Okay, so my plans for the evening had been to get changed and head with Alanna to the movies with our friends, no guys allowed. But apparently the universe had different ideas. We'd only just decided on appropriately cute outfits when the loudest crashing noise ever sounded from downstairs. In a normal house maybe we would've ignored it and carried on with our frivolity. But in a house full of mediators, generally loud noises and things crashing is like Red Alert on a Star Trek ship.
Alex charged down the stairs ahead of us, her apparently hastily thrown on sweats and wet hair showing she'd just gotten out of the shower. We reached the living room in double time to the tune of another and slightly louder crash.
The living room was a real bomb site; I'm talking Dresden and London post-war in one. The last crash appeared to have been the wide, flat LCD TV that was also our dad's pride and joy going for a little trip in the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. Amongst the rubble mom was hunched over a prone form that turned out to be dad. Allie was beside them, a bleeding cut above her eye and terror in her eyes themselves.
The cause of all the mayhem quickly turned out to be another jumped-up toady of a ghost. She was also doing a very convincing fog horn impression. "...and what makes your husband more important than me? Why did he deserve a second chance over me!" her little rant seemed directed at our mom, who looked torn between anger and fear.
Frozen, I watched as Alex unhesitant, jumped into the fray. "Hey bitch, miss me?" she demanded, loudly. The ghost spun and her face instantly told us that yeah, she definitely knew Alex. I also assumed that Alex was banking on the current situation to distract mom from the foul language she'd just used.
"Didn't I already shift your backside out of here?" she added. It me a moment to realise she was also trying to distract the clearly vengeful and probably unhinged ghost from out parents, Allie less so.
"It figures that Suze Simon's daughter is as big a slut as her mother!" the ghost spat back. Now I might just mention here that when Allie referred to Alex's Extreme Mediation Methods, she really wasn't kidding. One of her favourite tactics is to wind the ghost up so much they start making mistakes. Of course that occasionally resulted in just a severely pissed off and powerful ghost with her name at the top of their hit list.
I smirked, despite herself. For once those methods were probably exactly what was required! "Oh really, Heather? And you aren't some dead, prom queen wannabe, trying to recapture some non-existent former glory?" Alex prodded further.
Heather? So this was the ghost so pathetic she haunted her old school for Christ's sake. I looked at my twin, sharing our, do we interfere look. Alanna nodded towards mom and dad with the slightest incline of her head.
The ghost, Heather, seemed to hit boiling point at the last insult. "You stupid..." but rage choked her words so instead, eyeballs rolling until they were white all round, Heather screamed. The sound was unearthly and just very, very loud! Various objects began to levitate and hover around the room. I reached mom, dad and Allie with Alanna just behind me.
I let a breath out, I didn't know I was holding until I saw dad's chest rising and falling. "What do we do?" Allie whispered and for the first time in my life we saw our mom hesitate. Our kick-ass, hard as nails, mediating god, mom hesitated when faced with a ghost.
Alex suddenly caught our attention again: she had gotten close to the ghost and dealt one hell of a punch. If the ghost felt it she didn't react and Alex went tumbling due to the force of her swing. That was the last thing I saw for a moment.
When my eyes finally opened again I realised that I'd been hit by one of the now many things that mother chucker of a ghost was sending on a spin cycle. My ire lasted all of a moment until I realised the ground below my feet was beginning to tremble too. "Shit!" I heard to my left.
Alanna threw herself to the floor to avoid the spinning coffee table and I wasn't far behind her. It really is times like these I wish my parents had maybe not passed on the mediator gene. As we picked ourselves up from the now dust covered carpet. "I definitely think it's time for Alex to do something 'Alex-esk'." Alanna commented breathlessly.
Silently I agreed of course but before I could say as much my sister predictably demonstrated the family insanity which fortunately missed Alanna and me. Yet somehow we ended up with a totally messed up social life thanks to the dearly departed and doing good things for others is so completely unhelpful in the guy department.
It was beyond me how Alex managed it: not looking like a freak at school, dating hot guys, having a job and being an admittedly awesome mediator, even if she ended up in it up to her eyeballs every so often. And if we lived through this I decided I would snitch on her for her current boyfriend, even though I so should.
Grabbing a nice fistful of the pretty blonde ghost's hair Alex looked unsure for a moment before closing her eyes. One moment she was there then she kind of looked like a blurry TV picture before she was gone completely.
Alanna and I traded an excited look at seeing the mysterious shifting power is action. Mom, predictably turned pale just before all of our levitating furniture decided to reacquaint itself with the law of gravity and return earth with quite a thump. The vibrations seemed to rouse dad who sat bolt upright with a start.
"Suzannah!" he gasped, looking frantically at mom. God those two were still like love-sick teenagers even now. Maybe it was because they had so a hard time getting it together or whatever but geez, the kids should not have to witness to it every stinking day!
But his immediate disregard for his own injuries in favour of fussing over mom was a new level even for him. "Suzannah, are you okay? Did she get you?" he demanded, leading mom to the couch and lightly checking her over for injuries. Mom pulled a face: she didn't mind dad fussing over her per say but not when it crossed the line from fussing to smothering.
"I will be fine when you don't throw yourself in front of huge flying objects!" she exploded. She wrung her hands together. "And what about Alex, maybe I should..." dad cut her off at that. They'd had this debate about his chivalrous nature far too often to remember and neither of them had let it go.
"You can't." He said sternly and gave her what looked suspiciously like a pointed look. Mom seemed like she might argue and then didn't! Believe me when I say that is unheard of. We all know where Alex got being stubborn and argumentative from and let's just say it isn't dad.
"But Alex..." Maybe I should clarify: mom and dad had banned us all from shifting but it dire emergencies she had still done it herself. She shook her head then looked. Somehow despite the carnage the room was still intact mostly and so to was mom's phone. She was on it to Julian faster than the rash Allie got when she had an allergic reaction to nylon when she was five.
Clearly Julian was too caught up on whatever date he was on tonight to notice how stressed mom sounded. So when she shouted at him down the phone I could stop a smirk. Dad had started pacing by the time Julian came hurrying in.
Julian stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the room of destruction, formerly known as our living room. "What...?"
"Just a rampaging ghost that doesn't know how to stay exorcised." A voice explained that wasn't there a moment ago: Alex! She waltzed over to the small couch and flopped down.
"So Alex is responsible for the mess then?" Julian asked. Ignoring Alex's indignant, 'Hey!', Dad replied.
"Actually it is your sister we have to thank for getting rid of her," he thought about it for a moment then added, "Again." Well no really? Yeah, like we hadn't all figured out that these recent spectral occurrences where twenty-thousand miles outside of ordinary.
Typically Alex was the first one in there to speak and as usual I understood about nothing of what she said. "So what did our dear Heather mean about someone expecting?" she asked, smiling sweetly. I think the rest of us twigged only when dad wrapped his arms around mom protectively.
Oh yeah, mom was up the duff – again.