“Apologize? What for?” I couldn’t remember the last time Father Dominic had apologized to me. Possibly never. “About not returning my message?”
“About what happened last night.” Father Dominic lowered himself into the same mission-style chair across from my desk in which Becca had sat the day before, while I’d bandaged her arm. He had to lean at an odd tilt to see me behind the enormous bouquet. “Jesse gave me quite the earful about it, and I can’t say I blame him. Sister Ernestine gave me her version, too, earlier this morning, but as you know, Sister Ernestine doesn’t know the full story. I simply don’t know how I could have missed it. I gave a welcome speech a few months ago to the entire student population. I stood in front of each grade and addressed them personally. How I could not have seen that Becca Walters was being victimized by a—”
I interrupted before he could go on further. “She’s a lurker, Father. A real little pilot fish of a ghost. She hides until she decides Becca’s in trouble, and then she attacks. I barely noticed her at first myself, and I was in this office alone with the kid. I had no idea how powerful she was until she got me alone, at home, in my own pool.”
Father Dominic shook his head “But who is she? What could so young a child possibly have to be so angry about?”
“I don’t know, Father. Only that her name is Lucia. CeeCee Webb is working on the rest. The key to all of it, I think, is Becca. Did you know Kelly Prescott is married to Becca’s dad?”
“Of course. I was the officiant at their wedding last summer, which makes my blunder even less forgivable. Don’t you read the alumni newsletters, Susannah? Your friend CeeCee writes them, I believe.”
I picked up one of the stacks of files the student workers had left behind and, in order to avoid making eye contact with him, began to sort it. “Uh, I must have missed that one.”
I didn’t think it was worth going into the fact that I’d been invited to the wedding and bailed. That was my own business.
What was more concerning was that he’d officiated at their wedding, and still not seen the ghost kid? I wasn’t going to say so out loud, but it seemed like Jesse might be right, and Father D was slipping. I’d only been trying to make the priest feel better when I’d assured him Lucia was hard to miss. But a ghost, at a wedding?
Hard to miss. Really hard to miss.
Maybe he wasn’t the best person to consult about the Curse of the Dead after all . . .
For a man of his advancing years, Father Dominic would still physically be considered quite a catch on the senior circuit (if it wasn’t for the vow of chastity he’d taken shortly after losing the love of his life, a young woman who, like Jesse, had been dead at the time. Unlike Jesse, however, she’d remained so). His snow-white hair was neatly trimmed without a hint of a bald spot, and at six feet tall, he didn’t stoop or need a cane, thanks to good, clean living (except for his not-so-secret cigarette habit).
But he was hopeless when it came to electronics (and current Top 40 hits) and any joke remotely smacking of sexual innuendo embarrassed him.
And now it appeared that he wasn’t quite as in touch with the spirit world as he used to be.
I wasn’t sure how to handle this. They haven’t yet isolated the genetic chromosome to tell if you’re a carrier for mediatorism, though anecdotal evidence seemed to indicate it was an inherited trait. Scientists aren’t eager to admit there’s such a thing as ghosts, so it’s not like any of them are rushing to formulate a test they can administer to someone to tell if they have my “gift.” You either see dead people or you don’t, kind of like how you’re either gluten-sensitive, or you’re not.
Father Dom used to see them. Now, apparently, he doesn’t. At least, not when I need him to.
“Um, anyway,” I said, deciding it was best to drop the subject, “I think I really established a rapport with Becca yesterday, so . . .”
“Oh, that’s evident,” Father Dominic said drily. “Especially by the look of this place when I got in this morning.”
I glared at him. “What year was it you graduated from college? And how many counseling accreditations did they require for the job back then?”
He ignored this jab at his complete lack of formal counseling training. “How do you propose we handle this situation then, Susannah? I will admit that though your methodology has sometimes differed from mine, you’ve usually been on the mark. Jesse, on the other hand, seems to have what I’d call a less-than-helpful view on things—”
“Oh, I’m sure he does,” I said, remembering the look on my boyfriend’s face when he’d dragged me from the pool. “I was thinking of pulling Becca out of her fourth-period class and bringing her back here to the office for a friendly little one-on-one. Nothing threatening, though. I don’t want to alarm Lucia.”
“That would be an excellent plan if it weren’t for the fact that Becca isn’t in school today.”
“Wait . . . what?”