plane of existence other than this one. He doesn't know people from that other plane are trying to kill me.

Or that I was once in love with the guy whose bones he dug up yesterday.

"Father D," I said, the minute I heard Andy's feet hit the stairs.

"Susannah," he said tiredly. He was trying to head me off at the pass, I could tell. "I understand how difficult this is for you. Jesse was very special. I know he meant a great deal to you - "

I couldn't believe this. "Father D - "

" - but the fact is, Susannah, Jesse is in a better place now." Father Dominic, as he spoke, walked across my room, stooped down by the door, and pulled out a black bag he'd apparently set down in the hallway. He lifted the bag, set it down again on my unmade bed, and opened it. Then he started taking things out of it.

"You and I," he went on, "are just going to have to have faith in that thought, and move on."

I put my hands on my hips. I don't know if it was the concussion or the fact that my boyfriend had been exorcised, but my bitch quotient was set on high, I think.

"I have faith, Father Dom," I informed him. "I have plenty of faith. I have faith in myself, and I have faith in you. That's how I know that we can fix this."

Father Dominic's baby blues widened behind the lenses of his bifocals as he lifted a purple ribbony thing to his lips, kissed it, then slipped it around his neck. "Fix this? Fix what? Whatever do you mean, Susannah?"

"You know what I mean," I said, because he did.

"I - " Father Dominic took a metal thing that looked like an ice cream scooper out of his bag, along with a jar of what I could only suppose was holy water. "I realize, of course," he said, "that Maria de Silva Diego will have to be dealt with. That is troubling, but I think you and I are both perfectly well equipped to handle the situation. And the boy, Jack, will have to be seen to and adequately indoctrinated in the appropriate methods of mediation, of which exorcism, as you know, should only be used as a last resort. But - "

"That's not it," I said.

Father Dominic looked up from his house blessing preparation. "It isn't?" he echoed questioningly.

"No," I repeated. "And don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about."

He blinked a few times, reminding me of Clive Clemmings.

"I can't say that I do know, Susannah," he said. "What are you talking about?"

"Getting him back," I said.

"Getting who back, Susannah?" Father Dom's all-night driving marathon was starting to show. He looked tired. He was a handsome guy, for someone in his sixties. I was pretty sure half the nuns and most of the female portion of the Mission's congregation were in love with him. Not that Father D would ever notice. The knowledge that he was a middle-aged hottie would only embarrass Father D.

"You know who," I said.

"Jesse? Getting Jesse back?" Father Dominic stood there, the stole around his neck and the dipper thing in one hand. He looked bewildered. "Susannah, you know as well as I do that once spirits find their way out of this world, we lose all contact with them. They're gone. They've moved on."

"I know. I didn't say it was going to be easy. In fact, I can think of only one way to do it, and even then, well, it'll be risky. But with your help, Father D, it just might work."

"My help?" Father Dominic looked confused. "My help with what?"

"Father D," I said. "I want you to exorcise me."

CHAPTER 12

"For the last time, Susannah," Father Dominic said. This time he pounded on the steering wheel for emphasis as he said it. "What you are asking is impossible."

I rolled my eyes. "Hello? What happened to faith? I thought if you had faith, anything was possible."

Father D didn't like having his own words tossed back at him. I could tell by the way he was grimacing at the reflection of the cars behind us in his rearview mirror.

"Then let me say that what you are suggesting has a very unlikely chance of succeeding." Driving in Carmel-by-the-Sea is no joke, since the houses have no numbers, and the tourists can't, for the life of them, figure out where they're going. And the traffic is, of course, ninety-eight percent tourists. Father D was frustrated enough by our efforts to get where we were going. My announcement back in my bedroom that I wanted him to exorcise me wasn't helping his mood much, either.

"Not to mention the fact that it is unethical, immoral, and probably quite dangerous," he concluded, as he waved at a minivan to go ahead and go around us.

"Right," I said. "But it's not impossible."

"You seem to be forgetting something," Father D said. "You are not a ghost, nor are you possessed by one."

"I know. But I have a spirit, right? I mean, a soul. So why can't you exorcise it? Then I can go, you know, have a look around, see if I can find him, and if I do, bring him back." I added as an afterthought, "If he wants to come, of course."

"Susannah." Father Dom was really fed up with me, you could totally tell. It had been all right, back at the house, when I'd been crying and everything. But then I'd gotten this terrific idea.

Only Father Dominic didn't think the idea was so terrific, see. I personally found it brilliant. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. I guess my brain had gotten a little squashed, what with the concussion.

But there was no reason why my plan shouldn't work. No reason at all.

Except that Father Dominic would have no part of it.

"No," he said. Which was what he'd been saying ever since I first mentioned it. "What you are suggesting, Susannah, has never been done before. There isn't the slightest guarantee it will work. Or that, if it does, you will be able to return to your body."

"That," I said calmly, "is where the rope comes in."

"No!" Father Dominic shouted.

He had to slam on the brakes at that very moment because a tour bus came barreling along from out of nowhere, and, there being no traffic lights in downtown Carmel, there were often differences of opinion over whose turn it was at four-way stops. I heard the holy water, still in its jar in his black bag on the backseat, slosh around.

You wouldn't have thought there'd be any left, what with the dousing Father D had given our house. That stuff had been seriously flying. I hoped he was right about Maria and Felix being too Catholic to dare to cross the threshold of a newly blessed home. Because if he was wrong, I'd pretty much made a big ass out of myself in front of Dopey for no reason. Dopey had been all, "Whatcha doing that for, Father D?" when Father Dominic got to his room with the aspergillum, which turned out to be what the dippy thing was called.

"Because your sister asked me to," Father Dom replied as he flicked holy water all over Dopey's weight bench - probably the only time that thing had ever come close to being cleaned.

"Suze asked you to bless my room?" I could hear Dopey's voice all the way down the hall, in my own room. I'm sure neither of them knew I was listening.

"She asked me to bless the house," Father Dominic said. "She was very disturbed by the discovery of the skeleton in your backyard, as I'm sure you know. I would greatly appreciate it if you would show her a little extra kindness for the next few days, Bradley."

Bradley! In my room, I started cracking up. Bradley! Who knew?

I don't know what Dopey said in reply to Father Dom's suggestion that he be nicer to me, because I took the opportunity to shower and change into civilized clothing. I figured twelve hours was more than enough to go around in sweats. Any more than that and you are, quite frankly, wallowing in your own sorrow. Jesse would not want my grieving over him to affect my by-now-famous sense of fashion.

Besides, I had a plan.

So it was that, showered, made up, and attired in what I considered to be the height of mediator chic in the form of a slip dress and sandals, I felt prepared to take on not only the minions of Satan but the staff at the Carmel Pine Cone, in front of whose office Father D had promised to drop me. I had not only figured out, you see, a way to get Jesse back: I'd figured out a way to avenge Clive Clemmings's death, not to mention his grandfather's.

Oh, yes. I still had it. But good.

"It is out of the question, Susannah," Father Dominic said. "So put the idea from your head. Wherever he is now, Jesse is in a better place than he was. Let him rest there."

"Fine," I said. We pulled up in front of a low building, heavily shaded by pine trees. The offices of the local rag.

"Fine," Father Dominic said, putting his car into park. "I'll wait out here for you. It would probably be better if I didn't come in, I suppose."

"Probably," I said. "And there's no need to wait. I'll find my own way home." I undid my seat belt.

"Susannah," Father Dominic said.

I lifted my sunglasses and peered at him. "Yes?"

"I'll wait here for you," he said. "We still have a good deal of work to do, you and I."

I screwed up my face. "We do?"

"Maria and Diego," Father D reminded me gently. "You are protected from them at home now, but they are still at large, and will, I think be excessively angry when they realize you are not dead - " I had finally broken down and explained to him what had happened to my head. "We need to make preparations, you and I, to deal with them."

"Oh," I said. "That."

I had, of course, forgotten all about it. Not because I did not feel Maria and her husband needed to be dealt with, but because I knew my idea of dealing with them and Father D's idea were not exactly going to gel. I mean, priests aren't really big on beating adversaries into bloody pulps. They're more into gentle reasoning.

"Sure," I said. "Yeah. We should get right on that."

"And of course - " Father D looked really odd. I realized why when the next words that came out of his mouth were, "We've got to decide what's to be done with Jesse's remains."

Jesse's remains. The words hit me like twin punches. Jesse's remains. Oh God.

"I was thinking," Father Dominic said, still choosing his words with elaborate care, "of putting in a formal request with the coroner's office to have the remains transferred to the church for burial in the Mission cemetery. Do you agree with me that that would be appropriate?"

Something hard grew in my throat. I hied to swallow it down.

"Yes," I said. It came out sounding funny, though. "What about a headstone?"

Father Dominic said, "Well, that might be difficult, seeing as how I highly doubt the coroner will be able to make a positive identification."

Right. They didn't have dental X-rays back when Jesse'd been alive.

"Maybe," Father Dominic said, "a simple cross . . ."

"No," I said. "A headstone. I have three thousand dollars." More if I took back all those Jimmy Choos. Good thing I'd saved the receipts. Who needed a fall wardrobe, anyway? "Do you think that would cover it?"

"Oh," Father Dominic said, looking taken aback. "Susannah, I - "

"You can let me know," I said. Suddenly, I didn't think I could sit there on the street anymore, discussing this with him. I opened the passenger door. "I better go. See you in a few."

And I started to get out of the car.

But not soon enough. Father D called my name again.

"Father D," I began impatiently, but he held up a hand.

"Just hear me out, Susannah," he said. "It isn't that I don't wish there was something we could do to bring Jesse back. I, too, wish that he could, as you said, have found his own way to wherever it was he was supposed to have gone after death. I do. I truly do. I just don't think that going to the extreme you're suggesting is ... well, necessary. And I certainly don't think it's what he would have wanted, your risking your life for his sake."

I thought about that. I really did. Father D was absolutely right, of course. Jesse would not have wanted me to risk my life for him, not ever. Especially considering the fact that he doesn't even have one anymore. A life, I mean.

But let's face it, Jesse's from a slightly different era. Back when he was born, girls spent all their time at quilting bees. They didn't exactly go around routinely kicking butt the way we do now.

And even though Jesse's seen me kick butt a million times, it still makes him nervous, you can totally tell. You would think he'd be used to it by now, but no. I mean, he was even surprised when he heard about Maria and her knife. I guess that's kind of understandable. Come on, little Miss Hoop Skirt, poppin' a blade?

Still, even after a century and a half of knowing she was the one who had ordered the hit on him, that completely blew his mind. I mean, that sexism thing, they drive that stuff down deep. It hasn't been easy, curing him of it.

Anyway, all I'm saying is, Father D's right: Jesse definitely would not want me to risk my life for him.

But we don't always get what we want, do we?

"Fine," I said again. You would have thought that Father D would notice how accommodating I'd become all of a sudden. I mean, didn't he realize that he wasn't the only person in town who could help me? I had an ace up my sleeve, and he didn't even know it.

"Be back in a flash," I said with a full-on, hundred-watt smile.

Then I turned and went into the offices of the Carmel Pine Cone like I was just going in there to place a personal ad or something.

What I was doing, of course, was something way more insidious.

"Is Cee Cee Wells here?" I asked the pimply kid at the reception desk.

He looked up, startled. I don't know what freaked him out more, my slip dress or the fact that I'd asked to see Cee Cee.

"Over there," he said, pointing. His voice wobbled all over the place.

"Thanks," I said, and started down a long and quite messy corridor, passing a lot of industrious journalists who were eagerly tapping out their stories on the recent spate of wind chime thefts off people's front porches, and the more alarming problem of parking in front of the post office.

Cee Cee was in a cubicle in the back. It appeared to be the photocopier cubicle, because that was what she was doing: photocopying.

"Oh my God," she said, when she saw me. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't say it in an unhappy way, though.

"Slumming," I said, and settled myself into an office chair beside the fax machine.

"I can see that," Cee Cee said. She was taking her role as girl reporter very seriously. Her long, stick-straight white hair was coiled up on top of her hair with a Number 2 pencil, and there was a smudge of toner on one pink cheek. "Why aren't you at the resort?"

"Mental health day," I said. "On account of the dead body they found in our backyard yesterday."

Cee Cee dropped a ream of paper.

"Oh my God!" she gushed. "That was you? I mean, there's a mention of a coroner's call up to the hills in the Police Beat section, but somebody said it must have been a Native American burial site or something...."

"Oh, no," I said. "Not unless the Native Americans around here wore spurs."

"Spurs?" Cee Cee reached for a notepad that was resting on top of the copier, then pulled the pencil from the knot on top of her head, causing her long hair to fall down around her shoulders. Because she is an albino, Cee Cee keeps the vast majority of her skin protected from the sun at all times, even when she's working inside an office. Today was no exception. In spite of the heat outside, she was wearing jeans and a brown button-up sweater.

