A Perfect Storm (6 page)

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, giving me a tired smile.

“Hey, Daddy. So what's the latest news on the storm?”

“Things are speeding up. It's due to make landfall by noon,” he said. “Come on. Let's go out for breakfast. There's a diner still open in Ocean Heights, and we may as well support our local businesses while we can. And I have a truck full of water, diapers, and long-life milk I promised the church I'd deliver to the shelter over at the high school. Hope my tarp keeps things dry.”

So after a quick breakfast, we spent the morning doing more storm preparedness stuff. It kept me so busy I didn't have time to worry about how nervous I was about the storm. I think that might have been my dad's intention all along.

As we drove back toward our house around eleven, there were already lots of small branches down on the road, and it was starting to rain sideways. The windshield wipers were going full speed, and still it was hard to see. My dad pulled the truck into the small garage, and he and I dashed for the house, lugging the last few bags of supplies. We stepped into the kitchen to find Lady Azura calmly reading the paper.

“The pair of you look like you swam here,” she said, eyeing us standing on the mat in our dripping raincoats. “Drape your coats over the pantry sink and come have a cup of tea.”

My dad and I peeled off our coats. With the windows shuttered, I couldn't see what was happening outside, but I could hear the wind, which rattled the house and seemed to have grown louder in just the past few minutes. I wasn't sure the kitchen, with all its windows, was the best place to be right now.

My dad must have agreed with me. “I think we'd be better off in an interior room,” he said. “Why don't we
all
head for the pantry?”

Lady Azura looked like she was about to object, but then we heard a loud bang and the crack of what
might have been a large tree limb breaking away, followed by a thud. The lights flickered, but stayed on. Without another word, she picked up her teacup and led the way into the pantry off the kitchen, the two of us following, a tiny queen trailed by her loyal subjects.

It was pretty big, as far as pantries go. Lady Azura had told me before that people used to call it a butler's pantry. There was a small table with three beat-up old stools, and counter-to-ceiling, glass-paneled cabinets. While my dad made a few trips back and forth from the kitchen to the pantry, carrying flashlights and candles and stuff, Lady Azura pulled open a drawer and drew out a deck of cards.

“Are those, like, fortune-teller-type cards?” asked my dad, stopping what he was doing and eyeing the cards warily.

Lady Azura smiled. “No, Mike, dear. They're just cards. I thought we could—”

There was a crash of thunder and then the lights went out, plunging us into darkness.

I gave a little surprised squeak. But a second later my dad had turned on a flashlight, and then a camping lantern lit the small room up with a warm glow.

“I'll shuffle,” said my dad with a wry grin.

The three of us sat down to play. We played Hearts, and gin rummy, and even Go Fish—which had been my favorite game when I was a little kid. We played for what felt like hours, but I wasn't bored for a second. Despite all the madness that was going on outside, I felt warm and safe and happy. At one point my dad ventured out into the kitchen with a flashlight and, promising to be super alert and careful near the windows, made us some grilled cheese sandwiches on the gas-powered stove.

While my dad was preparing our lunch, Lady Azura and I talked more about Duggan.

“Have you seen him your whole life?” I asked her.

“I used to see him often when I was younger. He frequented the blue room on the second floor if I recall correctly.” She smiled wryly. “But as I haven't been upstairs in years, I haven't seen much of him.”

I nodded. Waited. You couldn't rush Lady Azura into giving you essential information. You had to let her tell you on her own terms.

“I used to see him just before a big storm. He seemed to appear just as the weather was about
to turn, and then he'd disappear again. Perhaps to where his old shipyard used to be. I never really put it together before now, but he seems to be drawn out by the weather. It makes sense, given the circumstances of his death.”

“Well, that was where I saw him on Thursday. Where his shipyard used to be. Just outside Scoops. But he doesn't seem to know or care if I can see him.”

“Yes, he was always rather gruff,” said Lady Azura primly. “But he was from another era.”

