The Blackwood Curse, page 12
I was in a weird kind of numbed shock. The kind I’d had only one other time: when Pete died. I couldn’t get beyond the fact that Wax was the only live person here. I don’t think he fully believed it either; he hadn’t let go of my hand since we left the kitchen. He looked into my eyes.
‘You said I’m a Shade, but I still don’t really know what that is … I went to the mall.’ Then I pointed at Ollie. ‘He works there, for God’s sake.’ I frowned as the points came to me. ‘Then there’s school … and you don’t even like me.’ With that final realisation, it was too much and I burst into tears.
Tears that were real. Stinging the scratches on my face.
Wax immediately put his arm around me and pulled me to him. It was the second time I’d cried into his chest. ‘Shh,’ he said into my hair. ‘It’s OK … it’s OK. The jury’s still out on that one.’
I stopped crying and looked up at him. He was almost smiling. I hiccupped a single blast of laughter and hugged into him again. I wasn’t ready to let go of him yet.
‘Someone’s got to look after you,’ he said, into my hair so no one else could hear.
I looked at the others from my shelter of Wax’s arms and they were looking amazed. Ollie looked the most shocked of all, and then he looked plain worried.
‘Wax is teasing,’ Tallulah said with a giggle. Her hand went to her mouth as if she’d uttered a profanity. It was then I realised that it was obviously something Wax didn’t do.
I reluctantly pulled apart to look into his eyes. He ran his finger down the side of my face. ‘OK now?’
I nodded.
‘You need to explain it to her,’ Tallulah said. ‘But I meant it, Wax, she is different to us.’
I glared at her. Trust her to point out I was weird even for a Shade.
‘Look!’ She crawled forward from her sitting position on the floor next to Ollie and pinched my hand. I immediately pulled away. It hurt. Then she went to do the same to Wax and her fingers went through.
Wax let go of my hand and went to grab Tallulah and it did the same. She appeared solid but Wax’s hand passed right through. I did the same and held her fast. She moved to go back to sit next to Ollie and I let her go.
‘See,’ she said. ‘She is and she isn’t.’
‘Like halfway,’ Sam said.
Ollie nodded.
Wax frowned. ‘She’s right.’ He ran his finger across the top of my hand. ‘Maybe that’s why the spirit has chosen her. Because she has a foot in both camps.’
I don’t get it. ‘My leg even itches, for God’s sake,’ I whined.
Tallulah giggled. ‘We seem to keep certain things from our old life.’
‘It keeps us grounded,’ Archie said.
‘Keeps us tied here,’ Nicola said, bumping shoulders with him.
‘Like my job, for instance,’ Ollie said. ‘And school. It’s not a bad life.’
‘Death,’ Tallulah said, laughing.
‘What’s the point, though?’ I asked. I thought that ghosts were the dead people.’
I looked up at Wax, who was thinking about what everyone said. ‘It’s a good question. Ghosts are like an impression left here, like an intense emotion. That’s why they don’t seem to have any real solid form. Shades seem to stay because they won’t leave,’ he said, grinning and kicking his brother’s foot and passing right through it. ‘No matter how hard you try to get rid of them.’
It was nice seeing the two brothers acting just like any other siblings in the world. ‘So Shades are the ones with unfinished business?’
Wax shrugged and looked at his brother, who did the same. ‘I don’t really feel anything like that,’ Ollie said. ‘I just didn’t want to leave him all on his own,’ he said, kicking Wax back.
‘Nor me … No great mystery for me either,’ Tallulah said.
The others just shrugged and looked at each other. Only Sam said, ‘I wouldn’t mind finding out what happened to me. I have no recollection of it.’
Wax looked at me as if he understood it explained very little. ‘I think something else called and brought you here. I think you might be here for a reason.’
‘So someone, say the ghost, or spirit, or whatever, of Lila, wants me to solve the mystery of her death, and then what? I cross over to the other side?’ By then I was shouting and tears were streaming again. It was made so much worse by the looks of pity on everyone’s faces.
‘We don’t know,’ Tallulah said. ‘We’re just here.’