On the other hand, the air-conditioning in the place had to be on high. It was like an icebox in there.

"Spill," Cee Cee said, perching on the edge of the table that supported the fax machine.

I did. I spilled it all. Everything, from the letters Dopey had found to my trip to Clive's office to his untimely death the day before. I mentioned Clive's grandfather's book and Jesse and the historically significant role my house had played in his murder. I told her about Maria and Diego and their no-account kids, the fact that Jesse's portrait was now missing from the historical society, and my suspicions that the skeleton found in my backyard belonged to him.

When I was through, Cee Cee raised her gaze from the notepad and went, "Geez, Simon. This could be a movie of the week."

"Lifetime channel," I agreed.

Cee Cee pointed at me with the pencil. "Tiffani-Amber Thiessen could play Maria!"

"So," I said. "Are you going to print it?"

"Heck, yeah," Cee Cee said. "I mean, it's got everything. Romance and murder and intrigue and local interest. Too bad almost everybody involved has been dead a hundred years, or more. Still, if I can get confirmation from the coroner that your skeleton belonged to a male in his twenties . . . Any idea how they did it? Killed him, I mean?"

I thought about Dopey and his shovel. "Well," I said, "if they shot him - you know, in the head - I doubt the coroner will be able to tell, thanks to Brad's ham-fisted digging technique."

Cee Cee looked at me. "You want to borrow my sweater?"

Surprised, I shook my head. "Why?"

"You're shivering."

I was, but not because I was cold.

"I'm okay," I said. "Look, Cee Cee, it's really important you get them to run this story. And they have to do it soon. Like tomorrow."

She said, not looking up again from her notepad, "Oh, I know. And I think it'd go great alongside Dr. Clemmings's obituary, you know? The project he was working on when he died. That kind of thing."

"So," I said, "it'll run tomorrow? Do you think it'll run tomorrow?"

Cee Cee shrugged. "They won't want to run it until they get the coroner's report on the body. And that could take weeks."

Weeks? I didn't have weeks. And though Cee Cee didn't know it, she didn't have weeks either.

I was shaking uncontrollably now. Because I had realized, of course, what I'd just done: put Cee Cee in the same kind of jeapordy I'd put Clive Clemmings in. Clive had been just fine until Maria had overheard him telling his dictaphone what I'd said about Jesse. Then faster than you could say The Haunting, he was suffering from a massive, paranormally induced coronary. Had I just sentenced Cee Cee to the same gruesome end? While I highly doubted Maria was going to ransack the offices of the Carmel Pine Cone the way she had the Carmel historical society, there was still a chance she might find out what I had done.

I needed that story to run right away. The sooner people found out the truth about Maria and Felix Diego, the better my chances of them not killing me - or the people I cared about.

"It's got to run tomorrow," I said. "Please, Cee Cee. Can't you call the coroner and get some kind of unofficial statement?"

Cee Cee did look up from her notebook then. She looked up and said, "Suze. What is the rush? These people have been dead for like forever. What does it matter?"

"It matters," I said. My teeth were starting to chatter. "It just really matters, okay, Cee Cee? Please, please see what you can do to put a rush on it. And promise you won't talk about it. The story, I mean. Outside these offices. It's really important that you keep it to yourself."

Cee Cee reached out and laid a hand on my bare shoulder. Her fingers were very warm and soft. "Suze," she said, peering down at me sort of intently. "What did you do to your head? Where'd that giant bruise under your bangs come from?"

I pushed self-consciously at my hair.

"Oh," I said. "I tripped. I fell into a hole. The hole they found the body in, isn't that funny?"

Cee Cee didn't seem to think it was funny at all. She went, "Have you had a doctor look at that? Because it looks pretty bad. You might have a concussion, or something."

"I'm fine," I said, standing up. "Really. It's nothing. Look, I better go. Remember what I said, will you? About the story, I mean. It's really important that you don't mention it to anyone. And that you get them to run it as soon as possible. I need a lot of people to see it. A lot of people. They need to see the truth. You know. About the Diegos."

Cee Cee stared at me. "Suze," she said. "Are you sure you're all right? I mean, since when do you care about the local gentry?"

I stammered, as I backed out of the cubicle, "Well, since meeting Dr. Clemmings, I guess. I mean, it's a real tragedy that people so often overlook their community's historical society, when you know, really, without it, the fabric of the - "

"You," Cee Cee interrupted, "need to go home and take an Advil."

"You're right," I said, picking up my purse. It matched my slip dress, pink, with little flowers embroidered on it. I was overcompensating for all the days I'd had to wear those khaki shorts. "I'll go. See you later."

Then I got the hell out of there before my head exploded in front of everybody.

But on my way back to Father Dominic's car I realized that the reason I'd been shivering back in the photocopying cubicle hadn't been due to the excessive air-conditioning, the fact that Jesse was gone, or even the fact that two homicidal ghosts were actively trying to kill me.

No, I was shivering because of what I knew I was about to do.

When I got to Father Dom's car, I bent down and said through the open passenger window, "Hey."

Father Dominic started and hurled something out the driver's side window.

But it was too late. I'd already seen what he'd been up to. Plus I could smell it.

"Hey," I said again. "Give me one of those."

"Susannah." Father Dominic looked stern. "Don't be ridiculous. Smoking is an awful habit. Believe me, you do not want to pick it up. How did things go with Miss Wells?"

"Um," I said. "Fine." I'm pretty sure it's a sin to tell a lie to a priest, even a white lie that can't possibly hurt him. But what was I supposed to do? I know him, see. And I know he's going to be completely rigid on the whole exorcism thing.

So what else could I do?

"She wants me to stick around, actually," I said, "and help her write it. The story, I mean."

Father Dominic's white eyebrows met over his silver frames. "Susannah," he said. "We have a great deal to do this afternoon, you and I - "

"Yeah," I said. "I know. But this is pretty important. How about I meet you back at your office at the Mission at five?"

Father Dominic hesitated. I could tell he thought I was up to something. Don't ask me how. I mean, I can be quite the angelic type, when I put my mind to it.

"Five o'clock," he said, finally. "And not a minute later or, Susannah, I'm telling you right now, I will telephone your parents and tell them everything."

"Five o'clock," I said. "Promise."

I waved as he drove away, and then, just in case he was looking in his rearview mirror, made as if to go back into the newspaper building.

But instead I slipped around the back of it, then headed toward the Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort.

I had some unfinished business there.

CHAPTER 13

He wasn't in the pool.

He wasn't eating burgers at the Pool House.

He wasn't on the tennis courts, at the stables, or in the pro shop.

Finally, I decided to check his room, although it didn't make any sense at all that he'd be there. Not on a gloriously sunny day like this one.

But when the door to his suite swung open to my knock, that's exactly where I found him. He was, Caitlin informed me tersely, taking a nap.

"Taking a nap?" I stared at her. "Caitlin, he's an eight-year-old, not an eight-month-old."

"He said he was tired," Caitlin snapped at me. "And what are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were supposed to be sick."

"I am sick," I said, pushing past her into the suite.

Caitlin eyed me disapprovingly. You could tell she was jealous of my slip dress and delicate pink sandals, not to mention my bag. I mean, compared to her, in her regulation Oxford T and pleated khakis, I looked like Gwyneth Paltrow. Only with better hair, of course.

"You don't look very sick to me," Caitlin declared.

"Oh, yeah?" I lifted up my bangs so she could see my forehead.

She sucked in her breath and made an oh-that-must-have-hurt face. "My God," she said. "How'd you do that?"

I thought about saying it was a job-related injury of some kind, so I could milk some disability out of her, but I didn't think it would work. Instead, I just said I'd tripped.

"So what are you doing here?" Caitlin wanted to know. "I mean, if you're not here to work."

"Well," I said. "That's the thing. I felt really guilty, you know, saddling you with Jack, so I got my mom to drop me off here after she took me to the doctor. I'll stay with him for the rest of the day, if you want."

Caitlin looked dubious. "I don't know," she said. "You're not in uniform - "

"Well, I wasn't going to wear my uniform to the doctor’s office," I squealed. Really, it was amazing how these elaborate lies were tripping off my tongue. I could hardly believe it myself, and I was the one making them up. "I mean, come on. But look, he told me I'm fine, so there's no reason I can't take over for you. We'll just stay here in the suite, if you're that nervous about people seeing me out of uniform. No problem."

Caitlin glanced at my forehead again. "You're not on any kind of painkiller for that, are you? Because I can't have you baby-sitting all whacked up on Scooby Snacks."

I held up the first three ringers of my right hand in the international symbol for scouting.

"On my honor," I said, "I am not whacked up on Scooby Snacks."

Caitlin glanced at the closed door to Jack's room. "Well," she said, hesitantly.

"Oh, come on," I said. "I could really use the dough. And don't you and Jake have a date tonight?"

Her gaze skittered towards me. "Well," she said, blushing.

Seriously. She blushed.

"Yeah," she said. "Actually, we do."

God. It had only been a guess.

"Don't you want to cut out a little early," I said, "to make yourself, you know, all glam for him?"

She giggled. Caitlin actually giggled. I am telling you, my stepbrothers ought to come with government warning labels: Caution, hazardous when mixed with estrogen.

"Okay," she said, and started heading for the door. "My boss'll kill me, though, if he sees you without your uniform, so you've got to stay in the room. Promise?"

I had made and broken so many promises in the past twenty-four hours, I didn't think one more could hurt. I went, "Sure thing, Caitlin."

And then I walked her to the door.

As soon as she was gone, I put down my purse and went into Jack's room. I did not knock first. There is nothing an eight-year-old boy's got that I haven't seen before. Besides, I was still a bit hacked with the little creep.

Jack may have been told to take a nap, but he certainly wasn't doing so. When I walked into his room, he thrust whatever it was he'd been playing with under the blankets and lifted his head from the pillow with his face all screwed up like he was sleepy.

Then he saw it was me, threw the covers back, and revealed that not only was he fully dressed, but that he'd been playing with his Gameboy.

"Suze!" he shouted, when he saw me. "You came back!"

"Yeah," I said. It was dark in his room. I went to the French doors and threw open the heavy drapes to let in the sunlight. "I came back."

"I thought," Jack said, jumping up and down excitedly on the bed, "that you were mad at me."

"I am mad at you," I said, turning around to look at him. The sight of that sparkling sea had dazzled my eyes, though, so I couldn't see him very well.

"What do you mean?" Jack stopped jumping. "What do you mean you're mad at me?"

Look, I wasn't going to screw around with the kid, okay? I just wish everyone had been as straight with me when I was his age. It is possible I wouldn't be so quick with my fists if I didn't have this pent-up inner rage from having been lied to so much as an eight-year-old. Yes, Suze, of course there’s really a Santa Clous, but No, there’s no such thing as ghosts. And then the clincher, No, this shot I’m about to give you isn’t going to hurt a bit.

"That ghost you exorcised?" I said, facing him with my hands on my hips. "He was my friend. My best friend."

I wasn't going to say boyfriend, or anything, because that wasn't true. But the hurt I was feeling must have shown in my voice, since Jack's lower lip started to jut out a little.

"What do you mean?" he wanted to know. "What do you mean, he was your friend? That's not what that lady said. The lady said - "

"That lady is a liar. That lady," I said, coming swiftly toward the bed and lifting up my bangs, "did this to me last night. See? Or at least, her husband did. All she tried to do was stab me with a knife."

Jack, standing on the bed, was taller than I was. He looked down at the bruise on my forehead with something like horror, "Oh, Suze," he breathed. "Oh, Suze."

"You screwed up," I said to him, dropping my hand. "You didn't mean to. I understand that Maria tricked you. But you still screwed up, Jack."

Now his lower lip was trembling. So was his whole chin, actually. And his eyes had filled up with tears.

"I'm sorry, Suze," he said. His voice had gone about three pitches higher than usual. "Suze, I'm so sorry!"

He was trying really hard not to cry. He wasn't succeeding, though. Tears were spilling out of his eyes and rolling down his chubby cheeks . . . the only part of him that was chubby, except maybe for his Albert Einstein hair.

And even though I didn't want to, I found myself wrapping my arms around him and patting him on the back as he sobbed into my neck, telling him everything was going to be all right.

Just like, I realized, with something akin to horror, Father Dominic had done to me!

And just like him, I was completely lying. Because everything was not going to be all right. Not for me, at least. Not ever again. Unless I did something about it, and fast.

"Look," I said, after a few minutes of letting Jack wail. "Stop crying. We have work to do."

Jack lifted his head from my shoulder - which he had, by the way, gotten all wet with snot and tears and stuff, since my dress was sleeveless.

"What ... what do you mean?" His eyes were red and squinty from crying. I was lucky nobody walked in right then. I definitely would have been convicted of child abuse or something.

"I'm going to try to get Jesse back," I explained, swinging Jack down from the bed. "And you're going to help me."

