Twilight (9 page)

“Good heavens,” Father Dominic said. “Do you know what this means, Susannah?”

“Yes,” I said miserably. “It means that I’m going to move to Carmel, and there isn’t going to be anybody haunting my bedroom because Jesse will never have been killed there.”

“No,” Father Dominic said. “Well, I mean, yes, I suppose it does mean that. But more important, it means we could prevent the deaths of all of the ghosts we encounter, just by popping back through time and—”

“We can’t,” I interrupted flatly. “Unless we want to end up with six months left to live, like Paul’s grandfather. It isn’t like shifting to the spirit plane. Your whole body goes…and, I guess, suffers the consequences. But Paul’s just planning the one trip.”

“Yes,” Father Dominic said, sounding distant—more distant than San Francisco, anyway. “Yes, I see.”

“Father Dominic!” I cried. I was losing him… and not just because our phone connection wasn’t the best. “You’ve got to stop him!”

“But why should I, Susannah?” Father Dominic asked. “What Paul plans on doing is quite generous, actually.”

“
Generous
?” I cried. “What’s so
generous
about it?”

“He’s giving Jesse another chance at life,” Father Dominic said. “And, from what you say, risking his own life in the process. I’d say it’s quite noble of him, actually.”

“Noble!” I couldn’t believe my ears. “Father Dom, I can assure you, Paul’s motives are far from noble. He’s only doing it…”

“Yes?” Father Dominic was suddenly all ears.

But how can you explain to a priest that a guy is trying to off your boyfriend so he can get into your pants?

Especially when Paul wasn’t trying to off Jesse at all, but to save his life, actually? “It’s just…” I wasn’t making any sense, but I didn’t care. “Can’t you expel him or something?”

“No, Susannah,” Father Dominic said. Was it my imagination or was there a slight chuckle in his voice? “I can’t expel him. Not for that, anyway.”

“But we have to stop him,” I said. My protests, even to my own ears, were starting to grow faint. “It’s… it’s
unnatural
, what he’s planning on doing.”

“That may very well be,” Father Dominic said, “but it isn’t immoral. It isn’t even illegal, as far as I can tell.”

This had to be a first. Paul doing something that could actually be construed as moral, I mean.

“—But I do wonder,” Father Dominic went on thoughtfully, “just how he’s planning on accomplishing this little miracle.”

“I told you,” I said bitterly. “All he has to do is get something the person once owned, and then stand in a place he once stood, and—”

“Yes,” Father Dominic said. “But what belonging of Jesse’s does Paul have?”

This shut me up for a minute. Because Father Dominic was right. Paul didn’t have anything of Jesse’s. He couldn’t stop Jesse’s murder, because he didn’t own anything from Jesse’s past.

“Oh,” I said, beginning to feel a little less like I had a slowly tightening noose around my neck. “Oh. You’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Father Dominic said. Was it my imagination or did he sound distracted? “Although it’s something you might think of doing, Susannah. If he’ll teach you how, I mean.”

“What?” I twisted the phone cord around my finger. “Go back through time and save Jesse from dying?”

“Exactly,” Father Dominic said. “It might, for all you know, be the reason why he’s still here on earth. Because he was never meant to die in the first place.”

I was so appalled that for a moment, I couldn’t say anything. Unbidden, my mind flashed back to that poster my ninth grade English teacher had hung up in her classroom, of two seagulls flying over a beach…. A poster I alwaysseemed to remember at the most inconvenient moments.
IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING
,
LET IT GO
, the words beneath the seagulls read.
IF IT WAS MEANT TO BE
,
IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU
.

The imaginary noose around my neck tightened to a choking point.

“That’s bull, Father D.,” I yelled into the phone. “Do you hear me?
Bull!
”

“Susannah—” Father Dominic sounded startled.

“That is NOT why Jesse is still here,” I shouted. “It’s NOT. Jesse and I are meant to be together, and if you can’t see that, well, that’s your own damn problem!”

Now Father Dominic sounded more than startled. He sounded angry. “Susannah,” he said. “There’s no reason to use that kind of language—”

“No, there’s not,” I agreed with him. “Especially since I have nothing more to say to you.” I slammed the phone back down into its cradle. A second later, Dr. Slaski’s attendant appeared, looking worried.

