Page 18 of Haunting the Deep

She walks straight for the living room and I follow. We sit down on one of the white fluffy couches, and she drops her bookbag on the coffee table, which is actually an old trunk.

“I found this on my nightstand this morning.” She pulls an antique key from her pocket and holds it out to me.

I examine the metal tag. Engraved on one side is1ST CL ST RM D33.Some of the detail is rubbed smooth. “What the…?”

“It was just there staring at me when I woke up,” Alice says, looking at the key like it has some nerve.

“Could it have come from someone in your house?”

Alice shakes her head.

“Are you saying you think someone snuck in and left it in your room?”

“It wasn’t there when I went to sleep. And no one got into my room overnight without me noticing. I’m a light sleeper. As in a piece of dust lands on my cheek and I bolt upright.”

“So you’re saying…” A chill runs down my back.

“I don’t see another explanation.” She twists a black onyx ring on her finger. “It had to be a ghost.”

I look at the key. “Spirit,” I correct her.

“Okay, well, I want you to teach me how to see them.”

“What? No way. I just asked you to do a spell to help menotsee them anymore.”

“You can’t just stop seeing spirits, Sam. That isn’t a door you can shut. And if one was looming over me in my sleep, which is very possibly what happened last night, I wouldn’t even know it.Youcan see spirits. Maybe you’re not interested in taking it as an opportunity. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to try. Yes, I want you to join our circle, and yes, you would make us stronger. But whether you do or you don’t, you have to stop being such a baby and realize what a gift you have.”

I set my jaw. “I get that you’re freaked out. I am, too. But donotguilt-trip me after everything that happened.”

“By ‘everything that happened,’ I assume you mean your stepmother trying to kill us.”

I stare at her hard. “Don’t do this, Alice.”

“I’m gonna do this. We’ve been keeping your secret about her. You deserve that for what you did for us. It goes without saying. But we don’t deserve you shutting us out. You’re acting like you’re the only one this happened to.”

I hand the key back to her and stand up. “Ireallydon’t want to have this conversation.” Which is now the second time I’ve said this since I woke up.

She grabs my wrist. “Look at Lizzie. She couldn’t deal with what happened, and she shipped herself off to some boarding school. Hiding yourself away in a made-up normal world you think you want is just the same. You can’t make what Vivian did go away no matter how much you avoid us or how much you avoid magic. And yeah, there’s a price you pay for having power and keeping secrets. So stop being selfish! You can’t do this alone, and neither can we.”

I pull her hand off my wrist and walk away from her. Screw school. If Murphy’s Law is running the show today, I’m going back to bed.

Iexamine the glossy black-and-white-checkered floor below my feet. The fancy French-themed café is filled with white wicker furniture and women wearing delicate lace gloves. Green vines wind their way up white-latticed walls. A quartet plays classical music over the din of luncheon conversation, and the many windows stream light and fresh salty air.

Salty air. I tense. Outside the windows, the sunlight glistens off the water. What is this? Another dream? This doesn’t feel like the last one. My thoughts are clearer.

I want out. I wind through the tables of finely dressed families toward a door leading to the deck. As I pass two men at a table, I accidentally brush against one’s shoulder. I stop. He has a white beard and is wearing a bow tie.

“Sorry,” I say, but he doesn’t respond.

“I hear President Taft invited you himself, Mr. Stead,” the other man says, and stirs sugar into his tea.

“Right you are,” Mr. Stead says.

I walk right up to the table. “I said I was sorry.” But they don’t so much as glance in my direction.

I wave my hands between their faces. No reaction.

“Heeelllooo!” I don’t even get to be part of my own dream?