“Okay, but don’t tell him, all right?” She takes a deep breath. “I have a crush on someone, but I totally don’t know how he feels about me. I keep going over and over everything in my mind, trying to look for clues and stuff, but I think I’m misreading things. I think he’s nice to everyone, you know? I think he’s just that sort of guy, and I’m a tool for reading too much into things.”
A crush. This is standard girl stuff. After dealing with ghosts, déjà vu, and possible past-life connections, normal girl stuff is something I can definitely get behind. “So, who is the lucky guy?”
Ritzi takes another deep breath. She looks like she wants to tell me but doesn’t want to tell me at the same time. “Nathan.”
I feel like someone has punched me in the gut. All the air leaves my lungs and lights dance in front of my eyes. I’m surprised I stay on my feet. If there ever were a good time to faint, now would be it. “Nathan?” I gasp. “Nathan Vale?”
“I know, I know. I’m probably imagining the whole thing, but I thought you at least would know if he is single or not.” Ritzi puts her hands up in prayer position. “Please, please tell me anything you know.”
“Anything I know about what?”
“If he’s single or looking or, well, anything, you know?” She gives me her puppy-dog eyes next. “Please, Meredith. I’m not desperate, but I want to get to know him better. Since the first day he came, he’s been hanging with you and Jay. I thought you’d have the inside track, you know?”
“I’ll, uh, see what I can find out,” I promise, even though everything in me wants to tell her to back the heck off and find someone else. I scrape both hands down my face. Ugh. What is wrong with me? It feels like I’m on some bizarre game show. Behind door number one is your boyfriend, remember him? Behind door number two is the new kid who you shouldn’t be drawn to, but you are. All this could be ruined by your one friend on campus who asked you to help facilitate getting intel on her crush. Meredith Monroe, this is your life!
I’m ecstatic when Ritzi and I swipe our student IDs to enter the library because it means I can push relationship drama thoughts aside for a little bit and focus on school work. Nathan sees us enter and waves us over to his table.
“What subjects did you pull?” Ritzi asks. She kicks her foot like she did in the dorm hallway, which I now see as a sign of nerves.
He motions at his mountain of books. “Local history and ghost stories. Do you have any other ideas?”
“I’ll find some stuff on séances.”
Ritzi heads off to the stacks to search for more books. I slide into a chair across the table from Nathan. If I were a good friend, I’d try to gauge his interest in Ritzi so I’d have something to tell her later. Even though I already know what his answer will be, I try anyway.
“So, what do you think about Ritzi?” I ask.
“She seems cool enough,” Nathan says. “She knows the subject, so that’ll be useful on our project.”
“Would you ever consider going out for coffee or anything like that?”
He looks up, his expression going from startled to confused in under ten seconds. “With Ritzi?”
“Yeah, with Ritzi,” I say. “What’s wrong about grabbing coffee with Ritzi?”
“Nothing’s wrong with grabbing coffee with Ritzi besides the fact she’s not you.” Nathan reaches across the table and covers both my hands with his. “She’s not you, Meredith. You’re the only one I want to grab coffee or anything with. Just you. Only you.”
I pull my hands away. “I can’t do this, Nathan. Let’s just focus on the project, okay?”
Ritzi comes back to the table with a stack of books in her arms. She sits next to Nathan. He ignores both of us for a while, flipping through books and pages, before sliding one across the table toward me.
“Hey, look at this. It will be perfect.”
I glance down at the story entitled “The Mirror Room.” I look up. “What’s this?”
“I think it will give us an amazing angle for our project.” Nathan taps the open book. “You said Charles Haunting was way into the occult. And I read that there’s supposed to be secret symbolism all over the architecture of the old hotel. He’s Victorian and into the occult. There’s our angle.”
“If it’s well-documented, maybe we won’t have to go to Psychic Square,” I say.
“Psychic Square? When are you going to Psychic Square?” Ritzi perks up with interest. “I love it there.”
“We’re planning to go tomorrow,” Nathan says. “We’re thinking of looking for a hypnotherapist. There’re some answers we need that are stuck in the past.”
“We? Who is we?” Ritzi looks back and forth between Nathan and me. I bet she’s hoping for an invite, though Nathan doesn’t take the hint.
“Just Meredith, Jay, and me. And Jay’s only coming along because we need his car.” Nathan stops, his expression showing he realizes too late that he’s being an ass. He backtracks as gracefully as he can. “I’d invite you along, but I don’t think there’s room. Jay’s car is like the size of a postage stamp. Maybe next time.”
Ritzi attempts a shaky smile. “Sure. Maybe next time.”
I scan the short ghost story Nathan pushed my way to get out of talking about Psychic Square, looking for answers with hypnotherapy, and haunted hotels turned haunted schools. The story is about Charles Haunting’s crazy second wife, Elizabeth. She stabbed him with scissors, and he locked her up in a room full of mirrors that, when the light hit them just right, wouldn’t cast a reflection. At least that’s how the story goes, though I doubt even Charles Haunting could get away with locking up a crazy attempted-murderer wife with no one saying anything about it. What gives me shivers is the supposed mirror room is on my dorm floor. It’s locked up tight now, and Dad claims it’s just a storage room, but I remember when he tried to have people stay there. Girls would hang posters and pictures on the wall, leave for class, and when they came back, everything would be on their beds in neat little stacks. They’d try everything to make the posters and pictures stick to the walls, from tape to staples to nails, and, no matter what, nothing stayed on. I remember one resident reported waking up to see a lady in an old-fashioned dress looking out the window. When the girl called to her, the lady disappeared. Even after the room was closed up, people still reported seeing a glint of glass, like sun reflecting off of mirrors, when they look up to the third-floor window from the courtyard.
The one and only time I braved walking by the mirror room, I felt an intense cold. I put my hand on the door and whispered, “Is there anyone in there?” I didn’t know if I could help Elizabeth Haunting, or if it was even her trapped in the room, but I thought I should try. I waited but didn’t get a response. Some ghosts don’t want help, no matter how much you try.
I distract myself by scanning the ghost story book for more Charles Haunting–specific stories. There’s a picture of the Paradise Shores grand ballroom. A sudden flash of a waking memory from Mercy’s point of view of her dancing with the blond guy, who is very much not Nate, plays out in my mind like a movie. Time seems to rewind and stick on that exact moment of Mercy dancing and laughing with the tall, eloquent not-Nate guy. It stops and starts over and over as if I keep hitting the thirty-second rewind button on a remote control. She’s comfortable and at ease with not-Nate guy, and, judging by his clothes, he seems like someone who is her social equal or even above her status-wise. He wouldn’t be caught dead serving drinks. He’s there to see and be seen. He’s the type they throw the party for. He’s someone like Jay.