A Perfect Storm (11 page)

“Is he here, Sar?” she said in a barely audible voice.

“Yes.”

“Then
talk
to him!” she hissed.

I pushed the board to the side and stood up, so that I was facing him.

He was dressed in his old blue coat and his battered
three-cornered hat. It was the right-aged Duggan, the old one who had told me about the message. He squinted at me beneath his fierce black brows, and it occurred to me that what seemed like gruffness might just have been that he was nearsighted. Maybe that was why he had passed by me in front of Scoops without saying anything. I remembered how kind he'd looked, listening to my mom talk about me. He was a good man, I decided. A friendly spirit. I believed he would help me.

“Hello, Mr. Duggan,” I said, as calmly as I could so I wouldn't scare him away. “Thanks so much for coming back.”

“The sea, 'tis the accomplice of human restlessness,” he said, more to himself than to me.

“Sir?” I said.

He looked at me sharply, as though noticing me for the first time. “Dash my buttons, you resemble 'er, lass, I daresay!”

“Natalie, you mean?” I asked eagerly. “Yes, I've been told that. Natalie was my mother. I believe you knew her, sir?”

“Aye, and a cleverer lass with a pen and paper than
ever I clapped eyes upon,” he said. “Never learned to read and write very well myself. But the lass was smart as paint! And hark ye: The lass could draw pictures, the likeness of which I had ne'er before seen, I'll lay to that.”

He knew my mom, I realized, my heart swelling. He really knew her.

“Please, Mr. Duggan,” I said, trying hard not to appear as desperately eager as I felt. I didn't want to alarm him. “You mentioned something about a message from Natalie. Did she—do you know where I might be able to find it?”

Suddenly there was a clap of thunder, which made me jump. Lily gave a tiny squeak, so she must have been as startled as I. Rain streamed down the window.

Duggan turned toward the window and furrowed his brow. “Heavy weather afoot,” he said. “Must be sure all is shipshape and seaworthy.”

I remembered how Lady Azura had said he tended to appear just before storms. But was he beginning to fade?
No! Not yet!
I screamed on the inside.

“Please, don't go,” I begged. “They predicted a few passing showers today, but it's not like it's going to turn
into another big storm or anything. You don't need to check on your ships just yet. Please, can you tell me where to find the message from Natalie? She spoke of meeting me, but I don't remember any of it. I need to find the message she left for me. Can you help me?”

“Aye,” he said, nodding, but his voice was fainter, and I could see directly through his shimmery image to the coatrack behind him. “ 'Tis in the cupboard. Look ye under the boards.”

“Which cupboard?” I asked. “In this room? Or somewhere—”

I stopped talking midsentence. It was no use. He was gone.

I turned to look at Lily. Her eyes were huge.

“Did you see him?” I asked.

She shook her head so hard her chandelier earrings swayed. She hadn't been able to see him. But from the look on her face, I knew she believed that he had been here.

“What did he say? Did he know your mom when she was younger? And I heard you say something about your mom meeting you? And a cupboard?”

I nodded. Kept nodding. “We have to look for something under some boards. And I think—I'm pretty sure—what we're looking for is a purple journal. She met me, Lily. I'm not sure—maybe in a dream—but she wrote about it and left it for me to find. I think maybe she left instructions for me on how to reach her. . . .”

My voice trembled with excitement.

Lily hopped up, ready to take charge. “Okay, so let's look. Should we start with the cupboards in the kitchen? Or maybe the pantry cupboards?”

I clutched my arms against the sudden chill in the room, thinking hard. “I think ‘cupboard' is an old term for ‘closet.' And I remember Lady Azura complaining about how few closets there were in the house, considering the number of rooms. She told me that the Victorians didn't build closets. They had those big, freestanding wardrobes instead, like that one over there.” I pointed at the massive old wardrobe across the room. “Or they hung their clothes on pegs or stuck them into trunks.”

“Okay,” said Lily, tapping her foot impatiently. She was eager to start searching. But I knew we had to be smart about it. This was a big old house. We'd be searching for days if we didn't stop and think for a moment.

“There are
some
closets in the house,” I continued. “I think they were built later, after the house had been around for a while. But definitely they would have existed while my mom was alive.”

“Makes sense,” said Lily. “So where should we
start?” She looked around the room. “There isn't a closet in here,” she said.

“We could start at the top and work our way down,” I proposed. That sounded like as good a plan as any.

So we did. After scurrying down to my father's workbench in the basement to dig out two flashlights, we headed back up, all the way to the attic. But aside from a small storage area under the eaves, there weren't any actual closets up there. On the third floor, we had to release Henry, the little-boy spirit who inhabited my craft closet.

“We just need to look in the closet for a second, Henry,” I explained to him. He was delighted to run free around my craft room. I eyed my canisters of colored pencils and paintbrushes near my art table, knowing they posed a serious temptation to the mischievous little squirt. “Be good,” I said. “And I'll ask Lily here to bring Buddy over to play with you tomorrow.”

Henry loved Lily's dog, Buddy. He nodded eagerly and then sat in the corner, his hands folded in his little lap.

But I still didn't trust him. I had Lily sit with her back against the open door to prevent Henry from
locking us in. I'd learned that lesson already. But there was no loose floorboard in my crafts closet.

After luring Henry back into the closet, we headed downstairs and into my room to look. Nothing in there. Then we checked my dad's room, and finally the pink bedroom, where the spirit of the woman in the rocking chair observed us without commenting. That room didn't even have a closet.

