The Guidance Read online

  I dab my knuckle in the corner of my eye to make sure my mascara hasn't run. Phew! Good to go. "I don't want to talk about Courtney anymore."

  Celia agrees. "She's not worth your breath. Besides, I got an e-mail today from this guy in Riverdale and he wants us to do an investigation of his barn the Friday after this. Says something's spooking his cows. I was thinking we could try out the new trifield meter that I got from Ghost-Mart.com, as well as the K2 meter that's been showing promise as a divination device, using lights for yes and no answers—"

  "No way," Jason says, looking at Celia and then at me. "You promised, Kendall."

  I bite my bottom lip. "No ghost hunting that weekend, Celia. We're going to the football game that Friday night with our boyfriends, and then we're going to the bowling alley like normal high school juniors."

  Jason grunts his approval next to me.

  Celia seems disappointed. "But ... I just got this new meter and I wanted to—"

  "Nope," I interrupt. "Normal. Teen. Agers."

  Clay bumps Celia with his hip. "So, I'm really your boyfriend?"

  She rolls her eyes, first at him and then at me. "Whatever."

  Jason and I laugh while Clay wraps his arms around her tall skinny body. "You like me! You like me!"

  Celia's knocked off balance by his playfulness. "Oh my God. Grow up, Clay!"

  He smacks a big wet kiss on her neck and that settles her down. I love seeing them together, and I'm happy that Celia's got someone who understands and appreciates her just the way she is. It makes me feel less guilty for having a boyfriend of my own.

  Looking at Jason and me, Clay shakes his head. "Man, what were you thinking, dating Courtney Langdon?"

  "Yeah, seriously, Tillson," Celia chimes in.

  "Cut me some slack," he says. "She actually used to be sort of nice. She's just high maintenance, you know? Her parents both travel a lot and she doesn't have much parental guidance on matters."

  Celia flattens her lips together. "And now Kendall's getting the attention you used to give her. And a majority of the school and the town are giving our ghost-huntress group more recognition, and I bet it's eating Courtney alive."

  I snort. "If that's true, then the girl sincerely needs to get over herself."

  Jason squeezes me again. "I'll make her get over it if I have to."

  "Speak of the devil...," Celia says, looking behind me.

  My pulse begins to speed up at the idea of another melee with Courtney. I'm just not strong enough for it right now. But my intuition tells me it's not my nemesis, so I pivot to see which one of her cheerleading minions is approaching.

  Stephanie Crawford smiles shyly, shielding her eyes from the sun with her left hand. "I know we don't really know each other, but can I, like, talk to you, Kendall?"

  I turn my head in either direction at my friends. "We don't have any secrets from each other."

  "Sure, that's cool. I can respect that."

  I brace for more RHS snottiness from one of the ruling princesses, but instead, Stephanie offers an apology.

  "I'm really sorry about what Courtney did to you at lunch today. That was classless," she says.

  I reach out toward her with my feelings to make sure she's for real. Her large hazel eyes sparkle genuinely to match her smile. Her shoulder-length goldy-brown hair is pulled away from her face with a rhinestone headband, and she's nervously awaiting my response. Her spirit seems honest, true, kind, and trustworthy, and it makes me wonder why someone like Stephanie hangs out with a skank like Courtney.

  As if reading my mind, Stephanie says, "I wouldn't blame you for hating me for associating with Courtney. She and I aren't even that tight. We're just cheerleaders together. I don't follow along with everything she does like some other people do."

  I give her a smile of my own. "The applesauce incident wasn't your fault, Stephanie. You have nothing to apologize for. But in any case, it's proper of you. Thanks."

  She appears to be quite relieved when she reaches a tanned arm out to me, her hand extended. "I'd like to be friends."

  Celia shifts her eyes from Stephanie to me, and I can tell she's wondering what the catch might be. There is no catch. Stephanie truly wants to make peace. I take her hand and shake it up and down a couple of times. Very grown-up of us. Then Jason holds out his fist to her and she bumps his back.

  "Cool," she says, letting out a long breath. "I wanted to tell you that I believe in your abilities. Especially after what you did to help find my grandfather. I'd never have the guts to go on a ghost investigation or anything like that."