I dissolved into sobs again. Tallulah came over and put her arm around me. Wax just watched but still held my hand. ‘I didn’t tell you before because I knew that you were different to us.’
I stopped crying to listen.
‘She’s right,’ Ollie added. ‘But we’re your friends, even if you don’t decide to stay.’
I looked at him and sniffed. He made it sound like I had a choice in all this. ‘The snow is keeping me here,’ I said eventually.
Wax gave my hand a squeeze. ‘For a reason … I’m sure it’s part of the curse. Whenever the two families threaten to join together, this all starts again.’
Everyone looked at Wax curiously as if they weren’t used to hearing him talk like this.
‘Tell me what’s happened so far?’ Wax said.
Tallulah sat back. Everyone seemed to have dropped onto the floor and formed a circle to hear better. It all held so much more meaning now. ‘It was the round house that first called me.’
‘The orangery,’ Tallulah translated for everyone.
‘It just called me and I felt … I felt. It sounds silly, but it felt familiar, almost nostalgic to me. There was a rose left there in the hand of the angel and then the roof caved in and Burt found a note hidden under the love seat. There were rose petals in the snow inside. Stuff like that. I found a book in the library that was obviously a gift from Jedediah to Lila. I also found her birth certificate but no death certificate. And then we found all her belongings in a secret room. It points to her death and someone trying to cover it up.’ It made me shudder just thinking about it all.
‘You have to remember that a spirit can only scare you if you’re already dead,’ Wax said. ‘No real harm can come to you.’
‘That’s just it though, Wax. Can you be sure of that if she’s different?’ Tallulah said.
I looked up at Wax next to me. He looked worried. ‘I think she is,’ he said. There was a long moment where we just looked at each other. It went on so long that someone had to cough. ‘I think she’s been drawn here for that reason. I think she’s been sent here to me.’
‘Perhaps you both have to break the Blackwood curse,’ Ollie said.
Wax nodded while not taking his eyes off me. My heart skipped. ‘Maybe that’s what the spirit is trying to stop?’ Wax said.
I wasn’t so sure. ‘I think it doesn’t like me delving into what happened to Lila.’
‘Maybe there’s two.’
We all looked at Archie. ‘What?’ he said. ‘One might want Beccah here and the other one is scaring her away.’
I looked at Wax. He was thinking it through. ‘Two spirits,’ he said to himself.
‘It makes sense.’ It totally did. The dreams and feelings were something totally different to the violence I’d experienced. ‘Think about it. The flowers appearing. The round house roof breaking the love seat, so I can find the note. It’s trying to tell me something.’
‘Or drawing you in,’ Sam said. When I looked at her, she had a faraway look on her face, like she’d seen something terrifying. I remembered the ghost that called me out of my room, the time I found Lila’s stuff, and then when I got there, something screamed at me to go and knocked me over. The dream in the bath where I almost drowned. I wondered now whether that was a serious attempt on my life. ‘There’s been loads of things, the last was this,’ I said, pointing at my face.
‘What if one brought you here to solve something and another doesn’t want you to,’ Nicola said.
I faced her. ‘Like the killer, you mean.’ It was a terrifying thought.
She looked sympathetically back.
‘Or it brought you here to free something,’ Archie said.
‘Yeah, and I reckon you need Wax to do it. Maybe it needs a Waxley Black and a Blackwood to do it,’ Tallulah said. She was actually quite clever when she wanted to be.
Wax bobbed his head. ‘Any one of those things could be true. What do you think?’ he said directly to me.
I guess it was what I’d always thought. ‘I think Lila loved Jed and was engaged to Ainsley, and he killed her in a fit of jealousy. Then he hid her stuff and started the rumour about her running away.’ Then I remembered something my aunt had said. ‘But my aunt said it was Jed’s wife-to-be’s family that put a stop to them seeing each other in secret. Not sure how they would have done that?’ I glanced at everyone to see if they could shed any light on it and they all looked blank. Then we all turned to Wax for the answer. He shook his head slowly as if he was as stumped as we were. ‘All I know is that spirits can tamper and affect things in this plane. They are almost always malevolent. We need to find out more about Jed and Ainsley.’
