The Summoning

Twenty-four

I KNEW Rae WAS DISAPPOINTED by what we'd found —or hadn't. I felt a weird kind of guilt, like a performer who failed to entertain. But she never doubted I'd seen a ghost or that he'd told me to open that door, and I was grateful for that.

I returned the key, washed, then found Mrs. Talbot and told her I was going upstairs for math tutoring with Derek and that Simon would be there. She hesitated but only for a moment, then sent me off.

I retrieved my newly arrived math text from my room and went around to the boys' side. The door was open. Simon sprawled on the bed, reading a comic. Derek was hunched over the too-small desk, doing homework.

The room was a reverse image of ours, set at the back of the house instead of the front. Simon's walls were covered in what looked like pages ripped from a comic book, but when I squinted, I realized they were hand drawn. Some were black-and-white, but most were in full color, everything from character sketches to splash panels to full pages, done in a style that wasn't quite manga, wasn't quite comic book. More than once Simon had gotten in trouble for doodling in class. Now I could see what he'd been working on.

Derek's walls were bare. Books were stacked on his dresser and magazines lay open on the bed. Shoved to the back corner of his desk was some kind of contraption full of wires and pulleys. A school project, I supposed, but if I had to build anything that complicated next year, I was doomed.

I rapped on the doorframe.

"Hey." Simon slapped down the comic as he sat up. "I was just going to tell Derek we should go downstairs, make sure the nurses weren't giving you a hassle. They didn't, did they?"

I shook my head.

Derek set his math text on the bedside table, as a prop, then put his binder over it. "I'll be in the shower. Start without me."

"Won't the nurses hear the water running?"

He shrugged, and shoved back his hair, lank and stringy now, the dull sheen of oil glistening under the lights. 'Tell them I was already in there. I'll only be a few minutes."

He headed for the door, circling as wide around me as he could manage, which made me wonder how badly he needed that shower. I wasn't about to sniff and find out.

If he was showering at night, that might be part of his problem. Kari said she always used to have a bath in the evening, but she'd had to switch to morning showers or her hair would be gross by dinner. I wouldn't dare suggest this to Derek, but as he passed, I couldn't resist an innocent, "Why don't you just shower in the morning?"

"I do," he muttered as he left.

Simon put away his comic. "Come on in. I don't bite."

He lay back in the middle of his bed, springs squeaking, then patted a spot at the edge.

"I'd say this is the first time I've had a girl in my bed . . . if I didn't mind sounding like a total loser."

I reached over to put my books on the beside table, hiding my blush. As I opened my text, to look like we were working on it, I knocked the binder off Derek's. I glimpsed the cover and did a double take.

College Algebra with Trigonometry.

I flipped through the pages.

"If you can understand any of that, you're way ahead of me," Simon said.

"I thought Derek was in tenth grade."

"Yeah, but not in algebra. Or geometry. Or chemistry, physics, or biology, though he's only in twelfth grade in the sciences."

Only twelfth . . . ?

When he said that no one would question us working on math together, he hadn't meant that he needed help. Great. It was bad enough Derek thought I was a flighty blond, jumping at every noise. Apparently he figured I wasn't too bright, either.

I put the binder back on top of Derek's text.

"Tori . .. she didn't give you a hard time or anything, did she?" he asked. "About yesterday."

I shook my head.

He exhaled and crossed his arms behind his head. "Good. I don't know what her problem is. I've made it clear that I'm not interested. At first, I tried being nice about it, brushing her off. When she didn't take a hint, I told her I wasn't interested. Now, I'm downright rude to her and she still won't back off."

I twisted around to see him better. "I guess that would be hard —having someone really like you and you aren't interested back."

He laughed. "The only person Tori really likes is Tori. I'm just a stand-in until she can get back to her football captains. Girls like Tori need to have a guy —any guy—and here I'm her only option. Peter was way too young and Derek's—Derek's not her type. Trust me, if another guy walks in here, she'll forget I exist."

"I don't know about that. I think she might really —"

"Puh-lease. Do I look like diva bait to you?" He turned onto his side, head propped on his arm. "Oh, sure, when Derek and I start at a new school, I'll get some attention from the clique girls. Like" —he raised his voice to a falsetto—"'Hey, Simon, I was, like, wondering if you could maybe, you know, help me with my homework after school? 'Cause it's, like, math and, like, you're Chinese, right? I bet you're sooo good at it.'"

He rolled his eyes. "First, my Dad's Korean and my mom was Swedish. Second, I totally suck at math. I don't like cuckoo clocks or skiing or fancy chocolate either."

I sputtered a laugh. "I think that's Swiss."

"Huh. So what's Swedish?"

"Urn, I don't know. Meatballs?"

"Well, I kind of like those. But probably not Swedish ones.

"So what do you like?"

"In school? History. Don't laugh. And I'm not bad in English. I write mean haiku, which, by the way, is Japanese."

"I knew that." I glanced up at the drawings on his walls. "You must ace art, though. Those are amazing."

