Author's Notes: Hopefully things will start to pick up in this chapter. I have a basic plan of how the story will go, but nothing written in stone, so I don't think I'm even sure what's going to happen XP Oh, and Scotts Valley's an actual city in CA that's about an hour away from Carmel. Good old Map Quest XP
Disclaimer: I still don't own Suze, Jesse, or anyone else (although I wouldn't mind it), so don't sue. Besides, all you'll get is a giant pile of manga, those being essentially my only possessions of any monetary worth XP
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When I woke up in the morning, I could have sworn I saw Jesse sitting on my bed looking at me, but after fully clearing my eyes of the early-morning haze, I saw he was gone. Shadows must have been playing tricks on me. I got up to go to the bathroom, and nearly tripped over Spike, who decided it would be fun to go to sleep right in front of the door. He hissed at me and bounded away.
It was while brushing my hair that I remembered about Emma and her mean baba. Strange kid. She had probably died pretty recently, judging by the clothes she was wearing, so I figured the smart thing to do would be to check the newspapers for any recent deaths of young female children named Emma. I mean, how many could there be? I put on a mini, sandals, and a tank top, due to the insanely sweltering weather that was also known as mid-July in Carmel, then made my way downstairs to fix myself some Cocoa Puffs. There's nothing like unpronounceable ingredients in the form of high-calorie breakfast food first thing in the morning.
I was just watching the milk turn chocolate, which is something this cereal seemed to pride itself on, when Sleepy stumbled into the kitchen looking a bit confused. I could understand that, it being before noon and not a school day. It must have been an entirely new experience for him. But then again, he always looked a bit confused.
I decided to start flipping through the newspaper, see if I could find anything about Emma. Didn't take long. Apparently she had gone missing 3 days ago, so, in other words, that's when she had died. I could never understand why people were just pronounced 'missing' when it was obvious they were dead. Probably their friends and family just trying to comfort themselves, give themselves false reassurance that everything was great. A little bit like I'd been doing with Jesse, I guess, imagining him being jealous of some guy I was thinking about, or thinking he'd been watching me sleep. I needed some psychiatric help.
It was right then when he appeared. This was starting to creep me out. Whenever I happened to be thinking of him, he popped into existence. God I hope he couldn't read my mind. That would just be a little too much for me to handle. No, it was probably that whole 'calling' thing…maybe I'd been calling him subconsciously.
"Have you found something Susannah?" he asked, looking at the newspaper I was holding.
I gestured to him to come upstairs. I could hardly start a conversation with him right in the kitchen with Sleepy a few feet away, even though he probably wouldn't notice or care if I started talking to myself.
I sat myself down on my bed and showed Jesse the paper. "It says here," I said as I gestured towards the article, "that Emma Thompson, 6, went missing 3 days ago, and she was discovered missing a few hours after she'd left to go to the beach with her parents and grandparents. She lived in Scotts Valley. Her family was visiting her grandparents for the weekend apparently." I scanned the rest of the article. "There isn't really much relevant information here other than that. It's mostly talking about how it's such a tragedy, etcetera. I guess we should give the Thompsons a call then?"
"Do you know if they've gone back to Scotts Valley yet?"
"No, they were supposed to go back home tomorrow, but we could just leave a message. It's not like I can just go and drive up there. Lifts to outrageously rich people's houses nearby are fine, but it would be a little suspicious if I asked Andy or Sleepy to drive me to a city an hour away."
"What about that priest?"
"You
really think I know Father Dom's phone number?
He's the one always calling me, and now that school's out, it's not like
I've been dropping in on him asking for tea and cookies."
"But you know his address?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"Then we will go over there and get him to drive you." I guess I must have made a face without meaning to, because then he asked, "What is it?"