Because Lady Azura seemed to be more comfortable talking about Duggan now, I decided to bring my mom up again. I took a deep breath and plunged right in. “I'm positive he told me that my mom had left a message for me. I know it sounds crazy, but I got the impression that he has something more to tell me about her. Can I go see if he's upstairs?”

Lady Azura pursed her lips. “Best wait until after the storm,” she said.

And then my dad came back with a platter of grilled cheese sandwiches, which ended the conversation about Duggan.

But I couldn't stop thinking about him. I had to go
find him, talk to him. See what he had meant about the message.

We ate our lunch, and then my dad made tea for Lady Azura, and it wasn't long after she'd finished her first cup that we became aware that the winds seemed to have died down, and that the rain wasn't pounding down with so much force anymore. The storm seemed to have passed.

We all headed into the kitchen, and my dad opened the door. Lady Azura and I followed him out onto the stoop.

The rain had stopped. The winds were still blowing but nowhere near as hard. Dark, puffy clouds zoomed across the sky like they'd been filmed with a time-lapse camera. Branches and leaves were all over the place.

“I'm going to check the exterior for damage,” said my dad.

“I'll check the interior,” I said quickly, knowing this was my chance to seize the opportunity to look for Duggan upstairs.

Lady Azura gave me a look. She knew what I was up to, of course.

“I, for one, shall go have my nap,” she said in her queenlike voice. “This has been quite enough excitement for me for one day.”

My dad gave her a flashlight to light her way through the still-dim kitchen. Then he headed outside to go inspect for any damage.

I searched the house from top to bottom. I saw the spirit of the woman in the pink bedroom, and I saw grumpy Mr. Broadhurst walking back and forth in our sitting room on the second floor. I even saw Henry in the closet of my crafts room. He had a lot of questions about the storm and why it had been so dark and loud. I explained as best I could.

I did not see Duggan.

We got our power back the next morning, Monday, but on the news I learned that school would be closed through Wednesday. Lily got her power back around the same time as we did, but she told me that parts of Stellamar might be out for a while—particularly the parts nearest to the shore. I didn't hear anything from Mason. I assumed his power was out and that he wasn't able to text me because of the spotty cell phone service. I hoped he was okay. And that his house was okay. For all I knew, his family had ended up getting evacuated after all.

My dad let me head over to Lily's house on Monday afternoon, after he'd made sure there were no dangerous power lines down or anything. That's how I learned about Mason's school.

Lily was related to every other person in Stellamar,
or at least it seemed like it sometimes. She had a lot of relatives in the volunteer fire department and the local police departments, so as usual, I learned more from her than from the TV.

“Harbor Isle Middle School had a
lot
of damage,” Lily told me. “A tree fell on the cafeteria roof! And a bunch of the ground-floor classrooms got flooded after the windows broke. So the school has to close, maybe for months, while they repair it.”

My eyes widened.

“I know, right? They're going to move a bunch of the kids into the high school, but at least a hundred are going to have to get bused to schools in neighboring towns, at least through January. Including Stellamar.”

Mason. Would Mason be allowed to come to our school?

Lily read my mind. Not really. But kind of.

“I know what you're thinking, but you can stop thinking it,” she said. “My mom talked to Mason's mom, and he's going to Ocean Heights. Which makes his parents mad because Mason's closest friends are getting sent here.”

Oh well.

“What about Calvin?” I asked. “Is he one of those friends?”

Lily shook her head, an exasperated expression on her face. “I don't know. I haven't been able to find out. I couldn't exactly ask my mom to ask Mason's mom, because what if word got back to Calvin? He'd know it was me asking. I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed. But I don't even know his last name.”

I kept pretty busy the next few days. My dad and I made big pots of spaghetti and delivered meals to several of our elderly neighbors who were without power.

