Shine (12 page)

“Hmm. That’s random.”

So why had he gone on that summer tour with students to Ireland? I thought of Ridgewood teachers begging our parents to chaperone school field trips. Maybe one of my father’s colleagues had asked him to go along to Ireland as a favor.

The current faculty directory showed when each member had started teaching at Saint Joe’s. I made a list of history professors who would’ve been there at the same time as my father. Then, using the academic journal database my aunt’s law firm paid big bucks for, I ran a search on each of them.

One name came up as an ancient Ireland scholar: Daniel McClellan.
“Doesn’t get any more Irish than that,” I murmured as I printed a list of McClellan’s papers. They weren’t online, but the Johns Hopkins University library carried the academic journals that contained them.

I considered calling Professor McClellan. If he’d traveled with my father, he probably knew him well. I was hungry for everyday details: Did the students like my dad? Was he always on time for class? Did he drink coffee, tea, or gallons of Diet Coke?

But how would I explain my interest? “Hi, I’m the daughter of a guy you used to work with. I was born two years after he died. Is that weird?”

With a sigh, I shut my laptop and set it aside. Instinctively my hand reached for the photo of Zachary on my nightstand, one I’d just framed today.

It was from last Saturday, our big date day. He’d been crouching by the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, looking pensive as he watched the ducks. I’d sneaked away to the opposite side of the pool so I could take his photo.

Realizing I was no longer next to him, Zachary had peered from side to side with amusement. The picture had captured his eyes lighting up at the sight of me.

I traced his silhouettes, both real and reflected, grateful to have this one perfect image.

I hit play on the Frightened Rabbit EP I’d bought at the record store with Nicola. These three songs were raw sadness and strength—an exact mirror of my feelings.

I hugged the photo and closed my eyes. My belly warmed as I imagined Zachary crooning these lyrics so full of longing. I’d never
had the guts to ask him to sing to me. He would’ve thought I was comparing him to Logan.

But I wouldn’t have. Zachary wasn’t a replacement for my first love. He was my third half, as odd as that sounded. With him gone, I felt—not
incomplete
, exactly. More like
unfinished
. Like there was something I was meant to be and do and discover. Without Zachary, that something would always be out of reach.

This thing between him and me had become Us, an entity to be kept alive at all costs. Tonight all I could do was shut out the world and imagine his arms around me.

But tomorrow, I would find another key to saving Us.

I sat in the JHU library, knees pulled to my chest to keep warm in the overly air-conditioned reading room. Four empty cubicles lined one side of the tiny space, but instead I sat at a table where I could see the sole entrance. Paranoid? Maybe.

Copies of Daniel McClellan’s journal articles were spread before me. I’d highlighted his thoughts and scribbled my own notes in the margins of several pages.

One article speculated on the dual purpose of the Irish megaliths and cairns that marked the solstices and equinoxes. The Stone Age people who’d built them wanted to measure time for practical reasons. Obviously they needed to know when to plant and harvest crops. But the timing might have also had spiritual meaning, McClellan said.

It is significant that these megaliths capture the light at
sunrise or sunset. Among the Celtic peoples, and indeed
among many cultures, dawn and twilight are considered
magical times of in-between, when anything is possible.

The solstices and equinoxes also embody that “in-betweenness.”
For one moment, it’s neither autumn nor winter,
spring nor summer. It’s the borderlands.

I gnawed the end of my blue ballpoint pen, contemplating.

The borderlands. Kind of like me and Zachary, on either side of the Shift. Together, we became the In-Between. With just a kiss, I took on his “red power” to repel ghosts, and in exchange, he became like a post-Shifter, able to see ghosts.

But why? Because we were born at the winter solstice? What did Newgrange have to do with it? We hadn’t been born
at
Newgrange during the sunrise. In fact, my birth took place in the middle of the night—3:50 a.m. With the five-hour time difference between here and Scotland, Zachary would’ve been born at …

Oh my God.

8:49 a.m.

My finger trembled as it slid down the article, confirming what I already knew as well as my own name: the time of the Newgrange solstice sunrise.

8:50 a.m.

And the year Zachary and I were born, the solstice took place at 8:50 a.m., too.

I did a quick calculation in my notebook. The winter solstice usually took place within a twenty-four-hour period between December 21
and December 22. “Twenty-four hours times sixty minutes an hour is … whoa.” In any given year there was only a 1-in-1,440 chance of the winter solstice taking place
exactly
at sunrise.

Was this why my mingling with Zachary had such weird results? Because our births were on a double borderland of night-and-day, autumn-and-winter?

Dizzy with discovery, out of habit I reached for my phone.
Wait’ll I tell Zachary.

My hand halted halfway, then curled into a limp fist. There would be no calling Zachary. Not today.

“Hello there.”

I jumped at the interruption. Simon strode toward my table in a casual manner, as if we’d had a study date. He wore a pale-blue Hopkins Lacrosse hoodie, with a backpack slung loosely over his shoulder. Now he could definitely pass for eighteen.

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” I whispered, glancing at the door. “Why didn’t you call first?”

“Spies don’t call first.” He sat down, letting his backpack slide to the floor. “Any news for me?”

I told Simon what Nicola had said about the ARGs being shipped up to Area 3A. He scribbled in his Johns Hopkins notebook, and I was relieved to see him using some kind of shorthand or code. If anyone found those notes, hopefully they wouldn’t lead to me or Nicola.

“Also,” I said, “the company that makes BlackBox—”

He looked up quickly. “SecuriLab?”

“Right. A bunch of them came to visit DMP headquarters that morning after the crash.”

Simon slid the tip of his pen back and forth over the notebook’s spiral spine. “Fascinating.”

