I wasn’t really surprised. Father Dominic was old, and a priest, and everything, but he was still a hottie, in a senior citizen, Sean Connery kind of way.
“There was, I believe,” he said finally, when his search came up negative, “a young woman. At one time.”
Aha. I pictured Audrey Hepburn for some reason. You know, in that movie that’s always on, the one where she played a nun. Maybe Father Dom and his one true love had met in priest and nun school! Maybe their love had been forbidden like in the movie!
“Did you know her before you took your, um, orders, or whatever they’re called?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Or after?”
“Before, of course!” He sounded shocked. “For heaven’s sake, Susannah.”
“I was just wondering.” I kept my gaze on Jesse over by the campfire, so Father D. wouldn’t be too embarrassed thinking I was staring at him, or anything. “I mean, we don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.” Only I couldn’t help it. “Was she—”
“I was your age,” Father Dominic said, as if he wanted to hurry up and get it over with. “In high school, like you. She was a little younger.”
I had trouble picturing Father Dominic in high school. I didn’t even know what color his hair had been before it turned the snowy white it was now.
“It was…,” Father D. went on, a faraway look in his bright blue eyes. “It…well, it would never have worked.”
“I know,” I said. Because suddenly I did know. I don’t know how I knew, but something in the way he said it never would have worked just told me, I guess. “She was a ghost, right?”
Father Dominic inhaled so sharply that for a second I thought he was having a heart attack or something.
But before I had a chance to jump in and start CPR, Jesse got up from the fire and started coming toward us.
“Oh, look,” Father Dominic said with obvious relief. “Here comes Jesse.”
I had gotten over the annoyance I used to feel at Jesse when he’d appear suddenly, usually when I least expected—or wanted—him to. Now I was almost always glad to see him.
Except at that particular moment. At that particular moment, I wished Jesse was far, far away. Because I had a feeling I was never going to get Father D. to open up about this particular subject again.
“All right,” Jesse said, when he’d come close enough to speak to us. “I think they’ll listen to you now, Father, without trying to bolt. They’re quite frightened.”
“They sure didn’t act very frightened when they were trying to kill me this afternoon,” I muttered.
Jesse looked down at me, a trace of amusement in his dark eyes—though what’s so funny about me practically drowning, I don’t know.
“I think,” he said, “if you listen to what they have to say, you’ll understand why they behaved the way they did.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said with a sniff.
Chapter
Twelve
I guess I was in kind of a bad mood because of Jesse interrupting my little heart-to-heart with Father Dominic. But that was no reason for him to come up behind me as I was walking toward the group around the fire and whisper, “Behave,” in my ear.
I flashed him a look of annoyance. “I always do,” I said.
You know what he did then? He laughed! And not in a very nice way, either. I couldn’t believe it.
When I got close enough to the group to be able to make out the expressions on their faces, I didn’t see anything to convince me they weren’t still the same ghosts who’d tried to kill me—twice—in two days.
“Wait a minute,” Josh said when he recognized me. He climbed quickly to his feet, and pointed accusingly at me. “That’s the bitch who—”
Jesse stepped quickly into the firelit circle. “Now,” he said, “I told you who these people were—”
“You said they were going to help us,” Felicia wailed from where she sat, the skirt of her evening dress poofing up all around her. “But that girl there kicked me in the face this afternoon!”
“Oh,” I said, “like you weren’t trying to drown me at the time?”
Father Dominic stepped quickly between me and the ghosts and said, “My children, my children, do not be alarmed. We are here to help you, if we can.”
Josh Saunders, stunned, said, “You can see us?”
“I can,” Father Dominic said solemnly. “Susannah and I are, as I’m sure Jesse explained, mediators. We can see you, and we want to help you. Indeed, it is our responsibility to help you. Only, you must understand, it is also our responsibility to ensure that you don’t harm anyone. That is why Susannah tried to stop you earlier today and, if I understand correctly, the day before.”
