My eyes are glued to the small mound of sand in the palm of his hand as it begins to tremble slightly.
“Is it working?” he asks, his eyes still closed.
The sand goes still in his hand. “It was very close. You’ll probably be able to pick it up if you practice every day,” I say as he opens his eyes and glowers at the sand in his hand. “It’s my turn now. You have to teach me how to disappear.”
Samuel throws his handful of sand at the ocean. “I can’t.”
“But you said you would teach me if I taught you.”
Samuel gazes out at the tumbling gray ocean, deep in thought. “I don’t want you to disappear.”
Chapter 28
My first instinct after a fight with my mom is to call Frankie. But he’s the reason we fought and I don’t want to confuse things even further between us. It’s time to try something different.
I sit cross-legged on my bed. “Mara?” I whisper into the darkness. “Mara, I need to talk.”
My eyes flit around the room skimming over the dark corners before they come to rest on the window where she appears. Her frown, the same frown I saw on the girl Conor drew, is prominent on her face.
“What happened today?” I ask her, referring to the way she questioned Conor about the drawing, the biting stunning remark, and the mysterious vibrating doorknocker.
“I’m just afraid,” she says. “I’m afraid of living like this forever.”
Her words are so tainted with despair, my heart aches for her. I want to reach out and pull her into my arms, but that’s the problem—I can’t. You can’t comfort a spirit with anything but words. Consoling words can be pretended, but there’s no denying the comfort of a friend’s touch.
That’s what Mara wants so desperately, but I’m beginning to understand why it’s taken so long for her to get her body back. You can’t force two people to love each other… especially when one of them may already be in love with someone else.
Chapter 29
I can’t tell Belinda that I suspect Conor may be possessed by Darius. She would think our plan was endangering Conor and she wouldn’t want to help me anymore. And she’s getting stronger at resisting me. This could turn out disastrous if she discovers my suspicions.
I have to find a way to test Conor—to test Darius—because if it is Darius giving Conor his artistic inspiration, this means Darius is trying to stop me. Again.
I haven’t succeeded in my quest for a body for more than one hundred years because Darius has set up roadblocks at every path. Every time I think I’ve found someone to help me out of this loneliness, he shows up to ruin it. It’s a strange, almost sick kind of love he claims to have for me. And for someone who claims to trust fate, he sure enjoys interfering in my attempts to alter it.
The problem is that Darius doesn’t want a body. He wants us to live together forever as carrier spirits exploring the world, exploring each other through a series of strangers’ bodies.
I sit in Conor’s room and watch him sleep through the night. I don’t know if I’m here because I’m waiting for Conor to give me a sign that all my efforts to get him and Belinda together are not in vain. Or if I just can’t bear to be in Belinda’s presence knowing I’ve lied to her.
It wasn’t exactly a lie. I am afraid of living like this forever. But I’m beginning to think that I may be more afraid of letting Darius win.
Chapter 30
The rain comes in the night, staining the sweltering streets and making Payne Bay smell like seawater and oily asphalt. I hate when it rains in June. June rainstorms are always stuttered feeble attempts at a storm, like the clouds just can’t seem to get it right. When we had a huge rainstorm in February, it washed away motorcycles and saplings and my mom took the day off work so she wouldn’t have to drive through the flooding. Frankie picked me up that day to take me to school and we spent thirty minutes jumping around the parking lot splashing in the ankle-high puddles. Most worthwhile tardy slip I ever got from Mr. Frock.
I’m still mad at my mom, so I insist on walking to school. The light rain coats my arms in a glistening layer of moisture. The water buoys my mood, but it does nothing to cleanse my mind of yesterday’s argument with my mom or the weirdness on the front porch with Mara and Conor. When I’m halfway down Mariposa, a rumbling engine gets my attention as a car pulls up next to the curb.
I immediately wrench open the door to Frankie’s van and hop into the front seat. I’m pleased to see him smiling despite the fact I rejected his invitation yesterday.
“Did your mom finally kick you out?” he asks.
“Just call me Olivia Twist,” I reply. If he only knew that my mom really is mad at me and it’s all because of him. “Frankie?”
“What?”
I draw in a deep breath through my nose, trying to breathe in some of Frankie’s composure. “Mara wants me to help her get her body back.”
I don’t see the palm tree falling toward us until it’s too late.
I wake to the screaming wail of a siren. The bright gray clouds stretch before me, blinding me as the rain taps a persistent rhythm on my face. I can’t move my arms.
“Belinda!” a voice shouts.
I turn my head to the right, toward the sound of the voice, and twinkling lights discharge in my vision. Through the spots I see a young woman in a crisp white shirt barreling toward me.
“Belinda!” the stranger shouts again as if she knows me. “Don’t turn your head!”
But I don’t listen. Immediately, I turn my head to the left expecting to see Frankie, but all I see is a crowd of people forming, gawking at me from the street corner. Behind the crowd, the jewelry store where my father died stands like a glittering reminder of everything I lost. I lift my head and realize I’m on a stretcher in the middle of Mariposa Blvd.
