Chapter 28
twenty-eight
WILL
Zeke: Duuuuude. Benji. Where the hell are you?
Benji: Driving.
Zeke: Well, put the pedal to the metal! We’ve got to get this seance going.
Phoebe: Zeke, this is the group chat. Also, you guys are doing a seance without me?!
Will: You’re invited to the next one.
Phoebe: Wait. WILL is joining this seance?!
Will: Long story. Fill you in later.
“Did you seriously forget the matches?”
“I was in a rush, man!”
Benji glares at me in the dark, and I shrug. Just five minutes ago, he pulled up in my driveway, having sped all the way from Boston.
Now we’re at the library, trying to get this party started.
We drove here together, figuring it’d be less conspicuous if we park a couple blocks away and keep a low profile.
Something tells me it wouldn’t go over too well if the project architect was caught trespassing in the middle of the night with candles and a Ouija board.
Since Lydia’s mom appeared to me in my kitchen, Benji wondered if we could hold the seance there, but I know we can’t.
It won’t work otherwise. It has to be in the library, although I’m not sure why.
I can just feel it. I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t been so drunk, maybe Lydia’s mom would’ve been able to get her message through, and we wouldn’t even have to be doing this.
But then again, I think it was the getting drunk that allowed her to come through at all. So here we are. I never thought I’d be sitting down to intentionally summon a spirit ever again in my life, but I’ll do what I have to do. For Lydia.
“Oh, you two goody goodies,” Zeke mutters as he butts in between us. He pulls a lighter out of his pocket and lights the tall, black candles that Benji has arranged in the middle of the foyer floor. “You think I’m walking around without a light? You’re welcome.”
The whites of Benji’s eyes roll in the darkness, but he ignores Zeke. Instead, he unfolds the spirit board and places the planchette in the very center.
We’re crouched around the makeshift seance we’ve set up in the library foyer. Although we’re alone inside the building, we keep our voices low. I’m already afraid the candles are going to attract the attention of anyone driving by, but Benji insists we can’t do it without them.
“Give me your hands.” Benji sits cross-legged and reaches his hands out, palms up, for me and Zeke. “I’ll do the grounding, but we’ve got to establish a connection.”
Zeke takes Benji’s hand and grins. “You don’t even wanna know where my hand’s been.”
“Zeke,” I growl. “Focus.”
It’s been six years since I last tried to initiate contact with a spirit.
My mom. That time it was all four of us—Benji, Zeke, Phoebe, and me.
I told myself that if Mom would only show up, would let me feel her presence for just the glimmer of a moment, I’d let down my wall.
But she never showed up, never answered.
Benji said it was good she didn’t, that it meant she had no unfinished business. That she was at peace.
I close my eyes. I hope bringing Lydia and her mom some peace will bring me a little of my own.
“Okay,” Benji says, his voice cutting through the stillness. “We are reaching out to the spirit of—oh, shit. What’s her name, Will?”
“Fuck. I don’t know. Lydia’s mom.”
“We’re reaching out to the spirit of Lydia’s mom. Lydia’s mom, please join our circle when you are ready.”
We sit in silence for a moment, the only sound the flickering of the candle flames and the occasional creak of the building.
There’s still the dull hum of spirits in the back of my mind, and I’m having a hard time concentrating.
I really hope this shit gets less annoying the more used to it I get.
It must, because I never hear any of my siblings complain.
Benji tries again. “Lydia’s mom. If you’re here… if you’re here, Will needs to talk to you.”
As soon as he says my name, a freezing wind whips through the room and my eyes fly open.
It’s like the spirit was just waiting, wanting to make sure of what we were really there for.
I can’t see her yet, but I can sure as hell feel her.
And even though my body’s gone cold as ice, I can tell the spirit’s warm.
I can tell she's every bit as gentle as her daughter.
“She’s here,” Zeke says, his eyes wide. He looks a little awestruck. And no wonder—the presence in the room with us is magnificent.
But I’m not surprised. Lydia’s mom must’ve been one hell of a kick-ass woman to raise such a resilient, determined daughter.
