The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl) (13 page)

Months ago Nolan and I learned that a luiseach’s spirit—unlike the spirits of mere mortals—could not be
taken, damaged, or destroyed
by a ghost or a demon.

Until, apparently, I came along.

“You can imagine what happened after that,” Aidan says.

“No,” I answer wearily. “I can’t.”

“This idea spurred panic,” Aidan supplies. “Everyone rallied to Aura’s side.”

“Including Helena.” I expect it to come out like a question, but it doesn’t.

“Yes,” Aidan nods heavily. “I couldn’t believe it. Helena and I had been partners throughout our marriage, running this campus together, training young luiseach together. But now she could only see what we’d done—what our science had done. Within minutes of Aura’s declaration Helena agreed that the only way to undo the harm we’d done was to eliminate it altogether. She thought that no luiseach would be safe to procreate while you drew breath. That eliminating you could undo the surge of power we’d released. It was as though all the conversations we’d
had over the previous nine months had never happened. She insisted that luiseach must continue as they always had, even with our dwindling numbers—helping spirits move on one at a time, exorcising those we didn’t get to in time.”

“What did you think?”

“I saw our circumstances differently,” Aidan continues, raising his voice like he wants to make sure I’m listening. “I thought perhaps the surge of energy released when you were born was something else. A tragedy, yes, but not one without purpose.”

“What did you think it was?” I ask, turning around to face him.

“The next step on the evolutionary scale. Like the big bang or the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.”

“That’s why you think luiseach are going extinct? You thought I set an asteroid in motion?”

“Not exactly.” Aidan turns to face me and takes my hands in his. “I thought you
were
the asteroid. I thought you would be the luiseach to end all luiseach.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Middle of Everywhere

S
pirits behave differently this close to the equator. What about the rest of us? Is the air different here? Like, if it’s thinner up at the North Pole, is it
thicker
down here? Because no matter how many times I try to take a deep breath to calm myself down, it feels like the oxygen can’t get in. I try to imagine exactly where we are on the map: somewhere north of Mazatlan, deep in the jungle, in the middle of nowhere. Come to think of it, we’re actually in the middle of
everywhere
: close to the equator, almost perfectly centered between the north and south poles.

“I handed you to Victoria so she could take you up to the nursery,” Aidan continues, releasing my hands. “I knew you couldn’t understand what was happening, but I didn’t want you to hear us arguing about your fate.”

“Victoria was there?” Aidan nods. Somehow the idea of my old teacher carrying me up the stairs to that breezy room is comforting.

“It seemed like we argued forever, but it can’t have been more than an hour. The sound of your cries floating down from the second floor finally ended the argument.”

“How?”

“You were hungry, and your mother—Helena,” he corrects quickly, “refused to feed you. It was then that I knew there was no changing her mind.” His gaze drops to the ground, as though he can’t look at me when he says, “So I gave in. I offered to take care of the matter myself. I insisted on . . . finishing the job.”

Finishing the job.
As though murdering your own child is just a workaday task, like taking out the garbage or doing the dishes. Despite the shade from the trees above us, my skin feels like it’s burning.

“But you didn’t finish anything.”

“No. Victoria brought you to me, and we drove for hours. I didn’t have a car seat, so she sat in the back with her arms around you. I wanted to get you as far away as possible, but we didn’t have time enough to go far. I didn’t have anything to feed you, but you stopped crying when Victoria started playing with you.”

“She played with me when I was just born?”

He nods. “Luiseach are different from humans at birth. They can see clearly, form memories, even respond to what’s going on around them. She brought a toy from a nursery. Some sort of stuffed bird. She made it look like it was flying over your face. You were riveted.”

“An owl.” Victoria must have put the stuffed animal back when they returned here. Years later, when her own daughter was born, she must have remembered the comfort that toy gave me and bought an identical toy for Anna.

Ashley always thought I was weird for keeping a taxidermied owl in my bedroom. Now I know that some part of me was trying to replace the toy I loved.

“I sped every mile of the way,” Aidan continues. “You fell asleep as we crossed the border into Texas. You were still asleep when we left you at the hospital. We drove back, stopping in the jungle to dig a grave so we’d be covered in mud when we returned. So everyone would believe I’d done what I said I’d do.”

“You lied to Helena, to everyone.”

“Yes.”

“Because you thought I was the luiseach to end all luiseach.” That sounds even more ominous than
The Last Luiseach
did.

“Not entirely,” Aidan shakes his head in surprise. “True, I didn’t agree with Helena, and I still don’t. I don’t believe luiseach can continue working as we have before. There simply aren’t enough of us left to do it—even before you were born, that was the case,” he clarifies quickly. “But that’s not why I didn’t eliminate you.”

“Then why?”

“I didn’t eliminate you because you were my baby.”

“Oh,” I say softly, shifting my weight from one leg to the other awkwardly.

“There was no scientific explanation for the way I felt about you,” he continues. “Mothers experience a release of hormones after they give birth to help them bond with their babies. I experienced no such thing, and yet I was even weaker than Helena. How could I kill a helpless creature looking up at me with my own eyes?”

