Beyond the Grave (9 page)

The change in topic temporarily silenced me. “What?”

“In the ninth grade, everyone convinced me that Monday was Tacky Day,” she continued. “I showed up wearing my grandfather's old pea-green suit coat. No one else was dressed that way. And in the tenth grade, I received an invitation to an exclusive party. It wasn't until I had been dropped off that I realized it was an abandoned house.”

“That's terrible, but why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because.” She looked up. “Because if this is a joke, I need you to tell me now so I can walk away with a little dignity. If this is some weird trick you're playing to see how I'll react, I'm begging you—don't. I've been through it before, Charlotte. Please don't do this to me again.”

There was something achingly sad buried in her voice, something that made me want to scream at all the people who
had tricked her before. How could I convince her that this was real?

“Bliss, I swear to you.” I reached across the table and took her hands in mine. “I swear on my mother that this is real. And I swear that I am not the kind of person who would ever, ever play a prank to hurt someone.”

I realized in that moment why I had come to Bliss. She had helped me through my panic attack without hesitation. She was a person who wanted to help, who wanted to do the right thing, even if it was for someone she didn't entirely trust.

Finally, she looked at me. “Okay. I believe you, Charlotte. I do. And I want to help, but I'm not sure how.”

“Start by telling me what you think about all of this.”

She pulled her hands gently away from mine. “I think I have a theory.”

“About the Watcher?” Or about my mental stability, I wanted to add, because clearly, Bliss thought I was a freak show.

“You said you wanted advice. But you didn't say what kind of advice, which makes me think you don't even know.”

I shrugged. She had me. I didn't know what I wanted, except maybe some clarity and a few reassuring words. The waitress came by our table, refilled our drinks and left the bill on the table. I reached for it before Bliss could.

“It's okay to be confused by all of this,” Bliss said after the waitress left. “You have a lot going on right now, and none of it falls under the category of minor personal issues.”

I chuckled. “Yeah. Leave it to me to have only big, dramatic problems. I leave the small stuff to normal people.”

“But what you're feeling right now
is
normal,” she said.

“Maybe your problems are unusual, but your reaction isn't. In fact, I'm impressed that you haven't curled up in a ball of
depression or stayed home in the dark or something. You're pressing forward in your own way, and that takes guts.”

The thought was oddly reassuring. I wasn't crazy—but the rest of my little world was. Somehow, I could deal with that. I took a bite of my cannoli, trying to savor the sweetness, but it tasted flat.

“Here's what worries me about all this,” Bliss continued. She pushed her cup aside. “One, I don't like that you're dabbling with the other side. You may think you've contacted a friendly presence, but it could be a trap.”

I had considered that, but the voice on the EVPs held none of the menace I had heard in the Watcher's voice, which had been an awful combination of male and female. It was definitely otherworldly, whereas the voice I had captured was simply female and slightly familiar. It wasn't the same at all.

“Two, this Watcher thing is obviously working hard to regain power. If it wasn't, Michael wouldn't be a Protector, right? I mean, he can only come into his powers if there is someone who needs protecting.”

“Yes,” I admitted. Michael was a regular superhero, custom-built for me. If the Watcher was gone or fading or not a threat, Michael would remain a normal guy.

“So I think you need to work with him to try to figure out the name of this Watcher. It seems to me that's the key to at least some of its strength.”

So many cultures throughout the world thought one's true power rested in a person's name. By simply knowing that basic information, you had something to hold over them. I remembered living in an apartment complex when I was ten. The pool was constantly being shut down because someone was throwing cans of soda and garbage into it. One night, I looked out my window and saw the culprit, a boy named Tyler who lived upstairs. Before he could dump a leftover casserole
into the water, I yelled at him from the half-open window. “Tyler, we know it's you! Knock it off!” The pool remained unpolluted from then on.

“Makes sense,” I said. “I can spend time helping Michael with his research.”

“You're not going to like number three,” Bliss warned.