  I crease my eyebrows together. "Your grandfather?"

  Celia knocks me with her elbow. "Delaney Lockhart ... remember?"

  "Oh! Your grandfather! Right. That was a hard case. I'm glad we were able to help your grandmother," I say.

  Stephanie's face lights up at my recognition. "She was so appreciative," Stephanie says with her hand to her heart, and I know she means it. "Y'all'll have to come to the memorial service on Sunday at McWhorter's Funeral Home."

  "That would be nice," I say. Part of me worries about what I'll encounter at a funeral home. Will it be full of lost souls wanting my help?

  Stephanie's eyes are open wide, vivid with life all of a sudden. "Hey, I've got a great idea! Kendall, why don't you do psychic readings at my Halloween party? My mother raved about the one you did for her, and it would be awesome to have something like that."

  Quickly, I put two and two together and remember the lovely woman from Loreen's shop. "Oh, right. You're Evelyn Crawford's daughter." Man, I should have seen the resemblance.

  "That's my mom! Would you be willing to do that for me?"

  I glance at Celia and then over my shoulder at Jason, who shrugs his approval. "Why not? That'll be fun. Wicked cool, even."

  "Wicked cool it is. I like that," Stephanie says happily. She points at Celia and Clay. "Of course, y'all are invited as well. Everyone's going to be there. Jason, tell Taylor and Ryan to come too."

  "And Becca Asiaf?" I ask. We leave no ghost huntress behind.

  Stephanie hesitates for a minute and then says, "Yeah, sure."

  Right then,another one of Courtney's flock,Megan Bremer, bounces up next to Stephanie and sneers at me. "Are you coming with us, Steph? We're going to Reuben's Deli."

  "Absolutely," she says, but I can hear the hesitation in her voice. "It was great talking to you, Kendall. Don't forget the party." She heads off with Megan but then flips back around and waves.

  "Wow ... invited to Stephanie Crawford's party," Celia says with a smirk. "'Now go we in content/To liberty, and not to banishment.'"

  "Thank you, Celia," I say with a snort.

  She and I both double over laughing.

  "I don't get it," Jason says.

  "Celia ... get it? That's a quote from Celia in As You Like It. See, Celia quoting Celia—" The look on Jason's face reads blank as a fresh notebook. "Never mind."

  "It's a Shakespeare thing, Tillson," Celia says. "You wouldn't get it."

  I stand tall. "Well, I get that I'm doing readings at Stephanie's party and becoming friends with her, so maybe Courtney will finally get over her problem with me and start being nice."

  Jason pulls me back to him and kisses me on the head. "Aww, Kendall. And maybe that dead pig you're dissecting will resurrect itself and fly too."

  I quirk my mouth to the side. "Stranger things have happened."

  Celia looks at Clay and then says, "And probably will."

  Chapter Five

  "This was on my locker," I say at lunch on Friday as I slam the crinkled photocopy on the table.

  I startle Celia, who grabs the paper and smooths it out. "Ahhh, last year's Valentine's Day dance." Cuddled together in the picture is Jason, in a nice suit, and Courtney, in a blood-red formal holding a bouquet of pink roses.

  "She put that on your locker?" Taylor asks.

  I breathe out noisily. "For everyone to see. Like she's got a claim on him just because they onc
e dated. How juvenile is this? I'm tired of her shit."

  "You and me both," Celia mutters. "Someone needs to put her in her place. You're never going to get her to leave you alone. Either punch her or do something else. This has to end."

  I contemplate how it would feel to connect my knuckles with Courtney's right cheekbone, but that's so not me. The only person I've ever hit was Kaitlin, five years ago, when she pulled my Barbie's head off and split her face right in two. I hauled back and smacked her into the middle of next week. Course, when she went running to Mom, I got the worst tongue-lashing of my life, followed by a couple of wallops to my hindquarters from Dad's bedroom slipper. Something tells me if I take a swing at Courtney Langdon, I'll end up spread-eagled against the wall in Principal Trumbell's office while he has batting practice on my rear. Deservedly so.

  "What sort of revenge can I take?" I ask instead.

  "Copy a bunch of pictures of you and Jason making out and plaster them all over her car," Celia says with a smirk. "Oh, I know—speaking of her car, we could Oreo it."