“Should we check in there again?” asked Lily, pointing to the blue bedroom.

“No point,” I said. “There aren't any closets. Let's check the downstairs.”

We checked the coat closet near the front door. We checked the cupboard under the front stairs, the one with the triangular door. We checked the cupboards in the pantry, and even the kitchen cupboards, although I was sure we wouldn't find anything. There was no closet in Lady Azura's séance room, which was a good thing, because she had a client in there. I didn't bother with her bedroom, because why would my mother hide her diary in there?

We returned to the blue bedroom and sat on the bed side by side. I fought back tears of frustration.
“Is he just messing around with me?” I asked. “Why would Duggan say that if it weren't true? He's kind of gruff, but he doesn't seem to be a malicious spirit.”

Lily propped her chin on her hand and nodded glumly.

“She was talking about me like she met me in a vision or a dream or something. But how come I don't remember? I have all these other dreams and visions and I always remember them, but—”

Suddenly I felt Lily sit up straight. Her fingers squeezed my arm.

“Ow! What?”

Wordlessly, she pointed across the room. I followed her gaze.

At first I saw nothing. And then I saw it.

Half obscured by the battered old wardrobe, and only a few feet high, was a door. It was flush with the wall, and covered by the faded blue wallpaper, but you could see that it had been cut into the wall, and that it was definitely a door.

We looked at each other. We both hopped off the bed and moved across the room like we were part of a choreographed dance. We both crouched down to
look. The door was one of those old, hidden things with a spring on the inside. You can just push it in and it pops out and opens.

“Help me move this wardrobe,” I said to her.

It wouldn't budge.

We had to open it up and lug the hangers full of old coats out of it, piling them onto the bed. I guessed they must have belonged to Lady Azura's husband, my great-grandfather, because they felt like heavy men's overcoats. Then we pulled out the four heavy drawers, which had nothing in them, except some old sachets that had lost their scent, and stacked them carefully to one side.

Once again, we stood up and tried to move it with all our collective strength. Slowly, slowly, it began to budge from the wall. We managed to get it far enough away so that the angle would allow the little door to open.

“Should we?” I whispered to her, my heart pounding.

“Go for it,” she said. “You do it, Sar. I'll shine my flashlight for you.”

I pushed on the door.

With a tiny, audible unlatching sound, it sprang open, revealing a dark, dusty interior.

Lily fumbled with her flashlight, her hands shaking with excitement, and finally managed to turn it on and point it into the closet. We both peered inside.

Almost at the same time, we both sneezed. There was a good half an inch of dust inside.

It was a small, rectangular interior, maybe two feet across and three feet deep. Big enough to stash a small trunk, maybe. There was nothing in it but an old, sprung mousetrap. I was grateful it didn't contain a dead mouse.

To the left, near the roughly plastered wall, two of the floorboards were definitely sticking up above the others. The old nails had worked their way out.

I looked at Lily. She looked at me, her eyes shining.

I reached in and gave them a tug. They lifted easily.

Lily shone the light beneath them. There was a purple book, just like the one I'd seen in my dreams. It was stashed inside a zipped-up plastic bag.

With shaking hands, I lifted it out and looked at Lily.

“This is the message,” I said in a whisper. “From my mother.”

Alone at last.

Upstairs in my room, I sat on the floor next to my bed. My hands shook a little as I stared down at the diary. My mother's diary. My mother, who I had never met because she died giving birth to me. Now I held in my hands the diary she kept when she was my age. I was finally going to “meet” her . . . at least, sort of.

Earlier in the day, my best friend, Lily, and I had found the diary hidden in a secret closet in a room I usually refer to as the blue bedroom because of the blue walls in there. But now Lily had gone home. She'd known without me having to tell her that I wanted to be alone with my mom's diary. I shared just about everything with Lily, but this was different.

I set it down gently in my lap. Brushed it lightly with my fingertips. Took a deep breath.

“Whatcha got there?” demanded a loud voice in my doorway.

I whirled around to see who it was. Could it be my mother?

It
was
a spirit. But not my mother's.

Perhaps I should explain. I can see spirits. People who have died. I've been able to see them for as long as I can remember. The house I live in is filled with spirits. The old Victorian house in Stellamar, New Jersey, which belonged to my great-grandmother, Lady Azura. My dad and I had moved here two summers ago. At first I didn't know that Lady Azura was my great-grandmother. I'd just thought she was some kooky lady who told fortunes and read tea leaves. She was one of several secrets that had been kept from me for a long time. But I'd grown to love Lady Azura, and by the time I found out she was my great-grandmother, I was thrilled about it.

The spirit standing in my doorway wasn't one I was familiar with. Not one of our regulars, as I had come to think of them. We had several that inhabited the house, and I knew them all. This was an older woman. She had a lot of makeup on, and her hair was all done
up like she'd just stepped out of the salon.

I slipped the diary off my lap and nudged it under my bed. Then I stood up and walked over to her.

“Can I help you with something?” I asked, trying to be polite when in reality I was really annoyed by the interruption.

She wandered into my room, checking out my stuff. I bristled as her semitransparent hands touched my things.

“Don't suppose so.” She shrugged, examining the photo of my mom on my bedside table. “I was just bored. Name's Shirley. My son, Harry, and his wife are downstairs. They're trying to get me to show up and tell them where I hid my will. I think that's all they care about. And I'll tell them. But in my own sweet time.” She laughed mischievously. “It's much more interesting up here.”

That explained it, then. My great-grandmother was a fortune-teller. She could conjure spirits. People flocked here for her services.