“You know the stories about Mom talking to ghosts?”
She nodded.
“They’re true.”
Sadie stared at me, black eyes swallowing the light.
“Mom could see them. So can I. Artemis and Aunt Greta can feel them.” I told her about the firestarters and the corrupted ghosts, about Forester and Bach, and what itmeant that we’d found Mom’s notes in Grimshaw House. “She disappeared while hunting. So now it’s just me, and I’m not very good at it, and I was hoping she’d left something for me with all her stuff, but there’s nothing. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I wasn’t supposed to.”
Sadie said nothing for a long, breathless minute. Her lips turned white. The tears spilled over onto her cheeks.
Then her lips curled back from her teeth.
“Asshole,” she spat. “If you’re going to lie to me, at least come up with a better story.”
She turned and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind her.
18
Not only did Sadie always have to take Dad’s side, but when I let her in onmyside, she didn’t even believe me.
Rain beat down hard. Hal’s dad called to let me know the shop would be closed. He was brief and to the point. He didn’t give me time to ask how Hal was doing. I texted Mads to ask, and after an hour-long silence, she sent a short text back to say Hal was drugged up, but okay.
I didn’t bother asking Lorelei for details. She’d probably be too scared to answer.
I ventured out of my room around eleven to find Sadie watchingCheersand knitting while Grim read a fantasy book with a spine as wide as his forearm. Sadie still awake at this time of night meant nothing good, and we didn’t look ateach other as I passed. I had expected all my life that if I told Sadie about Mom’s ghosts, she wouldn’t believe me, but after this—after today and this afternoon and what we’d found at Grimshaw House—the reality of it felt like being kneed in the gut. I made myself a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and stood by the TV, and neither of them said anything.
Finally I asked, “Where’s Dad?”
“In town,” Grim replied after several seconds of silence from Sadie. “He said he was going to talk to Chief Rivera again.”
He arrived home an hour later. The Chevelle’s engine growled louder than the storm, and he came in soaking wet. I’d peeked back out of the bedroom in time to see him hold his hands out, as if to show they were empty.
“I scoped out the Fool and town center,” he said. “Then I went to talk to your Aunt Greta. That’s all, I promise.”
“Why’d you talk to Aunt Greta?” I said.
“To make sure she doesn’t believe you did it.” He took off his coat and hung it by the door, where it dripped on the linoleum. “Which she doesn’t, by the way. Count yourself lucky.”
Of course she didn’t believe I’d done it, because she knew the truth. But that wasn’t what he’d gone out to find. He was surveying the damage, and from the slump of his shoulders and the way he nearly pulled his hair out by the roots, the damage was bad.
Aunt Greta didn’t believe I’d done it, but the rest of Addamsville did.
The next day, Sunday, I went to the hospital to see Hal. I knew what happened to him wasn’t my fault, but it felt like it. I had known about Ludwig. I’d wasted a whole night I could have used hunting to go look through Grimshaw House for hints about Mom. I should have acted sooner when I saw Bach at the parade, when I knew something bad was going to happen. I should have donesomething. Jumped in front of a parade float. Screamed my head off. Anything.
I knew something bad was going to happen and I could have stopped it. It was my responsibility to stop it, no matter what the consequences to myself.
The hospital was in Harrisburg, and had probably more ghosts than all the rest of the city combined. They loitered in hallways and doorways, stood at front desks waiting to check out, hovered around the emergency room doors. Ghosts were about the same everywhere, but ghosts in hospitals were especially chatty, and I’d always wondered if it wasn’t because they didn’t know they were dead. When I passed them, some tried to speak to me. There was no sound, just like always.
Visiting hours were short on Sundays, and when I arrived, Mads and Lorelei were there. They swung around when I stepped through the door, tipped off by the change in Hal’s expression.
Bandages wrapped Hal’s left arm and leg, both raised off the bed, and a smaller bandage covered the left side of hisjaw. A bit of his hair had been singed, too, and he was bruised and cut up. He was awake, though, and nursing a little cup of orange juice.
“Hey guys,” I said stupidly. I fiddled with the small Tupperware bowl I’d brought. “Hey, Hal. I made you some soup. It’s probably terrible, but my mom used to make it for me when I was sick, and I thought you might—I know you’re not sick. Sorry. I wanted to check and see how you were doing.”
“Hey, Zora.” Hal’s eyes followed me as I sidled past Lorelei to put the Tupperware on the bedside table. Lorelei huddled her shoulders up around her ears. “I feel a little crispy, but otherwise fine.”
I rubbed my knuckles on my right hand. “They don’t know who did it yet,” I said.
