Haunted tm-5 Page 16

He spoke rapidly and softly. In fact, I had to lean forward, over the cannolis, to hear him. But though his voice was low, his enunciation was crystal clear.

  "You're one of them," he said. "One of those shifters. Believe me, I know. I'm one, too."

  I blinked at him. "You - you are?"

  "Yes," he said. "And the name's Slaski, not Slater. Fool son of mine changed it. Didn't want people to know he was related to an old quack who went around talking about people with the ability to walk among the dead."

  I just stared at him. I didn't know what to say. What could I say? I was more astonished by this than by what CeeCee had revealed.

  "I know what my grandson told you," Mr. Slater - Dr. Slaski - went on. "Don't listen to him. He's got it all wrong. Sure, you have the ability. But it'll kill you. Maybe not right away but eventually." He stared out at me from a gray, liver-spotted mask of wrinkles. "I know what I'm talking about. Like that fool grandson of mine, I thought I was a god. No, I thought I was God."

  I blinked at him. "But - "

  "Don't make my mistake, Susan. You stay away from it. Stay away from the shadow world."

  "But - "

  But Paul's grandfather had seen his nurse coming back, and he quickly lapsed back into his semicatatonic state, and would say no more.

  "Here you go, Mr. Slater," the nurse said, carefully holding the plastic cup to the old man's lips. "Nice and cold."

  Dr. Slaski, to my complete disbelief, let the beer dribble down his chin and all over his shirt.

  "Oops," the attendant said. "Sorry about that. Well, we'd better go get cleaned up." He winked at me. "Nice seeing you again, Susan. See you later."

  Then he wheeled Dr. Slaski away, toward the duck-shooting booth.

  And that, as far as I was concerned, was it. I had to get out. I could not take it a minute longer in the cannoli booth. I had no idea where CeeCee had disappeared to, but she was just going to have to deal with the pastry sales on her own for a while. I needed some quiet.

  I slipped out from behind the booth and strode blindly through the crowds packing the courtyard, darting through the first open door I came across.

  I found myself in the mission's cemetery. I didn't turn back. Cemeteries don't creep me out that much. I mean, though it might come as a surprise to learn, ghosts hardly ever hang out there. Near their graves, I mean. They tend to concentrate much more on the places they hung out while they were living. Cemeteries can actually be very restful, to a mediator.

  Or a shifter. Or whatever it is that Paul Slater is convinced I am.

  Paul Slater who, I was beginning to realize, wasn't just a manipulative eleventh grader who happened to be warm for my form. No, according to his own grandfather, Paul Slater was . . . well, the devil.

  And I had just sold my soul to him.

  This was not information I could process lightly. I needed time to think, time to figure out what I was going to do next.

  I stepped into the cool, shady graveyard, and turned down a narrow pathway that, by this point, had actually become sort of familiar to me. I went down it a lot. In fact sometimes, when I borrowed the hall pass, pretending I needed to visit the ladies' room during class, this was where I went instead, to the mission cemetery and down this very path. Because at the end of it lay something very important to me. Something I cared about.

  But this time, when I got to the end of the little stone path, I found that I was not alone. Jesse stood there, looking down at his own headstone.

  I knew the words he was reading by heart, because I was the one who, with Father Dom, had supervised their carving.

  Here lies Hector "Jesse" De Silva, 1830-1850, Beloved Brother, Son, and Friend.

  Jesse looked up as I came to stand beside him. Wordlessly, he held his hand out over the top of the headstone. I slipped my ringers into his.

  "I'm sorry," he said, his gaze darkly opaque as ever, "about everything."

  I shrugged, keeping my gaze on the earth surrounding his headstone - dark as his eyes. "I understand, I guess." Even though I didn't. "I mean, you can't help it if you . . . well, don't feel the same way about me as I do about you."

  I don't know what made me say it. The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wished the grave beneath us would open up and swallow me, too.

  So you can imagine my surprise when Jesse demanded, in a voice I barely recognized as his, it was so filled with pent-up emotion, "Is that what you think? That I wanted to leave?"

  "Didn't you?" I stared at him, completely dumbstruck. I was trying very hard to remain coolly detached from the whole thing, on account of having had my pride stomped on. Still, my heart, which I could have sworn had shriveled up and blown away a day or two ago, suddenly came shuddering back to life, even though I warned it firmly not to.

  "How could I stay?" Jesse wanted to know. "After what happened between us, Susannah, how could I stay?"

  I genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. "What happened between us? What do you mean?"

  "That kiss." He let go of my hand, so suddenly that I stumbled.

  But I didn't care. I didn't care because I was beginning to think something wonderful was happening. Something glorious. I thought it all the more when I saw Jesse lift a hand to run his fingers through his hair, and I saw that they were shaking. His fingers, I mean. Why would his fingers be shaking like that?

  "How could I stay?" Jesse wanted to know. "Father Dominic was right. You need to be with someone your family and your friends can actually see. You need to be with someone who can grow old with you. You need to be with someone alive."

  Suddenly, it was all beginning to make sense. Those weeks of awkward silences between us. Jesse's standoffishness. It wasn't because he didn't love me. It wasn't because he didn't love me, at all.

  I shook my head. My blood, which I'd begun to suspect had somehow frozen in my veins these past few days, seemed suddenly to begin flowing again. I hoped that I was not making another mistake. I hoped this was not a dream I was going to wake up from anytime soon.

  "Jesse," I said, feeling drunk with happiness, "I don't care about any of that. That kiss ... that kiss was the best thing that ever happened to me."

  I was simply stating a fact. That's all. A fact that I'd been sure he'd already known.

  But I guess it came as a surprise to him, since the next thing I knew, he'd pulled me into his arms, and was kissing me all over again.

  And it was like the world, which had, for the past few weeks, been off its axis, suddenly righted itself. I was in Jesses arms, and he was kissing me, and everything was fine. More than fine. Everything was perfect. Because he loved me.

  And yeah, okay, maybe that meant he had to move out . . . and yeah, there was the whole Paul thing. I still wasn't too sure what I was going to do about that.

  But what did any of that matter? He loved me!

  And this time when he kissed me, no one interrupted.

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