The Summoning (Darkest Powers 1)

“Anyone versed in psychiatry will tell you it's the same for dreams. ” Dr. Gill's voice was level, but her look said she was sick of parents and guardians questioning her diagnoses and defending their children. “Even if Chloe is only dreaming she sees ghosts, it suggests that, subconsciously, she hasn't accepted her condition. We need to monitor her with urine tests. ”

“I—I don't understand,” I said. “Why do I need urine tests?”

“To ensure you're receiving the proper dosage for your size, activity level, food intake, and other factors. It's a delicate balance. ”

“You don't believe—” Aunt Lauren began.

Dr. Davidoff cleared his throat. Aunt Lauren pressed her lips into a thin line and started picking lint from her wool skirt. She rarely backed down from an argument, but these doctors held the key to my future.

I already knew what she'd been going to say. The urine tests weren't to check my dosage. They were to make sure I was taking my pills.

* * *

Since I'd missed morning classes, I was assigned lunch duty. I was setting the table, lost in my thoughts, when a voice said, “I'm behind you. ”

I spun to see Derek.

“I can't win,” he said. “You're as skittish as a kitten. ”

“So if you sneak up and announce yourself, that's going to startle me less than if you tap me on the shoulder?”

“I didn't sneak—”

He shook his head, grabbed two rolls from the bread basket, then rearranged the others to hide the theft. “I just wanted to say that if you and Simon want to talk, you don't need to do it behind my back. Unless you want to. ”

“We were just—”

“I know what you were doing. Simon already told me. You want answers. I've been trying to give them to you all along. You just have to ask. ”

“But you said—”

“Tonight. Eight. Our room. Tell Mrs. Talbot you'll be with me for math tutoring. "

“Your side is off-?limits. Is she going to let me go up there, alone, with a boy?”

“Just tell her it's for math. She won't question it. ”

Because he had problems with math, I supposed.

“Will that be… okay? You and I aren't supposed to—”

“Tell her Simon will be there. And talk to Talbot, not Van Dop. "

Twenty-two

RAE AND I DIDN'T SPEAK much all day. She wasn't nasty; Rae wasn't like that. She sat beside me in class and asked questions, but there was no chatter, no giggling or goofing off. Today we were classmates, not friends.

Before dinner, when we'd normally hang out or do homework together, she took her books, retreated to the dining room, and closed the door.

After dinner, I followed her into the kitchen with my dirty plates.

“It's my turn to do laundry,” I said. “Would you have a minute to show me how to use the machine?” I lowered my voice. “And I'd like to talk to you. ”

She shrugged. “Sure. ”

* * *

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you,” I said as she demonstrated the dials on the washer. “I'm… I'm having a hard time with it. ”

“Why? You can talk to the dead. How cool is that?”

It wasn't cool at all—it was terrifying. But I didn't want to sound like I was whining. Or maybe I just didn't want to sound like a wimp.

I dumped in the first load and added soap.

“Whoa, whoa! You'll give this place a bubble carpet. ” She took the soap box from me and scooped some of the detergent back out of the machine. “If you can prove you're seeing ghosts, why not just tell them?”

A perfectly logical question, but at the thought, some deep-?rooted instinct screamed Don't tell! Never tell!

“I—I don't want to tell anyone the truth. Not yet. Not here. ”

She nodded and set the box aside. “Gill is a pencil pusher with all the imagination of a thumbtack. She'd keep you locked up in here until you stopped this 'ghost nonsense. ' Better to save the spooky stuff for when you get out. ”

We sorted a basket of laundry in silence, then I said, “The reason I asked to talk to you down here is, well, there's a ghost. ”

She took a slow look around, wrapping a T-?shirt around her hand like a boxer taping up for a fight.

“Not right now. I mean, there was a ghost in here. The same one I heard upstairs last night. ” Before Liz showed up. All day I'd been struggling not to think of Liz. If I was seeing her, didn't that mean…

Why hadn't I asked Mrs. Talbot when I could talk to Liz? Was I afraid of the answer?

“—he say?”

I shook it off and turned to Rae. “Hmm?”

“What did the ghost say?”

“It's hard to tell. He keeps cutting out. I think it's the meds. But he said he wanted me to open that door. ”

I pointed. Her head whipped around so fast she winced and rubbed her neck.

“That door?” Her eyes glittered. “The locked basement door?”

“Yes, cliché, I know. Whoooo, don't go into the locked room, little girl. ”

Rae was already striding to the door.

I said, “I thought maybe, we could, you know, check it out. Like open it. ”

“Duh, of course. I'd have done that days ago. ” She jiggled the handle. “How can you live with the suspense?”

“For starters, I'm pretty sure there's nothing in there. ”

“Then why's it locked?"

“Because it's for storing stuff they don't want us messing with. Lawn furniture. Winter bedding. Christmas decorations. ”

“The bodies of Lyle House kids who never went home . . . ”

She grinned, but I froze, thinking of Liz.

“Geez, I'm kidding. You are such a girl. ”

“No, I've just seen too many movies. ”

“That, too. ” She walked back to the laundry shelves and rooted through a box. “Another crappy lock, so easy a six-?year-?old with a credit card can pick it. ”

“Not many six-?year-?olds have credit cards. ”

“I bet Tori did. That's who this house is made for. ” She lifted a sponge, shook her head, and dropped it back into the box. “Rich kids whose only use for a credit card is buying a new pair of Timbs. They stick cheap locks on the doors, knowing you guys will turn the handle and say 'huh, locked' and walk away. ”