“Don’t move your head!” the woman shrieks more forcefully this time. She reaches over me and a man appears on my left side wearing the same uniform. He hands her a boxy neck brace and she carefully lifts my head to slip it on me.
“Where’s Frankie?” I ask in a strangled whisper. No one hears me. “Where’s Frankie?” I ask again, fighting to push my voice through the lump in my throat. “Where is he?”
The man and the woman work in unison to lift the stretcher and wheel me away, but they never answer as they shove me into the back of the ambulance. Frankie must be in another ambulance. They’re probably not allowed to discuss his condition. Medical privacy laws, or something. Their silence means nothing.
The doors slam shut at my feet and the cabin begins to bounce down Mariposa. The air is stifling as the woman checks my vital signs and flashes a light in my eyes. The guy sits with a clipboard in his lap rattling off questions.
Are you in any pain? Where?
The top of my head.
Is it a sharp pain or dull ache?
Both.
On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?
Three… no, four.
Do you know today’s date?
June… ninth.
How many fingers am I holding up?
Four.
Are you going to vomit?
No.
What’s your name?
Belinda Stiles.
What’s with all the questions and the clamor? Except for the pounding in my head, I don’t feel injured.
The speaker clipped to the guy’s shoulder crackles with static and a tinny female voice rings in my ears. “Eighteen-year-old male. Severe head injury. En route to Mercy Medical.”
Chapter 31
I wake to find my mother’s face peering down at me surrounded by a halo of white light. Her eyes are bloodshot as her damp hair dangles around her pink puffy face. This can’t be over me. I’m fine.
“How are you feeling?” she whispers as she brushes the hair off my forehead and strokes my face.
I glance around and realize I’m in the Mercy Medical emergency room with a lilac curtain drawn tightly around me. I recognize the lilac curta
in from when I broke my shoulder two years ago. The boxy neck brace is gone, but my hands and feet are strapped to the gurney.
“What’s going on?” I ask as I attempt to yank my wrists free.
My mom draws the lilac curtain back. “Nurse!” she calls out.
“Get me out of this!” I cry as the panic returns. “Get them off!”
A nurse in a lilac uniform that matches the curtain races toward me, her thick-soled sneakers squeaking on the tile floor. “Take it easy, honey! Take it easy!” she shouts, and she quickly begins undoing the straps around my wrists. “You were fighting a little in the ambulance so they had to strap you down. No big deal.”
No big deal?
I rub the skin around my wrists as she undoes the straps on my ankles. I look to my mom for answers, but she’s watching the nurse.
“Where’s Frankie?” I ask. “Mom?” My mom and the nurse exchange a look. “Mom?” My throat feels raw as if I’ve been yelling.
My mom turns to me and tilts her head. “Frankie’s in surgery.”
“What? How long have I been out?”
“Forty minutes. They gave you a mild sedative.”
I sit up abruptly and grab the rails of the gurney as the overhead lights pulsate and the room spins beneath me. “Whoa.”
“Lie back down,” the nurse commands and her nametag vibrates before it comes into focus. Reina. She places her hands, strong hands, on my shoulders and presses me down onto the gurney. “You have a concussion. You need to lie down.”
A sharp pain sparks behind my left eye followed by a sudden wave of nausea that swells and rises from belly and explodes all over the front of my tank top and jeans. The vomiting keeps my mind off Frankie for twenty minutes, but as soon as it stops I turn to my mom again.
She shrugs. “We’ll know soon. Michael should be here any minute.”
Frankie’s father, Michael Briggs, a man whose presence is as electric as the wires he works on every day. He’s shorter than Frankie by a couple of inches, but his shoulder-length black hair and the ropy muscles in his neck and arms make him much more imposing. I’ve always sort of feared Michael, even though he’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met aside from my father. He’s probably the only person the doctor’s will speak to about Frankie’s condition.
I stare at my mom and realize her face is puffy from tears shed over Frankie, not me. I swallow another surge of vomit as the guilt over last night’s argument hits me.
“I’ll go get you some clean clothes to change into,” my mom says before she turns on her heel and exits the emergency room. Even though she’s somewhere in the hospital parking lot by now, I hear her words clear in my head: You’ll figure it out someday.
Chapter 32
I watch the surgeons work on Tuket’s broken skull and I find myself hoping with all my might that they can mend him because if they don’t Belinda will be destroyed. I know the pain of losing someone you love. The feeling like your body is being physically crushed beneath the weight of grief. The twisted fear that permeates your every thought, whispering, “You will never again find a love so true.”
Belinda loves Frankie. Frankie loves Belinda. Why am I trying to help her fall in love with Conor? Because if I encourage Frankie and Belinda to get together then Tuket gets what he wants and so does Darius. Everybody gets what they want, except for me.
I wish I could find out if Tuket has a special power like Darius and I. Then I would know if the tree mysteriously collapsing on top of his car was really such a mystery. It doesn’t seem possible that a light sprinkling of rain could cause the soil around the tree roots to become so saturated with water that the tree toppled over. There has to be more to it. And I have too much on the line to let it go.