His eyes lit up, amber glinting in the deep brown. "Not sure about amazing, but thanks. Actually, I don't ace art. Last year, I barely passed. I pissed off the teacher because I kept handing in my comics. I was doing the assignments, just taking the techniques and using them for my stuff. She thought I was being a smart-ass."

"That's not fair."

"Well, when I kept handing in my stuff even after the first couple of warnings, I probably was being a smart-ass. Or just stubborn. Anyway, I'm not that great in school overall —a solid B minus student. Derek's the genius. My best class is gym. I'm into cross-country, hurdles, B-ball, soccer . . ."

"Oh, I played soccer." I stopped. "Well, a while ago. A long while ago. Like back when we'd all chase the ball like a swarm of bumblebees."

"I remember those days. I'll have to give you some brush-up lessons, so we can start a team. The Lyle House soccer club."

"A very small club."

"No, a very exclusive club."

I leaned back on my elbows, reclining on the bed. The last time I'd talked one-on-one like this with a guy was . . . well, probably back before I stopped thinking of them as "other kids" and started thinking of them as "boys."

"Speaking of exclusive clubs," I said, "I hope you asked me up here planning to answer some questions."

"My company isn't enough?" His brows shot up in mock outrage, ruined by the gleam in his eyes. "Okay, you've been patient long enough. What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

We grinned at each other.

"Okay, you're a necromancer and I'm a sorcerer. You speak to the dead and I cast spells."

"Is that why you're here? You did something?"

"Nah." He paused, a shadow crossing his face. "Well, kind of, but not magic. Something happened. With Der —" He cut himself short. From Derek's file, I knew why he was here, though I wasn't about to admit it. "Anyway, something happened, and then my dad disappeared and it's a very long story, but the short version is that we're stuck here until someone figures out what to do with us."

And until Derek was "cured," I supposed. That's why Simon didn't have a file or go to therapy. He wasn't here for any problem. When their dad left, the authorities must have brought Derek here, and decided to leave Simon with him.

"So what else is there? What other kind of. . ." I struggled for a word.

"Supernaturals. The different types are called races. There aren't very many. The biggies would be necros, sorcerers, witches —which are the girl spellcasters. Similar, but a different race, and not as strong as sorcerers, or so everyone says. What else? Half-demons, but don't ask me about them because I know next to nothing. Derek knows more. Oh, and shamans. They're good healers and they can astral project."

"Astral . . .?"

"Leave their bodies. Move around like a ghost. Cool for cheating on tests or sneaking into the girls' locker room . . . for guys who'd do that kind of thing . . ."

"Uh-huh. You said Derek knows more about half- demons. Is that what he is?"

He glanced toward the hall, head turning as if making sure he could still hear the water running.

"You dragged it out of me, okay?"

"Huh?"

He turned onto his side, moving close enough to brush my leg. His voice dropped. "About Derek. What he is. If he asks, you dragged it out of me."

I straightened, annoyance flickering. "So Derek doesn't want me to know what he is? The same guy who threw necromancer in my face and demanded I accept it. If he doesn't want —"

"He does. He will. It's just. . . complicated. If you don't ask, he won't tell you. But if you ask . . ."

His eyes lifted to mine, pleading with me to make this easy.

I sighed. "Fine, I'm asking. What's Derek? One of these half-demon things?"

"No. There's not really a name for what he is. I guess you could call it the superman gene, but that's really cheesy."

"Uh-huh."

"Which is why they don't call it that. Guys like Derek have . . . physical enhancements, you might say. Extra strong, as you saw. Better senses, too. That kind of thing."

I glanced at the math text. "Smarter?"

"Nah, that's just Derek. Or so my dad says."

"Your dad's a . . . sorcerer, too, then, I guess. So he knows others . . . like us?"

"Yeah. Supernaturals have a kind of community. Maybe network is a better word. You know others so you can talk to them, get things you can't get from the regular world, whatever. My dad used to be right into it. These days, not so much. Stuff. . . happened."

He went quiet for a moment, plucking at a loose thread on the comforter, then he dropped it and flopped onto his back again. "We'll get into all that later. Huge story. Short answer is, yes, Dad used to be into the whole supernatural network. He worked for this research company, supernatural doctors and scientists trying to make things easier for other supernaturals. Dad's a lawyer, but they needed people like that, too. Anyway, that's how we got Derek."

"Got Derek?"

Simon made a face. "That didn't come out right. Sounds like Dad brought home a stray puppy. But that's kind of how it was. See, Derek's type? It's rare. We're all rare, but he's really, really rare. These people, the ones my dad worked for, they were raising him. He'd been orphaned or abandoned or something when he was just a baby, and they wanted to make sure he didn't end up in some human foster home, which would be bad when he hit, like, twelve and started throwing people across the room. Only, my dad's company wasn't really equipped to raise a kid. Derek doesn't talk much about living there, but I think it was like growing up in a hospital. My dad didn't like that, so they let him bring Derek home. It was . . . weird. Like he'd never been out before. Things like school or a shopping mall or even a highway totally freaked him out. He wasn't used to people, all that noise —"

He went still, head turning toward the hall. The pipes clanked as the water shut off.