“Let me have it.” So far, her advice had been solid. I was ready to listen to whatever she had to say.

“It sounds like Noah is having problems. From what you've mentioned, I would say that he might even be in trouble. As in, Watcher-related trouble.”

My fingers immediately went to my bracelet. The dark, smooth stones always seemed to relax me, even if only a little bit.

“But it's Noah,” I said softly. “He's not evil.”

“Of course he's not evil.” Bliss grabbed my hand, forcing me to let go of the bracelet. “Have you ever outright asked him what he felt that night? Have you asked him if he feels different now? Because I think you could help him, but it's one of those things you need to catch early.”

“Like cancer.” Saying it felt ridiculous, but Bliss nodded emphatically.

“Exactly. What if evil is a cancer that slowly spreads? What if Noah has been infected but you could stop it now?”

“I have no idea how to do that.”

Bliss let go of my hand and sat back in her seat. “But you know people who do know how to stop it, Charlotte. And one of them is your Protector.”

“Tell me what you see.”

I looked away from my computer and leaned over to check out the footage displayed on Shane's monitor. It was Sunday morning. Noah and I had plans to meet for lunch, but until then I was helping Shane. The DVD was more than halfway complete, and if we kept up the pace we would meet our deadline a few days early, which meant a contract completion payment would come sooner. Judging by the growing pile of medical bills stacked neatly on the hallway table, the check couldn't come soon enough.

I turned my attention to the monitor. “I see Pate strapped down in the electric chair.” We had moved past the old footage and were splicing in the new. I was glad—seeing my mom's face on the screen was more difficult than I had thought it would be.

“Okay. Watch this.” He went back to the beginning of the soundless 30-second clip. Pate glared directly into the camera, but his tough-guy veneer quickly vanished. He turned his head to the left, frowning. Within seconds, he was struggling to get out of the chair.

“Did you see that?” Shane asked. “He looked to the left, like he heard something coming from that direction.”

“So? We determined there were cracks in the wall. The sound of the wind could have gotten his attention.”

“The cracks were to the right. There's a room on the other side of the left wall.”

“You think Pate actually heard something?”

Instead of answering, Shane pulled up another clip. I instantly recognized Noah strapped down in the same chair. “This was shot just a few minutes before Pate went in there,” Shane said, as if I needed to be reminded.

It was a longer clip, about ten minutes. Noah sat in the chair, his legs and arms restrained. Shane had directed him to stay relaxed but look defeated, something Noah was able to pull off by keeping his head down and remaining still. It was a good image that would fit in nicely with the narration we had prerecorded.

After a few minutes of watching Noah sit still in the electric chair, I began to wonder why Shane wanted me to view the footage. I had watched it several times already, and there was nothing unusual about it.

“Here it comes,” Shane murmured.

In a gesture that seemed to mimic Pate's, Noah suddenly turned his head toward the left. It was sudden, as if something had caught his attention.

As if he'd heard something.

“It's probably a coincidence.” Even as I said it, I knew the words were not true. Both Noah and Pate had heard some thing coming from the left side of the room. “It's nothing,” I said. “I asked Noah if anything weird had happened while he was in there, and he said no. And even if they did hear something, there's probably a natural explanation. Just because
there's a room next door doesn't mean there aren't still cracks where the wind could flow through.”

I was trying to convince myself, not Shane. Because the clips were way too similar. There was something unnatural about them, something I couldn't understand—and didn't
want
to understand.

Shane didn't push it, and we moved on to other footage. By noon, when Noah came over for our lunch date, Shane and I had finished another twenty minutes of the DVD and were pleased with our progress.

Noah arrived with a backpack slung over one shoulder. “Hey.”

Seeing him brought an immediate smile to my face—and an immediate reminder of my concerns about the possibility that he had been damaged by the Watcher. “I thought we were going on a picnic.”

“We are.” He let the backpack fall off his shoulder and unzipped it. “I didn't have a basket, so we're using this instead.” Inside his pack were sandwiches and plastic baggies full of fruit.

