A Perfect Storm (10 page)

“He is just so awesome,” she said. “And Sar, I'm beginning to think he might like me.
Like
-like me, I mean.”

I squeezed her hand. “He'd be a dope not to,” I said. “Has the auction started yet?”

“No! Jon Coddington got here about two minutes ago. It's not supposed to start until eight. Can you believe such a big star is actually here, in little old Stellamar, doing a fund-raiser?”

I started to tell Lily about how I had actually just met him, but Jody appeared out of nowhere and interrupted me.

“Sara! So glad you could make it,” she said, but her tone lacked enthusiasm.

“Thanks,” I said, feeling Lily step on my toe and trying to ignore her.

“So yeah, my dad arranged for Jon Coddington to be here. Pretty cool, huh? Maybe afterward I'll introduce you guys. I kind of promised the table I would, so—”

“Sara! You made it!” said a male voice behind me.

I turned. It was Jon Coddington. I heard Lily gasp next to me.

“Yeah, I decided to show up after all.” I smiled at him.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Guess what?” he asked, and then continued without waiting for me to guess. “I won Lady Azura's silent auction! She's going to do a session for me next time I come to New York. I am so psyched!”

“That's great,” I said, genuinely delighted. I was also aware that Jody and Lily and the whole table full of my friends were all staring at me, dumbfounded. I don't usually like being the one people are staring at, but I was kind of enjoying this moment.

“Oops, better head on up to the stage. See you soon,” he said, and hustled away.

Lily grabbed my arm. I looked at her and realized she was speechless.

Jody looked pretty stunned as well.

“Come on, guys,” I said to them. “We'd better go sit down.”

I sat down next to Lily. Mason and Calvin sat across from us, with Jody on Mason's other side. I could feel Mason's gaze rest on me from time to time, but I didn't meet his eye. I was too worried I'd blush.

The auction was a giant success. Jon Coddington was funny and charming and managed to get people to bid on stuff they might not otherwise have bid on, just with his infectious good humor. He poked gentle fun at some of the bidders, goading them to bid higher and higher—which they then did. He finished the last item and banged his gavel to deafening applause. Then
he apologized for rushing out, but said he had a really early call time in the morning. Jody explained to the table that he wasn't talking about a phone call; it was acting lingo for the time he had to be on the set. The other kids seemed to be hanging on her every word.

As Lily and I stood near the coatrack, searching for our coats, Mason caught up with me.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said, finally spotting my jacket and pulling it off the hanger.

“You have a ride home?”

“My dad said he'd come pick me up if I wanted him to,” I said.

“Or maybe I could just walk you.”

I felt a charge of electricity crackle through my body. “Um, okay,” I said.

I shot Lily a look, and she nodded back at me and wiggled her eyebrows. I knew that was her way of saying I should definitely walk home with him. She headed over to where Calvin and Luke and Miranda were talking. We exchanged another look, which said we'd talk later.

I texted my dad quickly to tell him I was walking
home, and headed outside with Mason.

We walked in silence for a few steps. Two shy people. Not the best combination for conversation. Finally I thought of something to say.

“So I guess they raised a lot of money tonight.”

“Yep.”

The conversation languished again.

I tried again.

“How does Stellamar Middle compare to Harbor Isle in terms of the workload?”

He shrugged. “About the same,” he said.

I kicked myself for bringing up school. I didn't even know if he liked school. Even though I knew a lot about him, there was also a lot I didn't know. I mean, I knew a lot about his special powers. And that he made my skin heat up like I had a fever, but I had no idea how he felt about things like homework and studying.

“So would you like to go out with me tomorrow night?” he blurted out suddenly.

“What?” I felt a jolt, like I'd been shocked. We stopped walking.

Then I tried again. “I mean, yes. Okay.”

Mason's face broke into a huge grin, and I grinned
back. We stood there smiling at each other and then started walking again.

