Supervision by Alison Stine

Author:Alison Stine [Stine, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780008113599
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-03-04T11:34:41.292000+00:00

CHAPTER 12:

Door to Nowhere

The books on ghosts and hauntings were hard to find. They were all hidden: squashed in the corners, shelved behind other books, slipped behind the bookcases, and sheeted in dust. It was as if my grandmother didn’t want anyone to know she had those books, that she read those kinds of things, even though she had lived alone for over a decade.

She was still keeping who she was a secret.

I fished a book out from behind the piano, a heavy one. I was brushing the dust off, and noticing the cobweb shawl dangling from my arm when Tom appeared.

“Ez, you’re wasting your time,” he said. “Mr. Black told me your idea, and it doesn’t make any sense. A ghost killing the living? Luring them to their deaths?”

I looked at him. “I’m standing in my grandmother’s sitting room, my grandmother who’s a medium; I’m invisible—and I’m talking to a ghost. What about that doesn’t make sense?” I shook off the cobweb. “Have you seen the redheaded ghost since that night?”

“No. But he could be anywhere, at the high school, at his home. Ghosts don’t have to hang around this house, you know.”

“They sure seem to like to. Maybe it’s my grandma. Maybe she’s a ghost magnet.”

Tom was silent.

“All those kids,” I said. “All those kids in this town that go missing, all the time. I think the Stationmaster killed some of them. I think he made them die.”

“They’re runaways, Ez. They left town, that’s all. If what you say is true, there would be dozens and dozens of ghosts.”

I set the book on the piano bench. “Not everyone is a ghost, Tom. Even I know that. Some of the dead want other things, easier things, and get them, and go.”

His face creased. “What does that mean?”

I flipped through the heavy book, even though the dust flying up made me gag, even though I knew already there was nothing worthwhile in its pages; I had to keep my hands busy. “Clara told me the reason you kissed me.”

“Which is why?”

“She said you’re just using me to get what you want.”

There was a pause. I stopped flipping pages to listen. I could hear the cats mewing somewhere, Martha humming as she scrubbed the stairs.

“What do I want?” Tom asked.

I couldn’t answer.

“Clara doesn’t know me. Clara’s been my sister for a century, and she still doesn’t understand anything about me. And she’s jealous of you.”

I brought my head up. “Why?”

“Because I like you.”

He said what I believed, what I thought I knew.

But I had stopped trusting what I knew, years ago, after my parents had died and we were sent to a grandmother we didn’t know. We went away from her—and then my sister sent me back; I was always being passed along. Nothing was solid; nothing would stay. How could I trust anything? How could I believe Tom?

“Do you want to know what I want?” Tom said. “Esmé Wong, you know so much about ghosts. Do you know what I want? I want revenge.

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