School Spirits

chapter 33

“So, you were…dead.”

“Romy,” I warned, but she just shrugged and pulled the blanket tighter around her.

“Look, I get that he’s traumatized, but hey, I am, too.”

“We all are,” Anderson muttered.

The four of us were sitting in my living room, Romy and Anderson huddled on the couch, me in the one recliner we had, and Dex at my feet, his arms wrapped around his knees, a blanket over his shoulders. He hadn’t said anything since we’d left the cave.

But now he looked at Romy, and a ghost of his old grin crossed his face. “Yeah, I was. And still better looking than any of the other guys at Mary Evans High.” His voice wavered a little on the end, and he went back to chewing his thumbnail. I wanted to lay my hand on top of his head or pat his back. Something. Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest.

“So he was dead,” Romy reiterated, nodding at Dex. “And you”—she looked at me—“you’re some kind of awesome monster slayer.”

“I don’t feel so awesome right now,” I muttered. Maybe because no monsters had been slain. Sure, we’d stopped the hedge witch and brought an end to the hauntings, but this didn’t feel even a little bit like winning. Not when I looked at Dex’s shattered expression. His Nana hadn’t been evil. Just wrong. And to be honest, I wondered if she’d even been that. What would I have done to bring Finley back if I could’ve? Or my mom if something happened to her? When you don’t have much family left, you’ll do anything to protect what you have.

The front door opened and we all jumped, but it was just Maya.

Dex stood up as she came in. “You took care of her?” he asked. “You didn’t just…leave her there?”

Maya had stayed behind at the cave to, in her words, “put things to rights.” Now she patted Dexter’s arm, sympathy written all over her broad face. “I did. With respect. She was a sister, and we have ways of handling these things.”

Confused, Dex stared at her. “A sis—Oh, right, because you were both witches. Because that’s real. That’s a thing that really happens, and my Nana was one.”

He went back to sitting and chewing.

Letting him have a moment, I turned to Romy and Anderson. “So if it was Dex’s Nana accidentally raising ghosts, why was your charm in that cave?” I asked Romy.

Grimacing, she took another sip of the tea Maya had made. “I told you, I have no idea. I lost the stupid thing.”

From the other end of the couch, Anderson cleared his throat. “Um…I might actually know why. I took the charm.”

Romy’s blanket slipped off her shoulders as she sat up. “You what? Why?”

Anderson’s face was bright red, matching the plaid throw draped around him. “I saw this thing on the Internet about doing a…a love spell.” He mumbled the last words so much that it sounded like he said, “abubsmell.”

“You did a love spell on me?” Romy said, her “me” becoming a shriek.

“Yes!” Anderson said, tossing the blanket off and getting up to pace the living room. “And I know that’s awful, and I shouldn’t have, but…I liked you, and I thought it couldn’t hurt.” He hung his head a little. “So that’s why we kissed at the graveyard that night. I’m sorry.”

Huh. So Dex and I hadn’t been the only ones using our PMS field trip romantically.

Romy slugged Anderson on the shoulder. “You idiot,” she cried. “Did you do the love spell in eighth grade?”

“What? No. I did it, like, last month.”

“Well, eighth grade is when I started liking you,” Romy said, hitting him again. “So no, it wasn’t the love spell that made me kiss you in the graveyard. And it’s not the love spell making me kiss you now.”

With that, she grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked his mouth down to hers.

It had been an awful night. A night so full of bad, even Everton and Leslie would’ve shuddered, and they had once spent a night getting chased by a serial killer on a train. But seeing Romy and Anderson kiss, I smiled. They were safe and happy, and that had to be worth something.

Looking over at Dex, I saw that he was smiling, too. Our eyes met, and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

The four of us, plus Maya, sat there for another hour or so before Romy and Anderson decided they should head home. As they walked to the door, I stopped Romy. “Look, I’m sorry about—”

She pulled me into a hug before I had time to finish. “I’m sorry, too.”

I wrapped my arms tight around her, hugging her back, and when she pulled away, I hoped she wouldn’t see the tears in my eyes. “I’m probably going to take tomorrow off from school,” she said. “And you should, too. Maybe you could come over? See if Leslie survives that polar bear attack?”