Benji closes his eyes again. The three of us are still holding hands, the spirit board and candles in the middle of our little circle. It’s been so long since I’ve summoned a spirit, I’m completely out of my element. So I try to sit taller, emulating what Benji's doing.
“Lydia’s mom… will you tell me your name? It’s weird to keep calling you Lydia’s mom when I don’t even know Lydia.”
I’m struck by how casual Benji is. It’s not what I was expecting at all.
I don’t know if I thought some kind of Haunted Mansion head in a crystal ball was going to come floating down while speaking Latin or what, but I’m kind of relieved it’s just Benji in his flannel button down, sitting barefoot on the library floor, kicking it with Lydia’s mom.
Suddenly, the planchette in the middle of the spirit board starts whipping between letters. Zeke and I lurch forward to watch, announcing the letters aloud as the planchette moves.
“S… O…”
“Sophia.”
Zeke’s head jerks around to glare at Benji. “Show off! Why do we even bother bringing the board if you’re just gonna beat us to it?”
Benji shrugs. “Sorry. It’s so you guys can ask questions, too. You might get the yes/no answers faster than me.”
It’s kind of annoying that Benji’s the only one of us who actually got the ability to communicate with the spirits the other three of us can only see—or feel?
—but it’s why I need him here. We’ve never had a clue why it ended up that way, with Benji being the one who can talk to them, but it’s always irritated Zeke.
I guess he must not like it when he can’t hear the dirty talk from the ghost chicks he’s fucking.
“Sophia,” Benji says again. “Thanks, Sophia. You’ve been trying to get Will’s attention, right? Can you tell us why? What is it you need to say?”
“Yes or no questions, my ass,” Zeke mutters.
Benji ignores him, cocking his head to the side in concentration.
His eyes are glazed over, his gaze distant.
His posture is completely erect, and he’s sitting so still he’s like some kind of wax figure.
He’s about as perfect looking as one, too.
He and Phoebe look like Mom, all cinnamon brown eyes and thick, chestnut hair—something I have always been a little jealous of.
“She’s saying… something about paper? Maybe she wants us to get out paper so she can write something? No, that’s not it.”
Benji’s speaking aloud, passing along the information as it comes to him.
I’ve never been sure exactly how Benji communicates with spirits, whether he hears words in his head or sees visions across his mind or just has some kind of feeling.
He told me once it was like watching a montage of video footage that’s overlaid with the occasional flash of words.
I still don’t get it, but however he does it, he does it well.
“Oh, wait. She’s flipping a bunch of pages. It’s a book! It’s something about a book. Will, she’s trying to tell you something about a book that belongs to Lydia.”
I frown, but I feel the hair on my arms bristle. “A book? What, like a library book?” The planchette flies to the no space on the board. “Okay, then. Not a library book.”
“Lydia’s writing a book?” Zeke suggests.
The planchette gives a hop and thunks back down. No.
“Hang on,” Benji says. “It’s here in the library. There’s a box…”
“I saw that office,” Zeke groans. “That place is a mess of boxes. Come on. Get your shit together, Sophia. You’ve gotta give us something other than that.”
“Excuse me?” I bark. Benji hisses at me to be quiet, and I lower my voice. “That’s Lydia’s goddamn mom you’re talking to, fuckwad.”
“Yeah, and she’s gonna bitch slap both of you—or I will—if you guys don’t shut it.” Benji gives our hands a squeeze that I’m honestly surprised doesn’t break my damn bones.
But it works. We shut up.
Suddenly, the chill in the room turns to ice. A silvery mist materializes in the air, wrapping itself around me like a freezing blanket. It’s comforting in its weight, but goosebumps break out all over my skin.
The mist swirls, glistening like moonlight, as it—she—shifts fluidly, seamlessly from vapor to woman, woman to vapor, and back again. Unlike the ghosts I remember from my younger years, Sophia Chandler isn’t just a human form. She’s somehow lighter, more radiant.
“Her soul’s free,” Benji murmurs, as though reading my mind. “She’s here by choice.”
My brothers and I are silent for a moment, mesmerized by the beauty of Lydia’s mom, by the stillness that’s fallen on the room. But then—I sense a shift in energy.