“So . . . what would you like to do?” Mason asked a few moments later. “A movie? Go out for pizza? Haunted house on the boardwalk?”

I laughed. I knew he was kidding about the last option. We'd been through the Midnight Manor on the boardwalk together last summer and had a pretty harrowing experience. I don't think either one of us really wanted to set foot in there again.

“Maybe pizza?” I said, thinking fast. Movies were nice and all, but it was hard to really talk during a movie. We could talk a lot over pizza. There was a lot I wanted to learn about Mason.

We reached my street and turned down toward my house. I was hoping somehow the street could grow longer, just so I'd have more time to walk alongside him. But in about thirty seconds we were standing in front of my house. On the lighted porch, I could see the outline of the knitting spirit who always sat on the swing.

“Okay, then,” he said, and his green eyes darted a look at my face. He looked as nervous as I felt. He
leaned toward me a little, and I went stock-still. Was he going to kiss me?

Instead he scooped up my hand and squeezed it with both of his. They were warm and strong. “I'll text you tomorrow and we can pick a time and place and all that. . . .”

“Okay.”

He gave my hand one more squeeze, turned on his heel, and walked away.

I ran inside to call Lily.

The next day, Saturday, Lily came over after breakfast. We'd spent an hour talking on the phone the night before. Evidently Calvin had walked her home, and he'd kissed her good night. A quick peck on the cheek, but still. He hadn't asked her out on a date like Mason had asked me, but we both figured that a good-night kiss definitely meant as much.

I wondered if Mason had gone home and called Cal and if they had spent time talking about us the way Lily and I had about them. I asked Lily, but she said boys probably didn't do stuff like that. At most they would have texted each other about it.

After we'd exhausted the topic of Mason and Cal, Lily brought up Duggan. I told her I still hadn't seen him, and that I was getting ready to give up.

“Sara, you cannot give up!” Lily said firmly. “I
won't let you. This is too important!”

“I know it's important, Lil . . . it's one of the most important things ever. But I can't
make
him appear. I tried that with Lady Azura, remember?”

“But you didn't try it with me,” Lily said.

And then she talked me into her scheme.

So that's why when she arrived at my house this morning, she was carrying a big brown paper shopping bag. I knew what was inside it.

I followed her upstairs.

We went into the blue room. Out of habit, I looked in every corner for a sign of Duggan, but as usual, he wasn't there.

Lily went over to the bed and pulled out the box, placing it on the worn floral bedspread with special care. She climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged, bouncing up and down a little with excitement.

I kicked off my sneakers and climbed onto the bed to sit opposite her, with the box in between us.

“I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be,” I said.

She'd convinced me to try to conjure Duggan with the spirit board. I was desperate enough to give it a try. I didn't think it was going to work, but Lily did.
And I had learned to trust Lily about stuff like this. Even though she couldn't see spirits like I could, she had what Lady Azura called “keen insight” into things. Maybe she knew something I didn't.

We took out the board and placed it across our knees.

“Okay,” said Lily, unfolding the instructions. “Now we place our fingertips lightly but firmly, without pressure, on this thing, so as to allow it to move around easily. It's called a planchette; don't ask me why.”

She held up a heart-shaped wooden thing supported by three small plastic feet. She put it on the board, and we lightly touched it with our fingertips.

“So now we ask a question and it's supposed to move all on its own, with no pushing from us, and spell out a message from the spirit.”

“Open mind, open mind,” I said to myself under my breath.

Lily looked at me, as though waiting for my cue. I shrugged a little. She frowned and looked down at our fingers on the planchette.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” she said.

“Okeydoke,” I said, feeling dubious.

“Mr. Duggan? We're really hoping you'll come see us. Sara and I? We're hoping you can come and talk with us. Hello?” asked Lily in a low voice.

We sat, staring down at our fingers resting gently on the movable part. I opened my mind. Allowed myself to listen, to look, to
feel
whether there was a spiritual presence in the room.

