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“Just finish your sentence,” I said. “You should all…”
“They said we should start a club,” she said. “Based on the book. Really, it was Adrie
“What’s the book about?”
She looked stricken. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s not in English. Adrie
“Oh, Kase, seriously?”
“Then the pizzas got there, and we ate, and Barney ran away. And then…well, you know that part. The next day, we started the Sunshine Club to try to improve ourselves.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “So it’s just a book?”
I was on the edge of being massively relieved. A book of advice didn’t seem so bad. In fact, if Kasey was that hypersensitive—that just playing around with antiques made her nervous—I could rest a little easier at night.
“Well, yeah.” She traced the grout in the tile counter- top with her pinkie finger. “I mean, it’s actually more of a…”
“What was that? You’re mumbling.”
Her eyes flashed up defiantly. “It’s a dwelling.”
My neck muscles seemed to go slack, and I found myself staring up at the recessed lights in the ceiling. A dwelling. As in, someone—or something—lived inside of it.
“Right,” I said. Because nothing that has anything to do with Kasey can ever be easy. “And whose dwelling is it?”
She turned to gaze out the window. “I’m not supposed to say.”
“Kasey,” I said. But she wouldn’t look at me. I reached over the countertop and shook her shoulder roughly. “Hey.”
She peeked over at me, biting her lip. “His name is Aralt.”
I made a little pocket with my hands and breathed into it, trying to clear my thoughts.
“His name is Aralt,” I repeated.
Her reply was practically a squeak. “Yes.”
“Unreal.” I sighed and turned away.
“Not all ghosts are bad, Lexi—Megan’s mom was good.” She bit her knuckle.
I didn’t even acknowledge that. “So the book is written in Norwegian, but somehow you guys convinced Aralt to come out and give you makeovers.” And when I thought about it, Kasey had been getting steadily prettier as the days went on. Doing her hair, wearing makeup, accessorizing.
She nodded. “But it’s more than that. I mean, Adrie
“Yeah,” I said. “I noticed.”
“And at school, people want to be around us. We got four new members this week.”
“But how, Kasey? What did you do to get Aralt to help you? If you don’t speak the same language—”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure he understands English,” she said. “He seems really smart.”
Like he was some dreamy foreign exchange student.
This situation was quickly spiraling beyond my ability to control myself. I reached for the phone.
“What are you doing?”
The sound of Kasey’s voice caught me. It wasn’t a lack of fear—she sounded plenty scared. But there was a note of something else. Like she was issuing a challenge.
I faced her. “You mean, am I calling Agent Hasan?”
She blinked.
“No,” I said. “I’m calling Megan.”
Five minutes later, there was a loud knock at the door. Kasey jumped back in her seat. Then the doorbell rang about ten times in a row.
“Alexis! Are you there? Open up!”
I pulled open the door. “Hey.”
Megan came in, pushing up the sleeves of her jacket. She was out of breath. “I had to totally lie to Grandma. Are you serious about this? We have to call Agent Hasan. Where’s your sister?” Her face tensed as she caught sight of Kasey.
“We’re talking,” I said.
Megan glanced from me to my sister and back.
“I don’t think we need to call. Yet.” That earned me a you’ve got to be kidding look, but I pointed toward the kitchen. “Come sit down.”
Megan didn’t make a move. She beckoned me closer. “Alexis, what are you doing?”
“Gathering information,” I said.
She spoke like a kindergarten teacher. “And are you a hundred-percent sure information-gathering is the best thing to do right now?”
“No. I’m zero-percent sure,” I said. “But if we tell on her, they’ll be here tonight. And we might never see her again.”
“You don’t know that that’s how they work.” She cast another glance over my shoulder.
“No, I don’t know anything about how they work,” I said. “That’s what scares me.”
Megan sighed and looked at my sister, who was resting her head on her folded arms.
“Please,” I said. “A little more time. What happened to ‘There are ghosts everywhere’?”
“Lex, don’t even.” Megan narrowed her eyes and reached into her pocket for her phone. “The number’s loaded in here. All I have to do is hit ‘send.’”
“If it comes to that,” I said, “fine.”
Megan walked past me and took a seat across from Kasey, leaving the phone on the counter, fingers poised over it.
We went through the story again. Megan grilled where I’d merely skimmed.
“Have you ever seen Aralt?”
Kasey shook her head. “No. I don’t think you see him.”
Megan leaned forward. “How do you know it’s a him?”
She shrugged. “We just know he is.”
“But who is he?”
Kasey blinked. “He’s Aralt.”
Megan rolled her eyes. “But where’s he from? How old is he? Is he a ghost?”
“He’s from the book,” Kasey said. “That’s all I know.”
“Does he talk to you? What does he say? How do you know what to do, if it’s not in English?”
“It’s not like he talks out loud.” Kasey bit down on her lip. “I guess it’s more like…a feeling.”
Megan leaned forward, the tips of her fingers pressing into the countertop. “What does he make you feel?”
“I don’t know.” My sister leaned back. “I guess, like, you feel what he feels. If you try hard to look pretty or do something good, he likes it.”
“And what if he doesn’t like something?”
Kasey scrunched her nose. Somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that having a supernatural boyfriend might not always be sunshine and puppy dogs. “Um…I guess he’d be sad?”
“Not angry?”
“Not like Sarah?” I interjected.
“Uh-uh,” Kasey said. “No. Not at all like Sarah.”
Megan gave her a cool look. “So what’s he after?”
“Nothing,” Kasey said.
“Ohhh, cool, so you guys get to be beautiful and smart and popular, and that’s all he needs to be happy?”
“I guess so.”
“Wrong,” Megan said. “That’s not how it works. And when does it end?”
“At graduation,” Kasey said.
“And when is that? Next week, next year, never?”
My sister blinked at her hands, clueless.
“Do you remember any of the words from the book?” I asked.
Kasey shook her head.
“And that thing in the woods?” I asked. “Was that him?”
Megan raised an eyebrow. “What thing in the woods?”
“No,” Kasey said. “He’s made of spirit energy. He doesn’t come out of the book. I don’t know what that was.”
“I refuse to believe that a giant mysterious animal just happened to visit Lakewood the same night you started messing with a new ghost.”
“Wait,” Megan said, her brown eyes accusing me. “I never heard anything about this.”
I sighed. “I’ll explain later.”
Megan sat back. She slid her phone back and forth across the counter from hand to hand.
“If the book is a dwelling, it has to be the power center,” I said. “The ghost’s energy is tied to it. So we need to destroy the book.”
The color drained from my sister’s face. “Adrie
“But she brings it to meetings, right?”
“Yeah…but it’s not like she just passes it around.” Kasey sighed. “Listen, you guys. I know it sounds bad, but please…I can handle it.”
She must have seen the skeptical expressions on our faces, but she pressed on.
“If I talk to them, and tell them it’s not a good idea, they’ll listen to me.” She glanced pleadingly from me to Megan. “They’re my friends!”
“Not very good friends,” Megan said. “If they got you wrapped up in this mess.”