A Perfect Storm (5 page)

I needed to talk to Lady Azura.

I finished closing the rest of the shutters on the second floor as fast as I possibly could, which wasn't as fast as I wanted it to be, because some of the old windows were stuck closed by years of paint. But except for one, in the hallway, I got all the shutters closed.

I took the stairs down two at a time and stopped. Would Lady Azura even be awake yet? It was after
eleven. Sometimes she didn't emerge until well after twelve.

I met my father in the front hallway.

“I'm heading out for some supplies,” he said. “I've got the hurricane panels up on the south and west sides of the house, and I'll finish the rest when I get back.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“You okay, kiddo?”

“I guess so. It's just weird to think that there's a storm coming when it's such a beautiful, warm day out.”

“Yep. But they're saying it might be a doozy. We have to be prepared for a long power outage and a storm surge. The boardwalk could be in trouble, I'm afraid.”

“Have you seen Lady Azura yet today?” I asked.

“She's actually in her séance room,” said my dad. “She was up unusually early this morning. She's been scoffing at me for months about my disaster preparedness, but I think now she must be pretty relieved at all the precautions I've taken with this house. I think I heard her in there, stashing breakable stuff away.” He grinned. “I tried to explain to her that we live in a different world now. With global warming and the polar
ice caps melting, these big storms are unfortunately becoming the new normal.”

“Do you think Mom's dresses up in the attic will be safe?” I asked him anxiously.

“Are they closed up in the cedar storage room?” he asked. When I nodded, he smiled at me reassuringly. “They're going to be fine.” He gave me a kiss on the top of my head and walked out.

As soon as he'd closed the door, I hurtled through the velvet curtain and into Lady Azura's room, eager to ask her about the sailor spirit.

I was not prepared for what I saw.

Lady Azura was buzzing around her room, arranging crystals and setting out incense, a slightly stricken expression on her face. And milling around
her
, in every square inch of space in that room, were perhaps two dozen spirits. I realized that the dull white noise I was hearing was the sound of a lot of spirits talking all at once.

It seemed our séance the night before
had
worked. All too well.

Lady Azura noticed me almost immediately. “Oh, thank goodness you're here, Sara,” she said. “I'm going
to need your help. I sense a great deal of atmospheric disturbance both outside and in here.”

I raised my eyebrows. I realized she couldn't actually
see
the spirits in here the way I could. But she could sense them. I wondered if she even knew just how many of them were sharing her space at that moment.

“Dahling,” said a low voice. A woman spirit drifted toward me. She had to be the spirit of an old-time movie star. I couldn't remember her name; it was someone Lady Azura had loved as a girl, and Lily knew her too. Lily is an old-movie buff.

Her hair was platinum blond, her lips painted dark red, her gown silky and clingy and tightly wrapped around her figure all at the same time. “You requested the pleasure of my company,” she continued in her low, throaty voice, “but I must say, I had anticipated something a bit less . . . crowded. I am, after all, accustomed to a private dressing room.”

She was obviously a movie star who was used to some pampering, I thought. Before I could respond, another spirit moved toward me.

“Hey, dollface,” he said. This one was a man wearing
a pin-striped suit, shiny shoes, and a low-slung hat. I think I remember my dad saying it was called a fedora. He, too, looked like an old movie star, or maybe a private eye or something. “That your grandmother?” he asked, jerking his head toward Lady Azura.

I was a little taken aback by the look on his face. “Um, yes. I mean, no, my
great
-grandmother.”

“Well, she looks pretty swell from fifteen feet, and even better from five,” he said.

What on earth was he talking about? I think he was paying Lady Azura a compliment, but I wasn't sure. When I glanced over at Lady Azura and saw the pleased smile on her face, I decided it had definitely been a compliment.

I shot her a
What now?
look.

She beckoned me toward her with a small upward gesture of her chin.

I maneuvered through the crowd of spirits and pulled up a chair very close to her.

