“You’re not going to learn a darn thing from her,” he informed me. Snotty much? He was much more entertaining when he stuck to dialogue that wasn’t of his own making.
I shot him an impatient glare before locking my gaze on Miss Chaisson again. Looking at people who weren’t there made the people around you uncomfortable, and it was a short jump from uncomfortable to thinking you were a nut. Been there, done that, yadda yadda.
I did have a Bell Hill T-shirt, actually. I should really throw it out.
Gray crouched beside my chair—nice of him because now I didn’t have to look up. “I’ve heard about you,” he said. “You and your sister. The dead community is very tight in this town.”
Wow. That was something I’d never, ever wondered about. Sadly, it was a good thing for me to know.
I nodded, giving him permission to continue. “There’s something going on. Something big. Something bad. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.’”
I rolled my eyes.
“Do you have something to contribute, Miss Noble?” Miss Chaisson asked.
My gaze locked with hers. How did she know my name and no one else’s? Had Principal Grant told her about me? That I was trouble?
“Do you have something to say about Mark Antony’s speech? What do you think the purpose of his repeated use of the phrase ‘Brutus is an honorable man’?”
Oh, hell. I hadn’t even heard most of it over Gray’s repetition, and I’d heard even less since he started yammering at me. And now everyone was looking at me, some smirking, most bored, waiting to see if I screwed myself.
One-Shade set his gray hand upon my shoulder. It was like a hard slap to the head—but inside my skull.
“Antony makes a mockery of Brutus’s own speech, and of Brutus himself by the repeated phrase. In his speech, Antony points out some of Caesar’s virtues while using Brutus’s own words against him to sway the crowd. In doing this, he downplays Caesar’s ambition—which was Brutus’s main argument against him—and calls attention to what could be seen as Brutus’s own ambition to get rid of Caesar to further his own political career and popularity.”
Beside me, Roxi covered her mouth to muffle her giggle. One-Shade squeezed my shoulder. “Well done,” he said.
Miss Chaisson stared at me, her round cheeks flushing a bright pink. “Er, yes. Excellent point. Very good.”
“Thank you,” I said, but I wasn’t talking to her. I shot my ghostly tutor a sideways glance. He smiled a little, but it faded quickly as Miss Chaisson went on to harass someone else.
“There’s something going on at Haven Crest,” Gray continued. “Sometime terrible—worse than Josiah Bent.”
THE CONCERT? I wrote.
“It has to do with that, yes. A gathering like that, full of young people, is bound to produce elevated levels of psychic and spectral energy. Add that it’s a tribute to a local ghost and on the grounds of the place where there has been the most death since the founding of this town, and you have the ingredients for something terrible indeed.
“The ghosts of New Devon are scared. If the evil of Haven Crest were to break through to this world, the entire town could be destroyed—not just the living, but the dead, too. We’ll become its slaves, and no one will be safe, not your friends, not even your sister.”
My head whipped around so fast, something in my neck snapped. I didn’t care if anyone noticed.
“Yes.” He answered my unspoken question. “Your sister is in danger. She’s always in danger from the darkling dead of this town. Just as you are. She may be Dead Born, but it’s you who are the shade, Lark. The Girl Who Is Her Own Shadow. The Girl Who Walks Between Life and Death. Only you can save Wren, and save the rest of us, as well.”
WHAT DO I DO? My hand shook as I wrote. And what the hell was with all the freaking titles? Who was I, Harry Potter?
“What you have to.”
DON’T GIVE ME THAT CRYPTIC CRAP NOW!
“Be prepared. Fight. And those of us who can will fight with you.”
Ghosts? On my side? Garbage. No ghost was going to help me fight other ghosts. I looked at him for proof that he was lying—having fun with me.
He looked completely earnest. Honest. At that moment, I felt like I was the closest I’d ever gotten to knowing what I was, what Wren and I were.
And I realized I didn’t want to know.
*
I found Ben, Roxi, Gage and Mace at lunch. Sarah was sitting with some of her cheerleader friends. I didn’t miss her. She’d never gone out of her way to be friends with me, and I hadn’t tried to make it easy for her. At that moment I was just relieved that she was one less person I had to worry about actual Halloween night. Not that I’d toss her in front of a ravenous spirit, but my sister and my friends took top priority.
Ben walked over to meet me before I made it to the table. He gave me a quick kiss—that sort of thing was frowned on at SC. “You okay?” he asked, dark brows coming together. “You look freaked.”