And I searched for Duggan, keeping my eyes peeled as my dad and I drove around town, looking for Duggan's distinctive sailor hat. But he was nowhere to be found. The blue bedroom remained spirit free. On Tuesday I grabbed my camera and walked to Scoops in the hopes I might find him around there. The boardwalk was eerily quiet, with most of the shops still boarded up. I noticed that in one place the railing of the boardwalk had been completely torn away by the winds. My dad had told me that we had been really lucky, that the dunes on the beach had really held up and helped to protect the boardwalk and the
neighborhoods closer to the shore in Stellamar, but I knew some other towns hadn't been so lucky. Towns like Harbor Isle. I didn't find Duggan, but I did get some pretty incredible pictures of the aftermath of the storm.

On Tuesday night I finally heard from Mason. He told me his house was still out of power but otherwise had done okay. A big tree had come down but luckily hadn't hit his house. But parts of his town were in really bad shape. He and his parents were staying with his grandparents for a few days until the power came back on at home, or until they figured something else out.

My dad stayed home Monday and Tuesday, as his office had lost power, but he kept busy helping neighbors with repairs and stuff. Several times I thought of telling my dad about Duggan. But in the end, I didn't. He knew about my powers, of course. But he still seemed uncomfortable talking openly about spirit stuff. And since this spirit stuff had to do with my mom, I was afraid of completely freaking him out.

On Wednesday, Lady Azura found me staring out of the bay window toward the ocean.

“Brooding over this message business with Duggan?” she asked me.

I whirled around, feeling upset and thinking she didn't believe me or take me seriously. But when I saw her face, I saw a look of genuine concern. And a lot of love.

I shook my head. “I've searched the house twice,” I said, “even though I have no idea what I'm looking for. And I don't know if he said he has a message my mother left me while she was alive, or if she sent me a message more recently, and even though I've looked and looked, I—”

“Perhaps we can conjure him.”

“—like, up in the attic,” I continued, because her words hadn't registered. “And even—” Her words sank in. I gaped at her. “Wait.
What
did you say?”

“I said perhaps we can conjure him.”

“Duggan? Really? Can we?”

She nodded. “I don't see why not. We've certainly been all too successful summoning other spirits recently. There's no reason we can't try to summon him.”

“Can we do it now?” I asked eagerly.

She nodded. “Come. Follow me to my fortune-telling room.”

I practically ran into her room after her. Helped her light candles. Pulled the shades. Arranged crystals. As fast as I could. And then we sat down across from each other, and I tried to clear my mind. To stop it from blocking anything out.

We held hands across the table and closed our eyes.

“Mr. Duggan,” said Lady Azura in her low, velvety voice, the one I had grown accustomed to hearing by now in her séance room. “Mr. Duggan. We invite you to visit us.”

We waited. Waited some more. I opened one eye. I sensed nothing. It wasn't going to work. I felt the despair take hold of me.

And then I sensed something.

I opened my eyes slowly. Looked around the room, into the dark, shadowy corners.

There.

A figure stood, a dark-gray silhouette against the pale daylight that was glowing faintly behind the drapery. The figure moved. Stepped out of the shadows and into the candlelit circle of our table.

It was Duggan.

But a very young Duggan.

He wore the same blue coat, but it was new-looking and unsoiled, not yet threadbare near the shoulders and elbows. His face was clean-shaven, his jet-black hair just barely caught up in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck. On his head he wore a brown, three-pointed hat. Possibly the same one worn by his old self, but this one was new-looking, without scuffs or shiny spots where the suede had worn away.

I stood up from my chair, so excited to see him that I let it crash backward to the floor. Lady Azura winced at the noise, but it didn't seem to bother Duggan the spirit.

“Thank you,” I said in a high-pitched voice. “For coming. Here, I mean. To see us.”

He grunted, his heavy dark eyebrows turned downward.

“So, Mr. Duggan,” I said, trying not to sound nervous. “Okay if I ask you a question?”

Lady Azura was allowing me to speak, to direct this conversation. I was grateful for that.

He nodded. “Aye.”

“I'm wondering. My name is Sara. My mother is—was—Natalie. I was just wondering if you knew her.”

His dark eyes bored into mine. I waited, my breath caught in my throat, hardly daring to breathe.