“The storm must have caused a glitch in the atmospheric pressure and created a delayed response to our summoning the spirits,” she said. “In other words, they're coming out of the woodwork. I think they
were all lined up last night, waiting to get in from our thwarted séance, and now they're all coming through at once, clamoring for instructions and help for how to get back where they came from.”

This information was a relief, actually. I'd been so bothered about the idea that I had blocked Lady Azura's summons without knowing I was doing it. So it hadn't been me after all. It had been the storm. The weird pressure. Still. We had to get rid of these spirits.

“What should we do?” I asked her in a quiet voice. For the moment, I forgot all about the spirit upstairs and his message from my mother.

“I'm trying to clear the air a bit with my crystals and meditation, just to halt some of the confusion before you and I can send everyone on their way,” she said.

Lady Azura and I spent the next couple of hours speaking to one spirit after another, politely directing them back to wherever they'd come from and making them think it was their idea, and not ours. I was exhausted by the time we'd gotten rid of the last one—fedora guy, who'd clearly developed a crush on Lady Azura.

As soon as the last spirit had shimmered away and we were left alone, Lady Azura and I sank back into
our chairs and exchanged relieved looks.

And then I remembered why I'd come to see her in the first place. I asked her about the sailor spirit I'd seen in the blue bedroom.

“Ah, yes, Duggan,” she said.

“Duggan? Do you know his story?”

“I need a cup of tea. Come with me to the kitchen, and I'll tell you what I know of him.”

I did, and a few minutes later we were sitting at the kitchen table, me with a bowl of cereal, my second breakfast of the day, and my great-grandmother with her small hands curled around a delicate cup full of steaming tea.

“Duggan lived a very long time ago,” my great-grandmother began. “He died in the year 1821. The house he lived in was here, where the present one now stands, but it was torn down not long after he died to make room for a bigger house.”

“Was he a sailor?” I asked. “He looks like one.”

“He was a shipbuilder,” she said. “My dear old friend Harry Jamieson, who died a decade ago, was the town's historian for many years. I learned a great deal from him about the history of Stellamar. It seems there
was once a shipyard where the boardwalk now stands, and Duggan was the master builder there.”

I set down my spoon. “Is it right where Scoops is located?” I asked.

She nodded.

“That explains why I saw Duggan outside Scoops.”

“Ah,” she said, nodding her head as if the pieces of a puzzle had just fit together in her mind. “And it would also explain why I have only sensed his presence in the house infrequently. He probably spends whatever time he is here upstairs in the blue bedroom, which has the best view of the ocean. I've noticed over the years that he tends to appear before big storms. Harry told me that Duggan died during a famous hurricane. It made landfall at Cape May in 1821.”

“How did he die?”

“I'm not certain, but Harry said there were a great many casualties from the storm. In those days people had little warning before a storm struck. I suppose he must have been swept out to sea while working at his shipyard.”

I considered this. I hadn't paid much attention to what Duggan had been muttering, but it did seem to have been
about storms. “He seemed to know my mother,” I said. “Or at least, I think that's what he said.”

“Yes, that's quite possible. Natalie spent some time at the house growing up. A Thanksgiving here, a Christmas there, a week of summer every so often. It's very possible that Duggan remembers her.”

“But I think he really
knew
her,” I persisted. “At least, I'm pretty sure he told me my mom left me a message. Could she have been able to see him and talk to him when she was alive?”

For a moment, I thought I saw a startled look on Lady Azura's face. But it was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared, and she shook her head. “I'm sorry, Sara, but your mother couldn't see spirits. Our family powers skip some generations. Your mother did not have the gift.”

“But anything is possible,” I said a little desperately.

“Yes, my dear, anything is possible,” she agreed. “But Natalie did not have powers. I would have known. I sensed it in you right away, didn't I?”

She was right about that, but I wanted to believe what Duggan had told me. That my mom had left a message for me.

“Or maybe she sent me the message after she died,” I said, more to myself than to Lady Azura, who had gotten up to plug the kettle back in. “Maybe she can't talk to me for some reason and is trying to communicate through him. Duggan.”