Jack went, "Who's Jesse?"

I explained. At least, I tried to. I told him that Jesse was the guy he had exorcised, and that he had been my friend, and that exorcising people was wrong, unless they'd done something very very bad, such as tried to kill you, which was, Jack explained, what Maria had told him Jesse'd tried to do to me.

So then I told Jack that ghosts are just like people, some of them are okay, but some of them are liars. If he had ever met Jesse, I assured him, he'd have known right away he was no killer.

Maria de Silva, on the other hand ...

"But she seemed so nice," Jack said. "I mean, she's so pretty and everything."

Men. I'm serious. Even at the age of eight. It's pathetic.

"Jack," I said to him. "Have you ever heard the expression, Don't judge a book by its cover?"

Jack wrinkled his nose. "I don't like to read much."

"Well," I said. We had gone out into the living room, and now I picked up my purse and opened it. "You're going to have to do some reading if we're going to get Jesse back. I'm going to need you to read this."

And I passed him an index card on which I'd scrawled some words. Jack squinted down at it.

"What is this?" he demanded. "This isn't English."

"No," I said. I started taking other things out of my purse. "It's Portuguese."

"What's that?" Jack asked.

"It's a language," I explained, "that they speak in Portugal. Also in Brazil, and a few other places."

"Oh," Jack said, then pointed at a small Tapperware container I'd taken from my purse. "What's that?"

"Oh," I said. "Chicken blood."

Jack made a face. "Eew!"

"Look," I said. "If we're going to do this exorcism, we're going to do it right. And to do it right, you need chicken blood."

Jack said, "I didn't use chicken blood when Maria was here."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, Maria does things her way, and I do things my way. Now let's go into the bathroom to do this. I have to paint stuff on the floor with the chicken blood, and I highly doubt the housekeeping staff will appreciate it if we do it here on the carpet."

Jack followed me into the bathroom that joined his room to his brother's. In the part of my brain that wasn't concentrating on what I was doing, I kind of wondered where Paul was. It was strange he hadn't called after that whole thing where he'd dropped me off at my house and there'd been all those cop cars and stuff in front of it. I mean, you'd have thought he'd wonder, at least, what that had been all about.

But I hadn't heard a peep out of him.

Not that I cared. I had way more important things to worry about. But it was still kind of odd.

"There," I said, when we had everything set up. It took an hour, but when we were done, we had a fairly decent example of how an exorcism - the Brazilian voodoo variety, anyway - is supposed to look. At least according to a book I'd read on the subject once.

With the chicken blood I'd procured from the meat counter of one of the gourmet shops downtown, I'd made these special symbols in the middle of the bathroom floor, and around them I'd stuck assorted candles (the votive kind, the only ones I could get at short notice, between the offices of the Carmel Pine Cone and the hotel; they were cinnamon scented, too, so the bathroom smelled sort of like Christmas . . . well, except for the not-so-festive fragrance of chicken blood).

In spite of the amateurishness with which it had been thrown together, it was, in fact, a working portal to the afterlife - or at least it would be, once Jack did his part with the notecard. I'd gone over the pronunciation of each word, and he seemed to have it down pretty well. The only thing he couldn't seem to get around was the fact that the person we were exorcising was, well, me.

"But you're alive," he kept saying. "If I exorcise your spirit from you, won't you be dead?"

Actually, this was a thought that had not really occurred to me. What would happen to my body after my spirit had left it? Would I be dead?

No, that was impossible. My heart and lungs wouldn't stop working just because my soul was gone. Probably I'd just lie there, like someone in a coma.

This was not, however, very comforting to Jack.

"But what if you don't come back?" he wanted to know.

"I'm going to come back," I said. "I told you. The only reason I can come back is that I do have a living body to return to. I just want to have a look around out there and see if Jesse's okay. If he is, fine. If not . . . well, I'll try to bring him back with me."

"But you just said the only reason you can come back is because you have a living body to return to. Jesse doesn't. So how can he come back?"

This was, of course, a good question. That was probably why it put me in such a bad mood.

"Look," I said, finally. "Nobody has ever tried this before, so far as I know. Maybe you don't have to have a body to come back. I don't know, okay? But I can't not try just because I don't know the answer. Where would we be if Christopher Columbus hadn't tried? Huh?"

Jack looked thoughtful. "Living in Spain right now?"

"Very funny," I said. It was at this point that I took the last thing from my bag and tied one end around my waist. I tied the other end to Jack's wrist.

"What's the rope for?" he asked, looking down at it.

"So I can find my way back to you," I said.

Jack looked confused. "But if just your spirit's going, what's the point of tying a rope around your body? You said your body wasn't going anywhere."

"Jack," I said from between gritted teeth. "Just reel me back in if I'm gone more than half an hour, all right?" I figured half an hour was about as long as anybody's soul could be separated from their body. On TV I was always seeing stuff about little kids who'd slipped into icy water and drowned and been technically dead for up to forty minutes, yet recovered without any brain damage or anything. So I figured half an hour was cutting it as close as I could.

"But how - "

"Oh my God," I snapped at him. "Just do it, okay?"

Jack glowered at me. Hey, just because we're both mediators doesn't mean we get along all the time.

"Okay," he said. Under his breath, I heard him mutter, "You don't have to be such a witch about it."

Only he didn't say witch. Really, it is shocking, the words kids are using these days.

"All right," I said. I stepped into the center of the circle of candles and stood in the middle of all the chicken blood symbols. "Here goes nothing."

Jack looked down at his notecard. Then he looked back up at me.

"Shouldn't you lie down?" he asked. "I mean, if it's gonna be like you're in a coma, I don't want you to fall down and hurt yourself."

He was right. I didn't want my hair to catch on fire or anything.

On the other hand, I didn't want to get chicken blood on my dress. I mean, it was an expensive one. Ninety-five dollars at Urban Outfitters.

Then I thought, Suze, what is wrong with you? It's just a dress. You're doing this for Jesse. Isn't he worth more than ninety-five dollars?

So I started to lie down.

But I had only managed to get down on one knee when there was a terrific thumping on the door to the suite.

I'll admit it. I panicked. I figured it was the fire department or somebody responding to to a report of smoke from someone whose bathroom vent adjoined Jack's.

"Quick," I hissed at him. "Blow out all the candles!"

While Jack hurried to do as I said, I stumbled to the door.

"Who is it?" I called sweetly when I got there.

"Susannah," an all-too-familiar voice said. "Open the door this instant."

CHAPTER 14

If you ask me, Father D way overreacted.

I mean, first of all, I had the situation completely under control.

And second, it wasn't as if we'd sacrificed any small animals, or whatever. I mean, the chicken had already been dead.

So all that stomping around and calling us names was really unnecessary.

Not that he called Jack any names. No, most of the names were hurled at me. Apparently, if I am intent on destroying myself, that is one thing. But to force a small boy to aid in my self-destruction? That is just despicable.

And my pointing out that the small boy was the one who'd created the need for me to behave self-destructively? Yeah, that didn't go over too well.

But what the whole thing did do was illustrate to Father Dominic just how serious I was about my plan. I guess it finally got through to him that I was going to do my best to find Jesse, with or without his help.

So he decided that, under those circumstances, he had better help, if only to improve my chances of not hurting myself, or anybody else.

"It will not," he said, looking all tight-lipped about it as he unlocked the doors to the basilica, "be any fly-by-night operation, either. None of this Brazilian voodoo business. We are going to perform a decent Christian exorcism, or none at all."

Really, if you think about it, I probably have the most bizarre conversations of anyone on the planet. Seriously. I mean, a decent Christian exorcism?

But it isn't just the conversations I have that are bizarre. I mean, the circumstances under which I have them are pretty bizarre, too. For instance, I was having this one in a dark empty church. Dark because it was after midnight, and empty for the same reason.

"And you are going to have adult supervision," Father Dominic went on as he ushered me inside. "How you could have expected that boy to successfully perform so complicated a procedure, I simply cannot imagine ... "

He had been ranting in that particular vain all afternoon. All the way up until Jack's parents - not to mention Paul - had gotten back to the suite, as a matter of fact. Father D hadn't, of course, been able to whisk me off right away the way he'd wanted to, because of Jack. Instead, Jack and I had been forced to clean up the mess we'd made - it is no joke sponging chicken blood out from between bathroom tiles, let me tell you - and then we'd had to sit and wait for Dr. and Mrs. Slater to return from their tennis lesson. Jack's parents had looked a little surprised to find the three of us sitting there on the couch. I mean, think about it: a baby-sitter, a boy, and a priest? Talk about feeling as if you were whacked up on Scooby Snacks.

But what was I supposed to do? Father D wouldn't leave without me. He didn't trust me not to try exorcising myself.

So the three of us sat there while Father D lectured us on the fine art of mediation. He talked for two hours. I'm not kidding. Two hours. I can tell you, Jack was probably regretting ever having told me about the whole I see dead people thing by the end of it. He was probably all, Uh, yeah, about the dead people? Joking, guys. I was joking....

But I don't know, maybe it was good the little guy got the do's and don'ts. God knew I hadn't been too lucid with my own Intro to Mediation. I mean, if I'd been a little clearer on the finer points, maybe this whole thing with Jesse would never have -

But whatever. You can only beat yourself up so much. I was fully aware the entire mess was my own fault. That's why I was so intent on fixing it.

Oh, and the part about my being in love with the guy? Yeah, that had a little something to do with it, too.

Anyway, that's what we were doing when Jack's parents walked in: listening to Father D drone on about responsibility and courtesy when dealing with the undead.

Father Dominic dried up when Dr. and Mrs. Slater, followed by Paul, came into the suite. They, in turn, stopped chatting about their dinner plans and just stood there, staring.

Paul was the one who came out of it first.

"Suze," he said, smiling. "What a surprise. I thought you weren't feeling well."

"I recovered," I said, standing up. "Dr. and Mrs. Slater, Paul, this is, um, the principal of my school, Father Dominic. He was nice enough to give me a ride over so that I could, um, visit Jack ... "

"How do you do?" Father Dominic got quickly to his feet. Like I said, Father D's no slouch in the looks department. He cut a pretty impressive figure, all snowy-topped six feet of him. He didn't look like the kind of guy you'd feel funny about finding in your hotel suite with your eight-year-old and his baby-sitter, which is saying quite a lot, you know.

When Dr. and Mrs. S heard that Father D was affiliated with the Junipero Serra Mission, they got all chummy and started saying how they'd been on the tour, and how impressive it was and all. I guess they didn't want him to think they were the kind of people who came to a town with a historically significant slice of Americana attached to it, and then spent the whole time they were there playing golf and downing mimosas.

While his parents and Father D schmoozed, Paul sidled up to me and whispered, "What are you doing tonight?"

I thought about telling him the truth: "Oh, nothing. Just having my soul exorcised so I can roam around purgatory, looking for the ghost of the dead cowboy who used to live in my bedroom."

But that, you know, might have sounded flippant, or like one of those made-up excuses girls use. You know, the old "I'm washing my hair" put-down. So I just said, "I've got plans."

Paul went, "Too bad. I was hoping we could take a drive up to Big Sur and watch the sunset, then maybe grab something to eat."

"Sorry," I said, with a smile. "Sounds great, but like I said, I've got plans."

Most guys would have dropped it after that, but Paul, for some reason, did not. He even reached out and casually draped an arm around my shoulders ... if you can do something like that casually. Somehow, though, he pulled it off. Maybe because he's from Seattle.

"Suze," he said, dipping his voice low, so that no one else in the room could overhear him - especially his little brother, who was clearly straining his neck in an effort to do so. "It's Friday night. We're leaving day after tomorrow. You and I might never see each other again. Come on. Throw a guy a bone, will you?"

I don't have guys pursuing me all that often - at least, not hotties like Paul. I mean, most of the guys who've liked me since I moved to California . . . well, there've been some serious relationship issues, such as the fact that they ended up serving long prison terms for murder.

So this was pretty new for me. I was impressed in spite of myself.

Still, I'm not a dope. Even if I hadn't been in love with somebody else, Paul Slater was from out of town. It's easy for guys who are leaving in a couple of days to give a girl the rush. I mean, come on: they don't have to commit.

"Gosh," I said. "That is just so sweet. But you know what? I really do have other plans." I stepped out from beneath his arm and totally interrupted Dr. Slater's in-depth description of that day's golf score - bogey, bogey, par, par. "Can you give me a lift home, Father D?"

Father Dominic said he could, of course, and we left. I noticed Paul giving me the old hairy eyeball as we said our good-byes, but I figured it was because he was hacked at me for turning down his dinner invitation.

I didn't know it was for entirely different reasons. At least, not then. Although, of course, I should have. I really should have.

