come from your direction.”
I had to choke back a laugh. Jillian, however, was less amused by her mother’s ability to simultaneously ignore and monitor her children. Jillian began to sputter wordlessly, a faint pink flushing across her cheeks as she came to the realization that her howls hadn’t fooled anyone. While she floundered for a response, her father tapped his fingers impatiently upon his discarded newspaper. He caught his wife’s eye and then shrugged.
“What do you think?” he asked her. “Ignore this stupidity or ground them both from the party?”
“Ignore?” Joshua offered, but not loudly enough to rival Jillian’s shriek of protest.
Her blush darkened to a livid red at the suggestion that she couldn’t attend tonight’s party, which promised to be the biggest of the semester. Worse, this was the first party that her parents had finally given her permission to attend—permission they’d only granted after Joshua and Jillian had both sworn, on penalty of military school or a nunnery, to stay far away from High Bridge.
This punishment was tantamount to social homicide, and Jillian knew it. So she blurted out what must have been the first defense that came to mind.
“I don’t know why you’re punishing me for anything,” she shouted. “Joshua’s the one who made Grandma Ruth leave—he deserves a lot worse than I do.”
The moment the words left her mouth, all the livid red drained from Jillian’s face. Just as quickly, an uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Each pair of eyes turned slowly, incredulously, toward Jillian.
To Jeremiah and Rebecca, such an accusation must have sounded outrageous, not to mention completely unfair. As far as they knew, Joshua hadn’t caused his grandmother to abruptly pack up her few possessions last month and move to New Orleans to live with Jeremiah’s sister and her family.
But Jillian and Joshua both knew the truth about what had really driven Ruth from this house.
Me.
Only a few months ago I’d inadvertently cost Ruth Mayhew almost everything she held dear. In doing so, I’d apparently taken away any reason she had for staying in Oklahoma.
Like Joshua, Jillian, and a surprisingly large number of people in Wilburton, Ruth was a Seer—a living person who, after some life-altering, “triggering” event, could see ghosts. But unlike Joshua (and, so far, Jillian), Ruth made it her mission in life to exorcise the dead. To banish them from the living world forever.
Ruth, and many other Seers, had moved to Wilburton expressly for that purpose, since High Bridge and the river beneath were such hotbeds of ghostly activity. Over time Ruth had earned her place as the cold, unrelenting leader of the Seer community, a role that she happily filled.
Until I came along and ruined everything.
Prior to my showdown with Eli on High Bridge, Ruth was constantly busy. Constantly surrounded by a mass of friends and obedient followers. But when she called off my exorcism so that I could save her granddaughter, things changed, in a way that made me think her mercy hadn’t sat well with her fellow Seers.
Soon after, Ruth spent most of her days sitting sullenly at the Mayhews’ kitchen table and most of her nights sulking in her bedroom. She almost never left the house, and the phone never rang for her. In fact, she hardly even spoke anymore. Sometimes she would toss a resentful glare in my direction; but, for the most part, she suffered her apparent banishment from the supernatural community in an angry, restless silence.
She only broke that silence last month when she announced her desire to move to New Orleans. Ruth packed all her possessions into a handful of cardboard boxes and hired a troop of professional movers. She claimed that boredom with Oklahoma had inspired the sudden move. But like I’d said, Joshua, Jillian, and I knew better.
Within a matter of days she left with nothing but a perfunctory good-bye to her son and his family.
The Mayhews’ initial reaction was one of disbelief. Even amusement. But shortly after the moving van disappeared into the thick line of trees at the end of the Mayhews’ driveway, a sort of hollowness began to echo through the house. Like something was missing.
No, not “like.” Something was missing. However badly Ruth might have treated me, she was still an essential part of this family, one whose absence had a profound effect on its remaining members. For Jillian to make such an accusation—that her brother had caused a dramatic rift in their family—was pretty serious stuff. Not something you just blurted out at the breakfast table in a last-ditch effort to avoid being grounded. Especially when the entire family would spend ten hours cramped in one car tomorrow, driving to the French Quarter to spend Christmas with Ruth.
So if anyone got the chance to respond to Jillian’s accusation, tomorrow would probably give new meaning to the phrase “road trip from hell.” Wisely, Joshua chose this, the tensest moment of an already-tense morning, to act civil. He cleared his throat and gave his parents a tight smile.
“Look, let’s just forget it.” He shot his sister a pointed look—one that said, Stop acting like an idiot or we’re both screwed. Aloud he said, “Sorry for the kick, Jill. Okay?”
In her first intelligent move of the day, Jillian caught the look and nodded. “Okay,” she answered and then, reluctantly, added, “I’m sorry, too.”
The apology lacked sincerity, but the fact that she’d delivered one at all bought her and Joshua a few moments to escape.
Joshua hiked his heavy winter coat off the chair and onto his shoulders with one hand. After sweeping his book bag off the floor with the other, he practically bolted from the table. Jillian scurried to follow. Jeremiah and Rebecca hadn’t even had the chance to reprimand Jillian for her combative comment by the time both of their children—and I—were out the back door.
Outside, Joshua and Jillian gave each other only the briefest of glares before dashing to their respective cars. I said a silent prayer of thanks that the brutal cold kept the two of them from lingering to fight some more. Within a matter of minutes, Jillian started her tiny yellow car and tore recklessly down the icy driveway without bothering to let her windshield defrost completely.
Joshua had already unlocked his driver’s side door and ducked into it to start the heater before he realized that I hadn’t followed him off the back porch. He looked up at me in momentary confusion, but then his face fell in recognition: he knew from my expression that I wouldn’t be joining him at school today.
He sighed and placed one hand on top of the roof of his truck. “Again, Amelia? Really?”
“I have to, Joshua. You know I have to.”
“No, I don’t,” he said, frowning heavily. “Besides, it’s freezing today.”
I shrugged. “So? It’s not like I can feel it.”
This time I heard a note of defeat in Joshua’s sigh. “Fine. But just be careful out there, okay? Don’t get too close to it.”
I smiled, but not very widely. “I never do.”
Pulling his door fully open, Joshua just shook his head. He didn’t even try to mask his disappointment as he slipped into the cab of the truck.
Just before he slammed the door and started the engine, I called out,