‘Yeah, and what happened between them. What about the newspapers at the time?’ I said with a bolt of inspiration.
It was a good idea, but Wax shook his head. ‘What would there be? Ainsley’s engagement broken off, that’s all.’
I looked over at Tallulah. ‘I think it’s worth a look. You never know. A clue, or something.’
Everyone seemed to agree. It was somewhere to start, at least. ‘How would we get to that sort of information? Won’t all the public libraries be shut?’
Ollie smirked. ‘You are in the presence of computer nerd greatness. Not one but two Waxley Black brothers to help you.’
He made me laugh. I almost forgot that no more than a half hour ago I found out I was dead. I swallowed down a lump. ‘Lead the way then, tech wizard.’ I laughed again and we trooped out of the sitting room to the large staircase.
‘Be quiet,’ Wax hissed and picked up my hand again. ‘Otherwise you’ll wake my uncle.’
It seemed a bizarre thing to say to dead people, but I shrugged and went along. I slowed us up a bit with my leg, but Wax was surprisingly patient. It made a warm glow in my stomach how he seemed to want to look after me.
We went along the landing to the door I knew was to his room. We all traipsed in and my eyes lingered on the bed Wax had been tranquilised in only a few days before. Then I saw his impressive bank of computers I hadn’t seen previously because they’d been behind the door. It looked like something from Wall Street. Numbers and code were running through sequences over most of his six screens.
He let go of my hand to sit in his seat. I stood one side of him and Ollie the other. Everyone else crowded behind. ‘Are you going to hack into somewhere?’ I said.
Wax didn’t look up while his fingers tapped away. ‘No need, there are loads of places online where you can search their archives for free.’ He found a newspaper archive in seconds and clicked on the date range. His fingers typed lightning fast. I tried not to think of him sitting here alone, messaging me in the same way.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘We need the year she disappeared to narrow it down or we’ll be here all night.’
I wracked my brains. Then I remembered her portrait: 1839 –1857. I remembered it distinctly because she was my age. However, there was no death certificate, so they must have used the day she disappeared. Then my heart stalled, unless someone knew she was dead to put that. ‘1857,’ I blurted.
Wax looked up at me and bobbed his head in appreciation. My heart swelled. He seemed to make me feel like that a lot.
He went straight to that year and zoomed in as the print was very small. It was the local paper for the area and was weekly. Then he clicked on the summer dates. ‘Just a hunch,’ he explained. ‘I don’t want to waste time.’
He began to scroll through each paper. ‘Look for all the headings. Shout if you see anything relating to Blackwood or Waxley Black.’
We all did as he said. I narrowed my eyes and tried to keep my concentration on the screen, but my eyes often strayed to the hair touching his neck in soft curls. I had an almost irresistible urge to run my fingers through them.
I had to get a hold on myself. This was important. My eyes went back to the screen and I saw it. A few of us did, as we all shouted, ‘There!’
Wax scrolled back a bit as he’d gone past it. The heading said, Waxley-Black brothers join forces to start new business venture. We all skimmed the article saying something about excavating a silver mine somewhere I’d never heard of. Wax hadn’t said anything but was just staring at the screen. ‘What is it?’ I said. It was like he’d seen something none of us did.
He spun around on his chair to look at us all. ‘Don’t you see it?’
I frowned. ‘There was no mention of Lila or either of their engagements.’
‘You’re right!’ he said. ‘Going into business isn’t something a man is likely to do with a brother who he’d just caught shagging his wife-to-be.’
My cheeks went pink, but he was right.
‘What if this was before he found out?’ Ollie said. It was a good point.
Wax swivelled back around in his chair. ‘OK. I’ll check the rest of the year. If there’s nothing, then we know something’s up.’
By the end, my eyes felt like they’d been filled with grit and I couldn’t focus on another word. There was nothing, not one thing about the Waxley Blacks or Blackwoods – not even about Lila’s disappearance, which I found informative. It showed how little she was valued.