Chapter 33
Frankie’s light auburn curls are gone. Every strand. All that’s left is a quarter inch of stubble in the areas not covered by the massive bandage on the crown of his head. All I can think as I gaze at him from the chair next to his bed in the intensive care unit is that he looks so different, strangely beautiful, but he’s going to be so pissed when he wakes up and looks in the mirror.
He is going to wake up. His doctor said the skull fracture wasn’t serious and the internal bleeding was minimal. He should make a full recovery within three to six weeks. Knowing Frankie, he’ll be on his surfboard in a few days.
His eyelids flutter open and I shoot out of the chair. He’s been out for more than five hours. It’s hard to believe that life continues to march on for everyone else beyond the walls of this hospital room.
His eyes roll around a little as he adjusts to the dim lighting. He squints his left eye as if he’s in pain.
“Are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?” I ask.
He tries to shake his head then his whole face screws up with pain. “What the fuck happened.”
“Don’t move your head,” I whisper as I press the nurse call button on the bedrail. “Are you thirsty?”
He almost nods his head, but he stops himself. “Yeah.”
I pour an inch of water into a plastic cup. I stick a straw into the cup and hold the straw to his lips. “Drink.”
He raises his head a little to take a couple of sips then he lays back down looking exhausted. “What happened?”
A male nurse walks in and presses a button to turn off the call. “You’re awake. Any pain?” he asks.
“Yeah, my head is killing me.”
The male nurse looks at me as he realizes Frankie doesn’t yet know what happened. His nametag reads Oliver, which makes me think of the Olivia Twist comment I made this morning. Oliver doesn’t look old, but his closely cropped dark hair is sprinkled with silver. If I were about twenty years older, Oliver would be handsome. Maybe my mom would like him.
“You sustained a head injury in a vehicular accident,” Oliver says. His words are clinical, but his tone is reassuring. I wonder if they learn this tone in nursing school. “You sustained a moderate cranial fracture and underwent surgery to relieve pressure from mild internal bleeding. You should be ready to go home in two to three days.”
“Two to three days?” Frankie repeats these words as if they’re a death sentence then he glares at me as if I’m supposed to help him. “I can’t miss two to three days of class. Finals start tomorrow.”
I roll my eyes. “Do you hear yourself?” I say. “You have a free pass out of finals and you’re complaining.”
“It’s two to three days. I’m sure your teachers will allow you to make up your exams when you get back to school,” Nurse Oliver says as he adjusts Frankie’s intravenous drip. “Right now you have to rest. And this should do the trick, unless you’re hungry?”
“Not for hospital food,” Frankie replies. “B, ask my dad to bring me something to eat. I’m starving.”
“I’ll get you something,” I say, pulling my mom’s car keys out of my jeans pocket as Nurse Oliver makes a quiet exit. “My mom went with your dad to the auto body shop. She thought maybe she could drop the Mayor’s name, pull a few strings to get your car fixed faster.” Everyone knows how important Frankie’s car is to him.
He finally smiles. “Tell her I said thanks,” he says then a confused expression glosses over his face. “Why is my head so cold?” He grimaces a little as he reaches up and touches the hair above his right ear. His hand twitches at the sharp stubble and his face morphs from panic-stricken to angry.
I reach across the bedrail and run my fingers over the other side of his head. It’s soft and prickly at the same time. “It looks good.”
“You’re just being nice to me ‘cause I have brain damage.”
“It’s no different than why I was nice to you yesterday,” I say with a grin. “So what do you want to eat?”
Frankie reaches over the bedrail and grabs my hand. “Don’t go. Just stay here until I fall asleep.”
This isn’t the Frankie who whips confidently through wind and water like a creature of the sea. This is the Frankie who spent the night at my h
ouse when we were eight then begged me to sneak out to walk him home at midnight because he wanted to go home, but was too afraid to wake my parents.
I bite my lip, trying not to grin at the thought of this memory, then I take a seat. “So you’ll probably be getting that passenger door fixed now.”
“Never. That would make your life too easy,” he replies, his voice thick with drowsiness as he clasps his hands over his stomach and closes his eyes. “I’m going to ask them to weld the door shut so you have to start sitting in the back seat.”
“That’s fine with me. I won’t have to sit next to you.”
“Hey, B?”
“C?” I say, my standard alphabetical response, even though it bugs the shit out of him.
“Belinda?” he mutters, but he falls asleep before he can finish this thought.
I take a seat in the chair and close my eyes, wondering if Frankie and I ever dream about the same things.
When I open my eyes, the hospital room is wobbling and swaying. I blink a few times and my entire body breaks out in a cold sweat. I need something to vomit into. I twist around in my seat to grab the pitcher of water on the bedside table and Conor is standing behind me. I reach the pitcher too late.
I clasp my hand over my mouth. “What are you doing here?” I whisper to Conor as we both head for the sink.
Conor turns the faucet on to run his vomit-covered hand under the water and I quietly pull a few paper towels out of the dispenser. “I kept calling your cell, but you didn’t answer. So I called your house phone and the call was forwarded to your mom’s number. She told me you were here.”