An urgency.
“Get up, Will,” Benji says. He releases my hand. “She wants to show you something, not tell you. I think there’s an actual book here she wants you to find.”
“Me? Why can’t she—”
But the misty, swirling light is lifting me up, raising me to my feet. Nudging me toward the office. I can actually feel the pressure of an icy hand on my back, its dainty fingers pressing into my jacket in a way that feels completely real. Because it is real. And it blows my fucking mind.
“She’s, like… pushing me,” I call over my shoulder to Benji and Zeke as I stumble toward the office. I barely even need to walk, so determined is Sophia to get me where she wants me to go.
“Just let her,” Benji says. “I’m still on her wavelength. This is what she wants.”
The knob of the office door turns on its own—or rather, the gorgeous, shimmering mist that is Sophia Chandler turns it—and I’m shoved inside.
Not slowing down for a second, Lydia’s mom continues to push me, icy hand on my back, toward a stack of boxes in the very corner of the room, next to Nancy’s desk.
It’s dark in the office, but in the silvery half light Sophia casts around the room, I think I can make out the scrawled handwriting on the side of the box: Special editions.
Before I even know what’s happening, the box on the top of the stack topples down, spilling books all over the floor.
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath. I hope Lydia’s mom didn’t see me flinch.
Another box crashes to the floor. And another.
“What the fuck are you doing in there, Will?!”
I can tell by Zeke’s voice that the loud crashes and thuds have him worried, but he’s trying to play it off like it’s funny. I hear Benji tell him to shut up, so I don’t answer. I need to focus on what Lydia’s mom is trying to show me.
I’m standing in a sea of half open books and bent covers.
I’m pretty sure if Lydia saw this mess of books she’d have a heart attack, especially if these things are really special editions.
But I’m not about to second-guess the ghost of Sophia Chandler.
She clearly knows what she’s after, and hey—she was the librarian here.
The box opens, and books go flying. They’re hitting the walls, covers flapping, thudding to the floor. It’s a whole fucking storm of books, and I really hope I won’t have to clean all this up, but—
It stops. The crashing goes silent. Sophia urges me forward toward the box, and I lift the flaps, reaching inside it. On the bottom lies a single book. I lift it out, feeling the smoothness of the worn cover in my palms.
It’s a Nancy Drew book. The Secret in the Old Attic.
“Okay…” I say aloud. I’m not even sure Lydia’s mom can hear me, or if I’ll be able to hear her if she answers.
The book cracks open in my hand. A silvery breeze ripples through the pages as they flutter to the title page, where a small, flat envelope has been pressed between the pages.
When I turn the envelope over in my shaking hands, I can see that Lydia’s name has been written across the front in beautiful, flowing script.
“Is this… for Lydia?” I ask.
“Planchette says yes,” Zeke calls from beyond the door.
“And the book…?”
The envelope slides back into place and the book slams shut.
“The book’s for her, too?”
“That’s a yes,” comes Zeke’s voice again.
Wasting no time, the spirit of Lydia’s mom shoves me back out into the foyer and the office door clicks shut. But she doesn’t push me back into the circle with Benji and Zeke. She keeps her firm, yet still gentle hand between my shoulder blades and guides me toward the front door.
“Guys, she’s not letting up,” I hiss over my shoulder.
Benji grins at me from behind the still flickering candles. He flicks a hand at me. “Don’t worry about us. You do what you need to do.”
Sophia leads me out of the library and into the chill, night air.
As she nudges me down the sidewalk and toward my truck, the hazy glow of the full moon streams down to light our way.
Between the cold of the night and the icy mist of the spirit hovering around me, it’s absolutely freezing.
But my heart is racing, the blood is pumping through my veins, and I feel more alive than I have in a long, fucking time.
And when Lydia’s mom opens the door of my pickup and practically shoves me up into the cab, I look down at the book that I’m still holding in my hands.
This time, I don’t need Benji to tell me what I’m supposed to do. I know. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, I know exactly what Lydia Chandler needs from me.
And goddamnit, I’m going to come through.