I push myself up to stand, using the rough stucco wall behind me to steady myself. “You’re torturing them. These spirits came to you for help, sensing the presence of the nearest luiseach. They want to move on.” Unlike Anna. In my head I recall her sweet voice, Not until the time is right.
“I can’t help them, not yet. My work—”
“I know what happens to spirits who linger on Earth too long,” I shout, the anger in my voice surprising even me. This is what Lucio meant on my first night here when he said one of our spirits had escaped. The one he’s looking for, on the verge of going dark—it came from this lab. “The spirit of even the kindest person can turn dark. Can turn into a demon, just like the one who killed Anna and her father. The one who almost killed my mother.” I look at Aidan meaningfully.
“I would never have let anything happen to Kat,” he says softly.
“It sure didn’t look that way,” I mumble. “And whatever your work is, how could it be more important than whether my mom lives or dies? Your work isn’t more important than making sure that all of those spirits in there move on before they have a chance to escape and hurt someone else.”
“Yes,” Aidan says firmly. “It is.”
Despite the fact that not a single hair on his head is out of place, Aidan looks like a mad scientist. Someone who uses innocent people and spirits as his guinea pigs. Even if my frizzball is a mess and my clothes are wrinkled from hours of restless sleep, he’s the crazy one.
I stand and cross the hall, placing my hand on the door to his lab. I plant my feet firmly on the floor, then close my eyes and concentrate, trying to reach out to just one of the spirits on the other side of the door. I stretch my arms in front of me as though I think I can grab hold of them one at a time and help.
I should be able to do this.
I should be strong enough after everything I’ve learned.
I was strong enough to bring Anna to me.
A dozen voices fill my brain at once, but this time I’m able to pick out a single voice among the others. It’s not a spirit’s voice, but Aidan’s firmly shouting No. He pulls me away from the door before I collapse all over again.
“Lucio told me your theory,” I declare, opening my eyes. “You think luiseach are going extinct!”
Aidan nods calmly. “I do.”
“So shouldn’t we help as many spirits move on as possible while we’re still here?”
He shakes his head. “Think about it, Sunshine,” he says, patient as the best teachers have to be. “How will spirits move on when we’re no longer on this planet to help them?”
A lump rises in my throat. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
“Neither do I,” Aidan admits, his voice as even as ever. “But I’m determined to find a solution.”
He opens the door to his lab then quickly closes it behind him. I stand in the darkness, shocked that he’s just left me here, but then the door opens again, bringing a beam of light along with it. Aidan holds his flashlight out in front of him.
“Take this and go back to the house,” he says.
“Are you sending me to my room?” I ask. Like he’s a strict father, punishing me for sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night. Is he going to try to ground me next?
Not that there’s anywhere to go around here.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Girl Talk
I trudge back to my room with the stuffed owl in one hand and Aidan’s flashlight in the other. No. Not that this room feels like mine, but it’s the room with the bed that I sleep fitfully in. I feel ridiculously, absurdly, enormously homesick. Homesick for Ridgemont, not Austin, something I never really thought would happen. But they say home is where the heart is, and I guess my heart is in Ridgemont now. That’s where Mom is. And Nolan. Maybe even where Anna returned to after she left me behind.
I want to try to pull her close again, but I’m not strong enough after what happened across the courtyard. I wish Nolan were here. Wish I could share all of my questions with him. If anyone can make sense of Aidan’s senseless experiments and if anyone might be able to answer his answerless question—how will spirits move on without luiseach?—it’s Nolan. Or, at least, he’d be able to do the research that will get us closer to the answer. Maybe he’ll be able to figure out what Anna’s waiting for, what the right time means. Maybe Nolan will be so intrigued by figuring all of these things out that he’ll forget he’s mad at me and that we haven’t actually spoken since I left Ridgemont.