Intrinsical (27 page)

“
It was a secret,” Brent pointed out, exasperated.

“
It must have been hard not to be able to project after they left the school.”

Brent confirmed this with a nod. “Every New Year they would all gather in the pool house and celebrate together. You see, once you could do it, you could always do it when you were here. The only problem was that you couldn’t do it when you anywhere else. Well, most of them couldn’t,” he added with a sheepish grin.

I tapped my lips with my finger, thinking. “Even if you had enough of the plant?”

“
Yes— believe me, they tried everything,” Brent said. His third snowball was now also complete, around the size of a basketball.

“
How does Thomas fit into all this?”

“
I’m pretty sure he was Clutch and probably behind all the weird stuff after the fire. I don’t have any details on what scared them so badly though.”

“
So how do you know all this?”

Brent shrugged. “I read it Neal’s journals.”

“
How did he know?”

“
Well, my grandpa was a member, but it had disbanded before my dad came along. And he couldn’t find anyone else interested and could only barely project himself.”

“
So, genetics plays a role?”

“
Seems that way. All the bushes on campus died years before dad started school here. He thought maybe that was why he had a hard time doing it . . . and he was afraid any of the plant left in the soil would have faded even more by the time Neal came along. I think my dad had hopes of Neal starting the Clutch again. He was worried not having the plant would make it impossible.”

“
But how did we leave our bodies without the plant?”

“
Well, my grandpa had a different theory: that the plant wasn’t really necessary to project, it just made it easier. He was convinced the plant’s most important purpose was to protect the body from harm while the spirit was gone. Once I read that in Neal’s journals, I started practicing it at home.”

“
Wow.” I was once again impressed at his power.

He shook his head in annoyance. “It’s dangerous to leave your body. I was stupid. Not to mention, you did it with one lousy paragraph from a book. Believe me, I’m much more impressed by that. You didn’t spend hours sweating for nothing in your bedroom and accomplishing nothing but body odor.”

I laughed at the mental image. “It wasn’t me. It was my necklace and the step by step instructions from Thomas.”

“
Maybe.” Brent piled his three snowballs on top of each other. “A snowman,” he said.

“
I figured that out all by myself.” I spotted two thin branches I thought would work for the snowman’s arms and I commanded them over toward the piles of snow.

“
How come your grandpa and dad didn’t tell you about this? How come you had to read it in Neal’s journals?”

Brent shrugged. “Not sure.”

I watched as five stones floated through the air and then became a pair of eyes and the buttons on the snowman’s chest. Brent stood and examined our little snowman. “It needs a good nose.”

I stood up, looking for something that would work while Brent made a mouth with two leaves.

“
It was supposed to protect me,” I said, positioning an orange flower above his green lips. Sitting back down in the snow I examined our masterpiece. I didn’t really see it, though; my mind was still on my necklace. I wished I had it on now so I could examine it more carefully. I found it odd that, from another country, my grandmother had sent me a present that was tied not only to my death, but to the mystery of Pendrell itself. “Maybe the necklace did work.”

Brent turned to me, stunned. “How exactly do you explain that?”

“
Well, it allowed me to the see the mist and save you, and it protected me that time it tried to attack me. Well I guess you helped that time, too. That
is
what all that frantic hand waving was about, right?”

“
That frantic hand waving is a highly polished form of defense that saved your butt.”

“
Anyway, as I was saying, it allowed me to save you, protected me and probably even made my Waker genes finally develop. The plant is supposed to protect pure spirits—” I blushed at the compliment I had just implied about myself. “—from being hurt by evil ones. I never really thought about the plant inside the necklace actually working, but it does seem that the necklace really helped me.” I scratched my collarbone where my necklace should have been and bit my lip. “Now that I think about it, Thomas couldn’t even touch me when he was pretending to be you . . . until I took it off. And if I hadn’t been so heedless of my grandmother’s request to wear it all the time, I might still be alive.”

“
Or,” he countered, “it led you to your death by letting you leave your body and attracting the mist’s attention in the first place.”

“
Or maybe it’s just helping me see connections that I haven’t figured out yet. My grandmother is a smart lady.”

Brent didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. I could feel how strongly he disagreed with me. He was silent for a while and I could hear him thinking. “Yara, do you believe in fate?”

“
I suppose it depends on the context.”

“
This plant. It can’t be coincidence that your great-greatgrandfather worked here and that this plant your family uses in their spiritual work also ends up here. I’m willing to bet he’s the one who brought it to the school. You said he was a science teacher, right?”

I nodded, starting to see where his line of thinking was going.

Brent continued, “Your family knows so much about herbs, it must have been him Christopher chose to teach him about the plant. Even though the plant eventually died, it still managed to somehow imbue its magical powers into the soil. Then you arrive here decades later, a girl who’s been raised with this stuff, who’s special even among those who are already considered special. It’s no wonder you astral projected so soon and so powerfully. I don’t think you could have stopped it even if you wanted to.” I blushed. He either didn’t notice or had the grace to pretend not to. “And you bring your unique gifts and a necklace infused with this plant to school,” he continued, pacing around. “Maybe you’re tied to all of this somehow.”

“
My grandma didn’t want me to come to Pendrell. Grandpa always swore there were evil things happening here. My parents didn’t listen. I didn’t listen.” I bit my lip considering. “But if he was so sure, why didn’t he do anything about it? I mean couldn’t he have fought it?”

