Cherie glared at the mirror on our door for a moment. “So where’s Sophia now?”
“Resting up for the next battle?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen the last of her.”
I dressed carefully that day, wrapping one of Cherie’s silk scarves around my throat, trying to hide my damaged neck. On Saturdays we weren’t required to wear our uniforms so I dressed in a soft tee shirt and yoga pants. The scarf didn’t really match, and I didn’t usually accessorize, aside from my necklace, but decided I didn’t care.
Brent sat at our usual breakfast table, making his way through a plateful of the disgusting egg-Tabasco-syrup concoction.
“Really?” Cherie asked sitting down beside him. “Again?”
“I tried to talk him out of it,” Steve said. “He’s a glutton for punishment.”
“Watching you eat that almost made us all sick last time.” Cherie unfolded her napkin and placed it over her lap.
“Then don’t watch. I can’t help it; it just sounded good.” Brent raised an eyebrow at me and waved his fork toward my neck. “Nice scarf.”
I fingered it. “Thanks.” I took a sip of orange juice, deciding I didn’t want to answer the unspoken ‘why are you wearing that?’ hovering in the air. I spent most of the meal averting my eyes while Brent managed to down the entire plate of eggs. My stomach couldn’t have handled it.
“So,” Steve said, “Cherie and I have come up with some epic ideas for a senior prank. One that will have the underclassmen worshipping us.”
“Such as?” Brent asked.
“Not until we’ve finalized the plans.” Steve leaned back in his chair. “I want to make sure it’ll be perfect first.”
“Then why bring it up?” I took a bite of my blueberry muffin.
“To help build the buzz,” Steve said drumming his fingers against the table.
After breakfast, we all walked down the stairs to the commons building’s lobby. It was crowded with students studying and hanging out. Steve and Cherie waved good-bye, and headed to a study group. I plopped down next to Brent on the worn sofa and snuggled into his arms. From where we were sitting, I could catch our reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall. We looked good together, like a matched set. I leaned my head on his shoulder and sighed peacefully. My eyes drifted half closed, studying our image, when Sophia appeared, standing behind us.
I gasped, jerking around to face her, my hand already clutching the sea salt from Vovó that I had stashed in my pocket. But the space behind us was empty.
“Huh?” I said, pulling my hand out of the salt, and wiping the grit from my fingers. Had I imagined her?
“What’s wrong?” Brent asked, twisting to look.
I spun back to the mirror and saw her once again behind me. I wheeled my head around, and she was gone yet again. This time I turned slowly, her reflection in the mirror still staring back at me. It didn’t make sense. One side of her mouth curled into a smile and she gave me a wave. My eyes darted back and forth between her image in the mirror and the empty air.
“Are you watching a ghostly tennis match from the net?” Brent asked. I was too distracted to laugh at his joke. “Yara? What’s going on?”
“Sophia’s here,” I muttered distractedly.
He stood up, ready to fight. “Where?”
I placed my hand on his arm. “She’s here but not here. I can see her in the mirror but not in the room with us.” Was she in the mirror? I stood and stalked closer to the glass, with Brent close behind, while my hand reached back for more salt. As we drew closer, Sophia came forward too, so that she appeared to be standing just over my shoulder.
“She was in my room yesterday, trying to choke me to death and Vovó and I shoved her into the mirror,” I explained in a low voice. “I thought she fell through it, but it looks like she went into it.”
“Wow,” Brent said, his eyes wide as he processed that. He put his arm around me and then looked into the mirror again. He fingered the end of my scarf, toying with it. “That seems like something you should have mentioned to me.”
“I know. I was going to wait until we were alone.”
“So what happened?” Brent pressed.
“She tried to strangle me in my sleep.” I crooked my finger into the scarf and pulled it down a little so he could see the bruise on my throat. He gasped, pulling it down further to see just how bad the damage was.
“Holy crap, Yara. How did you get rid of her?”
