Chapter 29 #2
The car fills with laughter.
Nadya winks at me, then leans forward so she can see my mother around the driver’s seat. “Mrs. C. Do you have nine candles?”
Apparently nine is a “buttload.”
I can see my mother’s brow furrow beneath her sunglasses. “I have a box of twenty in one of the closets. Why, honey?”
“Nani says you need to tweak the aura of the house while it is still new. That you’ll ensure a good life there that way.”
“Nani? Really?” my mother says.
Nadya’s Pakistani grandmother is the most practical, level-headed woman I have ever met in my life. She makes me seem whimsical.
I emailed Taylor and Nadya about the séance as soon as we finalized our plans last night, hoping they might see it on their flight.
My mother never says no to a houseguest. She takes being a host with the same seriousness as the ancient Greeks did, so if the two of them take responsibility for the candles and the smoke cleansing and anything else we have to do, Mom will let it go without much fuss.
Meanwhile, if I tried to do any of this, she’d be taking me to the hospital, afraid I’d had a stroke.
“My khaala followed all these instructions in her new home, and within a few weeks my khaalu had a new, better paying job, and she was pregnant. So now Nani is pretty convinced that this is the one magical thing in the world that works.”
Listening to Nadya makes me wonder how Nani would respond to my crochet dolls moving on their own. Most likely, she’d hit them with a frying pan and be done with it.
“Then we’ll dig out the candles as soon as we get home,” Mom replies.
“Just…you know…don’t get pregnant, Mom,” I quip.
The Pilot actually swerves a little. “Amity Jane Callaway, do not put that thought in the universe.” Even with her sunglasses on, I can feel her eyes on me in the mirror. “Besides, I’m not the one we need to be worried about these days.”
At that, all mayhem breaks lose. Nadya’s yelling like the kid in Home Alone. Taylor grabs my arm and shakes it. “Amity, did you do the deed with Ghost Boy?”
“I did nothing of the sort!” I gape, exasperated, at my mother’s reflection. “Apparently my mom missed sex ed and still thinks you can get pregnant from kissing.”
Taylor flops back against the seat. “Okay, thank god, because if you did the horizontal tango with that boy and didn’t call me in the middle to tell me it was happening, I’m not sure we could remain best friends.”
By the time we get back from the airport, we’ve hatched an entire plot in our new group chat that includes Taylor and Nadya.
Theo’s coming over for dinner tonight so Taylor doesn’t have to follow through on her threat to knock on every door in Harlow’s Rest to find him.
We’ll eat, watch a movie, and hang out so Mom doesn’t think anything weird is going on.
Theo will help us start the cleansing ritual at midnight, then he’ll head home while Taylor, Nadya, and I do the rest. Tomorrow, after my birthday dinner, Mom will head to Providence and everyone else will come back here for the séance.
When it’s all laid out in front of me like this, it almost feels like it might work.
A little after six, Theo arrives with food.
“I could have had this delivered,” I hear my mother greet him. “You didn’t have to stop to pick it up.”
“Mrs. Callaway, there’s like one delivery person in the whole town. We’d be eating at eleven p.m. if we waited for Chris.”
Mom tries to take the bag of food, but Theo holds it out of reach and carries it in himself.
She laughs. “At least let me grab my kung pao chicken so I can go get some work done in the den.”
Theo refuses to let her dig through the bag herself. He sets it down on the coffee table, then finds her carton of food, some plastic cutlery, and two fortune cookies and hands them to her.
Taylor presses her forehead to my face. “A gentleman,” she whispers approvingly.
I shrug, but my cheeks are flaming hot.
He flops down on the couch on my other side. “Taylor, Nadya”—I point to each of them—“this is my boyfriend, Theo.”
They nod at each other and then we’re too distracted by the smell of Chinese food to do anything but dive in.
Taylor and I have been convinced for most of our lives that the tiny Chinese restaurant near our houses back in California had the superior lo mein, but as I twirl my fork in a stack of noodles and guide them into my mouth, I can’t stop myself from groaning.
“Taylor…”
“It’s the end of an era,” she says as she takes a second bite. “We have a new lo mein champion.”
We lower our heads in a moment of silence. Secretly, though, I’m kind of thrilled that I have found something else in Harlow’s Rest to love.
Taylor grabs the remote and cues up a streaming station on the giant TV.
“In celebration of our first night in the infamous Harlow Homestead, we shall, of course, watch Casper.” When Nadya groans, Taylor gapes at her with wide eyes.