I told him about Nicola’s bag. “SecuriLab seems really buddy-buddy with DMP. Is that normal?”

“Unfortunately, yes, and not only in America. Corporations everywhere buy as much power as they can. But since the DMP is of interest to us, anyone with influence on them is obviously a target for further investigation.”

He went back to scribbling in his notebook. I tapped my heel against the floor impatiently.

When his pen stopped, I asked, “Are you any closer to getting Zachary out?”

“I swear to you, MI-X is doing everything it can. But I’m told there are … other interests involved.”

“What other interests?”

“Dunno. I’m only a field officer, I haven’t got the full picture.”

I frowned. Who would want to hurt Zachary, besides the DMP? Not MI-X, I assumed, since his father was still connected to them. Someone from a third country altogether?

Or maybe someone who thought Zachary and I were getting too close to the big truths.

“Simon, you said I was more useful to the DMP alive than dead for now. Would they study me, like they’re doing to Zachary?” I hoped that was all they were doing to him.

“Perhaps, but if they were determined to do that, they would’ve taken you against your will, like they did him. Unlike Zachary, you’re American. You can work for them.”

“No way. Never.”

“I didn’t say it would be voluntary.”

I glanced past him at the door. “You mean a DMP draft? It’s never come close to passing.”

“It could be very popular with pre-Shifters, the only Americans at the moment who can vote.”

“But it’s wrong. That’s why they got rid of the military draft, like, a million years ago.”

“Dealing with ghosts isn’t like going to war. No lives would be in danger. And given the right circumstances, wouldn’t your country be eager—nay, desperate—to do something about the influence of ghosts?”

“
First of all, never use the word ‘nay’ at high school, or you’ll get beaten up. Second, what do you mean by ‘right circumstances’?”

“Such as the Flight 346 disaster. Its timing was convenient, no?”

A sour taste formed at the back of my throat. “You think the DMP caused the crash? I’m not a big fan, but I don’t think they’d kill two hundred and fifteen innocent people.”

“There were supposed to be two hundred eighteen people on that flight. Maybe not all of them innocent in certain eyes.”

“The Moores,” I whispered. “Someone wanted them dead?”

“The DMP was not pleased with Ian Moore’s performance as MI-X liaison.” Simon’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “American agencies think their British counterparts should be at their beck and call. But Ian Moore was no servant boy. When the DMP asked him to jump, he didn’t say, ‘How high?’ He said, ‘No, I think I’ll punch you in the throat, thanks very much.’ ”

“But he was already leaving. He was sick.”

“And he’d handpicked his successor—my boss. The DMP might have wanted to send her a signal.” He folded his arms. “Play by our rules, or you and your family will end up dead.”

O
n July third, I gave Nicola a handwritten message for Zachary. It was a simple note that wouldn’t raise suspicions:
I love you. Be strong.
I hoped he would receive it, and that the DMP would find it so boring that they wouldn’t suspect any subsequent messages. Messages that might help set him free.

On July fourth, I set out to rescue my boyfriend.

Dylan and I sat in the middle seat of the Keeleys’ black Escalade, reviewing the map I’d made from memory. Based on the direction Zachary and I had fled from the DMP and the location of the gas station where Becca had picked us up, I was able to figure out within a hundred square miles where Area 3A might be.

Megan rode up front next to her boyfriend, Mickey, while Mickey’s twin sister, Siobhan, and her boyfriend, Connor, sat behind us. No one seemed bummed about going to the mountains instead
of the beach. In fact, they were all pretty psyched to be part of what Dylan had dubbed Operation Scot Free.

Dylan fell asleep an hour into the four-hour drive, so I practiced playing memory trainer games on my phone. If I wanted to gather dirt on the DMP, I had to be able to recall small details. Having a better grip on my surroundings would also help me know whether I was being followed.

Ironically, I was so busy learning to be observant that I didn’t notice the rising tension a few feet away.

“I don’t get why I can’t come with you,” Megan whined to Mickey. “I wanna see what your college town looks like, and your new apartment.”

“You’ll see the place once it’s set up,” he replied with an edge. “I’ll only be gone for a weekend. Relax.”

Mickey, the other brother in the Keeley Brothers Irish-flavored punk band, had been Logan’s dark, scowling antithesis. Onstage, their contrast had created an irresistible dynamic, but in real life, it had meant a constant, exhausting tug-of-war. Logan’s happy-go-lucky, über-ambitious nature had clashed with Mickey and his desire to keep the music pure and serious.

But when Logan had died, Mickey had blamed himself and sank into despair. His demeanor and outlook had improved when he saw Logan one last time at the concert, but his happiness hadn’t lasted. Megan’s attempts to “fix” him only made him more miserable.

Connor and Siobhan continued their quiet conversation over a bag of corn chips. “So you’re just gonna be undeclared?” he asked.

“I have no idea what I want to major in,” she replied, crunching. “I’ll try a little of everything, like a buffet.”

“Cool. I wish I could do that.”

“You can,” she said. “Just don’t be an engineer.”

“But I want to be an engineer. A really relaxed engineer.”

Witnessing the agonizing college choices by Siobhan and Connor had made me dread facing the same decision myself that year. Mickey’s choice, on the other hand, had been easy. He’d only ever wanted to study music, so he was going to Shenandoah Conservatory in Virginia.

“Oh, guess what, you guys?” Siobhan finished chewing, then swallowed. “Connor and I have an announcement.”

Megan whipped around in her seat. “Oh my God. You’re getting engaged.”

The two of them laughed. “No,” Connor said.

She gasped. “You’re pregnant?”

“God, no.” Siobhan took Connor’s hand and smiled at him. “We’re breaking up.”