Far Away: Chapters 6–12

“We’ve been sitting around wallowing for months, and then you two show up out of nowhere—Jennie June’s daughter and a pancake-flipper all the way from Florida. It was exactly what we needed. Ashlynne’s always been like that, finding ways to bring joy to the people she loves.”

The windows are grimy and the curtains are drawn, so I can’t see anything inside.

Complicated and quirky and interesting, just like my mom.

The next bedroom is obviously Aunt Nic’s, everything tidy. White wood dresser, white vanity, white wood headboard.

Papers crackle between my fingers, brittle with chill and age, as I leaf through them.

They’re all the same sort of octopus, but they’re not all stamped on skin. One is embossed onto the front of a hardcover book.

The spookiest one is whittled under the eye socket of a human skull, and it warns, I SEE YOU.

We've been winding along Route 1, with the gorgeous blue of the ocean on our left and near-shear cliffs on our right, and there it is, this enormous white building with actual towering turrets at every corner.

A Roman numeral above the curved doorframe of each hall distinguishes it—I, II, and III.

Four more fountains burble around us.

There’s a groove in the wood, and I can shift it back and forth if I push hard enough.

Somehow even the stubble on his chin looks more polished than yesterday.

When he waves his hand, somehow all of the fish and water and anemones behind the glass disappear, and what emerges instead is a view of the first floor of the mansion.

But when the man claps his hands, the woman in gold disappears in a puff of smoke, and the chair along with her. I press my hands to the glass, mesmerized.

If I didn’t know Spirit was watching over me right now, I’d probably be mildly petrified.

For a sliver of a moment, I think she must be in the first-floor theater, too—until I notice Jax and myself standing right beside her.

“You really are dense,” I tell Roger. “You think my aunt is finding dirt on every single person in her audience? We book five-hundred-seat theaters. You know how long that would take? She doesn’t do that ‘hot reading’ stuff, or whatever you called it. She has the Gift. And she uses it to help people.”

“Very astute, young man,” Roger tells Jax, and I start fuming like I’m filled with steam.

“Because she’s not channeling any spirits at all. Your aunt is lying, CJ. Simple as that. And the worst part is, the very person she’s lying to”—he jabs the image of Mary in the chest—“is helping her do it. This poor woman doesn’t think she’s telling your aunt anything. But your aunt is a very skilled manipulator, CJ. I’ve been following her for over a year. She got this poor grieving woman to tell her everything she needed to convince her that her dead sister was right there with them.”

“The first thing Nic asks is if her sister used lots of big words—and it’s clear from the woman’s reaction that her sister did not. It’s only after your aunt gets a tepid response that she asks a follow-up question that fits a little better—if the sister was smart, but didn’t like to brag about it.”

“I’m just a docent,” she says after a long pause. “A volunteer.” She holds up the fossil again. “I can tell you anything you want to know about hooves.”

I huff and turn around, ready to give up and try to pry info out of the hot dog guy not too far away.

But that’s all I get out, because suddenly I hear piercing squeals behind me.

And then I overhear another one saying she’s seen his video—which is nonsense, obviously, because there is no Jackson Gato and there is no video—but before I can say any of that, the girls are totally fawning all over Jax, begging him for autographs and taking selfies with him, and they’re everywhere, there must be at least a dozen of them, and then somehow one of the girls has actually ripped Jax’s jacket right off his back, and he is freaking out, he is absolutely freaking out.

But then I notice the tendrils of dark curly hair peeking out from under her hard hat.

I stick my hand in my coat pocket. Feel the cool, rough cement of that tether, speckled with glass.

I snag Jax’s mayonnaise cup from him and dunk another fry.

The truth is, I had a rough time of it, after you were born. I was so young, and Nic always had a better knack than I did for taking care of people—you know my mother had Alzheimer’s, right?

“This gig is bigger than anything I’ve ever done”—she waves her arms at the zoo around us—“but I’m still eating lettuce sandwiches three nights a week. But I always thought, as soon as I make something of myself, I’m going to get that girl back.”

“Oh, Jax,” I say in a fake swoony voice. I clasp my hands under my chin like one of those ladies in old-fashioned movies who can’t stop fainting. “I had no idea you had such feelings for me!”

He suddenly tugs my half-eaten cupcake toward him, with the bite marks chiseled into the chocolate frosting.

Aunt Nic wraps both hands around her water glass, and when she pulls them away again they are wet with condensation.

She’s also flighty and unreliable and incredibly frustrating. She’d leave for the grocery store to get you formula and come back six hours later with balloons.

“Back in college, I was in this theater troupe, and we’d do this mind-reading skit.”

“I knew we needed a change. So we took off in that horrible motor home, no idea where we were headed, no job prospects. And the first RV park we landed in—the very first one, I swear—this little old lady asks me if I know anyone who can reach her dead husband. She wanted to pay for a reading. So”—she picks her fork back up—“I told her I could do it.”