“Now,” he continued. “If everyone will please rise.”
Those who had been sitting stood, and the fireworks began. I watched Laura, alone in a crowd of people, looking at the sky as if the fireworks were magic. I was jealous of her, actually. I barely remembered the time when the sound of the gunpowder exploding made me think of color and light and not regret and loss.
Rice’s words echoed off the sides of my brain. There was something twisted in them and not quite right. However much I hated St. Hilaire, however much I wanted nothing more than to leave, Laura was going to be here. Russ was going to be here. I didn’t want my hometown to turn into some sort of creepy dystopian town. Even Harriet didn’t deserve that.
When the fireworks stopped, the entire town turned in unison to watch the ceremony of the locking of the gates. I couldn’t take it anymore; the pressure was too much.
“I’m out,” I said to Russ. “Catch you at the game.”
I dug out my ID card as I walked to the gate and waved it at the security guard, who mumbled something under his breath at me for making him open the gate he’d just locked.
Then I stepped out into Buchanan.
Given that the towns butted up against each other and that Buchanan’s commercial district was as close as St. Hilaire came to having a real one of its own—if you were looking for useful things like pens and craft supplies and dog food, and not ridiculous things like crystal balls or cases of candles—there was a surprising amount of animosity between the two.
To the people of Buchanan, St. Hilaire residents were freaks, out of touch with the real world while they fixated on ghosts. To those in St. Hilaire, the people of Buchanan were unenlightened and only interested in the money they made off St. Hilaire’s tourists. Neither one was entirely wrong.
But I found Buchanan useful because it had a library, and I had a standing reservation for one of their computers. At home, Laura and I shared a computer, which was fine for school and checking email and all of that. Not so good for what I was about to do. There were things that I didn’t even share with her.
I mentally added buy a laptop to my leaving to-do list, but since it followed things like clear out bank account, buy train ticket to the city, and get a job, it was probably going to be a while before I had one. If I was going to be indulgent, now was the time.
The library smelled like old books and escape; I felt the tension in my shoulders ease.
St. Hilaire had restrictions against electronic communications during the summer (to stifle those who accused the mediums of using cell phones and computers instead of actually talking to ghosts), but the library—firmly tethered outside the town gates—stayed wired. Along with the train station, it formed our town’s only constant connection to the outside world, which might have been why it was my sanctuary, the place I always went when I needed to calm down. And after all of Rice’s talk about bloodlines and mutual callings, I needed it more than ever.
I ducked into the cubicle, slipped on the worn headphones, and typed in the same URL as always.
It didn’t matter how many times I watched Anastasia’s performance at Carnegie Hall—and I’d guess that I’d watched it thousands of times—I never stopped being fascinated with the furrow in her brow when she was playing the Unfinished Prelude, her fingers moving lightning-fast over the polished keys.
And it didn’t matter how many times I watched it, my memory could never quite pin down her smile. It was the smile she gave as she finished the glissando with a sense of accomplishment and relief. It was a secretive smile, one too small and too subtle, I guessed, to be seen by the audience. One I liked to imagine she meant for me, though we’d never met and probably never would.
The music drew me in, and the hour always passed too quickly. When the librarian knocked on the door to tell me they were closing for the night, I erased my history and logged off.
A train whistle blew as I stepped outside, and I felt a strange kind of pull to walk the mile to the station and buy a ticket to somewhere I’d never heard of and leave St. Hilaire behind.
I couldn’t do that today. Not to Laura. Or to Russ. And even if I wanted to, Russ’s father was the stationmaster and as much as Donald Griffin might like me, he’d never sell me a ticket without checking with Harriet first. Also, trains rarely stopped in St. Hilaire after summer season. There was nothing here for outsiders once the weather changed and the gates closed. I had to stick to my plan.
My chest squeezed as I flashed my ID at the gate.
“Back so soon?” the guard on duty said.
I poked my head into the guard station to see Colin, the middle of the Mackenzie brothers, sitting next to creepy Willow Rogers, a medium a few years older than me who had basically been raised by the Guild. They were an unlikely pair.
“Well, you know what they say. Home is wherever you are,” I quipped.
“Dick,” Colin said, but laughed. Next to him Willow glared at me. She wasn’t known for having a sense of humor.
Colin pressed the button to unlock the gate, and I passed back through into St. Hilaire. The lawn signs advertising READINGS: TWO FOR ONE AND BEST PSYCHIC IN TOWN were still up in front of most houses, but, thankfully, that wouldn’t last long. I passed them, and instead of going home, I went straight through the town square to the back door of what passed for St. Hilaire’s community center, Eaton Hall. A cracked plaque with the town rules was pinned on the door, and underneath the official rules, multiple people had written in a bunch of their own:
• Don’t admit to making things up (better to go down in flames swearing you are the real thing than to call everyone else in town into question.)
• Don’t use your powers to seduce those who are in a vulnerable state because morality and state law still applies here, and Buchanan’s police force is always looking for an excuse to come charging into St. Hilaire.
• Learn to keep a straight face, because, while some of your customers might be whack jobs, their money is still legal tender.
I let myself in. The old door creaked, the plaque slapping against the wood, as it swung closed.
Thirty or forty teens sat at round tables scattered around the basement. The floor was sticky and the room smelled like what it was, a bunch of kids on their way to being drunk and stupid. Music blared; someone had cranked the bass up to eleven. Louder were the hundred or so conversations taking place at once, everyone trying to shout over the thumping.
“Dec.” Russ stood and waved from the far corner.
I pushed my way through the crowd, ducking out of the way of a beer bottle tossed from one laughing girl to another. Eaton Hall’s party room was supposed to be alcohol-free, but no one really cared on the last night of season.
The dim light shone off a mountain of blue chips in front of Russ.
“You sure you really need my help?” I yelled over the music.