I didn't feel anything.

“Maybe I should start with something easier. Like a yes or no question,” whispered Lily. “Mr. Duggan. Will you talk to us?”

A minute passed by. Then another. Then more. Outside I could hear it was starting to rain.

We sat in perfect silence for possibly five minutes. The old clock on the mantelpiece did not tick, the way it had in my dream. I supposed no one had wound it in years. Whatever dim hopes I may have had faded. Outside, the formerly sunny day had grown gray and rainy. So now it was dim and shadowy in the room. I was just about to call it off, to thank Lily for trying, when something happened. Something changed.

Ever so slightly, the room seemed to tilt and everything around me went blurry, like I was underwater
all of a sudden. My heart started beating faster, and I could hear my breathing growing shallow. I knew what was happening. I was having a vision.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, and when I opened them again, I saw myself in the room, just as I had been in my dreams. This time, instead of being seated at the desk, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, writing in that same purple book. Once again, my hair was longer. And then a shadow moved behind me. But now whoever was casting the shadow emerged into the light, and I saw his face. It was Duggan.

The other me looked up from my writing, and my hair fell back from my face.

And then I realized it wasn't my face. The girl was not me at all. She looked almost exactly like me, but there were small differences. For one thing, she looked older. Older than I am now, older than she had looked in my dreams. She looked like me in a few years. But she wasn't me.

She was my mother.

“Duggan, I can't see you, but I am hoping you are here. You are here, aren't you?” She looked around the room. For a moment her gaze seemed to settle
on Duggan, but I don't think she could see him. It reminded me of how Lady Azura acted during our séances. She could sense that spirits were there, but she would look right through them because she couldn't see them.

My mother's cheeks were flushed with excitement. I tried to tattoo the image of her face on my brain. Seeing her alive—hearing her talk—was amazing. Her voice sounded so much like my own.

“It was crazy, Duggan,” the girl, my mother, Natalie, was saying. “She was my daughter! Or she will be my daughter in the future, after I grow up and get married. I
met
her. I talked to her in my dream. We talked about everything, and it all makes sense, even though it's so crazy!”

Duggan stood there, just listening. The expression on his face was kind.

“I'm going to write it all down in here. For her to find. So she knows everything.” She looked up as if hoping to see Duggan. He was right there, but her gaze flicked by him. She went on. Her voice came out a whisper. “She told me her name was Sara. That's my favorite name, so it makes sense that would be her name, doesn't it?”

“Sara,” Duggan echoed. “ 'Tis a fine name, I'll warrant.”

And then the vision vanished. Suddenly. It was just over.

I searched around the room desperately, trying to bring the vision back. To hear more of what my mother had to say about me. She said we'd met. But where? When? Why didn't I remember any of this? Had it not happened yet?

I squeezed my eyes closed and prayed that when I opened them, I'd see my mother again. But the vision was over. It was just Lily and me on the bed.

I drew in a deep breath. I looked down. Focused on Lily, and the board between us. Beneath our fingers, the planchette began to move. I felt Lily tense up. Slowly it glided toward the upper left corner of the board. Toward the word “no.”

Duggan had answered Lily's question, “Will you talk to us?” The answer was—

Almost at “no,” the planchette suddenly swerved down and to the left and stopped over the letter
A
.

A
?

Then it moved to
Y
.

Then to
E
.

“Aye.” That meant yes.

I heard Lily draw a sharp breath.

She and I looked at each other, and her expression looked to me as wild and surprised as mine must have looked to her.

I turned my head slowly to look around the room. For a second, I thought I saw Duggan, over in a corner. But then I realized it was just an old coat hanging from a coatrack. My gaze traveled to the next corner, and the next.

And then I saw him.

My hands flew to my lap, my fists clenched in shock.

Lily could tell that I had seen something. She turned slowly to look in the direction of my gaze, but she couldn't see him. She turned back to me.