Ghost Flower by Michele Jaffe

Author:Michele Jaffe [Jaffe, Michele]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101561683
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2012-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

“Answer it,” Madam Cruz commanded.

It said, “UNKNOWN NUMBER.” My hand was shaking as I brought it to my ear. “Hello?”

I heard breathing.

“Hello?” I repeated. “Who’s there?”

A weak, raspy voice said, “Ro-ro.”

My hand began to shake. “What?”

“Ro-ro,” the voice repeated, sounding plaintive over the static.

“Who is this? Who’s there?” I repeated. “Tell me your name right now or I hang up.”

“No!” The sound was plaintive, a wail. “Please don’t… so lonely… I’ve missed you. I… I forgive you, Ro-ro.”

The words froze me. “I’m hanging up,” I said.

“Liza,” the voice said, the whisper urgent. “Who else? It’s Liza, Ro-ro.”

In my mind I saw the girl with her eyes closed, closed forever, in the photo.

In my mind I saw the girl that afternoon in the dressing room, staring at me in the mirror.

I groped behind me for my stool and sat down, hard. There are no such things as ghosts, my mind repeated. “That isn’t possible. You can’t be Liza. Liza is dead.”

“Best friend for… ever,” the voice said. “You know. You… saw me. At the mall… in the mirror.”

“No. I imagined that.”

“I was… there… with you… need you…”

The sound trailed away. “Hello?”

There was a whisper like wind brushing over the mouthpiece. I pressed the phone to my ear to hear better. The voice said, “They… must be stopped… before…”

“Before what?”

“Help me… find… the truth. Find the… coat.”

I wasn’t sure about the last word. “Coat?”

“Be careful!” The voice became higher pitched and urgent. “I feel… they’re… there. Someone… from that night. Someone… with you… Now.”

I looked around the room. Everyone was staring at me. “I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?”

“The coat… If you—”

Bridgette’s hand wrenched the phone from mine. “This isn’t a funny joke,” she shouted. “No one is amused. Leave my family alone or you will be—”

There was a rush of cool air like something leaving the room, and all the candles went out at once, plunging us into complete darkness.

We sat in silence. I couldn’t move. I was freezing, but my heart was racing as though I’d just sprinted a mile.

Bridgette crossed the room, found a light switch, and flipped it on.

It felt like waking up in an unknown bed in bright daylight. Everyone seemed uncomfortable and shifted to avoid one another’s eyes.

Still holding my phone, Bridgette planted herself in front of the medium, who had sunk back into her chair. “Where is your assistant? Where is the person on the other end of this phone? Are they close by? Someone on the catering staff? I will find them and you will pay.”

With her words, the tension in the room dissipated. It was such an obvious, easy stunt, I felt stupid for having been taken in by it. I had the sense that everyone else did too.

Madam Cruz looked at Bridgette with an expression that could have been pity. “I have no assistant. I had nothing to do with that. That—was the spirits.”

“I have a hard time believing the spirits have a calling plan,” Bridgette said. I don’t think I’d ever liked her as much as I did then.

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