“Not just a science experiment?” I bite my lip to try to keep myself from crying (more), but the tears overflow anyway.

I finally understand what Aidan meant when he said he didn’t abandon me: he gave me up to
save
me.

Later, after I’ve taken a shower and gotten dressed—a T-shirt decorated with Audrey Hepburn’s face instead of Care Bears, jean shorts with the knife tucked safely into a back pocket—Aidan is waiting for me in the kitchen, standing at the stove over a pot of soup. He’s changed into a fresh pair of khakis and a white button-down. He fills a bowl for me. I sit down and begin eating, surprised by how hungry I am.

After a few spoonfuls, I ask, “Helena found out, right? That you didn’t . . . eliminate me?”

Aidan sits in a squeaky wooden chair across from me. “It didn’t take long for Helena to discover what I’d done.”

“How did she know?”

“Helena believed that killing you would undo the surge we’d released when you were born. A year went by, and no luiseach became pregnant. Even with our dwindling numbers, a drought like that was unprecedented. When Helena confronted me, I couldn’t lie to her.”

“Why not?”

He smiles. “I was never very good at lying to the people I loved. It was a miracle I was able to keep it from her for as long as I did.”

I blush, just like any teenager might when her parents talk about loving each other. Ashley always hated it when her parents got lovey-dovey in front of her.
Eww, gross
, she’d moan, acting like she might throw up.

“Helena was furious,” Aidan continues. “She insisted that with you alive, our extinction was inevitable, and I couldn’t disagree.
She demanded I tell her what I’d done with you, insisted she would find you and eliminate you herself. When I refused, she left.”

“And that was the beginning of the rift?”

He nods slowly, like moving his head up and down hurts. Helena didn’t just leave this
place.
She left
him.
“One by one, as the years went by and no more luiseach were born, those who stood by my side joined her. I could hardly begrudge them their choice,” he concedes wearily. “They’re frightened about our future, frightened of what our extinction will mean for the human race.”

I lift another spoonful to my lips. “So Helena isn’t the only luiseach who wants me eliminated?”

Aidan shakes his head and slowly answers, “Lucio and I are the only remaining luiseach who want you alive.”

I drop my spoon with a clatter. Tomato soup splashes across the table, onto my T-shirt and even onto Aidan’s white button-down. I really shouldn’t be allowed to eat brightly colored food like tomato soup and cherry pie and grape juice. But Aidan doesn’t seem to notice. At least, he doesn’t seem to care.

“That’s why I brought you here,” he explains. “Once you passed your test, it would only be a matter of time before she found you. She’d be able to sense you now that your powers had been awakened. All luiseach parents can after their offspring turn sixteen. But she and her people cannot step foot inside this compound, not after the way they abandoned it. It’s part of the magic that protects this place. They would need the express invitation of someone who still lives here—yours, Lucio’s, or my own.”

This place isn’t just a campus. It’s not even a hiding place. It’s a
fortress.

And everything—whether I live or die, whether humanity survives after the extinction of the luiseach—hinges on what I saw in Aidan’s lab this morning. Whether or not those spirits can move on by themselves.

“Has a single spirit been able to do it?” I don’t have to explain what
it
is.

“No.” His voice drops an octave. “I’ve been trying for sixteen years, and it’s never happened.”

“Sounds like the other side of the rift has the upper hand.”

He nods. “But just after you passed your test, something happened that never happened before.”

“What?”

“One of the spirits escaped. Lucio’s been tracking it, but—”

“I know,” I say. “He told me. It’s on the verge of going dark. That shouldn’t happen. Not here.”

“Exactly,” Aidan says, snapping his fingers.

“How can you sound so happy about it?” I shudder, thinking of Anna’s spirit refusing to move on. Of the demon that nearly destroyed her.

“Because it means that the spirits are behaving differently.”

“Do you know why?”

“I don’t—not exactly,” Aidan concedes. “But I do have a theory.”

I lean back in my chair even though the wood digs into my shoulder blades. “Something tells me I’m not going to like your theory.”

Aidan smiles, raising his eyebrow. His cat-green eyes, mirror images of my own, don’t blink when he says, “I think the difference is
you.
I’ve wondered for years what your gifts might be, what skills you might possess. I’ve always believed it would be your destiny to change everything.”

“So then you think Helena was right. Maybe I
am
dangerous somehow.”

“No,” Aidan says firmly. “But I no longer think I can teach spirits to move on by themselves. However, I’m beginning to believe
you
can.”

It’s a good thing I’m not eating anymore because I think I would be choking right now if I were.

Most dads just want their kids to get good grades, go to college, that kind of thing. My mentor/father wants me to change the world.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Failure

T
he next day at dawn, instead of taking me back to the playground, Aidan leads the way to his lab. Remembering what happened the last time I was here—can that really have been just a day ago?—I climb the steps slowly, shaking as I put one foot in front of the other. If Aidan notices my nerves, he doesn’t say so, but clearly Lucio does notice, because he reaches up—he’s one step behind me on the stairs—and slips his hand in mine. His grip is reassuring.
You can do this
, it says.

I’m not so sure. Aidan’s lab is filled with dozens of spirits.

I squeeze Lucio’s hand back.

