Authors: Bonnie Hearn Hill
Ghost Island (7 page)
CHAPTER 12
Although I thought I knew the way, we quickly got lost in the storm. The street signs b
First we drank coffee. Then, we split a veggie sandwich. All the time, we talked. About the dreams, and most of all, how much we needed to get back to the casino. The answers were there, and if Peggy couldn’t help us, we would find another way.
Finally, the sun began to set.
“The taxis aren’t running, and the golf cart rental places are probably closed,” I told her. “We’re just going to have to suck it up and climb the hill to the hotel.”
“I’d rather poke pins in my eyes.” Grace looked at the steady downpour.
“It’s only going to be scarier in the dark. This isn’t an all-night restaurant, you know.”
“How observant.”
She stood and pulled her jacket around her. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into coming out in this mess.”
We stepped outside, and the rain almost swallowed us. Grace was angry and exhausted. I was discouraged.
“I think we should stay together again tonight,” I told her.
“Are you kidding me? I already told you I’m not sharing a room with you.”
“I have an idea,” I said, “What if we could fall asleep together and have the same dream?”
“How would we do that?”
“I’m not sure. I only know we have to get into that place, and it might be a way.”
“I’ll think about it.”
She didn’t sound convinced, but I let it go. I wasn’t convinced either, but I no longer knew how to get back to the theater or back to Aaron.
Finally, we climbed the path that led to the hotel.
“It looks dark in there,” Grace said.
“I left the lights on in my room,” I told her. “Stay in my room. It’s too dark for anyone to sleep alone, and that inc
“You’re right about that,” she said, but I could not read the emotions in her face. Something was scaring the hell out of her enough to convince her to spend the night in my room.
We crawled into bed, and I tried to relax in the darkness.
“You awake?” Grace asked.
“Close your eyes,” I said, and did the same. “Let’s pretend we’re in the theater. Take my hand.”
“What the hell are you talking about? No way am I holding your hand.”
“You are if you want to see your sister,” I said. “I yanked your scarf from a dream. Now, I’m going to pull you into mine.”
“But I...”
I heard only
wispish
breathing.
“Still with me?”
I asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “Let’s go.”
***
Grace and I are holding hands, like sisters through a dark tunnel.
No, not a tunnel, the entrance to the theater.
“Do you know where we are?” she asks.
I glance up at the stage. It is almost hidden by the mass of spirits that Grace obviously isn’t able to see. “We’re in the theater,” I reply.
“It looks different.” She wraps the scarf around her face. The fringe covers her forehead like black bangs.
I reach out and lift it from her eyes. “You might not want to wear that in here.”
She lets it drop around her neck, then stops and looks at something moving in the fog. “Do you see that?”
“The shape of a woman?”
I can smell her perfume from where I stand. Lavender like the scented bed sheets back in my room, only stronger and overpowering.
“Yeah.
Wait here.”
“No,” I say. “I’m going with you.”
I try to run, but my shoes feel as if they’re g
“It’s okay,” Grace shouts over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
She’s gone. I try to lift my heavy feet. Suddenly I’m upstairs, stretched out and warm on a sofa. The room smells of burning logs and Aaron’s clean scent. I hear the snap of hissing logs, and think about the fireplace at home when I was very young.
Sitting on my mom’s lap, I imagined pictures in the flames and voices in the crackling sounds. Once I had pointed and said, “I see people,” and she had hugged me and told me what a big, smart girl I was. Later, as I grew older, she insisted those shapes were only figments of my imagination.
Later still, she didn’t reply at all. This time, the fire is small with tiny, hypnotic flickers.
“You’re here.”
I look over. It’s Aaron. He’s kneeling beside the couch.
“Yes. I wanted to find you again. I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” He strokes my hair. “I’d love to draw you like that. You are so beautiful. Will you stay?”
“I can’t for long. My friend’s with me, and I have to find her.”
“I need you more.” He leans down and kisses me, long and delicious, wiping out every memory or desire except this one.
Questions bubble into my mind. I can’t put them into words. Then I realize I am drifting off to sleep.
“I need to go.”
“No, don’t, not tonight. Stay here. I want to hold you.”
“Downstairs. I need to go downstairs.” I hear noises that I think are coming from the theater, and I try to pull away.
“You shouldn’t have gone there, not without me.”
“But you didn’t want to go.” I dig my nails into my hands and attempt to rouse myself.
Still, I drift between sleeping and waking. I realize that one blink can take me in either direction, and sleep is the one I crave.
“Wake up,
Livia
.”
“Stay,
Livia
.”
Someone shakes one shoulder. Aaron kisses the other one.
“Wake up, damn it.”
I turn toward Aaron and reach up to kiss him again. He’s gone.
Only cold, empty air fills my arms.
***
“
Oh, thank goodness you’re all right.” Grace was shaking me. “You were making terrible noises,” she said, “gasping for breath.”
“Dreaming.”
I could still taste Aaron’s lips. All I wanted was to fall back asleep, into that kiss.
I closed my eyes again and tried to glide back into the dream.
“Come on,” Grace said, and I knew I had lost him. “I saw her again,
Livia
.”
“Your sister?”
“I’m not so sure. Felicia ran away when I was still in elementary school, right? Tonight I asked her the name of the street we lived on, and she didn’t seem to understand my question. We’ve got to talk to someone about this.”
“I’ve already tried to with Ms. Gates. She doesn’t believe me.”
“Shit.” Grace climbed out of bed, flipped on the coffeepot, then got back in. “We’re talking ghosts here, aren’t we?”