Anyway, Father D lectured me all the way home. He was way mad, madder than he'd ever been with me before, and I've done some stuff that's gotten him plenty peeved. I wanted to know how he'd figured out I was at the hotel and not back at the paper helping Cee Cee write her story, like I'd said I'd be, and he said it hadn't been hard: he just remembered that Cee Cee was a straight-A student who surely wouldn't need my help writing anything, and turned his car around. When he found out I'd left ten minutes earlier, he tried to think where he would have gone under similar circumstances, back when he was my age.

"The hotel was the obvious choice," Father Dominic informed me as we pulled up in front of my house. No ambulances this time, I was relieved to note. Just the shady pine trees and the tinny sound of the radio Andy was listening to in the backyard as he worked on the deck. A sleepy summer evening. Not at all the kind of night you'd think of when you heard the word exorcism.

"You are not," Father D went on, "precisely unpredictable, Susannah."

Predictable I may be, but it has apparently worked to my advantage, since right before I got out of the car, Father D went, "I'll return at midnight to bring you down to the Mission."

I looked at him in surprise. "The Mission?"

"If we're going to perform an exorcism," he said, tersely, "we're going to do it correctly, in a house of the Lord. Unfortunately the monsignor, as you know, is sure to frown on such a use of church property, so while I dislike having to resort to subterfuge, I can see that you will not be swayed from this course, and so it will unfortunately be necessary in this case. I want to make certain there's no chance of Sister Ernestine or anyone else discovering us. Therefore, midnight it will have to be."

And midnight, therefore, it was.

I can't really tell you what I did in the meantime. I was too nervous, really, to do much of anything. We had takeout for dinner. I don't know what it was. I hardly tasted it. It was just me and my mom and Andy, since Sleepy had a date with Caitlin, and Dopey was with his latest skank.

The only thing I know for sure is that Cee Cee called with the news that the story on the dysfunctional de Silva/Diego family was going to run in the Sunday edition of the paper.

"It'll reach thirty-five thousand people," Cee Cee assured me. "Way more than our circulation during the week. More people subscribe to the Sunday paper, because of the funnies and all."

The coroner, she informed me, had come through with a tentative confirmation of my story: the skeleton found in my backyard was between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years old, and belonged to a male of twenty to twenty-five years of age.

"Race," Cee Cee went on, "is difficult to determine due to the damage to the skull from Brad's shovel. But they were certain about the cause of death."

I clutched the receiver to my ear, conscious that my mother and Andy, over at the dinner table, could hear every word.

"Oh?" I said, trying to keep my tone light. But I could feel myself getting cold again, just like I had that afternoon in the photocopy cubicle.

"Asphyxiation," Cee Cee said. "There's like some bone in the neck they can tell by."

"So he was ... "

"Strangled," Cee Cee said matter-of-factly. "Hey, what are you doing tonight, anyway? Wanna hang? Adam's got some family thing he has to go to. We could rent a movie - "

"No," I said. "No, I can't. Thanks, Cee Cee. Thanks a lot."

I hung up the phone.

Strangled. Jesse had died from being strangled. By Felix Diego. Funny, I had somehow always figured he'd been shot to death. But strangling made more sense: people would have heard a shot and come to investigate. Then there'd have been no question about what happened to Hector de Silva.

But strangling someone? That was pretty much silent. Felix could easily have strangled Jesse in his sleep, then carried his dead body into the backyard and then buried it, along with his belongings. No one would have been the wiser ...

I guess I must have stood there looking down at the phone for a while, since my mom went, "Suze? Are you all right, honey?"

I jumped and went, "Yeah, Mom. Sure. I'm fine."

But I hadn't been fine then. And I certainly wasn't fine now.

I had only been to the Mission after dark a couple times before, and it was still as creepy now as it had been then . . . long shadows, dark recesses, spooky noises as our footsteps echoed down the aisle between the pews. There was this statue of the Virgin Mary right by the doorway, and Adam had told me once that if you walked by it while thinking an impure thought, the statue would weep blood.

Well, my thoughts as I walked into the basilica weren't exactly impure, but I noticed as I passed the Virgin Mary that she looked more particularly prone to weeping blood than usual. Or maybe it was just the dark.

In any case, I was creeped out. Above my head yawned the huge dome you could see, glowing red in the sun and blue in the moon, from my bedroom window, while before me loomed the chancel in which the altar glowed, swathed in white.

Father Dom had been busy, I saw when I entered the church. Candles had been set up in a wide circle just before the altar rail. Father Dominic, still muttering to himself about my need for adult supervision, stooped down and began lighting the wicks.

"That's where you're - I mean, we're - going to do it?" I asked.

Father Dominic straightened and surveyed his handiwork.

"Yes," he said. Then, misreading my expression, he added dourly, "Don't let the absence of chicken blood fool you, Susannah. I assure you the Catholic exorcism ceremony is highly effective."

"No," I said quickly. "It's just that ... "

I looked at the floor in the middle of the circle of candles. The floor looked very hard - way harder than the bathroom floor back at the hotel. That was tile. This was marble. Remembering what Jack had said, I went, "What if I fall down? I might conk my head again."

"Fortunately, you will be lying down," Father D said.

"Can't I have a pillow or something?" I asked. "I mean, come on. That floor looks cold." I glanced at the altar cloth. "How about that? Can I lie on that?"

Father Dominic looked pretty shocked for a guy who was about to exorcise a girl who was neither possessed nor dead.

"For goodness' sake, Susannah," he said. "That would be sacrilegious."

Instead he went and got some choir robes for me. I made a nice little bed on the floor between all the candles, then lay down on it. It was actually quite comfortable.

Too bad my heart was pounding way too hard for me ever to have been able to doze off.

"All right, Susannah," Father D said. He wasn't happy with me. He hadn't been happy with me, I knew, for some time. But he was bowing to the inevitable.

Still, he seemed to feel one last lecture was necessary.

"I am willing to help you with this ridiculous scheme of yours, but only because I realize that if I do not, you will try to do it on your own, or with, God forbid, that boy's help." Father D was looking at me very sternly from where he stood. "But do not think for one minute that I approve."

I opened my mouth to argue, but Father Dominic held up one hand.

"No," he said. "Allow me to finish, please. What Maria de Silva did was wrong, and I realize you are only trying to correct that wrong. But I am afraid I cannot see any of this ending happily. It is my experience, Susannah - and I hope you will agree that my experience is significantly greater than yours - that once spirits are exorcised, they stay that way."

Again I opened my mouth, and again Father D shushed me.

"Where you are going," he went on, "will be like a waiting area for spirits who have passed from the astral plane but have not yet reached their final destination. If Jesse is still there, and you manage to find him - and you understand that I consider this a very great if, because I don't think you're going to - do not be surprised if he chooses to stay where he is."

"Father D," I began, rising up onto my elbows, but he shook his head.

"It might be his only chance, Susannah," Father Dominic said somberly, "of ever moving on."

"No," I said. "That's not true. There's a reason, see, that he's hung around my house for so long. All he has to do is figure out what that reason is, and he'll be able to move on on his own - "

"Susannah," Father Dominic interrupted. "I'm sure it isn't that simple - "

"He has a right," I insisted through gritted teeth, "to decide for himself."

"I agree," Father Dominic said. "That's what I'm trying to say, Susannah. If you find him, you must let him decide. And you mustn't . . . well, you mustn't attempt to use any sort of, er ... "

I just bunked up at him. "Father D," I said. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, it's only that. . ." Father Dominic looked more embarrassed than I had ever seen him. I could not, for the life of me, figure out what was wrong with him. "I see that you changed ... "

I looked down at myself. I had changed out of my pink slip dress and into a black one that had little red rosebuds embroidered on it. This I had paired with some totally cute Prada slides. I had had a hard enough time choosing an ensemble. I mean, what do you wear to an exorcism? I totally did not need Father D dissing my duds.

"What?" I demanded defensively. "What's wrong with it? Too funereal? It's too funereal, isn't it? I knew black was all wrong for the occasion."

"Nothing's wrong with it," Father Dominic said. "It's simply that . . . Susannah, you mustn't attempt to use your, um, sexual wiles to influence Jesse's decision."

My mouth dropped open. Okay. Now I was mad.

"Father Dominic!" I sat up and yelled. After that, though, I was completely speechless. I couldn't think of anything to say except, "As if."

"Susannah," Father Dominic said severely. "Don't pretend you don't know what I mean. I know you care about Jesse. All I'm asking is that you don't use your" - he cleared his throat - "feminine charms to manipulate his - "

"Like I could," I grumbled.

"Yes." Father Dominic's tone was firm. "You could. All I'm asking is that you don't. For the good of both of you. Don't."

"Fine," I said. "I won't. I wasn't planning to."

"I'm delighted to hear that," Father Dominic said. He opened a small, leather-bound book and began flipping through the pages. "Shall we begin, then?"

"I suppose." Still grumbling, I lay back down. I couldn't believe Father D had just suggested what he had - that I would use my sex appeal to lure Jesse back to me. Ha! Father D was overlooking two simple things: one being that I'm not so sure I have sex appeal, and two, that if I do, Jesse had certainly never noticed.

Still, Father Dominic had felt obliged to say something about it, which must mean he'd noticed something. Must be the dress. Not bad for fifty-nine ninety-five.

As I lay there, a slow grin crept over my face. Father D had used the word sexual. About me!

Excellent.

Father D began reading from his little book. As he read, he swung this metal ball that had smoke coming out of it. The smoke was from the incense burning inside the metal ball. Let me tell you, it stank.

I couldn't understand what Father D was saying, since it was all in Latin. It sounded nice, though. I lay there in my black slip dress and wondered if I ought to have worn pants. I mean, who knew what I was going to find up there? What if I had to do some climbing? People might see my underwear.

You would have thought I'd be pondering more profound thoughts than this, but I am very sorry to report that the most deepest thing I thought about while Father Dominic was exorcising my soul was that when this was all over, and Jesse was home, and Maria and Felix had been locked back up in their crypt, where they belonged, I was going to have to take a really long soak in that hot tub Andy was installing, because let me you tell you, I was sore.

And then something started happening above my head. A section of the domed ceiling disappeared, and was replaced by all this smoke. Then I realized it was the smoke from the incense Father D was waving around. It was curling like a tornado above my head.

Then, in the center of the tornado, I saw the night sky. Really. Like the dome over the top of the basilica wasn't there anymore. I could see stars twinkling coldly. I didn't recognize any constellations, even though Jesse had been trying to teach them to me. Back in Brooklyn, you couldn't see the stars so well, because of the city lights. So other than the Big Dipper, which you can always see, I don't know the names of any of the constellations.

It didn't matter. This wasn't the sky I was seeing. Not Earth's sky, anyway. It was something else. Someplace else.

"Susannah," Father Dominic said gently.

I started, then looked at him. I had been, I realized, half asleep, staring up at that sky.

"What?" I asked.

"It's time," Father Dominic said.

CHAPTER 15

Father Dominic looks funny, I thought. Why does he look so funny?

I realized why when I sat up. That's because only part of me sat up. The rest of me stayed where I was, lying on the choir robes with my eyes closed.

You know on Sabrina the Teenage Witch when she splits into two people, so one can go to the party with Harvey and the other can go to the witch convention with her aunts? That's what had happened to me. I was two people now.

Except that only one of them was conscious. The other half was just lying there with her eyes closed. And you know what? That bruise on my forehead really did look disgusting. No wonder everyone who saw it recoiled in horror.

"Susannah," Father Dominic said. "Are you all right?"

I tore my gaze from my unconscious self.

"Fine," I said. I looked down at my spiritual self, which appeared to me to be exactly the same as the person beneath me, except that I was glowing a little. An excellent fashion accessory, by the way, if you can get it. You know, that all-over spectral glow can really do things for a girl's complexion.

Plus something else. The bruise on my forehead? Yeah, it didn't hurt anymore.

"You don't have much time," Father Dominic said. "Just half an hour."

I blinked at him. "How am I supposed to know when half an hour is up? I don't have a watch." I don't wear one because somehow they always end up getting smashed by some recalcitrant spirit. Besides, who wants to know what time it is? The news is almost always disappointing.

"Wear mine," Father Dom said, and he took off his enormous steel-link man watch and gave it to me.

It was the first object I picked up in my new ghostly state. It felt absurdly heavy. Still, I managed to fasten it around my wrist, where it jangled loosely, like a bracelet. Or a prison shackle.

"Okay," I said, looking up at that hole above me. "Here goes nothing."

I had to climb, of course. Don't ask me why I hadn't thought of this. I mean, I had to reach up and grab the edges of that hole in time and space and boost myself up into it. And in a slip dress, no less.

Whatever. I was about halfway in when I heard a familiar voice shriek my name.

Father Dominic spun around. I leaned down from the hole - through which I could only see fog, gray fog that spritzed my face damply - and saw Jack, of all people, running down the church aisle toward us, his pale face white with fear, and something trailing behind him.

Father Dominic reached out and caught him just before he flung himself on my unconscious form. He obviously didn't see my legs dangling from the enormous tear in the church ceiling.