Brent looked at me like I had missed an important piece of information. “Didn’t you say only the girls in the family could see ghosts?” I nodded. “Maybe he knew there was something going on, but didn’t know where to look.”

I stared at him, shocked and open-mouthed. It all made sense; everything fit. How did I feel, though, about the idea that I was tied to every paranormal happening at Pendrell over the last sixty years? I didn’t have time to think too long on it though, because the pull of my reenactment was tugging at me. Once again, it was time for me to die.

Chapter 14

The next day, students were slushing through the melting snow, trying to make the most of it. Brent was watching the crowd carefully. I followed his gaze and found my eyes resting on Thomas, in Brent’s body, playing ball with Brent’s friends.

“
So how does he go from piloting your body to controlling the mist? He was in the mist fighting when it attacked.”

“
I’m guessing he has to leave his . . . my body to do it.”

I bounced on the tips of my toes. “That means the next time it attacks, you should search for your body while I—”

“
Not going to happen,” Brent said through gritted teeth. “I’m not risking you to help myself.”

“
But I . . .” I let my sentence trail off when I caught the fury in Brent’s eyes. “Okay. Okay. It was just an idea.”

“
I don’t ever want you to take a chance like that.” Brent seethed, still watching Thomas, who winked in our direction tossing a football to Travis. For the briefest of moments, Thomas’s green eyes flashed inside Brent’s brown ones.

“
Was that wink meant for us?” I asked Brent, who was eyeing Thomas carefully.

“
Yes,” Brent said as he folded his arms. Finally he turned and looked back at me. “How can everyone think he’s me?”

“
Maybe because he is literally inside your body?”

Brent looked at me, exasperated. “Obviously there is that. But that’s not what I mean.”

“
What is it?”

Brent dismissed the conversation with a wave of his hand. “It doesn’t matter.” Brent studied Thomas with disgust. “All of those girls are around, some of my buddies are with him. Can’t they tell it isn’t me?”

“
They probably know something’s up. The girls just think you’re cute,” I said, ignoring the pleasure in his eyes. “And they’re still getting to know you; most of them didn’t really know you before you died.”

“
I thought
you
knew me,” he admitted. “Turns out you didn’t. You thought he was me.”

“
I didn’t,” I lied, examining my nails.

Brent gave me a knowing look. “You almost kissed him.”

“
Yeah, sorry about that.” My cheeks burned.

“
I just thought . . .” Brent trailed off, his eyes looking hurt. “He isn’t anything like me. I guess that’s why he picked the fight with Steve; Steve would know. I mean, I would never act so cocky.”

I struggled to hold back a laugh. “Yes . . . you are so different that way.” The floodgates of my laughter burst open and I giggled uncontrollably for a full minute.

Brent cleared his throat and glared at me. “Are you quite done?” My laughter dried up immediately. “I can be a bit cocky, but mine is good-natured.” Brent peeked at me from the corner of his eyes, making sure I agreed with him.

“
Okay, I’m actually willing to admit that. You aren’t mean-spirited.”

Brent flashed me a sincere smile. “My cockiness is charming, endearing . . .”

I nodded piously. “As is your humility.”

The snow was all melted now, leaving only muddy ground behind. Classes were about to start and my one-time peers were migrating to where they needed to be. I sat down on a stone bench, leaned back on my hands, and tilted my head toward the sun.

Brent sat next to me and I felt his eyes on me. “What?”

“
You said that you were ashamed of your Waker abilities because you wanted to be normal, but what’s so great about being normal?”

I closed my eyes seeing the red of the sun through my eyelids. “You, being normal, wouldn’t understand.”

“
Oh, so I’m normal? I can astral project and move things with my mind. Does that sound normal?” It was impossible to miss the sarcasm in Brent’s voice.

“
Well . . . no, but your stuff is cool.”

“
Your stuff is awesome. I think it would be great to talk to ghosts.”

“
Well, you’re currently talking to a ghost and I’m here with you for all eternity, so feel free to talk away.”

Brent laughed, the melodious sound of it brought a smile to my lips as big as I used to get when I heard the ice cream truck.

“
Seeing dead people isn’t cool. Even if it were, I suck at being a Waker . . . I fought against contacting you . . . I got scared every flipping time I saw a spirit. Vovó never got scared.”

“
Has she ever dealt with a murderous ghost?” Brent asked pointedly.

“
No, but if she had, it would have gone down a lot differently. I should have paid more attention to what she did. If I had, maybe I could have handled this better.”

“
Why
didn’t
you pay attention to her?”

The glass door under the schools arched entrance slammed open and Mrs. Piper thudded out. She wobbled on her thin heels as she hurried past us checking her watch. I pretended to be engrossed with her to stall answering.

Finally I admitted, “It was shame. I totally believed in everything she taught me but it embarrassed me when people laughed at her and me by proxy. When I was a kid I defended her and started more fights than I can count.” My fingers found their way to the scar on my eyebrow. “After a while I stopped because the arguments never changed anything. As I got older, I just wished she would cut it out and pretend to be normal. She knew I felt that way and I think it hurt her.” I let my head loll forward so my chin was resting on my chest. I had barely spoken the words, needing to say them, but not wanting to own them.

“
But if you believed her, why would you want her to pretend she couldn’t see ghosts?”