“Maybe, but these aren’t like other ghosts.”
“Other ghosts?”
She laughed.
“As if you see them every day.”
I didn’t dare admit that one. “I’m just talking about the dreams. It’s like that’s the only way they can show themselves to us.”
“Why do you keep saying
they
? Have you seen more than one?”
“Yeah.”
I thought of Aaron, his eyes, his lips, and his body against mine. He felt as safe and as real as anything I’d ever known.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I told you I saw a guy in my dreams,” I told her. “I understand why you wanted to believe what we saw was really your sister, and I know why you wanted to keep going back to the dream.”
“I still do,” she said.
“Me too.
We can’t, though, because these people we’re seeing could be dangerous. Come with me. Let’s talk to Ms. Gates. Maybe the two of us can convince her.”
“She’s going to think we’re out of our minds,” Grace said.
“Maybe not.
She’s our only hope, and she’s always listened to me.”
At least until now.
CHAPTER 13
Ms. Gates did not show up for breakfast. Grace and I exchanged glances. Emily’s hair looked freshly washed. Her skin glowed as if she had been lying in the sun, although we’d had nothing close to sun since we had arrived.
“The wonders of spray-on tans,” Grace whispered to me.
Charles didn’t seem to notice her or Grace. He s
“Would you like some of my bagel?” Emily sat down on the arm of his chair and let her skirt slide up along her bare legs.
“Disgusting,” Grace whispered.
Usually, I would have laughed, but this wasn’t usually. I kept watching Charles. He seemed to be distracted by something outside.
He hadn’t bothered to gel his hair, and it fell around his face like pale feathers. Something else was different about him too. He was wearing Johnny’s navy sweatshirt. It dwarfed his small frame.
I turned around to look at Johnny, who was wearing only a b
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
I went over, poured a cup of coffee, loaded it with sugar the way I had watched Charles do,
then
settled on the other arm of his chair.
“Thanks.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Cute girls can serve me any day.”
“So did you and Johnny trade clothes?” I asked.
“I lost my jacket,” Charles said. “So Johnny let me borrow his sweatshirt.”
“You owe me, dude.” Johnny grinned. “Next time you have a nightmare, don’t come knocking on my door.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” Charles said. “I was just messed up.”
The coffee mug shook in my hand. “What were you dreaming about?” I asked.
“It was crazy. I was in the casino again.”
“Again?”
I kept my voice calm.
“Yeah.
Every night now, I’ve had this same dream. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was high or something.”
“Sounds like my line.” Johnny smirked.
“Charles, you aren’t the only who’s having dreams,” I said. “We all need to share information.”
“Information, is it?” Emily smeared a packet of cream cheese on her bagel, and then patted the chair beside her. “Come sit by me, Charles. This should be amusing.”
“To you, maybe.”
He ignored her invitation, got up from the recliner, and pulled up a chair beside Grace. “Are you dreaming about the casino too,
Liv
?” he asked.
“The casino and especially the theater on the first floor,” I replied. “So is Grace.”
“Can you figure it out?” he asked. “All those
people,
and all that money.”
“What do you mean?”
“The casino.
It’s like a real one in my dreams, with gambling and people dressed up like in an old movie.”
His dream was worlds apart from mine and Grace’s, but I could tell that it was every bit as irresistible.
“What is drawing you to it?” I asked him.
“The money, I guess.” He leaned over and pushed my bangs out of my eyes as if trying to see me better. “There’s so much money. Benjamin and I broke the bank last night.”
“Who’s Benjamin?”
“The guy I’ve been gambling with. In my dream, I mean.”
“There is no Benjamin,” I told him.
“What do you mean?”
I swept my arm around the room and looked each one of them in the eye. “No Benjamin.” I turned to Grace. “No Felicia,” and because I needed to be honest about it, “probably no one we see in these dreams of ours is real.”
“That’s not true.” Charles reached into his pockets then stared into his empty hands.
“What?” I asked.
“But the money.
I swear it was here.” He looked down at his hands again, then back at me. “What the hell’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I believe that when we fall asleep, we have these dreams of things we want and people we’d like to be with. I don’t think they’re real, though.”
“They’re real, all right.” He looked around the room and ran his fingers through his pale hair, which looked even more disheveled than before. “My pockets were full of cash. Someone must have—”
“Hold on just a moment,” Emily said. “I haven’t had a dream since we arrived here.”
“I haven’t either,” Johnny said.
“Neither have I.” Ms. Gates entered the room, and I felt like an even bigger loser. I had to keep talking, though. I had to tell the truth.
“Believe me or don’t believe me,” I said. “But there are people, no, not people—spirits—in the casino.
Ghosts.
When we dream, they try to do something to us—take us over or something.”
The room went silent then sharp laughter shattered that silence.
Emily.
She rose from the table then walked to the front of the room, her straight back against the windows, her hair glistening over her shoulders.
“Why are we all listening to you,
Livia
?” Her voice was low and certain as the thunder. “Do you know who she really is, you guys?”
I shivered and wanted to run from what I knew was coming.
“Who?”
Charles asked, and everyone looked at me.
I glanced over to see Ms. Gates at the coffee pot slowly shaking her head.
“Her real name is Olivia. Olivia Hinson. She’s the daughter of that teacher, Collin Hinson, who just happens to be serving a life sentence in prison right now. Remember?
The high school coach who murdered his wife.”
“No.” Grace looked at me, shocked.
“Oh, yes,” Emily told her. “We’re trapped here with the daughter of a murderer. Are you really going to take anything she says seriously?”