“Now that we know they’re real”—she flicks her eyes to me and flashes the world’s biggest smile—“it is more important than ever that I prepare for my future love affair with a ghost.”
“We’re pretty sure the spirit in this house is a girl,” Theo points out.
Excitement plasters Taylor’s face. “Even better. I am like ninety-eight percent lesbian.”
“The two percent is saved for Egon from Ghostbusters,” I explain.
Theo nods in approval. “Nerds are hot.” As he says it, he snakes an arm around my shoulders.
I gasp. “Are you insinuating I’m a nerd?”
“Amity, honey, you crochet dolls of women from history.” Taylor’s voice takes on a careful tone, like she’s giving me bad news.
“Not after last week, I don’t.” I’m still considering making a bonfire out of my yarn.
Taylor claps her hands. “I hope we get to see them actually walking around.”
Beside her, Nadya shakes her head and drops it in her palm.
I settle into Theo’s side as Taylor cues up the movie.
The feel of him so close, his body warm and solid, is still so new that I have to actively make myself relax.
It doesn’t help that the air is frigid, as if we’re sitting under an AC vent (which we aren’t).
I pull my color-blocked cardigan from off the back of the couch and throw it over Theo and me like a blanket.
I’ve seen this movie enough times that I could recite it by heart. But somehow, after everything that has happened, watching it feels different. Casper’s uncles come across more sinister. The few minor jump scares cause my muscles to tense up.
Finally, not even an hour in, I sit up. “Let’s fast-forward to the Halloween party,” I suggest. “You know that’s the only reason we watch it anyway.”
Taylor looks at Nadya, then Theo. “I mean, she’s not wrong.”
“After, we can try something we haven’t seen two hundred times.” I smile.
“And maybe ghost-free?” Nadya offers.
I give her a grateful nod.
Taylor jabs at the remote, and a few minutes later, we’re watching the camera zoom in on Christina Ricci sitting alone in a corner at the party.
Nadya, Taylor, and I swoon out loud when she starts dancing with Casper in his human form.
“Someone please explain to me why this is so romantic,” Theo says.
We shush him until the scene ends.
Nadya presses her hands to her tan cheeks. “That song.”
“ ‘Can I keep you?’ ” Taylor adds.
I point at the screen. “He literally swept her off her feet.”
Theo drags his hand through his floppy hair. “Noted.”
Instead of finding something new to watch, we end up streaming old episodes of The Great British Bake Off until eleven-thirty.
We’re all basically in a delicious food stupor at this point, but we haul ourselves off the couch to begin our séance prep.
Theo helps us gather everything we need on the dining room table. Bunches of rosemary and other herbs. Candles and mirrors to reflect them. Matches and matches and matches so we can keep the candles going for the next twenty-four hours.
When he’s ready to leave, he asks me to walk him out.
I take his hand and let him lead me through the front door to a symphony of catcalls from Taylor and Nadya.
“I probably should have given you a little more warning about them,” I quip.
He laughs. “They’re great.”
When we get to his truck, he walks around to the bed instead of getting in.
“Tomorrow is going to be kind of nuts, so I wanted to give this to you tonight.” Leaning in, he pulls the sheet off some sort of rectangular object in the back.
It’s hard to see with only the light from the porch, so he turns on his phone’s flashlight and aims it at the back of the truck like a spotlight.
It looks like a birdhouse. Or maybe a small doghouse? Either way, it’s a beautifully crafted miniature of the Harlow Homestead, complete with shutters, a front door, and the porch. It’s even painted to match.
Theo rubs at the back of his neck. “I thought this might help Dale stay out of the house for good?”
I stare at him. “Did you make this?”
He nods.
“When?”
“I started it a few weeks ago when you first mentioned him.”
I take a few steps toward him, so we’re almost chest-to-chest. “You didn’t even think he was real then.”
He shrugged. “You seemed to love him, so I wanted to help.”
Every part of me fills with fluttering things. Since the moment we met, this boy has been paying attention. Not to catalog the things that make me weird so he can laugh at me later, but collecting all the things he loved, and using them to show me how much he cares.
I never thought someone besides Taylor and my mom could see me that way.
Placing my hands on his chest, I clutch the soft fabric of his T-shirt in my fingers and draw him forward.
Then, for maybe the first time since Gravity Hill, I lean in without hesitation and kiss him.
When we break apart, I whisper, “Thank you,” against his lips.
“For what?” he asks.
“For everything.”