Page 13

T hree weeks later

A fter taking a long sip of my caramel latte, I set it down unsteadily on the edge of my notebook. When the cup wobbles in my hand, I look up from my textbook and try again, setting it on the sticky pine table .

Pulled out of Bio, I notice the boy who sits at the next table. He sprawls into the aisle of the coffee shop. His long legs, in dark jeans and black motorcycle boots, are kicked out in front of him. He could trip someone .

I can’t stand how some men take up all the space they want and forget everyone else. It seems like a waste that he’s a jerk, though. He’s gorgeous, all broad-shouldered and lean, his face rough-featured with a big jaw and lush lips .

I stare back down at the page, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s watching me. When I look back, he’s thumbing through his cell phone. Most people in the Beanery, our on-campus coffee shop, are studying away. He doesn’t have a backpack .

He looks up from his cell phone, into my eyes .

It’s startlingly direct. He doesn’t glance away again as if it were an accident, like a normal person would. Instead, he stares at me with intensely light green eyes .

Well. If he’s going to be weird, I happen to be an expert at weird. His gaze makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t look away like a normal person either. I stare right back .

His lashes are thick and black, half-lowered despite the intensity of his gaze. His eyes are light green around the iris, but they flare to a darker green at the outer circle, and they’re specked with amber and dark jade .

Suddenly the aisle between our two tables seems narrow, our seats intimately close. I should be on a date with this Random for us to be staring soulfully into each other’s eyes like this. We should be married to be this close .

I break eye contact first. Back to the book. Not that I can concentrate on it .

He doesn’t stop watching me .

“Maybe you’re not college material,” he says .

That jolts me up from my book. My heart hammers in my chest .

“Excuse me?” I ask, but it’s a rhetorical question. I don’t want to talk to the handsome creep. I grab my books under one arm, throwing my cell phone on top, and sling my backpack over my shoulder .

“Whoa,” he says. “You’re a little excitable for someone who chases ghosts down for a living, aren’t you ?”

I take a quick glance around at the other tables–fortunately everyone is still looking down at their books, hopefully too lost in their freshman year to be eavesdropping–and then back at his pretty, smirking face .

“You’re a little loud, aren’t you?” I hiss. I grab my latte cup and head for the door .

Outside, it’s a beautiful warm fall day. The weather has been turning cold lately, but for now it’s in the sixties, and the sun shines through the bare branches of the trees that line the walkways leading away from the campus center. I’m always startled by how pretty the campus is. I’m floundering in my classes, and every time I emerge into the greenery with something in the 50s or 60s on my weekly Calculus quiz, I think that maybe I should be a landscaper instead of a college student .

Despite my obvious ‘gift’, I never think that I should be a professional medium instead of a college student. I want to leave the Far behind me, for as long as any human can .

He follows me through the quad, his gait unhurried, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Hey. Sorry if I startled you .”

“You think?” I take a step back, away from him. “What do you want ?”

“You’re Ashley Landon,” he says. “Teen medium. Nora sent me to find you .”

Teen medium has a playful ring to it, like it could be the title of a humorous TV show. Pretty teen medium gets herself into madcap trouble, whether she’s talking to the dead or out on another disastrous date !

“I really doubt that, because Nora has a phone to call me instead of sending weird boys my way. Sayonara.” My instincts flare up, the ones that kept me going in the Far. Punch him in the face and run. Civility overrules, barely. I walk away .

Behind me, I hear him sigh. “Girls. So touchy .”

Yep, I should have punched him. The instincts are never wrong .

But at least he doesn’t follow me .

As soon as I’m out of his sight, I sit down on one of the park benches that line the bustling quad and pull my cell out of my purse. Nora picks up, sounding irritated, but she is pretty much always irritated . “ Yeah ?”

“Hello.” I hope if I keep modeling normal-person-speak for her, she’ll begin to pick it up. “Did you happen to send –” I still don’t know his name, and don’t much care to, “a cute but incredibly spooky guy to find me ?”

“No,” she says, and my heart drops before she goes on. “But I did tell him about you. By accident .”

“Maybe you could start at the beginning,” I say. “Given your antisocial tendencies, I’m curious how you would even have a conversation with a stranger. Let alone tell him my name, my big dark secret, and where to find me .”

“He came looking for a psychic,” she says. “Because of a geist. I’m not driving all the way to your college. There are toll roads .”

“There’s a poltergeist at my college ?”

“ Maybe .”

“At least my dorm was built three years ago. Not a lot of time for demonic possession .”

“Sure,” Nora says agreeably. “That’s a comfort .”

“Nora. Is my dorm possessed ?”

“What did he say to you, anyway ?”

She’s declining to answer whether or not my dorm is haunted. There’s a good sign. I wonder if my roommate will notice if I smudge our room .

“He was totally weird and showed up while I was doing homework .”

“Hunters are usually a bit lacking in social skills .”

“Hunters?” I certainly know Hunters. It’s hard to tell if Ellis is lucky or in trouble with those four. Maybe both .

But I already have enough Hunters in my life. This does not fit into my new plan, written in my notebook in multiple ink colors and a bubble chart. No one is going to disrupt my pink-and-green bubble chart .

“My ex-husband and his family are all hunters,” she says. “Dreadful people .”

“ Nora .”

“Would you stop saying my name like that ?”

“Am I on some kind of psychic directory? It’s bad enough the ghosts find me .”

“They’re good friends of my husband’s family. That’s all .”

“Your husband’s family that you don’t like. Should I stay away from them ?”

“Oh, yeah. If I could go back in time…” she says. “But you should help him. Being useless isn’t going to be as fun as you think .”

“I’m not going to be useless. I’m going to study accounting. The world needs accountants .”

I’m arguing with a dead line .

Just like Nora. She has a habit of delivering brutal one-liners–directed at herself or others, especially me–and then moving on before they can be explored. Her world is a dark place but then, she’s seen a lot of ghosts .

I toss my cell phone back into the front pocket of my backpack. I still don’t know much more about the mystery boy than I had before. I don’t know his name. All I know is that at least he did have a reason to come looking for me .

I am college material. I am going to become an accountant. I do not have time for mysterious boys with bad attitudes .