“I didn’t, really. Vovó was on her way to meet me and arrived just in the nick of time. She was fending her off when suddenly Sophia tripped and fell through the mirror and disappeared.” I studied the image of Sophia in the mirror. She looked like a moving portrait, encased by the mirror’s glimmering frame. The hardness in her eyes and the tightness of her jaw betrayed the façade of serenity masked on her face. “Except it seems like she didn’t vanish after all. I think she’s trapped in the glass.”
“Seriously?” Brent said, moving closer to the mirror and peering inside, like it was a one-way mirror at a police station. Sophia tapped on the glass, and the mirror shook enough that Brent leapt away from it. “I’m half-tempted to project just to see what she looks like.”
Despite the anger simmering in her eyes, she looked absolutely beautiful. Her dress and curls swayed continually in an invisible wind, and her entire spirit radiated with energy as she pushed against her prison, bathing her in an almost heavenly glow. It would have been awe-inspiringly beautiful if it didn’t chill my soul to its core.
I kept my eyes trained on her and reached up, placing my hand over her image in the glass. Sophia looked down at my hand, and then raised her own until we were standing palm to palm, separated by the cool glass.
“She’s beautiful,” I whispered. I stared at our hands, placed palm to palm across the glass. The familiar feeling of sorrow that I associated with Sophia washed over me. I looked up at her, and for one moment I felt sorry for her. She gave me a soft smile.
Then, in the next instant, her fingers closed, intertwined with mine and jerked my hand sharply. My open palm slammed against the mirror and I cried out in pain as the glass cracked in a web of jagged lines.
Brent pulled me back, freeing me from Sophia’s grip before shards of glass began falling free from the frame and raining down, the heavy framing of the mirror teetering on its hanger. We bumped against the sofa and Brent held me protectively. Sophia’s malevolent eyes winked at me as her mirror-world fell apart around her and, piece by piece, the mirror toppled onto the floor. The clinking of broken glass was accompanied by the sound of hysterical, deranged laughter that only I could hear.
I dropped to the sofa, shaking, and Brent sat beside me. To the innocent bystander, it would look like I had struck the mirror and broken it. I hoped no one had noticed, but the sudden silence in the room made me pretty sure they had.
“Are you okay?” someone called out. From the tone of his voice, it sounded as if he were asking more about my mental state than about my hand.
“Uh, I just sort of tripped,” I croaked out.
“She totally punched the mirror,” someone else whispered, loud enough for the room to hear.
I blushed hard, dropping my head to my lap. My hand stung. I closed it in a fist, afraid to look at it, but felt the blood flow freely onto my light gray pants.
“What’d the mirror do to you?” Kelsey asked from a nearby table. Fantastic. Kelsey was known not only for her beautiful, brown, shampoo-commercial-worthy hair and toothpaste-ad smile, but also for being the school’s biggest gossip. No doubt the whole school would hear about this within the hour. Kelsey flipped her perfect hair over her shoulder and strutted past us, already texting on her phone. I hoped that she hadn’t filmed the whole thing and posted it online.
“I’m fine,” I said a little too defensively to the still-silent room. The room noise returned to normal. My injured hand was throbbing and I finally looked down at it. I unbent my fingers and bit
my lip to keep from shrieking in pain.
“Oh crap,” I said through clenched teeth, studying the mass of blood and glass that was stuck to my hand. Brent gently picked out the shards, ignoring the blood pooling in my palm.
“You’re going to need stitches,” he said. “I need to find a towel or something. Wait here, and elevate this.” He propped my arm on my knee, keeping my hand palm up, before striding to the bathroom. He returned seconds later with a handful of paper towels that he set on my hand. “Keep this pressed tight. Come on, I’ll take you to the medical center.” He helped me up, carefully guiding me by the waist across the mass of broken glass and out the door.
v
“Be careful around mirrors from now on,” Doctor Zheng told me as she finished up the last of my stitches. I could tell that she didn’t believe my tripping and falling against the mirror excuse any more than my classmates in the commons room.
