Evie’s posture stiffened. Still, she managed to give me another shrug.
“As I was saying,” I continued, trying to soften my voice as much as possible, “your aunt came to me and asked if I might be able to help with what happened to you. You see, I have this really cool ability to talk to people who are no longer here.”
Evie’s head cocked to the side like a trusting puppy’s. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” I said, thinking how I might explain what I did in a way that wouldn’t sound creepy. At that moment I felt a thump on my energy, but it was very low. I looked down at the ground, momentarily distracted, and said the name that had entered my brain: “Paddington.”
Evie’s tone became sharp. “What?” she demanded.
I glanced up at her and noticed that those big wide eyes were staring at me with so much emotion. “Paddington Bear,” I said again. “You had a dog named Paddington Bear, right?”
Instantly Evie’s eyes watered and her lower lip began to tremble.
I smiled. I was in. “He keeps doing figure eights around you,” I said. This got me another gasp. “And he says you dream about him all the time.”
“I do!” Evie said as she looked down at the ground, trying to see the energy circling her even now.
“Paddington says he’s hanging out with…” I hesitated, trying to sound out the name. “Me-ma?”
That brought me another gasp. “My grandmother!” she squealed.
I grinned broadly and gave her a nod. “She and Paddington are having a great time. And your Me-ma is saying she knew you’d learn to knit eventually.”
“I just learned that at school!” Evie said. “One of the other girls taught me, and we made these really cool scarves! Except we can’t wear them until it gets cold again.”
I laughed. “So now you know what I do,” I said. “I talk to people who are no longer here.”
“You talk to dead people,” Evie said succinctly. “It’s cool. I’ve seen The Sixth Sense.”
I laughed again. “Thank God for that film or I might be considered particularly freakish.”
“How did you learn to talk to dead people?” she asked me with those big, inquisitive eyes.
“I didn’t so much learn as I discovered,” I said. “I was about your age when my mother died. Just before her death, her parents, who were both dead, came to my bedside and said that my mother was coming to see them, and that she wouldn’t be back. And they kept coming to my bedside for many nights, long after she’d passed away, to let me know that she was doing well and that they were happy to have her with them again. From there I got visits from other people’s grandparents and uncles and aunts and parents and friends. For a while there in high school my bedroom was a major gathering place for the dead.”
“That is so cool,” Evie said.
“It can be,” I said smugly. “My partner—that’s him over there,” I said, pointing to Gilley, who waved back at us.
“He’s the one who encouraged me to start reading for people professionally.”
“Like that guy on the cable channel, what’s his name?” she said, and tapped her chin thoughtfully with her forefinger. “John Edwards?”
“John Edward,” I corrected, referring to one of the more famous names in professional mediumship. “Yep, I’m a little like him. So, Evie,” I said, trying to get back to the topic at hand, “about what happened to you…”
“It was Hatchet Jack,” she said, with those big, wide eyes.
“He came after me.”
“Is it all right if we talk about it?”
Evie went back to shrugging. “I guess,” she said.
“Tell me what happened, and try not to leave anything out.”
Evie picked up her paintbrush and began painting while she talked. “It was during first period science class,” she said. “I have Mr. Vesnick—he’s way cool, and a bunch of us think he’s really cute.” Evie blushed slightly when she realized she’d said this out loud.
“I had a good-looking science teacher once too,” I said, trying to make her feel at ease.
Evie smiled shyly and continued. “So, Mr. Vesnick was giving us our final. Part of the test was about finding these certain types of plants on the school grounds and bringing them back to hand in at the end of class. I’d found a really cool sample of clematis out behind the old wing, and I didn’t have a lot of time left before Mr. Vesnick was gonna call time, so I cut through the elementary building instead of going around it.”
“I’m following,” I encouraged.
Evie’s voice became shaky as she got to the next part.
“So, I’m, like, walking through the hallway, and I hear someone coming down the hallway behind me. I thought it was Alice Crenshaw—she’s my lab partner—but when I looked behind me, nobody was there.”
“But you still heard the footsteps approaching, am I right?”
Evie glanced at me. “Yeah, I did. Anyway, I’m, like, really scared, so I start running, but the footsteps start running too, and I look back again and that’s when I see him.”
“Who?” I asked gently.
Evie swiveled her easel around to show me what she’d been painting. Her artistic skills were quite extraordinary for a fourteen-year-old. The painting was straight out of a horror flick. It portrayed a man with a crazed look in his eyes, sharp, angular features, a receding hairline, and a hatchet raised high and threateningly above him as he ran down a long hallway. “Yikes,” I said as I looked at the picture.
“I can’t get him out of my head,” Evie admitted, her eyes watering.
I stood up off my stool and wrapped my arms around her. “I know the feeling, babe,” I said. “But here’s the good news. One of the other things I do is send ghostly types like Hatchet Jack to a place where they can never scare anyone again.”
Evie squeezed me hard, and I held her for another moment. Finally she pulled back and said, “The other kids are really scared to move into the new dorms. We all know Hatchet Jack haunts that old building.”