This caused Mark Pulsford to say a bad word. Felicia Bruce elbowed him and said, “Cut it out. That guy’s a priest.”
Mark said, belligerently, “He is not.”
“He is so,” Felicia said. “Can’t you see the little white thingie around his neck?”
“I am a priest.” Father Dominic hastened to cut the argument short. “And I am telling you the truth. You can call me Father Dominic. And this is Susannah Simon. Now, we understand that the four of you feel a bit of resentment toward Mr. Meducci—”
“Resentment?” Josh, still standing, glared at Father Dominic. “Resentment? It’s because of that jerk that we’re all dead!”
Only he didn’t say jerk.
Father Dominic raised his white eyebrows, but Jesse said, calmly, “Why don’t you tell the father what you told me, Josh, so that he and Susannah can begin to understand.”
Josh, his bowtie hanging loosely around his neck, and the first few buttons of his dress shirt undone, lifted a hand and ran his fingers frustratedly through his short blond hair. He had obviously been, in life, an extremely good-looking boy. Blessed with looks, intelligence, and wealth (his parents had to have money if they could afford to send him to Robert Louis Stevenson School, which was as expensive as it was exclusive), Josh Saunders was having trouble adjusting to the only misfortune that had ever befallen him in his short, happy life:
His untimely death.
“Look,” he said. The sounds of the waves, and now the crackle of the little fire they’d made, were easily drowned out by his deep voice. Had he lived, Josh might have been anything, I thought to myself, from professional athlete to president. He exuded that kind of confidence.
“On Saturday night we went to a dance,” he said. “A dance, okay? And afterward, we thought we might go for a drive, and park—”
Carrie chimed in: “We always park at the Point on Saturday night.”
“The observation point,” Felicia explained.
“It’s so pretty,” Carrie said.
“Really pretty,” Felicia said with a quick glance at Father Dominic.
I stared at them. Who were they kidding? We all knew what they were doing parked at the observation point.
And it wasn’t looking at the view.
“Yeah,” Mark said. “Plus no cops ever come by and make us move. You know?”
Ah. Such honesty was refreshing.
“All right,” Josh said. He had shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. Now he took them out, and held them, palms toward us. “So we went for this drive. Everything’s going fine, right? Same as any other Saturday night. Only it wasn’t the same. Because this last time, when we went around the corner—you know, that hairpin curve up there—something rammed us—”
“Yeah,” Carrie said. “No lights, no warning, nothing. Just bam.”
“We went right into the guardrail,” Josh said. “No big deal. We weren’t going very fast. I thought, Shit, I crushed the fender. And I started to back up. But then he hit us again—”
“Oh, but surely—” Father Dominic began.
Josh, however, went on as if the priest hadn’t spoken.
“And the second time he hit us,” Josh said, “we just kept on going.”
“As if the guardrail weren’t even
there,” Felicia put in.
“We went straight over.” Josh slipped his hands back into his pockets. “And woke up down here. Dead.”
There was silence after that. At least no one spoke. There was still the sound of the waves, of course, and the crackling of the fire. Spray from the sea, blown by the wind, was coating my hair and forming little ice crystals in it. I moved closer to the fire, thankful for its warmth….
And realized, all in a rush, why the RLS Angels had gone to the trouble of building it. Because that’s what they’d have done if they’d still been alive. They’d have built a fire for warmth. So what if they could no longer feel its heat? It didn’t matter. That’s what live people would have done.
And all they wanted was to be alive again.
“Troubling,” Father Dominic said. “Very troubling. But surely, my children, you can see that it was just an accident—”
“An accident?” Josh glared at Father D. “There was nothing accidental about it, Father. That guy—that Michael guy—came at us on purpose.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Father Dominic said. “Perfectly ridiculous. Why on earth would he do such a thing?”
“Simple,” Josh said with a shrug. “He’s jealous.”