“I’ll do my best, but I’ve always been pretty clumsy,” I said.
“She will be,” Brent stated flatly. He leaned against the corner in the far side of the room, his brown eyes darker than normal. He had his arms folded across his chest and a scowl on his face, while his gaze moved from my hand to my neck.
The doctor shot a look at Brent and a crease formed between her eyes. Then she wrapped a bandage around my hand, securing it with a thick piece of tape. “Can you still move your fingers?”
I gave me fingers a test wiggle. “Yep.”
“Good.” The doctor sat back and picked up my file. She flipped through it, paused, and snuck another glance at Brent, before addressing me. “I see you almost drowned last year.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I wasn’t sure what that had to do with my hand. “Like I said, I’m clumsy.”
Doctor Zheng looked over at Brent. “Could you go ask the nurse if we have any more gauze? I think there might be more in the examining room next door.”
He nodded, hesitating at the door and glancing over his shoulder at me before slipping out. The Doctor leaned in close and lowered her voice so softly that I could barely hear her. “If there’s anything you want to tell me about your ‘accident’ while he’s gone, now is the time.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “Huh?”
“You may think he loves you, but if he’s hurting you . . . ” She motioned with her head toward my bruised neck and bandaged hand. “That isn’t love.”
I burst out laughing. “You think Brent did this?”
She gave me a level stare.
I swallowed down my giggles and forced myself to be serious. “It wasn’t him.”
“I know he was the last one to see you before you ended up at the bottom of the pool.”
She got all of that from my chart? I shook my head. “Oh! No, I—”
But I cut off my words when Brent came back into the room, carrying a large package of gauze, and handing it to the Doctor. She didn’t say anything else as she made a few notes in her chart, but her pursed lips told me she didn’t believe me.
“Your stitches are dissolvable, but if you have any problems or change your mind, I’ll be here,” she said, giving me a meaningful look.
“What did she mean by that?” Brent asked as soon as we stepped outside.
“She thinks you’re beating me up,” I told him bluntly and burst out laughing again.
Brent gave me an incredulous look. “You think that’s funny?”
I shrugged. “I’m glad she cared, but she’d never believe me if I told her the truth.”
“That’s why she had me leave?” Brent asked. The tips of his ears turned red. “Great, that should look nice on my college applications: ‘Except for when he knocks his girlfriend around, he’s a model student.’” He threaded his fingers through mine as we headed back across campus. “It’s hard to feel manly when my girlfriend is in danger and I can’t do anything to help her.”
“You did help. You pulled me from her grasp.”
“It wasn’t enough.” He rolled his shoulders. “So, what’s your Sophia strategy?”
“Second verse, same as the first. Vovó and I are going to magically help her find peace.” I exhaled through my lips like a deflating balloon. “I suggested we try to banish Sophia, but Grandma thought it was too soon to consider that option.”
“Why? It sounds like an excellent plan to me. What does banishing do?”
“I’ve never seen it. But Vovó explained it to me once. It’s awful.”
The sun beat down through the leaves, casting shadows that danced along Brent’s worried face. The wind stirred, easing the heat of the day, the rustling of the branches the only noise.
“Yara, I’m sorry. I don’t want to contradict your grandma, but you’ve probably had more experience with angry and murderous ghosts than she has. You’re like, two for two. So maybe you should follow your own instincts and banish the ghost. What do you think you should do?”
“Um . . . ” I closed my eyes and pictured Sophia, her angry eyes, her hand at my throat, and then an unexpected memory came to the surface: the sadness I had felt in her, like she had lost everything. I bit my lip. “I think . . . I think she needs my help.”
Brent let out a moan.
I met his gaze. “I know, Brent. I can’t believe I said that either.”
Brent’s jaw muscles clenched and he let out a slow breath. “Okay, I trust your decision.”
“That makes one of us.”