"What are you doing here?" Father Dominic demanded, his face almost as white as the kid's. "Do you have any idea what time it is? Do your parents know you're here? They must be worried sick - "

"They're - they're asleep," Jack panted. "Please, Suze forgot ... she forgot her rope." Jack held up the long white object that had been skittering along behind him as he'd run between the pews. It was my rope from our first attempt to exorcise me. "How is she going to find her way back without her rope?"

Father Dominic took the rope from Jack without a word of thanks. "It was very wrong of you, Jack," he said disapprovingly, "to come here. What could you have been thinking? I told you it was going to be very dangerous."

"But ... " Jack kept looking at my unconscious half. "Her rope. She forgot her rope."

"Here," I called, from my celestial hole. "Toss it up here."

Jack looked up at me, and the anxiety left his face.

"Suze!" he yelled delightedly. "You're a ghost!"

"Shhh!" Father Dominic looked pained. "Really, young man, you must keep your voice down."

"Hi, Jack," I said from my hole. "Thanks for bringing the rope. How'd you get down here, anyway?"

"Hotel shuttle," Jack said proudly. "I snuck onto it. It was coming into town to pick up a lot of drunk people. When it stopped near the Mission, I snuck off."

I couldn't have been prouder if he'd been my own son. "Good thinking," I said.

"This," Father Dominic moaned, "is the last thing we need right now. Here, Susannah, take the rope, and for the love of God, hurry - "

I leaned down and grabbed the end of the rope, then tied it securely around my waist. "Okay," I said. "If I'm not back in half an hour, start pulling."

"Twenty-five minutes," Father Dominic corrected me. "We lost time, thanks to this young man's interruption." He took a pocket watch from his coat with the hand that wasn't clutching the other end of the rope. "Go now, Susannah," he urged me.

"Right," I said. "Okay. Be right back."

And then I swung my legs into the hole. When I looked down, I could see Father Dominic and Jack standing there, peering up at me. And I could also see me, asleep like Snow White, in a circle of dancing candle flames. Although I doubt Snow White ever wore Prada.

I got up and looked around me. Nothing.

I'm serious. There was nothing there. Just that black sky, through which a few stars burned coldly. And then there was the fog. Thick, ever-moving, cool fog. I should have, I thought to myself with a shiver, worn a sweater. The fog seemed to weigh down the air I was taking into my lungs. It also seemed to serve as a muffler. I couldn't hear a sound, not even my own footsteps.

Oh, well. Twenty-five minutes wasn't long. I sucked in a chestful of damp air and yelled, "Jesse!"

It was a highly effective move. Not that Jesse showed up. Oh, no. But this other guy did.

In a gladiator outfit, no less.

I'm not even kidding. He looked like the guy from my mom's American Express card (which I frequently borrow, with her permission, of course). You know, the broom sticking out of his helmet, the leather miniskirt, the big sword. I couldn't see his feet on account of the fog, but I assumed that, if I could, he'd be wearing lace-up sandals (so unflattering on people with fat knees).

"You," he said, in this deep, no-nonsense voice, "do not belong here."

See. I knew the slip dress had been a mistake. But who knew purgatory had a dress code?

"I know," I said, giving him my best smile. Maybe Father D was right. Maybe I do have a tendency to use my sexuality to get what I want. I was certainly laying on the girlie thing thick for the Russell Crowe type in front of me.

"The thing is," I said, fingering my rope. "I'm looking for a friend. Maybe you know him. Jesse de Silva? He showed up here last night, I think. He's about twenty, six feet tall, black hair, dark eyes - " Killer abs?

Russell Crowe must not have been listening closely, since all he said was, "You do not belong here," again.

Okay, the slip dress had definitely been a mistake. Because how was I supposed to kick this guy out of my way without splitting the skirt?

"Look, mister," I said, striding up to him and trying not to notice that his pectoral muscles were so pronounced, his breasts were bigger than mine. Way bigger. "I told you. I'm looking for someone. Now either you tell me if you've seen him, or you get out of my face, okay? I'm a mediator, all right? I have just as much right to be here as you."

I did not, of course, know if this was true, but heck, I've been a mediator all my life, and I haven't gotten squat for it. As far as I was concerned, somebody owed me, but big.

The gladiator seemed to agree. He went, in a completely different tone, "A mediator?" He looked down at me as if I were a monkey that had suddenly sat up and started saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Still, I must have done something right, since he said slowly, "I know the one of whom you speak."

Then he seemed to come to a decision. Stepping to one side, he said in a commanding voice, "Go now. Do not open any doors. He will come."

I stared at him. Whoa. "Are you . . . are you serious?"

For the first time, he showed some personality. He went, "Do I seem to be joking to you?"

"Um," I said. "No."

"Because I am the gatekeeper. I do not joke. Go now." He pointed. "You have not much time."

Off in the distance, in the direction he was pointing, I saw something. I don't know what it was, but it was something other than fog. I felt like hugging my new gladiator friend, but I restrained myself. He didn't seem the touchy-feely sort.

"Thanks," I said. "Thanks a whole lot."

"Hurry," the gatekeeper said. "And remember, whatever you do, do not go toward the light."

I had given the rope a yank so that Father D would give me some slack. Now I just stood there with it in my hands, staring at the gladiator.

"Don't go in the light?" I echoed. "You're not serious."

I swear to you, he sounded indignant. "I told you before, I do not joke. Why do you think I would say something I do not mean?"

I wanted to tell him that the whole don't-go-into-the-light thing was way overplayed. I mean, Poltergeist One through Three had pretty much run that line into the ground.

But who knew? Maybe the guy who wrote those movies was a mediator. Maybe he and the gatekeeper were pals or something.

"Okay," I said, sidling past him. "Gotcha. Don't go in the light."

"Or open any doors," the gatekeeper reminded me.

"No doors," I said, pointing at him and winking. "You got it."

Then I turned around, and the fog was gone.

Well, not gone, really. I mean, it was still there, licking at my heels. But most of it had given way, so that I could see I was in a corridor lined with doors. There was no ceiling overhead, just those coldly winking stars and inky black sky. Still, the long corridor of closed doors seemed to stretch out forever before me.

And I wasn't supposed to open any of those doors. Or go into the light.

Well, the second part was easy. I didn't see any light to go toward. But how was I not supposed to open one of those doors? I mean, really. What was going on behind them? What would I find if I opened one, just a crack, and peeked in? Alternate universe? The planet Vulcan? Maybe a world where Suze Simon was a normal girl, not a mediator? Maybe one where Suze Simon was homecoming queen and the most popular person in the whole school, and Jesse wasn't a ghost and could actually take her to dances and had his own car and didn't live in her bedroom?

Then I stopped wondering what was behind all those doors. That's because coming down the hallway toward me - as if he'd just materialized there from out of nowhere - came Jesse.

He looked pretty surprised to see me. I don't know if it was the fact that I was standing there in what was, I suppose, heaven's waiting room, or if it was the attractive length of cord around my waist, which did not, I have to admit, go with the rest of my outfit.

Whatever it was, he looked pretty shocked.

"Oh," I said, reaching up to make sure my bangs were covering my unsightly bruise. "Hi."

Jesse froze in his tracks and just stared at me. It was like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He didn't look any different from the last time I'd seen him. I mean, the last time I'd seen his ghost. The last time I'd seen him, of course, it had been a view of his rotten corpse, and the sight had, of course, made me lose my supper.

But this Jesse was a lot easier on the eyes.

Still, if I'd expected any sort of joyful reunion - a hug or, God forbid, a kiss - I was in for a disappointment. He just stood there, staring at me like I'd grown two heads since the last time we'd bumped into each other.

"Susannah," he breathed. "What are you doing here? Are you - you're not - "

I caught his meaning at once and went, with a nervous laugh, "Dead? Me? No, no, no. No. I just, um, I came up here because I wanted to, um, you know, see if you were all right...."

Okay, could I be any lamer? I mean, seriously. I had pictured this moment in my head a thousand times since I'd first decided I was going to come after him, and in all my fantasies, no explanations were ever necessary. Jesse just threw his arms around me and started kissing me. On the lips.

This, though. This was way awkward. I wished I'd prepared a speech.

"Um," I said. What I really wished was that I could stop saying um. "See, the thing is, I wanted to make sure you were here because you wanted to be. Because if you don't want to be, well, Father Dom and I thought maybe it would be possible for you to come back. To, um, finish whatever it is, you know, that was keeping you down there. In my world, I mean. Our world," I corrected myself, quickly, remembering Father Dominic's warning. "Our world, I mean."

Jesse continued to just stare at me.

"Susannah," he said. His voice sounded weird. I figured out why a second later, when he asked, "Weren't you the one who sent me here?"

I gaped at him. "What? What are you talking about?"

Now I knew what was so weird about his voice. It was filled with hurt. "Didn't you," he asked, "have me exorcised?"

"Me?" My own voice rocketed up about ten octaves. "Me? Jesse, of course not. I would never do that. I mean, you know I would never do something like that. That kid Jack did it. Your girlfriend Maria made him do it. She was trying to get rid of you. She told Jack you were bothering me, and he didn't know any better, so he exorcised you, and then Felix Diego threw me off the porch roof, and Jesse, they found your body, I mean your bones, and I saw them and I threw up all over the side of the house, and Spike really misses you and I was just thinking, you know, if you wanted to come back, you could, because that's why I've got this rope, so we can find our way back."

I was babbling. I have a tendency to do this even when I am not standing in purgatory. But I couldn't help myself. Everything was just kind of spilling out. Well, not everything. I mean, I totally wasn't going to tell him why I wanted him to come back. I wasn't going to mention the L word or anything. And not even because of Father D's warning, either.

"That is," I went on, "if you want to come back. I could see why you'd want to stay here. I mean, after a hundred and fifty years and all, it's probably a relief. I imagine they'll be moving you along soon, and you'll be getting a new life, or going up to heaven, or whatever. But I was just thinking, you know, it wasn't fair of Maria to do what she did to you - twice - and that if you want to come back and figure out what it was you were, you know, doing down there on earth for so long, well, I'd just give you a hand, if I could."

I looked down at Father D's watch. It was easier than looking into Jesse's face, and seeing that he still wore that inscrutable expression, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. And hearing.

"The only thing is," I said, "I can be separated from my body for half an hour before I wind up permanently detached, and we only have fifteen minutes left. So you have to hurry up and decide. What's it going to be?"

Was that, I wondered, unfeminine enough for Father Dom? I was so totally not working it. No one could accuse me even of smiling. I was the picture of a professional mediator.

Only I didn't know how long I was going to be able to maintain my businesslike persona. Especially when Jesse reached out, like he did just then, and laid a hand on my arm.

"Susannah," he said, and now his voice wasn't filled with hurt at all, but something that, if I wasn't mistaken, sounded a lot like anger. "Are you saying you died for me?"

"Um," I said, wondering if it would count as using my feminine wiles if he was the one who touched me. "Well, not technically. Yet. But if we hang around here much longer - "

The hand on my arm tightened. "Let's go," he said.

I wasn't sure he really understood the situation. "Jesse," I said. "I can find my own way back, okay? I'm like this with the gatekeeper." I held up crossed fingers. "If you want to come with me because you want to go back, that's fine, but if you just want to walk me back to my hole, believe me, I can get there on my own."

Jesse just said, "Susannah. Shut up."

And then, still keeping one hand on my arm, he grabbed the rope and started following it, back in the direction from which I'd come.

Oh, I thought as he propelled me along. Okay. Great. Now he's mad at me. Here I risk my life - because let's face it, that's what I was doing - and he's mad at me because of it. I actually should have thought of this. I mean, risking your life for a guy is practically like using the L word. Worse, even. How was I going to get out of this one?

I said, "Jesse, don't flatter yourself that I did this for you. I mean, it has been nothing but one giant pain in the neck, having you for a roommate. Do you think I like having to come home from school or from work or whatever and having to explain stuff like the Bay of Pigs to you? Believe me, life with you is no picnic."

He didn't say anything. He just kept pulling me along.

"Or what about Tad?" I said, bringing up what I knew was a sore subject. "I mean, you think I like having you tag along on my dates? Having you out of my life is going to make things a lot simpler, so don't think, you know, I did this for you. I only did it because that stupid cat of yours has been crying its head off. And also because anything I can do to make your stupid girlfriend mad, I will."

"Nombre de Dios, Susannah," Jesse muttered. "Maria's not my girlfriend."

"Well, she certainly used to be," I said. "And what about that, anyway? That girl is a full-on skank, Jesse. I can't believe you ever agreed to marry her. I mean, what were you thinking, anyway? Couldn't you see what she was like underneath all that lace?"

"Things," Jesse said through gritted teeth, "were different back then, Susannah."