“You got in late last night,” Shane said.

Noah shrugged. “The game went into overtime.”

I hoped that his AV duties would end with the football season. It was taking up at least three evenings every week.

We said goodbye to Shane and drove to the community college. My previous trepidation about his behavior and sleepwalking seemed silly as we drove to my school. Noah was completely at ease as he chatted about his classes and an upcoming football game. Nothing was out of the ordinary. A truck cut me off as we approached the school, causing me to brake hard, but Noah simply shook his head. “Wouldn't it be nice if they denied driver's licenses to jerks?” he asked with a laugh.

A few days earlier, I had been the jerk behind the wheel as I had sped to Potion, so I figured it was a little karmic payback being tossed my way. I hadn't told Noah about Michael, who I was supposed to meet at the mall the next day. Avery was right—he didn't need to know until I had more facts. And I couldn't ignore my gut feeling that I shouldn't tell him yet. Until then, I would enjoy my Sunday afternoon with Noah.

The campus was fairly deserted, and we held hands as I gave him a brief tour. It was Noah's first trip to see the place where I spent so much of my day now, and I was pleased with his observations as we walked across campus. He liked the landscaping and the ample parking. He thought the buildings had a modern look to them. He even admired the one statue on campus, a bronze woman reading a book.

Noah spread out a blanket in a shady spot behind a cluster of buildings. “I feel like we haven't been alone together in so long,” I said as I unwrapped a turkey sandwich.

“I know. I've missed you.”

I tried to chew and smile at the same time, which I was sure looked less than elegant. “Me, too.”

My conversation with Bliss and my concerns about Noah seemed to have taken place in another time, in another world. Being with him made all my fears evaporate.

His warm smile and clear green eyes were exactly the same, and there was nothing unsettling about his touch except for the fact that it thrilled me. If Noah really was infected with something evil, wouldn't I be the first person to detect it?

“Ryan called my mom last night,” he said. We had finished our sandwiches and were moving on to my favorite dessert: oatmeal raisin cookies. “They were on the phone for a long time. I think something's up.”

“Do you think it has something to do with Jeff?”

“No, that's just it. Mom kept whispering, like she wanted
to make sure I couldn't hear anything. Usually when she's on the phone with Ryan there's a lot of happy squealing.”

“Maybe she was filling him in on Pate's lawsuit,” I suggested. Shane had updated me the night before. Pate wasn't backing down, even claiming that there had been another break-in at the prison. He couldn't prove it was any of us, but he had a hunch. “Good thing you can't prove a hunch in a court of law,” Shane had said. He was fighting back, but would need to inform my dad about it soon.

“Maybe. I don't think so, though.” Noah frowned. “It was weird.”

“Then it was probably wedding details.” I shrugged. “Although, I don't understand why your mom is so intense about this. They don't even have a date yet. It'll be months, at least.”

Maybe longer. Mom was stable but not showing signs of improvement, despite Michael's insistence that she was some how getting better. And I knew Shane would keep his promise to me: Mom would be at the wedding no matter what.

Noah and I didn't discuss my mom very much. It wasn't that we avoided the conversation. It simply didn't come up, and I was good with that. Everyone else wanted to talk about it. I needed Noah to be the one person who didn't ask me the same sad questions, and he knew that. Like so many things between us, it was understood.

I finished my cookies and stretched out on the blanket.

“Tell me about your brothers.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I can't picture them,” I said. “I can't even picture you with them. To me, your family is just you and your mom.”

“Sometimes it feels like that for me, too.” He zipped up his backpack and lay down next to me so that we were facing one another. “I always said that Jeff and Ryan had two career
choices—the military or professional wrestling. They were huge and strong and disciplined. I was the runt.”

“You were the youngest,” I pointed out. “Of course you were smaller.”

“It wasn't just that.” Noah explained that Jeff and Ryan were only a year apart, and most people thought they were twins. They had the same features, the same body type. They enjoyed sports and yelling. Noah, who was younger by four years, was the quiet one.