He didn’t smile. When he spoke, he sounded resigned. “How can I help?” Brent brushed my hair aside and let his fingers slide to the back of my neck, where he gave me a brief massage.
I leaned my head against his chest, cuddling in close and inhaling his familiar citrusy-musky scent. He placed a kiss on the top of my head.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He guided me back toward a nearby bench, sank down, and pulled me into his arms. “Your neck looks really sore. Maybe I should kiss it better.”
Brent brought his warm lips to my throat and kissed me gently. Despite the heat, I broke out in goose pimples.
“I’m sorry I didn’t keep you from getting hurt.”
I started to say something but it was hard to talk—or even pay attention—with his mouth caressing my throat. I think I may have managed a grunt. Brent laughed lightly, the air tickling my neck. “I’ll have to remember your inability to argue when I’m kissing you, for future reference,” he said, making his way around my neck.
I closed my eyes as his lips reached my ear. “I love you,” he whispered. He nipped my lobe with a love bite. He pulled back, his brown eyes smoldering, full of love and concern. “Please be careful. Know that if something happened to you, you wouldn’t be the only one hurt.”
“I know. I feel the same way.” I rested my forehead against his. “Let’s try and keep us both alive this year, shall we?”
“That sounds like a great plan. Nice and simple, with a clear objective.”
I smiled and tilted my head to kiss him. Something wet and warm plopped on my cheek, like a hot raindrop. I pulled back, my fingers wiping the drop away. My index finger came back red. My eyes raised to Brent’s nose, where a streak of red colored his upper lip.
I loved him, but I wiped my dirty fingers on his shirt, trying not to let out the internal “Ew” I was screaming.
“Brent, your nose.” I wished I had my purse and my handy packet of tissues.
“Not again,” Brent groaned. His nose was bleeding heavily now. To my disgust he pulled up his light green shirt and wiped his nose with it, leaving a big smear along the edge. He used the other side of his shirt to clean off my cheek.
Brent laughed around the shirt stuffed in his face. “Look at us. Between the blood on your pants and my bloody shirt we look like we were jumped on the way to class.”
I had forgotten about my blood-encrusted pants. “Not too surprising. It is a rough neighborhood. I think we should go change before lunch.”
“Good idea. I need to go take care of this,” Brent said, s
till holding his shirt to his nose. I could see the blood seeping out through the fibers.
“Are you okay? Should I take you to the medical center?”
“It’s nothing, people get nosebleeds.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria.” I stood on my toes to kiss him and then thought better of it.
“Maybe I’ll just—”
“—see you later,” Brent finished.
We split apart without another word and headed back to our dorms to change.
Chapter Eight
“I hit the mother-lode,” Cherie declared almost two weeks later as she climbed into the passenger side of my car and pulled the door closed. “You’re best friends with a genius.”
“I already knew that.” I put my car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot, turning right onto Sixth Street. Cherie’s car was in the shop and I was her taxi home from her internship. “But how did you prove your brilliance today?”
“Well, I’ve been researching Sophia. Your grandma asked me to find out what I could about her. It’s important to know our enemy if we’re ever going to get rid of her, or conquer her, or banish her, or whatever.” Cherie bit her lip as if her pause for dramatic suspense was more than she could bear. “What if I told you that the Pendrells had a link to Bob Burman?”
“Who’s that?” I asked as the light turned green and we turned onto Main Street.
She sighed. “Don’t you know any of the history of your own city? He was the driver that was killed in the accident at the last Grand Avenue race. It was his accident that shut the whole race program down. Anyway, the Pendrells are linked to one of the most famous events of our city’s history.”
“Really?” I said, turning onto the 91 freeway onramp.
“Yes. It turns out that Sophia was best friends with Bob Burman’s wife—they’d been friends from childhood. The morning of the race, Helen Burman begged her husband not to race because she had this vivid dream that he would die during it. He didn’t listen.”
We transitioned onto the 15 freeway. “Interesting.”