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  Before I can force the words out, my sister jumps in.

  "She's been sleepwalking," Kaitlin pipes up through a mouthful of lime Jell-O.

  "What?"

  "Seriously," Kaitlin repeats. "I hear it all the time."

  "That's not me, dork. That's Emily."

  My sister screws up her nose. "Your imaginary friend?"

  "She's not imaginary. She's real. She talks to me all the time." At thirteen, Kaitlin doesn't buy into much that I've got going as her big sister. All she cares about is the latest show on Cartoon Network, making sure her Wii games are up to date, and hanging with her friends playing soccer. Just wait until she experiences her awakening. I mean, it's sure to happen, right? Look at me. This stuff runs in families ... or so Loreen tells me.

  Mom steps in. "Now, now, girls. Not at the dinner table."

  Kaitlin's typical brattiness aside, I need to assure my parents that I'm all right. At least until I can figure out exactly what's going on. "I'm totally not sleepwalking. I'm fine. I've just got a lot on my plate, you know? I promise, if there's anything going on that you need to know about, I'll tell you."

  Does it count as a lie if I have my fingers crossed under the table?

  Dad stands and gathers our plates to carry them to the sink. "You have a good head on your shoulders, Kendall. We trust you. And you know you can tell us anything."

  "Yes, Dad." I hang my head for a moment and stare at my crossed fingers. Maybe I should let my 'rents in on my vision.

  Emily materializes in front of me with sad eyes. I'll overlook the fact that she's chosen to appear to me in the middle of the kitchen table, since she's a ghost. Things like tables, chairs, and walls have no effect on her.

  What is it? I ask her in my head.

  "It's best to keep your visions to yourself at this point."

  Why?

  "The future is often clouded."

  But you told me the dream was real.

  "I'm doing what I can to prevent it..."

  With that, Emily reaches a translucent hand out to me. I can almost feel her fingers on my face, but I know it's not real. Then she fades away as quickly as she appeared.

  "Wait!" I shout out.

  Kaitlin jumps in her chair. "There she goes again. Talking to the air."

  "Now, Kaitlin," my dad fusses. "Kendall?"

  I swallow hard. "No prob, Dad. Emily was just, er, messing with me." When I hear our front doorbell, I push out of my chair and stand up. "That's Jason. He's coming over to study."

  "Okay, dear," Mom says and then turns to attack the stack of dishes in the sink.

  I've literally been saved by the bell. This time.

  "I was born to kiss you."

  When Jason says this I can't help pushing him away and laughing totally hard at him. "Have you been reading romance novels?" I ask cheekily.

  He rolls aside and shoves our abandoned calculus books toward the foot of my bed. We've been making out like crazy for the past ten minutes, not even thinking about vectors, antiderivatives, or quadratic approximation.

  Jason twists one of my long, loose curls around his index finger. "Don't laugh at me, Kendall. I love kissing you. You have great lips."

  I feel the blush from the roots of my hair to the tips of my socked feet. This has become our study ritual. He comes over, we pore over the textbook for about an hour, and then all thoughts of facts and figures are out the window when he starts making out with me.

  "You have awesome lips too," I say, wanting to giggle behind the words. Thing is, Jason and I are nuts, beans, and crackers about each other and I don't care how goofy anything I say sounds when we're together like this. I never thought I'd ever have a boyfriend who totally accepted me for all I am. Jason truly is too good to be true.

  "Ouch!" he squeaks out. "Why'd you pinch me?"

  I shine him a toothy grin. "To make sure you're real."

  He smiles too. "As real as you are."

  His blue eyes are dark with his desire for me. I don't need to be psychic to know that he'd like to take this relationship further. However, he's a gentleman—a Southern one, at that—and he isn't pushing me or making me feel like that is a step we have to take. For the time being, macking on each other as much as we can is pretty damn close to paradise.

  Jason pulls me to him again, bringing our chests together as our lips meet. Yeah, maybe we were born to kiss each other. The energy between us is like electricity, and I feel like Swoony McSwoonerton every time I'm in his presence.

