Page 61 of School Spirits
“Fine,” I said, wishing my voice hadn’t wavered. “Go ahead. Deal with the crazy, murderous ghost on your own. I was just trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help,” Romy said, and to my horror, my eyes started watering. Before the group could see that, I grabbed my backpack and, with as much dignity as I could muster, walked out of Romy’s room, closing the door behind me.
The walk to my house didn’t take long, but with every step, I got angrier and angrier. This is what happened when you get involved with regular kids. Stupid kids, who summoned a ghost and probably were going to get killed by it. And that was fine. That’s what happened when people messed with stuff that was way over their heads. So sue me for trying to step in and use, oh, I don’t know,a thousand years of bloodline and experience and trainingto keep them safe. Let them wear their tinfoil hats. And let Dex—
The tears nearly spilled over then, but I stopped just outside my front door and took a deep breath. No. I wasn’t going to cry over him.
Them. Whatever.
Mom’s car was parked in the driveway, so I called out for her when I went inside.
“In here,” she answered from the kitchen.
I walked down the hall, and was surprised to find Maya standing next to the sink with Mom.
“What are you—” I started to say, but before I could get out any more, Mom turned to me. She wasn’t smiling, but her eyes were practically shining. “It’s Finn,” she said. “We got a lead on Finn.”
CHAPTER 30
“What?” was all I could say.
Moving quickly, Mom grabbed her jacket from a kitchen chair. “A girl just a few counties over disappeared last week. Same as Finley. Got involved with a coven of dark witches and vanished.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. The news was great, better than anything we’d gotten so far. But it didn’t seem like much. For some reason, when Mom said she had a lead, I thought it would mean…more. That we could have Finley back tonight.
I suddenly wanted that more than anything in the world. Finn and I had fought, and maybe we’d never painted our nails together, but she hadn’t lied to me. She hadn’t summoned ghosts and then calledmea freak.
“Anyway, Maya is going to stay here with you until I get back. Should be later tonight, maybe early tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said, but Mom waved that off.
“Not now, Izzy. With everything that’s been going on, I’d rather you didn’t stay here alone.”
“Besides,” Maya said, moving to the stove, where she was boiling something that smelled like rosemary and death, “we’ll have a big time. I can braid your hair, teach you a few incantations…”
I gave the least enthusiastic “Yay” of all time.
“As soon as I get back, we’ll deal with your hedge witch friend, and then we can get home,” Mom said, startling me.
I whirled around to face Mom. “You know? How?”
Flipping her hair over the collar of her coat, Mom glanced out toward the hall. “Torin is not always completely useless.”
No, but hewascompletely slimy and untrustworthy. “He shouldn’t have told you,” I insisted. “This is my case, and I’m handling it.”
“It was your case when it was a run-of-the-mill haunting. Or figuring out what kind of Prodigium that boy was. Which you never did, apparently.”
“I was working on it,” I told her, but Mom frowned.
“It’s time to put an end to this entire case, Iz, and you’re too involved. As soon as I get back, we’re finishing it. Besides, it’s getting dangerous.”
“It hasn’t beenthatdangerous,” I said, conveniently ignoring the whole pyromaniac hedgehog thing.
But Mom shook her head. “You’re done. If we can’t put a stop to this haunting now, it’s only going to get worse. The more afraid people get, the stronger that ghost will become, and the stronger she becomes, the more people she can hurt. If we’re not careful, this will become a cycle that pretty much can’t be stopped.”
“How will you stop Mary?” I asked Mom, and her eyes slide from mine.
“Stay here with Maya, and when I get back, we’ll fix this.”
