Spirited (26 page)

When I whirl around, a middle-aged woman with reddish-silver hair is striding toward me. Her thin face is shadowed with circles beneath her sad eyes. At first I think she’s the ghost of Hannah, but she’s not the same woman from my vision. Besides, she’s solid, not see-through, and very much alive. She’s not alone, either.

My gaze shifts to the guy behind her.

Dominic is here.

~*~*~

The following conversation is beyond weird. As the only ghost-interpreter, I have to repeat everything Jeremiah says. Mostly, though, we listen to Beverly—not Hannah, but her sister.

“I thought you killed her,” she says to Jeremiah, looking around uncertainly because she can’t see him. “She showed me bruises and said you were abusing her. Then she disappeared, and I saw you carrying a shovel. A year after your death, she showed up and confessed that it was her boyfriend who hit her. She said she’d made a horrible mistake by leaving you. She wanted me to go with her to see you, so she could tell you she was sorry. Instead I told her you’d died. She was heartbroken.”

Only I can hear Jeremiah’s low sobs. My heart breaks a little too.

Beverly explains that Hannah was already ill with cancer. She didn’t have much time left and wanted to die quietly. “I visited her every day in the care home… but today was the last day.” Beverly wipes away a tear. “She… She’s gone.”

She chokes up, so Dominic takes over. He says he read through Manny’s printouts and realized Beverly’s address was near the area he was working. He had a “feeling” she knew more about Hannah. But by the time he found her, Hannah had died.

“Beverly had no reason to keep Hannah’s secret anymore,” Dominic adds. “After she told me everything, I told her what I knew. Fortunately she believes in ghosts. She insisted on coming here when I told her about Jeremiah’s ghost. But we got here and couldn’t find you—until I heard a voice in my head telling me to following the gravel path in the woods.”

“A voice?” I ask.

“A spirit woman,” he answers with a knowing look at me. “She had a Spanish accent and spoke in a formal way like she was born a hundred years ago.”

Three hundred years,
I think, smiling. Opal is still watching out for me.

Jeremiah glides next to me. “Thank you for everything,” he says, tears still shining through his ghostly form. “No use waiting around this old castle anymore. Hannah isn’t coming back.”

“One last question,” I say as a bright light bursts around him. “Hannah isn’t buried here. So who’s in that grave?”

“Not who, but what.” Jeremiah chuckles. “Hannah’s princess statues. The whole danged collection.”

~*~*~

The ghost is gone, but there’s still work to be done in Wilshire Castle.

Dominic comes inside to see if the guys need his help, but the towers are upright and gorgeous. I head for the kitchen to finish my duties, and Dominic says he has to return to work. I don’t pressure him about going to the prom. We can’t always be together, but that doesn’t mean he loves me any less. Before he leaves, though, Penny-Love takes him aside for a private talk, and they won’t tell me what it was about. Frustrating. When I ask Pen, she only flashes a wicked grin.

I’m exhausted when I finally go home. But there’s no time for napping. My grandmother fixes my hair; tumbling down my back in soft curls. She zips up my dress and tells me I’m beautiful. I smile, but inside I’m wishing Dominic were saying those words. He’s still at work, though, and I’m okay with that.

Penny-Love and Ransom pick me up in a sleek white limo. My grandmother snaps a million photos, and I swear she’s crying as she watches us drive away.

Wilshire Castle sparkles with lights and banners and is so beautiful no one will believe it was ever haunted. I go straight to the kitchen, planning to help there most of the night. Manny finds me and makes me promise to save him a dance.

“Sure,” I say with a laugh. “If you’re not too busy.”

“Never too busy for you, Beany.”

“Don’t call her that,” a voice interrupts. “Sabine doesn’t like that nickname.”

I turn, and there’s Dominic, looking oh-so-handsome in a western suit—black cowboy hat, black vest over white dress shirt, and sexy tight black denim jeans.

“No prob, Nick.” Manny chuckles as he leaves the room.

Left alone with Dominic, I smile up at him. “So… you’re here.”

“Wasn’t easy, but well worth it.” He grasps my hands. “You look beautiful.”

My heart swells. “You look amazing yourself.”

“Thanks to Penny-Love. I have a confession to make.” He bites his lip. “My work isn’t the only reason I said
no
to the prom. I’m an outdoor guy, not the type to wear a fancy tux and strangling tie. It seemed easier to skip the whole prom thing. Still I wanted to do it for you. When Pen demanded to know why I wasn’t taking you, I told her. And she pulled out her smart phone. She found a place where I could rent a western suit. No tie or tux. I still had to juggle my work schedule. But I did. And here I am.”

“Here you are.” I smile into his face.

He tugs on my hand. “Sabine, would you like to dance?”

“I’d love it.”

We move out of the kitchen into the ballroom, where we join other couples swaying to a slow song. I lean against Dominic’s chest and have a vision of us dancing at our future anniversary party, even more in love.

~*~*~

Across the ballroom, another couple dances beneath the glittering chandelier to a beat of their own. Their feet don’t touch the ground. But no one notices them. The only person in the ballroom able to see them has her eyes closed.

“Welcome home, Princess,” the man whispers.

And they dance.

Future

Night Queen

“Don’t botch this up, kid.” Captain Richardson’s hot breath stung Josiah’s ear. “You want to earn your share? You make sure your readings are solid, got it?”

