Scaredy Kat (3 page)

The door to the front bedroom stood open, and I walked inside. I could see part of my house through one of the windows. The
glimpse of home made me feel a little more comfortable. I took a shaky breath, closed my eyes, and opened my mind. It’s diffi-cult
to explain what that means. It’s not like there’s some Internet chat room where psychic people hang out and discuss these
things. Actually, there probably is, but I haven’t stumbled upon it yet. I don’t know what other mediums do to establish contact
with a spirit. I’m not even sure exactly what it is that
I
do. I start by sort of visualizing myself as a giant satellite dish scanning the sky for a radio signal. I think I took the
idea from images of the Very Large Array in New Mexico, where dozens of these huge antennae are pointed out into the galaxy
to search for signs of astronomical events.

I wasn’t picking up anything I could identify, but I had a growing sense of un-ease. And suddenly I knew I was not alone.
I opened my eyes and looked around cautiously. A voice in my head told me to turn around. The feeling in my stomach told me
not to. My heart pounded so hard I felt faint. Wasn’t anything better than standing here hyperventilating?

I whirled around.

And shrieked.

He was standing so close behind me we were practically touching. I took a step back, pressing one hand to my chest. The man
was very old, but still cut a towering figure. His shoulders were bent but broad, and his neck was thick and muscled. His
face was deeply creased and lined, and his hair pure white. But what paralyzed me were those ice-blue eyes fixed intently
on mine, and absolutely glittering with hatred.

“You,” he hissed at me.

I gulped, speechless.

“A Living One who sees the dead,” he said. “You.” Then he raised a finger and jabbed the air, pointing at me. His image rippled.

I shook my head and took another step away from him. It was wrong to show fear, wrong to feel it. This was an earthbound spirit.
I was a medium. I could help him, if he wanted it. It’s what I was supposed to do. It’s what my mother would do without question.
But there was incredible anger coming off of this spirit. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Plainly put, I was
scared of him.

I didn’t offer.

“See me,” the man said.

Was it a command? A question?

He took a step forward, finger jabbing in the air again.

“See me!” he shouted.

Almost as a reflex, I stuck the camera between us, and pushed the button. The white blue light of the flash bathed the room
and just as instantly disappeared.

So did the old man.

I hightailed it out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

I ran to the top of the stairs, then paused.

The door I had closed remained shut. Nothing came through it. The angry old man was not coming after me. And I suspected that
if I opened that door and looked back into the room, I would find him gone.

But I didn’t look.

I was pathetic. Kat, the scaredy-cat medium.

I’d only felt this scared once before, when I had gone to the library at dawn looking for the troubled spirit of Suzanne Bennis.
I had found her, but there had been something else there, too, something dark and menacing. A powerful malevolent force that
I knew had never been human. That dark shadow had scared me; I knew one day I’d have to face it again. I still dreamed of
it from time to time. The old man wasn’t like that dark shadow—his was the energy of a human soul, however tormented. But
his rage chilled me to the bone.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, and the house was growing darker. I wanted to go home. But the image of the little boy
gnawed at me. I had come into the house to find him. I was trespassing on private property, and on the territory of the dead.
Having done all that, could I go home now with-out checking the boy’s room—the one that faced my own bedroom? I had accepted
the fact that I was always going to see dead people, like it or not. I had to make peace with it. Was I going to let this
house run me off?

I turned and faced the second door—the room next to the old man’s. The room whose windows looked directly into my bedroom.
There must be a reason,
I told myself.
Something to explain why I feel so compelled to find this boy. If he needs me so much, he won’t try to frighten me, or hurt
me.

Would he?

I felt light-headed, and a little nauseated. I took a deep breath and walked quickly into the room. The first thing I noticed
was something painted on the wall—not graffiti or something a child had done. A real artist had painted this. It was a sunburst
painted in ripples of green, purple, and gold, maybe four feet across. I instantly loved it, and found it hard to take my
eyes off the painting. I was happy just to stand there and take it in.

