Unhappy Medium (13 page)

And Loretta was a dog.

“A pug?”

“A very cute pug.”

“Loretta was a
pug
?” Orin’s laugh permeated his words. “That is a new one on me.”

I laughed too, happy and comfortable in a large Adirondack chair on the Mountain House porch. The sun was peeking through
the clouds, and the lake gleamed. I switched my cell phone to the other ear.

“I know, right? But anyway, I still can’t get my mom, and I wanted to give you the heads-up that it’s all okay now. I had
to recharge my cell phone, and now that it works she’s still not picking up. But the entity is gone, and everything is fine.”

Orin made a dismayed sound.

“What?”

“Well, I told you I was going over to your house,” Orin said. “She was there, out in the garden. She was pretty freaked out
about the entity.”

“What? But I’m okay!” I said.

“She tried to call your cell, and it was turned off,” Orin said.

“The battery,” I said glumly.

“So she tore off to help you.”

“She tore off to where?”

As soon as I said it, the very instant the words were out of my mouth, an old brown car rounded the corner of the Mountain
House drive. I’d know that 1994 Chevy with the dinged front bumper and the crooked windshield wipers anywhere.

“Never mind, I think I know the answer to that. I’ll talk to you later, Orin.”

I snapped the phone shut as he was saying good-bye.

All I could think was I had to get her attention. I didn’t want her to spend one more minute thinking something terrible had
happened to me. The Mountain House was at least fifty miles from where we lived; she must have driven like a madwoman to get
here on the back mountain roads in under two hours.

I ran down the steps, waving with one hand, and flashing a thumbs-up with the other. A group of three conservatively dressed
middle-aged women unpacking their red SUV gave me a curious, disapproving look. I blasted past them as the Chevy rounded the
corner into the circular unloading zone. She screeched to a halt behind the SUV and leapt out of the car.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I said, even as she was grabbing me and pulling me into a hug.

“Kat, Orin said …”

“I know, but it’s all over, and I’m fine,” I repeated.

I’d never seen my mother look truly frightened. Her pale blue eyes were wide, her eyebrows furrowed, and her baby-fine blond
hair was coming out of a hastily made ponytail. There was a time I thought nothing in the known world could scare my mother.
But now I knew that I could.

“What Orin said … that thing could really hurt you,” she said, holding me at arm’s length and examining me, like she was
looking for marks.

“But it didn’t,” I said. “And it’s gone now. I’ll tell you exactly what happened, Mom, but I’d love to not talk about it just
yet. It’s really gone. I just sort of need some … distance from it.”

She nodded. The fear was beginning to leave her face, but she was still frowning.

“You’re okay,” she stated.

I nodded. She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear, and sighed. She was still wearing her gardening clothes — ancient baggy
denim overalls and an orange tank top. Smudges of dirt decorated her knees and hands.

The SUV ladies were still standing there, watching us openly as if they’d bought tickets to a show. The bellboy was waiting
for them to notice him so he could take their luggage. When I noticed the ladies staring at my mother, I hugged her tight.

“I am
so
glad you’re here,” I said loudly. Then I glanced over at the audience and flashed them a ridiculous, over-the-top grin, shooting
my eyebrows up and down. They quickly pretended they hadn’t been watching us, and one of them began issuing detailed suitcase-handling
instructions to the bellboy.

“I shouldn’t be here, though,” my mom said. “This is your time with Jac and her mom. I just needed to get to you, in case
… but you’re okay.”

I grinned.

“I. Am. Okay.”

“That’s all I needed to know,” she said. “I should get back.”

“Mom, come on, you just got here!” I cried. “At least have a look around — it’s amazing! There’s a labyrinth out back that’s
haunted by a cute little girl with a kitten — and there’s a huge reading room and a trail up to the fire tower …”

She smiled at me, and looked up at the enormous front face of the Mountain House.

“I don’t really think I belong here,” she said quietly.

I grabbed her hand.

“Ridiculous,” I declared. “
I’m
here, and that means you belong here, too.”

She allowed me to lead her down to the little bench by the lake where Jac and I had first seen Colin, the Virtuoso Worm Boy.

“How
is
Jac?” my mom asked. “You haven’t mentioned her at all.”

“We’re kind of not getting along,” I said. Then I gave her a summary of what had happened. I left out the part about being
accused of kissing up to Mrs. Gray in the hopes of being included on vacations my own mother couldn’t afford.

“Oh, Kat, I’m so sorry,” my mom said. “You have to know that what’s going on with Jac is not about you, right?”

“No, I know. It just doesn’t help all that much.”

“No,” my mom agreed. “But from everything I know about Jac, I think you’re right on the mark — this is all about the cello,
and her mother. She wants to go back to the cello for real, but she doesn’t want to give her mother the satisfaction. She’s
got to let go of her anger at her mother — she has to want to stop punishing her. Because it’s preventing her from following
her heart. Nothing is going to go right for Jac until she gets that straight.”

“That’s basically just what I told her, and all it did was make her furious. She accused me of being allied with her mother!”

“Kat, you’ve done everything possible,” my mom said gently. “There’s only one thing left to do.”

“What?” I asked eagerly.

“Nothing. You have to just wait, and do nothing. Just be there. I know Jac’s making it really difficult for you, but just
try to be there as her friend. No one would blame you if you just threw in the towel, abandoned Jac, and asked me to take
you home right now. Which I will, if you want. But I truly think she’ll come around, Kat. I know she will. And if you’re there
waiting for her when she does, that makes your friendship all the stronger. Jac is worth the long haul. And in spite of all
this, she’s as good a friend to you as you are to her.”