  At least Emily's got the decency to give us space tonight. She's usually going all parental on my ass, telling me that Jason and I kiss way too much. Can one ever really kiss her boyfriend too much?

  So we roll around for the next few minutes kissing all over each other, holding hands, and embracing. I'm so into him, loving the—well, the loving. This is what being a teenager is all about, isn't it? Not thoughts of death and dying. I relax more into Jason's arms, letting my worries cascade off my shoulders like water over Niagara Falls. Deep, soft kisses soothe and heal, erasing all doubt and worry of things that might be in the future.

  I gasp into Jason's kiss when my mind's eye begins to home in on a misty vision before me. It's a guy whose face isn't quite clear. He's leaning toward me like he's going to kiss me. I can't make out the details of him, but his brown eyes shine at me. Who is this? Where did this come from? Is this some sort of premonition, like when I saw Jason before I met him?

  I jerk away and stare straight into Jason's eyes.

  "What's wrong?" he asks with concern written all over his face.

  What does this mean? Are Jason and I going to break up? Are we not going to be together forever? I mean, I know we're young and stuff, but I don't see me with anyone other than him.

  Hot tears begin to sting my eyes as I dwell on the possibility of losing Jason. Who was the guy with the brown eyes? Does he have something to do with this future where I die?

  My hands cover my mouth to contain the choked sob.

  Quickly, Jason sits up and puts his hands on my shoulders. "Kendall! Don't do this to me. What's going on? Are you okay?"

  I lean my head onto his chest and let loose the tears that have been building up from holding in this secret of seeing my own death. I can't handle this burden. I'm too young for this. Sure, I hunt ghosts and I talk to spirits like it's no big deal, but this is messing with my plans for my life. It wasn't an older version of myself I saw battered and bleeding, it was me—now.

  How do I share this news?

  Jason gently shakes me. "Kendall. Talk to me, damnit."

  He moves his thumbs under my eyes to wipe away the salty tears. There's such love and care in his face that I know I have to come clean. It's the right thing to do.

  I take a deep breath to steady my nerves. "Jason, I need to tell you something."

  His hands return to my shoulders and knead them to show me he's listening. "You know you can tell me anything."

  I smirk slightly, aware there's a part of him that's still quite skeptical about my abilities. "It's kind of ... out there."

  Leaning in, Jason kisses me quickly on the lips and grins. "I'm used to your 'out there' stories, K."

  Another cleansing breath. "I've had a really scary vision."

  "About what? Us?"

  The vision of almost kissing the brown-eyed guy is too fresh. I have to let that one soak in a little more before I try to interpret that. "No. About me."

  "What about you?"

  "Jason, I've..." Steady, girl. "I've visualized my own death."

  He sits back into the pillows and huffs out a long breath. "We're all going to die one day, Kendall. So what?"

  "No, like ... soon."

  "What do you mean?"

  I explain the vision to him in detail, just as I dreamed it two months ago. My emotions boil over as I'm finally able to share this with someone else. "And it ended with me ... dead."

  Jason's usually tan face turns white as the clichéd sheet and I can see the
alpha wolf in him begin to emerge, teeth bared and eyes determined. "I won't let it happen."

  Shaking my head, I say, "If it's my future, there's nothing you can do about it."

  "Like hell there isn't! I'll do everything in my power to protect you."

  "You can't."

  His lips flatten. "Try stopping me."

  Awww ... how sweet is he? I launch myself at him and hug tightly. "I love you so much, Jason."

  "I love you too, Kendall," he says into my hair. "I won't let that vision come true. I just won't."

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trapping the tears that so want to escape. I bask in the shelter of Jason's love and protection ... at least momentarily. The light on the nightstand flickers and I know that Emily is near. When I open my eyes, she's watching me and shaking her head.

  "You shouldn't have told him..."

  I ignore her interference and she fades away as fast as she appeared.

  Jason pushes me back slightly and cocks an eyebrow toward the light. "Your invisible friend?"