“Susan?” he asked. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, horrified to find that my cheeks were damp.

Great. So, on top of everything else, I’d been crying.

“It’s just,” the attendant said, “I heard shouting….”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m leaving. Don’t worry.”

And I did, without saying good-bye to Dr. Slaski. I had no more to say to him than I did to Father Dom. There was only one person, I realized, who could stop Paul from doing what I now knew he was going to do.

And that person was me.

Of course, knowing that fact wasn’t the same as actually having a plan for how I was going to stop him. That’s what I tried to come up with as I drove back to school. A plan.

It wasn’t until I was pulling into the Mission Academy’s student parking lot that what Father Dominic had said really began to sink in. Paul didn’t have anything of Jesse’s that could bring him back to that horrible night when Jesse had died. I was almost sure of it. Jesse had been murdered and his body never found—until recently, that is. His own family had believed he’d run away to escape an unwanted marriage.

What could Paul possibly have of Jesse’s that could help him get back to the day leading up to his death? Nothing. Because the only things that still existed from that time were a miniature portrait of Jesse—which I kept safe at home—and some letters he’d written to his fiancée. But those were on display at the Carmel Historical Society museum.

There was nothing of Jesse’s that Paul could possibly have that he could use to hurt him. Or rather, to save him. Nothing. Jesse was safe.

Which meant that
I
was safe.

The relief I felt was short-lived, however. Oh, not my relief about Jesse. That remained. It was as I was attempting to sneak back into school that my newly restored equilibrium was shaken again. Only this time, it wasn’t by Paul. No, it was Sister Ernestine who shattered my hard-won sense of calm, just as I was trying to blend in with my fellow students as they made their way to their next class, pretending like I’d been there with them all along.

“Susannah Simon!” The vice principal’s shrill voice caused several doves that had been roosting in the beams overhead to take off in startled flight. “Come to my office immediately!”

My youngest stepbrother, David, happened to be nearby. When he heard the sister’s command, he visibly paled… an accomplishment for him, seeing how pale he was already, being a redhead.

“Suze,” he asked me, looking a bit freaked. And why not? Usually when I get into trouble, it isn’t for mere tardiness. No, more often, it’s along the lines of destruction of property… and someone usually ends up unconscious, if not dead. “What did you do
now
?”

“Never mind,” I said, a little chagrined that I’d been busted for so minor an offense as skipping class. I was really losing my touch.

I followed Sister Ernestine into her office, which, unlike Father Dominic’s, didn’t have any teaching awards on the shelves. No one would consider Sister Ernestine an exemplary educator. She’s a disciplinarian, plain and simple.

I got off lightly, I suppose. She’d noticed I’d been gone during religion class, which I was supposed to have right after lunch. I told her I’d had a slight medical emergency, and needed to go to the drugstore, once again invoking the ‘crimson tide’ in the hope she’d drop the subject. It didn’t have the same effect on Sister Ernestine as it had on Brad, however.

“Then you should have gone to the nurse’s office,” was Sister Ernestine’s terse response.

For my crime, I was assigned to write a thousand-word essay on the importance of honoring one’s commitments. Additionally, I was told to be at Saturday’s antique auction to help man the eighth graders’ bake sale table.

All in all, I suppose it could have been worse.

Or so I thought. Before I ran into Paul Slater.

He was lurking behind one of the stone supports that hold up the breezeway, which is why I didn’t spot him on my way from Sister Ernestine’s office to my trig class. He stepped out from the shadows just as I was hurrying by.

“The wanderer returneth,” he said.

I flattened a hand to my chest, as if doing so would cause my heart, which had practically jumped through my ribs at the sight of him, to beat normally again.

“Why do you have to do that?” I demanded testily. “You scared the pants off me.”

“I wish.” Paul’s smile was decidedly irreligious, considering the fact that we were standing only a few hundred feet away from a church. “So. Where’d you disappear to?”

I could have lied, I suppose. But what would have been the point? He’d learn the truth as soon as he got home and his grandfather’s attendant told him I’d stopped by.

So I stuck out my chin and, ignoring my stuttering pulse, plunged. “Your place,” I said.