“Do you know when they plan to complete the renovations?”
“They were waiting for the kids to be let out for the summer to do the heavy stuff.”
“When is that?”
“The last day of class is tomorrow. Everyone’s going home either tomorrow or Saturday.”
“That’s actually a good thing,” I said. “The last thing I want is to try to chase this guy all over campus with kids around.”
“The teachers don’t believe us,” Evie said. “The dean was really mean to me. He said that I was making the whole thing up to get out of my finals, but I wasn’t, M.J.!”
“I believe you, Evie,” I said, meeting her gaze. “I know that what you experienced was real. And like I said before, I won’t leave Northelm without sending that monster back where he belongs.”
“Are you going to send him to hell?”
I grinned. “Not exactly, but it might feel that way to him. Listen, can I take that painting with me?” I asked, pointing to her portrait.
She nodded and gave it to me. “Sure. And don’t worry about giving it back. I don’t think I want to see it again.”
“You got it, kiddo.” It was then that I noticed the dark circles under her eyes and how tired she looked. “Didn’t get much sleep last night, I’ll bet, huh?”
“Nope,” she confirmed.
“Well, that makes sense, then.”
“What?”
“Why Paddington is all over you. He’s around to protect you from now on. You won’t have to worry about the likes of Hatchet Jack showing up around here, Evie. Paddington’s going to keep anything bad away, so you can get some sleep and not worry about it, okay?”
Evie seemed to brighten. “Really?” she asked me. “He’s really around me?”
I focused hard on the little energy that had been running in figure eights around her earlier. “He was a cocker spaniel, right? Kind of caramel colored?”
Evie broke into a huge grin
. “Yes!” she said, and clapped her hands. “I really miss him. He died last summer.”
“Well, his body might not be around anymore, Evie, but his spirit is sticking close to you. I promise, it’s safe to fall asleep, okay?”
“Thanks,” she said.
I got up off my chair and gave her another squeeze. “I gotta get going, but it was really nice meeting you. And if there’s anything else you can think of that might help me you can call me anytime.” And with that I handed her my card.
Evie took my card and looked up at. “M.J.?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“I can’t go back there if he’s still there. You have to get rid of him, okay?”
And that was when I did something I never do. I promised with a cross over my heart that I would make sure I rid the school of his evil presence. It was a big promise on my part, because sometimes an energy is so vile, so evil, so intent on staying put that there’s little we humans can do about it. I only hoped that this thing wasn’t one of those, because if it was, I was in deep doo-doo.
Chapter 3
Shortly after I talked with Evie we all took our leave. As we piled back into our vehicles Karen asked me, “What’d she paint?”
I had propped the canvas up in the van, because the paint was still wet and I didn’t want it to get on Karen’s leather upholstery. “It was a pretty horrifying rendition of this Hatchet Jack character who’s haunting the old elementary wing of the school.”
“Lovely name,” Karen said. “Wonder who thought it up.”
“The name Jack is pretty curious,” I said. “It might indicate that someone somewhere knew who this guy was.”
“Evie never talked about any ghost at her school before yesterday.”
“Probably because he wasn’t active until the construction started. Plus, it sounds as if there haven’t been many people hanging out in the elementary wing for a long time.”
Karen nodded. “According to Leanne, when the school was first built that was the only building. The others have been added on with time, so you can imagine the electrical and plumbing problems a hundred-year-old building would have. A small electrical fire broke out there the first year Evie attended, and since then they’ve pretty much kept the kids and faculty out of there.”
“I’ll want to talk to some of the older students; maybe some of them can fill me in on anything that went on in the years before the fire. Some of the faculty might be willing to talk as well.”
“I’ll take you guys to the ski lodge and get you settled first; then we’ll head over to the school. The kids get out after finals tomorrow, so hopefully we can talk to a few of them before they head home for the summer.”
We arrived at the O’Neal family ski lodge a short time later, after we’d picked up some groceries. The place was gorgeous. It was classic A-frame construction made of cedar wood, with huge windows that allowed you to see from the front of the house straight through to the lake behind. “That’s Echo Lake?” I asked as we got out of the car and Gilley and Steven pulled in behind us.
“It is,” she said.
“Whoa,” I heard Gil exclaim. “Is this where we’re staying?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
Gilley sidled up next to me, and out of the corner of his mouth he said, “Don’t rush this job, okay? I’d really like to stay here awhile.”
I laughed and gave him a pat on the back. “Champagne taste on a beer budget again, Gil?”
“It sure beats our condos,” he said, and I had to agree. Gil and I lived one floor away from each other in two tiny condos in Arlington, Massachusetts, about fifteen minutes from downtown Boston.
We headed inside, and the smells of the wood and the mountain air were so refreshing that I paused in the spacious den that overlooked a boat dock and sighed happily. “You like?” Steven said from behind me.
“I could definitely get used to it,” I said. “It’s beautiful up here, don’t you think?”
Steven nodded. “I had a friend in Germany who had a ski house in the Swiss Alps. Someday I will take you there and you can tell me which you like better.”