My throat tightened, but I made myself nod. “Sure. I’d like that.”

Once they were gone, Maya went into the kitchen, ostensibly to make some more tea, but really to give me and Dex some alone time, I think.

I counted sixteen of my own heartbeats before he said, “She won’t see you tomorrow, will she?”

There was no sense in lying. “No. As soon as my mom gets back, we’ll leave.”

“And do what?” he asked, looking up at me. “Go to some other town? Fight some other evil?”

“Your Nana wasn’t evil, Dex,” I said, but he shook his head.

“You know what I mean.”

I sighed. “Yeah. We will.”

Standing up, clutching the blanket in front of him, Dex met my eyes. “Great. Because I’m coming with you.”

“Dex,” I said, but he cut me off.

“Look, I know you have to do the big hero thing of, ‘no, I must work alone, my love for you can only be a hindrance,’ but.… Izzy, what else am I supposed to do?” His voice quavered. “My parents are dead. My Nana is…is dead. And magic and monsters are apparently real. I can’t just forget that. And I get that if you more or less adopt me, that will make things weird for us, but we don’t have to be… We could just be friends.”

I looked into Dex’s blue eyes, remembering how brave he’d been. He’d been willing to die to save Romy’s life, willing to do it in an instant. He might not be able to run or fight, but Dex had the biggest heart of anyone I knew. And I needed that. I needed him.

“I think there may be a friend-shaped spot for you, yeah,” I said softly, and he smiled.

“But first—” I hesitated, chewing my lower lip. “I… I need to show you something.”

Turning, I led Dex down the hall to the guest room.

I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “What I’m about to show you, it…it’s pretty weird,” I warned him.

“Oh, right, because everything else that happened tonight was totally typical.” He was going for quippy, but there were tears streaking his cheeks and his voice sounded shaky.

Normally, I would’ve smiled at his attempt at humor, but what I was about to do was too big for smiling, and Dex must’ve sensed that. “Sorry,” he said, laying a hand on my arm. “I just mean…whatever weirdness there is, I’m prepared for it.”

I didn’t think there was any way he could be, but I nodded. “Okay, then.”

Torin’s mirror was covered up when I opened the door, but I could hear him as he said, “Ah, you’re back! All hail the conquering hero.”

Dex paused in the doorway. “Who was that?”

“You’re braced for weird, right?” I asked, moving toward the mirror.

He visibly swallowed, but after a second, Dex nodded. “Braced. Weird. Bring it.”

I pulled the canvas down from the mirror, and there stood Torin, leaning against the bed as always. Dex glanced back and forth between the bed in the mirror and the bed in the room before letting out a slow breath. “Okay. Yeah, that is…that is weird, all right.”

“Who the sodding hell is this?” Torin narrowed his eyes. “Oh, right. That boy who plays all the video games. The one Isolde fancies.”

“Torin,” I said warningly, but Dex smiled a little even as his eyes roamed over Torin’s mirror.

“Oi,” Torin snapped. “Fancy-dress boy, my eyes are up here.”

Dex met those eyes, one corner of his mouth still lifted in a half-grin. “‘Fancy-dress boy?’ This from a dude who dresses like Prince?”

I snorted with laughter and Torin scowled. “Prince who?”

Then Dex laughed, too, and after a while, the sound actually sounded normal and not choked with tears.

“I do not like him,” Torin declared, pointing at Dex. “I disapprove of your choice of paramour immensely.”

“He’s not my paramour,” I said, rolling my eyes. “He’s my friend.”

“Right,” Dex said, finally letting the blanket slip from his shoulders. Rolling them as though he were free of a great weight, Dex looked down at me and stuck his hand out. “Friends.”

We shook on it, and there was no tingle of magic this time. But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel anything. Dex’s eyes held mine and I knew I should pull my hand back, but suddenly that was the last thing I wanted to do.

“I am going to be sick,” Torin muttered, turning away. “Completely, riotously sick right here in the mirror; and let me tell you, that is quite a mess.”

“So is this.” Dex and I both turned to see Mom in the doorway, but before I could say anything, she strode in, a hammer raised high in one fist. With a shriek, we jumped apart as Mom brought the hammer down as hard as she could on Torin’s mirror.