Just to have someone, just one person, understand my position made all the difference in the world. Just hearing confirmation
that yes, you’ve been treated badly and yes, you have a right to be mad, and sure, you have every right to give up and go
— that gave me the patience I needed to stay.

“I actually feel better already,” I said. “It’s going to be fine. And seriously, Mom, isn’t this place spectacular? Even with
Jac not really speaking to me, I’m kind of having a decent time! Don’t you want to come see my room?”

“I’m going to head back, sweetie. I left all my stuff out in the garden, and Max is going to need to be walked. Now that I’ve
seen you, I’ll be fine. Save the details for when you get home.”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Kat. And listen, I’m really proud of you.”

I looked at her curiously. The ponytail had come out completely, and her hair was blowing softly around her face. Her eyes
had softened.

“For what?”

“You’re making some difficult choices, and you’re seeing them through. You helped a spirit cross over. You went head-to-head
with something … terrible. Something that most mediums wouldn’t touch for anything in the world. And in spite of the fact
that you like to do things on your own, without help, you called Orin for help when your intuition told you that you might
be in over your head. You did exactly the right thing.”

“I couldn’t have gotten through it without the information he gave me, without his advice,” I said.

“Yeah. He’s a really wise guy. We owe him one heck of a dinner.”

I smiled, and looked at my feet.

“And that’s not even all, Kat. I’m also proud because you tried to help your best friend and got blasted for it, and you’re
sticking around anyway. You’re there for her. You are an old soul, my love. I’ve always known it.”

“Takes one to know one,” I told her.

She squeezed my shoulder, then stood up.

“Walk me to my car?” she asked.

“Sure, if they haven’t towed it away,” I said.

She laughed.

“It does stand out a bit, doesn’t it?” she asked, shaking her head.

“That’s okay, Mom,” I assured her. “I stand out, too. And really, I don’t mind. I’m actually sort of starting to like it.”

The crazy thing is, it was true.

I remembered to check at the front desk on my way to dinner, and as promised, Alex had left me a book. It was the slim biography
of Maggie Fox, titled
The Unhappy Medium.
I carried it in to dinner with me. Since I’d probably be eating alone, I might as well have something to read.

I examined the cover as I walked to the dining hall. It was decorated with an oval photograph of the unhappy medium herself.
Maggie Fox was very pretty, with thick dark hair, large and expressive brown eyes, and a girlishly round face.

That could have been me,
I thought. If I had been born in another time, another place. I could have been that girl, sought out by thousands and made
famous by virtue of the dead. Thrust into the limelight as a teenager. How would I have reacted?

I chose to eat in the casual dining room where Jac and I had gone our first night at the Mountain House. Because there were
no grown-ups to admonish me, I made myself a plate consisting mostly of mashed potatoes, with a smattering of lima beans as
a token acknowledgement of the vegetable world. To me, there was nothing in the world as comforting as a large helping of
mashed potatoes dripping in butter. I rounded the meal out with a sixteen-ounce glass of root beer. No ice. It was about as
far from the nutrition pyramid as a meal was likely to get, and I was thrilled with it.

I tucked into my dinner and my book with great enthusiasm. Now that my ordeal was over, I wanted to know more about the mysterious
leader of the Spiritualists. Everything around me faded as I entered Maggie Fox’s world, from the first recorded episodes
where she and her sister Katy stunned their family with spirit rappings.

The giddy teenage girls gave way to mysterious young women, as the pair, urged on by their ambitious older sister Leah, toured
the country charging for their spirit sessions. When I began to read about Maggie’s secret love affair with a dashing Arctic
explorer who was considered a national hero, I was utterly hooked. But something made me look up.

Jac noticed me the same time I noticed her. I was all the way in the corner, with my back mostly to the door. She had come
in and taken a seat just by the door. Our eyes met at the same moment. She looked surprised and dismayed. I’m sure I did,
too.

“Colin asked me to have dinner with him,” she said after a minute. She looked at her feet as she spoke. “We arranged to meet
here, on this porch. So I …”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just about done. I’ll be out of your hair.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. It was the first time since I’d met Jac at the beginning of the school year that we had
nothing to say to each other. I picked up my book and ducked my head, relieved to have something to do. But I couldn’t read.
I just stared at the type on the page.

I should just get up and leave,
I thought.
This is ridiculous.

And I was planning to do just that, when Colin walked onto the porch.

With his arm around the Barbie girl.

“Yo, wassup, Cello Genius?” he asked Jac.

God, I loathed it when boys like Colin tried to use expressions like
yo
and
wassup
. It was so … pathetic.

Jac was frozen. I could see that her fists were tightly clenched in her lap. Colin must have felt my stare, because he looked
over at me.

“Yo, honorary musician. Oh man, is that root beer? I could use one of those right about now.”

“I’ll get one for you,” said the Barbie. And she shot Jac a look that was not nice at all.

“That’s my Cleo,” Colin said.

I almost snorted with laughter. Cleo was as plastic as they came.

Jac had gone absolutely rigid. I knew her body language, and I knew all her expressions. She was trying with every ounce of
energy she had not to cry.

“So what’s goin’ on, Jac?” Colin asked.

Either this guy was a genuine bully, or he was the stupidest human ever to learn a musical instrument. Didn’t he know that
Jac was crushing on him? Didn’t he know that he’d given her the impression they were an item?

I stood up, my drink in hand, and walked over to Colin. I stood very close to him, and looked him right in the eye.

“You’re a lot shorter than I realized,” I said, in the same pleasant, conversational tone he’d used with Jac. “That must be
tough. I guess the violin thing helps compensate, right? I’m sure that helps the … you know.”