"Oh, yeah? So different that you couldn't tell the girl you were about to marry was a big old - "

"I hardly knew her," Jesse said, hauling me to a stop and glaring down at me. "All right?"

"Nice try," I said. "You two were cousins. Which is a whole other issue which, if you really want to know, completely grosses me - "

"Yes, we were cousins," Jesse interrupted, giving my arm a shake. "But like I said before, things were different back then, Susannah. If we had more time, I'd tell you - "

"Oh, no, you don't. We still have" - I looked down at Father D's watch - "twelve minutes left. You tell me now."

"Susannah - "

"Now, Jesse, or I swear, I'm not budging."

He actually groaned in frustration, and said what I think must have been a very bad word, only I don't know for sure, since it was in Spanish. They don't teach us swears in Spanish at school.

"Fine," he said, dropping my arm. "You want to know? You want to know how it was back then? It was different, all right? California was different. Completely different. There was none of this mingling of the sexes. Boys and girls did not play together, did not sit side by side in classrooms. The only time I was ever in the same room with Maria was at meals, or sometimes dances. And then we were surrounded by other people. I doubt I ever heard her speak more than a few words - "

"Well, they were evidently pretty impressive ones, since you agreed to marry her."

Jesse ran a hand through his hair and made another exclamation in Spanish. "Of course I agreed to marry her," he said. "My father wanted it, her father wanted it. How could I say no? I didn't want to say no. I didn't know - not then - what she was. It was only later, when I got her letters, that I realized - "

"That she can't spell?"

He ignored me. " - that the two of us had nothing in common, and never would. But even then, I would not have disgraced my family by breaking things off with her. Not for that."

"But when you heard she wasn't as pure as the driven snow?" I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him, sexist product of the nineteenth century that he was. "That's when you decided she wasn't good wife material?"

"When I heard rumors about Maria and Felix Diego," he said, impatiently, "I was unhappy. I knew Diego. He was not a good man. He was cruel and . . . Well, he was always looking for ways to make money. And Maria had a lot of money. He wanted to marry her - you can guess why - so when I found out, I decided it might be better to end it, yes - "

"But Diego got to know you first," I said, a throb in my voice.

"Susannah." He stared down at me. "I've had a century and a half to get used to being dead. It no longer matters to me who killed me, or why. What's important to me right now is seeing that you do not end up the same way. Now will you move, or do I have to carry you?"

"Okay," I said, letting him pull me along again. "But I just want to get one thing straight. I did not do all this - you know, get myself exorcised and come up here and all - because I'm in love with you or anything like that."

"I would not," he said grimly, "as you say, flatter myself."

"Damn straight," I said. I wondered if I was still being unfeminine enough. Actually, I was beginning to think I was being a little too unfeminine. Hostile, actually, was what I was being. "Because I'm not. I came because of the cat. The cat really misses you."

"You shouldn't have come at all," Jesse said under his breath. Still, I heard him anyway. It wasn't like there was a whole lot of other noise up there. We had left the corridor - it had disappeared, I saw, the minute we turned our backs to it - and were back in the fog again, following the rope that, thankfully, Jack had remembered. "I cannot believe that Father Dominic allowed it."

"Hey," I said. "Leave Father D out of it. This is all your fault, you know. None of this would have happened if you had just been open and honest with me from the beginning about how you died. Then I could have at least told Andy to dig else-where. And I'd have been prepared to deal with Maria and her bohunk husband. I don't know why they are so strung out about people finding out they're a couple of murderers, but they are very intent on keeping what happened to you a big old myst - "

"That," Jesse said, "is because to them, no time has passed since their deaths. They were at rest until it became evident that my body was about to be found, which would inevitably open up speculation as to the cause of my demise. They do not understand that more than a century has passed since then. They are trying to preserve their places in the community, as the leading citizens they once were."

"Tell me about it," I said, fingering my bruise. "They think it's still eighteen fifty, and they're afraid of the neighbors finding out they offed you. Well, it's all going to blow up in their faces in a day or so. The truth is coming out, courtesy of the Carmel Pine Cone - "

Jesse spun me around to face him. He looked madder than ever. "Susannah," he said. "What are you talking about?"

"I told the whole story to Cee Cee," I explained, unable to keep a note of self-congratulation from creeping into my voice. "She's interning at the paper for the summer. She says they're running the story - the real story, about what happened to you - on Sunday."

Seeing his expression growing, if anything, even darker, I added, "Jesse, I had to. Maria killed the guy at the historical society - the one she stole your picture from in order to do the exorcism. I'm pretty sure she killed his grandfather, too. Maria and that husband of hers have killed everybody who has ever tried to tell the truth about what really happened to you that night. But she's not going to be able to do it anymore. That story is going to go out to thirty-five thousand people. More even, because they'll post it on the paper's website. Maria isn't going to be able to kill everybody who reads it."

Jesse shook his head. "No, Susannah. She'll just settle for killing you."

"Jesse," I said. "She can't kill me. She's already tried. I've got news for you: I am really, really hard to kill."

"Maybe not," Jesse said. He held something out in his hand. I looked down at it. To my surprise, I saw that it was the rope we'd been following.

Only instead of the end disappearing down into the hole through which I'd climbed, it sat, frayed, in Jesse's hand. As if it had been cut.

Cut with a knife.

CHAPTER 16

I stared down at the end of the rope in horror.

It's funny. You know what the first thing that popped into my head was?

"But Father Dom said," I cried, "that Maria and Felix were good Catholics. So what are they doing down in that church?"

Jesse had a little more presence of mind than I did. He reached out and seized my wrist, twisting it so he could see the face of Father Dominic's watch.

"How much more time do you have?" he demanded. "How many more minutes?"

I swallowed. "Eight," I said. "But the whole reason Father Dom blessed my house was so they wouldn't try to come in, and then look what they do. They come into a church - "

Jesse looked around. "We'll find the way out," he said. "Don't worry, Susannah. It has to be around here somewhere. We'll find it."

But we wouldn't. I knew that. There was no point, I knew, even in looking. What with the fog covering the ground so thickly, there was no chance we'd ever find the hole through which I'd climbed.

No. Susannah Simon, who'd been so hard to kill, was effectively dead already.

I started untying the rope from around my waist. If I was going to meet my maker, I at least wanted to look my best.

"It must be here," Jesse was saying as he waved at the fog, trying to part it in order to see beneath it. "Susannah, it must be."

I thought about Father Dominic. And Jack. Poor Jack. If that rope had been cut, it could only have been because something catastrophic had happened down in the church. Maria de Silva, that practicing Catholic Father D had been so convinced would never dare launch an attack on consecrated ground, had not been as frightened of offending the Lord as Father Dominic had assumed she'd be. I hoped he and Jack were all right. Her problem was with me, not them.

"Susannah." Jesse was peering down at me. "Susannah, why aren't you looking? You cannot give up, Susannah. We'll find it. I know we'll find it."

I just looked at him. I wasn't even seeing him, really. I was thinking about my mother. How was Father Dominic going to explain it? I mean, if he wasn't already dead himself. My mom was going to be really, really suspicious if my body was found in the basilica. I mean, I wouldn't even go to church on Sunday. Why would I be there on a Friday night?

"Susannah!" Jesse had reached out and seized me by both my shoulders. Now he gave me a shake with enough force to send my hair flying into my face. "Susannah, are you listening to me? We only have five more minutes. We've got to find a way out. Call him."

I blinked up at him, confusedly pushing my long dark hair from my eyes. That was one thing, anyway. I'd never have to worry about finding the perfect shade to cover my gray. I'd never turn gray now.

"Call who?" I asked dazedly.

"The gatekeeper," Jesse said through gritted teeth. "You said he was your friend. Maybe he'll show us the way."

I looked into Jesse's eyes. I saw something in them I'd never seen before. I realized, in a rush, what that something was.

Fear. Jesse was afraid.

And suddenly I was afraid, too. Before I'd just been shocked. Now I was scared. Because if Jesse was afraid, well, that meant something really, really bad was about to happen. Because Jesse does not scare easily.

"Call him," Jesse said, again.

I tore my gaze from his and looked around. Everywhere - everywhere I looked - I saw only fog, night sky, and more fog. No gatekeeper. No hole back to the Junipero Serra Mission church. No hallway filled with doors. Nothing.

And then, suddenly, there was something. A figure, striding toward us. I was filled with relief. The gatekeeper, at last. He would help me. I knew he would....

Except that, as he came closer, I saw it wasn't the gatekeeper at all. This guy didn't have anything on his head except hair. Curly brown hair. Just like -

"Paul?" I burst out incredulously.

I couldn't believe it. Paul. Paul Slater. Paul Slater was coming toward us. But how -

"Suze," he said conversationally as he strolled up. His hands were in the pockets of his chinos, and his Brooks Brothers shirt was untucked. He looked as if he had just breezed in from a long day on the golf course.

Paul Slater. Paul Slater.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "Are you ... are you dead?"

"I was about to ask you the same question," Paul said. He looked at Jesse, who was still clutching my shoulders. "Who's your friend? He is a friend, I assume."

"I - " I glanced from Jesse to Paul and then back again. "I came up here to get him," I explained. "He's my friend. My friend Jesse. Jack accidentally exorcised him, and - "

"Ah," Paul said, rolling back and forth on his heels. "Yes. I told you that you should have left well enough alone with Jack. He'll never be one of us, you know."

I just stared at him. I could not figure out what was happening. Paul Slater, here? It didn't make any sense. Not unless he was dead. "One of ... what?"

"One of us," Paul repeated. "I told you, Suze. All this do-gooding, mediator nonsense. I can't believe you fell for it." He shook his head, chuckling a little. "I would have thought you were smarter than that. I mean, the old man, I can understand. He's from a completely different world - a different generation. And Jack, of course, is ... well, clearly unsuited for this sort of thing. But you, Suze. I'd have expected more from you."

Jesse let go of my shoulders but kept one hand firmly around one of my wrists ... the wrist with Father Dominic's watch on it. "This," he said, "is not the gatekeeper, I take it."

"No," I said. "This is Jack's brother, Paul. Paul?" I looked at him. "How did you get here? Are you dead?"

Paul rolled his eyes. "No. Please. And you didn't need to go through all that rigmarole to get here, either. You can, like me, come and go from here when you please, Suze. You've just been spending so much time 'helping' " - he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers - "lost souls like that one" - he nodded his head in Jesse's direction - "you've never had a chance to concentrate on discovering your real potential."

I stared at him. "You told me . . . you told me you don't believe in ghosts."

He smiled like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. "I should have been more specific," he said. "I don't believe in letting them walk all over me, like you clearly seem to." His gaze roved over Jesse contemptuously.

I was still having trouble processing what I was seeing ... and hearing.

"But . . . but isn't that what mediators are supposed to do?" I stammered. "Help lost souls?"

Paul heaved a shudder, as if the fog swirling around us had suddenly grown colder. "Hardly," he said. "Well, maybe the old man. And the boy. But not me. And certainly not you, Susannah. And if you'd bothered giving me the time of day, instead of being so caught up trying to rescue this one" - he sneered in Jesse's direction - "I might have been able to show you precisely what you're capable of. Which is so much more than you can begin to imagine."

A glance at Jesse told me that I had better cut this little conversation short if I didn't want any bloodshed. I could see a muscle I'd never noticed before leaping in Jesse's jaw.

"Paul," I said. "I want you to know that it really means a lot to me, the fact that you, apparently, have your finger on the pulse of the mystical world. But right now, if I don't get back to earth, I'm going to wake up dead. Not to mention the fact that if I'm not mistaken, your little brother might be having a really hard time down there with a guy named Diego and a chick in a hoop skirt."

Paul nodded. "Yes," he said. "Thanks to you and your refusal to acknowledge your true calling, Jack's life is in danger, as is, incidentally, the priest's."

Jesse made a sudden motion toward Paul, which I cut short by holding up a restraining hand.

"How about giving us some help then, huh, Paul, if you know so much?" I asked. It was no joke, holding Jesse back. He seemed ready to tear the guy's head off. "How do we get out of here?"

Paul shrugged. "Oh, is that all you want to know?" he asked. "That's easy. Just go into the light."

"Go into the - " I broke off, furious. "Paul!"

He chuckled. "Sorry," he said. "I just wanted to know if you'd seen the movie."

But he wasn't chuckling a bit a split second later when Jesse suddenly launched himself at him.

I'm serious. It was way WWF. One minute Paul was standing there, smirking, and the next, Jesse's fist was sinking into his tanned, handsome face.

Well, I'd tried to stop him. Paul was, after all, probably my only way out of there. But I can't say I really minded when I heard the sound of nasal cartilage tearing.

Paul was pretty much a baby about the whole thing. He started cursing and saying stuff like, "You broke my nose! I can't believe you broke my nose!"

"I'll break more than your nose," Jesse declared, clutching Paul by his shirt collar and waving his blood-smeared fist in front of his eyes, "if you don't tell us how to get out of here now."

