“You should go back to bed. Forget this—”
“No, you're right. I owe you. What do you need?”
I wanted to argue but could tell he'd made up his mind.
“Hold on,” I said, and hurried into the hall.
He whispered an exasperated, “Chloe!” after me, followed by a halfhearted string of profanity, as if he couldn't work up the energy to even curse properly.
* * *
I returned with a glass of cold water and handed it to him, along with four Tylenol.
“Two for now, two for later, in case you—”
He tossed all four in his mouth and drained half the water.
“Or you could just take them all now. ”
“I've got a high metabolism,” he said. “Another part of my condition. ”
“I know a lot of girls who wouldn't mind that. ”
He grunted something unintelligible and drained the glass. “Thanks, but…” He met my gaze. “You don't need to be nice to me just because I'm not feeling great. You're mad. You've got a right to be. I used you and I made it worse by pretending I hadn't. If I were you, I wouldn't be bringing water unless it was to dump over my head. ”
He turned away to set the empty glass on the table, and I'm glad he did, because I was pretty sure my jaw had dropped. Either that fever had gone straight to his brain or I was still asleep, dreaming, because that had sounded suspiciously like an admission of guilt. Maybe even a roundabout apology.
He turned back. “Okay, so you need…?”
I waved him to the love seat. Annoyance flickered across his face—getting comfortable was a distraction he couldn't be bothered with—but when I sat on the opposite chair, he lumbered to the couch. If I couldn't get him to return to bed, at least he could rest while I talked.
“You know something about necromancy, right?” I began.
He shrugged. “I'm no expert. ”
“But you know more than me, Simon, or anyone else I can talk to at this moment. So how do necromancers contact the dead?”
“You mean like the guy in the basement? If he's there, you should see him. Then you'd just talk, like we are right now. ”
“I mean contacting a specific person. Can I do that? Or am I restricted to those I just stumble across?”
He went quiet. When he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically soft. “If you mean your mom, Chloe—”
“No. ” The word came sharper than I intended. “I haven't even thought—Well, yes, I've considered it, for someday maybe, of course I'd like to, love to—” I heard myself rambling and took a deep breath. “This is connected to our situation. ”
“You mean Liz?”
“No. I—I should try to contact her, I guess. J-?just to be sure. But that's not it. Forget why I want to know. ”
He leaned back into the sofa pillows. “If I knew why, I could answer a lot easier. ”
Maybe, but I wasn't telling him until I had enough facts to confidently lay out my theory.
“If I can contact a specific person, how would I do it?”
“You can, but it's not easy and it's not guaranteed at your age. Like Simon and his spells, you're at the… apprenticeship level. ”
“Where I can do things by accident, like raising the dead. ”
“Well, no. ” He absently scratched his arm, the skritch-?skritch filling the silence. “From what I heard, raising the dead is the toughest thing to do, and it needs this complicated ritual. ” He shook his head and stopped scratching. “I must have heard wrong. Like I said, I'm not an expert. ”
“Back to how, then. How do I call up a specific ghost?”
He slouched, head resting on the sofa back, staring at the ceiling before nodding, as if to himself. “If I remember right, there are two ways. You could use a personal effect. ”
“Like with a tracking dog. ”
A small noise that sounded like a laugh. “Yeah, I guess so. Or like one of those psychics you see in movies, always asking for something that belonged to the person. ”
“And the second way?” I tried not to show how much I wanted this answer, how much I hoped I'd already guessed it.
“You need to be at the grave. ”
My heart hammered, and it was a moment before I could speak. “At the grave. Presuming that's where the body is buried. It's the body that's important, not the grave site. ”
He waved off my petty distinction, the old Derek sliding back. “Yeah, the body. The ultimate personal effect. ”
“Then I think I know what that ghost in the basement wanted. ”
I explained how the ghost had urged me to “make contact” to “summon them” and “get their story. ”
“He meant the buried bodies. That's why he wanted me to go into the crawl space. So I could get close enough to the bodies to contact those ghosts. ”
Derek reached back to scratch between his shoulders. “Why?”
“From what he seemed to say, it's about Lyle House. Something they can tell me. ”
“But those bodies have been down there way longer than Lyle House has been a group home. And if this ghost knows something, why not just tell you himself?”
“I don't know. He said . . . ” I strained to remember. “He seemed to be saying he couldn't make contact with them himself. ”
“Then how would he know they had anything important to tell you?”
Good questions. This was why I'd gone to Derek. Because he'd challenge my assumptions, show me where the holes were and what I had to learn before jumping to any conclusions.
“I don't know,” I said finally. “However they got there, I'm pretty sure they didn't die of natural causes. You're probably right, and it's completely unconnected to us, and this ghost is confused, losing track of time. Or maybe he wants me to solve their murder. ” I stood. “But, whatever he wants me to hear, I'm going to listen. Or at least try. ”
“Hold up. ”
He lifted a hand, and I braced for more arguments. It was a waste of time. Dangerous, too, after we'd been caught down there earlier. And, don't forget, last time I tried to contact these ghosts, I'd returned them to their corpses. Do that again, and I'd better not call him for reburial duty.
He pushed to his feet. “We should take a flashlight. I'll grab that. You get our shoes. ”
Thirty-four