“They pounded on me all the time,” he said. “They'd stuff me in a closet and tell me to wait until they came back because it was a test. I'd spend hours in the dark, scared but trying so hard to prove myself to them. It was always Mom who found me.” He ran his fingers down my arm, causing me to shiver despite the warm afternoon sun.

“They were merciless at home. But if we were at school or in public, they were fierce about family.”

He told me about an incident when he was in the eighth grade. A boy had been picking on him, calling him a nerd. When Noah told his brothers, they took action. After school let out one day, they showed up in the parking lot and asked Noah to point out his tormentor. Then they approached the boy.

“They told him that if he even looked at me the wrong way, they would take his teeth, turn them into a necklace and make him wear it.” Noah continued to caress my arm. “That kid never bothered me again. No one did. I became off-limits, and it stayed that way, even after Jeff and Ryan graduated.”

“Sounds like, in a weird way, they made sure you could be who you were without other people bothering you.”

“Yeah.” Noah chuckled. “But I don't know if they did it for me or if they were more concerned with protecting the fam
ily reputation or something. Either way, it was nice to move through high school without being afraid.”

We lay on the blanket for a while, enjoying the sunshine and occasional breeze that passed through the trees. I was content. After a while, some more people began walking around, and I decided I wanted some privacy.

“Come on,” I said, standing up. “I want to show you something.”

I took Noah by the hand and led him to the Yerian Building, where I had two of my classes. One of the main doors was unlocked, and we slipped inside, where it was dark and cool. Sunlight spilled in from the side wall of windows, but with all the overhead lights turned off, it was surprisingly dim. I loved the feeling of being in a normally busy place when it was totally empty.

“This way.” I kept my voice low, but it still seemed to echo off the high ceiling.

I led him away from the main room and down the hallway leading to my English classroom. The corridor was pitch-black and our feet barely made a sound on the carpet. I found the door and hoped it would be unlocked.

“What are we doing?” Noah whispered, his lips brushing my ear. I quivered with delight and turned the handle. The door opened, and I pulled Noah inside.

“I'm giving you the tour,” I replied in the same soft whisper. “I thought you might like to see where I take English.”

“But I can't see anything.” His backpack hit the floor with a soft thud. Then his hands were in my hair as he placed gentle kisses all over my face.

I pushed him against a wall. “Then I'll describe it for you.” I nuzzled against his neck. “There's a big desk at the front of the room, and a bunch of smaller desks in the back.” We kissed, and I melted into his warm embrace, overcome by
the feeling of being so close to him. Then his lips moved to my neck and he began planting soft kisses there, a sensation I craved. He moved his face close to mine, but as I leaned in to kiss him again, he pulled away. “Something's wrong.”

I thought he meant that someone was walking toward the classroom. I listened, expecting to hear approaching footsteps or voices in the hallway.

“We're alone,” I assured him. “Everything's fine.”

“No, we're not. Someone's in here.” He reached out one arm, feeling along the wall for the switch. I blinked against the sudden glare of light. Noah's eyes were wide with panic as he scanned the room. He moved away from me, walking up and down the aisles, even crouching to look beneath the desks.

“I felt it,” he said. “I felt like someone was in here.”

The genuine confusion written on his face told me that he truly believed what he was saying, but there was no one with us. There was probably no one in the entire building.

Our brief moment of intimacy ruined, we decided to go back to my house. Noah apologized repeatedly for his paranoia, but I told him it was fine.

“Maybe the janitor was spying on us or something,” I said. But I didn't believe it, and I didn't think he did, either. As I drove us back to my neighborhood, an uncomfortable thought formed in my mind: Noah's unnerving paranoia had occurred in the one place where Michael had spent time. Did he sense the lingering presence of the Protector? Or was it simply a coincidence?

“Sorry about that,” he said as we pulled into my driveway. “I didn't feel like myself.”

“It's okay,” I said. “Don't worry about it.”

I wished I could take my own advice.