I jumped nearly a foot. I swear, I've been doing this all my life, but I just can't get used to it. I would so rather have some other secret power - like the ability to do long division in my head - than this mediator crap, I swear.
I spun around, and there she was, standing in Aunt Pru's entranceway, looking cranky in a gardening hat and gloves.
She was not the same woman who'd been waking me up at night. They were similar body types, little and slender, with the same pixyish haircut, but this woman was easily in her sixties.
"Well?" She eyed me. "I don't have all day. What did you call me for?"
I stared at the woman in wonder. The truth was, I hadn't called her. I hadn't done anything, except stand there and wonder if Tad was still going to like me when Mercury retrograded into Aquarius.
"Mrs. Fiske?" I whispered.
"Yes, that's me." The old lady looked me up and down. "You are the one who called me, aren't you?"
"Um." I glanced back toward the room where I could still hear Aunt Pru saying, apparently to herself, since neither Cee Cee nor Adam could have understood what she was talking about, "But the ninth key has no bearing …"
I turned back to Mrs. Fiske. "I guess so," I said.
Mrs. Fiske looked me up and down. It was clear she didn't much like what she was seeing. "Well?" she said. "What is it?"
Where to begin? Here was a woman who'd disappeared, and been presumed dead, for almost half as long as I'd been alive. I glanced back at Aunt Pru and the others, just to make sure they weren't looking in my direction, and then whispered, "I just need to know, Mrs. Fiske … Mr. Beaumont. He killed you, didn't he?"
Mrs. Fiske suddenly stopped looking so crabby. Her eyes, which were very blue, fixed on mine. She said, in a shocked voice, "My God. My God, finally … someone knows. Someone finally knows."
I reached out to lay a reassuring hand upon her arm. "Yes, Mrs. Fiske," I said. "I know. And I'm going to stop him from hurting anybody else."
Mrs. Fiske shrugged my hand off and blinked at me. "You?" She still looked stunned, but now in a different way.
I realized how when she burst out laughing.
"You're going to stop him?" she cackled. "You're … you're a baby!"
"I'm no baby," I assured her. "I'm a mediator."
"A mediator?" To my surprise, Mrs. Fiske threw back her head and laughed harder. "A mediator. Oh, well, that makes it all better, doesn't it?"
I wanted to tell her I didn't really care for her tone, but Mrs. Fiske didn't give me a chance.
"And you think you can stop Beaumont?" she demanded. "Honey, you've got a lot to learn."
I didn't think this was very polite. I said, "Look, lady, I may be young, but I know what I'm doing. Now, just tell me where he hid your body, and - "
"Are you insane?" Mrs. Fiske finally stopped laughing. Now she shook her head. "There's nothing left of me. Beaumont's no amateur, you know. He made sure there weren't any mistakes. And there weren't. You won't find a scrap of evidence to implicate him. Believe me. The guy's a monster. A real bloodsucker." Then her mouth hardened. "Though no worse, I suppose, than my own kids. Selling my land to that leech! Listen, you. You're a mediator. Give my kids this message for me: tell them I hope they burn in - "
"Hey, Suze." Cee Cee suddenly appeared in the hallway. "The witch has given up. She has to consult her guru, 'cause she keeps coming up bust."
I threw a frantic look at Mrs. Fiske. Wait! I still hadn't had a chance to ask her how she'd died! Was Red Beaumont really a vampire? Had he sucked all the life out of her? Did she mean he was literally a bloodsucking leech?
But it was too late. Cee Cee, still coming toward me, walked right through what looked - and felt - to me like a little old lady in a gardening hat and gloves. And the little old lady shimmered indignantly.
Don't, I wanted to scream. Don't go!
"Ew," Cee Cee said with a little shudder as she threw off the last of Mrs. Fiske's clinging aura. "Come on. Let's get out of here. This place gives me the creeps."
I never did find out what Mrs. Fiske's message to her kids was - though I had a bit of an idea. The old lady, with a last, disgusted look at me, disappeared.
Just as Aunt Pru came into the hallway, looking apologetic.
"I'm so sorry, Suzie," she said. "I really tried, but the Santa Anas have been particularly strong this year, and so there's been a lot of interference in the spiritual pathways I normally utilize."
Maybe that explained how I had managed to summon the spirit of Mrs. Fiske. Could I do it again, I wondered, and this time remember to ask exactly how Red Beaumont had killed her?
Adam, as we headed back toward his car, looked immensely pleased with himself.
"Well, Suze?" he said, as he held open the passenger side door for Cee Cee and me. "You ever in your life met anybody like that?"
I had, of course. Being a magnet for the souls of the unhappily dead, I'd met people from all walks of life, including an Incan priestess, several witch doctors, and even a Pilgrim who'd been burned at the stake as a witch.
But since it seemed so important to him, I smiled and said, "Not exactly," which was the truth, in a way.
Cee Cee didn't look too thrilled with the fact that one of her family members had managed to provide the boy she - let's face it - had a huge crush on with so much entertainment. She crawled into the backseat and glowered there. Cee Cee was a straight-A student who didn't believe in anything that couldn't be proved scientifically, especially anything to do with the hereafter . . . which made the fact that her parents had stuck her in Catholic school a bit problematic.
More problematic to me, however, than Cee Cee's lack of faith or my newfound ability to summon spirits at will was what I was going to do with this cat. While we'd been inside Aunt Pru's house, he'd managed to chew a hole through one corner of my bag, and now he kept poking one paw through it, swiping blindly with claws fully outstretched at whatever came his way - primarily me, since I was the one holding the bag. Adam, no matter how hard I wheedled, wouldn't take the cat home with him, and Cee Cee just laughed when I asked her. I knew there was no way I was going to talk Father Dominic into taking Spike to live in the rectory: Sister Ernestine would never allow it.
Which left me only one alternative. And I really, really wasn't happy about it. Besides what the cat had done to the inside of my bag - God only knew what he'd do to my room - there was the fact that I was pretty sure felines were verboten in the Ackerman household due to Dopey's delicate sensitivity to their dander.
So I still had the stupid cat, plus a Safeway bag containing a litter box, the litter itself, and about twenty cans of Fancy Feast, when Adam pulled up to my house to drop me off.
"Hey," he said, appreciatively, as I struggled to get out of the car. "Who's visiting you guys? The Pope?"
I looked where he was pointing . . . and then my jaw dropped.
Parked in our driveway was a big, black stretch limo, just like the kind I'd fantasized about going to prom with Tad in!
"Uh," I said, slamming the door to Adam's VW shut. "I'll see you guys."
I hurried up the driveway with Spike, determined not to be forgotten just because he'd been zipped into a book bag, growling and spitting the whole way. As I was coming up the front steps to the porch, I heard the rumble of voices coming from the living room.
And when I stepped through the front door, and I saw who those voices belonged to … well, Spike came pretty close to becoming a kitty pancake, I squeezed that bag so tight to my chest.
Because sitting there chatting amiably with my mother and holding a cup of tea was none other than Thaddeus "Red" Beaumont.