  I shake my head. "Do what?"

  Celia sits up. "You get a few packs of Oreos, twist them apart, and stick the icing side to the car. It's a bitch and a half to get them off, and if you go through the car wash, it just looks like total crap. It takes three or four washings to get it clean."

  "You sound like an expert in this field," Taylor notes.

  I giggle at the thought, but it wouldn't be very Christianlike of me. "Revenge doesn't belong to us."

  "True," Celia says sadly.

  I crumple up the picture again and chuck it over toward the nearest garbage can. "Something has to break though, before I do."

  "I suggest an offre depaix with Courtney," Taylor says calmly. She's painting her nails with a frosty OPI color that makes it look like she has diamond dust on the tips of her fingers.

  "A what?" Celia asks. "I knew taking German was a mistake."

  "A peace offering," I say, even though my language curriculum of choice is Spanish. "You're saying that I need to make nice with the campus wench?"

  Taylor purses her lips and then blows on her fingernails. "It seems like you need to be the adult here and take the high road."

  Celia crams a fish stick into her mouth and mutters, "Kendall hasn't done anything. What high road does she need to take?"

  Patting my hand carefully—not wanting to mess up her fresh paint job—Taylor says, "Kendall, I just hate seeing you so upset all of the time."

  "I'm not upset all the time."

  Celia snorts.

  "What?"

  "Dear, we're so worried about you," Taylor says.

  "Don't be. Courtney will find something else to interest her soon enough," I say with confidence. Truth be told, I am in a complete and total funk, but that has nothing to do with Courtney. I have problems that don't revolve around her and her one-woman mission to ruin my junior year. The sand in my hourglass is running out. In a week and a day, I'll be lying on the shrink's couch, discussing my feelings and my childhood and my relationship with my parents and heaven knows what else in an attempt to "cure" me of my psychic abilities. Not. Looking. Forward.

  Courtney is merely the cherry on top of the nervous sundae. (God, what a horrible analogy.)

  The Oreoing of the car is starting to sound pretty good. Just kidding.

  "Look," Taylor starts. "I'm an expert at hiding my true feelings. I mean, my father left us, moved to Alaska, and is dating a flight attendant for Icelandic Air. And my mother, well ... there's a lot going on with her that I don't necessarily want to discuss or let be known to the general public. Y'all already know she's considering a boob job for this Delta pilot she's been seeing."

  "What is it with your parents and airline personnel?" Celia asks, trying to lighten the conversation. "Is it that expensive to fly?"

  Taylor flattens her lips. "It's not my business. I have to go on with my life. The parents have become the children, and the children have taken the high road. See, Kendall. The high road."

  I put the spoon to my chocolate pudding down on the tray. "And just what is this alleged high road?"

  Eyes lighting up, Taylor says, "I was thinking if you show Courtney what you can do, you know, not read her mind or anything, but really try to show where you're coming from, she might understand you more."

  "Yeah, tell her to check out the pictures and sound files on our website," Celia says.

  Your friend has a good idea ..., Emily says to me.

  "I suppose I could do that."

  Not suppose ... it's a good point, Kendall. ...

  "Let her know how many case requests we have in our system. Cases from people in other towns who really trust us to come help out." Taylor sports a satisfied grin, like she knows that my spirit guide has just validated her suggestion.

  I hold my hands up. "All right. I'll do it. Anything to bury the hatchet once and for all with this chick."

  Celia wipes her hands on the paper napkin. "If that doesn't work, we can always have Becca's boyfriend, Dragon, beat the shit out of her."

  I nearly snort Diet Coke out of my nose, and Taylor almost ruins her self-manicure.

  "No need to resort to that yet," I say. "I'll see what I can do."

  That's my girl ...

  I've only been to one funeral: Grandma Ethel's. It was the saddest day of my life, looking at my formerly vibrant grandmother lying supine in a gold fiberglass box with satin sheets and pillows around her. She was so ... still ... and my heart was broken. Even then, I think I felt the presence of spirits, although I was unable to acknowledge it. I remember hearing whispers all around me but chalked them up to other funeral guests.