“Jealous?” Father Dominic looked appalled. “Perhaps you aren’t aware of this, young man, but Michael Meducci, whom I have known since he was in the first grade, is a very gifted student. He is well liked by his fellow classmates. Why in heaven’s name would he—No. No, I’m sorry. You’re mistaken, my boy.”
I wasn’t sure which universe Father Dom was living in—the one where Michael Meducci was well liked by his fellow classmates—but it sure wasn’t this one. As far as I knew, no one at the Mission Academy liked Michael Meducci—or even knew him, outside of the chess club. But then, I had only been there a few months, so maybe I was wrong.
“He may be gifted,” Josh said, “but he’s still a geek.”
Father Dominic blinked at him. “A geek?” he ventured.
“You heard me.” Josh shook his head. “Look, Father, face facts. Your boy Meducci is nothing. Nothing. We”—he pointed at himself, then gestured toward his friends—“on the other hand, were it. The most popular people in our school. Nothing happened at RLS unless it had our seal of approval. A party wasn’t a party until we got there. A dance wasn’t a dance unless Josh, Carrie, Mark, and Felicia—the RLS ‘Angels’—were there. Okay? Are you getting the picture now?”
Father Dominic looked confused. “Um,” he said. “Not quite.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “Is this guy for real?” he asked me and Jesse.
Jesse said, without smiling, “Very much so.”
“Okay,” Josh said. “Then let me put it to you this way. This Meducci guy? He may have the sparkling GPA. But so what? That’s nothing. I’ve got a 4.0. I hold the school record in the high jump. I belong to the National Honor Society. I play forward on the basketball team. I’ve been president of the student council for three years in a row, and on a lark, this spring I tried out for—and got—the lead in the school drama society’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Oh, and guess what? I was accepted to Harvard. Early decision.”
Josh paused to take a breath. Father Dominic opened his mouth to say something, but Josh barreled right along.
“How many Saturday nights,” Josh asked, “do you think Michael Meducci has sat alone in his room playing video games? Huh? Well, let me put it to you another way: Do you know how many I’ve spent caressing a joystick? None. Want to know why? Because there’s never been a Saturday night when I didn’t have something to do—a party to go to or a girl to take out. And not just any girl, either, but the hottest, most popular girls in school. Carrie here”—he gestured at Carrie Whitman, sitting in the sand in her ice-blue evening gown—“models part-time up in San Francisco. She’s done commercials. She was homecoming queen.”
“Two years in a row,” Carrie pointed out in her squeaky voice.
Josh nodded. “Two years in a row. Are you starting to get it now, Father? Is Michael Meducci dating a model? I don’t think so. Is Michael Meducci’s best friend like mine, Mark over there, captain of the football team? Does Michael Meducci have a full athletic scholarship to UCLA?”
Mark, obviously not the group genius, went, with feeling, “Go Bruins.”
“What about me?” Felicia demanded.
Josh said, “Yes, what about Mark’s girlfriend, Felicia? Head cheerleader, captain of the dance team and, oh yeah, winner of a National Merit Scholarship because of her superior grades. So, keeping all that in mind, let’s ask that question again, shall we? Why would a guy like Michael Meducci want people like us dead? Simple: He’s jealous.”
The silence that swept in after this statement was almost as penetrating as the smell of brine permeating the air. No one said a word. The Angels looked too self-righteous to speak, and Father Dom seemed stunned by their revelations. Jesse’s feelings on the subject were unclear; he looked a little bored. I guess to a guy born over a hundred and fifty years ago, the words National Merit Scholarship don’t mean much.
I pried my tongue from where it had been stuck to the roof of my mouth. I was very thirsty from my long hike down, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to the climb back up to Father Dom’s car. But I felt compelled, despite my discomfort, to speak.
“Or,” I said, “it could be because of his sister.”
Chapter
Thirteen
Everyone—from Father Dom to Carrie Whitman—blinked at me in the firelight.
“Excuse me?” Josh said. Only his tone was more impatient than polite.