Josiah tried to ignore the captain’s looming presence. The man’s breath alone was overpowering, a sickly mix of eggs and coleslaw. His constant need to badger Josiah didn’t help. For a fleeting moment, Josiah wished he could elbow the old man in the gut to get him to back off.

“C’mon, Cap, ease up. You keep ridin’ him that hard, he’s liable to piss himself.” Thompson, the demolitions expert, didn’t look up from sharpening a knife that stretched the length of his forearm.

“We don’t have room for error on this.” Richardson smacked the back of Josiah’s chair. “Do you know how much I paid to get this lead? We won’t have an opportunity like this again. That’s for certain.”

Thompson snorted. “We ain’t got much of an opportunity now. Right, kid?”

Josiah swallowed a groan and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He had never imagined a salvage run would be like this. The tri-vids at home had made it seem so glamorous: find derelict spacecraft, strip them for valuables, and sell to the highest bidder. Money, girls, adventure, everything Josiah had ever wanted would finally be in his grasp. It’d be better than working at the family aquaponic farm the way Dad wanted him to. There’d be more money in wrecked ships than tilapia. So he’d gone to the nearest port, lied about his age, and shipped with the first captain to sign him. Now he was trapped in a contract with an abusive jerk. Josiah wished he could go back in time two months and slap some sense into his younger self.

Apparently Richardson wanted to help with the slapping part. Sharp pain flashed through the back of Josiah’s skull. “Keep your eyes on the sensors, boy. I’m not paying you to daydream.”

As if the captain would pay him. So far Josiah had helped salvage two tugs and an empty freighter, but Richardson had claimed Josiah’s share as “training and boarding expenses.” Josiah would probably wind up in debt to the captain by the time his contract was up.

“As ordered.” Josiah forced the words through his clenched teeth. “What am I looking for again?”

“You’ll know it when you see it.” Richardson stomped over to the astrogation panel. “Arrival in five seconds. Look sharp, Thompson.”

Thompson tossed his knife end over end and then snatched it out of the air. “Always, Cap.”

A tremor wormed through the deck beneath Josiah, and the constant droning of the engines grew quiet, more sedate. Josiah leaned over the sensor readouts.

Once again, Richardson loomed behind him. “Well? What do you see?”

Josiah bit his lip, not wanting to answer honestly. The captain sounded so eager, so sure of himself, that Josiah wished he could say he saw something of interest. But no, all that was out there was a gas giant, with a small flock of three dozen orbiting moons, and—

Wait? What was that?

At first it looked like nothing more than a sensor ghost in the planet’s rings. But once Josiah had focused on the object, more details emerged. A large mass of heavy metals, much larger than the salvage vessel. What’s more, the sensors detected the intermittent signal of an engine core, erratic but functional. A ship? If so, it was huge, large enough to carry thousands of people.

Josiah shook his head. Best not to keep the captain waiting. “I’ve got something.”

Richardson sucked in a sharp breath. “ID?”

“Working on it.” Josiah’s slender fingers danced over the sensor controls. An image of the other vessel appeared on screen, a stately and sleek starliner with wide, glassed-in viewing galleries. Six engine bells flared from the stern.

Josiah frowned. He had seen images of this ship before but couldn’t quite place it. He focused the visual sensors on the bow. Brilliant red letters stood out against the pristine white hull.

Ice sluiced through Josiah’s veins. No way. It couldn’t be.

“Yes?” Richardson’s voice had dropped to a bare hiss.

“It’s the
Night Queen
.”

Thompson’s knife clattered to the deck. Josiah couldn’t blame him. Even though it had disappeared thirty-five years earlier, long before Josiah had been born, he knew the details. Launched from the Orion colonies, the
Night Queen
had carried 4,000 passengers, some of the wealthiest people in the galaxy, on a maiden voyage that ended when the ship vanished. He never imagined he’d be the one to find the lost starliner. Suddenly his dreams of quick wealth seemed like a distinct possibility.

“Excellent.” Richardson’s voice brimmed with excitement.

Thompson retrieved his knife from the floor and slipped it into a sheath at his hip. “Forgive me for saying it, Cap, but you don’t seem all that surprised. You knew she was out here?”

“A Federate survey mission passed through here a month ago. One of the techs spotted the wreck but didn’t get a good reading. He sold me the data, and it looked right. I figured it was worth a shot.”

Thompson’s expression soured. “If the Federates know about this…”

Richardson shook his head. “Let’s just say I made sure the tech is willing to remain discreet. We’ve got a week before he’ll report his findings, more than enough time to strip her to the hull.”

Thompson’s lips peeled back into a predatory grin.

Josiah shifted in his seat, glancing at the readings again. “Don’t you think the passengers’ families deserve to know what happened to their loved ones?”

The captain shrugged. “We’ll inform them, but only after we’ve seen what’s on board. Keep scanning. Leave the details to us.”

Josiah turned back to the sensors, stung. He tried to focus on the data spooling by on the readout. And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about the dead on board and those mourning them.

~*~*~

Three hours later, Josiah had scanned the entirety of the
Night Queen
, leaving him with too many unanswered questions.

“You done yet, boy?” Richardson asked.

The answer caught in Josiah’s throat. He didn’t want to share what he had found: that the
Night Queen
was in pristine condition. No hull breaches, the engines hadn’t overloaded, and all of the escape pods seemed to be in place. The paint hadn’t even been chipped by micrometeorite collisions. The
Night Queen
appeared as if she had just left dry dock brand new. Even the engines were still on-line, powering the ship.