‘That’s it then,’ Wax said.
‘What about the earlier part of the year?’ Sam said.
Wax bobbed his head. ‘I’ll check it later. I don’t sleep at night anyway. But I think it safe to say that the brothers far from hated each other, which kind of throws your theory into question,’ he said, finishing with his eyes on me.
‘What, then?’ I asked with a shrug. He was right, but that left me more confused than ever.
‘Pizza?’ Ollie said.
‘Yeah, and a beer,’ Archie said, and they all moved towards the door. I stayed riveted to Wax. I knew he wouldn’t come down and join in. ‘Can I stay with you for a bit?’ I said. ‘I’m too tired to go down there.’
He paused before he spoke, as if he was going to say something and decided against it. Then he nodded towards his bed. ‘Go and lie down. I’ll be checking through this for a while.’
I glanced at his grand bed and remembered again the last time I’d seen it. Wax was already scrolling through the newspapers, so I went over to it. I leaned my crutch against the wall and eased myself down onto the soft black quilt. I was immediately hit with his scent and I snuggled down, allowing it to wrap around me. When I opened my eyes, Wax hadn’t moved. ‘Why do you call it a curse … to see dead people, I mean?’
He took in a deep breath and stretched out his arms and back. ‘I hear them, hundreds of them, all the time. They all want something. They don’t leave me alone.’
I thought about what he said. It must me like having tinnitus but with guilt. It sounded awful. No wonder he needed to be sedated sometimes. ‘And it helps when you go out?’
He shook his head, still gazing intently at his screen. ‘No, it’s worse. But I can drink and that drowns it out.’
‘Shades?’
‘Yeah, they’re the ones that usually want something.’ He looked briefly over at me and then back at his screen.
So he was bombarded day and night. ‘I can see why you hated me, then.’
‘I didn’t hate you. Far from it.’ He stood, walked over and sat on the bed next to me. ‘You quieten it down, Becks.’ He pushed back a strand of my hair that had fallen into my face. ‘You’ve been coming to me in dreams for months. I guess seeing you … it just freaked me out. I didn’t know what it meant at first.’
‘And you do now?’ My heart was beating so hard in my chest I felt sure he must feel it, but he continued running his fingers through my hair.
‘When I touch you, I can’t hear anyone else,’ he said, like he was miles away.
‘Wax! What do you know now?’
He stood up and walked towards the window, but it was pitch-black outside and he couldn’t see a thing. He just stood there and put his hands in his pockets as if he saw everything there. ‘That we’re meant to break the Blackwood curse and we’re going to have to fight, otherwise it could end up destroying us both.’
I was scared. The thought of going back there tonight, alone, terrified me.
‘They’re all staying over,’ he said, nodding his head towards the door.
I swallowed, not sure what he was really saying.
‘Stay!’
My mind shot to my Aunt, Gerty and what he really meant. I was all too aware that he was a red-blooded, hot boy and I was in his room.
He came and sat with me on the edge of the bed again and searched my face. ‘You don’t have to follow the rules of the living any more, Pearl White. You can do whatever you want.’
Chapter 13
I looked into Wax’s eyes a full minute before I could answer. He was trying not to smile. Then he gave in. ‘You can stay there quite safely. I don’t sleep, remember.’
I suddenly felt foolish at jumping to that in my mind. My cheeks ignited and I pushed the quilt off, pretending I was hot. He didn’t seem to notice and went back to his computer. ‘Give me an hour to finish this and I’ll show you the house,’ he said as he sat down. ‘If you want.’ He looked over his shoulder with mischievous eyes.
He was playing with me, but my cheeks flushed just the same. ‘Sure.’ I had to cough to disguise how confused he made me feel. He seemed to control the butterflies in my stomach and he knew it; it was utterly disconcerting. I had to remember how much older and experienced in these things he was than me.
I didn’t feel like going down with the others to face their questions about me and Wax. I didn’t understand it myself. So I got out of bed, pulled a rolling stool over and sat next to him.