Both Aidan and Lucio carry enormous flashlights, but the thin beams of light do little to break up the darkness. It should be a million degrees in the long, windowless hallway at the top of the stairs, but it’s so cold that I can see my breath.

Before we reach Aidan’s lab, I finally find my voice.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask. “How can I help them move on without actually . . .
helping
them move on?”

Aidan turns to look at me. “I’m not sure,” he answers honestly. “Start by reaching out for them, one at a time. Try to communicate with them.”

“And then what?”

“Then, we’ll see.”

We’ll see.
Not exactly the certainty I’d been hoping for. I wanted Aidan to tell me he had a plan, to reassure me that no matter what happened, everything would be okay. To promise he’d get me out of there before my heart starts beating too quickly, before my temperature drops too low.

Instead, he steps forward and opens the door.

I get another glimpse of the lab (it seems like more of a research library) before the spirits hit me like a stiff breeze, as forceful as a slap against my skin. Once more, flashes of their lives and deaths spring up before my eyes. At least this time I’m prepared for the images filling my field of vision: a man throwing a ball for his beloved dog, a woman rocking her baby to sleep, a needle filled with the cancer treatment that stopped working, a man’s hand clutching his chest as his heart went into cardiac arrest.

And again I hear their voices. Begging me for their freedom. Pleading with me to help them move on.

Try to communicate with them.

“I can’t help you!” I shout between chattering teeth. It’s the truth. Even if Aidan hadn’t told me not to help them move on, I’d be useless. There are so many of them and only one of me.

“I’m sorry!” I shout as image after image flashes before me like a strobe light gone haywire. My legs feel like they’re made of jelly. How am I still standing upright? I become aware of pressure on my shoulders. Lucio must be holding me up from behind. When I slump against him, I feel that each of the muscles
in his body is clenched. He’s fighting the urge to help these people move on.

“Concentrate,” Aidan’s deep voice practically growls.

“I’m trying,” I whisper. Tears are slipping out of my eyes. My face is so cold that the liquid freezes before it hits my chin.

Please,
the spirits plead. I can’t tell whether I’m speaking out loud or just in my head when I tell them I’m sorry.

I would if I could.

I’m supposed to be stronger.

But maybe I just made them stronger.

Strong enough to escape Aidan’s lab and turn dark.

Strong enough to blanket the entire world in darkness.

I was supposed to be a super-luiseach who could help spirit after spirit move on all at once, like some kind of mystical assembly line. Instead, I’m an experiment gone awry, just like the other luiseach thought.

“You’ll never succeed if you can’t tune them out,” Aidan commands. It sounds like his teeth are clenched. Maybe he’s also fighting the urge to help these spirits move on. “Listen to only one of them at a time.”

“I can’t,” I cry, gasping for breath.

“Your ability to feel all of them at once weakens you. You can’t focus,” Aidan says firmly. “You must learn to control it. Everything but the task at hand should fade into the background.”

I try to shout back at him, but I can’t. Because I can’t speak. I think my mouth has frozen shut. My heart is beating so fast that if it were hooked up to one of the machines in Mom’s hospital, instead of one beep after another, it would emit one long, endless wail. I close my eyes and imagine I hear it keening.

No. Not imagine. I
can
hear it. A high-pitched wail that nearly drowns out every other sound.

I don’t figure out what the sound is until Lucio drags me from the lab, slamming the door shut behind him. Aidan is shouting in protest, and even in my weakened state, I can tell that this is probably the first time Lucio has ever knowingly disobeyed him.

“They were killing her!” Lucio shouts.

My eyes are still closed. But now all I see is darkness.

Aidan’s voice: “Don’t be absurd. You know as well as I know that they
can’t
kill her.”

“Her body was going into shock,” Lucio counters. “She’s ice cold. We’re miles from the nearest hospital.”

“And what would you have told the doctors? That despite the tropical climate, this girl managed to develop hypothermia?”

It’s the kind of thing I would say, the kind of thing I have thought more than once:
human doctors are useless for paranormal problems
.

“I would’ve come up with something before I let her freeze to death!”

It’s so hard to hear them that it sounds like this argument is happening miles away from me. Lucio folds me into his warm arms. I know he’s not taller than I am, but right now he feels like a giant. A strong, friendly giant. Like Fezzik in one of Mom’s favorite movies,
The Princess Bride.
When I get home, we’ll have a movie night. She’ll make popcorn, and we’ll watch that movie together, arguing over which of us is hogging the blanket just like we used to.

The last time Mom made popcorn was on New Year’s Eve. When it wasn’t Mom making the popcorn at all but rather the water demon that had taken over her body.

Maybe normal things like movie nights aren’t part of my life anymore.

I’m aware of Lucio’s hands rubbing my arms, up and down, up and down, trying to heat up my icy skin. Eventually Aidan’s arms wrap around me alongside Lucio’s, and I feel my body begin to thaw.

I open my eyes. That’s when I discover what that wailing sound was. My mouth wasn’t frozen shut after all. When I finally understand why Aidan and Lucio sounded like they were arguing from miles away: I was straining to hear them over the sound of my own voice.

This whole time I’ve been screaming.