Until I felt a new presence.

He was sitting on the floor under the window, playing with something that could have been marbles or toy soldiers. He looked
about ten years old, with soot-colored hair that hung in his eyes. He was humming something to himself—a tune I recognized
but could not place.

“Hi there,” I said.

The boy didn’t look up or indicate that he’d heard me at all. He just kept playing and humming.

“My name’s Kat,” I continued. “I live in the house next door.”

Nothing.

“I can see your windows from my room.”

Nothing.

“What are you playing?”

I was beginning to feel stupid, the way you would if you were talking to a real live kid who was ignoring your every word.
But there was something about this boy, something about his energy, that made me want to protect him. From what, I had no
idea.

“Is this your room?” I asked, taking a few steps closer to him.

Again, he didn’t respond, but he abruptly stopped humming and looked up. Not at me, but at something else. It was almost as
if something on the ceiling had caught his attention. Then I did hear him say something, but it was so soft I couldn’t make
it out.

“What did you say?” I asked.

His lips kept moving as he gazed up, his head tilted back so that his bangs no longer hid his eyes.

“I’m here,” the boy whispered to the ceiling.

I took another step forward, faster than I meant to move.

“I know that,” I said, a little eagerly. “I can see you. Can’t you see me?”

“I’m here,” the boy repeated. “I’m here.”

He wasn’t talking to me. He hadn’t looked in my direction. Unlike Suzanne Bennis from the school library, or the old man in
the next room, this spirit didn’t seem to know I was there listening to him. Seeing him.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Can you hear me? My name is Kat.”

Still, he didn’t look at me. I was so close to him right now I could see that his eyes, which were a startling hazel, were
filling with tears.

“I’m in here,” the boy whispered.

What was I supposed to do? Spirits saw me. They always saw me. But this one, whom I had broken into a house to find, could
not or would not acknowledge I was there.

“Please,” I said to him, kneeling down so that my face was level with his. “Can’t you just turn your head and look? Or nod
if you understand me?”

He just kept looking up at that one spot. Like he was talking to God or something. Like someone was standing over him, looking
down at him.

“No, don’t,” he began.

And just like that, I was alone.

I put my hand out and lightly touched the place on the floor where he’d been sitting. It was stone cold. The sun was setting,
its rays shining orange and rose through the window and illuminating the painting with warm light. From where I was still
kneeling, I could see that something was written under the painting. Moving closer to the wall, I could make it out clearly.
For Tank. Let your light shine. Love, Aunt Ruby.
A date was written underneath. Three years ago, about ten months before we’d moved next door. I took a picture of the painting.

Something told me that Tank was the little boy’s name, or maybe I was just so desperate to know something about him I’d decided
the painting and inscription were for him. So now I knew where he lived, what he looked like, and what his name was, or at
least what I intended to call him. That was more than I found out about most spirits in the first encounter. What, then, was
stopping him from communicating directly with me? He was old enough to talk.

This is stupid, I told myself. You’ve seen him. You’ve tried to make yourself known to him. There’s nothing else to do here.

The sun had now dropped down below the horizon. The house felt cold and dark. I thought of the old man in the next room and
suppressed a shiver at the memory of his rage. It was definitely time to get out of there.

But before I left, I walked over to Tank’s window, where I’d first seen him. I’d left my computer on in my room, and I could
see the blue rectangle of its screen perfectly. The lights in the kitchen were on—my mother was probably starting dinner.
My stomach rumbled. I was about to turn to go, when something caught my eye. There was a light covering of dust on the windowpanes,
and something had been traced over it with a finger. I leaned closer so that I could make out the words.

The backwards letters spelled: help me.

