* * * * *
It was almost one o' clock in the morning. Caera, Claudia, and Ana had crept silently away from the others and had met in the library, one of the only rooms in the house not decorated with sleeping bodies. In her hand, Claudia grasped the scrap of paper that Caera had scribbled on after Claudia had shown her the hidden stone in the cave.
Claudia sat down to face Ana and Caera and began to tell them what had really happened to her before she had found Alex and the cave. Ana was taking in the information in her normal way—she was jumping up and down in her chair with excitement.
"You really saw the ghost of Emma Campbell! And she led you to Alex!"
"Yes," Claudia said, shaking her head.
"Well then, Claudia, do you know what this means?" Caera asked.
"No. What?"
"It means Emma isn't haunting out house—she's haunting us!"
"Caera, don't jump to conclusions yet." Claudia protested, looking really nervous.
"Yeah," Ana agreed. "Maybe Emma was protecting you, Claudia, not haunting you. You know, so you wouldn't fall into that cave like Alex."
Claudia brightened. "I suppose."
"Anyway, it could be that Emma was leading us to another piece of evidence that might help us find her diary." Caera said.
"What does that " X marks the spot" mean, do you think?" Ana wondered. "Do you suppose it's an x on a map?"
"Hey, you may be right, Ana." Caera said. "Do you think maybe what it's talking about is a map of specific places that will 'mark the spot'. Sort of a dot-to-dot? Maybe we just connect the locations of where we find clues or markers and that's the X."
"Well, I guess," Claudia sounded skeptical. "I suppose we can plot the places where we've seen Emma and see if that gives us any lead. Maybe her ghost isn't haunting us specifically, but it can't go beyond a certain area. And--maybe her diary is at the center of that area, too."
"You mean--if the diary is the physical object that's keeping her trapped here on Earth as a ghost?" Ana suggested.
"Maybe. And maybe Emma is trying to lead us to it whenever she appears—" Claudia stopped as she heard the door creak open, and as she saw Alex and Andrew Davenport walk in. Alex limped forward, disdainfully eyeballing the trio just before he and his brother slouched into some chairs.
"What are you guys talking about?"
"Yeah, you're not really thinking," Andrew began reproachfully, "of looking for some dopey diary, are you?" Claudia was looking at them suspiciously.
"Hey, you were eavesdropping on us!" Ana cried.
Alex tried to maintain his smug expression, but inside he was secretly disappointed.
He was just dying to know what they'd found out about the cave. It'd spooked him initially, though he wouldn't have admitted it to them, and upon listening from the hallway, he realized there was something else going on here, that was somehow connected to it, even though he wasn't about to believe all that hokey nonsense about seeing ghosts or anything. Unfortunately, Claudia wasn't about to tell him anything, and he really wanted to help them without his brother (and his friends) teasing him. At that moment, however, Andrew was tugging on his shirt like he wanted to tell him something so the two of them left.
Ana yawned and announced that she was going to bed, and Claudia got up to go with her, when she noticed that Caera wasn't moving. Caera insisted that she would be along in a minute and stubbornly maintained that nothing was wrong, but Claudia remained unconvinced. With a yawn, she turned down the hallway as Caera sat alone in an armchair.