Famous Last Words

“And what about Henry?” she asked.

“There’s a phrase.” I glanced at Wyatt. I hadn’t told him this part. “It goes, ‘This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

“No,” she said, closing her eyes. “Not specifically. I feel that it’s right, but I don’t know what it means.”

“It’s not from any of the movie scenes the killer used,” Wyatt said. His words were know-it-all, but his tone was subdued — for the moment.

Leyta folded her hands in her lap. “So what are you hoping I’ll do for you?”

“Help me make it stop,” I said. “It’s driving me crazy.”

She looked at me with an expression I didn’t care for. Too sympathetic. Like she had bad news. “I can imagine.”

“Why me?” I asked. “What does it have to do with me?”

“Sounds like somebody’s trying to tell you something,” she said. “Trying hard.”

“But I don’t want to hear it.” There was a break in my voice, and I realized I was leaning far forward. I forced myself to sit back and take a long breath. “I don’t care what it means — I just want it to stop.”

“Things come to us in life.” Leyta waved her hands around in what was supposed to be an illustration of the flow, I guess. “Good things, bad things. Sometimes we get what we want, sometimes we don’t. The important thing about being alive is, what do you do when you can’t have what you want? That’s what determines what kind of person you are.”

Wait, so … was she a psychic or a guidance counselor?

“But what do I do? Can you help? I’ll pay you whatever you ask. You could come to my house and —”

“Willa,” she said, shaking her head slowly, “just keep listening.”

“That’s it?” Wyatt sounded like he was trying to keep from losing his temper. “You let her come all the way here to give her a bunch of mysterious, vague non-advice? And then you tell her you can’t even help? Some psychic.”

She replied sharply, without removing her eyes from mine. “As Willa well knows,” she said, “spirits are capable of many things. But there are also many things they’re not capable of. These visions you have — you feel what the girls felt, but you can’t see a face, correct?”

When I nodded, she went on. “What you have to understand is that a spirit presence doesn’t operate like you or me. We’re a mess of thoughts and feelings. A spirit is more like … an instinct. Its whole purpose is to drive at something, to convey an idea or a concept.”

“Like who the killer is?” I asked.

She sat back and raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps. We can only guess.”

“How do I get the … the spirit to tell me what it wants?” I asked.

“Let me put it this way,” Leyta said. “Tell me what it feels like to be in love.”

I swallowed hard. First I thought of Aiden, then I thought of Reed. I glanced at Wyatt and felt myself blushing. He was blushing, too.

Leyta rolled her eyes. “Okay, nix that. I forgot you’re a teenager. Tell me what it feels like to be angry. Really try.”

I glanced at Wyatt again, and noticed how careful he was not to look at me. “You feel something heavy,” I said. “Pushing down on you. Pushing you toward the edge of something. Helpless and … hot and …”

I ran out of words.

“Exactly,” she said. “Now think of trying to convey that idea to someone who doesn’t speak your language, who can’t even see you. What would you do, if you were a ghost?”

“Hold someone down in the pool so they can’t breathe?” I asked. “But the spirit can write. It writes on the walls. So why won’t it just write down its story?”

“Well, you didn’t tell a story just now, did you?” She shrugged. “You didn’t say to me, ‘Wyatt said this and it ticked me off and then I said this … and it made me so angry.’ ”

Her point was begi

“If I thought I could help, I’d go to your house right now. But nothing’s go

I buried my face in my hands.

Wyatt’s voice came faintly from my right. “Lucky you.”

“Do you mind if I speak to Willa for a moment?” Leyta asked. “Alone?”

“It’s up to Willa,” Wyatt replied.

Even though Wyatt could be a total pain, there was something reassuring about having him there. Weirdly, I felt I could trust him. “It’s all right,” I said. “He can stay.”

Leyta nodded, then leaned forward and took my hands in hers. “How long ago did you start messing with stuff you shouldn’t have been messing with?”

Her question seemed to vibrate through the air. Wyatt tensed in his chair, and I felt my shoulders slump.

I swallowed hard. “Two years in May.”

“What are you talking about?” Wyatt asked. “Drugs?”

Leyta’s scrawny fingers, wrapped around mine, were surprisingly strong. Her pale brown eyes didn’t waver from my face. “You tried it once, and then you kept doing it, right? You kept pushing and searching.”

“I had to,” I whispered.

The hardness left her face. She sighed. “I know.”

“But I quit,” I said. “Last week.”

It was as if I hadn’t spoken at all.

“Headaches, yes?” she asked.

I tried to ignore Wyatt’s eyes boring into me and said, “Yes.”

“They’re bad, right? You get them every day? What about flashes — do you see flashes? Like light, but hazy?”

I nodded.

“There are voices? Whispers?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“And it all started when you first tried to make contact, right?” She sighed and sat back, shaking her head. “Who taught you how to do it?”

“A book,” I said. “By Walter … somebody.”

“Sawamura,” she said. “Walter Sawamura. Which book? He’s written dozens.”

I wanted desperately to pretend I didn’t know, but I said, “Contact with the Spirit Realm.”

She nodded, tapping her fingers on the armrests. “That book was published in 1983. Do you know what was published in 1984?”

I shook my head.

“A letter from Walter Sawamura to everyone who’d bought that book, begging them to send their copies back to him. Some things don’t belong in the hands of those who aren’t strong enough to control them. He refunded the money out of his own pocket, because he knew he’d made a huge mistake. He lost thousands of dollars. But a few copies slipped through. And I guess you found one.”

I nodded.

“Listen to me,” Leyta said. “Go home, take that book, and — you have a moldavite ring, I suppose?”

“Yes,” I whispered, thinking of the green-stoned ring in the black suede pouch.

“Put the ring in a ziplock baggie full of salt. Put that bag and the book in a shoe box. Put something made of real silver in the box. Duct-tape it shut and bury it. Twelve inches deep at least. Don’t ever dig it up.”

“Um … okay,” I said. “And that’ll get rid of the ghost?”

Her face fell. “No. But it’ll close the door on the energies and spirit forces that are hitchhiking on your aura. It should take care of most of the headaches, the dizzy spells, the flashes….”

Those were all things I’d brought on myself? I couldn’t believe I hadn’t co

I dropped my head, feeling like the dumbest person on the planet.

“I know it was an accident,” Leyta said, patting my hands gently. “But, honey, every ghost in a ten-mile radius came ru

“Excuse me.” Wyatt cleared his throat but managed to keep his voice muted, respectful. “If she’s been doing this for two years, why did a ghost just now, uh … latch on?”