The night before the high school was to open again, Jamie appeared in my room. “What’s up?”
“Not much,” I said. “Reading this Shakespeare play for English.” I held up the book.
Jamie straightened some papers on my desk. “You nervous about tomorrow?”
“Kinda,” I replied. “I’m sure your friends all think I’m some kind of monster because I’m a Fear and they think I pushed Ada down the stairs.”
“No way,” Jamie said, shaking her head. “No one is even talking about that anymore.”
A lie. But a nice lie.
I couldn’t get over the change in Jamie. How she was trying so hard to make me feel comfortable and everything.
Then she mentioned our cousin Cindy.
Cindy died in the hospital last August. She had been sick for a long time, but it was horrible and shocking. She was just a year older than Jamie and me.
“I saw Cindy a week before she died,” Jamie said, settling on the edge of my bed. “Did you see her?”
“No. I was too far away,” I replied, putting down my book. “But I talked to her on the phone. She . . . she said she was getting stronger. I knew she was just being brave.”
I sighed. “She died three days later. When I heard, I cried and cried. She was such a cool person.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed. She had a cold expression on her face, an expression I’d never seen before. “Life can really suck,” she whispered.
We stared at each other for a long moment. My ears started to ring. I waited for Jamie to break the silence. When she didn’t, I said, “You know, Cindy was a Fear too.”
A strange smile spread over Jamie’s lips. “I know.” She picked at the strings around the hole on the knee of her jeans. “Dana, did Cindy say anything to you about sending a signal?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “A signal? No.”
Jamie tugged at the knee of her jeans. “Cindy promised me she’d send a signal,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
It took me a while to understand. “You mean a signal from the grave?”
Jamie nodded. “She promised. She said she’d send me a sign from the other side. I’ve been watching for it ever since . . . ever since she died.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “And?”
“Nothing yet. But I keep watching. And I keep trying to reach her.” Jamie crossed her arms in front of her. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
I laughed. “Because I’m a Fear?”
Jamie didn’t smile. “No. Do you believe in spirits?”
“I . . . don’t think so,” I said. “I mean, I never think about stuff like that.”
“I do,” Jamie said. “I believe in spirits. I want to believe in them. I want to contact Cindy’s spirit. I want her promise to come true.”
I stared at Jamie. This wasn’t like her at all. When I knew her, she was a spoiled rich kid, and kind of a bubblehead. She thought mostly about her hair and boys and buying new clothes. I never knew she was into the supernatural.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I miss her so much,” Jamie said. She jumped to her feet and pulled me up. “Come downstairs.”
I followed her down the stairs. I saw flickering lights from her room. Stepping into the doorway, I saw that the room was dark—except for the dancing flames of five candles set up on the floor in a circle. Five black candles.
I hesitated. “Jamie—?”
She shoved me into the room and carefully closed the door behind us. The room smelled spicy, as if she’d been burning incense. The candle flames sent flickering light to the walls, and I saw a giant Buffy poster over Jamie’s bed.
Jamie motioned for me to sit down in front of the candles. She dropped beside me and sat cross-legged. The orange light flickered and danced over her pale face, her dark eyes glowing with excitement.
“I’ve been teaching myself magic,” she said, staring straight ahead into the firelight.
“You mean to contact Cindy?”
She nodded. She slid an old book out from under her bed. The cover was cracked and torn. She opened it carefully, flipping through the brittle pages.
“I found this old spellbook,” she whispered. “I’ve been trying different spells. I know I can contact her.”
I felt a chill tighten the back of my neck. This wasn’t like the Jamie I remembered. Cindy’s death must have hit her really hard.
“Do your parents know about this?” I asked, staring into the darting orange light.
“Of course not,” Jamie whispered. “They never come upstairs.”
She ran her finger down a long column of type in the old book. “Dana, we can do it,” she said. “Let’s try and contact Cindy together.”