Lady Azura considered what I had said. She seemed to be speaking even more carefully than usual when she responded. “There is a theory,” she said slowly, “that those of us with powers to communicate with spirits in this world have more difficulty communicating with the living after we have passed over.”

“
So
,” I said eagerly, “if my mother could see spirits, that explains why she hasn't appeared to me. Is that what you mean?”

Lady Azura turned around and leaned against the counter, her eyes closed, as though she was trying to think of a way to let me down gently. “My dear, I am quite sure that Natalie had no powers. There must be some other explanation for what Duggan meant, and we can certainly figure it out. We can ask him the next time we see him.”

“But what if—”

“Your phone,” Lady Azura said, gently interrupting
me as she pointed to the vicinity of my chair.

My phone was buzzing. I pulled it out of my jeans pocket and checked it. It was a text from Mason.

“Sorry,” I said to Lady Azura. “It's a friend of mine who lives closer to the ocean than we do. I've been waiting to hear from him, but it can wait a few minutes.”

“Nonsense,” Lady Azura said, practically shooing me away from the table as she stood up herself. “I sense this text is important. Go on, and we can discuss this later.”

I had the impression that Lady Azura didn't want to talk to me anymore about my mom, which was strange, because she had always been willing to answer all my questions about her in the past. Why was she shutting me down now?

Just then my phone buzzed again as another text from Mason came in. Maybe Lady Azura was right and Mason's texts were really important. I scrolled through the long message.

PARTS OF HARBOR ISLE ARE UNDER A MANDATORY EVACUATION. LOOKS LIKE OUR NEIGHBORHOOD WON
'
T BE EVACUATED, BUT MY
PARENTS ARE TALKING ABOUT LEAVING ANYWAY. MY MOM IS KIND OF FREAKING OUT. MY DAD IS OUT BUYING SUPPLIES. HOW ARE THINGS IN STELLAMAR? THIS IS TOTALLY INTENSE, RIGHT?

I texted Mason back, and we went back and forth a few times.

YEAH. IT IS DEFINITELY INTENSE. NO EVACUATIONS HERE SO FAR. BUT I AM HATING THIS HURRICANE STUFF.

HEY, LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE. MAYBE THE POWER WILL GO OUT AND WE
'
LL GET TO STAY HOME FROM SCHOOL.

THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! BUT MAYBE NOT SO AWESOME IF ALL THE LIGHTS GO OUT! WE
'
D BE LIKE THE PIONEERS, HA HA.

After I hit send, I cringed. Was it dorky to joke about pioneers? And anyway, did it mean anything that Mason had texted me to check in? Was he worried about me? I'd have to tell Lily and see what she thought.

The rest of the day was pretty busy. My dad and I spent the afternoon visiting elderly people on our block and in other parts of the town, helping them seal
their windows and check their generators, and going to the store to bring them batteries and flashlights and bottled water. Lily and I had stayed up pretty late the night before, so I was exhausted when I finally climbed into bed that night. Jittery as I felt about the storm, I fell asleep almost immediately.

I didn't have the dream that night, or if I did, I don't remember it. I slept soundly but woke up earlier than I usually do on a Sunday morning. It was very dark in my room as I glanced at the clock. Only seven thirty. Maybe it was the atmospheric pressure in the air that kept me from rolling over and falling back asleep. For whatever reason, I was wide awake.

I stepped out of bed and groped my way over to my window. Parted the curtains. Remembered that everything was all shuttered up tightly. I couldn't see outside. No wonder it was so dark in here.

Dressing quickly in jeans and an old sweater, I headed downstairs and opened the front door to look outside. The wind had picked up. A lot. Dry leaves danced around in circles across the front walkway. The trees in the yard were whispering and whooshing and
swaying back and forth. My hair whipped around my face, in my mouth, my eyes. As I stood there, it began to rain. Fat drops plopped on the front walkway, quickly darkening it until it was shiny and wet. The rain came down harder. Hastily closing the door, I stepped back into the front hall to find my dad emerging from the basement, wiping his hands on a rag stuck into his back pocket.