I swiveled and gave him a smile. “You’re going to take me to Switzerland?”
He nodded. “Someday,” he said.
“Whoo-hoo!” we heard from one of the bedrooms. A moment later Gilley came bounding out into the hallway. “M.J.! There’s a hot tub!”
“There’s also a sauna,” said Karen from the kitchen. “And downstairs there’s a full game room, complete with a pool table and Xbox 360.”
“Teeko,” Gilley said seriously, “I’ve never had feelings for a girl before, but you may be the one to convert me.”
We all laughed; then I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was getting close to one o’clock. “We’ll need to get rolling if we’re going to get to the school and do some interviews.”
Everyone hustled to unload the van. I got Doc settled into one of the bedrooms and went back out to get my luggage. When I returned to the bedroom I noticed Steven’s Gucci valise next to the bed. Crap, he wanted this room. Picking Doc up I carried his cage into one of the other bedrooms, and, after putting his cage on a table near the window, I set my luggage on the bed. I then took my toiletries into the adjoining bathroom and returned to the bedroom for one more check on Doc before going back outside to the car.
It was then that I noticed Steven’s leather valise parked next to my luggage on the bed. I rolled my eyes and decided to deal with him later.
We were on our way five minutes later, me riding shotgun, with Karen and the boys following in the van behind us. My stomach gave a terrific growl, and with a knowing smile Teeko made a quick stop at the local Burger King drive-through.
Not long after we got back on the road and were scarfing down our junk food, we saw the first sign for Northelm. “This place is out in the boonies,” I said as I looked around at nothing but forest on either side of the highway.
“Typical boarding school mentality,” said Karen. “Isolate the kids to keep them out of trouble.”
“Wonder if it works,” I mused.
“Never did for me,” she said.
“You went to boarding school?”
Teeko nodded. “Marymount International, in London. Hated every single second of it.”
“Wow, I had no idea you were so cosmopolitan.”
Karen bounced her eyebrows at me. “Oh, I’m a Cosmo girl, all right. But I only read it for the articles.”
I smiled, then saw another sign for Northelm. “We’re close,” I said, pointing to the sign. “It should be the next turnoff.”
Five minutes later we were driving down a long and winding slope on our way to a row of large buildings at the base of a valley. To our left was a huge pond with a scrubby island in the center. Straight ahead were several side-by-side fields of green marked off for what looked like soccer, lacrosse, and football. To the far right were rows of tennis courts, and next to those a track and field.
The backdrop to all this was, of course, the Adirondacks, which loomed large and panoramic in the background. “Wow,” I said as I took in the breathtaking view. “What a gorgeous place to put a school.”
“I was here last year for Evie’s graduation from eighth grade,” Karen said. “The kids rave about living here.”
“I can see why.”
We parked in a large lot to the side of the main buildings and hoofed it through the drizzle to the main entrance. Steven got the door for us, and we walked into the school.
A sign overhead with an arrow pointed us to the admin office, and we followed after Karen as her heels clicked on the parquet flooring, passing row upon row of trophy cases lined with all sorts of medals, ribbons, plaques, and trophies.
We stopped at a set of double doors, and again Steven held these open for us as we trooped through. A receptionist behind the desk glanced up over her half-moon reading glasses and said, “Miss O’Neal?”
“Yes,” said Karen.
“Dean
Habbernathy is expecting you. Please follow me.”
I was a little surprised that the dean was expecting us, but when we went into his office and saw Leanne sitting there, I understood.
Behind a large cherrywood desk a tall, thin man with white-blond hair and sparkling blue eyes, who appeared to be in his midforties, stood to greet us. “Good afternoon,” he said, extending his hand.
One by one we shook it, gave him a brief introduction, and took a seat in one of the chairs in the room. Luckily there were just enough to accommodate all of us. “Mrs. O’Neal has told me of your request to perform some sort of ritual here at the school, Miss O’Neal,” the dean began. “But I’m afraid I cannot allow it.”
Karen looked completely unfazed. “I appreciate your hesitancy, Dean Habbernathy,” she said in a calm, even voice. “However, I’m hoping you’ll at least hear us out before making your final decision.”
The dean smiled uncomfortably. “Yes, but you see, I’ve already made my final decision,” he said. Turning to Leanne he added, “I appreciate that your daughter was upset by something she thought she may have seen in the old building, Mrs. O’Neal, but the school’s integrity is at stake here. If word got out that I had allowed some sort of exorcism on school grounds, we’d have parents questioning my decision making and pulling their children out of school right and left.”
“Dean Habbernathy,” Leanne said, growing visibly furious. “My daughter saw something on school grounds that terrified her. She saw it in a wing that is rumored to be haunted, and which none of the students want to go near. That same wing is the area you intend to board them in next year. What could be worse for morale than forcing students to live in a haunted environment where they are constantly in fear of invoking some demonic force?”
I saw the dean inhale and exhale. He wasn’t a believer; I could tell. In a quiet but firm voice he said, “I’m so terribly sorry, Mrs. O’Neal, but it is not something I am willing to entertain considering at this time.”