"Jesse…God, I mean, it's summer vacation. Vacation! I really don't feel like dealing with this right now. I just want to go lounge on the beach and hang out with CeeCee and Adam, and do normal things!" I have no idea why I said that. I mean, yeah, it was kind of true, but it didn't bother me that much, and it's not like I could just abandon this little girl. Jesse looked a bit surprised at what I'd just said, so he stared at me and blinked a couple times. I guess I can understand why. I had raised my voice a bit, and, even though I'd been known to complain a lot about being a mediator, I'd never actually downright refused to do something.
There was an awkward silence, until all of a sudden Emma was there, obviously having gotten the hang of materializing. The first thing she did when she popped into the room was look at Jesse, and then run and grab his leg. Then she looked up and went, "Where's mommy?" She just sounded curious though, not upset like she had the night before.
Jesse, on the other hand, was at a loss about what to do. I had a feeling he had been just about to give me some lecture or another, and then all of a sudden this little kid comes and adopts him as her guardian or something. While discreetly trying to get her to let go, he told Emma that her mom was at home, and we'd take her there too, wouldn't we? He gave me a meaningful look for the last bit, and he over-enunciated a bit. I got the message.
She finally let go of Jesse and eyed me a bit warily. I didn't know what was with her. She was like the human version of Spike, not liking me for no reason, but getting all attached to Jesse. Except, of course, Emma was a cute little girl and Spike was a, lets face it, downright ugly cat.
"Of course we'll take you home," I told her in my best little kid voice. She seemed satisfied with this, and then dematerialized without warning. Maybe she went to go get her things? Who knows?
After this little scene, I started to feel a bit bad for the kid. I mean, she obviously had no idea she was dead. How could she, she probably didn't even fully understand the concept of dying. So I went to go get the phone book, which I had been using an awful lot lately, what with calling dead people's relatives and psychotic killers. I had just opened it when I remembered that it was the Carmel phone book. Why would Scotts Valley numbers be in it? And I could hardly look up her grandparents; I had no idea if they were on her mother or father's side.
I looked at Jesse a little helplessly, because, while I really did want to help Emma, I didn't feel like wasting my day driving around California with my school principal. Which, come on, was understandable.
"Susannah, do you really expect me to help you with this? Telephones did not exist when I was your age, so do you think I could tell you where to go to find out how to contact the Thompsons in Scotts Valley?"
He had a point there. It also served as a harsh reminder that nothing could ever happen between us. I mean, he had lived through everything we had learned in American History the year before, and, while it was handy when it came to writing papers, that probably didn't make someone good boyfriend material.
I shoved all Jesse-related thoughts out of my head, and gave up on the phone book, throwing it onto my bed. It landed open to a page advertising their online database with all listed phone numbers in California. Of course, why hadn't I thought of the Internet earlier? I was exploring the boundaries of my own stupidity, to which there didn't seem to be any, and went downstairs to look up Emma's parents.
Perfect, there were only 9 Thompsons. Now the only problem was what I was going to say. "Hello, you don't know me, but I was wondering if your daughter just died, and if you know anyone called Baba…" That didn't seem to be the best idea. I figured maybe, "I heard about your daughter, and I'm so sorry," would be better. They probably wouldn't bother asking who I was, since they'd most likely be getting a lot of those calls. And if they weren't the right Thompsons, I'd apologize and say I got the wrong number. This stuff was way too easy.
I quickly wrote down all the phone numbers, but figured I would wait until the next day to call, because that's when they were due to get home, and, after thinking about it, leaving a message sounded a little too stalker-esque.
Now I had the whole day free, and, since CeeCee and Adam were both out of town for the next few days, both off doing the vacation thing, I figured I'd go to the beach. I went into the bathroom to change into my very flattering, if I do say so myself, orange and blue bikini, and I heard Jesse ask through the door, "Are you going out, querida?"
Now, what happened next I'm going to blame on temporary insanity, or maybe too much salt air and sun, but, without thinking, I replied, "The beach, wanna come?" There was complete silence for what seemed like hours, and I just stood there with my eyes kind of wide. What kind of idiot asks a ghost to go to the beach with her? But, even though it seemed like hours, it was actually probably only about 5 seconds before Jesse, sounding surprised, went, "I'd be happy to."