Chris Green - Only the Good Die Young

These people might as well have lived in separate caves. I’d never known families like this in life, hadn’t known one could even exist except for on programs like Dynasty .

It just took being a ghost to find out that not every family was normal.

“This woman’s psychic,” Gavin said, “and when she delivered your clothes today, she felt something in this place.”

Farah hugged herself, looking around. I ate her fear right up.

Gavin wasn’t afraid, though. “Wendy and I have been aware of strange things going on here, too.”

He gave her a searching glance, like he was asking her if she’d felt anything. Farah shook her head, but I could tell she’d been asking herself what that chill was last night. What had been following her.

What might’ve chased Rum Tum Tugger away.

Gavin seemed impatient as he ambled over to the sitting room’s entrance with me flying well above him and, sure enough, Amanda Lee was in there, dressed in her businesswoman-in-glasses costume again, smoothing a linen cloth over a big round table. A sketch pad and a pen waited on it, along with a crystal ball.

She was going all out.

When Farah dragged Gavin back into the foyer to further discuss this with him, I cruised into the room, to Amanda Lee.

“You can thank me for having Gavin call you today,” I said. “I think I irritated him enough so that he reached his wits’ end.”

As the murmur of Gavin and Farah’s chatter crept into the room, Amanda Lee only looked sidelong at me with a faint smile. I guessed it wasn’t time to converse with the ghost yet. And when she fixed a significant glance on the other side of the room, I understood why she wasn’t speaking to me.

Wendy Edgett was standing by a fireplace, staring straight at me. Or, at least, where I would be if I existed.

“Is that her?” she asked Amanda Lee, who only kept smiling, except mysteriously now.

Good God, this girl was sharp for a nonseer.

“I do sense a presence in the room,” Amanda Lee said in her Virginia lilt. “How did you know?”

Wendy only shrugged and knit her eyebrows together. She had slung her dark hair back into a high ponytail except for her pink streak, which framed her face on both sides. She was still wearing her school uniform. “You can say there’s a sort of… I don’t know. A cloud that I can barely see.”

I tried not to have a cow. She could kind of see me?

“Who is she, Ms. Dantès?” Wendy asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

It was weird watching and listening to them like I wasn’t even here.

Outside the room entrance, Farah’s voice got panicked. She was asking Gavin to not dabble in this “dark stuff” with psychics and séances.

Grudgingly, I had to respect a man who wasn’t so macho that he was beyond accepting help when he needed it. Then again, maybe Gavin was just desperate to “get rid” of me. I would be, too, if I had something giving me waking nightmares.

Wendy was shaking her head, sending Amanda Lee a sheepish look. “Farah might not be interested in all this, but I sure am.”

“Not everyone is, and I assume that includes your sister.” Amanda Lee gave one final neat-freak swipe to the tablecloth, then adjusted her glasses. “It’s hard for some people to accept that their house has been occupied by something uninvited. Farah’s just one of them.”

“This place has always been full of uninvited stuff.” Wendy crossed her arms over her chest. “Can’t you feel that?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

I floated closer to Wendy, kind of sorry for her. I’d been lucky during my teenage years—accepted, befriended, having a loving family without siblings who made me feel like crap.

Wendy came to the table, tracing the linen with a finger. “There’re bad feelings all over this house, and they were here way before I took those ghost pictures. We all seem to hate each other… except for me and Gavin. Mostly, it’s Farah and him who argue all the time. And me and Noah. And Farah couldn’t give a rat’s ass about me.” She chuffed. “They say that you have to love family, but we’re the things that make this house dark.”

Amanda Lee smiled sympathetically at the girl, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t just acting. “Families can be strange.”

“Mine takes the cake.”

Just as I thought Amanda Lee was about to casually investigate the subject by encouraging Wendy to go on, the girl took a deep breath and sat heavily in one of the chairs around the table as she exhaled. “You know what I’m thinking?”

“Let’s see… being a psychic, I have a good chance of guessing. Should I give it a shot?”

Wendy laughed, and it was nice to see her happy for once.

She glanced at the room’s entrance, toward the continued utterances of her brother and sister, then back to Amanda Lee. “I think I know who the ghost is.”

I freaked out a little, my energy zitz ing. Amanda Lee raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t look at me.

“Who?” she asked.

Wendy’s brown eyes were wide. “My adoptive mom.”

Oh. God, this wasn’t where I’d wanted the haunting to go at all.

I could sense Amanda Lee’s relief that Wendy hadn’t guessed some strawberry blond stranger was haunting her house, but there was a bit of sadness in her, too. “Why would you say that?”

“Mom died when I was little,” Wendy said, “and this ghost has been nice to me. She wanted to comfort me. And I think Farah doesn’t want you to summon her tonight because she didn’t get along with Mom. I was young, and I barely remember how they acted with each other, but Farah gets real quiet whenever someone brings her up, and she always has a bitter look on her face before she changes the subject.”

Amanda Lee walked toward Wendy, and she looked like she always did when she was feeling sorry for someone… usually me. Or was she just now realizing that Wendy, the girl she’d wanted to pin a poltergeist on, was a real person, not just a pawn?

“I don’t know who this ghost is,” she said softly. “But we’ll find out soon enough.”

Wendy wasn’t done. “You know what else makes me think she’s Mom? Noah hasn’t had any contact with her, but it’s only because she decided to leave him alone. She knew he liked his independence—when he was little, he always played by himself in his room. She respected that.”

“So he hasn’t felt a presence here?”

“He hasn’t said anything about it. I’m not even sure Gavin showed him my pictures last night or this morning. Plus, Farah brought me home from art class just ten minutes ago, and I didn’t run into Noah before I came in here, so I didn’t see how he reacted to Gavin inviting you over.”

“And the rest of your family?” Amanda Lee said, her jaw tight. “What do they think?”

“When I showed Gavin those pictures, he wasn’t afraid.” She laughed. “Well, maybe he was kinda uncomfortable. I got the feeling a ghost wasn’t a surprise to him, though. That Mom had been around him, too, even if he wasn’t telling me about it.”

“Why wouldn’t he let you know if he’s felt a presence in the house?”

“Gavin? He doesn’t tell us anything. But that’s all right. He’s a good brother anyway. He’s what my friend Torrey calls a ‘man’s man.’”

Amanda Lee really looked at Wendy. “It bothers you that he shuts you out.”

“Yeah, but he tries his best with us.”

It looked like Amanda Lee was about to put a hand on Wendy’s shoulder—two misfits connecting—but then Gavin, Farah, and even Noah entered, and Amanda Lee straightened up.

She had that lemonade smile again, and I think I was the only one who saw her back slightly stiffen at the presence of her prime suspect.