  I nod. "She didn't want me telling anyone."

  "I'm not just anyone, Kendall. And I will protect you no matter what. I don't want you going anywhere without me, or even driving over the speed limit."

  Laughing, I say, "It doesn't happen in a car."

  "You don't know that!"

  "Yeah, I do. It happens inside. In a house. Near some stairs."

  "Then I don't want you doing any investigations. I'm serious. You never know what you'll encounter that might want to make this vision a reality."

  "Oh, please. I can totally still drive. And I'm not giving up ghost hunting. It's my calling and there are too many families out there that need my help. Like Mayor Shy. Can you believe the mayor wants us to investigate her house?"

  "You're not to do it without me," he says firmly.

  "Whatever."

  "It's not whatever, K. I'm serious."

  "So am I. I'll be as careful as I always am. I just had to tell you what's been eating at me so you'll understand."

  Jason kisses my forehead and whispers his love to me. "I'll always protect you, Kendall. I'll be damned if I'll let anything hurt you."

  As we hug, I'm somewhat relieved to have shared this with someone. Saying it out loud makes it sound less possible. And as Loreen always says to me, the future truly is up to us.

  I just have to see where mine takes me.

  Chapter Three

  "CAN WE CLOSE THE SUMMERFIELD CASE?" Becca asks. She, Celia, Taylor, and I are all spread out in my room going through our case files. "Didn't we debunk everything?"

  "I don't remember that one," I say, my mind in ten thousand other locations at the moment.

  "Sure you do, Kendall," Taylor says. She reaches a perfectly manicured hand across the carpet to snag the folder from Becca. "This was the one where that nice lady named Delia said she smelled cigarette smoke all around her house and thought she recognized the brand of smokes and that it was her deceased mother trying to reach out to her."

  I nod my head. "Riiiiiight. But it was really her niece sneaking out onto the roof every night and smoking a butt."

  Celia snickers. "I love it when we solve a case like that. Everyone all of a sudden thinks a house is haunted when anything out of the ordinary happens, but sometimes it's just possessed by the living."

  Taylor scrunches up her pretty face. "I think it's sad when people call us over because they're so lonely and want someone to talk to. Très misérable."

  Becca adjusts her nose stud with her index finger. "There are a lot of lost people out there, Tay." She stares forward with a knowledge of how true that statement is. Becca used to be popular and a beauty queen until her grandmother passed away and Becca felt responsible for it. She wasn't, of course, but she's not the same person she used to be because of what she went through when she lost her grandmother. Her Goth look is testament to that. Although the only person I've loved and lost is my Grandma Ethel, I've learned through my ghost hunting that each and every person in this world deals with death differently. Becca's taken it further than most with her complete transformation. Still, she's one of my best friends and one of the nicest people I know.

  "Remember that guy who showed us his butterfly collection?" Celia remarks as she fiddles with her K-II meter. "We sat there for what seemed like hours listening to how they go from egg to larva to pupa to butterfly ... like I don't know that."

  Celia's quite the go-to gal when it comes to all things science, so I can feel her pain as she reminisces about the visit with one Mr. Norbert Bates of Cokesbury Lane in Radisson.

  "Come on, Cel," I say, empathizing with Mr. Bates. "The old guy had no one to talk to and invented the ghost in his basement so we'd come over and chat with him."

  "For an hour?" Celia responds.

  "That's what the Internet is for, dude," Becca quips, and I laugh.

  "Thank God we had Father Massimo with us," Taylor says. Then she adds, "No pun intended."

  Mentors like Loreen and Father Mass are good "bodyguards" for us as well. We try not to go into any strange person's house (too many local crackpots) without adult supervision. Not that we're irresponsible or anything like that. It just pays to have an adult with us to run interference or get us out of a weird sitch ... like the butterfly show with Mr. Bates.

  Celia pulls her laptop over between the two of us and scrolls through the requests from Ghosthuntress.com. Our website gets tons of hits from people looking for help with whatever might be haunting them. Word about our little group has certainly spread like wildfire around these parts. Lately, though, the requests seem to be getting stranger and stranger.