“I’m back! Going upstairs for a while, ’kay?” I called over my shoulder to my mom, all while practically sprinting for the
stairs. If I had to come face-to-face with her at this moment, she would know there was something wrong. And I didn’t want
to talk about it. Not now. Not with her. Why? I wasn’t sure. I suspected it had something to do with the fear I could still
feel in the pit of my stomach. I kept seeing that old man’s face in my mind’s eye. Mediums weren’t supposed to be fearful.
I didn’t want my mother to know how weak I was. And I didn’t want a lecture about how there was nothing to fear but fear itself.

“Sure, Kat, we can eat whenever you’re ready,” I heard her say.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready for food that night. I still felt light-headed, and now my stomach was a little upset to boot.
When I got to my room, the first thing I did was pull my curtains closed. They were light and flimsy, and the sun shone right
through them in the mornings, but closing them gave me the illusion that whatever was in the house next door wouldn’t be able
to see me. I put on a Norah Jones CD. The music was relaxing. I lay on my bed for a few minutes, listening and taking long
deep breaths. I still didn’t feel quite myself, but my stomach did feel a bit better.

After a while, I felt so safe and comfortable in my room that I began to wonder if I’d overreacted to the house. It wasn’t
like I hadn’t expected the place to be haunted. When a house has been around for a hundred and fifty years, it would be weird
to not find any ghosts there. Nothing truly bad had happened. I’d just gotten a little startled. The more I thought about
it, the better I felt.

I got up and plugged the camera’s memory card into my computer. I examined each picture as it came up. The shots I’d taken
outside the house showed nothing out of the ordinary. When I came to the shot of Tank’s room, I drew my breath in sharply.
I recognized the walls and window of the room, but obscuring the painting was a ball-shaped sphere of light suspended in the
air.

A spirit orb.

I had only read about and seen pictures of them, but I knew one when I saw it. Spirit orbs were supposed to contain the soul
and life experience of a dead person. I couldn’t remember much more about them. So I Googled the term, and got a hit on a
site I’d visited before called spiritworldcenter.com. The site explained:

An orb may represent a single spirit, or it may be a community of souls. Orbs can be as small as ping pong balls or as large
as watermelons. They are frequently observed shooting through rooms and pass easily through solid material, though some orbs
are known to hover around certain humans, for reasons that remain unknown.

What the site didn’t explain was how I could catch a spirit orb with my camera when I had seen nothing with my own eyes. I
had seen Tank, after all. Was the spirit orb separate from Tank—something unrelated to him? It seemed likely, because Tank
hadn’t been sitting by the painting, he’d been over next to the window. I hadn’t thought to take a picture of the message
written on the glass. Or I hadn’t wanted to. Something about it wasn’t sitting right with me.

“Mail call!” my computer chirped.

I was glad for the distraction. I clicked on the envelope icon, and was pleased to see Jac’s name in my Inbox.

To: Voodoo Mama

From: Maestra

Well, we may be seeing each other sooner than planned. Can’t go into it now, but there’s been quite the blowup here. I’ll
call you when I’m home. Could be as soon as tomorrow morning.

And thanks for the picture of you and your tongue. What’s with the light show?

Peace,

Jac

Whoa. Jac coming home early? A blow-up? I could only imagine what that was supposed to mean.

Whatever had gone on, Jac would be back soon. I needed her here more than ever. Not being able to talk about the stuff going
on next door was just about killing me.

My eye fell on the last line of Jac’s e-mail. Light show? What was she talking about? The sentence seemed to be referring
to the photo I’d e-mailed her. I minimized the e-mail screen and clicked through the photo images until I found the one I’d
taken of myself.

There I was in all my glory, my dark hair long and flat, my eyes slightly bugged, and my tongue stuck out at the camera. But
that wasn’t all the camera had captured. As I examined the picture, I could see right away what Jac’s e-mail referred to.

Behind me, clearly visible, were circles of light. Not just one or two, but dozens of them. They were all over the place,
but many of them were clustered just behind me. A shiver ran up my spine as I stared at the picture, transfixed.