"Later," he mouthed.

"He just got out. He can't hear —"

"Oh yes, he can."

I remembered what Simon said about Derek's "enhanced senses." Now I understood why Derek always seemed to be able to hear things he shouldn't have been able to. I made a mental note to be more careful.

I cleared my throat, pitching it to normal. "Okay, so we've got sorcerers, witches, half-demons, necromancers, shamans, and other really rare types, like Derek. That's it, right? I'm not going to run into any werewolves or vampires, am I?"

He laughed. "That'd be cool."

Cool, maybe, but I was happy to leave werewolves and vampires to Hollywood. I could believe in magic and ghosts and even spirit travel, but turning into an animal or sucking blood stretched disbelief farther than I cared to.

A dozen questions leaped to my lips. Where was their father? What about the people his dad worked for? Why'd he leave them? What about Simon's mother? But Simon said he'd "get into that later." To demand their personal story now would be prying.

"So there are three of us? In one place? That has to mean something."

"Derek thinks it's because some supernatural powers — like yours and his—can't be explained, so humans chalk them up to mental illness. Some kids in homes could be supernatural. Most aren't. You have to talk to him about that. He explains stuff better."

"Okay, back to me, then. What do these ghosts want?"

He shrugged. "Help, I guess."

"With what? Why me?"

"Because you can hear them," Derek said as he walked in, towel-drying his hair. "Not much sense in talking to someone who can't hear you."

"Well, duh."

"I wasn't going to say it."

I glared at him, but he had his back to me, neatly folding the towel and hanging it on the desk chair.

He continued. "How many necromancers do you think are walking around out there?"

"How would I know?"

"Well, if the answer was 'a whole lot,' don't you think you'd have heard of them?"

"Ease up, bro," Simon murmured.

"We're talking hundreds in the whole country." Derek yanked a comb through his hair. "Have you ever met an albino?"

"No."

"Statistically speaking, you're about three times more likely to bump into an albino than a necromancer. So, imagine you're a ghost. If you see a necro, it's like being stranded on a desert island, then spotting a plane overheard. Are you going to try to get their attention? Of course. As for what they want?" He turned the desk chair around and straddled it. "Who knows? If you were a ghost and you bumped into the one living being who could hear you, I'm sure you'd want something from her. To know what they want, you're going to need to ask them."

"Easier said than done," I muttered.

I told them about the ghost in the basement.

“There could still be something back there. Something you didn't find. Something important to him." He idly scratched his cheek, winced, and pulled his hand back. "Maybe a paper or an object he'd like you to pass onto his family."

"Or clues to his murder," Simon said. "Or buried treasure."

Derek fixed him with a look, then shook his head. "Moving right along . . . it's probably something stupid, like a letter he forgot to give to his wife. Meaningless."

That didn't sound stupid to me. Or meaningless. Kind of romantic, really. The ghost lingers for years, wanting to pass along that undelivered letter to his wife, now an old woman in a nursing home . . . Not my kind of movie, but I wouldn't call it stupid.

"Whatever it is," I said, "the point is moot because as long as I'm on these pills, I can't make contact to ask."

Derek swiped at a drop of blood on his cheek, where he'd scratched a zit. He scowled with annoyance, letting it bubble over into his voice as he snapped, "Then you need to stop taking the pills."

"Love to. If I could. But after what happened last night, they're giving me urine tests now."

"Ugh. That's harsh." Simon went quiet, then snapped his fingers. "Hey, I've got an idea. It's kinda gross, but what if you take the pills, crush them and mix them with your, you know, urine."

Derek stared at him.

"What?"

"You did pass chem last year, didn't you?"

Simon flipped him the finger. "Okay, genius, what's your idea?"

"I'll think about it. We should get her off those meds. I don't really care what that ghost wants, but he could be useful. As long as we have a willing subject, Chloe should take advantage of it, so she can learn. It's not like she's going anywhere soon . . . unless they ship her off."

Simon shot him a look. "Not funny, bro."

Derek raked his fingers through his wet hair. "Not trying to be funny. Seeing ghosts isn't easy to hide. It's not like casting spells. After this morning, with Dr. Davidoff and Gill, I caught some of their conversation later —" Derek glanced at me. "I was walking by and heard—"

"She knows about your hearing, bro." Derek scowled at Simon, who only shrugged and said, "She figured it out. She's not stupid. Anyway, you overheard . . ."

He stopped, head lifting. "Someone's coming."

"Boys? Chloe?" Mrs. Talbot called from the stairs. "Snack time. Come on down."

Simon called back that we were coming.

"Just a sec," I said. "You heard the doctors talking. What about?"

"You. And whether Lyle House is the right place for you."