How Paul might have responded to this interesting threat I never did find out. That's because I heard a sweetly familiar voice call my name. I turned around, and there, running toward me through the mist, was Jack.

Around his waist was a rope.

"Suze," he called. "Come quick! That mean lady ghost you warned me about, she cut your rope, and now she and that other one are beating up Father Dominic!" Then he stopped running, took in the sight of Jesse still clutching a bloody-faced Paul, and said, curiously, "Paul? What are you doing here?"

A moment passed. A heartbeat, really - if I'd had one, which, of course, I didn't. No one moved. No one breathed. No one bunked.

Then Paul looked up at Jesse and said, "You'll regret this. Do you understand? I'll make you sorry."

Jesse just laughed, without the slightest trace of humor, and said, "You're welcome to try."

Then he tossed Paul aside as if he were a used tissue, strode forward, seized my wrist, and dragged me toward Jack.

"Take us to them," he said to the little boy.

And Jack, slipping his hand into mine, did so, without looking back at his brother. Not even once.

Which told me, I realized, just about everything - except what I really wanted to know:

Just who - or, more aptly, what - was Paul Slater?

But I didn't have time to stay and find out. Father Dominic's watch gave me a minute to return to my body, or be placed in the difficult position of not having one ... which was going to make starting the eleventh grade in the fall a real problem.

Fortunately, the hole was not far from where we'd been standing. When we got to it and I looked down, I couldn't see Father Dominic anywhere. I could hear the sounds of a struggle, though - breaking glass, heavy objects hitting the floor, wood splintering.

And I could see my body, stretched out beneath me as if I were sleeping, and sleeping so deeply I wasn't stirring at the sound of all that racket. Not a twitch.

Somehow, it seemed a much longer way down than it had climbing up.

I turned to look at Jack. "You should go first," I said. "We'll lower you with the rope - "

But both he and Jesse shouted, "No!" at the same time.

And the next thing I knew, I was falling. Really. Down and down I tumbled, and while I couldn't see much as I fell, I could see what I was about to land on, and let me tell you, I did not relish crushing my own ...

But I didn't. Just like in dreams I've had where I've been falling, I opened my eyes at the moment of impact, and found myself blinking up at Jesse's and Jack's faces, peering down at me over the rim of the hole Father Dom had created with his chanting.

I was inside myself again. And I was in one piece. I could tell as I reached down to make sure my legs were still there. They were. Everything was functional. Even the bruise on my head hurt again.

And when, a second later, a statue of the Virgin Mary - the one Adam had told me had wept blood - landed across my stomach, well, that really hurt, too.

"There she is," Maria de Silva cried. "Get her!"

I have to tell you, I am getting really tired of people - particularly dead people - trying to kill me. Paul is right: I am a do-gooder. I do nothing but try to help people, and what do I get for my efforts? Virgin Mary statues in the midriff. It isn't fair.

To show just how unfair I thought it all was, I heaved the statue off me, scrambled to my feet, and grabbed Maria by the back of her skirt. Apparently, recalling her last incident with me, she decided to make a run for it. Too late, though.

"You know, Maria," I said conversationally as I reeled her in by her flounces, the way a fisherman reels in a really big trout. "Girls like you really irritate me. I mean, it's not just that you get guys to do your dirty work for you, instead of doing it yourself. It's this whole I'm-so-much-better-than-you-because-I'm-a-de-Silva thing that really bugs me. Because this is America." I reached out and grabbed a fistful of her glossy black curls. "And in America, we're all created equal, whether our last name is de Silva or Simon."

"Yes?" Maria cried, lashing out with her knife. She'd apparently gotten it back. "Well, do you want to know what irritates me about you? You think that just because you are a mediator, you are better than me."

I have to tell you, that one cracked me up.

"Now that's not true," I said, ducking as she took a swipe at me with her blade. "I don't think I'm better than you because I'm a mediator, Maria. I think I'm better than you because I do not go around agreeing to marry guys I'm not in love with."

In a flash, I had her arm pinned behind her waist again. The knife fell to the floor with a clatter. "And even if I did," I went on, "I wouldn't have them murdered just so I could marry somebody else. Because" - keeping a firm grip on her hair with my other hand, I steered her toward the altar rail - "I believe the key to a successful relationship is communication. If you had simply communicated with Jesse better, none of this would be happening now. I mean, that's your real problem right there, Maria. Communication goes two ways. Somebody has to talk. And somebody has to listen."

Seeing what I was about to do, Maria shrieked, "Diego!"

But it was too late. I had already rammed her face, hard, into the altar rail.

"The thing is," I explained as I pulled her head back from the rail to examine the extent of the damage, "you won't listen, either, will you? I mean, I told you not to mess with me. And" - I leaned forward to whisper her in her ear - "I think I specified that you not mess with my boyfriend, either. But did you listen? No . . . you . . . did ... not."

I accompanied each of those last four words with a blow to Maria's face. Cruel, I know, but let's face it: she totally deserved it. The bitch had tried to kill me, not once, but twice.

Not that I'm counting or anything.

Here's the thing about chicks who were brought up in the nineteenth century: they're sneaky. I'll give them that. They have the whole back-stabbing, attacking people while they're asleep thing down pretty pat.

But as far as actual hand-to-hand combat goes? Yeah, not so good at that. I broke her neck pretty easily just by stomping on it. In Prada slides, too!

It was a shame her neck wouldn't stay broken for long.

But while I had her nicely subdued, I looked around to see if Jack had made it down okay....

And the news was not good. Oh, Jack was fine. It was just that he was hunched over Father Dominic, who was far from it. He was lying in a crumpled heap to one side of the altar, looking way worse for wear. I climbed over the altar rail and went to him.

"Oh, Suze," Jack wailed. "I can't wake him up! I think he's - "

But even as he was speaking, Father Dom, his bifocals askew on his face, let out a moan.

"Father D?" I lifted his head and set it down gently in my lap. "Father D, it's me, Suze. Can you hear me?"

Father D just moaned some more. But his eyelids fluttered, which I knew was a good sign.

"Jack," I said. "Run over there to that gold box beneath the crucifix - see it? - and pull out the decanter of wine you'll find there."

Jack hurried to do as I had asked. I put my face close to Father Dominic's and whispered, "You'll be okay. Hang on, Father D. Keep it together."

A very loud splintering crash distracted me, and I glanced around the rest of the church with a sudden sinking feeling. Diego. He was here somewhere, I'd forgotten all about him -

But Jesse hadn't.

I don't know why, but I had simply assumed that Jesse had stayed up there in that creepy shadowland. He hadn't. He had slipped back into this world - the real world - without, apparently, much thought as to what he might be giving up in doing so.

On the other hand, down here he was getting to beat the crap out of the guy who killed him, so maybe he wasn't giving up all that much. In fact, he looked pretty intent on returning the favor - you know, killing the guy who'd killed him - except, of course, that he couldn't, since Diego was already dead.

Still, I had never seen anybody go after someone with such single-minded purpose. Jesse, I was convinced, wasn't going to be satisfied merely with breaking Felix Diego's neck. No, I think he wanted to rip off the guy's head.

And he was doing a pretty job of it, too. Diego was bigger than Jesse, but he was also older, and not as quick on his feet. Plus, I think Jesse just plain wanted it more. To see his opponent decapitated, I mean. At least, if the energy with which he was swinging a jagged-edged piece of pew at Felix Diego's head was any indication.

"Here," Jack said breathlessly as he brought the wine, in its crystal decanter, to me.

"Good," I said. It wasn't whisky - isn't that what you're supposed to give unconscious people to rouse them? - but it had alcohol in it. "Father D," I said, raising his head and putting the un-stoppered decanter to his lips. "Drink some of this."

Only it didn't work. Wine just dribbled down his chin and dripped onto his chest.

Meanwhile, Maria had begun to moan. Her broken neck was snapping back into place already. That's the thing about ghosts. They bounce back, and way too fast.

Jack glared at her as she tried to raise herself to her knees.

"Too bad we can't exorcise her," he said, darkly.

I looked at him. "Why can't we?" I asked.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "I don't know. We don't have the chicken blood anymore."

"We don't need the chicken blood," I said. "We have that." I nodded toward the circle of candles. Miraculously, in spite of all the fighting going on, they had remained standing.

"But we don't have a picture of her," Jack said. "Don't we need a picture of her?"

"Not," I said, gently putting Father D's head back on the floor, "if we don't have to summon her. And we don't. She's right here. Come on and help me move her."

Jack took her feet. I took her torso. She moaned and fought us the whole way, but when we laid her on the choir robes, she must have felt as I did - that it was pretty darn comfortable - since she stopped struggling and just lay there. Above her head, the circle Father Dom had opened remained open, smoke - or fog, as I knew it was now - curling down from its outer edges in misty tendrils.

"How do we make it suck her in?" Jack wanted to know.

"I don't know." I glanced at Jesse and Diego. They were still engaged in what appeared to be mortal combat. If I had thought Jesse had lost the upper hand, I'd have gone over and helped, but it appeared he was doing fine.

Besides, the guy had killed him. I figured it was payback time, and for that, Jesse did not need my help.

"The book!" I said, brightening. "Father Dom read from a book. Look around. Do you see it?"

Jack found the small, black, leather-bound volume beneath the first pew. When he flipped through the pages, however, his face fell.

"Suze," he said. "It's not even in English."

"That's okay," I said, and I took it from him and turned to the page Father Dominic had marked. "Here it is."

And I began to read.

I'm not going to pretend I know Latin. I don't. I hadn't the slightest idea what I was saying.

But I guess pronunciation doesn't count when you are summoning the forces of darkness, since, as I spoke, those misty tendrils began to grow longer and longer, until finally they spilled out onto the floor and began to curl around Maria's limbs.

She didn't even seem to mind, either. It was like she was enjoying the way they felt around her wrists and ankles.

Well, the chick was kind of dominatrixy, if you asked me.

She didn't even struggle when, as I read further, the slack on the smoky tendrils tightened, and slowly, the fog began elevating her off the floor.

"Hey," Jack said in an indignant voice. "How come it didn't do that for you? How come you had to climb into the hole?"

I was afraid to reply, however. Who knew what would happen if I stopped reading?

So I kept on. And Maria soared higher and higher, until ...

With a strangled cry, Diego broke away from Jesse and came racing toward us.

"You bitch!" he bellowed at me as he stared in horror at his wife's body, dangling in the air above us. "Bring her down!"

Jesse, panting, his shirt torn down the middle and a thin ribbon of blood running down the side of his face from a cut in his forehead, came up behind Diego and said, "You want your wife so badly, then why don't you go to her?"

And he shoved Felix Diego into the center of the ring of candles.

A second later, tendrils of smoke shot down to curl around him, too.

Diego didn't take his exorcism as quietly as his wife. He did not appear to be enjoying himself one bit. He kicked and screamed and said quite a lot of stuff in Spanish that I didn't understand, but which Jesse surely did.

Still, Jesse's expression did not change, not even once. Every so often I looked up from what I was reading and checked. He watched the two lovers - the one who had killed him and the one who had ordered his death - disappear into the same hole we'd just climbed from.

Until finally, after I'd uttered a last "Amen," they disappeared.

When the last echo of Diego's vengeful cries died away, silence filled the church. It was so pervasive a silence, it was actually a little overwhelming. I myself was reluctant to break it. But I felt like I had to.

"Jesse," I said, softly.

But not softly enough. My whisper, in the stillness of the church, after all that violence, sounded like a scream.

Jesse tore his gaze from the hole through which Maria and Diego had disappeared and looked at me questioningly.

I nodded toward the hole. "If you want to go back," I said, though each word tasted, I was sure, like those beetles Dopey had accidentally poured into his mouth, "now is the time, before it closes up again."

Jesse looked up at the hole, and then at me, and then back at the hole.

And then back at me.

"No, thank you, querida," he said, casually. "I think I want to stay and see how it all ends."

CHAPTER 17

How it all ended that day was with Jack and Jesse and me helping Father Dominic, when he finally came around, to a phone, so that he could call the police and report that he'd stumbled across a pair of thieves looting the place.

A lie, yes. But how else was he going to explain all the damage Maria and Diego had done? Not to mention the bump on his noggin.

Then, once we were sure the police and an ambulance were on their way, Jesse and I left Father Dominic and waited with Jack for the cab we'd called, carefully not talking about the one thing I'm pretty sure we were all thinking: Paul.

Not that I didn't try to get Jack to tell me what was up with his brother and all. Basically, the conversation went like this:

Me: "So, Jack. What is up with your brother?"

Jack: (scowling) "I don't want to talk about it."

Me: "I can fully appreciate that. However, he appears to be able to move freely between the realms of the living and the dead, and I find this alarming. Do you think it is possible that he is the son of Satan?"

Jesse: "Susannah."

Me: "I mean that in the nicest possible way."