Paul’s dark eyebrows came down in a rush as he frowned. “
My
place? What’d you go to
my
place for?”

“To have a chat,” I barreled on, “with your grandfather.”

Paul’s scowl grew even deeper. “My grandfather?” He shook his head. “What the hell would you want to go see him for? The guy’s a complete gork.”

“He’s not well,” I agreed. “But he’s still capable of carrying on a conversation.”

“Yeah,” Paul said with a sneer. “About Richard Dawson, maybe.”

“Well, that,” I said, knowing what I was about to say next would enrage him, but also knowing that really, I didn’t have any other choice, “and time travel.”

Paul’s eyes widened. As I’d expected, I’d shocked him.

“Time travel? You talked about
time travel
? With Grandpa Gork?”

“With Dr. Slaski,” I corrected him. “And yes, I did.”

The two words—doctor and Slaski—seemed to hit him like physical blows. He certainly looked as stunned as if I’d hit him.

“Are you…” He couldn’t seem to find the right words to express himself. “Are you crazy?” is what he seemed to settle for.

“No,” I said. “And neither is your grandfather. But I think
you
might be,” I went on—recklessly, I knew, but no longer caring. Not now that I knew what he was after.

“I know your grandfather is Oliver Slaski,” I stated. “He told me so himself.”

He just stared at me. It was as if, right before his eyes, I was turning into a completely different person than the Suze he’d known. And maybe I was. I was certainly angrier at him than I’d ever been before—more than the first time, even, that he’d tried to get rid of Jesse. Because he hadn’t known then what he surely knew by now…. That Paul andme?

Yeah, that was
never
going to happen.

“He didn’t talk to you,” Paul said finally, his blue eyes flat and cold as the Pacific in November. “He doesn’t talk to anybody.”

“Not to you, maybe,” I said. “Why should he, when you treat him the way you do… like he’s a big inconvenience, a—what do you call him?—Oh, yeah. A gork. I mean, your own father changed his name, he was so ashamed of him. But if you’d ever taken the time to find out, you’d know Dr. Slaski isn’t as far gone as you think… and he has some pretty interesting things to say about you.”

“I’m sure,” Paul said with a smirk. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I can guess. I’m the spawn of Satan. I’m up to no good. And you should stay away from me. That about sum it up?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “And considering that you plan on traveling back through time and keeping Jesse from dying? I’d say he’s one hundred percent right.”

At that, the flatness left his eyes—but not the coldness. He even smiled a little, though it was with just half his mouth. “So you finally figured it out, huh? Took you long enough—”

But I didn’t let him finish. I took a step forward until my face was just inches below his, and said as fiercely as I could, “Well, I’ve figured it out now. And all I can say is that if you think making it so Jesse and I never met will change my feelings about you, you’re dreaming.”

Paul looked hurt. But I knew it was all just a put-on. Because Paul doesn’t have feelings. Not if he really intends to do what I suspect.

But he was doing his best to prove me wrong.

“But, Suze,” he said, his blue eyes wide and innocent. “I’m just doing what you want. After that whole thing with Mrs. Gutierrez, you got me thinking…. I’m really trying totread the path of righteousness. And isn’t saving Jesse’s life the right thing to do? I mean, if you really love him, you must want what’s best for him, don’t you? And wouldn’t his living a long and happy life be what’s best for him?”

I blinked at him, completely thrown by the way he’d twisted everything around.

“That isn’t—I—” I couldn’t seem to get the words out. All I could do was stand there and stammer.

“That’s okay, Suze,” Paul said, reaching up and laying a hand on my arm—to comfort me, I suppose, in my hour of need. “You don’t have to thank me. Now, don’t you think we’d better get back? You don’t want Sister Ernestine to find you skipping class again, now, do you?”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. I had never in my life met anyone as manipulative as he was… with the exception, maybe, of my stepbrother Brad. Only Brad didn’t have Paul’s smarts and was rarely able to pull off anything more twisted than a house party… and even that had gotten busted by the cops.

“You’re—you’re high,” I finally managed to stammer, “if you think saving Jesse that night—the night he died—will guarantee him a long life. Who’s to say Diego won’t try again the next night? Or the next? What are you going to do, stay in 1850 and become Jesse’s personal bodyguard?”