  Celia jabs her fingers into her thick black hair and scratches at her head. "I don't know which one we should take next. There's a case of a floating head seen by a seventy-year-old man in his barn in Triple Creek—which is like four hours south of here—and then there's the couple who claim a demon lives in the central A/C in their house."

  I hold up my hands. "No demonic cases. We're not demonologists and don't need to get caught up in that at all."

  Becca agrees. "Damn straight. I'm not messing with that shit."

  "None of us are," Celia remarks and continues to scroll through the e-mails. "God, aren't any of these requests local? I swear, we're spending too much in gas money getting to and from these investigations."

  "Not like we're getting reimbursed for our costs."

  I remind them, "No legitimate ghost-hunting group charges for their services."

  "I know," Becca says. "Sometimes I wish we could, though. This traveling around is getting tough on the old teenage budget."

  Taylor frowns again. "And I hardly get any time alone with Ryan these days. He's starting to think I like ghost hunting more than dating him."

  I sigh long and hard, moving my hair with the heated breath. "I know how that is."

  Boys. If you're not giving them one hundred percent of your attention and time, they get so needy. Not that I wouldn't like to spend more time with Jason. Since basketball season is in full swing for Radisson High School, we really need a local case to work on that will keep us from traveling and perhaps walking into a messed-up situation with someone who lives far away and that we don't know at all.

  This is a good time to tell them about my convo with Mayor Shy. "If we want a local case, I've got one for us. Just talked to the owner yesterday."

  "What is it?" Celia asks with her eyebrow raised. She's always poised to act on my ideas.

  "It's the mayor's house."

  "Awesome," Becca says.

  Celia starts scribbling in her notebook. "What is she experiencing?"

  I recount the history of my interaction with Donn Shy: "Well, I told you, Mayor Shy has been coming into Divining Woman for me to do tarot readings for her? She's been complaining to Loreen about all of these back problems—she doesn't know where they've come from."

  Celia keeps writing in her notebook. "What are the symptoms?"

  "Body ache
, headaches, severe back pain," I tell her. "Her masseuse hasn't been able to pinpoint or solve the problems. Her doctor can't find anything like a break or strain or pinched nerve on the X-rays. A chiropractor was no help, and acupuncture isn't working."

  "What can we do about someone's back problems?" Becca asks.

  "It's not so much the back pain," I explain. "She and I have been working on the pressure points with attunement-activation healing sessions."

  "That thing you've been learning to do with the pitchforks?" Becca asks.

  "Tuning forks. Not pitchforks ... geesh!" I say with a laugh. "Attunement-energy healing uses the sounds and vibrations from the tuning forks to adjust whatever maladies ail you." Damn, I'm talking like a fifty-year-old all of a sudden.

  "I'm with Becca," Taylor interjects. "What does her back problem have to do with an investigation?"

  "There's something haunting the mayor's mansion and I think it's affecting her physically," I say.

  Taylor's eyes grow wide with excitement. "Shut up!"

  I tell my friends about the woman I saw in the window and how I just feel like something is messing with Mayor Shy in a way I can't explain unless we can get into the house for a full investigation. "I think we need both Loreen and Father Mass with us because deep down, I'd say we need all the help we can get with this case. The woman in the window didn't look like she wanted to leave anytime soon."

  "We can't force a spirit out if it doesn't want to go," Celia says.

  "No, you're right. We can, however, connect with her, and I'll try to explain that she's harming the living that are still there."

  "You think Mayor Shy would be up to an investigation?" Taylor asks. "I've always wanted to see the inside of that gorgeous house. I mean, I've never been inside, but it seems très chic and I bet I could take some awesome pictures of the inside and maybe submit them to a Southern-living type magazine."

  "She's definitely on board."

  Celia wets her bottom lip and I can see she's excited by the prospect of getting to explore one of Radisson's oldest and most historic dwellings. "I'll start doing the research on it. You"—she looks directly at me—"set it up and then we'll get to work."