Jack: "I said I don't want to talk about it."

Me: "Which is perfectly understandable. But did you know before now that Paul is a mediator, too? Or were you as surprised as we were? Because you didn't seem very surprised when you ran into him, you know, up there."

Jack: "I really don't want to talk about this right now."

Jesse: "He doesn't want to talk about it, Susannah. Leave the boy alone."

Which was easy for Jesse to say. Jesse didn't know what I did. Which was that Paul and Maria and Diego . . . they had all been in cahoots. It had taken me a while to realize it, but now that I had, I could have kicked myself for not seeing it before: Paul's keeping me occupied at Friday's while Maria had Jack perform the exorcism on Jesse. Paul's remark - "It's easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar." Hadn't Maria said the exact same thing to me, not a few hours later?

The three of them - Paul, Maria, and Diego - had formed an unholy trinity, bound, apparently by a common hatred of one person: Jesse.

But what possible reason could Paul, who'd never even met Jesse until that moment in purgatory, have to hate him? Now, of course, his dislike was understandable: Jesse had done him a very great bodily injury, something for which Paul has sworn to repay him next time he saw him. I'm sure Jesse wasn't taking it too seriously, but I was worried. I mean, I'd just gone to a lot of trouble to get Jesse out of one sticky situation. I wasn't too enthused about seeing him plunge straight into another one.

But it was no good. Jack wouldn't talk. The kid was traumatized. Well, sort of. He actually seemed like he'd had a pretty good time. He just didn't want to talk about his brother.

Which bummed me out. Because I had a lot of questions. For instance, if Paul was a mediator - and he had to be; how else could he have been walking around up there? - why hadn't he helped his little brother out with the whole I see dead people thing, said a few words of encouragement, assured the poor kid he wasn't crazy?

But if I'd hoped to get any answers out of Jack on that account, I was sadly disappointed.

I guess if I'd had a brother like Paul, I probably wouldn't have wanted to talk about it, either.

Once Jack had been safely dropped off at the hotel, Jesse and I began the long walk home (I didn't have enough money on me for a ride from the hotel back to my house).

You might wonder what we talked about during that two-mile trek. A lot, surely, might have been discussed.

And yet, to tell you the truth, I can't remember. I don't think we really talked about anything important. What was there to say, really?

I snuck in as successfully as I'd snuck out. No one woke up, except the dog, and once he saw it was me, he went right back to sleep. No one had noticed that I'd been gone.

No one ever does.

Spike was the only one besides me who'd noticed Jesse was gone, and his joy at seeing him again was an embarrassment to felines everywhere. I could hear the stupid cat purring all the way across the room....

Although I didn't listen for long. That's because what happened was, I walked in, pulled down the bedclothes, slipped off my slides, and climbed into bed. I didn't even wash my face. I climbed into bed, looked one last time at Jesse as if to reassure myself he was really back, and then I went to sleep.

And I stayed asleep until Sunday.

My mother became convinced I was coming down with mono. At least until she saw the bruise on my forehead. Then she decided I was suffering from an aneurysm. Much as I tried to convince her that neither of these things was true - that I was just really, really tired - she didn't believe me, and would, I'm convinced, have dragged me to the hospital Sunday morning for an MRI - hey, I had been asleep for almost two days - except that she and Andy had to drive up to Doc's camp to bring him home.

The thing is, I guess dying - even for just half an hour - can be very exhausting.

I woke ravenous with hunger. After my mom and Andy left - having extracted from me a promise that I would not leave the house all day, but would instead wait meekly for them to return, so that they could reassess my state of health at that time - I downed two bagels and a bowl of Special K before Sleepy and Dopey even showed up at the table, looking all tussle-headed and unkempt. I, on the other hand, had already showered and dressed, and was ready to face the day ... or at least unemployment, since I wasn't certain the Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort was going to extend my contract with them, due to my having missed two days of work in a row.

Sleepy, however, reassured me on that account.

"Naw, it's cool," he said as he shoveled Cheerios into his mouth. "I talked to Caitlin. I told her you were going through, you know, a thing. On account of the dead dude in the backyard. She was okay with it."

"Really?" I wasn't actually listening to Sleepy. Instead, I was watching Dopey eat, always an awe-inspiring sight. He stuffed one entire half of a bagel into his mouth and seemed to swallow it whole. I wished I had a camera so I could record the event for posterity. Or at least prove to the next girl who declared my stepbrother a babe how wrong she was. I watched as, without lifting his gaze from the newspaper spread out before him, Dopey stuffed the other half of the bagel into his mouth and, again without chewing, ingested it, the way snakes devour rats.

It was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen. Well, apart from the beetles in the orange juice container.

"Oh." Sleepy leaned back in his chair and plucked something from the counter behind him. "And Caitlin said to give this to you. It's from the Slaters. They checked out yesterday."

I caught the envelope he tossed. It was lumpy. There was something hard in it. Susan, it said, on the outside.

"They weren't supposed to check out until today," I said, ripping the envelope apart.

"Well." Sleepy shrugged. "They left early. What can I tell you?"

I read the first letter enclosed in the envelope. It was from Mrs. Slater. It said,

Dear Susan,

What can I say? You did such wonders for our Jack. He is like a different boy. Things have always been much harder for Jack than for Paul. Jack just isn’t as bright as Paul, I suppose. In any case, we were very sorry not to be able to say good-bye, but we did have to leave earlier than expected. Please accept this small token of our appreciation, and know that Rick and I are eternally in your debt.

Nancy Slater

Folded into this note was a check for two hundred dollars. I'm not kidding. That wasn't my pay for the week, either. That was my tip.

I laid the check and the letter down beside my cereal bowl and took the next note out of the envelope. It was from Jack.

Dear Suze,

You saved my life. I know you don’t believe it, but you did. If you hadn’t done what you did for me, I would still be afraid. I don’t think I will ever be afraid again. Thank you, and I hope your head feels better. Write to me if you ever get a chance.

Love, Jack

P.S. Please don't ask me anymore about Paul. I'm sorry about what he did. I'm sure he didn't mean it. He is not so bad. J

Oh, right, I thought, cynically. Not so bad? The guy was a creep! He could walk freely within the land of the dead, and yet when his own brother was being terrified out of his wits by the fact that he could see dead people, the guy didn't lift a finger to explain. Not so bad. The guy was very bad. I sincerely hoped I never saw him again.

There was a second postscript to Jack's letter.

P.P.S. I thought you might want to have this. I don't know what else to do with it. J

I tilted the envelope, and to my great surprise, out popped the miniature of Jesse I'd seen on Clive Clemmings's desk, back at the historical society. I looked down at it, stunned.

I would have to give it back. That was my first thought. I had to give it back. I mean, wouldn't I? You can't just keep things like that. That would be like stealing.

Except that somehow, I didn't think Clive would mind. Especially after Dopey looked up from the paper and went, "Yo, we're in here."

Sleepy glanced up from the automobile section he'd been scanning, as usual, for a '67 black Camaro with less than fifty thousand miles.

"Get out," he said, in a bored voice.

"No, seriously," Dopey said. "Look."

He turned the paper around, and there was a picture of our house. Alongside it was a photo of Clive Clemmings and a reproduction of Maria's portrait.

I snatched the paper away from Dopey.

"Hey," he yelled. "I was reading that!"

"Let somebody who can pronounce all the big words have a try," I said.

And then I read Cee Cee's article out loud for both of them.

She'd written, basically, the same story I'd told her, starting with the discovery of Jesse's body - only she called him Hector, not Jesse, de Silva - and then going into Clive's grandfather's theory about his murder. She hit all the right points, hammering it home about Maria's two-faced treachery and Diego's overall ickiness. And without coming out and saying so in as many words, she managed to indicate that none of the couple's offspring ever amounted to much of anything.

Rock on, Cee Cee.

She credited all of her information to the late Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D., who she claimed had been piecing together the mystery at the time of his death a few days earlier. I had a feeling that Clive, wherever he was, was going to be pleased. Not only did he come off looking like a hero for having solved a hundred-and-fifty-year-old murder mystery, but they'd also managed to find a photo of him in which he still had most of his hair.

"Hey," Dopey said when I was finished reading. "How come they never mentioned me? I'm the one who found the skeleton."

"Oh, yeah," Sleepy said in disgust. "Your role was really crucial. After all, if it wasn't for you, the guy's skull might still have been intact."

Dopey launched himself at his older brother. As the two of them rolled around on the floor, making a thunderous noise their father would never have put up with if he'd been home, I set the paper aside and returned to my envelope from the Slaters. There was still one more slip of paper inside it.

Suze, the strong, slanting handwriting on it read. Apparently, it was not to be . . . for now.

Paul. I couldn't believe it. The note was from Paul.

I know you have questions. I also know you have courage. What I wonder is whether you have the courage to ask the question that is the hardest for someone of our ... persuasion.

In the meantime, remember: If you give a man a fish, he’ll eat for a day. But if you teach him to fish, he'll eat all the fish you might have caught for yourself.

Just a little something to keep in mind, Suze.

Paul

Gosh, I thought. What a charmer. No wonder we never clicked.

The hardest question of all? What was that? And what persuasion were we, precisely? What did this guy know that I didn't? Plenty, apparently.

One thing I did know, though. Whatever else Paul was - and I was not at all convinced he was a mediator - he was a jerk. I mean Paul had pretty much left Jack out to dry not once, but twice, first by never once bothering to say Hey, don’t worry, kid, for folks like you and me, it’s normal to see dead people all over the place, and the second time by leaving him alone in that church while those two psychos were tearing up the place.

Not to mention what, I was convinced, he'd done to Jesse, someone he had not even known.

And for that, I'd never forgive him.

And I certainly wasn't about to trust him. Or his opinions on fishing.

Disgusted as I was with him, however, I didn't throw his note away. It would, I decided, have to be shown to Father Dom, who, a phone call had reassured me, was doing well - just a little sore, was all.

While Sleepy and Dopey rolled around - Dopey yelling, "Get offa me, homo" - I picked up my bounty and went back upstairs. Heck, it was my day off. I wasn't going to spend it indoors, despite my mother's orders. I decided to give Cee Cee a call and see what she was up to. Maybe the two of us could hit the beach. I deserved, I thought, a little R and R.

When I got to my room, I saw that Jesse was already up. He doesn't usually pay morning visits. On the other hand, I don't normally sleep for thirty-six hours straight, so I guess neither of us were really sticking to the schedule.

In any case, I hadn't expected to see him there, and so I jumped about a foot and a half and quickly hid the hand carrying his miniature behind my back.

I mean, come on. I don't want him to think I like him or anything.

"You're awake," he said from the window seat where he'd been sitting with Spike and a copy of Abby Hoffman's Steal This Book that I happen to know he'd stolen from my mother's bookshelf downstairs.

"Um," I said, sidling over to my bed. Maybe, if I was quick enough, I could thrust his picture under my pillow before he noticed. "Yes, I am."

"How do you feel?" he asked me.

"Me?" I asked, like there was somebody else in the room he could possibly have been asking.

Jesse laid the book down and looked at me with another one of those expressions on his face. You know, the kind I can never read.

"Yes, you," he said. "How do you feel?"

"Fine," I said. I made it to the bed. I sat down on it, and quick as a mongoose - I've never seen one in action, but I've heard they're pretty fast - I thrust the check, the letters, and the miniature under my pillow. Then I relaxed.

"I feel great," I said.

"Good," he said. "We need to talk."

Suddenly I didn't feel so relaxed anymore. In fact, I sprang to my feet. I don't know why, but my heart started beating very fast.

Talk? What does he want to talk about? My mind was going a hundred miles a second. I suppose we should talk about what happened. I mean, it was very scary and all of that, and I nearly died, and like Paul said, I do have a lot of questions -

But what if that was what Jesse wanted to talk about? The part where I nearly died, I mean?

I didn't want to talk about that. Because the fact is, that whole part, that part where I nearly died, well, I nearly died trying to save him. Seriously. I was hoping he hadn't noticed, but I could tell by the look on his face that he totally had. Noticed, I mean.

And now he wanted to talk about it. But how could I talk about it? Without letting it slip? The L word, I mean.

"You know what," I said, very fast. "I don't want to talk. Is that okay? I really, really don't want to talk. I am all talked out."

Jesse lifted Spike off his lap and put him on the floor. Then he stood up.

What was he doing? I wondered. What was he doing?

I took a deep breath, and kept talking about not talking.

"I'm just - Look," I said, as he took a step toward me. "I'm just going to give Cee Cee a call and maybe we'll go to the beach or something, because I really ... I just need a day off."

Another step toward me. Now he was right in front of me.

"Especially," I said significantly, looking up at him, "from talking. That's what I especially need a day off from. Talking."

"Fine," he said. He reached up and cupped my face in both his hands. "We don't have to talk."

And that's when he kissed me.

On the lips.