“Michael’s sister,” I said. “The one who’s in the coma.”
Don’t ask me what made me think of it. Maybe it was Josh’s reference to parties—how no party began until he and the other Angels got there. That started me thinking of the last party I’d heard about—the one where Michael’s sister had fallen into the pool and nearly drowned. Some party that must have been. Had the police broken it up after the ambulance arrived?
Father Dominic’s shaggy white eyebrows went up. “You mean Lila Meducci? Yes, of course. How could I have forgotten about her? It’s tragic—very tragic—what happened to her.”
Jesse piped up for the first time in some minutes. “What happened to her?” he asked, lifting his chin from the knee he’d been resting it on, his foot propped up against the boulder he was sitting on.
“An accident,” Father Dom said, shaking his head. “A terrible accident. She tripped and fell into a swimming pool and very nearly drowned. Her parents are losing hope that she’ll ever regain consciousness.”
I grunted. “That’s one version of the story, anyway,” I said. Michael’s parents had obviously cleaned it up for the principal of their daughter’s school. “You left out the part,” I went on, “about how she was at a party in the Valley when it happened. And that she was completely blotto when she went under.” I narrowed my eyes at the four ghosts seated on the opposite side of the fire. “So was everybody else at this particular party, apparently, since nobody noticed what happened to her until she’d been under long enough to curdle her brain.” I looked at Jesse. “Did I mention the fact that she’s only fourteen years old?”
Jesse, still sitting on the boulder, his hands around the propped up knee, looked at the Angels. “I don’t suppose any of you,” he said, “would know something about this.”
Mark looked disgusted. “How would any of us know about some geek’s sister getting wasted at a party?” he demanded.
“Perhaps because one—or all—of you happened to be at the party at the time?” I suggested sweetly.
Father Dominic looked startled. “Is this true?” He blinked down at the Angels. “Do any of you know anything about this?”
“Of course not,” Josh said—too quickly, I thought. Felicia’s “As if” was not very convincing, either.
It was Carrie who gave it away, though.
“Even if we did,??
? she demanded with un-feigned indignation, “what would it matter? Just because some stupid wannabe drank herself into a coma at one of our parties, how does that make us responsible?”
I stared at her. Felicia, I remembered, was the National Merit Scholar. Carrie Whitman had only been homecoming queen. Twice.
“How about, just for starters,” I said, “making alcohol available to an eighth grader?”
“How were we supposed to know how old she was?” Felicia asked, not very nicely. “I mean, she had enough makeup slathered on, I could have sworn she was forty.”
“Yeah,” Carrie said. “And that particular party was by invitation only. I certainly never issued an invitation to any eighth grader.”
“If you want to hold someone responsible,” Felicia said, “how about the idiot who brought her in the first place?”
“Yeah,” Carrie said angrily.
“I don’t think Susannah is the one holding you responsible for what happened to Michael’s sister.” Jesse’s voice, after the shrillness of the girls, sounded like distant thunder. It shut the others up quite effectively. “Michael, I believe, is the one who killed you for it.”
Father Dominic made a soft noise as if Jesse’s words had sunk, like a fist, into his stomach.
“Oh, no,” he said. “No, surely you can’t think—”
“It makes more sense,” Jesse said, “than this one’s argument”—he nodded briefly at Josh—“that Michael did it out of jealousy because he has no…what is it? Oh, yes. Dates on Saturday night.”
Josh looked uncomfortable. “Well,” he said, tugging on his evening jacket’s lapels. “I didn’t know the skank they fished out of Carrie’s pool was Meducci’s sister.”
“This,” Father Dominic said, “is too much. Simply too much. I am…I am appalled by all of this.”
I glanced at him, surprised by what I heard in his voice. It was—if I wasn’t mistaken—pain. Father Dominic was actually hurt by what he’d just heard.
“A young girl is in a coma,” he said, his blue-eyed gaze very bright as it bored into Josh, “and you call her names?”