  I hear these same whispers now as I stand in line with Celia, Taylor, and Becca to pay our respects to Delaney Lockhart, who has been delivered home safe after his whirlwind tour of America.

  The funeral home is dimly lit and smells of mums, carnations, and roses. It's packed with Radissonians who've come to see Mrs. Lockhart and her daughters, Evelyn and Veronica. They're standing at the front of the room, next to the open casket draped with a blanket of dark red roses. I gasp when I realize I can see Mr. Lockhart's forehead peeking out of the coffin. I talk to the dead all the time, yet somehow seeing his body like that skeeves me out.

  "You okay?" Celia asks.

  I swallow hard and shrug. "It's just that the dead are usually more animated for me."

  She smiles. "Well, this is how the rest of us see them."

  We move forward and I can see Becca's almost as uneasy as I am. Her eyes dart about the room, never stopping too long on any one object. She won't look at Mr. Lockhart or the casket. Everything about her screams that she's just waiting for the right moment to bolt out the door, hop on her motorcycle, and blow town.

  "Oh, look, it's the ghost hunters who helped us," Mrs. Lockhart sings out.

  "Huntresses," Celia corrects.

  Mrs. Lockhart waves her lace handkerchief at us and draws each of us into her bosom for a smothering hug. "If it weren't for y'all, my Delaney would have been lost forever."

  Miss Evelyn hugs us all as well. "So nice of you girls to come."

  Stephanie finishes speaking to the older woman ahead of us and turns to me. She's not a Courtney clone; rather, she's a supernice girl who's lost a very important person in her life. I sense she's lost more than merely her grandfather. Her father left her recently as well. Not passed, but her parents had divorced. Mr. Lockhart was the only male figure in her life and Stephanie misses him desperately.

  Wanting to help, I stretch my arms out and hug her to me. It's a friendly exchange, and I feel her slump a little as she whimpers. "I'm so sorry about your grandfather," I say.

  "Thanks," she says as she pulls back. "I'm gonna miss him tons. We used to go fishing together." She turns and motions toward him. "I put his lucky lure in the pocket of his suit. Something to remember me by."

  "That's really sweet of you, Stephanie. I know wherever he is, he appreciates it."

/>   I glance about the room, wondering exactly where Mr. Lockhart is now. Was he reconnected with his body once it arrived back in Radisson?

  Celia nudges me. "My EMF detector is going crazy."

  Horrified, I whisper loudly, "You brought an EMF meter to a funeral? Celia!"

  "What? It's a great place to do research."

  "I never."

  As Taylor and Becca pay their respects, I move aside with Celia and say a quick prayer for Mr. Lockhart.

  "I'm getting a reading in the sevens," Celia mutters.

  "Stop that!"

  "Aren't you curious as to what it is?"

  I spin to face her, but there's someone between us. He's wearing a blue suit, a white shirt, and a red-striped tie. His hair is powdery and his cheeks are sunken in and pale.

  "May I help you, sir?" I ask quietly.

  Celia freezes. "Who are you talking to?"

  The man looks at me. "Lucky bastard. He's got a full house. I'm in the other parlor in there, and it's just my two ex-wives, my two ex-mothers-in-law, and my obnoxious son, who can't wait to see how much money I left him. This man's turnout tells me he was a great guy."

  "Were you not a great guy?" I ask. Celia continues to wave her meter around, knowing that I've picked up on the spirit's energy. Thank God she's turned the meter's sound off and it's only flashing red instead of beeping for all of the Lockharts' guests to hear.

  "I reckon I wasn't so great," the man says, scratching his chin. "Had a heart attack 'cause I didn't eat right and was overweight. My doctor tried to get me to take those there Zocor pills for my cholesterol, but I never liked taking medication."

  "Why haven't you gone into the light?"

  "I ain't seen it yet."

  From behind me, I hear, "Maybe we can go together."

  It's a good thing I don't frighten easily anymore. Right next to me is Delaney Lockhart, still in the golfing attire he wore on the day he died. He smiles at me. "Hey there, girlie."

  "Hey, Mr. Lockhart."

  Miss Evelyn pushes over to me. "Kendall, did you say you see Daddy?"

  "Yes, ma'am." I hope she doesn't freak out on me.

  She lifts a hand to her lips. "He's here right now?"